5:22 PM
Dick Morris's noisy obsession
Reading former Clinton adviser Dick Morris's columns, you get a general sense that the man can't brush his teeth in the morning without citing a Clinton conspiracy. In his most recent offering, he's back to his theory that Clinton supporters are trying to derail John Kerry so that Hillary Clinton can run in 2008.
The column begins with a sensible analysis of why Kerry needs to focus more on domestic issues that resonate with voters instead of terrorist threats aimed largely at a few big cities:
"Every day, Americans must go to the pharmacy to get Mom's prescription medication and ante up the high copayment or absorb the entire cost if they are without insurance. Every week, workers get an inadequate paycheck or worry about their futures in the face of low cost foreign competition. It is this daily reality, not the media-driven threat of terrorism that Kerry must stress if he wants to get back into this race."
But Morris quickly sidetracks into an illogical screed about how James Carville and Paul Begala -- both informal advisers to the Kerry campaign - secretly want Bush to win:
"James Carville and Paul Begala have their primary loyalty to the Clintons who, first and last, want Hillary to run for president in 2008. Generally speaking, it is a good idea in politics to hire only advisers who want you to win. Carville and Begala, if they act in their own self-interest, as they always do, are rooting for Bush. What better place to do so than from within the Kerry headquarters?ŠAmong Democratic loyalists, they are the kings of maximizing the turnout. But for swing voters, their partisan and populist appeals fall flat. Knowing this, one wonders if Clinton has not sent his operatives forth knowing full well that their best and most earnest advice will be bad and will make Kerry's defeat, and Hillary's ultimate candidacy, more likely."This obsession among conservatives with Hillary Clinton just gets stranger. Four years ago, the same pundits were up in arms about her 2004 run, which obviously never happened. Maybe, for all his outward anger toward her, Morris just wants her to win so she can write a presidential memoir and he can again make millions rebutting it.
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4:16 PM
American schools: unprepared for terror
The terrorist takeover of a school in Beslan Russia that left at least 326 people dead and 727 people injured, has prompted questions about how prepared the United States is to handle a similar attack. Parents won't find much comfort in a recent report by the New-York based non-profit America Prepared Campaign, which examined how the nation's twenty largest public school districts have been complying with the Department of Education's guidelines for crisis planning. According to the report, only the public school districts of Fairfax County (Virginia), Montgomery County (Maryland), and Palm Beach County (Florida) scored in the "best" category. These three districts had a "comprehensive and sensible emergency plan that deals directly with terrorist threat," the necessary emergency supplies, ran drills, and a high degree of parent involvement in the process.
New York schools were judged in need of serious improvements, while Chicago schools received an F. A quarter of Chicago schools had no emergency plan at all and 50 percent more, in the words of Andres Durbak, the district's director of School Safety, were "mediocrities." Durbak was also quoted as saying that "some principals are just stuck and stupid and have no reason for not developing an emergency plan." Chicago school officials called the report "completely shoddy," and said it was based on too few interviews. While the report acknowledged that some school districts, such as Chicago, are too financially strapped to implement necessary safety guidelines, it concluded that the biggest factor in performance was the "resolve of each school system's administrators."
The report commended the significant improvements many schools have taken since 9/11, grading seven districts, including Los Angeles, as "good," but in need of some important improvements.
3:14 PM
Coffee's fair-trade trade-off
People who prefer their coffee "fair trade" will have some new options, thanks to new agreement among four major coffee companies.
Nestle, Tchibo, Sara Lee and Kraft have signed a pact that requires them to pay coffee growers minimum salaries, stop using child labor, allow unions and follow international environmental standards regarding pesticide and pollution. The first coffee under this agreement is expected to come from the 2005 harvest, according to the BBC. As a Nestle spokesperson explained:
"The code is an excellent idea. It is in our own interest because it helps to guarantee supplies and quality standards."Critics of the plan, however, say it does little to improve record-low coffee prices. A Greenpeace spokesman, who agreed the code makes positive changes, said it should also include a ban on using genetically modified coffee:
"We regret that the coffee industry, including Nestlé, was not ready to exclude the use of gene technology in favor of sustainable and ecological coffee production."
1:20 PM
On Iraq, competency is the issue
Noam Scheiber's post on Kerry and Iraq is one of the most clear-eyed assessments around of "what Kerry needs to say." If Kerry thinks he can win by presenting an alternative plan for Iraq, he's probably wrong. There are no obvious solutions to Iraq right now, and the mini-solutions proposed by Kerry are either arcane (like regional stability pacts) or too easily co-opted by Bush (bringing in our allies).
So policy proposals are out. What about Kerry's current tack -- calling the war an outright failure? The main problem here is that the majority of voters still support the war at a basic level. Kerry just isn't going to win by saying he would have used the $200 billion in Iraq money for health care and stuff.
The best bet then, as Scheiber says, is for Kerry to make competency the key issue:
Kerry has a very obvious alternative. His alternative is that he wouldn't have f***ed up Iraq the way Bush did--from pre-war to postwar, and everything in between. The reason this "alternative" isn't registering is because a.) Kerry hasn't done a very good job of convincing voters that Bush has, in fact, f***ed up, and b.) because he's done his best to give the impression that he would have f***ed up in similar ways, despite the fact that he clearly wouldn't have.I'd add that, when it comes to Iraq, the point is that a lot of things in the future are still unclear. No one knows whether the Kurds are going to secede or not. No one knows whether Sunni towns like Fallujah and Samarra will revolt if they can't participate in elections. No one knows whether Shiite autonomy would destabilize Saudi Arabia. And that's just it -- you don't want someone as incompetent as George Bush around when these things explode. You don't want someone who can't plan more than four months ahead. You don't want someone who staffs an occupation with Republican loyalists instead of actual experts. You don't want an administration that puts its trust in con men like Ahmed Chalabi or Manucher Ghobanifur. This sort of argument seems considerably more straightforward -- and more compelling -- than anything Kerry has yet come up with.
12:56 PM
Photo blog: Remembering the dead
Tim Dobbins, 50 of San Francisco, at a candlelight vigil for the more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq, on Sept.9 in UN Plaza, San Francisco. The quiet demonstration of about 75 people was one of more than 1,000 such vigils around the U.S. organized by MoveOn.org.
11:46 AM
A victory for overtime? Don't believe it.
It was a surprising turn of events, but both the House and the Senate have now voted to block the administration's new rules on overtime pay. So naturally, it's time for Republicans to work their magic and defy the will of the people:
House Republicans said they were confident they could eliminate the overtime provision during negotiations with the Senate, and so avoid a veto of the spending bill."This is a short-lived triumph,'' John Feehery, a spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, said of the Democrats' victory.This whole "negotiations" bit is a sham. In the old days, negotiations between houses were compromise sessions that included members of both parties -- so that the final bill would reflect what Congress actually voted on. But under Tom DeLay, conferences are utterly dominated by Republican leadership -- and they really can just eliminate whatever they care to. Sen. Tom Harkin's office told me a while back that Harkin was trying to get a spot in the conference, but who knows how successful he'll be -- Republicans are notorious for excluding the more vocal Democrats from negotiations. If this seems undemocratic to you, well, you might be on to something...
11:25 AM
Dick Cheney's alternate reality
Dick Cheney remains steadfast and unflinching at least on the topic of ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida.
Despite numerous refutations of such a claim, Cheney continues to insist there was a working relationship between Hussein's secular regime and bin Laden's Islamist fundamentalists. Just yesterday, the vice president told a crowd in a Cincinnati that Hussein provided "safe harbor" for terrorist groups including Al Qaida - even though the Sept. 11 Commission and countless others have found no link of any collaboration between the two.
But that's not the only strange thing Cheney said Thursday. Check out his take on the economy. As the New York Daily News reports:
"Vice President Cheney said yesterday that current stats on unemployment and consumer spending are not taking into account the big bucks people make on eBay."'That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago: 400,000 people make some money trading on eBay,' he told an audience in Ohio in trying to counter Democratic naysayers who say Americans are worse off now than they were four years ago."
Huh? John Edwards had a ready comeback for that line:
"Bush and Cheney are so out of touch with what's going on with the economy. Cheney said today that the reason economic reports are low is because they don't count all the money folks are making selling things on eBay. I'm telling you, if we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking."Now he's just giving them ideas.
5:16 PM
Calling genocide by its true name
Kudos to Colin Powell for (finally) calling the genocide in Sudan what it is.
In a Thursday speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Powell described the violence in Darfur as a "consistent and widespread" pattern of atrocities:
"We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility - and genocide may still be occurring. ..."... The U.S. will propose that the next U.N. Security Council resolution on Sudan request a U.N. investigation into all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law that have occurred in Darfur, with a view to ensuring accountability."
Powell's address comes less than a week after John Kerry urged the administration to release the findings of a State Department investigation into the Sudan crisis. And it is a commendable that Powell didn't hedge his assessment, as the European Union did last month.
While the Geneva Conventions only require countries to prevent genocide within their own borders, international law professor Hurst Hannum explained to CNN that:
"I think today its widely accepted that it would be permissible to intervene in a state where this is mass death. You can justify it morally, politically and, probably, legally to intervene ..."That Powell has said this is politically significant. It doesn't trigger any legal consequences ...(but) there will certainly be more of a push for something to be done."
With his secretary of state and his opponent calling for U.S. leadership on the genocide, it's up to George Bush to act. The world is still waiting.
4:15 PM
Bush owes us at least $2,575,082
Thanks to some good investigative reporting by the Associated Press, the Boston Globe, and 60 Minutes II, President Bush's line about fulfilling his duties at the Texas Air National Guard has been pretty much exploded. But, of course, the nation still paid for incomplete service.
How much money are we talking about it? Well, if we take the $1 million tag with 1972 as the base year, pull out our virtual compound interest calculator and apply the very modest interest rate of 3 percent over 32 years, Bush owes about $2,575,082. If we apply a 5 percent interest rate, Bush owes $4,764,941. by returning the millions of dollars he owns to the taxpayers of his missing Guard days states. The president can demonstrate his commitment to accountability by refunding at least a couple of million bucks to the put-upon taxpayer.
3:00 PM
So the Electoral College turns out to be good for something!
For some Democrats and Kerry supporters, the recent polls showing George Bush with his first overall lead of the election were a sign that the sky is falling. But, as we saw in 2000, it's the electoral college that matters. That's why Zogby runs its twice-monthly battleground poll of 16 states. The latest incarnation was released Tuesday -- based on polls conducted during the Republican convention -- and still shows Kerry with a narrow lead in the electoral vote count.
In the new poll, Bush leads in four of the battleground states, up from two in the Aug. 23 edition. Zogby now shows Bush leading Tennessee and Arkansas (the latter by only 1.7 percent, well within the margin of error), while increasing his lead in Ohio and West Virginia.
The good news for Kerry is that he leads in the other 12 states, including four that voted for Bush in 2000. And his lead rests outside the margin of error in Michigan, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico. Based on these results, Kerry would have 307 electoral votes, 37 more than the minimum needed.
In other words, if Zogby is in the ballpark, the race remains where it's been for most of the summer - extremely close, with Kerry holding a precarious advantage.
2:11 PM
Coalition of the fast disappearing
Costa Rica was among the countries George Bush listed among his "Coalition of the Willing" for the Iraq war. But now, the Central American nation wants off the list as soon as possible.
On Thursday, the country's highest court ruled that the U.S. cannot continue to list Costa Rica, long proud of its pacifist image, among the coalition. The ruling came on a motion by the country's attorney general, arguing the Costa Rican constitution prevents support for the Iraq war because it was not backed by the United Nations. The government is planning to send a formal letter to the White House asking to be removed from the list. As the Associated Press reports:
"President Abel Pacheco said Thursday he agreed only to join countries that were against terrorism, and he said he would comply with the court's order and ask to have Costa Rica removed from the so-called 'coalition of the willing' list. 'I was just supporting a friend in the fight against terrorism,' he said. 'Costa Rica was against terrorism, against dictatorships and that was it.'"Costa Rica did not contributed troops or funding to the Iraq war.
When told of the court ruling, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he expects Costa Rica's request will be granted:
"We're pleased by the strong international support for the ongoing efforts to help the Iraqi people build a free and peaceful future. [But] if that's what they want, then I'm sure we will do that."
12:36 PM
The Libertarian candidate: Bush's Nader?
Besides Bush and Kerry, a third-party candidate will appear on the ballot in more than 80 percent of the country. And he isn't Ralph Nader.
While Nader has struggled to gain petition signatures -- thanks in part to some litigious Democrats -- and only has ballot access in 21 states so far, Libertarian Michael Badnarik has already secured his name on more than 40 state ballots.
Badnarik, who has said he wants to play spoiler to Bush, is actively campaigning in swing states. This week, the 50-year-old constitutional scholar stumped in Colorado and Nevada, both states deemed highly competitive by pollsters.
The Libertarian hopes to draw conservative independent votes from the president with a message of "small government and fiscal responsibility," criticizing Bush for allowing government spending to grow at a higher rate than Bill Clinton did. As the Las Vegas Mercury opines:
"Nostalgic Reagan-era Republicans may be one of Michael Badnarik's best assets -- and President Bush's biggest handicaps - -in tight election states like Nevada."If this election turns out nearly as close as the last one, that could be enough.
11:21 AM
The true cost of the Iraq war?
One thousand-plus deaths already sounds like a lot, but national security expert John Pike, writing in Salon, says that, if anything, we've been undercounting the human cost of the Iraq war:
I think if you look at the information being released, you can see all types of information not being covered. The Army gives out casualty evacuation numbers; the Marine Corps does not. And there's very little information being given out on combat stress casualties. The Army gives out information on how many psychiatric evaluations they've had from the war theater, but some significant multiple of that number must be in the combat stress care system in the theater. But they'd only evacuate somebody due to combat stress if all else failed.This echoes what Dan Baum wrote in The New Yorker back in July -- military reporting on combat stress has mostly been muted and incomplete. Hence the shameful lack of attention given towards soldiers suffering from stress-related disorders.
Pike also notes that the Marines in particular are notorious for keeping their lips sealed on the topic of casualties. (The Marines have done most of the fighting in the Sunni cities, while the much more voluble Army fought against the Mahdi in Najaf.) He then adds this grim afterthought:
No one's really bothered to ask whether U.S. soldiers have died after they are evacuated. No one's ever asked that question, or at least, no one's ever gotten a straight answer for that question.In other words, some evacuated soldiers have probably died from injuries sustained in Iraq -- but we have no idea how many. Is this important? Yes, and not because the casualty rates have partisan implications. Without accurate counts -- and that should include counts of Iraqi casualties -- it's impossible for the public to tally up and judge the costs of war.
10:34 AM
Found: a critic with even less credibility than John O'Neill!
It's hard to find Kerry critics with less credibility than John O'Neill and his Swift Boat vets, but it's not impossible. Enter Oliver North.
As Thursday's New York Post reports, North published a letter to Kerry in his syndicated column, in which he blasted Kerry for his antiwar activism after returning home from Vietnam.
"I only have two Purple Hearts, though. I turned down the others so that I could stay with the Marines in my rifle platoon. But I think you might agree with me, though I've never heard you say it, that the officers always got more medals than they earned and the youngsters we led never got as many medals as they deserved."The Post, crown jewel among Rupert Murdoch's American newspapers, inexplicably introduces North as "a war hero and Fox New Channel [sic] commentator," conveniently playing down the felonious role in the Iran-Contra scandal that gave him a national profile. And North has an axe to grind with Kerry, who helped lead the Iran-Contra inquiry that made North's crimes public.
Oliver North might have served honorably in Vietnam. But the way he's turned illegal arms deals to despotic regimes into a lucrative pundit job makes him the type of enemy Kerry should be proud to have.
5:55 PM
Cheney shrugs off our economic woes
In the face of America's big deficit debacle, Dick Cheney has learned to smile and shrug:
Vice President Dick Cheney countered that the president's tax cuts deserved credit for reducing this year's deficit projection because they stimulated the economy. "We're beginning to see the resumption of economic growth in a fairly significant way," Cheney told supporters at a campaign stop in Des Moines.The big problem is that we're not growing our way out of debt -- we're inflating our way out. Nominal wages are rising, and as Max Sawicky notes, more and more taxpayers are getting hit by the Alternative Minimum Tax. The downside, of course, is that real income is declining -- so many families are paying more in taxes even as they become, for all practical purposes, poorer.
Tax revenues are also rising because of another structural problem in our economy -- a greater share of income is going away from workers and towards corporate profits, and hence, higher tax brackets. That's not really something to brag about.
The other big problem is that our long-term deficit projections are growing, not shrinking. In January 2003, the CBO projected that our cumulative deficit from 2004-2009 would be about $40 billion. Now they're predicting that the deficit over that time will be about $2 trillion. And as many commentators have noted, if Bush makes his tax cuts permanent as promised, and spends more than zero dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan, the deficits will get very bad indeed. And all this happens before the baby boomers start retiring. Does any of this bother our vice-president?
4:28 PM
What kind of drugs are we giving our soldiers?
Many will remember that, over the past four years, a number of soldiers have faced court-martial for refusing to take a controversial anthrax vaccine. During that time, the Defense Department required the vaccinations, even though a judge had ruled the drug "experimental." (The FDA approved the vaccine earlier this year, and a judge approved the military's practice.)
Now UPI has uncovered an even more disturbing case. Six Special Forces soldiers who committed suicide over the past seven years have all been linked to an experimental anti-malaria drug called Lariam. Although the Defense Department has tried to blame the suicides on stress and personal factors, it's hard to get around the fact that Special Forces are picked precisely because they're especially good at dealing with those issues. Plus, some of the soldiers had, by all accounts, normal and well-adjusted lives. So the evidence against Lariam is pretty overwhelming, though the scientific link between drug and suicidal behavior has yet to be established.
It's worth noting that the military isn't experimenting recklessly on its soldiers -- the Pentagon generally goes to great lengths to develop and test its drugs. That said, there does seem to be a good dose of inattentiveness towards the health concerns of soldiers -- an issue that Dan Baum explored in a New Yorker piece earlier this year.
1:05 PM
More on the great Bush intel flip-flop
Why did George Bush flip-flop on the National Intelligence Director? It's worth diving into the intelligence reform proposals in a little more detail here. From the looks of things, Bush was basically constrained by his original proposal. On August 2nd, the president announced a set of recommendations that included, most prominently, the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- something that the 9/11 Commission also proposed. (The NCTC is modeled on the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which was created in 2003 and reports to the director of the CIA.)
Despite all the ruckus over the National intelligence Director, the NCTCs are probably the most important and radical part of the reform effort. Under this system, intelligence would be organized more like the military -- separating operations side of intelligence from analysis and planning. Agencies like the CIA, DIA, and NSA would train and equip agents, as well as collect intelligence in the field. Those agencies (CIA, DIA, NSA, etc.) would then loan analysts to the NCTC to work together, look at terrorism-related information from a wide variety of sources and make recommendations for action. Finally, the agencies themselves would carry out the needed defensive operations, under the guidance of the NCTCs. To use a military analogy, you can think of the agencies as the armed forces, and the NCTCs as the Central Commands.
There are problems with this approach, and it's far from obvious that this is the correct way to go about things. But the important thing is that you simply can't create these National Counterterrorism Centers without a strong national intelligence director. Agencies like the CIA and DIA are going to be loath to send their best analysts away, so you need a director who could plausibly enforce that coordination. As it stands now, the NCTC's predecessor -- the Terrorist Threat Integration Center -- has had trouble working with Homeland Security and other domestic intelligence sources, mainly because it reports only to the director of the CIA.
Now, you can argue that no director will be able to coordinate all these various agencies, but in that case you might as well scrap the idea altogether. The real question, then, is why Bush thought it was even possible to have a figurehead national intelligence director in the first place.
12:23 PM
The moon as Plan B
One of Europe's top scientists has a novel plan to prepare the earth for a future nuclear holocaust (or other disasters) -- building a library of plant and animal DNA on the moon.
Bernard Foing, chief scientist for the European Space Agency and its foremost moon expert, explained his idea of a lunar library to the BBC:
"If there were a catastrophic collision on Earth or a nuclear war you could place some samples of Earth's biosphere, including humans, [on the Moon]. You could repopulate the Earth afterwards like a Noah's Ark."Foing said it's possible an asteroid could hit the earth and wipe out much of its life sometime in the next few centuries. While the "Ark" is his personal idea -- not ESA policy -- he might want to get a move on convincing people, as thousands of species are estimated to become extinct each year.
11:30 AM
Bush flip-flops on intel reform
Continuing his pattern on intelligence reform, George Bush has reversed his position on how much power a national intelligence czar should have.
In his previous statements supporting the creation of a "czar" position -- as recommended by the bipartisan Sept. 11 Commission -- Bush said such a position should not come with control over the budget or hiring and firing of personnel. But he, well, flip-flopped Wednesday, telling a meeting of congressional leaders that he now supports budget authority for the national intelligence director. As the Associated Press reports:
"Under the White House plan, a new national intelligence director would be appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate and serve as the head of the intelligence community. The director would also be assisted by a new Cabinet-level Joint Intelligence Community Council, but the director would not sit in the president's Cabinet or be located in the president's executive office."The new director would be able to allocate and shift funds within the intelligence community. But the White House did not go as far as saying that an intelligence director would be able to unilaterally hire and fire people in the intelligence community, saying only the NID should 'have a role in the appointment of any individual to a position that heads an organization or element within the intelligence community.'"
Bush has already reversed course on the Sept. 11 Commission's mere existence, who it could call to testify and which of its recommendations should be implemented. So he could turn around on the hiring authority any day now.
11:05 AM
Halliburton just can't lose
Halliburton will most likely lose its no-bid $13 billion contract in Iraq, reported yesterday's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), citing an internal Army memo. The company that VP Dick Cheney headed from 1995-2000 has become a synonym for corporate shadiness and Bush administration cronyism. Last month, Pentagon auditors concluded that Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, failed to account for some $1.8 billion it charged the government and recommended that 15 percent in payments be withheld until it accounts for that work.
Halliburton, like the Pentagon, has denied that the impending contract loss has anything to do with the company's creative accounting. As an example of business as usual, financial analysts point out that the Pentagon moved from the no-bid Godzilla Halliburton contract to smaller, competitive contracts in the Balkans. Halliburton has been guaranteed an up 2 percent profit margin on the contract and says it is unsure whether it will compete for parts of it once the bidding begins. In any case, Halliburton is sitting pretty no matter what happens. As Halliburton's Chief Executive Officer Dave Lesar told Reuters:
"At this point in time I don't see that we could lose whatever the outcome, because if we keep some of it, it would be higher margins. If we're out, we'll get our liquidity and we'll move on with our business."
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6:47 PM
Free market, unfree love
Whether we are talking software or sex, there is no more ardent proponent of the free-market than the Economist. As the magazine that insists on calling itself a newspaper explains:
[S]ex is not illegal in itself, and the fact that money has changed hands does not turn a private act into a social menace. If both parties consent, it is hard to see how either is a victim. But prostitution has rarely been treated as just another transaction, or even as a run-of-the-mill crime: the oldest profession is also the oldest pretext for outraged moralizing and unrealistic lawmaking devised by man.
The Economist is dismayed at the recent crackdowns and Puritan-like initiatives in Europe against prostitution, citing them as examples of a backlash against globalization:
"The free movement of labor is as controversial in the sex trade as in any other business. Wherever they work, foreign prostitutes are accused of driving down prices, touting 'extra' services and consorting with organized criminal pimps who are often foreigners, too. The fact that a very small proportion of women are trafficked -- forced into prostitution against their will -- has been used to discredit all foreigners in the trade, and by extension (since many sellers of sex are indeed foreign) all prostitutes.
While one must admire the Economist for its steadfast commitment to the free-market ("Brothels would develop reputations worth protecting") and its writers are certainly correct to point out that not all women who enter the trade are victims, many are. Legalizing prostitution would make it easier to deal with controlling the spread of STDs, but the Economist is too quick to dismiss the extent of the problems -- such as abuse -- associated with the trade. These make the buying and selling of sex unlike "just another transaction." Not to mention the obvious fact that for many women, selling sex is -- if it is an option in the first place -- is an option of last resort.
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6:13 PM
The joys and pains of corporate reform
Who says that corporate reform and good performance can't get along? (Besides all those CEOs and business journalists who complained endlessly about how post-Enron regulations hurt the economy.) Well, complain no more. As the Financial Times reports today, corporate reform measures have been a boon to American business:
US companies have risen to the top of a global comparison of corporate governance standards, overtaking the UK and Canada for the first time.
A study of more than 2,500 international companies found the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other reforms implemented following recent scandals had succeeded in improving the relative performance of large US companies by more than 10 percent.
Analysis of the results also confirmed recent academic studies showing a link between share price performance and adherence to corporate governance best practice. GMI said shares of the 26 companies that scored highest in its latest survey outperformed the S&P 500 index by 10 per cent over five years.
Crusaders for corporate reform have always faced one big hurdle: beyond vague talk about ethics and morals, it's hard to quantify the benefits of good governance. This study, then, should provide some long-overdue ammunition. True, we don't know how much of the change cited above is due to the new regulations, and how much is due to a shift in post-Enron corporate culture. But we can safely say, despite protests to the contrary, that reform won't bring the economy to its knees.
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5:58 PM
Missile defense lumbers ahead
The "Son of Star Wars" missile defense system has stayed largely off the public radar, but development of the unproven -- and widely ridiculed -- system is still going ahead. And as AFP quietly reported over the weekend, the system will require permanent U.S. bases in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Because Iran will almost certainly develop nuclear weapons, the U.S. desires regional bases to counteract a possible strike from Iran. AFP reports that means bases in any or all of the following spots: eastern Iraq, western Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, in the Persian Gulf, or a floating platform in the Caspian Sea. Plus, because the bases will be within range of Iran's military planes, each base will require its own air defense.
Not only does that mean continued U.S. involvement in places where the military isn't exactly popular right now, but long-term geopolitical agreements with some troubling regimes to keep those bases in operation and secure.
Just one more reason why missile defense is looking like more trouble than it's worth, especially as we still don't know if it even works.
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2:47 PM
Violence and justification in Israel
Hamas hardly needs encouragement to carry out its acts of terror in Israel -- one need look no further than last week's suicide bombings in Be'er Sheva, in which 16 people were killed. Predictably, Israel launched a strike in the Gaza Strip, and equally predictably, Hamas promised retaliation. Last week, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia condemned the Be'er Sheva bombings, saying that "killing civilians, whether from the Palestinian side or the Israeli side, will achieve nothing except hatred and more enmity and therefore we condemn that strongly." Qureia also condemned the Israeli strike in which 14 militants were killed and 30 people were wounded, but unfortunately he went further than that, saying that "for sure there will be retaliation, and the retaliation will be justified if it happens." Whatever legitimate complaints Qureia has against Ariel Sharon's government, this doesn't bode well for peace-talks or for the final settlement that Qureia has long pursued. Hamas already feels that the killings of Israeli civilians are fully justified; it does not need cheerleaders among Palestinian moderates to tell it so.
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2:45 PM
Poles apart on U.S. foreign policy
In his acceptance speech Thursday, George Bush singled out four foreign leaders for their "courage and wise counsel" - Britain's Tony Blair, Australia's John Howard, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and Poland's Alexander Kwasniewski. But in an interview last week, Kwasniewski had some counsel Bush probably didn't want to hear.
Speaking to the International Herald Tribune, the Polish president called for a "flexible, open and gracious" Washington, saying he did not want to see "America take the ideas of the neoconservatives of isolationism, to have full dominance in the world and to play a divide and rule policy. It is a mistake." He added:
"America is not the first superpower we have known. But sometimes, the character of a superpower is a problem, not so much for us but for the Americans to understand they are strong enough, clever enough, have enough influence and are creative enough to be accepted as a superpower."
Kwasniewski remains a loyal U.S. ally, just one who wants to see Bush use his power wisely.
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01:27 PM
Iraq: not looking good
Over the weekend, the fighting in Sadr City and the car bombs in Fallujah served as a double reminder that the U.S. has made little progress in Iraq of late, and that a number of nigh-insurmountable problems remain. The "Sunni problem", of course, is that a number of Sunni cities -- including Fallujah, Ramadi, and Samarra -- are wholly overrun by insurgents. U.S. commanders have talked about re-taking the insurgent strongholds, but unless they plan on burning the cities to the ground, there's not much they can really do. As Spencer Ackerman notes, nearly everyone in Fallujah is a potential insurgent or a supporter. Contrary to what the Bush administration has told us, this simply isn't a case of foreign jihadis taking advantage of a benign population.
The problem only gets worse if and when the U.S. and the Iraqi government decide to stage national elections, which will certainly be seen as illegitimate by many. In all likelihood, a Shiite-dominated government will come to power, sparking a fair bit of fear and loathing among the minority Sunnis (who have few organized political parties, and were steered out of power in the recent Iraqi National Conference). When that happens, we can really expect Salafi jihad groups like al-Qaeda (which tends to loathe Shiites) to start pouring into the Sunni Triangle and fighting the illegitimate Iraqi government.
While some observers -- like Peter Galbraith -- have suggested that we simply divide up Iraq, the reality is that Sunni and Shiite populations don't divide all that neatly. Plus, as the Chatham House explains in this invaluable report, any Sunni-Shiite clash will draw heavy attention from Iraq's neighbors. The Saudis, in particular, aren't going to take kindly to an independent Shiite state north of the border, especially if the largely-oppressed Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia starts agitating for independence. The devil is, as always, in the details, and as Galbraith notes, the current administration has little patience for details.
It's also worth noting that the Sunni insurgents aren't the only problem in Iraq. While Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani seems to have drawn Sadr into the political process, the Mahdi militia still runs rampant in Sadr City. As Anne Barnard reports, many recalcitrant Shiites still don't accept the legitimacy of the interim government. Meanwhile, the old Baathist party has pulled itself back together, forming a very large and very secret resistance movement. According to KnightRidder's Hannah Allam, the Bush administration has "declined to comment" on the situation. It would be nice if we had a president who could take the first step and admit he has a problem; but apparently denial is still in tall order.
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11:03 AM
The Vatican has spoken: it's safe for Catholics to vote for John Kerry.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who serves as a Vatican spokesman on church teachings, said Catholic voters can support pro-choice candidates if they agree on other issues. That means, as Rev. Thomas Reese explains:
"If the voter says 'I like this candidate only because he or she is pro-abortion,' that's clearly a no-no. If, on the other hand, the voter says, 'and I like this candidate because he or she supports everything I like, but is wrong on abortion, and I've decided to vote for the person on these other issues,' that's alright."
Ratzinger's comments came in response to the ongoing efforts of some conservative bishops to deny Kerry communion for his pro-choice voting record. While Ratzinger still called on pro-choice politicians to shift that stance, he reiterated the Vatican's stance that abortion is just one of many issues on which Catholic voters should decide.
To that end, the nonpartisan Catholic Voting Project has launced an election guide letting voters know where both Kerry and Bush stand on 50 issues important for Catholic voters.
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10:39 AM
Bush's problem with the future
We've been looking for contenders all weekend, and the award for "Journalist most suckered in by Bush's convention speech" goes to... David Brooks. Apparently, if you're a Republican and don't like the actual President Bush, you can just pretend you're voting for an imaginary President Bush of your own choosing:
Obviously, the [Bush] administration will have to make some tough decisions [if re-elected]. First, it will figure out which of the many proposals it wants to do first. The obvious thing is to do tax simplification first because fixing up the tax code lets you eliminate distortions in health competition, saving patterns and a bunch of other areas.
Second, the White House will probably have to choose between reforming entitlements and making the tax cuts permanent because there isn't enough money to do both. This is an easy call. Sacrifice the tax cuts. If entitlement programs aren't reformed, we'll be looking at a lifetime of tax increases. Modernizing the welfare state is a much bigger deal than some three- or four-point cut in the top marginal tax rate.
Leave aside the first paragraph (A flat tax will eliminate distortion in "a bunch of other areas"? What?) and go right to the second. True, entitlement reform is a much bigger deal than cutting taxes a wee bit. But what planet is David Brooks living on if he thinks this president (ie: the president we actually have, not the gentle hero of David Gergen's speeches) has shown any concern for the long-term fiscal health of the country? This is the same president that asks for "temporary" tax cuts because that will make the long-term deficit projections look better (and then just re-ups the cuts later on). The same president, come to think of it, that only makes deficit predictions until 2009, because who knows what will happen after that? (Answer: our deficit problems start exploding.) The same president that tosses out "bold" Social Security proposals without giving any indication of how he'll pay for it. And hey, it's the same president whose policies -- like the Medicare bill and No Child Left Behind -- don't become unpleasant until long after he's conveniently left office.
It's entirely possible that Brooks will be proved right, that a re-elected Bush would decide that the country's future is more important than the short-term gain from his tax cuts. But everything we know about the president tells us that he just doesn't really care.
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