What century is this?

What finally tipped me over the edge into resuming posting was the announcement that Mitt Romney will be making a major speech on faith in a couple of days, hoping to neutralize his Mormonism as a campaign issue.

Regular readers know that I'm no big Mitt Romney supporter, and as an agnostic I often take a jaundiced view of religion in general. But c'mon: Have we learned nothing from history, or even the last five years?

We're deeply engaged in an overseas war, ostensibly to fight religious extremists who wish to impose their brand of faith on everyone. One way we're doing that is by attempting to persuade Iraqis, Afghanis and everyone else that a person's race and religion does not matter: Sunni and Shiite can live together peaceably, ruled by a government representing all of them. In particular, we're trying to persuade Sunnis that it's quite all right to be ruled by a Shiite majority.

But at the same time, here at home, a longtime governor and serious presidential candidate feels compelled to make a national speech in order to advance the argument that it's okay to elect a Mormon as president.

Like, duh.

Seriously. What century is this? And what sort of mixed message are we sending to the people abroad whom we presume to instruct in tolerance? Sure, "refusing to elect" is a far different thing than "executing as infidels". But the philosophical underpinning is too similar to dismiss.

If Romney were a religious nut, that would be one thing. I would never vote for Pat Robertson, for example, because he holds extreme, often apocalyptic views and seems all too willing to try to put those views into practice. But that doesn't mean I would refuse to vote for any evangelical Christian candidate. And I tend to oppose conservative Christians because I disagree with their politics, not because they're Christian. Just like I oppose conservative Jews, Hindus and Muslims.

Grow up, people. Vote or don't vote for Romney because you agree or disagree with him, not because of where he goes to church on Sunday (or Saturday, or whatever).

And Republicans? Consider this event as further proof of the excessive and damaging hold that the religious right has on your party.

Romney, religion, politics, midtopia

The return of Sean

Hey everyone,

I apologize for the nearly three-month absence here at Midtopia. I'm not dead, but I have been very, very busy with other things -- and not Halo 3, as has been rumored....

I was simply overwhelmed by a tidal wave of real-life commitments:

1. The start of another school year, which meant both more volunteering time and time spent helping the kids with homework;

2. My wife launching a new business, for which I've provided technical support and graphic-design help, as well as picking up more domestic duties;

3. Serious flux at work;

4. Getting ready to return to school for a Web-design certificate.

I've still got all of the above, but I've gotten something of a routine down now, so I can squeeze in blogging again.

I don't promise to be as prolific a poster as I was before, but there shouldn't be any more three-month breaks.

On to the good stuff!

politics, midtopia

Happy Birthday to me

I turn 40 today, and all I want for my birthday is intergalactic war:



Of course, it doesn't come out until Sept. 25, and I'd need to buy an Xbox 360 first -- it won't run on the Xbox already in my house.

But those are quibbles. I'm 40, dammit! Life's gettin' short!

video games, midtopia

Some thoughts on health care

(Previous posts worth checking out are here and here.)

Health-care costs -- and whether to go to a government-run payment system -- is an issue that could dominate the 2008 elections. But as always, the debate could benefit from some decluttering.

First, let's be clear on what we're talking about. Opponents of any sort of national health care deride it as "socialized medicine". In fact, they use that label to describe any government involvement in the health-care system, however small.

But true socialized medicine is when the government is the health-care system -- it owns the hospitals, employs the doctors, and decides what procedures are included and what are not.

That's not generally what is under discussion here in the States. We're mostly talking about a "single-payer" system -- wherein the government pays for medical care, but it is provided by private hospitals, doctors and clinics.

But that's just the beginning.

Proponents of the current system warn of rationing -- as if care isn't rationed now, by ability to pay. Nor do they mention all the personal bankruptcies related to medical costs.

They warn about bureaucracy -- as if there isn't plenty of bureaucracy involved right now. The only advantage is that you get to choose among several private bureaucracies instead of being stuck with one big government bureaucracy.

They warn about lack of choice -- as if workers have much choice now. At a good-sized company, an employer might offer two or three health plans. But most workers are lucky to have health insurance at all -- and often, even when it's offered, it's expensive or has big coverage gaps.

They warn that people will stop trying to become doctors if salaries are squeezed. But doctor pay actually isn't a big factor in rising health-care costs, and so shouldn't be the primary focus of cost-control efforts. Even under a single-payer system, doctors should still be well-paid.

(And never mind that one of the reasons for high medical salaries is the staggering cost of medical school. If those costs could somehow be ameliorated -- say, by hospitals agreeing to shoulder some of that debt when they hire new MDs -- we could have lower salaries without discouraging new doctors).

PERVERSE INCENTIVES
The current system is also riddled with Catch-22s that might make sense individually but end up being senseless in aggregate.

My brother's a doctor. He's a family practitioner, which if you know anything about medicine means he's not primarily in it for the money. Yet for an FP he makes money hand over fist because he happens to have a patient base that is generally young and healthy -- meaning he can pack lots of appointments into an hour, the most profitable way to operate given his employer's payment system (which, in turn, is based on insurance reimbursement schedules.)

He has a colleague who is really detail-oriented, likes talking to patients and takes time with them. She ends up with all the hard cases -- and because those patients take a lot more time, she makes a lot less money. Yet the system would collapse without her -- she frees up the other doctors to see more patients.

Does that compensation system make sense?

Then there's the bureaucratic craziness caused by having to deal with dozens of different insurers, all of whom have their own coverage and reporting requirements.

My brother knows all this. He can rattle off a dozen perverse incentives caused by the current health-care system.

Would single payer solve some of those problems? Yes. Would it introduce other problems? Almost certainly. Whether the tradeoff is acceptable depends on how its structured.

COMPARING THE TWO
The biggest advantage of the current system is that if you've got the money you can get the care you want, when you want it.

The biggest advantages of a single-payer system would be universal coverage (no more "preexisting condition" exclusions) and an end to medical-related bankruptcy. It would also relieve businesses of the burden of providing health insurance, making them more competitive in the global marketplace.

One of the remaining big issues -- quality and availability of care -- comes down to details in the design and administration of the single-payer program.

The remaining big issue would be cost. It would make no sense to move to single-payer if, after subtracting the cost of providing universal coverage, it cost more than the system it was replacing, or provided far worse outcomes for the same price. But that, again, depends on the specific structure of the single-payer program.

I still think the simplest thing to do would be one of the following:

1. A mandatory insurance system like that being tried by Massachussetts;

2. Pass a law requiring insurance companies to treat the entire country as one giant risk pool, with discounts or surcharges allowed for measurable health risks like age, obesity, smoking, skydiving, etc. Then let individuals buy insurance themselves. It would take the burden off of businesses and let the market work while giving everyone access to group rates. One could combine this with a "must buy health insurance" law in order to avoid free-riders. Or one could simply let people take their chances.

If I were going to introduce a single-payer system of universal coverage, I'd simply introduce it without banning other systems -- an extension of Medicare, say but with higher compensation. Then I'd let employers choose whether to keep providing private insurance or offload their employees into the government system.

Or maybe they'd keep it as a cheap option. That would result in a health-system structured in tiers: basic coverage for everyone, with consumers having the option of buying private insurance to supplement it if they so desired. Providers, in turn, could charge what they wanted. If they charged more than the government plan paid, patients would have to pay the difference -- either out of pocket or through the supplemental private insurance they bought.

All these things should be on the table. If we were to approach this pragmatically we should try the more market-based approaches first, in order to avoid creating a self-sustaining government program that would be hard to kill if it proved a disaster. But a full-fledged single-payer system shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. If the middle paths fail, it remains the logical next step.

health care, politics, midtopia

Chuck Hagel won't run -- for anything

Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said yesterday that he won't run for re-election to the Senate in 2008 -- nor will he run for president.

There went just about any chance I would vote for a Republican presidential candidate next year, though it depends on whom the Dems end up nominating.

He's apparently quitting to fulfill a semipromise of a self-imposed term limit:

"I said after I was elected in 1996 that 12 years in the Senate would probably be enough," Hagel said. "It is."

Fair enough. But I'm sad that he's not tossing his hat in the presidential ring. A solidly conservative, principled, nonisolationist antiwar candidate would have made things interesting.

As the story notes, the pending retirements of Hagel, Wayne Allard, John Warner and probably Larry Craig give Republicans four tougher-than-expected races that they'll need to win simply to stay even in the Senate. With 22 GOP seats up for re-election versus only 12 Democratic seats, it seems likely that Democrats will strengthen their hold on the Senate regardless of how the presidential campaign turns out. The question is whether Democrats will end up with anywhere close to 60 seats, which would put them within striking distance of being able to pass legislation over the objections of minority Republicans. Which, in turn, would make life very pleasant for a Democratic president and very uncomfortable for a Republican.

Me, I don't mind the Democrats getting a shot at control of Congress and the presidency, if only to undo some of what Bush "accomplished" under Republican dominance. But if they get it and screw it up, I hope Republicans take over part of Congress in 2010 and save us with gridlock. Unless obvious good is being done, gridlock is our friend.

Hagel, politics, midtopia

Rep. Paul Gillmor found dead

It's a rough time to be a Republican. Resignations, criminal charges, and now this:

Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio), a 10-term congressman from northwest Ohio, has died at the age of 68.

Gillmor, who just returned to Washington after the monthlong recess, did not show up at his office today. His staff went to check in at his apartment and found that he had died. Capitol Police are currently investigating the cause of death.

Initial reports say the cause of death was a heart attack. He was 68 and overweight, so that's not surprising.

This has little bearing on control of the House, where Democrats already have a comfortable margin.

Condolences to his family.

Gillmor, politics, midtopia

Iraqi security forces unprepared to take over

Another day, another Iraq report.

This one is a Congress-commissioned study on the readiness of Iraqi forces, led by retired Marine Gen. James Jones, former Supreme Commander in Europe and former Commandant of the Marine Corps -- both under Bush, so let's not hear criticisms of him as a "Clinton general" or anything like that.

The conclusion: Four years after our invasion, Iraqi security forces remain unready to take over the country's security, and won't be able to any time soon. Structural progress within the military itself has been confounded by political corruption.

Overall, Jones found that Iraqi military forces, particularly the Army, show "clear evidence of developing the baseline infrastructures that lead to the successful formation of a national defense capability." But Baghdad's police force and Ministry of Interior are plagued by "dysfunction."

"In any event, the ISF will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently over the next 12-18 months," the report states.

That bears out what U.S. troops have experienced throughout our time in Iraq, up to and including the surge: American troops can clear an area of insurgents, but Iraqi units are incapable of holding the cleared terrain.

That, in turn, bodes badly for the upcoming progress report on Iraq, because it's an example of political problems stymying military efforts.

The actual Iraqi military gets reasonable marks, though it, too, is plagued by corruption and sectarian rifts. But the report is stinging in its criticism of the police force, which makes up the bulk of Iraqi security forces.

It describes the Iraqi police as fragile, ill-equipped and infiltrated by militia forces. And it is led by the Ministry of Interior, which is "a ministry in name only" that is "widely regarded as being dysfunctional and sectarian, and suffers from ineffective leadership."

In other words, not much has changed in the last nine months. Which does not meet any definition of "progress" that I'm aware of.

Jones testifies before Congress tomorrow. Maybe he'll flesh things out a little then.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Data-mining program dropped

The Department of Homeland Security has dropped one of its most ambitious data-mining projects after determining that it was cumbersome and had violated privacy rules.

Known as ADVISE and begun in 2003, the Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement program was developed by the department and the Lawrence Livermore and Pacific Northwest national laboratories for use by many DHS components, including immigration, customs, border protection, biological defense and its intelligence office.

The problems: They tested it for two years with real data instead of made-up data, violating privacy rules; and analysts found it "cumbersome" to use. Translation: it didn't work as intended.

Which has always been my problem with data-mining. It's great in theory, and I have no philosophical problem with it if personally identifiable information is protected. But the privacy worries are real -- this was the second data-mining project to violate privacy rules -- and connecting the dots turns out to be far more difficult than envisioned.

We should keep working on such systems to perfect them. But there should be two caveats: a sort of "proof of concept" that data-mining actually works, and strict privacy protections so that ordinary people don't find their data being bandied about by government bureaucrats.

data-mining, politics, midtopia

Backfill

Geez, I leave town for a week and everyone goes nuts! What's up with that?

BUH-BYE, GONZO
The big news, of course, was that Alberto Gonzales finally resigned -- with little or no explanation, though various administration officials applied various spins to the decision.

Not that it really matters. I don't care if he wants to "pursue other options" or "spend more time with his family" or simply "make more money in the private sector." I don't care if he was forced out or jumped or fell. All I can say is, "at last." It was too long in coming.

His resignation won't bring an end to the myriad Congressional inquiries into his actions and those of his subordinates. But it might take some of the bite and energy out of them.

His temporary replacement will be Solicitor General Paul Clement. A permanent replacement will be hard to find, for several reasons: Bush's diminished influence, the mess Gonzales leaves behind, and the fact that "permanent" means a little more than a year at the end of a dying presidency. It would essentially be a caretaker role, not a platform for grand initiatives.

If Bush is smart, he'll find someone of impeccable integrity who can spend the year cleaning up the department and restoring its morale and reputation -- an endeavor that, if successful, might erase the memory of Gonzales in time for the 2008 elections. But it could take quite a sales job to persuade the right person to take on that task.


CRAIG'S RAP SHEET
Meanwhile, reporters discovered that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig was arrested in an airport bathroom here in Minnesota, and pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from an undercover cop.

(Tangentially, it must be just loads of fun to be an undercover vice cop, sitting in toilet stalls and waiting for someone to proposition you. I wonder if they get a lot of reading done.)

Craig, pressured by Republican leaders, said he would resign -- but is now reconsidering that decision.

Craig denies being gay or soliciting sex, saying he pleaded guilty in hopes of making an embarassing situation go away. And the evidence against him is circumstantial -- essentially, a series of actions that are traditionally used by gay men seeking sex. No direct request, no words spoken.

Still, the sequence of events is odd to say the least -- looking into the neighboring stall, placing his bag against the front of his own stall, tapping his foot, touching the undercover officer's foot and "swiping his hand under the stall divider."

Any one of those actions could be explained away -- though the last is somewhat difficult. But all of it in sequence makes little sense except as a come-on. He might claim police entrapment -- but the officer in question has a good reputation.

On the other hand, the transcript of his discussion with the officer shows sharp disagreement about what occurred. So there's room for doubt. Nothing Craig said in the transcript conflicts with his public claims. It comes down to who you believe -- and what weight you place on the unreliability of eyewitnesses, even trained eyewitnesses like undercover officers. Craig could well be telling the truth, and he might well have prevailed had he been willing to endure a public trial.

Still, for the sake of argument, let's assume Craig is guilty. What should be our reaction?

My basic take is that, in a perfect world, this should be a nonstory. Who cares about his sexual orientation or private sexual habits, as long as they're not illegal? But the hypocrisy -- of Republicans in general, and the strongly anti-gay Craig in particular -- is what drives these sort of things. Republicans have made an issue of homosexuality, and poking their nose in people's bedrooms; this is the flip side of that coming home to roost.

Which is why a Republican strategist, Michelle Laxalt, said the following about the Craig case on Larry King:

"I happened to have come into the Republican Party during the more civil libertarian era of Barry Goldwater, Bill Buckley, Paul Laxalt, Ronald Reagan. And in their philosophy, the view about judging people regarding their personal lives was a live and let live philosophy. And somehow during the ensuing years, there has been a faction who call themselves the Moral Majority. We all remember the bumper stickers many years ago floating around Washington, which read 'The Moral Majority is neither.' And here we find ourselves virtually every single time getting whacked because of what is perceived to be a hypocrisy factor. The Republican Party needs to have some very serious introspection and return to the values that started us out, and that is individual liberty and a live and let live policy when it comes to people's private lives."

Amen. The Dems figured that out years ago, which is why nobody cares if a Dem is gay. There's no hypocrisy. In cases like this, Republicans are merely reaping what they have sown in their embrace of the religious right and "family values" issues.


THEY'RE BAAACCKKK!!
Congress returns from their summer recess, and that means more hearings on Iraq. Today we got a look at a GAO report on the Iraqi benchmarks, which notes that the Iraqi government has met only three of the 18 goals it set for itself, and partially met four others. And the ones that were met were the small, easy ones. (click here for the full report (pdf))

Wednesday and Thursday we'll get Congressional reports on the Iraqi security forces and the administration's own assessment of progress on benchmarks. And next week we'll get the big surge update from Gen. Petraeus. Both sides are already jockeying for position, with the White House downplaying the importance of political benchmarks and Congressional Democrats downplaying the importance of military benchmarks. It appears that many minds are already made up, and won't be changed by anything as mundane as facts on the ground.

This is a bit depressing, though I must admit that it's funny to see the White House criticizing the GAO report as "lacking nuance" when back in 2004 President Bush famously said he "doesn't do nuance." Oh what a difference three years of plummeting popularity makes.

Me, I accept the argument that the political benchmarks are more important than the military ones. But both are important, because progress (or backsliding) in one sphere can foreshadow progress (or backsliding) in the other. And it won't be as simple as "have they been met yet?" Indeed, that is only one of two important questions to be answered about the benchmarks.

1. Have they been met yet? This question is important both as an assessment of where we stand and as a way to judge the credibility of the claimants on both sides of the war, which should have some bearing on whom we believe going forward.

2. Has there been progress? And if so, how much? If the strategy can be shown to be working -- if there is reasonable reason to believe that it will deliver the necessary results -- then it deserves more time. But if the political benchmarks remain out of reach despite battlefield successes, or the battlefield is not successful enough to sustain the political achievements, then it's time to pull the plug.

Time to pull out my crystal ball.

Assuming the predictions are correct, what we'll get is a report that shows modest battlefield advances but political paralysis. So the debate will move on to two subordinate questions: what are the prospects for political progress, and are the battlefield gains both real and sustainable?

For that, we must await the reports.

gonzales, Craig, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Back in the saddle

I'm back from the Black Hills of South Dakota, having shaved my head, stood five feet from a (live) buffalo, poured a drink for Wild Bill Hickok, driven over a picnic table and sat outside the razor-wired fence of a Minuteman missile silo without being arrested.

I swear all of the above is true.

Four adults and four kids, we named ourselves the "Van Hellions" in honor of our trusty 15-passenger van -- and, of course, as a tribute to Eddie. Oddly enough, while we had an eclectic music selection -- ranging from Flock of Seagulls and Fleetwood Mac to Rush, Guns 'n' Roses and Nickelback -- Eddie was not among them. We mourned his absence.

We also attended the Corn Festival in Mitchell, S.D., eating dinner across the street from the Corn Palace while Weird Al Yankovic played inside. The weirdest thing about the Corn Festival is that it involved no actual corn.

Other highlights included a horseback ride through Custer State Park, touring a gold mine, driving the Needles highway, visiting Jewel Cave, Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse Mountain, and driving through the Badlands.

On the way back home we survived a night of overpacked horror at the Jellystone campground in Sioux Falls, jammed in cheek-by-jowl with hundreds of Labor Day weekend revelers. We thought the kids would like it; we'll never make that mistake again.

In the quiet hours I found time to read "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini -- a good-though-not-great novel that paints a vivid picture of pre- and post-Taliban Afghanistan, and life as part of the Afghan diaspora. Next on the list: "Thirteen Moons", the second book by "Cold Mountain" author Charles Frazier.

All in all it was a great time, and everyone got along great. We're already planning next year's trip -- probably a canoe-camping venture in the Boundary Waters.

While I enjoyed the time away from all forms of media, I'm glad to be back and will resume my regular blogging schedule soonest.

politics, midtopia

Still breathing

Hey all! I'm still here, but as noted in an earlier post, I've been really busy getting ready for the start of a new school year, planning some end-of-summer vacation and running a fantasy-football draft.

Speaking of which, my team for this year looks like this:

QB: Carson Palmer
RBs: Steven Jackson, Brandon Jacobs, DeAngelo Williams and a bunch of backups
WRs: Reggie Wayne, Hines Ward, Calvin Johnson
TE: Antonio Gates
K: Matt Stover
DEF: Denver Broncos

It's a 10-team league (really sort of a 9-teamer, since one of our owners went nuts and drafted all Patriots this year). But I like my chances.

In addition, this week a whole bunch of daycares were on break, so we had a neighborhood full of kids at our house -- on the days we weren't looking after sick daughters.

And on top of all that, my wife just quit her job to go into business for herself. So we've been scrambling to work through all the steps to set up an S corporation and get her going.

Phew! Tomorrow we leave for the aforementioned vacation, a weeklong camping trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Four adults and four kids in a 12-passenger van.... we'll see how that works out.

Anyway, I'll be back and posting after Labor Day. See you then!

politics, midtopia

Verdict reached in Padilla case

Latest story is here.

The verdict will be announced in about an hour. I'm home with a sick child, but I'll try to update after the announcement.

Padilla, politics, midtopia

Misleading with statistics

The headline on the AP story is breathless. "Army suicides highest in 26 years!"

That basic fact is true; Army suicides are up sharply, just like they spiked during the first Gulf War. The 2006 rate was 17.3 suicides per 100,000, a near doubling of the low of 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001.

But a closer look at the numbers is in order before we start jumping to conclusions.

The 17.3 rate translates into 99 suicides out of a population of about 500,000 soldiers. So it's hardly an epidemic.

And if you compare it to civilian suicide rates, it's even less of an issue. A pair of pdfs here produce the following table:

2004 CIVILIAN SUICIDE RATES (per 100,000 population)
Overall: 11.1
Ages 15-24: 10.4
Males: 17.7

Wait a second, you say. Other than that "males" category, the military suicide rate is clearly much higher than the civilian rates.

But look what happens when we break down the "age" category even further and combine it with gender:

Males, age 15-19: 12.65
Males, age 20-24: 20.84

You can see where I'm going here. Soldiers are mostly males in their early 20s. So a proper comparison of apples to apples shows that the military suicide rate, despite being at a 26-year high, is still lower than the comparable civilian rate. All that in spite of combat stress, the stress of being part of a "stretched" military, and access to all sorts of military-grade weaponry.

People are right to be concerned. The rate has doubled, after all. It's clearly a symptom of strain and each one is a personal tragedy besides. The military should do what it can to reduce those numbers.

But let's not overreact. The problem is small, and soldiers are still less likely to kill themselves than civilians are. This is more an example of shallow and innumerate reporting than it is a sign of serious problems in the military.

media, suicide, politics, midtopia

Spitzer hearing reveals little

The New York state Senate hearing into what is being dubbed "Troopergate" or "Choppergate" (there seems to be a war of coinage going on) was apparently riveting political theater, but didn't turn up much in the end.

The most notable bit of information to emerge was details of two investigations, one conducted by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the other by Inspector General Kristine Harmann. The former was hampered by the AG's inability to subpoena two key aides in the scandal, Richard Baum and Darren Dopp, because Harmann was investigating and never formally turned over control of the probe to Cuomo. But Harmann's probe was halted after it led to Baum, to whom the IG reports. Instead, the IG's information was folded into the AG's report, which relied on voluntary statements from the pair.

That's inadequate. While Cuomo was comfortable drawing a conclusion that no criminality was involved (and an aide testified that subpoenas would not have changed the verdict), it's important in a case like this to avoid even the appearance of a coverup or a whitewash. Any investigation should be full, complete and public.

It's probably not necessary to have Cuomo or Harmann reinvestigate, however, given that there are currently two other probes in the works: one by the local DA, the other by the state Commission on Investigation, which handles inquiries into corruption, fraud and the conduct of government officials. Both probes will have subpoena power. Assuming they are conducted properly, they should provide the answers the first two investigations have not.

Meanwhile, we wait. And so should senate Republicans.

Spitzer, politics, midtopia

Dog days of summer

BTW, I'd like to apologize for the slow pace of posting this week. Besides preparing for some upcoming camping trips and the start of a new school year, I'm currently in the midst of running a fantasy football draft. Time and brainpower usually spent blogging have been diverted to deciding whether Reggie Wayne is worth a high third-round pick (answer: yes).

It might be slow next week, too. And in three weeks I'm going on vacation to South Dakota and won't be posting at all for a week. So bear with me until a regular posting pace resumes in September.

politics, midtopia

Where the candidates stand

I'm mostly sitting out the early rounds of the presidential campaign on principle, refusing to pay close attention until we're quite a bit closer to the 2008 elections and the number of candidates has dropped a bit.

It's not just laziness: I can't think of a better way to guarantee that victory goes to the deepest pocket than to have a two-year campaign. Indeed, I've been doing some thinking about campaign financing and will have an extensive post on the subject a little later.

For now, though, I've come across a handy chart that helps makes sense of the current battalion of hopefuls. It cross-references the candidates by their position on 25 issues.

As with all such issues, most don't break down neatly into "yes/no" answers. But it's a starting place to get a sense of the candidates.

A good way to approach it is to decide what your "make or break" issues are: those where a candidate's position is enough to decide whether you could ever vote for him, regardless of his stand on other issues. Then go through that reduced list to see who agrees with you the most, or who has personality or career traits that you find attractive.

For instance, my make/break issues, from those available, are:

1. Guantanamo/torture/wiretapping;
2. Iraq war (overall, not the details of the surge, which I support, or withdrawal, my support for which depends on how the surge works out).

Those are the only issues where the chart provides a meaningful answer to issues that are key to me, although it's imperfect even at that. For instance, I don't mind legal wiretapping, but oppose warrantless wiretapping of domestic targets. It's thus unclear what the entry under "wiretapping" means.

That said, a quick sort using those criteria indicates that I could support any of the following candidates: Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich and Richardson.

Looks pretty Democratic for me this time around, unless Chuck Hagel runs.

Having eliminated those candidates I can't vote for, I can now turn my attention to sorting the remaining candidates based on their personal traits, as well as issues that I have an opinion on but don't put so much weight on.

Gay marriage, for instance: I support it (or civil unions), but I won't vote against a candidate simply because they oppose it. All other choices being equal, though, I'll back the candidate who supports it over the candidate that opposes it. That's enough to throw out Dodd, whose "leave it up to the states" nonanswer ignores the substantive federal benefits attached to marriage.

I can throw out Gravel and Kucinich because they oppose any strong measures against Iran, even sanctions.

That leaves Biden, Clinton, Edwards and Richardson. And there's not much substantive difference in their remaining positions. They all agree on abortion, the death penalty, ANWR drilling, Kyoto, universal health care, etc.

The main exceptions: Biden and Richardson oppose No Child Left Behind; Richardson opposes an assault-weapons ban; and Richardson opposes a border fence. None of those is enough to sway me one way or the other.

So I've got it down to four. The next step would be to examine their policy positions in more detail, as well as weigh the intangibles: experience, judgment, personality, whether I trust them, education, intelligence, and so on. Which is what the final months of the campaign are for: to get to know the candidates as much as possible.

For that, I'll see you in January.

politics, midtopia

Spitzer hearing tomorrow

The Republican-controlled New York state Senate will hold a hearing on Spitzergate tomorrow -- while the Albany district attorney has launched an inquiry to see if he should begin a criminal investigation of Spitzer's aides.

In an op-ed piece last week, the victim in the scandal -- state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno -- called for a special counsel to investigate the matter. The article was full of non sequiturs, and a good half of it was simply a list of Bruno's political grievances against Spitzer. In the end, the best argument he could come up with for a special counsel was that the case called into question Spitzer's "temperament" -- hardly a compelling case.

Nonetheless, the hearings may be the first step toward such an eventuality. Spitzer deserves a certain amount of raking over the coals, but it'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow. If they don't uncover something that goes beyond what Spitzer has already copped to, it'll be hard to justify further investigation.

At which point one of two things will happen: they'll wait for the DA's inquiry to wrap up, or they'll point to "serious unanswered questions" as justification for continuing to flog the case. The question will be whether those questions are truly "serious" or not. We shall see.

Spitzer, politics, midtopia

Judge who sued dry cleaner moves closer to losing job

We knew this would happen, but for the record:

The D.C. judge who sued his dry cleaners for $54 million over a pair of pants may want to begin looking for a new job.

A city commission has voted to formally notify Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson that he may not be reappointed to the bench, according to a government source.

Pearson has 15 days to file a rebuttal, and can argue his case in person come September. His timing couldn't have been worse: his introductory two-year term expires this year, and he has been lobbying for appointment to a full 10-year term.

Oh, well. I'll save my sympathy for those who deserve it, like the dry cleaners he tormented for two years.

Pearson, politics, midtopia

Eavesdropping sound and fury

Dahlia's mad.

This past Sunday, a heap of Democrats voted to rush through changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law that governs electronic surveillance of anyone in this country. The new law expands the authority of the attorney general to approve the monitoring of phone calls and e-mails to suspected overseas terrorists from unknowing American citizens. Make no mistake about it. The vote to update FISA rewarded the AG for years of missteps and misstatements by giving him expanded authority to enforce the president's alarming constitutional vision. Sans oversight. Sans judicial approval.

Strong stuff. But it seems highly misdirected to me. All in all I'm unpersuaded by all the sound-and-fury about the revised eavesdropping bill.

I consider myself a civil liberties fanatic, and have been harshly critical of aspects of the NSA program. I'm all for listening in on bad guys, but a warrant should be required when "U.S. persons" (U.S. citizens or resident aliens on American soil) are the target or can reasonably be expected to be overheard -- in short, the existing FISA standard. This basically boils down to a simple rule: people overseas can be monitored freely, without warrants. People located on American soil can only be monitored after obtaining a warrant (with certain exceptions designed to allow warrantless monitoring of foreign spies).

(Being a practical sort of civil libertarian, I'm actually willing to go one step beyond FISA, and not care if a U.S. person is overheard during an eavesdropping effort aimed at an overseas target. If an Al Qaeda operative in Pakistan takes a call from someone in Detroit, there's no good reason to ignore that call -- though if the government wants to target the Detroit end, it needs to get a warrant.)

So why do I not share Dahlia's outrage? Because the bill in question was a narrowly focused and badly needed update of the FISA law. The facts at issue are these: A large percentage of foreign communications pass through data switches in the United States. Technically that meant the government needed to get a warrant to listen in on those calls, even if both ends of the conversation were in foreign countries, because the tapping was taking place on American soil.

While consistent with the letter of the FISA law, this interpretation clearly violated the spirit of it, to no good purpose. Which is why hardly anybody disagrees with the fundamental point: the law needed to be updated to clarify that such purely foreign communications can be monitored without warrants.

All the huffing and puffing is over reporting requirements and the standards for review of wiretapping decisions. While legitimate issues, they hardly constitute the total Democratic capitulation -- or for that matter, hypocritical about-face -- that Dahlia describes. The bill is still narrowly focused to address a legitimate problem, and still contains specific prohibitions against domestic spying. It lacks "judicial approval" for a very simple reason: monitoring foreign communications has never required judicial approval.

I haven't read the bill in full yet, so there might well be other technical flaws in it. But the broad outline is pretty solid. This is the sort of common-sense legislation one would hope for in such an instance: one that takes civil liberties seriously, but doesn't needlessly hamper the data collection that is so useful to our security.

civil liberties, FISA, NSA, politics, midtopia

Legality vs. decency

(Editor's note: This is the post I made over at Stubborn Facts yesterday, edited slightly to remove confusing references to SF).

I'd like to examine two situations that explore the boundary between "decent and fair" and "legally actionable."

The first will be a familiar one to most of you: the legal rights denied to gay couples by virtue of their inability to marry. The specific case comes to us from Indiana, via Holly over at the Moderate Voice.

Brett Conrad spent more than half his life as Patrick Atkins' partner. For 25 years, the men shared bank accounts, apartments and eventually a home in Fishers.

But when Atkins, 47, fell seriously ill in 2005, Conrad faced what many gay Hoosiers consider a travesty: no law guaranteeing them the same rights as married couples to participate in care decisions for their ill partners.

Conrad, 47, spent much of the past two years trying to win guardianship of Atkins from Atkins' parents, Thomas and Jeanne of Carmel. Jeanne Atkins is quoted in court documents as saying she believes homosexuality is a sin and that she disapproves of the men's relationship. The parents have barred Conrad from visiting their now-disabled son in their home where he lives.

Had they been able to marry, of course, there would have been no question about Conrad's rights to visitation, inheritance and ability to make medical decisions for his partner.

On the other hand, as the story points out, the men could have established those same rights by (for instance) granting each other power of attorney or naming each other their health-care representative.

The main difference is that the rights that accompany marriage are automatic, free and generally legally unassailable. The legal equivalents for nonmarried couples can be costly and subject to challenge in court -- and the rules can differ state by state, making travel a somewhat more fraught experience, as another couple relates later in the story:

For Kim Allman and Leisa Waggoner, disapproving families aren't the only threat to the layers of contracts in place to protect their assets, health and two children.

Waggoner, who adopted Allman's children, is painfully aware that when the family travels to Oklahoma to visit Allman's brother, state law there explicitly forbids her adoptive status.

"That would mean that if something happened to Kim (in Oklahoma), I could lose the kids," Waggoner said. "I'm scared."

Such cases are sympathetic, and a big reason why I think gay marriage -- or at least its legal equivalent, bestowed in a similarly automatic, free and unassailable manner -- should be legalized as a matter of simple human fairness.

But -- and this is the key point as far as this post goes -- in large measure that legalization has not yet happened. So however much I might sympathize with such couples, they do not yet have a legal case. If they sue in such situations they will likely lose, because the law has not established a foundation on which they can act. Their cases may prompt the creation of such a foundation, but that foundation doesn't yet exist.

Keep that in mind as I describe the second situation, outlined in a New York Times Magazine piece from a couple of weeks ago: the rising tide of workplace litigation over workers who want to take more time to care for their families without losing their jobs. It's well worth going behind the NYT firewall to read.

Some cases are relatively simple, like that of Kevin Knussman, a Maryland state trooper who sought leave during his wife's difficult pregnancy and again after the baby was born -- in both cases, leave that was explicitly allowed under the law. He was denied, he sued, and he won, because the legal foundation had been established.

But then there's the case of Lucia Kanter, who sought a reduced work schedule or a leave of absence in order to help care for her autistic son. She was turned down, and then she was fired -- in part, it seems, because of concerns that she couldn't handle the workload because of her son's problems.

She's a sympathetic figure: a mother trying to take care of her child. And it's easy to view her firing as the act of a callous and uncaring employer.

But there's a difference between "fair" and "legally actionable." Being a jerk is not a crime, and the employer has some legitimate concerns of its own. We all might agree, for instance, that the decent thing would have been for the employer to cut Kanter some slack and accommodate her needs. But should the employer be forced to do so through the law? Accommodation, after all, is not without cost to the employer. How much responsibility does a business bear for the personal travails of its employees?

To quote from one critic of the trend, Zachary Fasman (a partner in a New York law firm):

"I’m not against work-life balance — who is? But the organization of the work force has always been left, to a large extent, to the discretion of the employer. So long as it doesn’t discriminate, where a business draws the line on these things depends on the nature of the business. You can’t rewrite the rules of the American workplace unless Congress does it."

Fasman notes that an overemphasis on the right to accomodation could rob businesses of such basic practices as the right to require overtime or set work schedules, which could make it difficult or even impossible to properly operate the business.

He's a bit hyperbolic, of course, but his main point is correct. There are a lot of things that would be nice to do; but we should be careful about what people and businesses are legally required to do.

The last line of his quote, by the way, gets at the root of the problem. The increasing lawsuits are a symptom, indicating that workplace law and practice are out of step with the realities of modern living -- realities that have changed what people consider discrimination.

The market provides part of the solution, as enlightened employers change their practices in order to lure and keep employees. But not all employers are enlightened.

The legal system provides another partial remedy, applying updated interpretations to existing law. But such "fixes" tend to be patchwork and often increase murkiness rather than clarity.

The real fix is for Congress to establish clear, updated rules that spell out what sort of accommodation is required and what is not. That's a political process in which both employers and workers can have their say, not a legal process in which a sympathetic plaintiff can produce a result with unintendedly broad consequences.

law, workplace, politics, midtopia