Giving Hutchinson a look

Faced with a choice between Tim Pawlenty and Mike Hatch as the major-party candidates for governor, I'm leaning toward option #3: Peter Hutchinson.

Hutchinson was Rudy Perpich's Finance Commissioner. He also has had a long career in corporate America and in 1993 was superintendent of the Minneapolis public schools.

He gave a talk at the Humphrey Institute on Thursday; you can listen to the audio here at MPR.

In the talk he discussed "outcome-based" government -- not blindly cutting or raising taxes, but figuring out how best to use the taxes Minnesotans are willing to pay. Giving them their money's worth, in other words.

That's a pleasant generality, of course; the devil is in the details. But he has provided some level-headed details, liks his transportation and health-care proposals.

The latter is especially promising, combining a version of the Romney plan for mandatory health coverage with a shift in reimbursement practices to pay for healthy outcomes, not just procedures performed.

And I liked his promise not to get distracted by side issues. Asked if he would sign a bill loosening abortion restrictions, he said no -- but he also wouldn't sign a bill tightening them. Why? Because such bills are a distraction from the real business of government. You could criticize that as a deft attempt to sidestep a controversial issue. But I like the idea of keeping our eye on the ball and concentrating on accomplishing things that all Minnesotans want and need -- not satisfying partisan constituencies.

Are all of his ideas great ones? No. But at least he has some, not just trotting out the same tired rhetoric like Pawlenty and Hatch are doing. At this point in the game, I'm leaning toward giving him an opportunity to show what he can do.

Find out more: Here's his campaign web site.

governor, Hutchinson, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Ceasefire takes hold in Lebanon

The guns fell (mostly) silent today in Lebanon, and refugees began heading home in droves.

The fighting went right up to the deadline, and afterwards there were hiccups: scattered clashes between Israel and Hezbollah. But nothing serious or unexpected.

The biggest question now is when the Lebanese/UN force will deploy into South Lebanon. Various observers have raised concerns, such as:

1. Whether it will happen (Captain's Quarters).

2. Whether it will involve disarmament of Hezbollah (Times of London).

3. When it will happen (Jerusalem Post).

Regarding the first question, I think the answer is "yes." As to the last two, it's still up in the air. Here's what Lebanon's UN ambassador had to say:

"Lebanon will be, I think, the last state to sign a peace treaty with Israel," UN ambassador Nouhad Mahmoud told CNN television's "Late Edition" program, without explaining the remark.

He called the agreement a "crucial" test for all the parties involved.

"Now it is the moment of truth for everyone, and we'll see who will abide by the Security Council resolutions and who will not, so (what) we have this week is very crucial," Mahmoud said.

The diplomat added that the 15,000 Lebanese soldiers to be dispatched to south Lebanon to help keep the peace alongside a similarly-sized international UN force "are not going to use force" to disarm the Hezbollah militia which has been battling Israel.

"Hezbollah will just leave the area as armed elements as I understand it, and the Lebanese army will take over the whole region along with the
United Nations forces," he said.

This is probably how it'll shake out -- Hezbollah heading north, but keeping its weapons. That's less satisfactory than disarmament, but it still accomplishes the two key objectives: Pushing them out of rocket range of Israel, inserting Lebanese and UN troops in between as a buffer force, and finally getting Lebanon to assert responsibility for what goes on in its territory.

Lots of things could still go wrong. But for now, there's hope.

Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, politics, midtopia

Tip led to foiled plot

To all my readers that have e-mailed me in the past explaining that the problem is Islam and there are no peaceful or moderate Muslims, I give you this:

It all began with a tip: In the aftermath of the July 7, 2005, subway bombings in London, British authorities received a call from a worried member of the Muslim community, reporting general suspicions about an acquaintance.

From that vague but vital piece of information, according to a senior European intelligence official, British authorities opened the investigation into what they said turned out to be a well-coordinated and long-planned plot to bomb multiple trans-Atlantic flights heading toward the United States -- an assault designed to rival the scope and lethality of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings.

Had we treated all Muslims as the enemy, we would not have gotten that tip, and 4,000 people might be dead.

Let's focus on the real bad guys, not define our enemies so broadly that we create a conflict we cannot win.

London, Islam, terrorism, politics, midtopia

US, France, Israel agree on cease-fire proposal

A revised US-France ceasefire proposal has been submitted to the UN Security Council. A vote is expected later today.

It looks pretty good, to my mind.

sources close to the negotiations said the deal would create a 400-square-mile zone inside Lebanon from which Hezbollah militia would be excluded.

Under the draft resolution, the number of U.N. troops in the area would be increased from 2,000 to a maximum of 15,000; they would be joined by 15,000 Lebanese troops.

This accomplishes two very important things: Makes Lebanon responsible for its entire territory, and gets Hezbollah out of South Lebanon. Those hold real promise if they can be pulled off.

There are still things left undone by this proposal: A related step should be finally settling the Lebanese-Israeli border and signing a permanent peace agreement.

Lebanon's reaction isn't known yet; that might be a hurdle, because Lebanon didn't want an international peacekeeping force. But the UN cover might address that.

Israel has endorsed it even while preparing a new ground offensive.

Cross your fingers and hope Lebanon accepts it.

Lebanon, Israel, politics, midtopia

Me and Max Boot

Here's an interesting discovery. My opinion on Iraq -- either get serious or get out -- is shared by Max Boot, a conservative former Wall Street Journal editorial writer and general war supporter.

Which path should we take? My preference remains deploying more soldiers, not fewer. A couple of divisions in Baghdad, if skillfully led, might be able to replicate the success that Col. H.R. McMaster's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment had in pacifying the western city of Tall Afar, where the troops-to-civilians ratio was 10 times higher than in Baghdad today. But at this point, I am also open to a substantial reduction in troop numbers because the current strategy just isn't working.

Bush needs to do something radical to shake up a deteriorating status quo if we are to have any hope of averting the worst American military defeat since Vietnam.

He even shares my opinion about Tall Afar!

Either I'm more of a neo-con than I thought, or Max Boot is more of a liberal than he thinks, or else the situation is getting so bad that even war supporters can see it.

Max Boot, Iraq, politics, midtopia

British terror plot foiled

Yeah, me and a million other blogs noticed.

British authorities said Thursday they had disrupted a well-advanced "major terrorist plot" to blow up passenger flights between the United Kingdom and the United States using liquid explosives, prompting a full-scale security clampdown at U.S. and British airports and a cascade of delays in transatlantic flights.

The plot was well planned, well financed and "well advanced," U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said at a news conference Thursday morning in Washington. It was "about as sophisticated as anything we've seen in recent years as far as terrorism is concerned. . . . This was not a situation with a handful of people sitting around dreaming about terrorist plots."

The Brits arrested 21 people, and speculated that the plan bore all the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda operation.

First, nice work by the Brits. This was a real plot, with real bad guys -- unlike, say, the doofuses we arrested in Miami a while back. These are the kind of people we are talking about when we discuss fighting terrorism.

Even better news, despite breathless hyperbole from some right-wing sites about how close we came to disaster, is that the plotters had been under surveillance for months. The cops moved in when it looked like the plot was about to be set in motion. So the actual danger -- from this plot, anyway -- was practically nil thanks to good police work.

Predictably, a lot of Bush backers are trumpeting this as evidence we need to give the government even more intrusive surveillance powers. They criticize people who oppose "surveillance" of terrorists.

Speaking as one of those people, however, they're misstating the debate. The issue isn't "should we fight terrorists?" It's not "should we use wiretaps?" It's not "Should we take security concerns seriously?"

It's about method, not goal. It's whether serious inroads on civil liberties are really necessary in order to make us secure. It's whether, even if such methods make us somewhat more secure, they are worth the loss of freedom.

Just as an example, nobody I've run into opposes wiretapping suspected terrorists; many of us just think the government should have to get a warrant to do so. That's not being "soft" on security. It's taking seriously the threat of government abuse of power.

But that's neither here nor there at the moment. A plot was foiled. For one day, let us merely be thankful.

al-Qaeda, Britain, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Opposition to Iraq war keeps growing

This could rewrite the electoral landscape in November.

Sixty percent of Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iraq, the highest number since polling on the subject began with the commencement of the war in March 2003, according to poll results and trends released Wednesday.

And a majority of poll respondents said they would support the withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops by the end of the year, according to results from the Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last week on behalf of CNN. The corporation polled 1,047 adult Americans by telephone.

I don't put much stock in polls, and I don't recommend getting too hepped up about this one. But the trend line is steep enough to grab attention.

If you take it at face value, it helps explain the defeat of Joe Lieberman in a way that doesn't focus on the myriad shortcomings of Ned Lamont. If 60 percent of Americans feel this way, then being a war supporter could be ballot-box poison nationwide, not just among Connecticut Democrats.

To address that, however, you'd have to examine how the poll breaks down by party and geography -- and given a sample size of 1,047, those subsamples would probably be small enough to strain margin-of-error boundaries.

It's an article of faith among pro-war Republicans that Iraq is still a winning issue for them, as they try to frame the debate as being between "stay the course" Republicans and witless "cut-and-run" Democrats.

Whatever you may think of that spin, this poll suggests that the Republicans may simply be wrong about the fundamentals, badly misreading the public mood.

It bears watching, if nothing else.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Moderate Schwarz loses in Michigan

Demonstrating why moderates need to get more involved in their local parties, incumbent Rep. Joe Schwarz, a moderate Republican in Michigan, lost his primary race yesterday.

Rep. Joe Schwarz's re-election campaign turned into a clash of Republican titans: moderates versus conservatives, President Bush and John McCain versus the Club for Growth, and abortion rights versus right-to-life groups.

Schwarz lost and the conservative movement won. Republican Tim Walberg will be heavily favored to succeed the moderate in Congress, but the implications could reach far beyond the borders of the rural southern Michigan district.

Schwarz had the endorsement of people from both the left and the right, including Bush, McCain and even the NRA. And he still lost.

This is less momentous than it seems, because the district is conservative and the only reason Schwarz won in the previous go-round is that four conservative candidates split the vote; Schwarz won that primary with just 28 percent of the vote. So it was almost inevitable that a conservative candidate would eventually emerge to take the seat.

But it was the clearest defeat for a moderate in yesterday's primary races. As the man himself says:

"I look at this election as probably a victory for right to life, anti-abortion, anti-embryonic stem cell groups but it's a net loss for the Republican party because it just pushes the party farther to the right," Schwarz said.

If the Lieberman race was a referendum on the face of the Democratic Party, could this be a referendum on the face of the Republicans? I think the answer is "no" in both cases, but those who wish to make the case for the former should apply the same logic to the latter.

Michigan, Walberg, Schwarz, politics, midtopia

Lieberman, McKinney lose

The story on Cynthia McKinney.

The story on Joe Lieberman.

The Lieberman race has gotten a lot of attention as some sort of referendum on the "soul" of the Democratic party. But the McKinney race was another primary involving a high-profile Democrat, and it tells a different story.

In the first race, an antiwar upstart overthrows a moderate (conservative) pro-war Democrat. In the other, a radical Democrat is beaten by a more moderate one.

So is Ned Lamont the "face" of the Democratic Party? Or is Hank Johnson?

Or is pointing to one Congressional race out of hundreds as the definitive battle for anything just a touch hyperbolic?

Lieberman, McKinney, politics, midtopia

DeLay to withdraw from race

Quashing speculation about his status, Tom DeLay said he will withdraw from the House race in his district to make room for a write-in candidate.

"I will take the actions necessary to remove my name from the Texas ballot. To do anything else would be hypocrisy," DeLay said in a statement. "I strongly encourage the Republican Party to take any and all actions necessary to give Texas voters an up-or-down choice this fall between two major party candidates."

If any write-in candidacy has a chance, it's this one. But I wouldn't hold my breath; Democrat Nick Lampson was a strong candidate even against DeLay; he'll still be a strong candidate no matter who the Republicans get to run.

It looks like DeLay's district could go Democratic in November.

Lampson, Texas, DeLay, politics, midtopia

Oy Ney

There's a snag in Ohio, where Bob Ney attempted to annoint State Sen. Joy Padgett as his replacement on the November ballot.

State Sen. Joy Padgett was a losing contender for lieutenant governor in Ohio’s Republican primary earlier this year, and a state law bars politicians who lose one primary from entering another one during the same year.

One Republican strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said lawyers had concluded Padgett was likely covered by the law and thus would not be eligible to run.

Boy, there are a lot of silly laws designed to keep people from having a fair choice among viable candidates.

But if the law taketh away, the law also giveth. State law only requires a primary if a candidate withdraws more than 80 days before a general election. So if Ney waits until after Aug. 21 to officially withdraw, the GOP would have four days to appoint a replacement.

Any bets on what he'll do?

Ohio, Padgett, Ney, politics, midtopia

DeLay to stay on the ballot

Rep. Tom DeLay will appear on the November ballot, as the Texas Republican Party exhausted its legal appeals.

The decision came after Justice
Antonin Scalia rejected Texas Republicans' request to block an appeals court ruling saying DeLay's name should remain on the ballot.

"I think all our legal avenues are exhausted in terms of affecting the ruling prior to the election," said Jim Bopp Jr., the attorney who argued the Republican Party's case to allow party officials to substitute another candidate for DeLay.

While it's appealing to see DeLay's too-cute political maneuver defeated, I've said before that I think the Democrats are doing the wrong thing by forcing DeLay to stay on the ballot. It's robbing the citizens of DeLay's district of a choice in November.

Now that it's a done deal, I hope DeLay withdraws. But if he doesn't, I just hope that the tactic doesn't backfire on the Democrats. Because while I find the actions of both sides to be less than admirable, I do not want to see DeLay back in Congress come November.

Texas, DeLay, politics, midtopia

What's going on in Lebanon?

Apparently, a lot of lying.

There have been rumblings about Hezbollah and Lebanese officials exaggerating the damage and death toll from Israeli airstrikes. A bunch of it now seems to be true.

Recently there was a lot of speculation that the incident in Qana was staged, but that appears mostly debunked. Even so, the death toll has been reduced from 50 to 28.

Then we have a Lebanese freelance photographer doctoring photos.

Then we have a report that an Israeli strike killed 40 people -- a number later corrected to one.

The good news is that the Lebanese government, reversing its previous stance, has agreed to deploy up to 15,000 troops to take control of its southern border. For years Lebanon has refused to do so, saying that a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel must be signed first.

One interesting aspect is that Hezbollah says it supports the decision. On the one hand this is good news -- it's doubtful the Lebanese Army could assert control in the face of active Hezbollah resistance. But beyond that, it could have multiple meanings.

1. It might indicate that Hezbollah doesn't think the Lebanese troops will meaningfully interfere with its activities.

2. It could be a sign that the Israeli incursion has hurt Hezbollah badly and it would welcome a chance to rest and recover.

3. Perhaps Hezbollah does not wish to alienate the Lebanese and risk getting kicked out of the country.

It's a matter of speculation, too, as to what prompted the Lebanese change of heart. Perhaps the Israeli air campaign worked, by persuading Lebanon that supporting Hezbollah was too expensive. Or perhaps Lebanon was responding to international pressure. Or perhaps it was none of these. The Lebanese government has no particular love for Israel, but it has no particular love for Syria, either, one of Hezbollah's main backers. Maybe they see this as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

So take what you hear from the region with a grain of salt. And hope that the Lebanese plan works.

terrorism, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel, politics, midtopia

Battle of the acronyms

The GOP is hoping to make PBS and NPR DOA as far as federal funding goes in FY2007.

House Republicans yesterday revived their efforts to slash funding for public broadcasting, as a key committee approved a $115 million reduction in the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that could force the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs.

There are several points to be made here. But first, some context.

1. Even if enacted these cuts wouldn't destroy public broadcasting. Most such stations are largely self-supporting. Minnesota Public Radio, for instance, gets 80 percent of its funding from private sources. If federal dollars disappear, there would still be state funding. But even if they both vanished, the resulting 20 percent budget cut would hurt but it wouldn't be fatal.

2. Some areas would be hurt pretty badly. The cuts would be disproportionately felt in poor and rural areas, where listeners are fewer or have fewer dollars to spare for station support -- and thus rely more heavily on government funding.

3. Conservatives have been gunning for public broadcasting for years on ideological grounds, considering the programming to be liberally biased. What's ironic is that if they succeed it will be the rural areas that will be hit the hardest -- areas that are generally more conservative, and thus less likely to schedule programming the conservatives find offensive. The stations they really dislike -- large urban operations -- will be largely unaffected.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's look at why the House says it's trying to cut this funding:

Republicans are looking for ways to save taxpayers' dollars, amid fiscal conservatives' concerns over the budget deficit.

"We've got to keep our priorities straight," said Representative Ralph Regula, an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the appropriations panel that approved the cut. "You're going to choose between giving a little more money to handicapped children versus providing appropriations for public broadcasting."

Oh, so it's a tough budget call. We need to get the deficit under control, and so it's either PBS or the handicapped kids.

Give me a break.

We're talking chicken feed here. $115 million won't even begin to make a dent in the deficit. Yes, enough small cuts can add up to big cuts. But Republicans aren't even pretending that this is part of a significant cutback in spending. Maybe, before spending so much time and effort cutting pennies from PBS, they should assemble the $300 billion worth of cuts it will take simply to balance the budget, never mind start paying down the debt.

And trying to frame this as a choice between PBS and handicapped children is breathtakingly cynical in a year when Republicans have led the fight to abolish the estate tax -- at a cost to federal coffers of $70 billion per year. And that's on the heels of $2 trillion or more in previous tax cuts and another $300 billion or so in Iraq-related costs.

You wanna save PBS and help the handicapped kids? Raise taxes by 50 cents per capita. Problem solved.

There are plenty of principled debates one could have about public broadcasting, involving the role of government and whether that role includes funding for the arts. Or, given the recent experience of Italy under Silvio Berlusconi, whether the government should be owning or supporting domestic media outlets at all.

But that's not the debate that House Republicans are having. Their chosen arguments are cowardly, cynical and intellectually vapid.

Debate public broadcasting on the merits. But don't try to slit its throat in the dark of night while hiding behind needy children.

Regula, budget, PBS, NPR, politics, midtopia

Creationism museum prepares to open

It'll open next spring in Petersburg, Ky., a suburb of Cincinnati. Here's the story.

Among the scientific positions that the Creation Museum espouses is that the Earth is 6,000 years old, as opposed to the more than 4 billion years that most scientists ascribe to, and that dinosaurs co-existed with human beings and were among Noah's menagerie on the Ark.

Here's the museum's web site. Be sure to click on the "walk-through" link.

Finally, it's not the only one.

I generally think that people are entitled to their beliefs. But people who insist the world is just 6,000 years old are simply asking for trouble. That proposition is too easily disproved. It's akin to flat earthers and people who believe the sun revolves around the earth.

Faith is best used to explain the unexplainable. Leave the mundane explanations to science.

creationism, evolution, politics, midtopia

Ney abandons re-election campaign

Prospective Hall of Shame member Bob Ney, caught up in the Abramoff corruption scandal, has ended his bid for a seventh term.

"Ultimately this decision came down to my family. I must think of them first, and I can no longer put them through this ordeal," said Ney, who has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing.

Okay, Ney. Whatever.

State Sen. Joy Padgett will run in his place. But she faces a tough slog against the Democratic candidate, Zack Space.

This is a mirror of the situation Tom DeLay found himself in -- won the primary, but dogged by corruption allegations. So he resigned. Unlike in Texas, however, it doesn't seem like Ney's resignation will be contested.

Whatever else happens at the polls, the Abramoff scandal is costing the Republicans a sizable chunk of their leadership. My hope is that this is strengthening the hand of moderates within the party, who are tired of the crap that gets pulled down on their heads by the divisive and corrupt antics of the conservative leadership. What I hope emerges is a cleaner, more reasonable Republican leadership that recognizes the price the party has paid for greed and scorched-earth tactics.

Ney, politics, midtopia

The end of the right?

I think this qualifies as wishful thinking on E.J. Dionne's part, but he's got some interesting points interspersed through his latest column.

Is conservatism finished?

What might have seemed an absurd question less than two years ago is now one of the most important issues in American politics. The question is being asked -- mostly quietly but occasionally publicly -- by conservatives themselves as they survey the wreckage of their hopes, and as their champions in the Republican Party use any means necessary to survive this fall's elections.

All true, but that hardly means their finished. Conservatives have successfully altered the playing field on a lot of topics, notably welfare, family and the role of government. They retain strong influence within the GOP, which at a minimum will still be a strong minority after this fall's elections. Their fundraising ability remains enormous.

There is the looming threat of a schism, as the GOP takeover exposed a strong and growing tension between small-government conservatives (who have varied social views) and social conservatives (who like using government to achieve their aims). If that schism occurs it won't kill conservatism but it could dilute its power.

Still, that's probably a good thing. Such a split would better reflect the actual influence of each faction, and allow for more cooperation between each faction and the liberal and moderate groups they agree with on individual issues. We might see more consensus, more pragmatic solutions to longstanding problems.

It does seem clear, though, that conservatism's grip on the GOP is slipping as the Republicans find it increasingly incompatible with the demands and seductions of incumbency and majority status. And, warming my heart, that means the influence of moderates is growing.

Most conservatives oppose the minimum wage on principle as a form of government meddling in the marketplace. But moderate Republicans in jeopardy this fall desperately wanted an increase in the minimum wage.

So the seemingly ingenious Republican leadership, which dearly wants deep cuts in the estate tax, proposed offering nickels and dimes to the working class to secure billions for the rich. Fortunately, though not surprisingly, the bill failed.

The episode was significant because it meant Republicans were acknowledging that they would not hold congressional power without the help of moderates. That is because there is nothing close to a conservative majority in the United States.

He goes on to note the many and sharp conservative criticisms of the Republican government. My favorite is the National Review's description of Republican fiscal policy: "Incontinence."

What does this mean for the political landscape? Probably less than you might think. Conservative influence on Republicans might be slipping, but it's not like Democrats are actively courting them. So to the extent that conservatives vote, they'll probably keep voting Republican. And the more the Democrats move to the left, the more motivation conservatives will have to vote Republican simply to keep Democrats out of power.

The Democrats can neutralize that in one simple way: moderation. By not appearing to be a radical threat to conservative goals, they can avoid motivating conservatives to vote for Republican candidates they have only lukewarm love for. By finding issues where they can work with conservatives, they can weaken the stranglehold that the GOP has on those voters and show themselves to be principled partners, not a wild-eyed enemy.

By claiming the middle Democrats can simultaneously court the moderate majority and neutralize the GOP's conservative base. Yes, it may cost them with the netroots in turn; but that's a trade-off that is well worth it. It's a rejection of extremism, of polarization, of partisanship. Even without the political advantages, it would be the right thing to do.

politics, midtopia

Gunning for Rummy

Hillary locks and loads:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign, hours after excoriating him at a public hearing over what she called "failed policy" in Iraq....

"The secretary has lost credibility with the Congress and with the people," she said. "It's time for him to step down and be replaced by someone who can develop an effective strategy and communicate it effectively to the American people and to the world."

Can't say I disagree; I've been critical of Rumsfeld for a long time. He let a valid point -- a need to build a faster, lighter military -- and a valid belief -- that we could win wars with fewer troops -- blind him to the actual requirements of occupation. And while it was necessary to confront the Pentagon bureaucracy in order to achieve his goals, he also got into unnecessary confrontations thanks to his detached and indecisive management style and alienated Congress with his abrasive treatment.

Okay, you say, Rumsfeld deserves to be fired. But is now the time to replace him, with just two years left in Bush's term? Isn't Rumsfeld better than the leadership turmoil that would ensue while a replacement was vetted, nominated and confirmed?

A fair point, but I don't think so. There's still more than two years left until Bush leaves office. Rumsfeld could remain until his replacement is confirmed. But even if he resigns before then, that would leave a Rumsfeld deputy in charge. And the confirmation process wouldn't have to be lengthy, since both parties would recognize the need to fill the position quickly.

The more important points would be these:

1. Bush isn't going to fire Rumsfeld, because doing so would be an admission that the administration had made mistakes -- something Bush seems almost congenitally incapable of doing. So any such call is simply political posturing. It may need to be said, but don't expect it to translate into action.

2. Bush is apparently happy with Rumsfeld's work, so even if he fired Rumsfeld we could probably expect the president to nominate a Rumsfeld clone.

Thus, nice as it would be to see Bush hold someone -- anyone -- responsible for their actions, it will only happen in two instances:

1. Rumsfeld becomes too big a political liability to ignore;

2. Bush decides a new strategy is needed.

The former is unlikely unless Republicans turn against Rumsfeld in large numbers. The latter could happen if Bush decides that Rumsfeld's approach is hampering the success of the occupation.

So if we really want Rumsfeld gone, we need to do two things: show Bush that Rumsfeld has strong bipartisan opposition, and persuade Bush that he needs a new strategy -- with new leadership.

I'm not holding my breath.

Hillary Clinton, Rumsfeld, politics, midtopia

Signs of the Apocalypse

In the ironic news department:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would welcome German troops participating in an international force in southern Lebanon, according to a newspaper interview published Friday.

The Germans, in fact, are more worried about the issue than the Israelis are.

Okay, this isn't really all that ironic. Germany has come a long way from the 1940s, and modern Israel is confident enough -- and strong enough -- not be scared by a 60-year-old bogeyman. This is a refreshing example of a changed culture on the one hand and the ability to forgive on the other.

It's always fun to find something that Captain Ed and I can agree on.

In the "nothing is simple" department:

Thousands of Shiite Muslims marched though the Iraqi capital on Friday in support of Hezbollah guerrillas battling Israeli forces, answering a call by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rally to the cause of their fellow Shiites in Lebanon.

Throngs of Shiite men, most clad in white burial shrouds that symbolized their willingness to die, gathered in the northeast Baghdad slum known as Sadr City and marched toward the center of the capital, chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." Marchers waved the yellow flag of Hezbollah and the red-and-green flag of Lebanon, while occasionally pausing to desecrate the Israeli flag.

Though clearly huge, the precise size of the crowd was impossible to determine. Estimates made by organizers ranged from 250,000 to 1 million, but the U.S. military said in a news release that calculations based on pictures taken from unmanned surveillance aircraft put the crowd at 14,000.

I refer you to an earlier post laying out the complicated and contradictory lines of loyalty in the region. What makes the region so treacherous is that everyone you meet has two or three lines of loyalty -- and different ones will dominate depending on the issue or perhaps even the time of day.

And finally, all this takes place against the background of the "SS,DD" department:

A new wave of Hezbollah rockets killed eight Israeli civilians Thursday, and four soldiers died in ground combat in southern Lebanon, Israel's highest daily death toll in the three-week-old war. Israeli jets blasted targets in Beirut for the first time in almost a week.

Israeli forces appeared to be struggling in efforts to control villages and towns across the Lebanese border and push deeper into the country, according to U.N. observers in Lebanon. Most of the day's fighting took place within two miles of the frontier and sometimes only a few hundred yards from it.

The major revelation here is that Hezbollah possesses anti-tank missiles, substantially raising the stakes for Israeli troops.

Iraq, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Israel, politics, midtopia

Israel and Hezbollah

I've been procrastinating writing this entry, and I think I've done a very good job -- what other blogger would have the patience to wait weeks to write about Israel's confrontation with Hezbollah? Yessir, that's what you get here at Midtopia: top-quality performance, no matter what that performance happens to be.

But here goes.

There are a few indisputable facts we need to lay out here:

1. Hezbollah has been provoking Israel for months, firing rockets at civilian targets.

2. The government of Lebanon and the UN observers in southern Lebanon did little to stop it.

3. Israel has a right to defend its people from attack.

4. The Lebanese government's territorial rights are weakened by their unwillingness or inability to halt the attacks on Israel.

There are all sorts of qualifications one could apply to that list. Hezbollah sees itself as fighting an illegal occupation; the government of Lebanon is too weak to confront Hezbollah, and doing so is not within the UN force's means or mandate; Israel's right to defend itself does not mean it can do anything it wants; and any decision to violate international borders should be taken with care.

But those are some basic facts. And from them I draw some simple conclusions.

Israel was fully justified in going after Hezbollah in the name of self-defense. If rebel groups based in Canada were firing rockets into the United States, we'd go after them no matter what Canada said. And we'd be justified.

Hezbollah's aim -- the destruction of Israel -- is unrealistic. And their main tactic -- firing rockets at civilian targets -- is indefensible. Even less defensible is using civilians for cover. Hezbollah deserves international condemnation for its actions.

Israel, however, doesn't get a free pass.

We have to accept that, given Hezbollah's tactics, there will be civilian casualties from Israeli strikes. But blame for that is shared to some extent, based on the measures Israel takes to minimize such casualties. I think they've generally tried to lessen them, especially because they know what a PR disaster mounting civilian deaths can be. But Israel is responsible for ensuring that its rules of engagement properly balance the threat against the collateral damage.

Israel has a legitimate interest in going after selected infrastructure targets in South Lebanon, in an effort to disrupt Hezbollah communications, movement and supply. Bridges, transportation, power, communications, water supplies -- all these things are legitimate targets as long as they relate primarily to southern Lebanon. But Israel's air offensive has gone way beyond that. Infrastructure has been attacked throughout Lebanon, including the Beirut airport and a Lebanese Army base in northern Lebanon. These appear to be an effort to make the Lebanese feel the pain of allowing Hezbollah to exist. But besides being hard to defend, I think that strategy will backfire. Such bombings will harden anti-Israel resolve among the Lebanese, not lead them to suddenly eject Hezbollah.

I have no problem with Israel's ground incursions. They are more focused than the air campaign both geographically and militarily. I think that's the proper way for Israel to take on Hezbollah: isolate southern Lebanon strategically, then go in with ground forces and root out the guerrillas and their support structure.

So what's the long-term solution? Bush and Rice have the right approach here: a multinational force with teeth, to replace the lightly armed UN observers. Go in with overwhelming force, clear out the guerrillas, and then hand control over to the Lebanese Army backed by UN troops with the means and mandate to keep the guerrillas from returning. If Hezbollah fights back it becomes Hezbollah against the world, and that is something that Hezbollah's backers don't really want to see.

None of this addresses the root cause of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. But the current mess offers us an opportunity to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, to say "enough is enough" to attacks on civilians and unending conflict. If we can show that dirty tactics -- by either side -- will not be tolerated, perhaps we can nudge the region back toward uneasy peace and an emphasis on negotiations. At the very least we strengthen the hands of moderates in the region and weaken the hand of the militants.

After that the key will be to stay engaged, to reward talk as much as we punish violence.

Israel already knows that it cannot ever win by military means alone; that's why it has withdrawn from Gaza, and why it withdrew from Lebanon several years ago and has no intention of again establishing a permanent presence there.

The Palestinians are now split, but leaning toward negotiation rather than atrocity.

Hezbollah will be the hardest nut to crack, because it does not represent Palestine and draws its support from two states, Syria and Iran, that don't care much about world opinion. The key to neutralizing it is to confront it militarily, pressure its patrons to stop funding it and drive a wedge between it and the Arab/Sunni/Lebanese/Palestinian interests that surround it. Arab states should ideally take the lead in this, so that the pressure comes from brothers rather than Westerners. Syria might listen to Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and those four can then shut down the Iranian pipeline to Hezbollah.

A lot to digest. And the situation is more complex and explosive than I've outlined here. Still, by delineating the limits of conflict and provoking extensive world intervention, the Israel-Hezbollah fight might end up pointing the way out of the morass -- if we only seize the chance.

Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Israel, politics, midtopia

Iraq's view on Iraq

In the two posts preceding this one, I've laid out the U.S. view on Iraq (cautionary) and the British view (pessimistic). The public Iraqi view is the only one I consider outright delusional.

The Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, speaking before the soccer-field killings, predicted that “God willing, by the end of this year we will bring an end to terrorism.” At a news conference with senior military and Interior Ministry officials, he defended Iraqi forces against accusations of atrocities and said they would assume control of the country from American troops this year.

“Iraqi security forces are doing their duty, but we still expect more of them,” Mr. Talabani said.

Mr. Talabani, a Kurd, provided no details to support his claim that Iraqi forces would soon provide security for the entire country. American military officials here did not immediately respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment on his timetable.

Talabani's purpose seems clear: to try to shore up confidence in the central government, and position such support as the quickest way to get American troops out of Iraq. But saying the situation is improving when, at least in the short term, it clearly isn't doesn't help his credibility. He comes off as engaging in wishful thinking while attempting to ride the whirlwind.

I hope he's right. I fear he's not.

Talabani, Iraq, politics, midtopia

The British view on Iraq

While Pentagon officials testify on Capitol Hill, the BBC has obtained a pessimistic memo written by the outgoing British ambassador in Iraq.

Civil war is a more likely outcome in Iraq than democracy, Britain's outgoing ambassador in Baghdad has warned Tony Blair in a confidential memo.

William Patey, who left the Iraqi capital last week, also predicted the break-up of Iraq along ethnic lines.

He did also say that "the position is not hopeless" - but said it would be "messy" for five to 10 years.

In the past few years the British view on Iraq has generally been closer to reality than the Pentagon's. But that does not mean they're necessarily better at predicting the future. So don't take this as gospel; view it as one more piece of information to fit into the overall picture.

Patey, terrorism, Britain, Iraq, politics, midtopia

The U.S. view on Iraq

Donald Rumsfeld and his top generals are on Capitol Hill today, testifying about Iraq.

Rumsfeld was there reluctantly, having said yesterday he didn't have time to testify. As you'd expect, he tried to put as good a light as possible on the situation.

"If we left Iraq prematurely as the terrorists demand, the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee at a hearing.

"And if we left the Middle East, they'd order us and all those who don't share their militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines," he said.

A bit hyperbolic, considering we chose to invade Iraq and that nobody supports letting Islamic extremists take over the world. But in any event his entire statement turns on how you define "prematurely." Considering that the administration keeps talkinga about handing substantial responsibility to the Iraqi army by the end of the year, about the only thing that might be considered premature is an immediate and unconditional withdrawal, which hardly anybody is advocating.

His generals were a bit more blunt.

"Iraq could move toward civil war" if the violence is not contained, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it," he said, adding that the top priority in Iraq is to secure the capital, where factional violence has surged in recent weeks despite efforts by the new Iraqi government to stop the fighting.

That would be the capital we captured three years ago and have not yet secured.

Abizaid did say, however, that he thinks that U.S.-backed Iraqi forces can prevent a slide into civil war.

Likewise, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that while civil war was a possibility, it wasn't a certainty and depended on the Iraqis more than the U.S. military.

All this comes against the backdrop of another report that indicates how the war in Iraq is straining our military capacity.

More than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready, mostly because of equipment shortages that will cost up to $21 billion to correct, the top National Guard general said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum spoke to a group defense reporters after Army officials, analysts and members of Congress disclosed that two-thirds of the active Army's brigades are not ready for war.

So three years after the invasion of Iraq we do not have the manpower or equipment to sustain much beyond the current pace of operations -- and we may not be able to sustain that. During that time the administration has taken no steps to expand the military or increase equipment purchases.

Are we serious about this war or not? Because sometimes it doesn't seem like it. We have inadequate troops in Iraq, and we have taken no steps to increase our ability to field more. In fact the reverse has occurred; the readiness of the units we do have is declining even as the need for increased readiness grows ever more apparent and the security situation in Iraq deteriorates by the week.

One of two things needs to happen: We either need to increase our military capability to match our strategic plan, or we need to modify our strategy to reflect our military capability. Ignoring the problem and hoping for the best just won't work any more.

Rumsfeld, Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

NORAD on 9/11

If you can stand to relive that day one more time, Vanity Fair has a riveting read.

It's a reconstruction, built from recordings and interviews, of what went on at NORAD on 9/11. Simply amazing stuff.

terrorism, September 11, NORAD, politics, midtopia

Hitting close to home

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is one of the few Congressmembers with relatives serving in Iraq.

Yesterday he got the news.

A nephew of Sen. Max Baucus serving in the Marines was killed in Iraq during the weekend, the senator's office said Tuesday.

Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus , 28, died Saturday during combat operations in Anbar province, the Department of Defense said. It did not immediately release further information.

In a statement, Baucus, D-Mont., said the family was "devastated by the loss."

No commentary here. Simply condolences and respect.

Baucus, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Kansas rejects creationists

In the see-saw battle over whether to make Kansas an educational laughingstock, reason won the latest round.

Of five anti-evolution seats up for election, three were won by evolution supporters, giving them a 6-4 majority on the statewide Board of Education.

The battle is far from over, not least because this seems to be following a bit of a pattern. Anti-evolution candidates win in one cycle; alienate voters by pushing creationism; and get voted out in the following election. Then voters apparently stop paying attention, because the anti-evolution folks return in the election after that -- only to be voted out again in the next round. So every two years the state's science standards get turned on their head.

Whatever your personal opinion about creationism (or intelligent design, modern creationism-in-drag), it should not be taught in science class. Because it simply is not science. It is not falsifiable, it is not supported by evidence. It is not susceptible to proof or disproof in any human way. And thus it falls outside the realm of science.

Teach creation myths in school? Sure, as part of a comparative religion class. But teach a wide-ranging sampling of creation stories, not just one.

Introduce the study of evolution with a brief acknowledgement of its critics? Sure. But such an acknowledgement should also include the "intelligent design is not science" explanation.

In a larger sense, I've never understood why people find evolution incompatible with God. That's only true if you don't believe evolution could be the mechanism chosen by God to let his creation change over time. Or if your faith requires belief in easily disprovable things. But both of those are shortcomings in belief -- putting God in a box -- not shortcomings of God.

Further, evolution says nothing about how life got started; it merely describes the mechanism by which life, having come into existence, changes over time. Yes, people have applied evolutionary principles as part of theories that argue life arose spontaneously. But evolution itself is entirely neutral on the question of God. It is a tool, not an ideology. Evolution is entirely compatible with either abiogenesis or divine creation.

The Kansas creationists are attempting to short-circuit the education of state students by blurring the line between science and belief and imposing ideology over scientific consensus. It is intellectually destitute and ethically questionable. They should be serving the students of the state; pursuing this political agenda and keeping the Board in turmoil for a decade serves no one except narrow partisan interests.

Kansas, evolution, education, politics, midtopia

Oversensitivity

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is embroiled in a minor flap over his use of a "racial epithet."

The word? "Tar Baby."

In his first major political trip out of the state since a ceiling collapse in a Big Dig tunnel killed a Boston woman on July 10, Romney told 200 people at a Republican lunch Saturday about the political risks of his efforts to oversee the project.

"The best thing for me to do politically is stay away from the Big Dig -- just get as far away from that tar baby as I possibly can," he said in answer to a question from the audience.

Romney was subsequently criticized for using the term, which some said was a derogatory term for blacks.

This reminds me of past tempests in teapots, like the Washington, D.C., mayoral aide who temporarily lost his job for using the term "niggardly." It reveals more about the critic than the original speaker.

For me, the phrase refers back to the B'rer Rabbit story described in the link, a story I read (and a movie I saw) when I was growing up. Now, one could criticize the whole B'rer Rabbit canon as being racially condescending -- the book I read growing up was written in a painful emulation of semi-literate slavespeak. But the "tar baby" aspect itself has nothing to do with race.

Like conspiracy theorists, overeager Bush critics and other boys who cry wolf, people who are hypervigilant for signs of racism undermine their own credibility. They risk a collective shrug of the nation's shoulders when actual racist words and actions occur. We should combat true racism where it occurs; but brouhahas like this only make the critics look foolish.

tar baby, racism, Romney, politics, midtopia

Administration moves to avoid war crimes issue

This one's kind of interesting:

An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.

Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.

Now why would U.S. personnel have freely violated a 10-year-old law? Hmmm....

In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the international Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees in the terrorism fight, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such "protections," according to someone who heard his remarks last week.

Gonzales told the lawmakers that a shield is needed for actions taken by U.S. personnel under a 2002 presidential order, which the Supreme Court declared illegal, and under Justice Department legal opinions that have been withdrawn under fire, the source said.

I'm generally okay with the notion that people should not be prosecuted for actions they legitimately believed to be legal. So an amnesty for lower-level operatives who were following such orders seems reasonable -- along with a clarification of what the rules will be going forward.

But it's interesting to note that the law was clear, and was only muddied by the administration's assertions, unilateral actions and broadly criticized legal briefs. So in the name of protecting U.S. personnel, the administration is also moving to protect itself. Knowingly ordering actions that violate the Geneva Conventions -- while engaged in a failed effort to dispute that violation -- could be construed as a war crime.

I'm not a big fan of the "Bush committed war crimes!" line of argument. To me, "war crimes" means mistreatment of people on a massive scale, and Gitmo and even Abu Ghraib just don't cut it. I'm content to hammer him for violations of civil liberties and constitutional limits, as well as general incompetence. But the administration appears to be taking the threat of war-crimes prosecutions seriously and moving to cover themselves.

Consistent with past administration behavior, its proposed remedy contains extremely broad language.

Language in the administration's draft, which Bradbury helped prepare in concert with civilian officials at the Defense Department, seeks to protect U.S. personnel by ruling out detainee lawsuits to enforce Geneva protections and by incorporating language making U.S. enforcement of the War Crimes Act subject to U.S. -- not foreign -- understandings of what the Conventions require.

That goes far beyond protecting U.S. personnel from retroactive war-crime prosecutions. It would prevent detainees from challenging their treatment and ignore international understandings of what the Conventions require.

I'll let the Pentagon get the final word:

The law's legislative sponsor is one of the House's most conservative members, Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-N.C.). He proposed it after a chance meeting with a retired Navy pilot who had spent six years in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton," a Vietnamese prison camp. The conversation left Jones angry about Washington's inability to prosecute the pilot's abusers. ...

Jones and other advocates intended the law for use against future abusers of captured U.S. troops in countries such as Bosnia, El Salvador and Somalia, but the Pentagon supported making its provisions applicable to U.S. personnel because doing so set a high standard for others to follow.

If you want to be known for high standards, you have to set high standards and then live by them. The administration likes high standards until they threaten to apply to administration actions. All that does is discredit us. Either we conduct our national business ethically or we don't. And if we do, we must have the courage to punish those who undermine that standard -- be they low-level interrogators or senior administration officials.

war crimes, Bush, Gonzales, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Bush tribunal proposal revisited

If the Associated Press is right, when I wrote about this before I (and the NYT) missed the biggest point:

U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill. ...

According to the draft, the military would be allowed to detain all "enemy combatants" until hostilities cease. The bill defines enemy combatants as anyone "engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners who has committed an act that violates the law of war and this statute."

Legal experts said Friday that such language is dangerously broad and could authorize the military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens who had only tenuous ties to terror networks like al Qaeda.

That would make this proposal an attempt to reinstate the "enemy combatant" designation Bush invented several years ago -- the one used to incarcerate Jose Padilla without charge, trial or lawyer until it appeared the courts would throw that particular tactic out.

Proposing it as a law is a step up from simply asserting it as presidential fiat. But it's still an unjustified and even breathtaking suspension of basic civil liberties. And the fact that the administration is still pushing it shows that they've learned absolutely nothing from the past five years.

civil+liberties, Bush, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Child care's broken economics

This is a tale of two families.

Some friends of ours have three children, ages 1 to 8. The husband works, the wife stays home with the kids. They're making ends meet, but it's tough. And the wife is starting to go a little stir-crazy from being at home.

So she decided to go back to work. Or try to.

The problem is, the entry-level jobs she can get after nearly a decade out of the work force pay little more than $10 an hour -- pretax.

They don't have any relatives in town to help with the child care, so if she wants to work she has to hire someone. And with three kids, the costs add up rapidly. Child care for infants is hideously expensive: $1,000 a month or more. Full-time care for older children isn't much cheaper: $800 or so. After-school care is the most affordable: About $200 per month per child.

For our friends that works out to $2,000 a month just in child-care costs. They'd need to earn an extra $11.50 an hour after taxes just to cover that bill.

Even the cheapest option -- an inexpensive nanny -- would cost at least $10 an hour. Assuming they could find one.

My wife recently went back to work, so we're in the same boat. But our circumstances are different. My salary is high enough that we don't depend on her income to pay the bills, and my schedule is flexible enough that we were able to put her through a one-year college program without having to pay for child care. Upon graduation, she found a job paying $15 an hour. And we have only two children, the oldest of whom is entering first grade, so our costs are lower.

Both women can expect the low pay to be temporary -- their salary should climb fairly quickly in the first couple of years, eventually alleviating the financial crunch. But our friends cannot afford the low pay in the mean time.

This leads to an ironic and unwanted result: the people who really need the money from a second job can't afford to get one until the kids are all in school and child care much cheaper.

The side effects are large. For one, you have the psychological effects on the wife of being "trapped" in the home and the family pressures that stem from financial difficulties. Economically, the poorer family falls further behind the economic curve: they spend several more years on one income, which delays the growth of their earning potential, which translates into fewer years of maximum earnings over the course of a lifetime. The poor get (relatively) poorer.

The bottom line: the lack of affordable child care helps keep families poor and serves to widen the wealth gap.

The issue isn't purely economic. I believe, all things being equal, that being raised by a stay-at-home parent is better than being plunked in child care; that's why my wife and I have rearranged our schedules to minimize the time our children will spend in child care. But child care is better than being raised by a parent who is forced to stay home thanks to economics or societal expectation. And having a stable child-care arrangement is better than the stress and uncertaintly of arranging an ad hoc patchwork of friends and relatives to look after children.

There are elements of personal choice here: number of kids, education decisions. But whatever one thinks of a family's own culpability in such a plight (and I can think of plenty of examples where such culpability is limited: an unintended pregnancy, the death of one parent, single parenthood in general), there are two social effects that we as a society might wish to avoid: the effects on children of being raised by stressed parents who feel trapped in their roles, and the effect on social stability of having yet one more way to limit the economic prospects of people that aren't at the top of the ladder already.

Subsidized child care -- the subsidy reasonable and based on income -- thus strikes me as a worthwhile investment. Especially if part of the subsidy buys flexibility. It's very hard right now to find reliable part-time child care. So parents are faced with the choice of paying for full-time care or trying to cobble together a patchwork of relatives and friends.

Making part-time day care a viable option would not only be cheaper; it would let families maximize the time they spend together, rather than being forced by economics to plunk their kids into full-time care and then work full time to pay for it. That would be better for the kids and for society.

The details of the subsidy would need to be worked out. A direct subsidy of child-care establishments would engender a huge bureaucracy to handle the money and monitor the quality of the providers. A simple tax break would provide the largest benefits to those who least need it. Perhaps a tax credit for child-care costs is the answer -- minimal bureaucracy, maximum targeted effect.

But the current situation strikes me as untenable. In an era where both parents increasingly need to work in order to maintain their standard of living; in an era when families are spread across the country as jobs and temperament dictate; in an era when the gap between rich and poor is growing ever wider, providing affordable options for working parents would boost productivity and improve family outcomes.

daycare, childcare, parenting, politics, midtopia

Not enough troops in Iraq

What a bunch of geniuses; I've been saying this since 2003.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Bush administration's decision to move thousands of U.S. soldiers into Baghdad to quell sectarian warfare before it explodes into outright civil war underscores a problem that's hindered the U.S. effort to rebuild Iraq from the beginning: There aren't enough troops to do the job.

Many U.S. officials in Baghdad and in Washington privately concede the point. They say they've been forced to shuffle U.S. units from one part of the country to another for at least two years because there haven't been enough soldiers and Marines to deal simultaneously with Sunni Muslim insurgents and Shiite militias; train Iraqi forces; and secure roads, power lines, border crossings and ammunition dumps.

Gee, no kidding. Couldn't have seen that one coming. A basic military maxim is that you don't want to take the same ground twice. Which is why stuff like this should have tipped off anybody paying attention:

But when U.S. forces have cracked down in one place, Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists have popped up in another. Some towns have been pacified multiple times, only to return to chaos as soon as the Americans reduced troop numbers. In cities such as Baghdad, Kirkuk, Samarra and Ar-Ramadi, bloodshed ebbs and flows, but security is never a given.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Even if you support the reasons for invading Iraq, you ought to be furious about the incompetence of most of the execution. And we face a choice: either get serious about winning -- by sending in enough troops -- or get out. Half measures serve nobody.

Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Winning by losing

Today's New York Times' opinion section contains an interesting and apparently unintended juxtaposition of articles.

The first discusses the ongoing reaction to last year's Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain, Kelo v. New London.

Sometimes, Supreme Court cases have a way of highlighting issues that had been absent from the national agenda, and the cases can provoke reactions that have a far greater impact than the ruling itself. ....

Dana Berliner, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, the libertarian legal group that represented the homeowners in both the Connecticut and Ohio cases, said the United States Supreme Court decision, Kelo v. New London, gave rise to “a tidal wave of outrage.”

“The decision brought to light this incredible rift between what lawyers and cities thought was the law and what the American people thought was the law,” Ms. Berliner said. “This is certainly the situation of losing the battle and winning the war.”

And Kelo isn't an isolated incident. Our history is filled with examples of court rulings that prompted legislative changes that eventually overthrew the original ruling. A 1972 Supreme Court ruling, for example, is the reason many states now have so-called "shield" laws protecting journalists from having to reveal confidential sources.

Or, as one observer put it:

“I always tell my students,” said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Texas, “that one of the best things you can do is lose a case in the Supreme Court.”

The article notes that most such backlashes are "conservative, populist reactions to decisions that seem elitist.” That fact notwithstanding, the second article, a few pages later, applies similar logic to another issue: gay marriage, and recent adverse court rulings in New York and Washington state.

These defeats have demoralized supporters of gay marriage, but I see a silver lining. If heterosexual instability and the link between heterosexual sex and human reproduction are the best arguments opponents of same-sex marriage can muster, I can’t help but feel that our side must be winning. Insulting heterosexuals and discriminating against children with same-sex parents may score the other side a few runs, but these strategies won’t win the game.

So I’m confident that one day my son will live in a country that allows his parents to marry. His parents are already married, as far as he’s concerned, as my boyfriend and I tied the knot in Canada more than a year and a half ago. We recognize, even if the courts do not, that it’s in his best interest for us to be married.

He's not really arguing that there has been a backlash in favor of gay marriage. Indeed, recent events show the reverse: rulings in favor of gay marriage in Vermont and Massachusetts led to bans on gay marriage (and civil unions) in several states.

But that's current voters; future voters are a different matter. Young adults have much less of an issue with gays than their elders do. Hence my ongoing prediction that in 20 years gay marriage will be a fact, as those young adults become steady voters.

Conventional wisdom notes that people grow more conservative as they get older, and I think that's true. So perhaps those young adults will turn against gay marriage as they get older. But the conventional wisdom applies most strongly to areas where self interest plays a role. Young people, who have little, are more supportive of wealth distribution; as they get older they become more supportive of laws that let them keep what they've earned. The bigger a stake people have in the current system, the more they will support it and oppose radical change.

With gay marriage there's no self-interest factor; even most opponents of gay marriage admit that allowing gays to marry wouldn't affect their own relationship. So it comes down to what people think of homosexuality, and that's not the sort of belief that is likely to swing a whole lot as people age.

Given that, it might be tempting to describe these articles as illustrating short-term vs. long-term outcomes. But that's not really the case. Kelo, for instance, is both a short-term and a long-term winner.

So what's the distinction? I think it's simple. The Kelo case provoked such loud, bipartisan outrage because it seemed to attack a fundamental American value: the right to be secure in one's property, regardless of how well or poorly that property is managed in the eyes of outsiders.

Opposition to gay marriage reflects no such underlying value. It's a personal decision, driven at least partly by the belief that homosexuality is wrong. And not just wrong, but so wrong that homosexual relationships are objectively inferior to heterosexual relationships and thus not deserving of the same rights.

And that's simply not the consensus. There are plenty of people who feel discomfort about homsexuality; but not all of them believe that their discomfort justifies discrimination -- especially because, whatever you think in the general case, there are plenty of homosexual couples that have better relationships and make better parents than many heterosexual couples. Opposition to gay marriage thus finds itself in conflict with another underlying American value: our sense of fair play and equality under the law.

Rulings that offend an underlying value do not stand for long. Hence, Kelo. And hence gay marriage in the long run.

eminent domain, gay marriage, politics, midtopia

MLB's assault on fantasy leagues

For the past eight years I've run a fantasy-football league for a group of friends and colleagues. It's strictly small time: The $10-per-owner annual fee covers the cost of hosting the league, with enough left over for minor prizes: The Super Bowl winner and total points winner get their $10 back; the Super Bowl winner also gets a small trophy.

We're people who play for fun, not money. If the cost of playing went up substantially, we'd have to reconsider our hobby.

Which is why I find a recent move by Major League Baseball to be, well, disturbing.

In a federal lawsuit, Major League Baseball claims that it owns Joe Mauer's hits, Justin Morneau's home runs, Johan Santana's strikeouts -- and the statistics of every other player in the major leagues. If fantasy leagues want to use player statistics in their games, baseball says, they better be prepared to pay.

MLB's argument is based on the established principle that players -- and the league -- have the right to control the commercial use of their "names and likenesses." That's why a golf-club manufacturer can't use a picture of Tiger Woods to sell clubs unless he gets Tiger's permission -- and pays him handsomely.

But what MLB is asserting is that a professional ballplayer's statistics fall under that doctrine. So even if you count all of a player's at-bats yourself, you still have to pay the league in order to use that information for commercial purposes.

A fallback argument is that even if you can use the statistics, you cannot use player or team names and images without paying MLB.

I don't play fantasy baseball, but if MLB were to win this suit, other leagues -- including the NFL -- could try the same thing. Fantasy sports would likely get a lot more expensive and centrally controlled, and I'd have to find a new hobby.

I'm no lawyer, but MLB's case seems shaky to me, especially regarding statistics. Private services have long provided game statistics to newspapers, for example. Those services are also how fantasy sites get the statistics they need. MLB never had a problem with that, even though such services are clearly profiting from the league's "names and likenesses."

They may have a better case regarding names and images, but that turns on whether the fantasy sites are using that information for a purely commercial purpose -- a la the golf-club ad -- or are merely presenting facts and information, a use protected by the First Amendment.

In any case it's a dumb move on MLB's part. Fantasy sports engender good will and increased fan interest in baseball. Indeed, it's about the only way I can ever imagine becoming interested in baseball, which I find tedious to watch -- and frustrating, too, since there's no way I'll be able to see all 162 games in a standard season.

In it's greed-fueled quest for control, MLB threatens to damage a hobby that probably has helped baseball's bottom line far more than it has harmed it. It's the sports equivalent of Digital Rights Management, in which publishers are destroying they're online market through greed and fear.

That's my take. Here's a good (and amusing) analysis of the case from Legal Affairs magazine, which notes a few fun facts:

1. The NBA lost a similar case back in the 1990s, in which they asserted copyright ownership of player statistics; the result is that "real-time" statistics are public domain.

2. Baseball won a similar case in the 1970s against two Minnesota game companies, saying the use of player names and statistics in such games was improper. They won, and now such games require MLB licensing.

3. But MLB also won a 1996 case in which it claimed that it had the right to use video of a player without that player's permission, based on freedom of the press principles.

That MLB can be self-servingly hypocritical should surprise no one. Still, the case does raise some legitimate questions about where the line should be drawn, and will probably revolve around resolving the conflicting rulings in the three cases above. I just hope that rationality wins the day -- or that MLB realizes that its case is ill-considered even if valid.

fantasy league, baseball, politics, midtopia

Grudging baby steps

The White House, forced by the Supreme Court to come up with a fairer way to try terror detainees, isn't really embracing the idea.

Legislation drafted by the Bush administration setting out new rules on bringing terror detainees to trial would allow hearsay evidence to be introduced unless it was deemed “unreliable” and would permit defendants to be excluded from their own trials if necessary to protect national security, according to a copy of the proposal.

First, let's remember that this is only a draft. Part of the purpose of a draft is to gather internal and external opinions on various provisions. The final draft could well leave out parts that I find problematic.

That said, this demonstrates the problem with having the rules drawn up by the people who captured the detainees and have an interest in "proving" their guilt, if only to validate the initial detention.

Hearsay evidence is a good example. It can be complicated, but generally it works like this: At Bob's trial, Sam testifies that he heard Dave say Bob was a terrorist.

If you aren't sure what the problem with that is, play a game of Telephone some time. There's a reason that hearsay generally isn't admissible in U.S. courts.

There are exceptions, of course, and the administration proposal would allow it only if the testimony is deemed "probative and reliable" -- whatever that means. That would be left entirely to the discretion of the judge hearing the case.

The proposal does not contain a speedy trial provision, and in fact says that a defendant could be held until hostilities are completed -- whatever that means -- even if found not guilty.

Without further detail, those proposals are simply destructive. On the other hand, some of the concerns are real but the proposed solution inadequate. For example, the administration wants to modify the rules of evidence to take into account the messy circumstances of capture. As the proposal says, "the United States cannot safely require members of the armed forces to gather evidence on the battlefield as though they were police officers."

This is true, but that is not a reason to simply ignore evidence requirements. The bill would again leave such decisions up to the judge, which seems like a license for wildly varying standards of evidence. At a minimum, the bill needs to spell out basic guidelines and guiding principles for consistency's sake.

The biggie, though, is this:

One of the most difficult issues the administration faces is whether a provision of the Geneva Conventions, known as Common Article Three, applies to detainees; the Supreme Court ruled that it did. The measure says explicitly that the Geneva Conventions “are not a source of judicially enforceable individual rights."

In other words, the administration is asking Congress to expressly forbid another lawsuit like Hamdan's, and remove the courts as a source of relief for prisoners whose rights are violated.

This might be acceptable if there was a reasonable and effective alternative recourse available. But the administration does not appear interested in providing one.

The good news is that Congress is ultimately responsible for laying out the rules; this is merely an administration wish list. I respect many of the administration's concerns; I simply do not trust them to reach a solution that is reasonably protective of defendant rights. They have too much self-interest in the outcome.

civil liberties, terrorism, Geneva Convention, Guantanamo, Gitmo, politics, midtopia

The downside of tax cuts

I've argued before that debt-fueled stimulus is a bad idea. Bush has borrowed $2 trillion and dumped it into the economy. That will certainly have a positive effect on short-term economic growth, just like maxing out a credit-card works pretty well in the short term.

But that's the wrong way to look at the issue, because it will take decades to pay off the money he borrowed to achieve that effect -- and that's the best case scenario, where economic growth remains strong, spending grows at little more than the rate of inflation and all the additional revenue goes to debt repayment. Needless to say, the likelihood of any of that happening, much less all three, is slim at best.

Now the Treasury Department seems to agree with me.

The federal government will need to either cut spending or raise taxes down the road to pay for extending President Bush's recent tax cuts, the Treasury Department said in a report released yesterday, dismissing the idea popular with many Republicans that such sacrifices can be avoided.

No duh, right? What's interesting is that the report reached this conclusion despite using a new methodology called "dynamic analysis", an approach supported by the administration because they think it will better show the "hidden" benefits of supply-side economics.

The Treasury report was its first using "dynamic analysis," an approach that looks at how tax changes alter consumer and business behavior in ways that affect the economy's growth.

A reduction in income tax rates, for example, might initially reduce the government's revenue, but over time might encourage more people to work, and to put in longer hours, increasing tax payments to the government over time.

I don't mind the new methodology, as long as the assumptions it uses are reasonable. Economic behavior is complex, and if a new model comes along that appears to do a better job of predicting that behavior, I'm willing to try it.

But even using this supply-side-friendly method, the economics of tax cuts come up short.

The Treasury report released yesterday relieved "a lot of fears that dynamic scoring would lead to the view that cutting taxes raises revenue," said Jason Furman, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Rather, the report "pours a huge bucket of cold water on the exaggerated claims that tax cuts transform the economy and pay for themselves."

On the contrary, Furman said, the Treasury's estimates suggest that, under the best long-run scenario, the tax cuts' boost to tax payments would offset less than 10 percent of their initial cost.

Whoops.

Short-term, targeted tax cuts to provide short-term stimulus are an okay idea, as long as they're not carried to extremes. Deficit spending in a national emergency is acceptable. Reining in spending is a good idea. Keeping taxes low is a good idea.

But Bush has cut taxes, supercharged spending and launched a mind-numbingly expensive invasion, all at the same time. The mind boggles at the size of the bill the administration and their Congressional allies are handing to our children and grandchildren.

We are supposedly responsible adults. Let's start acting like it, and start paying our own bills instead of pushing them on to future generations.

Update: Forgot the link to the actual report.

deficit, taxes, budget, economy, politics, midtopia