JustOneMinute

An Idea Whose Time May Not Be Coming

Hillary floats an idea whose time is not coming, even though it came from TIME - a national-service Baby Bond:

Clinton: $5,000 for Every U.S. Baby

By  DEVLIN BARRETT  –  22 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) —Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.

Clinton, her party's front-runner in the 2008 race, made the suggestion during a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus.

"I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home," she said.

The New York senator did not offer any estimate of the total cost of such a program or how she would pay for it. Approximately 4 million babies are born each year in the United States.

...Earlier this month, Time magazine proposed a $5,000 baby bond program.

Here is the notion as described by TIME:

1. Create a National-Service Baby Bond
Every time an American baby is born, the Federal Government would invest $5,000 in that child's name in a 529-type fund — the kind many Americans are already using for college savings. At a rate of return of 7% — the historic return for equities — that money would total roughly $19,000 by the time that baby reaches age 20. That money could be accessed between the ages of 18 and 25 on one condition: that he or she commits to at least one year of national or military service. Like the old GI Bill, the money must be used to fund education, start a business or make a down payment on a home. The bond would preserve the voluntary nature of the service but offer a strong incentive for young people to sign up for it. Says City Year CEO and co-founder Michael Brown: "It's a new kind of government philosophy about reciprocity. If you invest in your country, your country will invest in you."

Economist Greg Mankiw tries to tackle this proposal with logic:

How might this be funded? There are only three groups that could be asked to pay for the new entitlement with higher taxes (or lower benefits): the current elderly, those currently of working age, or the same future generations who are getting the new benefit and are slated to pay for existing unfunded entitlements. Which group do you think Senator Clinton has in mind?

Only three groups?  Please - Hillary will fund this by taxing group four, "the rich", regardless of whether they are old, working, or just playing with the silver spoons in their mouths.

I am sure there are plenty of awkward questions raised by this proposal but here are a few:

1.  Are the children of illegal immigrants born in this country (and hence American citizens) eligible for this entitlement?  If so, is this really the sort of have-your-baby-here incentive that is likely to fly during the current immigration debate?  Or if not, how could anyone justify their second-class citizenship?

2.  How about the eligibility of children born out of wedlock - will the pro-family crowd want to offer $5,000 bonuses to illegitimate kids?  And by the way, does anyone even say "illegitimate" anymore?

3.  If this is such a great idea is there any particular reason not to include current one year olds?  How about two year olds?  Five?  Fifteen?  Where does one draw the line?

4.  The only condition mentioned by TIME for claiming the money is "he or she commits to at least one year of national or military service".  That's it?  How about requiring a high school degree or GED?  How about a "no criminal record" rule?

John Edwards, Deplorably Racist?

I am fascinated by John Edwards' comment about young African-American males, as reported by Jim Geraghty of NRO:

Asked about what he could do about "inner-city kids partaking in violence" at the MTV/MySpace Forum yesterday, Democratic candidate John Edwards offered an apocalyptic prediction for young black males:

“We cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating — pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They’re all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two.”

Jim G. goes on to explain that, based on official statistics, there are roughly four times as many young African-American males in college as in prison.  Maybe we can't build colleges fast enough!

But why might Edwards' comment be construed as racist?  It seems like only yesterday that Bill O'Reilly was being thumped for his insensitivity in describing Sylvia's, a famous restaurant in Harlem, as being quite normal.  Surely a fellow who believes that most young black men are in prison (or dead) is guilty of a comparable insensitivity.

Another Chilly Night At Shea

As I pen this at 8 PM, Mets fans at Shea are watching their own team lose 3-0 after three innings and the scoreboard has worse news - the Phillies are winning 6-0 after three.

As a Yankees fan I am naturally pulling for Mets manager Willie Randolph but my goodness - this Mets collapse is an epic debacle.  C'mon, Willie - saddle up that Comeback Pony and ride!

UPDATE:  Brr.  Mets lose, Phillies win, and the two teams are tied up with three games to settle it.

Those Who Do Not Understand Our Glorious Past...

Hillary Clinton, Yankees fan, hedged at the Dem debate on the tough issues of the day:

KING: For many here, in New England, the answer to this next question may be the most important one you answer tonight.

(LAUGHTER)

Red Sox or Yankees?

...

KING: Senator Clinton, where are you on this? Red Sox or Yankees?

CLINTON: Well, I hate to say it in front of this New Hampshire crowd -- I'm a Yankees fan. Have been for a long, long time.

(APPLAUSE)

RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, what about a World Series -- Yankees and Cubs?

CLINTON: Well, you know, I've worried about that because I think, given the Cubs' record, which of course, I hope it happens, but it could very well be a sign of the coming apocalypse, were that to ever occur.

(LAUGHTER)

It would be so out of history that you would have the Cubs versus the Yanks. Then I'd be really in trouble.

RUSSERT: But who would you be for?

CLINTON: Well, I would probably have to alternate sides.

"So out of history"?  Someone ask Hillary who the Yankees were playing when Ruth called his home run.  (OK, then explain to her who "Ruth" is and what a "called" home run would be).

Pathetic.

MY (ATTEMPTED) CONTRIBUTION TO WIKI-HISTORY:

WikiPedia covers the controversy around the Ruth called shot and describes the contemporaneous reporting:

Ruth's second home run in game 3 probably would have been merely an exclamation point for the 1932 World Series and for Ruth's career, had it not been for reporter Joe Williams. Williams was a respected but opinionated sports editor for the Scripps-Howard newspapers. In a late edition the same day of the game, Williams wrote this headline that appeared in the New York World-Telegram: "RUTH CALLS SHOT AS HE PUTS HOME RUN NO. 2 IN SIDE POCKET." Williams' summary of the story included, "In the fifth, with the Cubs riding him unmercifully from the bench, Ruth pointed to center and punched a screaming liner to a spot where no ball had been hit before." Apparently Williams' article was the only one written the day of the game that made a reference to Ruth pointing to center field. It was probably due to the wide circulation of the Scripps-Howard newspapers that gave the story life, as many read Williams' article and assumed it was accurate.

Well, I can't dispute the specific "pointed to center filed" detail, but the broader story is supported by this from the NY Times archive, Oct 2, 1932, by John Drebinger:

But it seems decidedly unhealthy for anyone to taunt the great man Ruth too much and very soon the crowd was to learn its lesson.  A single lemon rolled out to the plate as Ruth came up in the fifth and in no mistaken motions the Babe notified the crowd that the nature of his retaliation would be a wallop right out of the confines of the park.

OK, maybe the guys in the press box all got behind a good story.  But this account supports the "called home run" version.

Defending Hillary, Promoting Edwards, Thumping Hillary

Jiminy, Hillary Clinton actually made sense, defied far-left orthodoxy and passed on a chance to pander by carefully side-stepping when the Dem debate picked up an aspect of the gay marriage issue:

Allison King of New England Cable News told the Democratic hopefuls about the case last year in Lexington, Mass., where a teacher used a book about a "prince who marries another prince" to teach young children about same-sex marriage.

"Would you be comfortable having this story read to your children as part of their school curriculum?"

For non-link clickers - John Edwards responded with a "Yes, absolutely" before his brain engaged and he backed off a bit, noting that maybe second grade was not quite the time (although he expressed no angst about public school being the place).  Let's go to the transcript, where Edwards' expresses a concept of "imposing [one's] view" that may surprise some:

MS. KING:  Thanks, Tim.  The issues surrounding gay rights have been hotly debated here in New England.  For example, last year some parents of second graders in Lexington, Massachusetts, were outraged to learn their children's   teacher had read a story about same-sex marriage, about a prince who marries another prince.                                                                           

Same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, but most of you  oppose it.  Would you be comfortable having this story read to your children as part of their school curriculum?  I'm going to start with Senator Edwards.

MR. EDWARDS:  Yes, absolutely.

What I want is I want my children to understand everything about the difficulties that gay and lesbian couples are faced with every day, the discrimination that they're faced with every single day of their lives.  And I suspect my two younger children -- Emma Claire, who's nine, and Jack, who's seven -- will reach the same conclusion that my daughter, Cate, who's 25, has reached, which is she doesn't understand why her dad is not in favor of same-sex marriage, and she says her generation will be the generation that brings about the great change in America on that issue.                                             
So I don't want to make that decision on behalf of my children.  I want my children to be able to make that decision on behalf of themselves, and I want them to be exposed to all the information, even in -- did you say second grade?  Second grade might be a little tough, but even in second grade to be exposed to all --

MS. KING:  Well, that's the point is second grade.

MR. EDWARDS:  -- to all of those possibilities because I don't want to impose my view.  Nobody made me God.  I don't get to decide on behalf of my family or my children, as my wife, Elizabeth, who's spoken her own mind on this issue.  I don't get to impose on them what it is that I believe is right.

In other words, failure to present the same-sex story amounts to imposing a view and John Edwards does not have the right to make that decision with respect to his own kids at age eight.  Well, then - does failure to allow prayer in school "impose" a view about religion?  Does failure to teach "abstinence-only" impose a view about pre-marital sex?  And if John Edwards won't take responsibility for these decisions, is it OK for a school board to do so?  Or is Edwards' prepared to advocate some sort of Equal Time Act for the public schools?  I doubt it.

Barack Obama endorsed Edwards' waffle.

And Hillary demurred a bit, essentially ducking the question:

SENATOR CLINTON:  Well, I -- I really respect what both John and Barack said.  I think that we've seen differences used for divisive purposes, for political purposes in the last several elections, and I think every one of us on this stage are really personally opposed to that and will do everything we can to prevent it.                         

With respect to your individual children, that is such a matter of parental discretion.  I think that obviously it is better to try to work with your children, to help your children the many differences that are in the world and to really respect other people and the choices that other people make, and that goes far beyond sexual orientation.                                                             

So I think that this issue of gays and lesbians and their rights will remain an important one in our country.  And I hope that -- tomorrow we're going to vote on the hate crimes bill, and I'm sure that those of us in the Senate will be there to vote for it.  We haven't been able to get it passed, and it is an important measure to send a message that we stand against hatred and divisiveness.  And I think that, you know, that's what the Democratic Party stands for in contrast all too often to the other side.

Bob and weave.  Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.  Duck and cover.  Here is the transcript.

Let's cut to Noam Scheiber for a defense of John Edwards:

In the "spin room" after tonight's debate, Elizabeth Edwards suggested her husband offers Democrats a rare opportunity: the chance to nominate someone who is both the most progressive and the most electable candidate running. (At least among the plausible candidates.) It's an intriguing notion, one that would play well among the notoriously liberal and notoriously strategic-minded Democrats of Iowa. The only question is whether it's actually possible. That is, in moving aggressively to the left of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, does John Edwards invariably undercut the general-election appeal that almost won him the caucuses in 2004?

I think Edwards took a significant step toward answering that question tonight. He came out of the gate taking issue with what he described as Clinton's willingness to leave combat troops in Iraq for the indefinite future. And, in perhaps his best moment of the debate, he warned that Clinton's vote on a Joe Lieberman-sponsored Senate resolution targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard represented a serious lapse in judgment.

But, despite his forcefulness, Edwards came off as controlled and reasonable.

Interesting.  Edwards (Elizabeth, and maybe John too) is a Nutroot fave, and the world needs an Anybody But Hillary candidate, a role Obama seems not to have filled.  Maybe if Edwards hangs around he can be the giant-killer (but where is Al?).

Finally, Hillary's torture flip-flop would be embarrassing if Dems actually discussed it.

Defending Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly caught flak from Media Matters on a made-up controversy subsequently amplified by CNN.  The NY Times coverage is dreadful from a reality-based point of view, although I suspect the reality-based community will cheer it; the WaPo is much better.

Let's start with the Times lead:

It was not your typical day at Sylvia’s restaurant, the famous soul food institution in Harlem. A CNN crew showed up around lunchtime yesterday, interviewed patrons and filmed some close-ups of a plate of food. Reporters cornered tourists with questions about their dining experience, and the restaurant’s regulars called, not to make an order, but to ask about the controversy.

The food, atmosphere and clientele at Sylvia’s were a matter of nationwide attention yesterday because Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News Channel talk show host, recently described being surprised to find that the black-owned establishment was as pleasant as other restaurants.

“It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun,” Mr. O’Reilly said on his nationally syndicated radio show on Sept. 19. “And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”

His comments have outraged some black leaders and baffled black New Yorkers, many of whom said yesterday they were puzzled by what sort of craziness Mr. O’Reilly would expect to find at Sylvia’s, since the Lenox Avenue restaurant is a favorite of Harlem residents, international tourists and former President Bill Clinton.

Indeed, yesterday afternoon, as Mr. O’Reilly accurately described, iced teas were ordered with civility, not hostility. Servers behind the counter were shoveling ice into glasses and dishing out macaroni and cheese, greens, chicken and some of the other specialties. Black and white customers described Mr. O’Reilly variously as living under a rock, or ignorant of black Americans, or, in the words of one diner, George Hymen, 68, “nutty in the head.”

Dead tree readers who follow the jump will finally find a bit of an O'Reilly rally in paragraph seven:

Mr. O’Reilly told The Associated Press yesterday that his comments had been taken out of context. “If you listened to the full hour, it was a criticism of racism on the part of white Americans who are ignorant of the fact that there is no difference between white and black anymore,” he said. “Circumstances may be different in their lives, but we’re all Americans. Anyone who would be offended by that conversation would have to be looking to be offended.”

Well, yes.  No reasonable person listening to the whole tedious exchange on O'Reilly's show would have taken offense - his entire theme was that, contrary to the images presented by the hip-hop community, Sylvia's was quite normal.

The WaPo manages to grasp this: 

Bill O'Reilly says he thought he was dispelling stereotypes when he told his radio audience last week about his recent trip to Harlem with the Rev. Al Sharpton. Instead, O'Reilly found himself yesterday fighting accusations of racial insensitivity.

During a 35-minute discussion about race relations last Wednesday on his syndicated "Radio Factor," the pugnacious host repeatedly decried "demeaning" portrayals of African Americans, particularly in hip-hop videos. To illustrate his contention that such images provide a false impression of black culture, he recalled having dinner with Sharpton at Sylvia's, a famous soul-food restaurant in Harlem:

"I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City," he said. "It was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks [and has a] primarily black patronship. It was the same. And that's really what this society is really all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference."

He later added: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, '[Expletive], I want some more ice tea.' It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there ordering and having fun and there wasn't any craziness at all."

On the same program last week, O'Reilly also described going to an Anita Baker concert at Radio City Music Hall at which "the blacks [patrons] were well dressed." He added, "This is what white America doesn't know. They think the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris and Snoop Dogg."

This is not complicated, but O'Reilly's critics hope to make it so. 

They "Have Our Backs", Or At Least Aren't Stabbing Us There

Following the condemnation of the MoveOn ad by the House and Senate the Mighty Kos of the Nutroots compiled a list of those Democrats who "we can trust to have our backs".  All the rest, we are advised, are "a fair-weather friend, at best".

But in the comments a reader revolt ensues - what about Obama?  This prompts the following laugh-out-loud update:

Added Obama to the list. He abstained in the anti-MoveOn bill, but his rationale (it was a protest against a ridiculous piece of legislation) was sound.

His rationale was sound?  His rationale was so weak that not even the even the Times could keep a straight face:

But curiously absent from the vote was Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, also a Democratic candidate for president, who had canceled a campaign appearance in South Carolina so he could be in Washington for votes.

Mr. Obama issued a statement calling the resolution, put forward by Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, “a stunt.” Mr. Obama said, “By not casting a vote, I registered my protest against these empty politics.”

Mr. Obama had voted minutes earlier in favor of an extremely similar resolution proposed by Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California.

Minutes earlier?  The AP said it was twenty minutes, but time flies when you are having fun - the Boxer amendment attracted Mr. Obama's non-stunt vote at 11:58 AM; the stunt vote from which Mr. Obama abstained was at 12:36 PM, a full 38 minutes later, so perhaps the Senator was hungry for integrity, or anyway, lunch.

Or maybe this was a principled stand!  The Boxer Amendment linked Petraeus to Kerry and Cleland, so perhaps Mr. Obama believes that Democrats running for office should be treated the same as generals serving their country.  Maybe!

Whatever.  One suspects that the Mighty Kos was stumped about how to deal with this disrespect from a Nutroots darling, so he chose to define "have our backs" very generously.  But for the rest of us, sitting out a fight is not quite the same as actively taking one side.

Geez - no respect.  It's the David Brooks scenario.

Back To Jena

Reed Walters, the Jena, Louisiana DA, explains his prosecutorial process in the NY Times.

Jeralyn Merritt and Patterico (1, 2) have thoughts and background on the Jena Six.

No Liberal Bias At The Times

Timeswoman Katherine Seelye pursues the "General Betray Us" discounted ad puzzle and delivers a great laugher.  Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis explained to Ms. Seelye why there was no bias displayed by the ad department when they gave a discount to MoveOn:

The newspaper had maintained that it charged MoveOn the same “standby” rate of $64,575 that it charges all advocacy groups for full-page, black-and-white advertisements that can run anytime in a seven-day window. But the newspaper’s spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, was quoted Sunday by The Times’s public editor, Clark Hoyt, as saying an advertising sales representative had “made a mistake” in granting the discount.

The sales representative should have charged $142,083, she said, because MoveOn wanted the advertisement to run on a specific day — Monday, Sept. 10 — and was therefore not entitled to the “standby” rate.

In a follow-up interview yesterday, Ms. Mathis declined to comment on how the original mistake occurred or how it came to light.

Asked if the sales representative was sympathetic to MoveOn or was unaware of the pricing policy, Ms. Mathis said: “The salesperson did not see the content of the ad at the time the rate was quoted. There was no bias.”

No bias!  Because the sales rep had no idea at all which side of the issue MoveOn was taking!

The story reprises a bit of the background:

MoveOn.org said yesterday that it paid The New York Times $77,508 after the newspaper revealed that its advertising department had undercharged the organization for an advertisement that ran two weeks ago and proved controversial.

Many critics, including some of the Republican presidential candidates as well as Vice President Dick Cheney, had accused the newspaper of giving subsidized rates to MoveOn, a liberal antiwar organization, out of sympathy with its views. The advertisement challenged the credibility of Gen. David W. Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, and asked whether he should be called “General Betray Us.”      

However, the Times Public Editor stirred the pot last Sunday, as Ms. Seelye explains:

The newspaper had maintained that it charged MoveOn the same “standby” rate of $64,575 that it charges all advocacy groups for full-page, black-and-white advertisements that can run anytime in a seven-day window. But the newspaper’s spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, was quoted Sunday by The Times’s public editor, Clark Hoyt, as saying an advertising sales representative had “made a mistake” in granting the discount.

For some odd reason Ms. Seelye mentions the criticism of the ad and/or the Times from the right (President Bush, Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney are named, as well as "some of the Republican presidential candidates"), but she neglects to mention that the Senate voted by 72-35 to condemn the ad.  Since Joe Biden, Elizabeth Edwards and eventually even Hillary Clinton spoke out against the ad, one might say we have achieved a rare bipartisan consensus here, although Ms. Seelye didn't notice it.

But there is no liberal bias at the Times.  Glad they cleared that up.

"Be A Man"

If Republicans cheered blue skies and a sunny day, Josh Marshall would pen a screed decrying rising rates of skin cancer.  However, this reflexive oppositionalism can lead him to some odd places, as for example, his latest blast (actually, blasts) directed at those who objected to the news that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran *might* be visiting Ground Zero while attending the United Nations.  Here we go:

Grow Up

Am I the only one embarrassed by the dingbat brouhaha over Iranian President Ahmadinejad's attempt to visit Ground Zero to lay a wreath? Given relations between our countries I could see denying him a visa, but as long as we're hosting the UN that's not an option. Ahmadinejad now says he's "amazed" that such a visit would be insulting to Americans. Sen. McCain said that Ahmadinejad should be "physically restrained if necessary" from visiting the site.  The National Review's Kathryn Lopez got worked up in such a lather that she begged Rudy Giuliani to "lead a human blockade keeping Ahmadinejad from getting to Ground Zero" -- thus demonstrating once and for all Rudy's true calling as the surrogate id of right-wing nerds everywhere.

"Dingbat"?  C'mon, it's "moonbat" or "wingnut".  Or is this actually a bipartisan swipe?  His list of opponents failed to include Hillary Clinton, still the leading Dem candidate for the Presidency, who issued this statement:

It is unacceptable for Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who refuses to renounce and end his own country’s support of terrorism, to visit the site of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in our nation’s history.

Barack Obama said that Ground Zero "must not be a backdrop for President Ahmadinejad to posture", which I infer to be opposition.  I have not yet ascertained the view of Elizabeth Edwards.

Let's continue with Dr. Marshall's careful analysis:

So what's the problem exactly? Presumably we can be frank enough to acknowledge that the real issue here is that while Ahmadinejad is not Arab to most of us he looks pretty Arab. And he is Muslim certainly -- and pretty up in arms about it at that. And we officially don't like him. And we classify the country he runs as a state sponsor of terrorism. So even though he has absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, when you put all these key facts together, he might as well have done it himself. And what business does anyone with the blood of the victims of 9/11 on his hands have going to Ground Zero?

That's basically it and don't tell me it's not.

He "looks Arab"?  For heaven's sake - by that subtle reasoning Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan looks Arab, too, but he was allowed to give an address at Ground Zero.

As to the rest, well, yes, the fact that Iran, as a leading sponsor of terror, would cheer if Hezbollah did to Tel Aviv what Al Qaeda did to Manhattan does create a bit of awkwardness.  For a bit of perspective let's cut to Hillary's observation from the July YouTube debate when she opined that offering photo ops and propaganda coups to Chavez, Castro and  Ahmadinejad would be a mistake.  Does anyone doubt that allowing Ahmadinejad to pose as a foe of terrorism while the US is trying to rally world opinion against him would send a bit of a mixed message?

And when Dr. Marshall says that "[Ahmadinejad] has absolutely nothing to do with 9/11" he is being disingenuous.  From the 9-11 Commission we learned that 10 of the hijackers traveled through Iran en route to the US while Iranian border officials waved them through without leaving any eyebrow-raising passport stamps.  Now, Ahmadinejad was not in power in 2000/2001, but as the current leader of the Iranian state he certainly bears symbolic responsibility.

Dr. Marshall's Big Finish provided a chuckle:

If we as a country were a person, I'd say grow up.  Act like a man*.  Have some self-respect.

* Yes, outdated language.  But I know no non-gendered language that conveys the same meaning.

Hmm, Hillary and K-Lo ought to be men?  Do not women posses the virtues of wisdom, maturity, and self-restraint for which Dr. M is looking?  Fortunately, Dr. M is a lefty so he can get away with sexist nonsense like that.

MORE:  The Anon Lib rallied to Josh Marshall's side and took up the cudgels on behalf of Columbia, which will be hosting a speech by Ahmadinejad.  I would be more comfortable with that hosting if there was not such an obvious asymmetry at American campuses - Ahmadinejad can speak at Columbia but Lawrence Summers can not speak at UC Board of Regents.  And I very much doubt that Don Rumsfeld or Condi Rice would be able to address a Columbia audience.  So the idea of a half-free university atmosphere bothers me, although it may be that half-free is better than not free at all.

STILL MORE:  Frank J on his Ground Zero philosophy:

In the Fred Thompson administration, there will be no need for the leaders of terrorist states to visit Ground Zero; Ground Zero will be wherever they live.

Matching Headline To Story To Reality

The Times has a classic headline describing Senate action on Thursday:

"Partisan Lines Solidify as Republicans Thwart Democrats Again on an Iraq Vote"

Oh, those uncooperative Republicans!  Let's read about the solidification of the partisan divide in the Democratic-controlled senate:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 — Democrats and Republicans in the Senate continued their circular debate over the Iraq war on Thursday, with the same arguments and the same voting results.

A Democratic proposal that would have immediately changed the mission of American troops, required the withdrawal of all combat forces by the end of June 2008 and then cut off financing for military operations in Iraq received only 28 votes on Thursday, falling far short of the 60 needed to prevent a Republican filibuster.

Joe Biden was in Iowa and not voting, so it appears that 20 Democrats joined 49 Republicans and Joe Lieberman to defeat this.

If twenty Republicans had crossed the line and joined the Democrats on some issue the Times would hail it as a bipartisan triumph.  But here, a 28-20 split amongst the Senate Democrats signals a solidification of a partisan divide.

Here is my suggestion for a more accurate headline -

Bipartisan Coalition Crushes Wistful Withdrawal Plan Offered By Left

I await the day.

MORE:  My day has nearly come, at AFP anyway:

Senate deals new blow to anti-war Democrats

AFP includes an unsurprising detail oddly overlooked by the Times - both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in the losing group of 28.

Jena, Deep-Sixed

My roving high school correspondent asked for my thoughts about the Jena Six two days ago and my ignorance was complete (a new Star Trek spin-off?  Who can keep up with kids these days?).  I was then inforrmed that it is a racially charged case in Jena, Louisiana where six black high schoolers have been over-charged in the beating of a white student.  But my ignorance is not utterly inexplicable - as of Sept 18th, the NY Times had run just one story on it; they have since run stories on the 19th and 20th.  Where oh where is the reliably liberal media when I need it?

So let's go to a real newspaper - the Chicago Tribune had good coverage on May 20 2007, and the WaPo had a detailed piece on August 4.

From the Chi Trib:

JENA, La. - The trouble in Jena started with the nooses. Then it rumbled along the town's jagged racial fault lines. Finally, it exploded into months of violence between blacks and whites.

...One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard.

The tree was on the side of the campus that, by long-standing tradition, had always been claimed by white students, who make up more than 80 percent of the 460 students. But a few of the school's 85 black students had decided to challenge the accepted state of things and asked school administrators if they, too, could sit beneath the tree's cooling shade.

"Sit wherever you want," school officials told them. The next day, the  nooses were hanging from the branches.

African-American students and their parents were outraged and intimidated by the display, which instantly summoned memories of the mob lynchings that once terrorized blacks across the American South. Three white students were quickly identified as being responsible, and the high school principal recommended that they be expelled.

"Hanging those nooses was a hate crime, plain and simple," said Tracy Bowens, a black mother of two students at the high school who protested the incident at a school board meeting.

But Jena's white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, ruled that the nooses were just a youthful stunt and suspended the students for three days, angering blacks who felt harsher punishments were justified.

... Yet it was after the noose incident that the violent, racially charged  events that are still convulsing Jena began.

First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.

Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim -- allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks -- was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.

But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.

To the defendants, their families and civil rights groups that have examined the events, the attempted murder charges brought by a white prosecutor are excessive and part of a pattern of uneven justice in the town.

The critics note, for example, that the white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasn't charged with any crime at all. But the three black youths in that incident were arrested and accused of aggravated battery and theft after they wrestled the weapon from the man -- in self-defense, they said.

"There's been obvious racial discrimination in this case," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who described Jena as a "racial powder keg" primed to ignite. "It appears the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment."

...[Robert Bailey Jr.], 17, is caught up in several of the Jena incidents, as both a victim and alleged perpetrator. He was the black student who was beaten at the party, and he was among the students arrested for allegedly grabbing the shotgun from the man at the convenience store. And he's one of the six students charged with attempted murder for the Dec. 4 attack.

And here is a news wrinkle not mentioned by the WaPo:

On May 10, police arrested Justin Barker, 17, the white victim of the Dec. 4 beating. He was alleged to have a rifle loaded with 13 bullets stashed behind the seat of his pickup truck parked in the school lot. Barker told police he had forgotten it was there and had no intention of using it.

The case did pick up a bit of attention yesterday when Jesse Jackson accused Barack Obama of acting "white" over it, and there was a large rally on Thursday.

My question - how did the boring Bob Herbert not trumpet this?  Via Glenn I see that many other prominent lefties missed it as well.

When The Legends Don't Die

Paul Krugman's new blog promises to be a target rich source of prevailing lefty orthodoxy and fantasy.  For example, I noticed this in his discussion of Bush, Iraq, and Vietnam:

Paul Krugman: There’s also the difference that Bush owns this war in a way the right never had sole ownership of Vietnam. So it may be harder to create a stab-in-the-back legend this time. On the other hand, we should bear in mind that many people believe things about Vietnam that never happened, like demonstrators spitting on returning soldiers.

I am not sure why anyone would cite the airport-spitting as a first choice example of anything, but he did, so let's go.

The notion that airport spitting was an urban myth was coined by Jerry Lembcke, himself a former Vietnam war protestor seeking to rehabilitate the image of the anti-war movement during the run-up to Gulf War I; let's keep an open mind as to his partisan purposes here.

Jack Shafer, Jim Lindgren and others kicked this around; eventually, Jack Shafer more or less tossed in the towel - in fact, there are contemporaneous news accounts of vets being spat upon in airports.

And just to offer two other examples - first, let's present an excerpt from p. 232 of Bob Kerrey's new book, "When I Was A Young Man".  The future Senator is describing an incident in 1969; he is in Philadelphia undergoing rehab with his prosthetic leg and the incident occurs at the Martin Luther King track meet at Villanova::

After the race I was taunted by a group of long-haired men who blocked the exit and knocked me to the ground as I pushed past them to leave.

In Lembcke's analysis, this incident is disqualified because it did not happen at an airport and there is no contemporaneous news paper report or police record.  But who thinks Kerry made it up?

And as a second example, consider the famous scene from "Born on the Fourth of July" involving vet-turned-protestor Ron Kovic:

In a pivotal scene in the film [Born on the Fourth of July], delegates at the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach eject Kovic and his fellow protesting vets from the hall, call him a traitor and spit on him. If that incident has a certain angry passion, it may be because the director was Oliver Stone.

Neither Lexis (via the UPI) nor the Times archive (and check for mis-spellings of Kovic) have any such report of spitting.  Hence it appears, in Lembcke's analysis, that the Kovic story is also apocryphal now.  Here is the UPI (with "Kovac"):

After about five minutes security agents wheeled them, unprotesting, out a side door.

Whatever.  Personally, I believe both Kerrey and Kovic.  One does wonder, though - what other misinformation is rattling around inside Krugman's mighty mind and passing itself off as reality-based?

A Great Shining Blog

Paul Krugman has a new blog hosted at the NY Times, titled "The Conscience of a Liberal".  If the first post is any indication, Prof. Krugman has no conscience at all, at least when it comes to choosing between truth and left-pleasing spin.  His topic, probably not for the last time, is income inequality, and he recycles with even greater emphasis a howler we targeted back in 2002.  Here is Krugman on what many of us have learned is the Great Depression:

The Great Compression: The middle-class society I grew up in didn’t evolve gradually or automatically. It was created, in a remarkably short period of time, by FDR and the New Deal. As the chart shows, income inequality declined drastically from the late 1930s to the mid 1940s, with the rich losing ground while working Americans saw unprecedented gains. Economic historians call what happened the Great Compression, and it’s a seminal episode in American history.

...Most people assume that this rise in inequality was the result of impersonal forces, like technological change and globalization. But the great reduction of inequality that created middle-class America between 1935 and 1945 was driven by political change;

The Great Compression was "created" by FDR and the New Deal?  I am sure libs would like to think so, but an alternative view is that the Great Depression and WWII were the real causes of income compression, and FDR and the New Deal were responses to the depression.  James Scrivener had fun with this a few years ago when Krugman made a similar point.

Of course, as a policy prescription, urging Dems to inflict a depression and world war on the rest of us in order to achieve Krugman's vision of greater income may seem a bit harsh, so I can see why he shies away from that.

Let's cut to Piketty and Saez, whose work has received glowing praise from Krugman.  These excerpts are from their 2001 paper:

Before WWII, the highest incomes were overwhelmingly composed of rentiers deriving most of their incomes from their wealth holdings (mainly in the form of dividends).

...The large depressions on the first part of the century destroyed
many businesses and thus reduced significantly top capital incomes.

...This very specific timing, together with the fact that very high incomes account for a disproportionate share of the total decline in inequality, strongly suggests that the shocks incurred by capital owners during 1914 to 1945 (depression and wars) have played a key role. The depressions of the inter-war period were far more profound than the post-WWII recessions. They destroyed many businesses and had a stronger impact on capital income than labor income.

No mention of the New Deal as a cause of income compression.  However, folks looking for a government role can find this:

The negative effect of the wars on top incomes can be explained in part by the large tax increases enacted to finance the wars. During both wars, the corporate income tax (as well as the individual income tax) was drastically increased and this reduced mechanically the distributions to stockholders (see our discussion below and appendix A4).

Somewhat helpful, but since the US only formally entered the war in 1941 this does not provide much support for fans of the New Deal.

In a bit of a cart and horse reversal, Piketty and Saez also argue that some of the government programs of the New Deal changed societal norms about acceptable levels of (high) pay.  Alternatively, one might have thought that changed norms made these New Deal programs possible.

Let's try another perspective - since Claudia Goldin and Robert A Margo coined the phrase "Great Compression" (and have the number one hit on Google), let's hand them the mic:

The structure of wages narrowed considerably during the 1940's, increased slightly during the 1950's and 1960's, and then expanded greatly after 1970. The era of wage stretching of the past two decades has been a current focus, but we return attention here to the decade that was witness to an extraordinary compression in the wage structure. Wages narrowed by education, job experience, region, and occupation, and compression occurred within these cells as well. For white men, the 90-10 differential in the log of wages was 1.414 in 1940 but 1.060 in 1950. By 1985 it has risen back to its 1940 level. Thus the recent widening of the wage structure has returned to it a dispersion characteristic of fifty years ago. We explore various explanations for the rapid compression in the wage structure during the 1940's and for its maintenance during the subsequent decade or more. We first assess the hypothesis that the Great Depression left the wage structure in 1939 more unequal than in the late 1920's, but we find evidence to the contrary. World War II and the National War Labor Board share some of the credit for the Great Compression. But much belongs to a rapid increase in the demand for unskilled labor at a time when educated labor was greatly increasing in number. These same factors caused the wage structure to remain compressed until its expansion during the past two decades.

Hmm - high demand for unskilled labor coupled by a low supply.  How is Krugman going to recreate that?  I have no idea what his plans might be for the demand side, but are libs really planning to close the borders to reduce the supply of unskilled immigrants?  I don't think so.

Well.  Krugman wants to return us to a happy place we reached by way of war and depression, a place where minorities and women could not work, and where illegal immigrants toiled in the fields but nowhere else.  And he wants to pretend that is not how we got there, and not where we were.  Good luck.  Let's hope his subsequent blog offerings show a bit more of a basis in reality.

Health Care - Everybody Gets Into The Act

Hillary unveils her plan (website, Times); the Cato Institute fires back; Karl Rove, writing in the WSJ, claims Republicans can win the health care debate; and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt proclaims that Bush hopes to leave office with a new health care plan in place.  That last is from USA Today:

Clinton unveiled her plan as Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said President Bush wants to achieve universal health care before he leaves office.

Leavitt told the USA TODAY editorial board that Bush will veto a Democratic plan emerging from Congress that would add $35 billion in taxpayer subsidies to the Children's Health Insurance Program over five years. In doing so, Leavitt said, Bush will urge Congress to join him in seeking coverage for all Americans.

"He'd like to see the larger debate begin," Leavitt said. "The very best opportunity we have may well be in the next 15 months."

Great timing - maybe Bush can build on his success with Social Security reform.  And we applaud his tactical brilliance in waiting until the Reps lost control of Congress to take this up.  Grr.  But at least the PrestoPundit got results!

My two cents - Hillary's plan may not thrill lefties but it won't terrify righties either.  And it strikes me that a lot of what Rove is proposing, such as tax-free health savings accounts, could be folded into HillaryCare Deux.

'Sister Souljah' Slated For Springtime

Richard Cohen of the WaPo pens an amusing attack on Hillary, claiming she missed her "Sister Souljah" moment by failing to criticize the MoveOn ad attacking General Petraeus:

If there is a phrase more closely associated with both Hillary and Bill Clinton than "the politics of personal destruction," it does not come to mind. All the others -- "It's the economy, stupid," for instance -- are linked to one or the other, but "the politics of personal destruction" is a phrase both Clintons have used repeatedly -- so much so, it seems, that for Hillary it has lost all meaning. When, for instance, Gen. David Petraeus was slimed as "General Betray Us," Hillary Clinton looked the other way. This was the politics of personal expediency.

...It may seem unfair to single out Clinton in this matter when the bunker in which she took shelter was crowded with her fellow quivering candidates. But Clinton is the front-runner, quite possibly the next president of the United States, so it is reasonable to focus on her and wonder if, as some allege, she does indeed have a spine. In this instance, it was nowhere to be found.

For heaven's sake - her non-response tells us nothing new about her character.  Ms. Clinton is the most cautious, tightly scripted national politician of this generation (and perhaps any other), and if Mr. Cohen is only just discovering this, then someone please get him a coupon book for Starbucks.

That said, her hubby did not have his "Sister Souljah" moment until it was politically expedient - by June 1992 Bill Clinton had pinned down the Democratic nomination and was attempting to reassure centrists that he really was a New Democrat unafraid to stand up to the special interests (and maybe even willing to end welfare as we know it, although he forgot about that promise until Dick Morris and Newt Gingrich reminded him in anticipation of his 1996 re-election effort.)

So let's look for Hillary's big moment sometime after she has wrapped up the Dem nomination and is burnishing her centrist appeal.  Finding a target won't be a problem - all she needs is a daft lefty saying something daft, which should be as easy as finding interns in the White House law files in a legal office vast right wing conspirators out to derail her.  And let's look for Mr. Cohen to join in the praises for the New Bold Hillary when the New Bold Hillary is finally rolled out.

Political Futures

Slate is compiling multiple political futures markets in one easily accessed site- for example, here is their summary page for the Rep Presidential candidates.  I favor Intrade myself.

Law Of The Jungle

McQ of QandO explains the Nutroots to us with Jane Hamsher's warning shot across Elizabeth Edward's bow as a launching point.

I especially love this from Ms. Hamsher:

[MoveOn is] out there on the left so you can look “moderate.” They’re saying what needs to be said, opening the conversation up so John Edwards isn’t considered the left-wing fringe loon that nobody should listen to.

Or to rephrase that slightly, it is the job of MoveOn to appear even crazier than your hubby.  Hey, it's working!

But why don't a bunch of MoveOnners (alternatively, Move On without Honor) really take the plunge and defuse criticism of Edwards by getting some five hundred dollar haircuts?  Or buy a 35,000 square foot home?  C'mon, crazy is as crazy does.  Where's the commitment?  And where are the commitment papers?

No Blood For Oil

It looks like a Greenspan-bashing Monday as we greet his new book.

Bob Woodward gets a clarification of Greenspan's written observation that "the Iraq war is largely about oil".  Here we go:

In the interview [with Woodward], he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy.

"I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview Saturday, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

He said that in his discussions with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, "I have never heard them basically say, 'We've got to protect the oil supplies of the world,' but that would have been my motive." Greenspan said that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil." Asked if he had made his point to Cheney specifically, Greenspan said yes, then added, "I talked to everybody about that."

The White House also responded:

Greenspan writes that "the Iraq war is largely about oil." That did not go down very well at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue where spokesman Tony Fratto told ABC News he would try to restrain himself. But he still took a pretty good shot at Greenspan: "That sounds like Georgetown cocktail party analysis. The reasons we went to Iraq are well understood and had to do with wmd (weapons of mass destruction), enforcing UN sanctions. To the extent that oil has anything to do with our engagement in Iraq today, it is the danger that al Qaeda could obtain control of oil assets and use them to threaten our interests."

On ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that although he has "a lot of respect for Mr. Greenspan," he disagrees with him. Gates said "I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991 and I just don't believe it's true."

Administration officials also challenge Greenspan to explain all the other places in the world with oil and where American forces are not engaged. One official added that the only other place where U.S. troops are engaged is in Afghanistan which, the official said, has no oil.

Edmund Andrews of the Times interviews Mr. Greenspan about his newly revealed angst about Bush's fiscal irresponsibility:

A ‘Disappointed’ Greenspan Lashes Out at Bush’s Economic Policies

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 — After nearly two decades as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan wants to solidify his standing in history.

In an interview timed with the release of his memoir Monday, Mr. Greenspan sought to distance himself from the economic policies of President Bush and refute critics who say his policies at the Fed contributed to the housing bubble and bust that is now roiling the economy.

Mr. Greenspan unleashed bottled-up frustration about President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican leaders in Congress who, he contends, put politics ahead of Republican goals like fiscal discipline and lower government spending.

“I’m just very disappointed,” he said glumly, as he sat in his living room. “Smaller government, lower spending, lower taxes, less regulation — they had the resources to do it, they had the knowledge to do it, they had the political majorities to do it. And they didn’t.”

In the end, he said, “political control trumped policy, and they achieved neither political control nor policy.”

This prompts an outraged "Now he tells us" column from Paul Krugman, as well it might:

Then Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, testified before the Senate Budget Committee.

Until then Mr. Greenspan had presented himself as the voice of fiscal responsibility, warning the Clinton administration not to endanger its hard-won budget surpluses. But now Republicans held the White House, and the Greenspan who appeared before the Budget Committee was a very different man.

Suddenly, his greatest concern — the “emerging key fiscal policy need,” he told Congress — was to avert the threat that the federal government might actually pay off all its debt. To avoid this awful outcome, he advocated tax cuts. And the floodgates were opened.

...

Mr. Greenspan now says that he didn’t mean to give the Bush tax cuts a green light, and that he was surprised at the political reaction to his remarks. There were, indeed, rumors at the time — which Mr. Greenspan now says were true — that the Fed chairman was upset about the response to his initial statement.

But the fact is that if Mr. Greenspan wasn’t intending to lend crucial support to the Bush tax cuts, he had ample opportunity to set the record straight when it could have made a difference.

His first big chance to clarify himself came a few weeks after that initial testimony, when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

Here’s what I wrote following that appearance: “Mr. Greenspan’s performance yesterday, in his first official testimony since he let the genie out of the bottle, was a profile in cowardice. Again and again he was offered the opportunity to say something that would help rein in runaway tax-cutting; each time he evaded the question, often replying by reading from his own previous testimony. He declared once again that he was speaking only for himself, thus granting himself leeway to pronounce on subjects far afield of his role as Federal Reserve chairman. But when pressed on the crucial question of whether the huge tax cuts that now seem inevitable are too large, he said it was inappropriate for him to comment on particular proposals.

“In short, Mr. Greenspan defined the rules of the game in a way that allows him to intervene as he likes in the political debate, but to retreat behind the veil of his office whenever anyone tries to hold him accountable for the results of those interventions.”

I don't think anyone will be so bold as to dispute the notion that Greenspan lent critical support to Bush's first round of tax cuts.  However, here is the Times lead regarding his comments in May of 2003:

Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, told Congress today that the economy was poised to grow without further large tax cuts, and that budget deficits resulting from lower taxes without offsetting reductions in spending could be damaging to the economy. Opponents of the large cut favored by President Bush took Mr. Greenspan's testimony as support for their position.

...

As is his practice, Mr. Greenspan spoke elliptically in his Congressional testimony and never addressed the tax legislation before Congress specifically.

But he said that even without additional stimulus, ''the economy is positioned to expand at a noticeably better pace than it has during the past year.''

He also said new academic evidence had strengthened his opinion that budget deficits led directly to higher interest rates.

Mr. Greenspan's view on tax cuts is similar to one he expressed in February, but the environment has changed. Congress is now on the verge of drafting and voting on actual tax legislation, and the Fed chairman's views on economic matters carry more weight in Congress than the opinions of any other economist.

In response to a question about the need for additional economic stimulus, Mr. Greenspan said that with the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and sizable growth in government spending, ''we already have a significant amount of stimulus in place.''

He added that he was skeptical of the ability of changes in tax and spending policy to ''fine tune'' the economy in the short term.

Mr. Greenspan said he strongly supported the president's tax policy, particularly the proposal to eliminate taxes on most stock dividends, ''provided it is matched by cuts in spending.''

Interesting.  Krugman was very critical of even the first Bush tax cut, although I vaguely recall he backed Al Gore's more modest "me-too" cut.  I suppose a Greenspan apologist could argue that Greenspan, like many others, was taken aback by the lack of fiscal discipline in Republican-controlled Washington, and by 2003 had taken a new tack.

And I find myself in yet another unexpected alliance with Brad DeLong, who has many other examples of Greenspan as a prophet without honor on the topic of tax cuts and fiscal restraint.

Stoke Me Up

Greg Mankiw, economist extraordinaire who "was an adviser to President Bush and is advising Mitt Romney", argues on behalf of an energy tax in the Times:

One Answer to Global Warming: A New Tax

IN the debate over global climate change, there is a yawning gap that needs to be bridged. The gap is not between environmentalists and industrialists, or between Democrats and Republicans. It is between policy wonks and political consultants.

Among policy wonks like me, there is a broad consensus. The scientists tell us that world temperatures are rising because humans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Basic economics tells us that when you tax something, you normally get less of it. So if we want to reduce global emissions of carbon, we need a global carbon tax. Q.E.D.

The idea of using taxes to fix problems, rather than merely raise government revenue, has a long history. The British economist Arthur Pigou advocated such corrective taxes to deal with pollution in the early 20th century. In his honor, economics textbooks now call them “Pigovian taxes.”

Using a Pigovian tax to address global warming is also an old idea. It was proposed as far back as 1992 by Martin S. Feldstein on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. Once chief economist to Ronald Reagan, Mr. Feldstein has devoted much of his career to studying how high tax rates distort incentives and impede economic growth. But like most other policy wonks, he appreciates that some taxes align private incentives with social costs and move us toward better outcomes.      

Well, fine, and one of my ongoing problems with George Bush was his failure, post 9-11, to call on Americans to do anything other than head to the shopping malls.

Now, I can understand how Prof. Mankiw would prefer to trace the history of the carbon tax back to Martin Feldstein, who is not an immediate object of derision amongst righties.

However... how can anyone keep a straight face and leave the history of Al Gore and his glorious BTU tax out of this?

Let me pass the baton at this point - in the course of trying to Google up a history of Al's ill-fated tax, I found that Brad DeLong wrote my entire tirade more than a year ago.  His immediate target was John Tierney of the Times but Greg Mankiw was collateral damage:

John Tierney advocates taxes on energy use. However, it somehow slips Tierney's mind to praise Al Gore, who was the driving force behind the Clinton administration's attempt to raise energy taxes back in 1993.

I observed that the New York Times's John Tierney was calling for a carbon tax, yet had neither the honor, the grace, nor the guts to remind his readers that Al Gore--the driving force behind the Clinton administration's attempt to raise energy taxes back in 1993--had been ahead of him for two decades. Nor did Tierney have the independence of mind to remind his readers that back in 1993 Gore's BTU tax had been blocked by a combination of the oil lobby, the Republican congressional leadership, and a few feckless Democratic senators.

If Prof. Mankiw can persuade Mitt Romney to back a revenue-neutral carbon tax package (he explains it - offset a carbon tax with other tax cuts), more power to him.

I QUIBBLE:  OK, Prof. Mankiw has word constraints in a Times column, but one bit here (emphasis added), on legislating greater fuel efficiency for cars, is not accurate:

Fuel use depends not only on the efficiency of the car fleet but also on the daily decisions that people make — how far from work they choose to live and how often they carpool or use public transportation.

A carbon tax would provide incentives for people to use less fuel in a multitude of ways. By contrast, merely having more efficient cars encourages more driving. Increased driving not only produces more carbon, but also exacerbates other problems, like accidents and road congestion.

Well - if the price of gasoline remains constant, it is less expensive to drive a more fuel-efficient car, so one might reasonably expect the total miles driven to rise, with attendant impacts on congestion and accidents, as noted.

However, it does not also follow that total carbon emissions (or total gasoline consumed) will also rise relative to the original baseline emissions.  Again, assuming the price of gasoline remains constant, people may simply drive until their gasoline expenditures with the more fuel-efficient cars equals their old gasoline bill.  Or, they may drive a bit more total miles but pocket some savings and consume less gas.

Now, if demand for gasoline is reduced one might expect its price to fall, which would prop up consumption.  Or, Prof. Mankiw may be noting that emissions will fall by less than might have been expected as people drive a bit more - in other words, gasoline consumption falls a lot in response to greater fuel efficiency, then rises a bit in response to the new, lower cost of driving.  But I don't see any reasonable way to baldly assert that with a more fuel-efficient fleet, total gasoline consumption (and hence carbon emissions) would rise relative to the original baseline, as would be the case with accidents or congestion.

My guess is that Prof. Mankiw knew what he meant to say but inadvertently left the impression that higher CAFE standards would inevitably result in higher carbon emissions.

Portable Property

Looks like I picked a bad day to give up double espressos - Andrew Sullivan and the always-iteresting Ann Althouse have me utterly baffled.

Mr. Sullivan links to a George Borjas posting about an economics study, the abstract of which tells us that blacks and Hispanics spend more on bling than "comparable" whites, whatever that means - were the ancestors of these white folks brought over as slaves and subjected to something like the Jim Crow laws until the 1960's?

Prof. Althouse denounces the whole enterprise as looking "like racism -- really old-fashioned racism" and adds this in her comments:

I just don't think it is very appropriate to point to a study that appears to confirm very old and offensive racial stereotypes and to say almost nothing but put up some jokey video clip. I really don't care about the British subgroup represented here or what black stereotypes they like to imitate. He's [Sullivan] put up a post that seems gleeful about what has long been an offensive stereotype.

Well.  Kerwin Charles, one of the authors of this hateful study, is himself black, so maybe it is not quite so hateful.

For myself, I thought that a point of emphasizing racial diversity in, for example, college recruiting was to celebrate cultural differences.  Is that a sham, or do we expect that there are in fact some cultural (NOTE - I'm not saying genetic!) differences amongst races?

And if there really are cultural differences, do we really expect each and every one of them to reflect well on each race as viewed through the eyes of another?  Or might there be moments when a cultural difference to which one group might object can be documented?

And a final rhetorical question - what does Prof. Althouse have against bling?  Maybe white folk are under-spending on conspicuous consumption, or spending on different types of conspicuous consumption, or spending on something inconspicuous but otherwise detrimental to their well-being.  Is there some objective measure by which she has been able to determine that "comparable" whites were spending an amount on bling that was closer to optimum, or is she simply projecting her own cultural pre-dospositions onto this data?  (Hmm, was that one question?)

Baffling.

MORE:  Her commenters draw a distinction between "racist" and racialist", which seems right.  OK, it seems obvious.

Now They Tell Us

No More Fuzzy Math!  David Cloud of the Times provides us with unexpected candor from a "senior Administration official":

“So if you ask for White House math, whatever number we give you, we can guarantee you one thing: that won’t be the right number.”

We await the "I told you so" from Paul Krugman.

Oh, fun's fun.  The quote actually made sense in context, which was troop withdrawals from Iraq:

The announced withdrawals would remove the same number of combat units as were sent to Iraq as part of the increase in forces ordered by President Bush this year. But the White House said troop totals may not return to exactly 133,000, the number deployed before the so-called surge began early this year, because of the need to keep in place specialized units, like the military police and helicopter squadrons.

“It’s not a fixed number, because things change over time,” said a senior administration official, briefing reporters before the speech on the condition of anonymity.

Officials also said it was difficult to give a firm figure for how many soldiers there are in a combat brigade, noting that there can be from 3,500 to 4,500 soldiers, or even more.

“It’s not simply five brigades times 3,500, plus 2,000 here and 4,000 there,” the official said. “So if you ask for White House math, whatever number we give you, we can guarantee you one thing: that won’t be the right number.”

If I Could Turn Back Time, Or, When Reality Intrudes...

The Mighty Kos commissioned a poll to tell us that Ned Lamont defeats Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.  Ooops!  Too bad the election is over!

In related news, the assembled staff at Just One Minute has decided to release the results of various polls we commissioned in while under the influence of... well, under the influence of a voracious thirst for alternative history.  Or something.

So to satisfy the insatiable thirst of others, I can now reveal that John Kerry defeats George Bush in a 2004 rematch.  However, such a rematch is unlikely since Al Gore already defeated George Bush in 2000. (He gets knocked down...)

In other excellent news, Hubert Humphrey defeated Richard Nixon in 1968, but it is not all grim for Republicans - in 1948 Dewey managed to defeat Truman in a poll we would have commissioned back in 1951 (had we been alive), when Truman's approval rating was at 23%.  Truman's backers can point to subsequent polls in which Truman managed to defeat Dewey again.

Meanwhile, one wonders - how much did the Kos Kids spend on this poll in Connecticut?  And isn't there a starving Dem politician, or even a starving village in Africa, where the money could go to better use?

Please Define "Soon"

The normally excellent Josh Gerstein of the NY Sun has us laughing with his story about the "soon" to be released Hillary Clinton records from her White House years.

Archived Clinton Records May Go Public Soon

By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 13, 2007

An estimated 10,000 pages of daily schedules from Senator Clinton's tenure as first lady could be made public as soon as December, though Presidents Clinton and Bush could postpone the records' release, a National Archives official said yesterday.

"Our hope is to get it done by the end of the year," the acting director of the Clinton Presidential Library, Emily Robison, told The New York Sun. She stressed that she was only referring to the review and redaction of the records by archivists. Under the Presidential Records Act and an executive order issued by Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton's representatives then have 90 days to review the records for materials that could be covered by executive privilege. After that review is complete, Mr. Bush has an unlimited amount of time to make his own privilege assertions.

A late December release of Ms. Clinton's White House records would make a lovely stocking-stuffer for her many opponents.  But not so fast!

It is unclear whether the disclosure of redacted versions of Mrs. Clinton's schedules will ultimately have significance for her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. However, it seems likely that Mr. Clinton's former aides will have control over the timing of the process just as the nominating contest reaches its peak early next year. The political atmosphere is sure to increase pressure on the former president not to be responsible for any delay.

So Bill Clinton will be facing irresistible pressure to sign off on disclosures that might embarrass his wife?  Please give me a break.  Wild Bill can invoke the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy as a reason for prudence and delay, and eagerly wait for the once-unlikely accusation that he is in bed with his wife.

Reading Playboy For The Articles

Keith Olbermann is interviewed in the October 2007 Playboy; their free preview offered a snippet so dumb I felt obliged to reprise it:

PLAYBOY: On Countdown this past April, after Rudolph Giuliani made a speech saying Democrats would make us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, you went off on him for eight solid minutes. You seemed truly offended by what he'd said.

OLBERMANN: Giuliani tried to out-Bush Bush. He tried to get votes by talking about casualties as if another attack like 9/11 were inevitable, suggesting that voting for anyone but him would lead to more people getting killed. That's about an inch from saying, "If you don't vote for me, you'll die," which is another inch from saying, "If you don't vote for me, I'll kill you." And that, to me, is not America. In fact, it's not Earth. I don't usually single out candidates for praise or brickbats, but if they're going to politicize terror, to do the work of the terrorists by terrorizing the populace, I'll come down on them like a ton of bricks. That's my job.

So let me see if I have mastered this "logic" - when Al Gore says that global warming is a gathering threat, and so on, he is one inch from saying that if we don't vote for environmentally sound candidates we will die, and two inches from saying that he will personally kill us (I presume a coroner would rule it death by boredom, but really - anyone listening to Al Gore for more than a nanosecond ought to be ruled a suicide.)

Or, work with me, Keith - Nancy Pelosi thinks if we don't vote for stricter gun control we will die, which is two inches from saying she will personally gun us down like Michael Vick's dogs.

There you have it - more proof of the study we cited earlier today showing the Beautiful Minds of the left.

Petreaus Thread

Times coverage of his testimony.

A Mind Of Their Own

The LA Times tells us about a study demonstrating that lefties are smarter, better looking, better ballroom dancers and, let's just say it, all around better people than righties.  Well, almost:

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

The results show "there are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style and a conservative style," said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative." They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.

Researchers got the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when a W appeared.

...Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Memeorandum has a useful guide to the lefty triumphalism this article provoked.  Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings is one of the less triumphalist:

It's a good thing I'm noting this without comment. Otherwise, I might have had to say something like: liberals are better at dealing with complexity, and at responding to the unexpected; and besides, we're over twice as likely to get things right! Hah!

"Hah!" indeed - not even the author went quite that far, as the LA Times noted:

Lead author David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said.

Just as an example, I can imagine a police training video where a Scary Guy makes a threatening gesture with his right hand.  The trainee is supposed to respond appropriately and will be judged on reaction time.

Now, imagine that after several threatening right hand gestures, Scary Guy makes a threatening gesture with his left hand.  Based on the LA Timnes study, one might expect a liberal brain to light up in thought at this "new" situation.  However, it may well be that, for purposes of police training, the left hand / right hand is a distinction without a difference, and the conservative brain will react more quickly.  So which brain is better there?  Hah!

More broadly, it may well be that liberals are more inclined to focus on nuance and complexity, and will score better on tests where differences matter, as in the M - W example.  Conversely, righties will score better on tests where, despite distracting differences, the "right" answers don't change much.

This LA Times result jibes nicely with the fundamental conception of conservatives, who prefer to be guided by the wisdom of the past, and of liberals, who seem comfortable reinventing the world over breakfast.

Ace and AllahPundit have some unanswered questions, so I'll add mine - since most blacks voted Democratic, does this study tells us that black brains are different from the median white brain?  Troubling.  [And if I had to answer that, I would hazard a guess that out there in reality is a mix of what I will call "Tempermental" libs, whose brains are wired to be lefties, and "Experiential" libs, who actually hold their views based on their life experiences or circumstances.  Assuming that the median black and white brains were identical, there might still be more "Experiential" libs amongst blacks.] 

INTELLIGENCE IN ACTION:  To pick an example of superior liberal nuance-detection almost at random, let's note that 42% of Dems think Evil BushCo initiated or allowed the 9/11 attacks.  My primitive righty brain can scarcely absorb the information available at the Truther site.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: This study reminds us that there is something more powerful than an idea whose time has come, to wit, an idea which reinforces one's preconceptions.

Moore From Osama

Osama bin Laden unleashes his inner lefty blogger in a new 9/11 commemorative tape (transcript).  A snippet from the ABC coverage:

"People of America:  the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped.  Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning.  On the contrary, they continue to agree to the spending of tens of billions to continue the killing and war there."

The NY Times spares its readership from the gory details, providing this cursory overview:

A videotaped message by Osama bin Laden, the first in nearly three years, compares the Iraq war to American blunders in Vietnam, criticizes the Democratic Party for failing to pull American troops from Iraq, and urges Americans to embrace Islam.

Details of the video emerged yesterday, the same day that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency gave a public warning about Al Qaeda’s gathering strength and unapologetically defended his agency’s campaign to kill and capture the group’s operatives worldwide.

The video, timed to the approaching sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, shows the leader of Al Qaeda with a black beard, and his references to news events appear to date the tape to within the past few months.

The 26-minute video does not contain any direct warnings of an impending attack, focusing instead on the Iraq war and the “terrorism” of Western leaders, including President Bush, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. Mr. bin Laden vowed to “continue to escalate the killing and fighting” in Iraq.

Maybe its better they don't learn how closely their political views align with Osama's.  Oh, well - now we see Rove's Evil Genius at work in leaving Osama free so he could contribute to Republican fund-raising efforts.  Jeff Goldstein has more.

MORE:  Here is a more useful transcript; ABC News left this out:

"And for your information media, during the first years of the war, lost its credibility and manifested itself as a tool of the colonialist empires, and its condition has often been worse than the condition of the media of the dictatorial regimes which march in the caravan of the single leader."

I'll read on to see if Judy Miller is mentioned by name.

HISTORY BY OSAMA:  Osama seems to think Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense during the Viet Nam war (not quite - that was under Ford in 1975), and informs us that Kennedy was killed by the evil corporate interests that opposed his plan to end that war:

"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation."

"And so Kennedy was killed, and al-Qaida wasn’t present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade. But after it became clear to you that it was an unjust and unnecessary war, you made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, Rumsfeld. And even more incredible than that is that Bush picked him as secretary of defense in his first term after picking Cheney as his vice president, Powell as secretary of state and Armitage as Powell's deputy, despite their horrific and blood history of murdering humans. So that was clear signal that his administration - the administration of the generals- didn't have as its main concern the serving of humanity, but rather, was interested in bringing about new massacres. Yet in spite of that, you permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you - with your full knowledge and consent- to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan."

OLDIES BUT GOODIES: 

The entire world came out in unprecedented demonstrations to warn against waging the war and describe its true nature in eloquent terms like "no to spilling red blood for black oil," yet [President Bush] paid them no heed.

CORPORATE CONTROL:  Apparently the Dems are in the grip of the same special interests that wanted this war, and Viet Nam:

"So in answer to the question about the causes of the Democrats' failure to

"Community Of Interest"

Eric Lichtblau of the Times has interesting background on the FBI's use of data-mining and network analysis:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8  —  The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call and e-mail patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.

The documents indicate that the F.B.I. used secret demands for records to obtain data not only on the person it was targeting but also details on his or her “community of interest” — the network of people that the target in turn was in contact with. The F.B.I. recently stopped the practice in part because of broader questions raised about its aggressive use of the records demands, which are known as national security letters, officials said Friday after being asked about it.

The community of interest data sought by the F.B.I. is central to a data-mining technique intelligence officials call “link analysis.” Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American counterterrorism officials have turned more frequently to the technique, using communications patterns and other data to identify suspects who may not have any other known links to extremists.

The concept has strong government proponents who see it as a vital tool in predicting and preventing attacks, and it is also thought to have helped the National Security Agency identify targets for its domestic eavesdropping program. But privacy advocates, civil rights leaders and even some counterterrorism officials warn that link analysis can be misused to establish tenuous links to people who have no real connection to terrorism but may be drawn into an investigation nonetheless.

Typically, community of interest data might include an analysis of which people the targets called most frequently, how long they generally talked and at what times of day, sudden fluctuations in activity, geographic regions that were called and other data, law enforcement and industry officials said.

The F.B.I. declined to say exactly what data had been turned over. The data was limited to people, phone numbers and e-mail “once removed” from the actual target of the national security letters, said a government official spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing review by the Justice Department.

The scope of the demands for information could be seen, for instance, in an August 2005 letter seeking the call records for particular phone numbers that had come under suspicion. The letter closed by saying: “Additionally, please provide a community of interest for the telephone numbers in the attached list.”

So this is the FBI, not the NSA - it might be worth trying to recall just who denied what back when this was breaking news.  For example, here is an old Times story about the legal terrain, as well as a Justice Dept. "Myth V.Reality" paper defending the NSA program.  However, the current article describes an FBI program where the data is gathered directly by the cooperating telecom companies, so this may be a different program, or a different part of the same program.

Paul Krugman, Reality-Based?

Paul Krugman explains how the Dems ought to tackle the Petraeus hearings and delivers this ahistorical nonsense:

Fourth, the lesson of the past six years is that Republicans will accuse Democrats of being unpatriotic no matter what the Democrats do. Democrats gave Mr. Bush everything he wanted in 2002; their reward was an ad attacking Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, that featured images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Congressional Democrats gave Bush everything he wanted in 2002?  It was five long years ago, yet I remember as if it was only four and a half years ago that Democrats wanted strict Federal job protection for the workers covered by the reorganization and Bush wanted the President to have greater flexibility in hiring and firing.  Democrats wanted to protect Federal union employees, Republicans wanted to protect Americans - surely Krugman remember this as a campaign issue?

But don't trust my memory (I wouldn't!) - here are the NY Times editors following the Republican success in the 2002 mid-term election:

The president set two very appropriate goals for the necessarily brief lame-duck session that begins next week. Neither will be easy to finish but both are achievable. One is to complete work on a Department of Homeland Security. The other is to approve terrorism insurance. We would add a third: helping the unemployed.

Homeland security has been blocked by Democratic opposition to Mr. Bush's plan to reduce civil service protection for the employees of the new department. This is no longer a fight worth pursuing. While we believed the Democrats had the better position, the one thing voters made clear on Tuesday is that they support the president on the homeland security issue. The Democrats should go along, and Senator Robert Byrd, the powerful Democrat from West Virginia who believes that the antiterrorist apparatus was constructed too quickly, should drop his threat to filibuster the bill.

A bill the President was willing to sign was then passed later in November.

USA Today had a bit on the Cleland connection in their 2002 election coverage:

Cleland defeated by conservative

Few believed Republican Saxby Chambliss could paint Sen. Max Cleland, a veteran who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, as soft on national security. But that's just what the conservative congressman did to score a surprising victory over the one-term Democrat.

Chambliss, 59, a four-term congressman from Moultrie, was virtually unknown in Atlanta and its Republican suburbs, where a hefty share of Georgia voters reside. But his message that Cleland was too liberal for Georgia resonated statewide. He cited the incumbent's vote on a proposed department of homeland security; Cleland had sided with fellow Democrats by insisting that workers' civil-service protections be retained. Chambliss even ran a TV ad picturing Cleland with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

The left-leaning Wikipedia has more under a fair and balanced subheading of "Political slanderings":

Max Cleland lost the 2002 general election to Republican Saxby Chambliss. A key element in that loss was a negative ad that challenged Cleland's votes in Congress on the formation of the Department of Homeland Security.

The text of the ad is as follows:

"As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead.

"He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that's not the truth."

"Since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times."

"But the record proves, Max Cleland is just misleading."

The issue in 2002 was civil service protections for Homeland Security employees, which Bush opposed and Cleland supported. The ad failed to point out that Cleland supported the creation of a Department of Homeland Security before Bush did. Cleland originally co-sponsored the enabling legislation and eventually supported it, but as the bill moved through Congress, he cast a number of votes against it in hopes of getting a better bill. The Republican attack ads made it look as though Cleland was voting against Homeland Security itself, and one TV ad morphed Cleland's face into Saddam Hussein's while suggesting that Cleland was indifferent to the safety of the American people. This ad was so disgusting that Republican Sens. Hagel and McCain both protested it]

Well.  It is an article of lefty faith that the Evil Reps questioned Cleland's patriotism.  But has it also now become an article of that faith that Congressional Dems gave Bush "everything he wanted" in the summer and fall of 2002?  I am not qualified to put Prof. Krugman on the couch but I am curious - does he sincerely remember that 2002 election as he presented it (which would be a troubling example of selective memory), or is he deliberately presenting a falsehood, i.e., lying?   

As Will Rogers observed, "It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."  One wonders how many other factoids Prof. Krugman "knows".  Well, I often enjoy a juice drink "based on real fruit juice".  Close inspection of the label reveals to the once blissfully ignorant that the product is 10% "real fruit juice".  One hopes that Krugman's "reality-based" analyses achieve a higher proportion of reality, even though his end product is clearly a bit diluted by fantasy and misinformation.

WILL ROGERS ANTICIPATES GEORGE BUSH: Who knew Will Rogers would back Bush:

"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"

Or more broadly:

A fool and his money are soon elected.

BUT SERIOUSLY:  Prof. Krugman cites this Sept 26 2004 article by Gen. Petraeus as well as this Oct 5 2005 press briefing as examples of his reliable optimism.  However, let me pick this out from 2005:

Q    General, given the -- you have listed some caveats such as political progress and stopping of infiltrators.  Given the fairly bright picture of progress you've just painted, would you venture to predict that U.S. troops could begin leaving Iraq in fairly significant numbers by the end of next year?

 

GEN. PETRAEUS:  I never thought anyone would ask that question! (Laughter.)

 

Let me say, really, you know, again, this is going to be very conditions-based.  And I think, again, these events that I talked about -- and it's really three events:  the referendum, the elections, and the formation of the government -- all will be very, very important in forming or contributing to an environment in which, with adequate security forces at proper readiness levels, and with assistance in those other areas I talked about, particularly from neighboring countries in restricting the flow of foreign fighters and terrorists, that would make such reductions possible.  Obviously, that's the goal. That's what everyone is pointing to.  But again, very, very conditions-based.  And I think that that was laid out pretty well last week.

 

Q     I understand.  Everybody's saying conditions-based.  Would you venture a prediction -- you know the situation very well -- do you think that enough political progress will be made; do you think, given the improvement in the training, that that significant number of U.S. troops could begin to leave Iraq by the end of next year?

 

GEN. PETRAEUS:  I wouldn't venture that.  And I will tell you that I'm a qualified optimist, and that the qualification is that, again, Iraqi leaders very much doing what they want to do and what they need to do over the course of the next few months to keep the country together, to reach out to those that feel they may not have a stake in the success of the new Iraq; to provide competent, honest leadership at the national level, in the provinces, in the ministries; and, of course, to do the same in the security forces.  So --

Well, I think we all agree that Petraeus at least understands the issues in Iraq.  His statements about the quality and quantity of trained Iraqi security forces have not stood up well:

Iraqi Army Unable To Take Over Within A Year, Report Says
Breakup of National Police Is Urged

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2007; A01

Iraq's army, despite measurable progress, will be unable to take over internal security from U.S. forces in the next 12 to 18 months and "cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven," according to a report on the Iraqi security forces published today.

The report, prepared by a commission of retired senior U.S. military officers, describes the 25,000-member Iraqi national police force and the Interior Ministry, which controls it, as riddled with sectarianism and corruption. The ministry, it says, is "dysfunctional" and is "a ministry in name only." The commission recommended that the national police force be disbanded.

KRUGMAN ON SECURITY:  The Earnest Prof wrote this:

First, no independent assessment has concluded that violence in Iraq is down. On the contrary, estimates based on morgue, hospital and police records suggest that the daily number of civilian deaths is almost twice its average pace from last year. And a recent assessment by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found no decline in the average number of daily attacks.

So how can the military be claiming otherwise? Apparently, the Pentagon has a double super secret formula that it uses to distinguish sectarian killings (bad) from other deaths (not important); according to press reports, all deaths from car bombs are excluded, and one intelligence analyst told The Washington Post that “if a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian. If it went through the front, it’s criminal.” So the number of dead is down, as long as you only count certain kinds of dead people.

"No independent assessment has concluded that violence in Iraq is down"?  Let's cut to the Iraq Body Count,a Brit group - they report that average daily civilian deaths in 2006 were 52 from gunfire/executions and 8.5/day from car bombs; the comparable figures for 2007 are 29 and 14.  With deaths from gunfires/executions down but from car bombs up, the total daily civilian violent deaths for 2007 has dropped from 60.5 (2006) to 43. 

The Iraq Body Count people are not delighted to be reporting this, so they offer this caveat and spin:

  These charts sometimes indicate a modest improvement in the security situation     for ordinary Iraqis post-surge, and this is not disputed. But these charts     will tend to under-represent reported violence for the more recent periods,     for the reasons stated above. The observed downward trend in these charts     will likely become less marked as data still in the pipeline is added (see Recent     Events for as yet unprocessed data).

  It is important to place the events of 2007 in context. Levels of violence     reached an all-time high in the last six months of 2006. Only in comparison     to that could the first half of 2007 be regarded as an improvement. Despite     any efforts put into the surge, the first six months of 2007 was still the     most deadly first six months for civilians of any year since the invasion.

One wonders, yet again, what factual basis Prof. Krugman imagined for his assertion that "the daily number of civilian deaths is almost twice its average pace from last year".  The Saturday Times has more on this, with no suggestion that Krugman might be right.

The Fall Guys

With great thanks to the energetic intervention of my Congressman, Chris Shays, I was able to attend the "First in the Fall" Republican candidates debate last night.  OK, it is not fall yet (don't tell Fox News), but it was a brisk evening in New Hampshire and we had a good football crowd in attendance.  I don't know if it came through on television but we were hootin' and hollerin', cheering the good lines and (occasionally) booing the bad ones.  I don't know if that level of energy is typical but it would bode well for the Reps.

I thought Giuliani was the winner, but my goodness - as a tribute to Christopher Hitchens' Clinton bio, "No One Left To Lie To", maybe someone could produce a Rudy bio titled "No One Left To Beat On".  Let's just say that Rudy's toughness comes through.

McCain is going to live free or die hard in New Hampshire. As both Giuliani and Huckabee noted, he is a great American, and New Hampshire has been a good state for him in the past.  Also helping him - the media would L-U-V to write the "John McCain, Comeback Kid" story.  I attended a packed McCain event before the debate, and he aired his new bio
which emphasizes his Vietnam experience.  Hmm - that sorta worked for Kerry, and sorta not, but on the other hand, McCain is a genuine hero.

Mike Huckabee came across (again) as friendly, funny, and energetic - he would be a landslide winner if we were voting for Next Door Neighbor, but most of us aren't (I won't predict the behavior of  Iowa voters).

Mitt Romney would be totally the guy I would want if ever I have a pile of ice chips I need to sell to an Eskimo.  Until then, geez - I know he is smart and successful, but all I see is an annoying phony.

And speaking of annoying, can Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter go away now?  I spent a few minutes pondering whether I was more put off by Brownback's tie (lavender?) or his haircut (Short, brown, and curly), but the debate moved on and so did I without a resolution.

Ron Paul provided a great show, but please  - if we were voting for Town Crier, maybe I could consider him.

And a note to Fox - those segments from the town restaurant were embarrassing and annoying - jiminy, a senior majoring in poli-sci can't come up with a better question than to mumble about Rudy's family values, or apparent personal lack thereof?  Give 'em the hook!

Glenn has lots more.

The Times Finds The Wrong Outrage

In their coverage of the tragic death of musician Jeffrey Carter Albrecht the Times finds the wrong outrage.  The Times wants to give their readers a story about overly permissive gun and safety laws in Texas but the real outrage (for purposes of exciting an Upper West Side lib, natch) is in the perils of Evil Big Pharma and the products they promote.  Here we go:

Musician Is Killed for Banging on a Door
By GRETEL C. KOVACH   (Ms. Kovach seems to be a Times stringer in Texas - TM)

DALLAS, Sept. 4 — A Texas rock musician was shot to death here early Monday by a neighbor who fired through a closed door, thinking he was scaring off a burglar.

The incident occurred just three days after a new law took effect strengthening the right of Texans to use deadly force to protect themselves and their property.

The musician, Jeffrey Carter Albrecht, 34, a keyboardist with Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians and the Dallas rock band Sorta, was shot in the head after he startled a man and his wife about 4 a.m. by pounding and kicking at their back door, the police said. Mr. Albrecht had just assaulted his girlfriend, who lives next door and had locked him out of her house, the police said.

The neighbor, who has not been identified by the police, was awakened by his wife’s screams that someone was breaking into their home, according to the police report. The man yelled for the person to go away, but when the pounding continued, he fired through the top of the door.

Mr. Albrecht, who was about 6-foot-5, was struck in the head.

OK, one might suspect that Mr. Albrecht was liquored up or in the grip of controlled substances.  And one might be close to the mark:

Mr. Albrecht’s girlfriend, Ryann Rathbone, said she believed he was having a bad reaction to the combination of alcohol and an antismoking drug they both had taken for a week. The drug had given them hallucinatory dreams, Ms. Rathbone said.

“This was not a drunken rage,” she said.

“Carter would never have hurt me, ever,’’ Ms. Rathbone  said.

If he would never hurt anyone, why did she lock him out at 4 AM?  we will come back to that, but here comes the tragic gun laws bit:

Texas has protected the right to “stand your ground” and use deadly force to protect oneself at home without first trying to retreat since 1995. And a law that took effect on Saturday expanded that so-called “castle doctrine” to apply to public spaces.

The law also expanded civil immunity and could make it more difficult for the Albrecht family or relatives of those killed in similar incidents in Texas to win a wrongful-death suit, said James Dark, executive director of the Texas State Rifle Association, which lobbied for the new law.

“These duty-to-retreat laws provide legal protection for those who are out committing criminal acts,” Mr. Dark said. Under the new Texas law, “the protection of the law falls on those who obey the law not those who violate the law.”

But try as she might, Ms. Kovach can't even find critics of the law to be especially critical here:

Marsha McCartney, president of the North Texas chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, called Mr. Albrecht’s death “one more gun tragedy.”

“I’m sure the man who did the shooting feels terrible about it,” Ms. McCartney said, “but legally in Texas he can do exactly what he did because he feels frightened.”

Borris Miles, a Democratic state representative from Houston and a former schools police officer, opposed the legislation, which was signed into law in March.

In July, Mr. Miles confronted a robber at his home construction site and shot him in the leg. No charges were filed, but he said he still opposed the new law.

“We have a right to defend ourselves in our home. I support that and I always will,” Mr. Miles said. But the law went too far, he said, by expanding the right to use deadly force in the workplace and one’s automobile.

Well - the law went too far, but this case is not an example of it.  Strong stuff.

Let's come back to the "thank you for not smoking" angle - the Dallas Morning News had lots more:

Girlfriend of slain musician cites anti-smoking drug

By MICHAEL GRABELL and TANYA EISERER  /  The Dallas Morning News      

Friends of a popular Dallas musician killed early Monday are at a loss to explain what caused him to spin out of control, beat up his girlfriend and try to kick in her neighbor's door after a night of heavy drinking.

Now they're wondering whether a pill that Carter Albrecht had recently started taking to quit smoking may have sent him over the edge. But there is no hard evidence that the drug causes bouts of rage.

"I really believe it was the drug," said his girlfriend, Ryann Rathbone. "He would have never been abusive toward me, never, ever. He and I had a very peaceful, loving relationship. He and I loved each other so much."

While some users of the drug Chantix have reported symptoms of anger on Internet blogs, no studies released by the Food and Drug Administration, the manufacturer Pfizer or other researchers have linked the drug to violent outbursts.

...

Friends said Mr. Albrecht, 34, was normally a laid-back guy who never became violent when drunk. He and his girlfriend had been taking Chantix for about a week and planned to stop smoking Monday. They had started having vivid sleep experiences that users have nicknamed "Chantix dreams."

       "It was giving them awful, strange nightmares," said bandmate Ward        Williams.    

Changes in dreaming, along with nausea and constipation, are common reactions to the drug, according to Pfizer and the FDA. But they are also symptoms of withdrawal.

Chantix is a prescription medicine that works by blocking nicotine from attaching to the brain receptors that produce feelings of pleasure. It was approved by the FDA in May 2006 after studies showed it to be far superior to other anti-smoking drugs without any major side effects.

"While we haven't had an opportunity to review the details of this case, clinical studies do not suggest a causal relationship between Chantix use and rage," said Pfizer spokesman Francisco Gebauer.

An FDA spokeswoman said the agency would look into the matter but didn't have enough information to say whether the drug could have contributed to Mr. Albrecht's violent outburst.

But Dr. Adinoff said it's possible that heavy drinking on top of the Chantix might have triggered a strange reaction. That's why most drugs bear warnings against taking them with alcohol.

"Both of them interact with some of the same regions of the brain," he said. "You mix alcohol with another drug that affects the central nervous system and you can easily get some unpredictable effects."

Well, I am not the FDA but I have looked into the matter as well, and discovered this as the second contribution on the first site I hit after Googling for side effects of Chantix:

Memory was really bad, I couldn't remember simple things like what I just opened the refrigerator for. Very scary! Extremely vivid and frighteningly violent dreams every night. I was crying a lot and very snippy with my husband. He would tell me I was acting crazy and it would piss me off to the point I was thinking violent thoughts towards him and that is not me at all! I would dwell on things he and other people would say to me and have violent thoughts. I love him, I would NEVER do anything to hurt my husband.

Hmm, folks who quit smoking get irritable - who knew?  The Mayo Clinic (the first Google result I got) offered this:

When you smoke, the nicotine from your cigarette causes receptors in your brain to release a chemical called dopamine, which is what causes many of the positive feelings you get when you smoke. When you quit smoking, going without dopamine causes the sometimes miserable signs and symptoms of withdrawal. Signs and symptoms such as irritability, insomnia and difficulty concentrating begin four to six hours after your last cigarette and can last a month after you quit smoking.

Nicotine replacement products, including the patch, gum and lozenges, and the antidepressant bupropion (Zyban), can help you stop smoking, in part, by continuing to release low levels of dopamine in your brain. In this way, these stop smoking medications decrease your craving for nicotine and reduce the signs and symptoms of withdrawal.

Chantix works in this way, too. Chantix stimulates the release of low levels of dopamine in your brain to help reduce the signs and symptoms of withdrawal. In addition, Chantix blocks nicotine receptors in your brain. So if you lapse and have a cigarette, your cigarette doesn't stimulate your brain's receptors the way it did in the past. Cigarettes become much less pleasurable, and your desire to return to regular smoking again may be reduced.

In my layman's opinion, this drug is interfering with some pretty heavy brain chemistry.  And the idea that quitting smokers can be relied upon not to have a few drinks strikes me as, hmm, optimistic.

If I were a table pounder at the Times I would go after Pfizer, maker of Chantix, and see what else we might learn about the side effects of this drug.

ERRATA:  Just to pin down that detail, the initial Dallas Morning News story tells us that Mr. Albrecht did in fact strike his girlfriend:

Police say Carter Albrecht, 34, beat up his girlfriend and then tried to kick in a neighbor's door in an apparent drunken rage. He died early Monday after being shot in the head by the neighbor, who thought he was a burglar.

Police said the girlfriend had bruises on her face but did not suffer serious injuries. The couple did not have a history of domestic violence, police said.

And let me include this excerpt from the first Dallas Morning News story I cited:

Ms. Rathbone said she met Mr. Albrecht about 1 a.m. Monday at a bar on Greenville Avenue. He had taken a dose of the drug just before going to the bar and didn't seem drunk when she got there, she said.

But as they left the bar shortly after 2 a.m., Mr. Albrecht started acting bizarrely, she said. He began quoting a book about the oppression of the Jews called Constantine's Sword, which he had recently        been reading.    

"He was saying weird, off-the-wall stuff that didn't match our conversation," Ms. Rathbone said. "I think because I didn't understand, he started to get mad at me. It didn't make sense."

She said they were home about 10 minutes when he became out of control.    

"He wanted to leave, and I didn't want him to drive," she said. "He already didn't know who I was at that point. I didn't want him going anywhere."

That's when he began to hit her, she said. "He didn't even realize he was hurting me. He had no idea. He was saying the same kinds of stuff that didn't make sense. It was like he was in a dream."

Mr. Albrecht chased Ms. Rathbone outside, and she ran back in, locking him out, the police report said. Mr. Albrecht then went to the back of the neighbor's home and started banging.

Who knows what the truth is?  A musician on drugs - I bet the police have never seen that before.  Maybe Pfizer has delivered a problem medicine, maybe the girlfriend is covering up some other drug problem, maybe she is unaware of some other drug problem, maybe, maybe, maybe.  But the Times is looking the wrong way if they are looking at Texas gun and safety laws.

 

Put Down That Popcorn And Back Away Slowly

Good news for the people whose biggest worry is that their "things to worry about today" list has grown too short - popcorn lung is not just for factory workers anymore! 

Doctor Links a Man’s Illness to a Microwave Popcorn Habit

 

By GARDINER HARRIS   

A fondness for microwave buttered popcorn may have led a 53-year-old Colorado man to develop a serious lung condition that until now has been found only in people working in popcorn plants.

Lung specialists and even a top industry official say the case, the first of its kind, raises serious concerns about the safety of microwave butter-flavored popcorn.

“We’ve all been working on the workplace safety side of this, but the potential for consumer exposure is very concerning,” said John B. Hallagan, general counsel for the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States, a trade association of companies that make butter flavorings for popcorn producers. “Are there other cases out there? There could be.”

A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said that the agency was considering the case as part of a review of the safety of diacetyl, which adds the buttery taste to many microwave popcorns, including Orville Redenbacher and Act II.

Producers of microwave popcorn said their products were  safe.

“We’re incredibly interested in learning more about this case. However, we are confident that our product is safe for consumers’ normal everyday use in the home,” said Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for ConAgra Foods, the nation’s largest maker of microwave popcorn.

Ms. Childs said ConAgra planned to remove diacetyl from its microwave popcorn products “in the near future.”

Pop Weaver, another large microwave popcorn producer, has already taken diacetyl out of its popcorn bags “because of consumer concerns” but not because the company believes the chemical is unsafe for consumers, said Cathy Yingling, a company spokeswoman.

The case will most likely accelerate calls on Capitol Hill for the Bush administration to crack down on the use of diacetyl. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been criticized as doing little to protect workers in popcorn plants despite years of studying the issue.

“The government is not doing anything,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who leads a subcommittee with jurisdiction over the food and drug agency’s budget.

Exposure to synthetic butter in food production and flavoring plants has been linked to hundreds of cases of workers whose lungs have been damaged or destroyed. Diacetyl is found naturally in milk, cheese, butter and other products.

Here is more background at USA Today and from an eager trial lawyer (eager to help you!).

Meanwhile, reconsider potato chips.