Category Archives: The Nation

Amen to letter debunking Reagan tax ‘reform’

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Just now remembered that I meant to say a big "Amen!" to the third of these letters that ran on Thursday:

Reagan tax policies began economic slide

I think that if I read one more letter praising Ronald Reagan’s tax policies I will be sick.

I
was in the tax business when his 1986 tax reform act was passed. This
act was revenue-neutral. The cut in the top brackets was accomplished
by cutting numerous deductions that the middle class enjoyed. My own
taxes increased more than $2,500.

The idea, of course, was that
those in the top brackets would create jobs and products. The problem
was the middle class had less money to purchase the products.

From
that point on, the discrepancy in accumulated wealth between the middle
and upper classes began to widen, and the government deficit began to
increase.

If you want real tax reform, I have a suggestion: Allow
those who take the standard deduction also to take their charitable
deductions. This would result in churches and other charities being
able to meet the increasing demands they are facing in this current
economy.

WILLIAM R. GEDDINGS JR.
West Columbia

The first year that tax "reform" took effect was my first year at The State. I had taken a big pay cut to come here from Wichita (I SO wanted to be close to all of y'all and I really, REALLY wanted to get the heck out of Kansas). I mean a big one, like 25 percent. Add to that the fact that I was the first (or at least, the only) editor ever hired from out of state (in our daily meetings, pretty much everyone was a USC grad except for the guy who was ostracized for having gone to Clemson), and there simply did not exist a procedure for compensating such new hires for their moving expenses. My boss fiddled the books (legally, acting within he rightful prerogatives) to give me an extra $1,000 in my first paycheck to help me out with that. I went with the cheapest deal with the movers I could get — we did all the packing, in our own boxes — and we drove a lot of stuff ourselves crammed into our two vehicles like the Clampetts heading for California. With needing to stop for the kids, it took us four days to get here. And the move still cost me $1,500 out of my own pocket, which cleaned out our savings account.

We rented because we couldn't afford to buy, and we kept putting food on the table by my wife taking in other kids to care for them along with our four (our fifth was born here the following year).

And THAT year, thanks to Ronald Reagan's tax "reform," was the first time I EVER had to pay more than had been deducted from my paycheck. In fact, I think it still stands as the ONLY time, but I'm not positive; I'd need to check.

So needless to say, I didn't think much of what the Gipper had done for me. Maybe somebody benefited — Gordon Gekko or somebody — but it was pretty painful for me and mine, hitting me in probably the worst year of my adult life for such an unexpected expense.

Not that we should make tax policy based on how it affects yours truly. I'll leave such arguments as that to my libertarian friends. I'm just saying Mr. Geddings' letter struck a chord with me.

Graham helps me make my mind up about stimulus (It’s bad.)

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First you might want to watch the above video, but if you can't be bothered, at least read what Lindsey Graham had to say to Democrats yesterday:

You can blame George Bush all you want to, but he didn't write this bill, y'all did. This is your bill. It needs to be America's bill. And we may get three or four Republicans to vote with you, but let me tell you what the country is going to inherit if we pass this bill in terms of substance and process. We're going to lose the ability as members of Congress to go to the public and say, Give us some money, let us borrow more of your money to fix housing, because this bill stinks.

The process that's led to this bill stinks. There is no negotiating going on here! Nobody is negotiating! We're making this up as we go! The polling numbers are scaring the hell out of everybody, and they're in a panic. They're running from one corner of the Capitol to the other to try to cobble votes together to lower the cost of the bill to say we solved the problem. This is not the way you spend a trillion dollars!

Here's the thing about this that makes up my mind on the bill he was commenting on: As he said in the interview that followed that clip at the start of the above video, Lindsey Graham believes we need a stimulus. He's not one of these GOP ideologues who opposes all spending and supports all tax cuts. And he, a very smart guy who speaks authoritatively from the sensible center — you know he'll work with the Democrats when they make sense, and stand with the rest of the GOP against them when they don't — indicts the legislation most persuasively.

Before, I was just worried about the legislation. Now, I believe that passing nothing (for now; before long something needs to pass) is better than passing the bill the House and Senate Democrats have been pushing.

DeMint gets face time

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Here's an irony for you:

The story today on the stimulus bill is about how such Senate moderates as Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Republican Susan Collins of Maine are reshaping the legislation. And yet who's getting his picture in the papers? Jim DeMint, who is nobody's notion of a moderate.

He appeared, looming large, on Page 3 of The Wall Street Journal with a story headlined "GOP Wields More Influence Over the Stimulus Bill." That's the picture above. Which sort of makes you think Jim DeMint is one of those "wielding more influence." In fact, his image is being used on the promo for "top stories" on the paper's Web site. But… he's not mentioned in the story. So the picture, apparently, gives a false impression.

I haven't looked at the print version of The New York Times today, but I saw this story on the Web, headlined "Centrists in Senate Push to Cut Billions From Stimulus." Guess whose picture adorns it (along with others; it's a group shot)? Yep — non-centrist Jim DeMint. Then guess who is NOT mentioned in the story? You got it.

Hey, fellas — you want to try coordinating with the guys in photo next time, so that your art actually GOES WITH the story?

In case you wondered how this happened: Well, it's a story with a lot of moving parts, and different media folk are following different parts of it. Those photos are from The Associated Press. The running AP story on the stimulus DOES mention DeMint — as having played a leading role in an unsuccessful effort…

Despite bipartisan concerns about the cost, Republicans failed in a series of attempts on Wednesday to cut back the bill's size.

The most sweeping proposal, advanced by Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican, would have eliminated all the spending and replaced it with a series of tax cuts. It was defeated 61-36.

… which means he's no longer a part of the story of the developing bill. But the picture remains.

This marks one of those rare occasions when our junior senator steals a march on our senior one, mediawise. Our senior senator was at the same press conference as DeMint (see below). But he wasn't in either of the pictures chosen by the two aforementioned papers. Nor was he mentioned in either of their stories, or the AP story.

So much for Lindsey Graham, media hog extraordinaire.

Just an interesting little irony that I noticed in all my reading on the subject, and thought I'd share…

‘Buy American’

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Obama has sided with Republicans and biz types in opposing congressional Democrats' "Buy American" provisions in the stimulus bill, much to the chagrin of the Big Labor lobby.

I thought I had made up my mind on this when I read a story in the WSJ that put Obama on one side, and Harry Reid on the other (my instinct in such a choice is to go with Obama, every time). Besides, I'm a free-trader, and one of my beefs with Obama during the election is that he wasn't.

But when I mentioned that this morning, one of my colleagues strongly disagreed. She said (helping you guess who it was) that if taxpayers were putting up the dough, of course it should stay in this country.

Me, I don't want to take the global economy back to a bunch of little protectionist islands. If the economy starts to recover anywhere, I want the growth to flow freely. But I saw my colleague's argument.

Then, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins (below) came to see us this afternoon, and he talked about how our good friends in the Great White North — our biggest trading partners, the people we get the largest amount of oil from, etc. — are absolutely freaking out about the "Buy American" thing. And with good reason, from their perspective. And they are our good friends and allies. So I value their opinion.

Looking around, I see that Paul "Nobel Prize in Economics" Krugman is no help — on his blog, he argues it both ways (although I admit, I understand his anti-protectionist argument better than his wonkish one to the contrary).

What do you think?

What if Khameini’s not in charge, either?

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Something that occurs to me whenever geopolitical boffins assure us, oh so wisely, that we're letting ourselves be distracted by a mere functionary when we listen to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, since as we all know, in reality, that Ayatollah Khameini is the guy in charge, as Roger Cohen does here…

    Can revolutionary Iran live without “Death to America?” Powerful hard-line Iranian factions think not, but I’m with the majority of Iranians who believe their Islamic Republic can coexist with a functioning U.S. relationship.
    Obama should do five other things: Address his opening to the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, because he decides. State that America is not in the Iranian regime-change game. Act soon rather than wait for the June Iranian presidential elections; Khamenei will still be around after them. Start with small steps that build trust. Treat the nuclear issue within the whole range of U.S.-Iranian relations rather than as its distorting focus.

… is this: How do ya know that Khameini's in charge? What if the thing that "everybody who knows anything knows" is wrong? Maybe, to borrow a phrase from Frank Herbert, it's "a feint within a feint within a feint."

Maybe Ahmadinejad is really the power behind Khameini. Or, more likely, another lesser-known mullah is manipulating Khameini. Or maybe some guy we never heard of, maybe someone completely unlikely — say, some survivor of the Shah's secret police — is really pulling all the mullahs' strings…

In a system that is designed NOT to be transparent — unlike liberal democracies in the West — we should assume that there is much we don't know. Of course, that also means that before we go "negotiating with the Iranians" with all the best will in the world, we know who it is we should be talking to. Personally, I'm not convinced that anyone does know. Talk, by all means. But at the same time, keep asking (at the very least, asking yourself) the question that Chili Palmer asked in "Get Shorty:" "But first I want to know who I'm talking to. Am I talking to you, or am I talking to him?"

Or maybe I'm just being paranoid today. But when you're talking about a country whose nominal leader wants Israel not to exist, which is trying like crazy to get The Bomb, which is the power and the juice behind the Sadrists in Iraq, Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and seems to have a relationship with Sunni Syria not unlike that which Barzini had with Tataglia, a reasonable man would get a little paranoid… Maybe, when Obama and/or Hillary chat with these guys, they should bring along both a Mentat and a Bene Gesserit, just to cover all the bases…

One Democrat fed up with tax deadbeats

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So you think all this stuff about Geithner and Daschle and their taxes is a bunch of Republican spin? Well, maybe it is, but I got an earful about it from one ardent Democrat this morning.

Samuel Tenenbaum, key Energy Party think-tanker, dropped by my breakfast table this morning. This is always an occasion for me to find out what is at the top of his mind — which can range from his 55-mph speed limit plan to endowed chairs (which were also his idea) to, well, almost anything. Samuel reads a lot, and cares a lot, about a heap of stuff.

But today he was fed up with Obama over the tax deadbeats he's been choosing for his administration. He was going on about how this was not the Change he had believed in when he supported Obama. At first, I thought he was mad because the new POTUS wasn't cutting these people loose once the news broke about their failure to pay. But no, he blamed Obama for not having sufficiently vetted these guys to begin with.

Paying your taxes is basic and fundamental, he maintained, and there's just no excuse for nominating people who haven't done that.

Anyway, Samuel convinced me of one thing for sure — that I should at the least put up a post to give y'all a chance to sound off on the subject. Yeah, I'm a little late, since Daschle withdrew his name today, but hey, I was out on medical leave yesterday (nothing serious; routine testing).

Parties playing nice

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Y'all know how I'm always trashing the parties, but when they do something even halfway nice, I do notice. And I was struck by the statement that DNC Chair Tim Kaine put out about Michael Steele becoming his opposite number:

My congratulations to Michael Steele on his election as chairman of the Republican National Committee.  Together, we have the honor of leading our respective Parties during one of the most important periods in our country’s history.   I look forward to working with Chairman Steele as we set out to put partisanship and the politics of the past aside to get our economy working again.  The American people have sent a clear message that the challenges we face are too great for us to get bogged down by outmoded ideological divides. They have challenged us to work together to find practical solutions that will put this country back on the right track. President Obama and the Democratic Party are answering that challenge, and I hope Chairman Steele will join us.

That might not sound like much, but normally the parties don't issue statements about their opposition that it not nasty or catty or worse. So this was an improvement. Yeah, I know — his definition of "putting partisanship aside" means that he wants Mr. Steele to do what the Democrats want. So you can't call this message bipartisan in a strict sense.

But he put it in an unusually nice way, and that's something. Not one slash of the claws. No, if your Aunt Emily sent out a note like this it wouldn't be especially nice, because she's nice all the time. But this is progress for the parties. And we praise children when they take those first baby steps…

Katon comes in second

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Just a moment ago I noticed that Katon Dawson didn't get that job he was gunning for. As y'all know, I really don't have much to say about the parties and whom they choose to lead them. Although there are many fine individual people in each party — and I'm sorry to hear that Katon got disappointed this way — I'd just as soon the parties both sort of dry up and blow away.

I guess it's nice that they picked the black guy instead of the "Barack the Magic Negro" guy. And it's nice for the home team, just speaking chauvinistically, that Katon came in second rather than getting totally crushed. But that's as far as my thoughts take me.

But I thought y'all might have something to say about it, so I pass this on:

BC-Republicans,14th Ld-Writethru/743
Eds: UPDATES throughout, ADDS photo links.
GOP elects first black national party chairman

By LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican Party chose the first black
national chairman in its history Friday, just shy of three months after
the nation elected a Democrat as the first African-American president.
The choice marked no less than "the dawn of a new party," declared the
new GOP chairman, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.

Republicans
chose Steele over four other candidates, including former President
George W. Bush's hand-picked GOP chief, who bowed out declaring,
"Obviously the winds of change are blowing."

Steele takes the
helm of a beleaguered Republican Party that is trying to recover after
crushing defeats in November's national elections that gave Democrats
control of Congress put Barack Obama in the White House.

GOP
delegates erupted in cheers and applause when his victory was
announced, but it took six ballots to get there. He'll serve a two-year
term.

Steele, an attorney, is a conservative, but he was considered the most moderate of the five candidates running.

He
was also considered an outsider because he's not a member of the
Republican National Committee. But the 168-member RNC clearly signaled
it wanted a change after eight years of Bush largely dictating its
every move as the party's standard-bearer.

Steele became the
first black candidate elected to statewide office in Maryland in 2003,
and he made an unsuccessful Senate run in 2006. Currently, he serves as
chairman of GOPAC, an organization that recruits and trains Republican
political candidates, and in that role he has been a frequent presence
on the talk show circuit.

He vowed to expand the reach of the party by competing for every group, everywhere.

"We're
going to say to friend and foe alike: 'We want you to be a part of us,
we want you to with be with us.' And for those who wish to obstruct,
get ready to get knocked over," Steele said.

"There is not one inch of ground that we're going to cede to anybody," he added.

"This is the dawn of a new party moving in a new direction with strength and conviction."

His
job is to spark a revival for the GOP as it takes on an empowered
Democratic Party under the country's first black president in midterm
elections next fall and beyond.

He replaces Mike Duncan, a former
Inez, Ky., banker who abandoned his re-election bid in the face of
dwindling support midway through Friday's voting.

Two others who
trailed farther back in the voting eventually followed suit, former
Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and Michigan GOP chairman Saul
Anuzis.

In the sixth and final round of voting, Steele went
head-to-head with his only remaining opponent, South Carolina GOP chief
Katon Dawson. Steele clinched the election with 91 votes; a majority of
85 committee members was needed.

Just eight years after
Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress, the GOP finds
itself out of power, without a standard-bearer and trying to figure out
how to rebound while its foe seems to grow ever stronger.

The
Democratic Party boasts a broadened coalition of voters — including
Hispanics and young people — who swung behind Obama's call for change.
At the same time, the slice of voters who call themselves Republican
has narrowed. The GOP also has watched as Democrats have dominated both
coasts while making inroads into the West and South, leaving
Republicans with a shrunken base.

Despite the run of GOP losses,
Duncan had argued that he should be re-elected because of his
experience; his five challengers called for change and said they
represented it.

As he left the race, Duncan thanked Bush and said of his two-year tenure: "It truly has been the highlight of my life."

Another
candidate, former Tennessee GOP Chairman Chip Saltsman, withdrew from
the race on the eve of voting and with no explanation, saying only in a
letter to RNC members, "I have decided to withdraw my candidacy."

Saltsman,
who ran former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's failed presidential
campaign last year, saw his bid falter in December after he drew
controversy for mailing to committee members a CD that included a song
titled "Barack the Magic Negro" by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin
and sung to the music of "Puff, the Magic Dragon."

Everything’s up to date in Pelosi city

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Obama finally has his genuine, official presidential seal to speak from behind, but when I saw what Nancy Pelosi did yesterday, the president's trappings looked oh so last century.

Nancy's hep. She's with it. She's on the information superhighway. She's a Cyberspeaker.

Kidding aside, it's smart. You might only get a few seconds on the evening news, but it you can get somebody to go to your Web site, you can unload a truckload of your worldview on 'em. Which she does.

The presidential seal, like a royal coat of arms, communicates traditional authority. A URL communicates information, all you want…

Now, about that ‘zero Republican votes’ thing…

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The last time they did this, I had no doubts that the Republicans were wrong. When not one of them voted for Clinton's Deficit Reduction Act in 1993, it was about as pure an example as I can recall of partisan mule-headedness and populist demagoguery. Not to mention the fact that they were wrong on the issue. Argue cause and effect all you like, the passage of that legislation WAS followed by dramatic deficit reduction. And the way the GOP went to their home districts and told everybody about how those awful Democrats had raised their taxes was unconscionable. Especially when South Carolina Republicans said it — most people in S.C. did not see their taxes increase, unless you count the 4-cent rise in gasoline tax. And what importance can you honestly attach to 4 cents a gallon when monthly fluctuations in price are usually far more than that? (Of course, you know what I think about gas taxes.)

I remember actually watching TV news — something you know I don't often do — during that vote. Somebody had Al Gore on live, and Al was as stiff and awkward and priggish as only he can be as he talked about how wrong the Republicans were not to support it, with the roll call going on in the background (I'm thinking it was the Senate; in any case not one Republican in Congress voted for it). But he was right.

This time, I'm not as sure. I'd LIKE for our elected representatives to get together on anything as big as spending $819 billion, rather than splitting along partisan lines. I mean, if we're going to do it, let's do it together — doing it divided increases the chances that it the stimulus will fail. I say that because Phil Gramm had a point — so much of the economy is psychological. If the country sees this as THE plan that everyone agrees on, the country is more likely to have its confidence boosted. If it sees every member of one of the two major parties (for now) decry it as a waste doomed to fail, we could be looking at some self-fulfilled prophecy.

That said, I don't know but what a Republican — or UnPartisan, or anyone else — who says this plan isn't going to do the job doesn't have a point. After all, Paul Krugman says it won't, and he's no Republican.

On the other hand, their reason why this package isn't quite the thing is all bass-ackwards. They complain that only about a third of it is tax cuts. Well, I'm worried that a third of it IS tax cuts, and that those tax cuts will have zero effect on stimulating the economy. I haven't seen figures yet on exactly what the tax cuts will mean to the average American, but as I pointed out before, in an earlier version, the amount we're talking about would have given each worker only about $9 a week — which is just barely enough to go to a movie. By yourself. If you don't buy popcorn.

If you're going to have a stimulus package, either SPEND enough to really kick-start the economy (and this doesn't appear to be enough), or target tax cuts to where they are likely to stimulate some real activity. Unfortunately, in trying to provide something for everybody — and then going to woo the GOP in person — Obama may have produced a solution that doesn't do enough of anything. And then, after all that trouble, you fail to get the bipartisan support that you were trying to buy with that $300 billion in tax cuts.

As for what you will probably hear them yammer about most on TV news (and in the rest of the blogosphere) — what partisan political effect this vote will have — I don't have a dog in that fight. Whether the Republicans have cooked their own goose by voting against a plan that will work, or set themselves up to be blamed for it NOT working, or are poised to recapture the House because they were the only ones to see it wouldn't work, or whatever… I don't care. I'd like to see both parties suffer in the next election, just on general UnPartisan principles. Unfortunately, I might get my wish: The stimulus could fail, and both parties be blamed — but that be the least of the nation's worries. You know what I'd be worried about right now if I were a Republican? I'd worry that my caucus just invested its hopes in economic failure — just as Harry Reid et al. bet all their chips on our failing in Iraq. That's not a position you want to be in — your nation having to fail for you to be right. But that's their lookout, not mine.

For my part, I hope the stimulus works. Or that something we do soon works. And as long as it does, I don't care who gets the credit — even a political party.

How porky can stimulus be, if Clyburn’s not getting his bridge?

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There's a certain irony — not necessarily a contradiction, but irony — in the fact that Republicans are pinning their opposition to the ginormous stimulus bill the House passed yesterday on allegations that it's just a bunch of pork for Democrats' home districts…

… while the favorite public works proposal of the third most-powerful Democrat in the House is NOT included.

Yes, I get it that Jim Clyburn says it's not for a lack of political will to fund it, but rather a matter of those pesky environmentalists tying it up with a lawsuit. He maintains that if it weren't for the blasted tree-huggers, he'd have gotten the span between Lone Star and Rimini funded.

But it's still ironic. If this project that he has wanted so badly for so long can't make it into an unprecedented, extraordinary $3.2 billion infusion of federal funds into South Carolina, it's probably missed its best chance ever.

As for what IS in the $819 billion extravaganza, I have not audited it to see whether it's pork or not. It does occur to me that just about anything that would meet the standards of what the stimulus is supposed to be — extra spending, on stuff the federal government would not normally spend on, "shovel-ready" and labor-intensive — it would probably be something that someone could legitimately call "pork" if they are so inclined. Think about it: What IS pork? Generally, it means something spent in some elected representative's district that would not meet normal standards of being a national spending priority (or state priority, when we're talking pork on that level of government). Well, presumably if it were something that had been determined to be a national priority, it would have been funded already.

Bottom line, I don't know what the percentage of overlap between the two sets (good stimulus projects on the one hand, "pork" on the other) would be — say, 80 or 90 percent, just to venture a wild guess? — but it seems like there would be very strong correlation.

Or am I missing something?

Anyway, I made that point to a colleague earlier today, and he said, "Yeah, well what about this mandate that NASA spend on fighting global warming — that's not a job-producer." I said, "well, it would probably mean jobs for the engineers and techno-geeks required to implement it." He said, "but NASA already has engineers." And I said, "Yes, but if what I was reading in The Economist this morning is correct, a lot of them would otherwise be losing their jobs because Obama doesn't want to follow through on the Bush goals of going back to the Moon and on to Mars." That's gotta mean some latter-day Werner von Brauns joining the unemployment lines. (Which is a whole nother debate I may raise in a separate post.)

I don't know; we're probably both right. Which means Democrats can say this is a great stimulus bill, and Republicans say it's a bunch of pork, and nobody be lying…

Why is it so hard to say ‘abortion?’

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There's nothing unusual about this, but about the thousandth time this morning, in reading an editorial from the weekend in The New York Times, I marveled at how long it took to get past all the pro-choice euphemisms ("women's health," "reproductive health and freedom," "safeguard women's lives," "free speech") and get to the one operative word upon which the issue turns:

Women’s Health, Ungagged
    President Obama on Friday began dismantling his predecessor’s broad and damaging assault on women’s reproductive health and freedom. He lifted the odious gag rule that President George W. Bush imposed on international family planning groups and began trying to restore financing to the United Nations Population Fund.
    It was a reassuring message that Mr. Obama takes seriously his duty to safeguard women’s lives and basic rights, including free speech and the choice of whether to bear a child.
    The gag rule was first imposed by President Ronald Reagan. It barred any health care provider receiving American family planning assistance from counseling women on abortion, engaging in political speech on abortion or providing abortions, even with its own money…

By my count (actually, by Microsoft Word's count — what, you think I've got time to sit and count them?), it took 113 words to get to "abortion." Which actually isn't all that bad, I guess, compared to some instances I've seen. But it strikes me as about 100 words, or two paragraphs, late, by any reasonable standard of getting to the point.

But then, I'm a word guy — and specifically, an editorial guy — so I probably notice stuff like that more than most people do. Also, I disagree with the NYT on the issue, so I'm that much more likely to notice how much they feel compelled to dress up the concept, with layer upon layer of rhetorical clothing, before bringing it out.

McCain, Graham support Obama on Gitmo

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FYI, I just got this release from Lindsey Graham's office:

JOINT STATEMENT FROM U.S. SENATORS LINDSEY GRAHAM AND JOHN MCCAIN ON GUANTANAMO EXECUTIVE ORDER

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and John McCain (R-Arizona) today issued the following statement regarding the executive order put forth by President Obama calling for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo:  

“We support President Obama’s decision to close the prison at Guantanamo, reaffirm America’s adherence to the Geneva Conventions, and begin a process that will, we hope, lead to the resolution of all cases of Guantanamo detainees,” said Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain.  “The executive orders issued today constitute an important step in the right direction but leave several major issues unaddressed.”
“Numerous difficult issues remain,” Senator Graham and Senator McCain continued.  “Present at Guantanamo are a number of detainees who have been cleared for release but have found no foreign country willing to accept them.  Other detainees have been deemed too dangerous for release, but the sensitive nature of the evidence makes prosecution difficult.  The military’s proper role in processing detainees held on the battlefield at Bagram, Afghanistan, and other military prisons around the world must be defended, but that is left unresolved.  Also unresolved is the type of judicial process that would replace the military commissions. We believe the military commissions should have been allowed to continue their work.  We look forward to working with the President and his administration on these issues, keeping in mind that the first priority of the U.S. government is to guarantee the security of the American people.”

            ####

… which seems to me an appropriate stance for the loyal opposition. They support their commander in chief because they share his concerns that our nation live up to its highest ideals — which is completely consistent with their advocacy during the Bush administration. (And remember, McCain said that he, too, would have closed the Gitmo facility if elected.) At the same time, they make sure they get on the record the unresolved problems inherent in this move. Smart, principled and appropriate.

Well, at least he was civil about it…

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South Carolina's senators split — again — today on the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Guess which one voted against? (Hint: It was NOT the guy Obama's going to be looking to for foreign policy advice.) But he managed to be quite civil about it, saying:

    The memorandum of understanding signed by the foundation leaves a lot of discretion to Senator Clinton.  During her confirmation hearing, Sen. Lugar presented a request for more acceptable disclosures, and Sen. Kerry, as chairman, supported these recommendations. Unfortunately, Sen. Clinton has not agreed to follow even these modest recommendations.    
    For these reasons, I will be voting against the nomination, but I will do so with nothing but sincere hope and goodwill toward our new Secretary of State, and pray for her success as she takes the helm of the State Department.

Meanwhile Lindsey Graham put out this statement:

Graham Supports Clinton for Secretary of State
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement after Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State.  The vote in the Senate was 94-2.
    “Hillary Clinton will serve our nation well as Secretary of State.  She understands the enormous domestic and international challenges facing our nation.  In choosing Hillary Clinton, President Obama has selected a person of great substance, skill, and intellect. 
     “President Obama won the election and has earned the right to put his team in place.  The presidential campaign is over but the wars our nation is engaged in are not.  Our young men and women around the world in harms way need an advocate on the world stage.”
            ####

Of course, he and Hillary have always gotten along pretty cordially.

How would I have voted? Well, as you know, I didn't think this was the best call Obama has made. Some other job, yes, but I don't think secretary of state is the best place to put your chief rival. The SecState should be understood as completely subordinate to the president, and that seems a tough role for her.

But in the end, Graham says it well: This is the president's call. If this is who he wants, barring some really compelling reason to reject her, I say get her in place as soon as possible. Yeah, I think the Clinton foundation thing is a problem. But then Bill is always a problem for Hillary. No matter how much disclosure, there would be a problem. Not enough to vote "no" for me, though.

President Obama’s been a very busy bee today

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About midafternoon yesterday, I remarked to someone that by that time, Barack Obama had to be pretty tired — and that was before he and the missus stayed out until 1 a.m. at the parties.

Who could have blamed him if he'd chosen to sleep in today? But that's not his style. Here's what he's done so far today:

{BC-Obama-Day One, 12th Ld-Writethru,1110}
{Obama's Day One: recession, war, ethics}
{Eds: UPDATES with Obama quote from open house; restores dropped} 'billion' in 23rd graf. Moving on general news and financial services. AP Video.
{With BC-Inauguration-Poll, BC-Guantanamo-Sept 11 Trial}
{AP Photo DCJH101, DCCD102, DCJH105, DCJH103, WHRE107, DCSA101,} WHRE108
{By JENNIFER LOVEN}=
{AP White House Correspondent}=
   WASHINGTON (AP) — In a first-day flurry of activity, President Barack Obama set up shop in the Oval Office, summoned advisers to begin dealing with war and recession and ordered new ethics rules for "a clean break from business as usual."
   He also froze salaries for top White House staff members, placed phone calls to Mideast leaders and had aides circulate a draft executive order that would close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year.
   "The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable," Obama said as he unveiled ethics rules that he portrayed as the fulfillment of a major campaign promise. He said the action was necessary "to help restore that faith in government without which we cannot deliver the changes we were sent here to make."
   Devoting swift attention to the Mideast turmoil, Obama prepared to name George Mitchell, the former Senate Democratic leader, a special envoy to the region.
   In his phone calls to Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders, Obama emphasized that he would work to consolidate the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, said the new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs.
   Gibbs said Obama expressed "his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term."
   The enormity of Obama's challenge on the economy was evident in the mixed messages coming from Capitol Hill.
   Rep. David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, expressed doubt that the currently planned $825 billion economic stimulus package would be enough, calling the proposal "no silver bullet." At the same time, House Republicans requested a meeting with Obama to air their worries that the plan was too big.
   A multi-denominational prayer service at Washington National Cathedral and an open house at the presidential mansion were also on the schedule of the 44th president, taking office on a promise to fix the battered economy and withdraw U.S. troops from the unpopular war in Iraq on a 16-month timetable.
   At the open house, Obama and his wife, Michelle, shook hands with a line of guests streaming through the Blue Room, some of them moved to tears by the experience.
   "Enjoy yourself, roam around," a smiling Obama told one guest as he passed through the room. "Don't break anything."
   The shift in administrations — former President George W. Bush was back home in Texas — was underscored in far-off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where a judge granted Obama's request to suspend the war crimes trial of a young Canadian. The judge issued a one-sentence order for the 120-day continuance without so much as a hearing, possibly the beginning of the end for the former administration's system of trials for alleged terrorists.
   A draft executive order made clear the new president intends to go further. It called for closing the facility within a year, releasing some of the 245 detainees still there and transferring others to different sites for trial.
   Pushing back pre-emptively, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said the draft order raises difficult questions.
   "The key question is where do you put these terrorists?" he said. "Do you bring them inside our borders? Do you release them back into the battlefield? … Most local communities around America don't want dangerous terrorists imported into their neighborhoods, and I can't blame them."
   Among Obama's executive orders:
   —A freeze on salaries for White House staff earning $100,000 or more — about 100 people in all.
   —New Freedom of Information Act rules, making it harder to keep the workings of government secret.
   —Tighter ethics rules governing when administration officials can work on issues on which they previously lobbied governmental agencies, and banning them from lobbying the Obama administration after leaving government service.
   Obama and first lady Michelle Obama sat in the first row for Wednesday's invitation-only prayer service. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, joined them, as did former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., awaiting confirmation as secretary of state later in the day.
   "Grant to Barack Obama, president of the United States, and to all in authority your grace and good will. Bless them with your heavenly gifts, give them wisdom and strength to know and to do your will," prayed the Rev. Andy Stanley, one of numerous clerics from several religions to speak.
   Obama's first White House meetings as president meshed with quickened efforts in Congress to add top Cabinet officials to the roster of those confirmed on Tuesday and to advance the economic stimulus measure that is a top priority of his administration.
   Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner, appearing before the Senate Finance Committee for a confirmation hearing, said enactment of the new president's economic stimulus was essential. He also said the Senate's decision last week to permit use of the second $350 billion installment of a financial industry bailout "will enable us to take the steps necessary to help get credit flowing."
   He said Obama and he "share your belief that this program needs serious reform."
   Geithner also apologized for his failure to pay personal taxes earlier in the decade, calling the omission a mistake. The taxes were repaid in stages, some after an IRS audit and the rest after a review of his returns late last year by Obama's transition team.
   Obama and his wife arrived at the White House around 1 a.m. after attending 10 official inaugural balls.
   Several hours later he walked into the most famous office in America for the first time as president.
   The new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement that Obama spent 10 minutes alone and read a note left for him by Bush that was in an envelope marked "To: 44, From: 43."
   He was then joined by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and, several minutes later, the first lady.
   Wednesday's meeting with economic advisers was coming at a time when 11 million Americans are out of work and millions more feel the loss of savings and face the prospect of foreclosures on their homes.
   Last week, Congress cleared the way for use of the second installment of financial-industry bailout money, a pre-inaugural victory for Obama.
   Democratic leaders hope to have the $825 billion economic stimulus measure to his desk by mid-February.
   The war in Iraq that he has prom
ised to end featured prominently in Obama's first day as well.
   Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, were among those called in for the meeting as the new president assumed the role of commander in chief.
   In his inaugural address on Tuesday, Obama said his goal was to "responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan."

If he were a cubicle worker, the guy in the next cubicle would be saying, "Pace yourself, dude; you're making the rest of us look bad." Think Jon Lovitz in "Big."

But I guess this is one of the advantages to having a young president. Just chock full o' energy.

Obama’s inaugural speech

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This morning, I got a phone message from an acquaintance who thought my column today was great, which struck me as a little surprising since I know the caller to be of libertarian persuasion. Especially since it was about Obama's inauguration, and the WSJ reported this morning that — as I read it — his speech today will be of a communitarian bent (yes! thought I). Yes, I know libertarians claim "responsibility" as a theme as well, but they mean something very different from communitarians when they use the word. With Obama, it's more like:

"Given the crisis that we're in and the hardships that so many people
are going through, we can't allow any idle hands," Mr. Obama said,
taking a break from painting a dormitory at Sasha Bruce House, a
shelter for homeless teens. "Everybody's got to be involved.
Everybody's going to have to pitch in, and I think the American people
are ready for that."

As I said, the communitarian sense of responsibility. And to that I say, amen.

Anyway, the speech itself is beginning now, and I thought y'all might want a place to comment on it. So here you go.

Something completely different

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
Perhaps it would be a bit much to quote from the Book of Revelation: “Behold, I make all things new!” How about Monty Python? “And Now For Something Completely Different….”
    There is a tension in the air today between two ways of viewing the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States. On the one hand you have thousands upon thousands who have scraped and planned and arranged to be in Washington — or the millions upon millions who will be watching from a distance and with them in spirit — who are fairly vibrating, resonating with communal anticipation. This includes elderly black folk who are praising God because they never thought they’d see the day. It contains — just barely, given the magnitude of their excitement — young people of all colors who left school and jobs and suspended their lives for a year and more to work toward this day. And more conventionally, it includes Democrats who are as thrilled as any group of partisans have ever been that their guy is finally going to replace that other guy.
    On the other hand, there are those who think this is all a bit much, or more than a bit: Whoop-tee-do, they think. A guy won an election. He’s just this guy, you know. Meet the new boss; same as the old boss. Nothing changes: One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
    Some of the latter, jaded, unexcited group are Republicans. Pretty much all of them are white. There’s not necessarily anything bad about them; they don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade. They just sort of want it over with. As Kathleen Parker suggests in the column on the facing page, there’s just so much earnestness and idealistic hoorah that one thinking person can possibly stand as we stride forth into this new age. That doesn’t make Ms. Parker a bad person. And I know that neither she nor the others in the “this is all a bit much” set are bad people, because, well, I’m sort of one of them.
    Or at least, I was. In the last few days, I changed my mind. The cynics are wrong, and the folks who just can’t contain themselves have it exactly right.
    I wrote the editorial above. I went into it as a chore that needed to get done and out of the way — one of those obligatory editorials you sometimes do, not because you had something you and your colleagues on the editorial board were burning to say, but because the particular moment in history demanded that you take note and say something.
    You may think that writing an editorial is about figuring out how to say what you already know you think. And often it is. But sometimes, it’s a process in which you discover what you think. That’s what happened here. The more I looked and read and reflected upon where we are as a nation and how and why we got here, the more I realized how significant this inauguration is, and how it differed from the previous 13 of my lifetime.
    No, it’s not that he’s a black guy. Yes, that’s a huge milestone for the country, and worth celebrating, but if you focus too much on that you miss just how different this moment is. As I said in the editorial, the nation chose much more than a racial first in this election: “It chose youth. It chose intellect. It chose pragmatism over the constant ideological bickering of recent years. It chose the promise of action rather than stalemate. It chose, in a word, change.”
    Yes, any new president represents change. But this change is generational, and attitudinal, and fundamental. The closest thing in my lifetime was when the generation of Dwight Eisenhower handed off to the generation of John F. Kennedy, but even that falls short. In choosing Barack Obama, the nation really took a risk and got out of its comfort zone. For Democrats, the safe and obvious choice was Hillary Clinton, or someone like Joe Biden (a point that underlines Mr. Obama’s wisdom in choosing his running mate, a move that made the risk more palatable). In the general election, even the “maverick” opponent was the safer, more comfortable, more conventional choice.
    This country decided it had had enough of the kinds of politics and government that we’ve had up to now. It chose a man who was practically a novice in politics and government — which made him untainted, but also meant he had almost no relevant experience. And yet, he possessed the eloquence and demeanor and intellect and attitude that persuaded us that he could deliver on the promised change.
    And you know what? I think he can, and will. I’ve seen proof. One example, which speaks volumes: his decision to pull South Carolina’s own Sen. Lindsey Graham — John McCain’s closest acolyte, leading advocate of our nation’s presence in Iraq — into his circle of foreign policy advisers. By sending Sen. Graham with Sen. Biden to Iraq and Afghanistan, and then appearing with both men to draw attention to the fact, explaining that he was “drafting” Sen. Graham “as one of our counselors in dealing with foreign policy,” the president-elect charted new ground. He threw out the rule book of partisan and ideological convention, and he did so in the pursuit of the very best ideas, the ones most likely to serve the nation and its interests and allies going forward.
    I’ve never seen anything like this, and neither have you. This is something completely different, and yet something that, after today, we’re going to see a lot more of. And that’s a wonderful thing for this country. It’s worth getting really excited about.

For more that’s different, go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

DeMint stars in Moyers report on how Dems killed earmark reform

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Here's something that will jar a few of your preconceived notions (at least, among those who were so dismissive of Bill Moyers a while back as a liberal shill): It's a Bill Moyers report on PBS that calls Democratic leaders to task for double-crossing Jim DeMint and deep-sixing earmark reform.

Remember when everyone was so impressed that Nancy Pelosi was working with Sen. DeMint on this issue? Well, this report tells the rest of the story, of how the promise was undone.

An excerpt from the transcript:

SYLVIA CHASE: But what Senator Reid wasn't saying was that the reform measure contained a caveat. Senators wouldn't have to disclose any earmarks that went to federal entities.
But in the Defense Bill, almost all the earmarks first go to federal entities before being passed along to private contractors. In effect, senators would be able to hide almost every earmark. And that prompted a challenge from Senator Jim DeMint — a champion of earmark transparency. The South Carolina Republican made a startling admission.
JIM DEMINT: Many in this Chamber know I don't often agree with Speaker Pelosi, but Speaker Pelosi has the right idea.
SYLVIA CHASE: And a stunning proposal.As an amendment to the Ethics Bill, the staunchly conservative Republican DeMint proposed that the Senate adopt word-for-word the House version of earmark reform marshaled through by the liberal Democrat Nancy Pelosi
JIM DEMINT: We proposed the DeMint-Pelosi Amendment. And I presented it on the floor. And the place was quiet.
JIM DEMINT: This is the language which the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has put in this lobbying reform bill in order to make it more honest and transparent.
SYLVIA CHASE: It was a brilliant tactical move. If the Democratic majority was to reject DeMint's amendment it would mean rejecting the much stronger earmark disclosure rules crafted under their own party's high profile Speaker of the House.
JIM DEMINT: Harry Reid did not want this to come for a vote. He made a motion to table it, which gives the members some cover because you're not really voting against the amendment. You're just voting to table it.
SYLVIA CHASE: "Tabling" the so-called DeMint-Pelosi Amendment would mean removing it from consideration — effectively, killing it.
HARRY REID: I would appeal to my friend from South Carolina. I repeat: I know you are doing this because you think it is the right thing to do. But take the opportunity to look at what is here. It is better than the House version – so much better.
JIM DEMINT: And Senator Reid assumed as most people did including me that he would get fifty-one votes to table it. And we had a few heroes on the Democrat side that joined us, Barack Obama, relatively new senator, bucked his party and voted with us.
SENATE PRESIDING OFFICER: On this vote the ayes are 46, the nays are 51. The motion to table is not agreed to.
JIM DEMINT: And we defeated the tabling motion. Well once the tabling motion failed by a vote or two, everyone knew they were going to have to vote on the real thing and it was like 98 to nothing. I mean this is the kind of thing that if, if senators know America can see what they're voting on, they were afraid not to vote for it.
SYLVIA CHASE: Indeed, with all eyes watching — 98 senators voted in favor of the artfully crafted DeMint-Pelosi Amendment; not one opposed it.
The junior senator from South Carolina had taken on the powerful Senate Majority Leader and won. Or so it appeared. Remember: this was an amendment to a wide-ranging ethics bill. And before a bill becomes a law, its final language must be worked out between both houses of Congress. Steve Ellis, a leading earmark reform advocate in Washington, explains how the game works.
STEVE ELLIS: So rather than doing what the House did which was simply change their rules. You're done the next day. Everything is changed and you have to abide by earmark reform, people could still modify it before it actually ended up becoming the rules of the Senate.
SYLVIA CHASE: Which is precisely what happened.

You can watch the video here (sorry, I couldn't find imbed code).

By the way, Barack Obama — whom DeMint had occasion to praise back at the start of this tale ("And we had a few heroes on the Democrat side that joined us, Barack Obama, relatively new senator, bucked his party and voted with us.") — does not escape Moyers' skepticism. Near the top, he notes:

BILL MOYERS: No earmarks will be allowed and if you thought you hadn't heard him correctly, he repeated it in his big speech on Thursday. None of those hidden pet projects with multi-million dollar price tags that individual members of Congress sneak into bills for special interests or campaign contributors. Can it be true? Have we really crossed the bridge to nowhere for the last time?
Don't hold your breath. As a senator, Barack Obama himself was no slouch when it came to passing out earmarks. And many of the people in his incoming administration are accomplished practitioners…

Looks like Blago’s pick WILL be seated now

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It appears that now the Senate leadership is bending over backwards to seat Roland Burris. What a mess. There is, of course, no good and honorable way out of this for any of us, given the following absurd facts:

  • The ridiculous person who is STILL governor of Illinois is utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling shame, or honor. There was a time (I think — or am I just romanticizing?) when anyone caught in a wringer this way would bow his head and disappear (in ancient Rome, he'd have sliced himself open in a hot tub — which I am NOT advocating here, I'm just noting the contrast). Not now. Not Blago.
  • The fact that Mr. Burris had no more pride than to stand up and accept the appointment. That was my first reaction when I heard about this over my vacation: Who would accept this under these circumstances? The answer: Mr. Burris would. This guy has no particular big strikes against him, they say. But this is a pretty big strike all by its lonesome. What's in the water up there?
  • The fact that this jerk is still the governor, and hasn't even been indicted, and we've got this "innocent until proven guilty" shtick in this country. Situations like this can make you hanker after the Napoleonic Code.

I figure that's enough to get y'all started on the subject. Fire away.

The subprime mess in microcosm

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For those of you who have trouble wrapping your mind around the subprime mess that led to all our other economic woes, here's an instructive anecdote from the WSJ on Saturday. It's about a condemned house in Avondale, Ariz. An excerpt:

The story of the two-bedroom, one-bath shack on West Hopi Street, is
the story of this year's financial panic, told in 576 square feet. It
helps explain how a series of bad decisions can add up to the worst
financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Less than two years ago, Integrity Funding LLC, a local lender, gave
a $103,000 mortgage to the owner, Marvene Halterman, an unemployed
woman with a long list of creditors and, by her own account, a long
history of drug and alcohol abuse. By the time the house went into
foreclosure in August, Integrity had sold that loan to Wells Fargo & Co., which had sold it to a U.S. unit of HSBC Holdings PLC, which had packaged it with thousands of other risky mortgages and sold it in pieces to scores of investors.

You know, subprime aside, I was always uneasy about my mortgage being bought and sold as part of financial "instruments." But I figured the problem was me — the fact that I'm seldom comfortable with the way things work in the world of finance.

We could have avoided all this trouble if mortgages had remained on a personal level, with your banker or George Bailey or whoever you sat down with to take out the mortgage having a personal stake in your ability to pay him back — rather than having it bundled and bartered by people who made their money from the transaction itself, not from any real value the original agreement might have had. That's my communitarian take on it, anyway.