Week of: |
5:35 PM
Poll puzzle
A new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll raises the question, Does Iraq really matter? Or rather, does it matter to U.S. voters?
Admittedly, a majority of Americans surveyed believe that sending U.S. troops to Iraq was a mistake. (Three weeks ago, 58 percent thought it was a good idea.) And some 55 percent of Americans believe that the war has increased U.S. vulnerability to terrorism. (In December, 56 percent thought the opposite.) We seem to be at a hinge point: a majority of Americans has not disapproved of U.S. troop deployment since the Vietnam War.
BUT: For all the dissatisfaction with Bush’s foreign policy, he still leads Kerry by a point in this poll. Even with the surge in pre-handover violence, Bush gained 5 percent in the last three weeks, reversing a six-point Kerry lead.
How to explain this? The brightening economy probably has something to do with it. (The odd quirks of polling might, too; other recent polls show Kerry looking much better). But it’s not all good news for the president. In the 17 battleground states where both campaigns are focusing their time and TV ads, Kerry has widened a lead over Bush to 53 to 40 percent. They were tied in these states in mid-May, and Kerry had a 5-point lead three weeks ago. This suggests either 1) a rising economic tide isn't lifting everyone or 2) swing-state voters are more bothered about Iraq or 3) both. Given that this election will probably won in the battlegrounds, this poll has got to give the Bush camp pause.
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4:50 PM
Not all bad
Give Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) his due: he may have been an ideologue and a hawk on Iraq, but he's not all bad. Witness his extremely laudable recent outcry against racial discrimination in health care.
A recent RAND study revealed the following:
Women and African Americans were 40 percent less likely to have their complaints taken seriously and be referred for further diagnostic tests. Further medical studies also show that:
Hispanics with asthma are almost twice as likely as white patients to face largely-avoidable emergency rooms visits or have the illness limit their daily activities.
Infants born to American Indians and Alaskan Natives are twenty-five percent more likely to die in the first year of life than the national average.
Asian American women are 20 percent less likely to get life-saving screening exams for cervical cancer than white women.
To correct this problem, Sen. Lieberman has proposed the FairCare program, which will reward hospitals and health centers that make progress in "reducing health care disparities." Now, as noted earlier with regards to the Wal-Mart lawsuit, the "carrot" approach often only goes so far -- there usually comes a point when a stern crackdown is necessary to get rid of deep-seated discrimination. Still, it's heartening to see this issue is receiving national attention. (For a survey of state and local initiatives to reduce the racial healthcare gap, see this new report by the Commonwealth Fund.)
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4:38 PM
My life, too
The inevitable took place Friday afternoon. A British broadcaster talked to Monica Lewinsky in London to get her take on Bill Clinton's memoir My Life. Reuters reports Lewinsky feels betrayed by Clinton and disappointed by how he portrayed their relationship:
"He says he was proud of the way that he defended the presidency, at my expense. In the process he destroyed me, and that was the way he was going to have to do that, to get through impeachment. I was a young girl and to hear him saying some of the things he was saying today -- it's a shame."
Lewinsky said she hoped Clinton would retract unspecified "false statements" he made about her during the lead up to impeachment. She told Reuters "didn't want to talk" publicly about the affair, but of course, you can still find her perspective in print at your local bookstore.
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4:30 PM
Toying with Tariffs
Tired of all the internecine WTO disputes between the E.U. and the U.S.? Hey, who isn't? A short op-ed in the Financial Times today argues that trade retaliation is not the answer (subscriber only). On one level, the authors have a point:
Retaliatory measures usually take the form of tariff increases. For instance, the US currently imposes a 100 per cent tariff penalty on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of European imports annually. This is supposed to put pressure on the EU to remove the import ban on US hormone-treated beef, a measure that was found in 1998 to breach World Trade Organization rules. In return, since March this year the EU has been cranking up retaliatory tariffs by one percentage point a month, which can affect up to $4bn a year of US import. With these tariff increases the EU wants to encourage Congress to repeal the US foreign sales corporations tax that was judged illegal in 2002.
Trade retaliation may or may not encourage compliance with the rules. But these countermeasures do a lot of harm, and often not in the right places. Innocent businesses are cut off from entire markets because of a dispute in which they are not involved.
Also note that tiny Third World countries can hardly retaliate when the U.S. slaps a tariff on, say, cotton imports. In lieu of tariffs, then, the op-ed proposes that faulty governments offer financial compensation to any exporter harmed by an illegal trade barrier. If the US wants to protect its cotton industry, then the government should send a big check to producers in Ghana and Benin. As the authors say, "Financial compensation does not restrict trade flows, and actually helps to compensate injured industries."
Now this proposal may make the whole retaliation process fairer, but it doesn't put a stop to the madness. In the U.S., at least under Robert Zoellick and the Bush administration, tariff policy has become overrun by electoral politics. The administration propped up harmful trade barriers on steel in order to win midterm votes in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and it only nixed those barriers after the EU threatened tariffs that would have harmed other swing voters. Retaliation works-- if Bush could have kept his tariffs intact by simply dipping into the deficit and paying off foreign exporters, he certainly would have. So sure, the "red in tooth and claw" structure of the WTO needs reforming. But a more immediate goal should be cracking down on the damaging political games the administration has played with U.S. trade policy.
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3:34 PM
Sudan update
Kofi Annan heads to Sudan next week, and he says it's about time for the United Nations to do something about the violence in the western region of Darfur:
"All governments with influence in Khartoum must engage the Government of Sudan and insist that the government must protect its people. It must disarm the Janjaweed, it must create an environment that will allow the displaced to go home, and it should engage with the rebel side."
The Sudanese government promised to disarm the Janjaweed - Arab militias that have killed up to 30,000 black villagers - last week in response to threatened sanctions from the U.S. and U.N. But Annan said he is not ready to "send in the cavalry" to help enforce that decision, as he remains unsure how many countries would participate.
Annan avoided calling the killings in Darfur "genocide," but said the international community should take action soon:
"We all agree that serious crimes are being committed," he said in answer to questions. "We don't need a label to propel us to act, and so I think we should act now and stop arguing about which label to put on it."
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3:00 PM
Hit the road, Jack
Once his divorce records were opened and tales of bizarre visits to sex clubs spilled out, it was only a matter of time before Jack Ryan had to give up his bid to represent Illinois in the Senate. That time came Friday, as Ryan canceled a planned trip to Washington and instead released a statement announcing his withdrawal:
"It's clear to me that a vigorous debate on the issues most likely could not take place if I remain in the race," Ryan said. "What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign -- the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play. Accordingly, I am today withdrawing from the race."
Just a few months ago, Jack Ryan looked like a rare star for Republicans in an increasingly Democratic state. Ryan, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who left the business world to teach in a Chicago high school, handily won the party's packed primary March 16 (though his poll numbers never approached his general election opponent, Democrat Barack Obama).
Ryan's departure from the race underscores how far Republicans have fallen in a state that voted for Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and where the GOP held the governorship from 1977 to 2002. In the November 2002 elections, Illinois voters gave the Democrats control of the state Senate, a larger majority in the state House, and every statewide office but treasurer (where the Dems barely challenged incumbent Judy Baar Topinka, a socially progressive and popular moderate). Much of the Republicans' old guard was tainted by Gov. George Ryan's scandals or problems with the state justice system, and a new crop of viable candidates was slow in emerging.
The quest to find Ryan's replacement reflects the same problem. Several state Republican leaders met Thursday to discuss the choice, and the Chicago Tribune reports Ron Gidwitz is "emerging as the leading contender."
If you don't know who Gidwitz is, don't worry -- his statewide profile is somewhat oxymoronic. He's a former chairman and current member of the state board of education, and he received a national education award in 2003. But he's received little media coverage, as even the Tribune mentioned him fewer than 10 times in the past year.
But nobody else jumps out as a better choice. Jim Oberweis, the businessman who finished a distant second to Ryan in the primary, alienated plenty of voters with an immigration stance that bordered on racism. Topinka can't leave her position, as she's the only GOP member in high office statewide. Former governors Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar have refused to run rather than risk tarnishing their legacies when polls show them losing to Obama.
Granted, Obama is a rising star and would present a challenge for anyone. But the chaos the Republicans face demonstrates how this former battleground state has shifted squarely into the Democratic column.
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02:35 PM
Popularity contest
So we finally find out who those mysterious "most Iraqis" supporting the interim government are. And it turns out, they really are "most Iraqis." According to a new CPA survey, 68 percent of Iraqis support the new interim government headed by Iyad Allawi. The vote of confidence is a bit peculiar; most of these interim leaders are recycled from the Iraqi Governing Council, which earned a dismal 28 percent confidence rating back in May. Hey, whatever works…
Anyways, this is obviously great news, but - there's still that big, cautionary "but". The interim government is still going to be constrained in its ability to crack down on violence, and if Allawi relies too heavily on U.S. soldiers, he'll see his popularity plummet very quickly. The same goes for reconstruction--if the new government can't get that electricty back on, goodbye enthusiasm. On the bright side, the shiny new numbers do give conservatives something to cluck about.
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2:30 PM
Always low wages
Now that a federal judge has allowed the gender discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart to go forward, it's worth asking: What happens if Wal-Mart loses? Cue BusinessWeek, which tells us that the superstore can't just wriggle out of this by quietly settling with the plaintiffs. A defeat would force a real revolution in the way Wal-Mart does business:
A court-appointed monitor could have the ability to review Wal-Mart's pay and promotion records and to audit compliance. Such an overseer "is completely nonnegotiable," says Brad Seligman of the Impact Fund, one of the lawyers representing the women in the case…
As in other big discrimination cases, Wal-Mart may have to agree to goals for boosting women in management. Clear-cut objectives and timetables have worked well at Salomon Smith Barney, which has upped the women in its brokerage ranks since settling its sex-discrimination case in 1997, says lawyer Linda D. Friedman, who represented women in that suit…
"You can really reform a company" with such settlements, Friedman says. Wal-Mart would also be pressured to close the male-female pay gap -- at a cost of at least $500 million, say plaintiffs' lawyers.
Five hundred million dollars? Business types will no doubt mourn the loss, claiming that the lawsuit will bite into those "Always Low Prices." Let them mourn-- Wal-Mart will recover (after all, customers aren't going anywhere). Corporations have had their chance to correct the gender wage gap, and as we noted a few weeks ago, overall progress has been negligible. It's shake-up time.
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5:36 PM
Not so interim after all
The Christian Science Monitor sorts through the news surrounding the upcoming Iraq handover and comes to a markedly more optimistic conclusion than I did about the prospects for the interim government. Most interesting is this paragraph:
Most Iraqis say they're less concerned with the legal grounds of the handover and are much more interested in whether it will work. Their attitude towards the interim government now is akin to their early view of the CPA - wary but willing to give it a chance to make their lives better.
I'm not sure who "most Iraqis" are, exactly-- is this polling data?-- but they should probably get used to a government built on tenuous "legal grounds." As another CSM reporter relates, the outgoing Interim Governing Council (IGC) has been quietly working to stack the upcoming national assembly with friends and allies:
In a little-noticed edict, the defunct council guaranteed itself seats on Iraq's Interim National Council, a 100-member assembly that will have power to approve the 2005 budget, veto executive orders with a two-thirds majority, and appoint replacements to the presidency. The former council also guaranteed itself seats on a headspinning array of committees that will select other members of the new body.
The IGC has also given itself the power to screen members of next month's 1,000 person government-advisory assembly. This vetting process is almost certainly the reason why Moqtada al-Sadr rejected his invitation-- his group was offered only a single spot. Add this incident to the list of things to fret about. No one wants al-Sadr to gain too much power in government, but it's an equally bad idea to alienate him completely. Outmaneuvering al-Sadr politically will be a major challenge for the Allawi government -- and it's worrisome to think that this crisis may depend on the political savvy of a group of tin-ear exiles.
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2:55 PM
It's the (Iraqi) economy, stupid
With security in absolute shambles, perhaps Iraq's best hope is a thorough economic boost. We know that Paul Bremer's Polish-style "shock therapy" treatment -- quickly liberalizing large chunks of Iraqi industry -- was a disaster. Low tax rates, reduced tariffs, increased foreign investment -- all of these have been damn near useless in a country that struggles with 40 percent unemployment and a security situation that has most foreign investors afraid to step foot in the country. If that hasn't been enough, many of the reconstruction contracts being handed out have been vastly undermined by inefficiency and cronyism. It's no mystery why so many of the country's unemployed and impoverished are flocking to rabble-rousers like al-Sadr.
Now, as far as I know, only two distinct groups have proved successful at winning "hearts and minds" in Iraq -- the Iranians, and the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul under Lt. Gen. David Petraeus. The common thread, I think, is that both have put extra effort into making their reconstruction efforts visible to local Iraqis. The Washington Post briefly touched on this phenomenon a few weeks ago:
Although U.S. funding has focused heavily on infrastructure, almost all of Iran's assistance has focused on more high-profile public services, such as health clinics, community centers and power generators that have boosted local allies.
Has the CPA finally caught on? Uh, no. Via Iraq Revenue Watch, we've learned that just a few days before June 30th, the coalition is frantically tossing out money at "ill-conceived" reconstruction projects, hoping to lock in the Iraq interim government to a series of specified contracts. So, for instance, we learn that Virginia-based ANHAM Joint Venture will now be the sole supplier of Iraqi arms (for ANHAM's general incompetence, see here). The money will taken from the Iraqi Development Fund, the U.N.-governed depository for Iraq's oil sales.
Although many of the projects being funded -- vocational training, infrastructure repair, food supplies -- are essential, the haphazard manner of distribution could very well prove disastrous. At this point, the U.S. seems far more interested in doling out slick contracts than it is in winning local support through economic development.
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12:45 PM
Not going away ...
Remember back when the Justice Department promised to investigate the leaking of a CIA operative's identity? While the investigation isn't over, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has followed through with the inquiry, most recently questioning President Bush about the leak.
In a July 2003 column, Robert Novak revealed the identity of Valerie Plame, the wife of former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Wilson has charged that the White House leaked her identity as political payback for his publicly criticizing the administration's assertion that Iraq tried to purchase uranium ore from Niger. Novak has said he learned Plame's classified identity from two "senior administration officials." Revealing the identity of a CIA operative is a crime under U.S. law, and could lead to federal charges for those officials.
Fitzgerald and other federal prosecutors reportedly interviewed Bush for more than 70 minutes Thursday morning. Investigators have already interviewed Dick Cheney and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales in the criminal probe, and Bush has hired a private attorney who attended his interview with Fitzgerald. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said the president has ordered his administration to cooperate with the probe:
"The leaking of classified information is a very serious matter. He was pleased to do his part. No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States."
This investigation bears watching as it continues. In what looks like a close election, a leak somewhere in the White House could bode ill for an administration trying to look strong on national security.
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12:40 PM
If Sadr wins?
In Iraq, U.S. Marines have gone back to battling insurgents in Fallujah and Baqubah, after a coordinated series of terrorist attacks by Abu Musab Zarqawi rocked police stations across the country. Of particular note is the fact that Zarqawi is expressly targeting interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. The interim government is a sitting duck right now -- a chubby, powerless sitting duck -- and it's unclear how well they'll be able to restore security after the June 30th handover.
Today's announcement -- that U.S. troops will continue to have immunity from Iraqi law after the handover -- really starts to complicate things. Military officials were already hinting that the U.S. would control Iraqi security, but even so, it's odd that the Bush administration would so flagrantly and publicly undermine Iraqi sovereignty. (Or at least it should be odd.) A clue comes from The Washington Post, which points out that the interim government was in no position to grant the U.S. immunity:
A similar grant of immunity to U.S. troops in Iran during the Johnson administration in the 1960s led to the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who used the issue to charge that the shah had sold out the Iranian people…
In Iraq, Washington had originally hoped to achieve a formal Status of Forces Agreement to grant immunity, but that was effectively vetoed when Sistani and other Iraqi politicians said no unelected Iraqi government could enter into a treaty with other countries. The United States now hopes to negotiate a status agreement next year, after a government is elected.
Hence, the Bush administration had to make the declaration itself, further crumbling the thin veneer of Iraqi sovereignty -- a veneer most Iraqis have long been able to see through. In order to help the interim government maintain some shred of support, the U.S. will begin disengaging from holy cities like Karbala, and slowly drawing back its forces. Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz announced a few weeks ago that the military would refrain from hunting down insurgents, and focus instead on bolstering security for the interim government. Indeed, it now seems that the military will be content to declare "victory" where it can and simply withdraw from high-intensity areas of combat. That trend can be expected to continue after June 30th -- Marines venturing forth only when truly devastating attacks occur. To maintain a heavy hand -- in what is supposed to be a sovereign country -- would risk provoking a widespread revolt.
That will leave the interim government to fend for itself against an increasingly powerful insurgency. What options do they have for restoring order? Martial law is precarious. As I've mentioned before, the interim government likely doesn't have the manpower to impose effective martial law--and even if they did, down that road lies a potential dictatorship. Of course, those concerns may be moot now: Allawi eased off the martial law talk after a stern tongue-lashing from U.S. authorities. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave much else.
The best solution could be one proposed by Allawi himself--speed up elections. At the very least, an elected government could hash out a Status of Forces Agreement with the United States, ostensibly with Sistani's blessing, creating a more credible and more effective security force. On the downside, Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is currently the second most popular figure in Iraq, after Sistani (who isn't running for election). If Sadr wins -- what then?
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11:25 AM
Gaffes on tap
Pete Coors might know beer, but the Senate hopeful sure doesn't know who the prime minister of Canada is.
Coors and Bob Schaffer, his opponent for the Republican nomination in Colorado's Senate race, held their third debate Wednesday night. When Schaffer asked Coors whether he agreed with Paul Martin about opening the border to imports of Canadian beef, the brewer could only respond:
"I don't know Paul Martin's whole position on this issue. I'm not sure I know who Paul Martin is."
Schaffer pounced on the statement to paint Coors as unqualified for the job. And as the Denver Post points out, Coors should know more about our neighbor to the north, considering he has a partnership with Molson Inc., a Canadian company, and has said Coors Light is Canada's top-selling light beer.
Coors also raised eyebrows in the same debate by - without a hint of irony - restating his 1997 advocacy for lowering the state drinking age to 18.
And we shouldn't ignore Coors' assertion that his brewery experience makes him strong on water safety: "That's what we do. We turn water into beer." Coors' brewery in Colorado - according to an Environmental Defense scorecard - ranked among the worst polluters in America.
Unlike the beer he brews, Pete Coors is proving to have quite a thick head.
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11:18 AM
The outing option
Come out against gay marriage, and some in Washington might have to come out of the closet.
As Congress prepares to discuss amending the Constitution to prevent gay marriage, some activists are calling to out any "closeted" congressional supporters of the amendment - and any of their staffers who might be gay.
Washington activist John Aravosis made the threat last week, asking for the names of closeted amendment supporters:
"If you're gay and you support making sexual orientation a political weapon, then your sexual orientation is fair game, and you will be outed to the rafters."
The Washington Blade reports former Republican Congressman Steve Gunderson - who outed himself under pressure in 1994 - predicted such a campaign months ago, saying reaction to the polarizing amendment could "get uglier than anything we saw on AIDS."
Lynden Armstrong, an aide to Republican Sen. Pete Domenici and founder of the an association of gay Senate staffers, told the Blade such a move is likely to backfire:
"Most likely you're hurting the cause by alienating a gay staffer or potentially removing that staffer from the office. It angers me whenever I hear of gay people doing that to other gay people. It's accomplishing nothing while demonstrating insensitivity to a very personal process."
But Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) - who came out publicly in 1987 - said he understands where the activists are coming from:
"I am not inclined to do it, but I think if the congressman is rabidly anti-gay, it's appropriate. You don't have a right to be a hypocrite; you don't have a right to exempt yourself from the negative things you do to other people."
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11:04 AM
Pseudo-scandal
This AP pseudo-scandal will no doubt raise a few eyebrows: ACT, a Democratic "527" group, is hiring felons--burglars, sex offenders--to work on their voter registration drives. The only "story" here is that an AP reporter jotted down RNC talking points, and then found one example--a woman who finished parole 12 years ago--to support his case. This paragraph is all you need to know:
Felons on probation or parole are ineligible to vote in many states. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, which represents election officials, said he is unaware of any laws against felons registering others to vote.
That pretty much sums it up. If we don't want felons to work after they leave prison, then we might as well just execute them as soon as they're convicted. I don't doubt that RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie would love to turn this into a Willie Horton moment, portraying liberals as soft on criminals, but he'd be wrong. Employing ex-felons is a pretty reliable way to prevent recidivism and reduce crime. Is Gillespie pro-crime?
Speaking of which, it's odd that conventional crime hasn't come up at all in this election. Granted, burglars and felons are fairly overshadowed by global terrorists, but polls show that more people care about crime than, say, the environment. My guess is that Democrats don't want to call attention to Republican successes, such as New York's Compstat program. And, for their part, Republicans don't want to call attention to their own fundraising stable of white-collar criminals. Just a guess.
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3:10 PM
The technology of death
A Swiss appeals court found yesterday that IBM's "complicity" in the mass murder of millions of Jews and Gypsies during World War II "cannot be ruled out." The court’s ruling allows Gypsies to sue IBM, paving the way for a possible $12 billion lawsuit against the company.
The Nazis used IBM punch cards and prototype computer systems to organize their well-oiled system of murder, keeping track of deaths and the ethnicity of its prisoners through codes.
IBM has said in the past that it had no control over Nazi use of the machines, but the Gypsies’ lawyer argues that IBM's Geneva office, as the center of the company's European operations, controlled IBM-Nazi operations throughout Europe, and claims, moreover, that the office acted on clear instructions from the company's New York headquarters.
This is not the first news of hard links between IBM and the Nazis. It's no secret that IBM founder Thomas Watson was an admirer of Hitler; he was even decorated by the Nazi regime in 1937. And in 2001, American author Edwin Black published the book "IBM and the Holocaust," which implicated the company in the deaths of six million Jews and over 600,000 Gypsies (Gypsy groups estimate 1.5 million).
Unless IBM appeals to Switzerland’s supreme court, the lawsuit will probably be heard by a city court in the fall.
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2:55 PM
Silver Ring Thing
This Friday, the Silver Ring Thing, a sexual abstinence program that is the brainchild of Rev. Denny Pattyn, an ordained minister based in Pittsburg, is kicking off a multimedia tour in the U.K. For ten British pounds, you can become the proud owner of a "chastity ring" - bestowed to you by an American virgin (if you really get lucky). Some good, clean fun is guaranteed all who attend. As the group’s Web site puts it:
"The 'Thing' in Silver Ring is the high-tech presentation that makes this program uniquely attractive. By featuring awesome lighting and video systems, hilarious skits, concert sound systems, high-energy music, TV's, computers, and a faith-based abstinence message, students become interested in the message being offered to them about their sex lives."
Britain has the highest level of teen pregnancy in Europe. Some 40,000 British girls under 18 get pregnant each year, prompting Pattyn to bring the gospel of the Silver Ring Thing over the Atlantic. Although no stats are yet available on the program's effectiveness, organizers claim that since it got going in 1995, the program has convinced some 22,000 American teens to take the vows of abstinence. The fiercely pro-abstinence Bush administration has dished out $120 million dollars to abstinence programs like the Silver Ring Thing, which has received $700,000 in federal funding.
Some in the British government, though, are worried that the tour is counterproductive. As Rhodri Jones of the government's Teenage Pregnancy Unit told the Christian Science Monitor: "Signing up children to a pledge that they could potentially fail is not the way to go. Young people stick with it for a while and then the pledge is broken and they are left without a safety net."
Which serves as a reminder, once again, of the perils of banking of one's future on a ring ...
1:04 PM
Delay tactics
With just over four months left before Election Day, John Kerry's every move has major political ramifications. Kerry's brief return to the Senate from the campaign trail sparked a partisan battle Tuesday, and Patrick Healy of The Boston Globe outlined the ensuing circus in Wednesday's paper.
The Massachusetts senator returned to Washington in large part to vote on a bill that would increase veterans' health care benefits by 30 percent. Kerry waited seven hours for the vote, but Republicans successfully delayed it so that Kerry would have to leave for an appearance in California. The presidential candidate criticized the maneuvering, but Healy notes it could backfire on the Republicans:
"The partisan politicking forced Kerry to scuttle a $500,000 fund-raiser in New Mexico last night, but it reaped other rewards for his campaign. By portraying Republicans as silencing him in the Senate, Kerry gained a useful new weapon to fight opponents who are pressuring him to step down for skipping 89 percent of Senate votes so far this year."He also was able to sit for a 'class picture' yesterday afternoon of the full Senate; had he not been there, Kerry aides said, Republican media strategists would have had a photo at their disposal of all but Kerry present on a day when senators were debating veterans' benefits and Pentagon spending."
Also on the positive, Kerry got a short but glowing mention in Bill Clinton's memoir My Life:
"I went to Boston for a fund-raiser for Senator John Kerry, who was up for reelection and would likely face a tough opponent in Governor Bill Weld. I had a good relationship with Weld, perhaps the most progressive of all the Republican governors, but I didn't want to lose Kerry in the Senate. He was one of the Senate's leading authorities on the environment and high technology. He had also devoted an extraordinary amount of time to the problem of youth violence, an issue he had cared about since his days as a prosecutor. Caring about an issue in which there are no votes today but which will have a big impact on the future is a very good quality in a politician."There was no vote yesterday on veterans' benefits, an issue Kerry cares deeply about. Now we'll see whether that shapes the future of this race.
11:37 AM
No exemptions, no exceptions
Realizing it didn't have the votes it needed, the U.S. announced Wednesday morning that it has given up on trying to get renewed an exemption to shield American troops from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.
As discussed here last week, the United States was pushing to keep the exemption - which applies to American troops involved in United Nations peacekeeping missions - for a third consecutive year. But for the measure to pass, nine members of the U.N. Security Council had to support it, and it became clear last week what an uphill battle that entailed.
The clincher came when China became the eighth of the 15 Security Council members to say it would abstain on the vote. Even George Bush could figure out that math, and deputy ambassador James Cunningham admitted defeat Wednesday:
"The United States has decided not to proceed further with consideration and action on the draft at this time in order to avoid a prolonged and divisive debate."
11:20 AM
Shell game
Also from the Guardian: The environmental group Friends of the Earth today accused Shell, the oil giant (and sometime Mother Jones advertiser) of "failing to live up to its promise of environmental and social responsibility." In a report titled "Behind the Shine," FOE accuses the company - which holds its annual general meeting next week - of polluting communities and damaging wildlife habitats.
(For Shell's own assessment of its environmental performance, see its latest Shell Report. Caveat Lector!)
Tony Juniper, the executive director of FoE, writes in the foreword to the report:
In Texas, Durban, Manila and the Niger delta, communities have been offered endless dialogue, projects and pilot projects instead of the concrete action needed to stop the harm the refineries, depots, gas flares and pipelines are causing."And Oronto Douglas, from Friends of the Earth Nigeria, who is travelling to Shell's AGM told the Guardian:
"Shell's business practices in the Niger delta have destroyed our environment, our farmland and our fisheries. Oil spills are not cleaned up and gas flares dominate the sky line. The people in Nigeria are not benefiting from Shell's presence in our country - we are paying the price."
10:00 AM
Routine humiliation
Just as the White House swings into full damage-control mode over the Iraq prisoner abuse allegations, an investigation by the London Guardian reveals that detainees held in Afghanistan by U.S. troops "have been routinely tortured and humiliated as part of the interrogation process," indicating, says the paper, that "what happened at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was part of a pattern of interrogation that has been common practice since the US invasion of Afghanistan." The few-bad-apples defense, never solid, is looking shakier by the day.
The evidence cited by the Guardian makes dispiriting -- and by now dispiritingly familiar -- reading.
Five detainees have died in custody, three of them in suspicious circumstances, and survivors have told stories of beatings, strippings, hoodings and sleep deprivation. ...Syed Nabi Siddiqi, a former police officer, said he was beaten and stripped. "They took off my uniform. I showed them my identity card from the government... Then they asked me which of those animals - they made the noise of goats, sheep, dogs, cows - have you had sexual activities with?" ...
"In some ways the abuses in Afghanistan are more troubling than those in Iraq," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. "While it is true that abuses in Afghanistan often lacked the sexually abusive content of the abuses in Iraq, they were in many ways worse.
"Detainees were severely beaten, exposed to cold and deprived of sleep and water."
4:32 PM
Special relationship?
Official denial is the order of the day when it comes to Seymour Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker. The article reports that Israeli intelligence is training Kurdish commando units in Iraq - and allegedly encouraging the creation of a Kurdish state.
Hersh - who was way ahead of the pack on Abu-Ghraib - details the long history of cooperation between Israel and the Kurds, and cites sources in the CIA and U.S. military who confirm the training. His article asserts that:
"Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel's view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel's clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports."Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani denied the report Tuesday, calling its claims "total fabrications." Hersh also quoted Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, as saying "the story is simply untrue and the relevant governments know it's untrue."
The relevant governments presumably include Turkey, the closest ally Israeli has in the Middle East, but also a nation with a significant (and intermittently resitve) Kurdish population near the Iraqi border. Turkey fought a guerilla war with Kurdish separatists in the 1980s and 1990s that left more than 30,000 people dead, and would naturally be concerned about any groundwork for a Kurdish homeland. But Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, told reporters Tuesday:
"Israel has told us it is not true. We also want this to be the case. Everyone knows Turkey's sensitivities on this issue. Naturally we have to believe what we are told. ...I hope our trust is not in vain."
2:50 PM
Out of sight, not out of mind
Eight hundred forty service members have died in Iraq, but the Bush administration, by banning media photographs, has kept their returning flag-draped coffins largely out of sight. (With these and these exceptions.)
Thanks to a Senate decision yesterday, we still won’t be able to see photos of the dead coming home, despite the best efforts of Senator Frank R. Lautenberg. The New Jersey Democrat proposed an amendment to the $447.2 billion Pentagon spending bill that would have revised the current ban and allowed images of the dead to be broadcast (with due respect for their families’ privacy), but the Senate nixed the proposal 54-to-39. Lautenberg called the decision “an outrage,” and harangued his Senate colleagues for working on behalf of the president to “conceal from the American people the true costs of this war.”
All of two Republicans supported the amendment, one of them John McCain, fresh off his stumping tour with the President (reminding us yet again why he’s the man the Republicans can’t quite pin down). “These caskets that arrive at Dover are not named; we just see them,” McCain told the New York Times, “I think we ought to know the casualties of war.”
12:40 PM
Pointless polls
Bill Clinton can't seem to catch a break this week. First his book, in all its sprawling, sloppy, 900-page glory, comes in for a near-universal panning (though it's still selling at a brisk clip); and then an AP-Ipsos poll brings word that Americans much prefer the Gipper to the Man from Hope.
It's not even close. Seven people in 10 say history will judge Reagan superior; 83 percent said they have a favorable view of Reagan as a person, as against 41 percent who view Clinton that way (and 53 percent who have an unfavorable view).
Well, OK, Clinton was - and is - a polarizing figure, and Reagan was, in the main, an aimiable dodderer, likable - as Clinton is not - as much for his faults as for his virtues. But, really, is any of this meaningful? Or fair? I'm no social scientist, but isn't the deck stacked against Clinton just a touch, what with Reagan having just come in for a major airbrush? And what with his having just died of a debilitating illness, and Clinton, mojo very much intact, having simply written a book.
Not to be morbid, but let's run a poll when Clinton dies - or at least once a measure of realism has crept back into assessments of Reagan; whichever comes first - after he's completed his Jimmy Carteresque makeover, put in his years of aimiable dotage, and, yes, pulled off yet another comeback. Until then comparisons are largely pointless, and polls like this one plain dumb.
4:50 PM
Fuzzy math and the minimum wage
More on the minimum wage. I overlooked this strange tidbit from the AP coverage of Kerry's plan:
Kerry asked if anyone in the audience worked on minimum wage, and only one woman raised her hand. She said her name was Wendy and that she makes $7 an hour at a Food Lion supermarket, apparently unaware that minimum wage is $5.15 and that $7 is Kerry's goal to raise Americans out of poverty.I'm not sure if the AP is implying that Kerry's plan wouldn't affect the woman. That would certainly be wrong, as a minimum wage increase would put upward pressure on other low-wage salaries. The $5.15 folks would make $7, and the $7 folks would all demand (or receive) raises as well. Isn't this pretty basic stuff? Why not mention it?
This calls to mind a sloppy Washington Post piece last week on the competing economic views of Bush and Kerry. The reporters let stand without comment Bush's "refutation" of Kerry's complaints about wages:
The Bush campaign cited wage data from May, when hourly wages rose a nickel, a faster gain than the average monthly wage increases during the boom years of 1999 and 2000.Well, yes, hourly wages did rise a nickel. But adjusted for the rate of inflation--a standard calculation to make--real wages have been dropping (and have certainly not been growing faster than they were in 1999 or 2000). This takes about two seconds to fact check (see here). Is the Post being lazy or does it just not care?
The larger point: It's awfully hard to have a public debate over policy when campaign reporters refuse to take it seriously. And it's not just reporters-on Saturday, a Post editorial breezily dismissed Kerry's minimum wage plan, saying, "it would only reach workers at the very bottom." Oy. First, those workers "at the very bottom" are the workers who need help the most. Second, boosting wages can have repercussions throughout the economy. This might be worth discussing. I can't wait for the Post's next editorial lamenting how shallow and substanceless these presidential campaigns have become.
4:20 PM
Temporary extraction
President Bush's desire for a NATO presence in Iraq may soon become a reality -- sort of. Under a plan reported in the London Guardian, up to 3,000 troops, will be "temporarily extracted" from NATO and deployed to Iraq. Anything more than temporary extraction wouldn't have flown with Germany and France, who opposed the war and who have rebuffed American requests that NATO take on a big role in Iraq. The the multinational force will be about 60 percent British and will serve under British, not NATO, command.
3:35 PM
Let's try competence
Reports from Iraq usually hit one of two notes: a dull din of bad news or a chaotic screech. Little wonder, then, that many are calling for the U.S. to get out. But it's worth emphasizing that some Americans--the right Americans--really can have a positive impact in Iraq. See, for instance, this Time story on Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who is almost single-handedly rebuilding the dismal security forces in Iraq:
The change has already been felt. Shortly after Petraeus's arrival, units of the new Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and beleaguered police stations have suddenly received shipments of new weapons and vehicles… "They have to feel they are not going to be hung out to dry," he says of the new Iraqi forces. "Early on we are going to have to keep on enabling Iraqi forces and backing them up when necessary, even when we are building from the top."The general had emerged from the tumultuous first year of occupation with a reputation as perhaps the finest American commander in Iraq, capable of making important Iraqi friendships in one of the country's most hostile regions, as well as maintaining fierce loyalty among his soldiers.More on Petraeus' reconstruction work in Mosul here. The overall picture is that he is willing to spend time working closely with local Iraqis. Fancy that-local expertise, non-confrontational relationships. Why isn't this sort of thing more prevalent? Here's one explanation:
Most CPA hiring was done by the White House and Pentagon personnel offices, with posts going to people with connections to the Bush administration or the Republican Party. The job of reorganizing Baghdad's stock exchange, which has not reopened, was given in September to a 24-year-old who had sought a job at the White House. "It was loyalty over experience," a senior CPA official said....Limited contact with Iraqis outside the Green Zone has made CPA officials reliant on the views of those chosen by Bremer to serve on the Governing Council.Brilliant. Thanks to the White House's screening process, Iraq has fewer David Petraeus's and more clueless College Republicans. Kerry doesn't even need a different plan for Iraq. Competence alone would make a world of difference.
3:10 PM
Ralph names a running mate
John Kerry's closely guarded "veepstakes" continues, but Ralph Nader settled on a running mate Monday, tapping Green Party activist Peter Camejo.
Camejo won more than 200,000 votes as the Green Party's candidate in last fall's California gubernatorial recall and also ran for president in 1976 on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. Said Nader:
"Camejo shares my concerns for economic and social justice as well as the urgent need to protect our environment. ...He is a man who has put his principles in practice, who has fought the struggles of the civil rights movement, the labor rights movement in the '60s and '70s, who has in many ways been an exemplar of the combination of the mind, the word and the deed."
He also might help Nader get the Green Party's endorsement at its national convention Wednesday. While Nader is running without an affiliation this time around, he has the endorsement of the Reform Party (which means ballot access in seven states) and is actively seeking the Greens' endorsement (good for access in 22 states and Washington D.C.).
But to get that endorsement, Nader must defeat Green frontrunner David Cobb, a California lawyer who says he wants Bush to lose (unlike Nader?) and accordingly will avoid concentrating on battleground states. As Green Party co-chairman Ben Manski explained:
"David Cobb has a long history with the party. He's a democracy activist centering around election reform and fighting corporate power. His appeal is that he is charismatic, articulate, working-class, and he's a Green."
2:45 PM
Don't tell or don't fight
Just a week after the Senate authorized the Army to add 20,000 new soldiers to its overextended ranks, a study by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military found that approximately 10,000 gay service members have been discharged since 1994, when the military put in place its misbegotten “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Of those, 770 have been let go in the last year.
As CSSMM director Aaron Belkin told the AP, "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" – under which gays and lesbians can serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation private and don’t engage in sexual acts – “has undermined every area of the military.” No kidding: the study looked at the numbers between 1998 and 2003 and found that the military has discharged gay service members in 161 different occupational specialties stationed in 241 different American bases and posts throughout the world. Seventy-one percent were officers.
Many had skills you might expect to be in high demand in President Bush's war on terror. Among those canned: 49 nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare specialists, 90 nuclear power engineers, 52 missile guidance and control operators, 150 rocket, missile and other artillery specialists, and 340 infantrymen. Oh, and 88 linguists, 15 of whom specialized in interrogation.
12:37 PM
Slashing Section 8
Of all the senseless budget cuts proposed in the Bush administration's 2005 budget, the slashing of Section 8 housing vouchers is one of the worst. The program, which subsidizes rent for low-income families, has a proven track record for curbing homelessness, reducing both crime and welfare rolls, and helping low-income parents succeed in the workplace.
Earlier this year, the administration rationalized the Section 8 cuts by citing the program's spiraling costs-costs that could only be contained, they said, by doing away with voucher quotas in favor of smaller block grants. Turns out, it's all bunk. As a new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows, those "spiraling costs" are only temporary-mostly due to an overheated housing market. The "crisis" is a fabrication, a myth.
This isn't just hairsplitting over numbers. Real people are getting kicked out onto the street because of these cuts, as in Boston:
Quincy resident Lynette Samborski said she's concerned her housing voucher will soon be worthless and she'll be out of a home. Last week, Samborski called Father Bill's, a homeless shelter in Quincy, to ask whether there are programs being put together if Section 8 falls apart.''They told me I would just need to line up with the others in the afternoon if I needed a place to stay," Samborski said.Or in San Francisco:
Six months after Doris Allen and her autistic son were ousted from an Alameda motel to make way for its demolition, the city's housing authority sent notice that they will probably have to move again -- and soon.She and her 7-year-old son, Michael, are among 240 Alameda families in subsidized housing who received a letter on June 4 saying they'd be cut from the city agency's list of Section 8 voucher recipients on July 1.Compassionate conservatism at its finest.
11:42 AM
More Nader
It hasn't officially hit the papers yet, but Daily Kos is reporting that Nader may not have enough valid signatures to hitch onto the ballot in Arizona, according to state Democrats who have been verifying his petition.
As it turns out, roughly 90 percent of the signatures came from unwitting Republicans. Shady GOP operatives had circulated Ralph's petition alongside anti-immigration and anti-campaign finance reform petitions, putting Nader's name in fine print, tucked away at the bottom.
In other Arizona news, Kos reported two weeks ago that Nader's AZ state director was kicked out of Democrat headquarters while posing as a signature verifier. This might be hilarious if there wasn't an election at stake.
11:13 AM
The granny is in
The Senate race in New Hampshire will definitely be one to watch over the next few months. Burt Cohen, the Democratic challenger, dropped out recently, after his campaign manager bolted with $200,000 worth of funds. Now, the Democrats' last hope rests with a 94-year-old great-grandmother, Doris Haddock, known by activists everywhere as "Granny D":
"They were looking for someone desperately to take Burt's place and no one wanted to be the sacrificial lamb," Haddock said. "I don't want to be a sacrificial lamb. If I do it I will play to win," Haddock recalled telling Kathy Sullivan, state Democratic Party chairwoman.Let's get the strategic analysis out of the way. Cohen never had much of a chance against Judd Gregg (R-NH), a two-term incumbent who was up 54-13 in an early ARG poll. Even so, from what I've heard Cohen was planning a nifty grassroots campaign with an innovative "get out the vote" strategy. Win or lose, he would have given Kerry a leg up in the fall elections, and his withdrawal will hurt the Democrats. A lot.
That said, how could you not love Granny D? At the age of 82, she walked across the country to raise awareness for campaign finance reform. Her speeches are doe-eyed, mushy, and utterly uplifting. And she has an army of volunteers pouring in from across the country to help her out. In a era of bland, "mainstream" candidates, Granny D might be the most inspiring thing the Democrats going for them.