Just in case anybody out there is not already tired of hearing and reading about the prospect of President Obama having a beer at the White House with a certain professor and a certain policeman, I submitted the following as a prospective "op-ed" piece for the Chicago Tribune. It is highly unlikely that the newspaper will really use it, since they receive many submissions for every one they actually accept for publication. Therefore, I thought I would share it with my fellow bloggers:
AN OPEN INVITATION TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
Dear Mr. President:
In your attempt to diffuse the situation between Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge, Mass. Police Sergeant James Crowley, and between their respective supporters, you have offered to have both Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley over to the White House for a beer. I believe this is an excellent idea, and I want to go on record with an offer to supply the beer. There are two reasons for this.
First, as a public spirited American citizen, I do not want to stick the taxpayers for the cost of the beer. As valuable as beer diplomacy may be, the country is already in a serious fiscal deficit, and I would hate to have anybody opposing the meeting on the grounds that taxpayer expenditure of beer will aggravate the deficit. The issues involved are far too important, and a good teaching moment should not be squandered due to fiscal concerns.
Second (in an example of enlightened self-interest), in case I am invited to join the president, the professor, and the policeman at the White House get-together, I want to be able to choose the beer that I am going to drink. Think about it. In the richest country in the world, many Americans go without any kind of beer, and many others are underserved by their current beer. Now, don’t get me wrong, Mr. President. If you are happy with the beer you are currently drinking, you can keep it. The same goes for Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley. For those who are underserved by their beer at this time, what I am offering might be an appealing alternative.
Under my proposal, no government bureaucrat will be dictating anybody’s choice of beer. As far as I am concerned, my choice of beer should be my own, perhaps after appropriate consultation with my bartender, or my liquor store operator. When government bureaucrats start telling people what kind of beer they have to drink, that is the first step on the slippery slope to socialism… or so I have heard, anyway.
So there you have it, Mr. President. I will supply the beer. I would be happy to make recommendations, but I would also honor any request that you might have, along with the requested beer preferences of Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley. If my offer is of interest, you can contact me. I look forward to hearing from you.
By the way, if necessary, I can prove that I am a natural born U.S. citizen. I have a birth certificate showing that I was born in Evanston, Illinois. There are some kooks on radio and television who, along with their friends in Congress, suggest otherwise. For those people in other parts of the country, Evanston might be best known as the home of Northwestern University, but it is also one of the largest nearby suburbs of… Nairobi. Oops! Okay, you caught me. I cannot live a lie any longer. The truth is that I was born in Kenya, and decades ago, my parents put a birth announcement in Chicago area newspapers, just to make it look like I was born in the U.S. Why did they do this? Obviously, they anticipated that one day, I might want to buy a beer for the President of the United States, and it would look better if I was a U.S. citizen.
Howard Fineman and some other astute political observers have written in recent days that Sarah Palin's announced resignation as Alaska's governor is a clever first step toward a 2012 presidential run. I just do not believe that this is true. If she really expected to run for president in 2012, it is fully understandable that she would not run for reelection as governor when her current term expires at the end of 2010. If she does have presidential expectations, however, it does not make sense for her to resign just over half way through her first term as governor. Although she is a darling of the Republican Right (I am trying to recall who the conservative pundit was who basically admitted to being sexually excited over Ms. Palin during her vice-presidential run), she has almost zero respect or credibility from the rest of the country, and quitting her current job for no obvious reason at this time would hardly help in building up her reputation.
If Governor Palin is resigning early because of family considerations, I can respect that. That could be a contributing factor, although I doubt that it is the primary reason. I think it is more likely that the main reason is that her being routinely lampooned by commentators and comedians caused her to lose her taste for electoral politics. If this is the case, she would have to be quite a masochist to want to run for president, in 2012 or any other year.
The main direct effect of her resignation is likely to be that she will make many times more money (probably something like $50,000 per speech) as a private citizen than she could possibly make as a government officer. As a private citizen with a major fan base among the right wingers of America, she could become something similar to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly. She could articulate her message, make a fortune, and be accountable to nobody. She will be able to raise a lot of money for other Republican candidates, but contrary to the assertions of some political writers, I do not think it is likely that she will be doing that in order to collect a lot of political IOUs. She might be thinking about it, but I think it is more likely that her distaste for the political arena is genuine.
Was some of the criticism and jokes aimed at Sarah Palin unfair? Yes, some of it was. Should we feel sympathy for the governor? Hardly. This is not exactly a nice person we are talking about here. During her campaign for vice-president, Sarah Palin constantly told anybody who would listen that then-Senator Obama was "palling around with terrorists." She did everything she could to suggest that Barack Obama was siding with the terrorists against all decent American people. She belittled Obama's background as a community organizer, as if that was Obama's sole qualification for president. She also made very clear that she believed that the only "real Americans" were small town conservatives similar to himself, implying that those of us who do not fit that description ideally should not have the right to choose our political leaders.
Palin's defenders might argue that the job of a vice-presidential candidate is to attack the other party's presidential nominee, and that some distortion of the opposing candidates' records is part of the way the system works, and that the Republicans are no more guilty of these distortions than are the Democrats. That may all be true, but just as distorting a political opponent's record is as American as apple pie, so is political satire. One of the most famous pearls of wisdom attributed to Harry Truman was: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." Governor Palin is simply taking that advice. As far as I am concerned, Sarah Palin combines several unattractive qualities. She is shallow, vindictive, and self-pitying. Perhaps that characterization is (slightly) too harsh, but I am expressing it as a matter of opinion, not fact. Nixon was vindictive and self-pitying in the extreme, but he was not shallow. I would hate to get another president with Nixon's personality traits, but I believe that Palin would be even worse. At any rate, I think it is extremely unlikely that we will ever find out, and that is a good thing.
There was an interesting discussion this morning (6/16/09) on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program. Conservative pundit Joe Scarborough asked liberal pundit Ed Schultz if he truly believed that former Vice-president Dick Cheney hopes that there will be a successful attack on Americans by terrorists… in order to vindicate Mr. Cheney’s repeated claims that President Obama’s actions weaken America’s security. Mr. Schultz said unequivocally that this is exactly his belief. Mr. Scarborough responded with something like, “I like you personally, Ed, but I could not disagree with you more. I can understand your not liking Cheney, but do you really believe that he wants to see innocent Americans killed, just to prove a point?”
The truth is probably more complicated than that. On one level, Mr. Cheney does not want to see another successful terrorist attack in the U.S. or against Americans anywhere. As much as I detest Dick Cheney, I do not believe he is actively and consciously rooting for another ‘9/11” type of disaster. On the other hand, I do believe that Mr. Cheney bitterly resents the fact that many Americans, including Mr. Obama, have rejected many of the actions used by the Bush administration (and to a substantial degree, directed by Cheney) in the name of fighting terrorism. I believe it is very likely that the Bush presidency will be generally regarded as a failure by future historians. In addition, whether good or bad, there can be no serious dispute that Dick Cheney was an extremely powerful vice-president, and any verdict on the Bush ‘43’ presidency is largely a verdict on Cheney himself. He knows that he is unpopular right now, and he very much wants to be vindicated. There is not much else that is likely to acquit the Bush ‘43’ presidency, and they (Bush and Cheney) are effectively counting on “They kept us safe from the terrorists for 7 years” for their vindication. If they did keep us safe (as they would argue), then how dare the opponents (Obama and his political allies) question the methods they used to keep us safe? If the new administration obeys all laws – constitutional, international, and statutory – and there are still no successful terrorist attacks in the U.S., or against American targets elsewhere, that would cut into the Bush/Cheney argument that their legally and morally questionable methods were necessary.
In summary, while Mr. Cheney does not consciously want Americans killed by terrorists during President Obama’s watch, and he would be genuinely appalled by such a suggestion, I believe that he desperately wants his own record vindicated, and a successful terrorist attack while Obama is president is the only way he is likely to get it. In other words, I believe that Cheney has very mixed emotions regarding the prospect of another major terrorist attack against Americans.
Was David Letterman's joke about an unspecified daughter of Sarah Palin in poor taste? Absolutely. Is Governor Palin's reaction appropriate? I cannot answer that with a simple "yes" or "no." Apparently, the Palins' 14-year-old daughter accompanied her parents to the baseball game in New York, while their 18-year-old daughter did not. Mr. Letterman probably did not know that. I cannot believe that his joke was intended to refer to the 14-year-old, as Ms. Palin claims to know for a fact. Even assuming that the joke was an intended reference to the 18-year-old, the joke was certainly in poor taste, although in my opinion much less objectionable than if the reference to the younger girl is assumed.
As a group, the children (at least those who are not yet legally adults) of celebrities have my sympathy. They get a lot of press attention, and usually not because of their own behavior, but rather because of their famous parents. Any incident showing their imperfection gets magnified way out of proportion, and it must be hard for many of them to have a normal and well-adjusted life. Their parents have chosen to be famous, and for them an invasive media is a price they knowingly pay for being famous and (in many cases) rich. Their children are innocent pawns in all this, and the unwanted attention is due not to their own choices, but the choices made by their parents. I cannot claim to fully understand Sarah Palin's perspective. I am not at all famous, nor is anybody in my family. I have sons, not daughters, and they are now adults. With that disclaimer in mind, I can certainly understand Ms. Palin's lashing out at a comedian who made a joke on national television ridiculing her (Palin's) child.
I do not remember exactly when it was, but either during the 1992 campaign or early in the Clinton presidency that followed, Saturday Night Live performers (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) did a Wayne's World sketch that basically noted that the daughters of Al Gore were attractive, and in some way they suggested that Chelsea Clinton was ugly, at least by comparison. Hillary Clinton put Myers and Carvey in their place, not by raising the heat, but by coldly observing that comedians whose idea of "comedy" consists of cruelty to a child deserve nothing but contempt. Without regard to any liberal or conservative political leanings, Sarah Palin would have served her own cause, and that of her family, much better if she had taken a lesson from Hillary Clinton. The Wayne's World incident quickly disappeared, and the Clintons, on that matter, had the unquestioned claim to the high moral ground.
During the recent campaign, Sarah Palin used her whole family as a campaign prop. The older daughter's out of wedlock teenage pregnancy was celebrated for its "pro life" message. In effect, Ms. Palin set up her own family to become objects of ridicule later on. By contrast, Barack Obama kept his own daughters out of the public eye as much as he reasonably could during the campaign. It was a wise decision.
In my opinion, Sarah Palin has overreacted, even though I admit she had something to overreact to. By asserting that Mr. Letterman was "joking" about the statutory rape of an underage girl (I think that no objective observer would agree with that claim), and by claiming double standards in the press, Ms. Palin unwisely has produced the following effects:
· By exaggerating the offense, and by lashing out at the media in general rather than just David Letterman in particular, she undercuts her own claim to the high moral ground.
· She guarantees the story far more attention than it would otherwise receive.
· She reinforces the doubts most of the public already has in her ability to handle adversity.
Last week, Torgny V.O.B. had a concise but elegant post titled Empathy is a Virtue. This, of course, was in the context of President Obama’s statement that empathy is one quality that he is looking for when he appoints a Supreme Court justice to fill the vacancy created by the announced retirement of Justice David Souter. Torgny is correct, of course, and the notion that empathy is not a virtue seems to be based on the concern that “judicial activists” will simply substitute their personal preferences for the rule of law.
It would be a legitimate concern, if empathy was the one and only consideration, but that premise is hardly believable. Judges should rule on the law, and on whether or not a particular law is constitutional. To most self-described political conservatives, the issue is quite simple: Supreme Court justices should be “strict constructionists.” It is not as simple as people such as George W. Bush seem to think. There are a lot of issues facing the courts in the 21st century, which the authors of the Constitution could not possibly have foreseen. In addition, not all of the Constitution’s authors had the same original intent. The Supreme Court justices should not substitute their own preferences in clear contradiction of the law, but they have to do a lot of interpretation, and their own personal experiences enter into those interpretations. This is true of so-called conservatives just as much as it is of so-called liberals.
One of the socially more explosive issues in America at this time is to what extent, if any, abortions should be legally permitted. People on both sides of the issue lobby heavily for the purpose of getting judges who are believed to be nearly certain to rule on their side of the issue. Although the Constitution does not explicitly establish a right of privacy for U.S. citizens, it has been widely accepted that such a right is implied by other rights that are clearly articulated. The controversy is mainly over whether that right to privacy includes a pregnant woman’s right to have an abortion.
I am a U.S. citizen, and I clearly have the right to express my own opinion on this and other issues, but my perspective is bound to be different from people who have to deal with the issue more directly than I do. Can states, or the federal government, pass laws which criminalize abortions? If so, subject to what limitations? Is the death penalty unconstitutional? Where do we draw the line between the rights of a criminal suspect and the ability of the police and prosecutors to put away the bad guys? What are the legal limits of affirmative action, or of eminent domain? Is there a constitutional right to same sex marriage, or its near-equivalent, civil unions? None of these issues has personally affected me, or the people closest to me, in any significant way. I will not state that empathy is, or is not, one of my qualities, but it is fair to say that a person who has had to deal with these issues on a personal level has a different perspective than somebody who has not.
In the more than 200 year history of the Supreme Court, all but four justices have been white men. We have had two black men and two women. We have one black man and one woman among the nine present justices. It is almost as predictable as the sun rising in the east tomorrow that Justice Souter’s replacement will not be another white man. While I generally do not like identity politics, it is a reality that we face. To those who suggest that race and gender should not be a factor at all, and that the president should appoint only the most qualified individual to the Court, I would ask if those people made the same argument when Bush ‘41’ appointed Clarence Thomas. I am not belittling the credentials of Justice Thomas, but it was very much a political appointment. Mr. Bush wanted a young black conservative. If Clarence Thomas was not all three of those things, he would not have been considered. Of the names that get floated in the media now as possible Court appointments, you can forget all the men. It appears to me that the two most likely candidates are New York appellate judge Sonia Sotomayor and solicitor general Elena Kagan. Given the likelihood that Obama will have at least two additional replacements to fill after Souter, I would not be surprised to see both of them on the Court within the next few years. Sotomayor has the advantage at this time of being both female and Hispanic, so I would expect that she will be Obama’s first Supreme Court appointee, unless there is something in her background (e.g. tax problems) that might make her confirmation difficult. Sotomayor and Kagan appear to be political moderates, and would probably be more acceptable to conservatives than other possible candidates who would be viewed as more to the left. Based on the limited information I have about them, Sotomayor and Kagan both appear to be well qualified for the Supreme Court, and would satisfy President Obama’s political considerations.
For the past few weeks, former Vice-President Dick Cheney has been saying, in effect, that the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the U.S. against suspected bad guys was justified because:
It seems to me that the first and second points are false, and the third one, whether true or false, is not a valid justification for torturing suspects in captivity.
Under the Bush administration, the U.S. engaged in practices – not simply by a few low-level rogue operatives, but under guidelines approved by the president – some of which are widely agreed to constitute torture. It can be debated regarding some of the methods used, but there should be no doubt that waterboarding qualified as torture. The U.S. in the past has approved of prosecuting for waterboarding as a war crime. If waterboarding is torture, then it is torture, regardless of which side does it.
The apologists for Mr. Cheney in Congress and the media point to the mildest of the questionable techniques, and then sarcastically ask: “Is that really torture? Should we have risked another ‘9/11’ attack because we were afraid to hurt the terrorists’ feelings?” Fortunately, I have never been in the position of knowing what I would do if I was subjected to torture, but it is not hard to guess. I would say anything to make it stop. If I though it would make a difference, I would confess to the assassinations of both John and Robert Kennedy, and for a little icing on the cake, Abraham Lincoln.
What surprises me about the Democrats’ reaction to Mr. Cheney is that they have implicitly accepted Cheney’s terms of the discussion. According to Cheney and his friends, torture was effective in getting valuable information about the terrorists’ plans. The other side says that torture is not effective, or that even if it occasionally produces genuinely valuable information, the same information could probably have been obtained by other means. This basis for argument gives Cheney an advantage he should not have. Did the “enhanced interrogation techniques” actually help the U.S. to prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil? It is probably impossible to prove either way, but the assertion is at least plausible. The problem with presenting the issue this way is that there is an implied assumption that there is no incremental cost to using torture as a means of getting information. Cheney, and everybody else who advocates for torture, should be vigorously challenged on that point. In fact, there is a huge cost to the U.S. when its leaders try to give legal sanction to torturing people. To use economic terminology, in any major decision, the expected benefits should be weighed against the expected costs. Is it worthwhile to waterboard (or otherwise torture) so-called high-level detainees who might be able to provide information that could help prevent future acts of terrorism? If the cost is perceived to be zero, as Mr. Cheney implies, the resulting benefit – even if zero or negligible – should still at least equal the cost.
What is the “cost” of an American president deciding that torture is an acceptable method of interrogating prisoners? Although it would be difficult to quantify, I would say that the cost is huge. The U.S. is still the largest economic and military power in the world, but our relative power is declining, and we need allies. Our ability to influence world events in our favor is largely a function of our ability to persuade other countries to act in a manner consistent with our interests. To a large degree, our power to persuade depends on our continuing to be seen as a force for good, and respectful of international law. If we decide that international law is something to be followed only when it is convenient, and that torture is acceptable as long as we claim to be doing it for lofty purposes, our reputation and moral standing take a big hit. The resulting costs are immense. Simply asserting that “America does not torture” only makes us look like hypocrites if the claim is demonstrated to be false. Pictures and believable journalistic accounts of prisoners under American control being mistreated are effectively a recruiting poster for the terrorists. They also increase the likelihood that Americans will be mistreated when the bad guys have the opportunity. The way I see it, Mr. Cheney greatly understates the cost to the U.S. of using torture as an interrogation tool, and he also greatly overstates the incremental value that results. People are widely debating only the second half of that statement (does it produce valuable information?), but most discussions I have seen on television ignore the first half (what is the cost?).
If we are able to agree that the Bush administration did authorize torture (while claiming the contrary), and that some captives were in fact tortured, who – if anybody – should be prosecuted, either for committing acts of torture, or causing others to do so? There are some well-reasoned arguments in favor of such prosecutions, but based on presently known information, I do not favor prosecuting anybody. Basically, I am weighing political reality more heavily than moral or legal purity. If there is strong evidence of criminal wrongdoing far beyond what is now known, that would be different.
There is widespread agreement with President Obama that the CIA operatives who acted within the guidelines they were given should not be prosecuted. They were following what they had reason to believe were lawful orders. If those orders were later determined to have been unlawful, it is not fair to charge the interrogators themselves for crimes based on ex post standards. Some people have suggested that the U.S. should prosecute the Bush Justice Department lawyers who crafted the morally challenged standards and gave an apparent legal stamp of approval to torture. Although it might be emotionally satisfying to see some of these people in the slammer, I cannot see a legal justification for prosecuting a lawyer who offers morally repugnant advice to a client, even though the client in this case was the Pesident of the United States. If there is a basis for disbarment of some of these lawyers (and I don’t know if that is the case), that would suit me fine, but I think a criminal prosecution would be wrong.
That leaves the question of whether to prosecute Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and perhaps a couple of other high officials such as Mr. Rumsfeld or Mr. Gonzales. These are the people who gave the orders. Legally and morally, they probably deserve it. Politically, I think it is a bad idea. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, they could argue that preventing further disasters was such a critical priority that everything they did with that objective in mind should be regarded as both legal and proper. If they believed that aggressive interrogation of suspected terrorists, and the equally illegal warrantless domestic spying, were useful in protecting the American people from another attack, they would have been derelict in their duty if they had refrained from such actions. We can argue several years later, with the benefit of hindsight (and of course, no additional terrorist attacks in the U.S.), that some of their actions were illegal, but they should be judged on the basis of what the political atmosphere was like at that time. Personally, I do not buy that argument, but my guess is that most Americans would accept it. The prosecutions would be widely seen as politically motivated, and based on changed standards. I do not want George W. Bush or (even worse) Dick Cheney to get the chance to become martyrs. They do not deserve the moral high ground, and criminal prosecutions against them would hand them that opportunity. Remember that back in the 1980’s, even a contemptible lawbreaker like Oliver North was able to transform himself into a folk hero when it was commonly perceived that he was treated unfairly. It would be much better to let Bush and Cheney live out their remaining years in personal comfort and prosperity… and the disgrace that they richly deserve. The best way to make sure that torture is never again part of U.S. official policy is not to jail the former leaders, but to make sure they are thoroughly discredited. A criminal trial would be counter-productive.
If there is going to be a fact-finding commission to examine some of the possibly illegal actions of the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” it should be set up by the president (not by Congress), and the appointees should be a highly respected group of Democrats and Republicans – people whose integrity is beyond doubt. If the commission is widely perceived to be loaded one way or the other, it would be worse than useless. On the other hand, if the commission is generally perceived as fair to all sides, it could provide a valuable public service.
As I write this, we are less than 72 hours from the inauguration of Barack Obama as our 44th president, and George W. Bush will very soon be history. Rating the presidents is a popular game. As we enter the final days of the 43rd president’s reign, many professional pundits and others are putting in their two cents worth, rating the presidential performance of Mr. Bush. Since I don’t get paid for expressing my opinions, my own view is not even worth the proverbial two cents, but here goes…
As President Bush and some of his friends have correctly noted, it is too early for any “final” verdict on his presidency. There are various future events that could modify our initial conclusions regarding the Bush record. It is at least possible, for example, that Iraq will emerge in the near future as a stable liberal democracy, and a model to be emulated by its Arab neighbors. If this actually happens, even Mr. Bush’s harshest critics would probably have to revise their evaluations upward at least a little bit. I do not think that such an outcome is likely in the foreseeable future, but it is possible. The main point here is that our judgment at this time has to be regarded as tentative, and subject to possible reassessment in either direction based on subsequent events.
Before getting into the factors that I believe are the most crucial in judging the Bush presidency, I want to dispense with the factors that some people sometimes emphasize, but which I think are of little or no importance. First, the controversy surrounding his election eight years ago, and the possibility that the election was “stolen” on his behalf by the Republican political establishment in Florida, has no bearing on how we should grade the Bush presidency. Whether or not his becoming president was the result of improper shenanigans of some kind, the fact is that George W. Bush has been the President of the United States for the past eight years. It is his record as president that matters, not how he got to the White House in the first place. Second, let’s assume that Mr. Bush is basically a nice guy, a devoted family man, and that his actions as president were motivated by sincere intentions to best serve the interests of the American people. That also does not matter. We judge our presidents by what they actually did, and the effects of their actions, rather than our assumptions about their motives.
In his recent public comments, Mr. Bush has (like any other retired or soon-to-be retired president) tried to put a positive spin on his own presidential record. More than anything else, he emphasizes the fact that since 9/11/2001, there have been no subsequent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. His point is that he has kept America safe for the past 7+ years. The implication by Mr. Bush and his supporters is that this factor is such a major plus in his record that it far outweighs all the possible, but unspecified, negatives. I do not agree.
I can give him some credit for the absence of terrorist attacks in the U.S. during the past seven years, but subject to some significant qualifications. In the first place, if the lack of terrorist attacks since 2001 is the crowning achievement of his presidency, then it is also appropriate to note his administration’s failure to recognize the threat of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11. Vigilance by the administration since then has undoubtedly helped to prevent subsequent attacks, although it must share a significant share of the credit with the good work by many local police departments and the intelligence agencies of other countries. However, in addition to the productive resources that have been used in combating terrorism, President Bush also wasted extraordinary resources that were supposedly for the same purpose, but which contributed no incremental value. Is America really safer and stronger than it was seven years ago? In many ways, I strongly doubt that it is.
As much as anything else, the war on terror has defined the George W. Bush presidency. After the 9/11 attacks, it was apparent that the Taliban in Afghanistan had provided a base for the Al Qaeda terrorists, and it was appropriate to go after them. Had President Bush focused on that mission, he might have succeeded in establishing an effective and responsible Afghan government, capturing or killing bin Laden, and at a fraction of the costs actually incurred in the “war on terror.”
Instead, Mr. Bush turned his attention on Iraq and its odious dictator, Saddam Hussein. While nobody disputes that Saddam Hussein was a very bad guy, by 2003 his ability to be a menace beyond the borders of his own country was very limited. He had been effectively contained by the economic sanctions, no-fly zones, and weapons inspections. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was completely unnecessary, and even if we concede (which I do not) that the decision to invade Iraq and force regime change was a proper exercise of American power, the policy was executed with gross incompetence. Although Mr. Bush has tried to deflect responsibility for these mistakes on others (the CIA and its counterparts in allied governments, along with some of our military leaders), he is absolutely responsible for all of the mistakes pertaining to the Iraq War. It was Mr. Bush, and advisors personally selected by Mr. Bush (such as Donald Rumsfeld), who ignored sound advice and accurate information that did not fit their preconceived notions. The main justifications given by the president for the war (a strongly implied connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, plus Saddam’s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction) were bogus. The costs of the war to America have been huge, in terms of lives, treasury, and diplomatic damage. So far, it is not at all apparent that Iraq or the Middle East – and America’s interests in that region – have derived a net benefit as a result of the regime change. The one country in that region that has undeniably gained from Mr. Bush’s actions is Iran, and that cannot possibly have been Mr. Bush’s intention. For all of Saddam Hussein’s faults, his one “virtue,” from the U.S. point of view, was that he was an enemy and counterweight to the Shiite theocracy in Iran. While that fact would not justify supporting his regime, forcibly removing Saddam from the picture brought on a successor government in Iraq that is supported and influenced by Iran. President Bush had articulated his notion of an “axis of evil,” consisting of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. The implication was that these three countries were allies of each other, conspiring together to do evil deeds at every opportunity. It appears to me that Mr. Bush was handed a catchy phrase by a speechwriter, and then sincerely bought into its implication. In fact, Iraq and Iran were enemies of each other, and to some degree each of those two countries served as a check on the power of the other. Not any more, thanks to President Bush.
Personally, I am appalled at the Bush administration’s contemptuous attitude toward civil liberties and international law’s prohibitions on torture. George W. Bush should, and probably will, be condemned by future historians for his disregard for the laws and the Constitution that he swore to uphold. In the name of keeping America safe from terrorists (which nobody should dispute is a worthy goal), Mr. Bush has claimed the right to torture suspects, lock people up without time limits or any due process, spy on American citizens without a warrant – and all of this in direct contradiction of statutory and international law. The Bush administration has, in effect, asserted that anything it does in the name of national security is legal and proper, and not subject to any laws that would suggest otherwise. In its efforts to hold itself above the law, the Bush administration is very much on the wrong side of history.
However, I do not weigh these factors as heavily as some critics are inclined to do. The Bush record in these areas is very bad, but compared to some of the other wrongheaded policies by this president, these problems are more easily corrected. In times of perceived threats to the American way of life, civil liberties have often been discarded. Within the living memory of many older Americans, many thousands of Japanese-Americans were rounded up and put into concentration camps. This was morally reprehensible, and it served no legitimate national security purpose. That episode has to be regarded as a disgrace in modern American history, but it has not prevented most historians from an overall judgment that Franklin Roosevelt was one of our great presidents. Mr. Bush’s willingness to use torture as an interrogation tool, and his attempts to claim that the president is beyond the reach of the law, have been a disgrace, but they have far less long-term impact than many of his other actions. Civil liberties and the rule of law can be easily restored by the next president’s reversal of these policies and practices of President Bush.
Leaving aside the issue of keeping America safe from international Bad Guys, the major domestic legacy of the Bush administration was his tax cut legislation during his first term. The president had campaigned on his intentions to reduce taxes, and as president he lobbied hard to get the legislation through Congress. He was successful in getting Congress to pass something very close to what he wanted. If the net effect of the tax cut is good, Mr. Bush deserves the credit; if the net effect is bad, he deserves the blame. In my own opinion, the tax cuts had more negative than positive effects. I am less bothered than some people are by the fact that most of the benefits went to those with high incomes. Reducing marginal tax rates generally have a stimulating effect on economic activity. The real problem with the tax cuts is that they were accompanied by huge increases in government spending. Recall that, back in 2001, Mr. Bush inherited a government in fiscal surplus. He claimed at the time that surpluses would continue indefinitely into the future, and that even under the worst case scenario – a recession plus an as yet unforeseen national emergency – the enacting of his tax cuts would supposedly only reduce future government surpluses by half. The tax cuts passed, and we soon afterward got our national emergency (the terrorist attacks) and the recession. In little time, we went from a record surplus to record deficits. It can be argued that the tax cuts made the 2001 recession milder than it otherwise might have been, but they also made the long-term problem of an increased national debt much worse. This president, who preached the Republican mantra of small government, greatly expanded the government’s spending and power. Maybe Congress should be held responsible for some of the increased spending, but President Bush did not veto a single bill during his first term.
Recessions are part of the business cycle, and I do not blame President Bush for the fact that a recession occurs on his watch. However, his policies are responsible for making existing problems worse. Regardless of whether tax rates go up or down, increasing government spending is really a tax increase, and reducing the government’s ability to pay for the spending programs amounts to sending an ever increasing I.O.U. to our children. To his partial credit, Mr. Bush attempted in 2005 to reform social security, which is headed for a demographic time bomb in the coming years. He had a sensible suggestion regarding slowing down the pace of benefit increases in the future. Unfortunately, when he had his one good opportunity to accomplish meaningful social security reform, he made the mistake of insisting on a partial privatization of the program, and he wound up accomplishing nothing. This was a squandered opportunity for an important and positive accomplishment by President Bush.
Mr. Bush has displayed a hostile attitude toward financial regulation, with unfortunate results that should not come as a big surprise. The banking and mortgage crises occurring near the end of his presidency are not entirely his fault, but the Bush policies aggravated the problem.
There are several other aspects of Mr. Bush’s presidency that may be less significant than the issues discussed above, but which also add to the negative side of the ledger. He fired federal prosecutors for not being sufficiently partisan in their jobs, which are supposed to carried out in a non-partisan manner. He famously said in a speech that “we are addicted to oil,” but his energy policies did nothing to address the problem of the “addiction.” From a national security standpoint, the U.S. continues to have an unhealthy dependence on oil, which leaves us vulnerable to the whims of some hostile foreign governments. Any time a situation called for a scientific study, Mr. Bush made sure to stack the deck, in order to make sure that the panel concluded what he wanted them to conclude. His approach is the antithesis of the principle of scientific inquiry. I honestly do not know whether or not global warming is as big a problem as Al Gore suggests, but it does appear to be a bigger problem than Mr. Bush has ever cared to acknowledge. The longer the problem is put off, the more drastic the consequences will be. Mr. Bush has been an advocate of free trade, but he has supported steel industry and farm legislation that violate trade agreements (to be fair about it, most recent presidents have supported free trade in theory more than in practice). In addition, he has been consistently hostile to all international organizations, regarding them as infringements on American sovereignty, and he did not see fit to make an exception for the World Trade Organization. Although it is not a popular cause, free trade is in the general interest of the American people. Mr. Bush seems to understand this, but he never spent much effort promoting it. That is too bad, because with a recession facing us, and Democrats in solid control of Congress, expansion of trade opportunities within the next several years looks very unlikely. Back to the Middle East, it may not have been possible for President Bush to solve the problem between Israel and the Palestinians, but he never made much of an effort in that area, and the situation there is worse now than it was when he became president eight years ago.
In summary, although our verdict on the George W. Bush presidency for now must be regarded as tentative, it is hard for me to see a realistic possibility that his presidency will be regarded as anything but a failure. He claimed that he would pursue a “humble” foreign policy, but instead his record on foreign affairs was the most arrogant in memory. He ordered an invasion of a country that had not attacked the U.S. or its allies, nor was it an imminent threat to do so. The consequences of this totally unnecessary war have left America weaker (economically, militarily, diplomatically) than it would otherwise be. During the Bush presidency, America has been less respected by the rest of the world than at any other time in several generations. This is important, because the world is continually becoming more interconnected. Our country is still the most powerful in the world, but in dealing with other countries in the future, our power to persuade will be far more important than our power to coerce. Mr. Bush talked of the conservative virtues of limited government, but his actions were the opposite of his expressed intentions. He had the federal government overrule the states when a state decided on a policy that was not to his liking (medical marijuana, for example). One of his major goals, with the enthusiastic assistance of Dick Cheney, was to strengthen the presidency by claiming that it is not subject to constraints by the law, or by actions by Congress or the courts. These extreme interpretations of presidential power may well have the effect of weakening the presidency. That is what happened following similarly imperial claims of presidential power by Richard Nixon. I am not judging Mr. Bush harshly because his goals and priorities might be different from mine. Instead, I am saying that he is a failed president because he failed in terms of his own stated goals.
On the last day of 2008, I am looking back on the political developments this year. In www.my.barackobama.com, I have written over 100 essays in the past year, and posted comments to many more that were written by others. I have also gained the benefit of acquiring several dozen new “friends” who I will very likely never meet, and the exchange of ideas has been very enjoyable. All of us who regularly contributed postings to mbo.com can look back and observe snapshots of our own attitudes over the course of the year, like a photo album but with words rather than pictures. It is an unusual pleasure to have been able to enthusiastically support, as opposed to merely settle for, a presidential candidate, and still a rarer pleasure to have that candidate win the general election. Barack Obama is about to become president at a time of great challenges, and it is not reasonable to expect that all of the problems he inherits will be fully solved any time soon. I am hopeful that he will do a good job, and that his decisions will be the correct ones most of the time.
In looking back on my own writing over the course of this past year, I can see that I (like most bloggers in varying degrees) sometimes had the tendency to overstate the case. For example, there were some harsher statements about Bill and Hillary Clinton than they deserved. Hey, that is what happens when we get on our electronic soapbox. I regarded some of their public statements against Obama – when Senators Obama and Clinton were competing for the Democratic presidential nomination – as offensive and unworthy of accomplished public officials. Then again, many of our most admired political leaders throughout American history engaged in much worse political claptrap than anything either of the Clintons said or did in this campaign. It is easy to lose perspective.
If Obama did not run for president, or if his campaign fizzled out at the beginning, I could have comfortably supported Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, or Chris Dodd for president. They are all good people, and I think that any of them would have made a good president, although I always believed that Obama was the best available candidate. Once it became apparent that either Obama or Clinton would be the nominee, Joe Biden was my first choice for vice-president, and I was glad to see him get the job.
I was much less comfortable with Hillary Clinton as a candidate, although I almost certainly would have voted for her over any Republican nominee this year. Part of my problem with Mrs. Clinton as president is that, for all of her obvious intelligence and knowledge of the issues, she did a very poor job with her healthcare reform efforts in 1993. Her only experience in actually running anything did not go well at all. Later on, I was also appalled by what I regarded as very obnoxious behavior on her part toward Barack Obama. On reflection, I probably made too much of that at the time.
Many Obama supporters were admirers of John Edwards, but I cannot agree at all on the merits of Mr. Edwards. If he had won the Democratic nomination, I still am not sure if I could have brought myself to vote for him over Senator McCain. Many people admire Edwards for his calling public attention to poverty in America, noting that most politicians at least claim to be fighting for the middle class (where most Americans, including yours truly, identify themselves). Few politicians, other than those representing districts with high rates of poverty, talk about poverty at all, and it is arguably to Mr. Edwards’ credit that he raises the issue. That may be true, but I also believe that his policies would in the long run be disastrous for the people he is allegedly trying to help. The other problem I had with Edwards was his grandstanding about being the only candidate willing to “take on corporate America.” That strikes me as very similar to when Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin talked about the “real Americans,” as opposed to those of us who are apparently fake Americans. In the case of both John Edwards and Sarah Palin, it appeared to me that if they could have their way, a major segment of the American population would not be welcome to have their views represented in Washington. As far as the later revelations about Mr. Edwards’ philandering were concerned, I was just relieved that he had made himself politically irrelevant.
The other two Democrats seeking the presidency at the beginning of the year, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, were both political jokes as far as I was concerned, and did not need to be taken seriously.
Among the Republicans running for president at the beginning of the year, I thought that John McCain was their best candidate. I liked him in 2000, when he competed with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination. As in the case of Hillary Clinton, I was more negative in my comments about John McCain during 2008 than he probably deserved. McCain is basically a good person. On the other hand, I doubt that he would have made a good president. My biggest single objection to McCain as president was that he intended to appoint more right wing judges to the Supreme Court (and presumably the other federal courts). Thanks to a concerted effort by Republican presidents over the past generation, the courts are already overrepresented by right wing judges. McCain and all the other Republicans seeking the presidency this year were dedicated to continuing that trend. In varying ways, I thought that the other Republican presidential contenders, with the exception of Ron Paul, had all of McCain’s faults and none of his virtues. I do not think that Ron Paul would make a good president, and he never had a realistic chance for his party’s nomination, but I still like the guy. In a way, he is the conscience of his party, a reminder of conservatism’s libertarian roots.
As an amateur student of American history and the presidency, I have become persuaded that one of the qualities common to our better presidents has been a strong sense of history. The good presidents have understood what worked in the past, and what didn’t work, and they knew how to apply the lessons from the past to the present situation. A good president also has to be a good manager. He (or, some day, she) cannot be much better, although it is possible to be much worse, than the people he hires for his cabinet and White House staff. He has to be able to delegate a lot of the work to these people, but at the same time the ultimate responsibility is his. I think that Barack Obama has the qualities that can make him a great president [Whether or not things actually turn out that way, we will not know for quite some time]. He is a big reader of history and related subjects, and some of his reading choices have been exactly what I would have recommended, in the event that he was to solicit my opinion. He is surrounding himself with very talented and knowledgeable people. It also at least appears that he wants honest advice from these people, as opposed to some presidents who have tended to ignore or dismiss advisors who dared to tell the president anything that conflicted with his own preconceived ideas. The president should encourage spirited debate among his advisors, but once the policy has been decided, those same advisors should be able to publicly support the president, or else resign. If a particular advisor finds that the president no longer values his input, he should resign. It seemed to me that Colin Powell should have resigned as Bush’s Secretary of State long before he actually left the job, rather than continue to publicly support a policy he knew was wrong.
As Obama takes office on January 20, some of the challenges he faces will be formidable. I hope that the Obama presidency will focus on long term solutions to problems. This applies to a lot of areas, but I am thinking specifically about the economy. Much of the current economic crisis is the result of people and institutions pursuing short term goals. As long as asset prices were rising, investors and home owners benefited from highly leveraged deals. The Detroit-based auto makers emphasized the SUVs and light trucks because that was where the profits were best. A few years ago, Congress even passed a law giving tax favored treatment to businesses that bought SUVs (as opposed to ordinary passenger cars). Managers at investment banks and industrial corporations were paid huge bonuses based on short term results. All these things seemed to help keep the economy humming along… for awhile. The pursuit of short term results is often contrary to the longer term interest. A company that cuts out (or drastically reduces) spending on maintenance or on research and development can make one quarterly income statement look good, but it is likely to have a negative impact on its future. I think it is likely that the economy will get worse, maybe for a year or so, before it gets better, and I hope that Obama (and Congress) will have the wisdom to avoid the kind of quick fixes that seem to address some problem, but which make the situation much worse in the long run. For example, they should resist their protectionist inclinations, even though there could be a political price to pay.
Anyway, having supported Barack Obama’s candidacy from the beginning, I got what I wished for. My candidate got elected, along with my preferred choice for vice-president. I hope that I will continue to be pleased with the election results in the years to come.
I have recently read two books about the presidential campaign. Submitted for your approval – as Rod Serling used to say when introducing his Twilight Zone episodes – the setting is basically as follows: The United States is engaged in an undeclared war, which originally enjoyed popular support, but the war has been seriously mismanaged. The general public has observed incompetent leadership at the top, and many who originally supported the war have now come to believe that the war was a mistake. The incumbent (and soon to be retiring) President of the United States has seen his own popularity drastically reduced, for several reasons but mainly because of the widespread perception that the war was both badly conceived and poorly executed. In the Democratic Party, the two leading anti-war presidential contenders are both sitting members of the U.S. Senate. They are ideologically similar, and policy differences between the two of them are minor. Unfortunately, these two senators personally detest each other. This is cause for great concern among Democrats, because a badly divided party would likely result in their losing a presidential election they otherwise should have a good chance of winning.
Sound familiar? As you probably have figured out by now, the year is… 1968. The unpopular president is Lyndon Johnson. The two feuding Democratic senators running for president are Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. As we all know now, Senator Kennedy was assassinated, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination, but with the Democratic Party sharply divided between the pro-war and anti-war factions, Republican nominee Richard Nixon won a close but decisive election.
There are some parallels between the 1968 and 2008 political situations, although one significant difference is that, despite some bitter exchanges, the personal relationship between Senators Obama and Clinton was nowhere near as bad as the antipathy between McCarthy and Kennedy in 1968. Many of the supporters of either Obama or Clinton declared that they would find it impossible to support the other candidate in the general election, but in the end, the great majority of Clinton backers wound up voting for Obama in November, and I think it is likely that, had Hillary Clinton managed to win the nomination, most Obama supporters would have voted for her against Senator McCain. It was a hard fought contest for the Democratic nomination this year, but after Obama officially won the prize, both Hillary and Bill Clinton delivered when it mattered. For months, the Clintons did everything they could to suggest that Barack Obama was not qualified to be president, even to the point of implying at times that John McCain would be preferable to Obama as president. When Obama still won the nomination, the Clintons did an about face and enthusiastically endorsed him, as if all the previous criticism of Obama was meaningless. In a way, it was meaningless. To put it another way, it was politics. Different candidates compete hard for their party’s nomination, and the losing candidates then support the nominee of their own party in the general election.
I do not know the exact nature of the personal relationship between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but it is a reasonable guess that at least to some degree, they are friends. They are fellow Democrats, ideologically similar, and have been Senate colleagues for the past four years. It is likely that Mrs. Clinton resented her younger colleague’s aggressive, and ultimately successful, pursuit of a presidential nomination that she believed was rightfully hers. In spite of that, both Clinton and Obama understand the nature of politics, and there appears to be a mutual respect between the two of them. That mutual respect was missing in the relationship between Kennedy and McCarthy forty years earlier. Obama did not have to offer Clinton the job of Secretary of State, and she did not have to accept it. Both of them had good alternatives available to them.
Shortly after the election, I wrote in a blog post that I hoped that Bill Richardson, and not Hillary Clinton, would get the top job at State. As it turns out, the job will be Clinton’s. There is no use now in wishing that Obama had made a different choice, and I hope that Mrs. Clinton will do an excellent job. I read somebody’s commentary to the effect that as Secretary of State, Clinton would undermine the Obama presidency by trying to advance her own agenda for 2012. That is (very probably) nonsense. If Mrs. Clinton really intended to challenge Mr. Obama for the 2012 presidential nomination, there is no way that she would accept an offer to serve in his cabinet. If President Obama is made to look bad in the area of foreign policy, Secretary of State Clinton would certainly not look good. For now, Obama and Clinton have a commonality of interests. Obama has assembled a team of very talented and accomplished people to serve in his cabinet and other top posts. If he can use these people effectively, Obama can be a great president. For Hillary Clinton and the other top officials, their own reputations will be best enhanced if they succeed in making the president look good. Mrs. Clinton most likely will never become President of the United States. That is probably a disappointing reality to Mrs. Clinton and her fans. However, she does have the opportunity to establish a valuable legacy for herself in American history, by being the best Secretary of State that she can be.
President-Elect Barack Obama has incurred a lot of hostility to his decision to have Rev. Rick Warren, a well-known televangelist, lead a prayer at the presidential inauguration. The principal reason for the opposition is that Rev. Warren is believed to be anti-gay, and that giving him the honor of leading a prayer at the inauguration is a huge insult to a group of Americans that strongly supported Obama in the election.
Rev. Warren would not have been my choice, but I think the hostile reaction is excessive. Personally, I never pay any attention to what any preacher says at a presidential inauguration. The one exception I recall is when Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. gave a rousing speech at the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter. Other than that, I do not know who the preachers are, or what they say. It is just part of a ceremony. To me, objecting to the presence of Rev. Warren is like being a guest at somebody’s wedding and complaining about the couple’s choice of music being used in the ceremony. Rev. Warren is not my proverbial cup of tea, but I fail to see that it is an important issue.
Is Rev. Warren really anti-gay, as his accusers suggest? The accusers certainly have a basis to believe that he is. He has said that anybody (gays included) are welcome to attend his church, but that gays who do not renounce their “lifestyle” cannot be members of his church. And of course, he was strongly in favor of California’s (his home state’s) Proposition 8, which would have the effect of prohibiting and invalidating same-sex marriages in that state. On the other hand, his record suggests that he is not infected with the same kind of ugly bigotry that characterizes some other celebrated TV preachers.
My own position on same-sex marriage is basically the same as that of President-Elect Obama. I am open to persuasion to the contrary, but it seems to me that civil unions (marriage in everything but name) plus protection against discrimination should be sufficient to address the legitimate civil rights issues, regarding gay rights. Social acceptance cannot be legislated; it takes time and patience. I think that most people can accept the idea of civil unions, and maybe after several years and we find that the sky is not falling, same-sex marriage by name will also gain wider acceptance. If I lived in California, I would have voted against Proposition 8. While I am not really an advocate of same-sex marriage, I believe that it is a mistake to make them constitutionally prohibited, which Proposition 8 does at the state level. On the other hand, there is too widespread a tendency to label people as bigots if they disagree with us on this or some other issue.
Think of the major civil rights legislation from the 1960’s. While it is probably fair to say that nearly all bigots opposed those civil rights measures, it is not fair to say that bigotry was a motivation for everybody who opposed those laws. There were principled conservatives who were personally against discrimination but who also believed that it was not the business of the federal government to prohibit what was admittedly obnoxious behavior. Their reasoning was wrong, of course. Before the passage of those laws, a significant segment of the American population was effectively denied many basic rights, including: the right to vote, job opportunities, decent education, and availability of housing and public accommodations. The federal government had a legitimate interest in safeguarding the rights of citizens whose civil rights were otherwise denied. The fact that the principled conservatives were allied with the bigots in opposing the civil right laws – although for different reasons – did not make them bigots themselves, even though they were (by any reasonable person’s reckoning today) on the wrong side of the issue.
In a similar way, I think that the people who voted in favor of Proposition 8 were mistaken, but it is too simple just to label everybody who voted for it (and those in other states who cheered it on) as bigots. Some of those who voted for it probably thought, rather than voting for same-sex marriage to be permanently prohibited in California, that civil unions are okay but they did not want to have same-sex marriage recognized immediately. That would be a misunderstanding of the wording of the proposition, but the point is that many of those who voted in favor of Proposition 8 are not really “anti-gay.” Others who voted for it undoubtedly feel that – as I suggested above – civil unions and anti-discrimination laws (regarding jobs, housing, etc.) are sufficient in meeting the legitimate civil rights issues regarding gays. Reasonable people can disagree over that issue, but I cannot accept the notion that all of those who believe that the word “marriage” should apply specifically to a union of one man and one woman are “anti-gay.”
To those who are upset about Rev. Warren having a high profile role at the inauguration of Barack Obama, I suggest that they accept – at least for now – the notion that President-Elect Obama just wants to reach out to a wide variety of Americans, including groups that did not support him in the election campaign. Watch what he does as president. I think he will satisfy most people who might be suspicious about his commitment to civil rights. The selection of Rev. Warren is a symbolic gesture to the evangelicals, and it has no other practical significance.
I have been an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential prospects since the beginning, and his actions since the election have generally acted to reinforce my optimism regarding his coming presidency. Having said this, however, there are a few issues where I believe he is on the wrong side.
One of these is the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which is promoted by organized labor. EFCA would replace the current system, where the employees of a given group vote by secret ballot on whether or not to affiliate with a union. If I understand it correctly, under the current system, the election is required once the union organizers get the signatures from 30% of the employees. Those employees are not necessarily requesting to be part of the union, but in many cases are initially just exploring the possibility. They are looking to have an election, but without committing in advance on how they will vote. It seems to me that the present system works pretty well. With the decision being made by secret ballot, workers can choose their preference without pressure or retribution either from the union itself, the co-workers, or the employer. This is the real employee free choice.
In contrast, EFCA would require an employer to recognize a union – without an election – once organizers collect signed cards from a majority of employees. Some of these employees might be interested in considering the possibility, but EFCA would effectively remove that step in the process. It is not hard to imagine the pressure or intimidation that a worker could feel when forced to publicly declare his or her decision.
In a way, EFCA is like the line-item veto that most presidents and some pundits advocate. It might have good effects some of the time, but the advocates of both measures tend to ignore the negative effects. The main effect will be to strengthen the hand of the unions (in the case of EFCA) or the president (in the case of the line-item veto). While in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama actually advocated EFCA because it would supposedly protect workers from intimidation by their employers. Mr. President-Elect, that does not make any sense. Current law provides protections for workers from retribution by employers for attempting to unionize. In any case, one of the most valuable rights a worker has right now is the right to a secret ballot, and EFCA would take that right away. Shouldn’t a worker also be protected from intimidation on the part of the co-workers and the unions?
This issue has nothing to do with the historical importance of unions. The rise of the unions a few generations ago led to raising the living standards for millions of workers. I don’t think there is a serious dispute that raising those previously appalling working conditions and living standards was a good thing. There also cannot be much doubt that it was the rise of the unions that made those positive changes possible. Still, it does not logically follow that, because the unions helped many workers in the past, strengthening the position of the unions in the 21st Century will be good for workers going forward.
I believe that Barack Obama has shown excellent judgment on many issues, and in his approach to problem solving. It appears to me that he has chosen an excellent cabinet and other top advisors, and he will make sure that he is at least aware of the arguments that run contrary to his initial policy inclinations. I hope that EFCA will be one of the issues where he reconsiders his position.
President-Elect Barack Obama has been criticized by some Republican politicians and pundits for his cautious initial response to the scandal surrounding Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. In today’s (12/11/08) Wall Street Journal, for example, columnist John Fund lays out the case for tainting Mr. Obama with Illinois’s culture of sleaze. The fact that Obama has been closely associated with Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, who in turn has been a close ally of Mr. Blagojevich, is apparently enough to convince Mr. Fund that there is something sinister about Obama’s apparently limited reaction to the explosive criminal charges against the governor. Mr. Fund also cites the rantings of a soapbox columnist, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune, as supporting evidence for his own claims.
Rod Blagojevich, Barack Obama, and Mayor Richard Daley are the three highest profile Chicago-based public officials. All of them are Democrats. We can reasonably assume that they all know each other, and it should be no surprise that, being elected officials from the same political party, they endorse each other in elections. It does not mean that they are friends, or that they are in any practical sense political allies, other than by definition. In Illinois, the Democrats control both houses of the state legislature and all of the statewide political offices. Given that starting point, it is amazing that Governor Blagojevich has almost no political friends at all, with the possible exception of Emil Jones.
I don’t know whether or not the president-elect has taken the time to read the 76-page complaint against Mr. Blagojevich. I get the impression he has been busy with other matters in recent days. Both by temperament and by training, Mr. Obama knows that it would be inappropriate for him to shoot his mouth off about the Blagojevich matter before he knows more details. His low-key initial response is appropriate. However, I do think that the president-elect should soon weigh in on the issue, and in very unambiguous terms.
I am well aware that Mr. Blagojevich is entitled to the legal presumption of innocence, although the U.S. Attorney’s case appears to be very strong. I also assume that the U.S. Attorney is ready to offer a plea deal, something like this:
If Blagojevich really believes he is innocent, he should not plead guilty, but his own attorneys should explain to him just what he is up against. Blagojevich’s immediate predecessor as Illinois governor, George Ryan, is in prison for his own misdeeds, and the case against Blagojevich is much stronger than the case was against Ryan.
Whether Blagojevich decides to fight the charges or not, he should resign immediately, or at minimum take a leave of absence for long enough for Illinois’ lieutenant governor, Pat Quinn, to appoint the new U.S. Senator. Any appointment made by Blagojevich would be badly tainted, regardless of whether or not Blagojevich is eventually convicted.
Taking Obama's advice and sharing my story----- I went to my mailbox today and in there was a letter from Joe Biden asking me to donate $100 dollars to help Hillary Clinton retire her debt. First of all I did not make any pledge to Hillary Clinton. Earlier this year I donated during Obama’s "one in a million" promotion and I never got my "one in a million" t-shirt. I have been campaigning January for this movement, I have phone banked and gone to two states. I purchased three copies of Obamas books. I did canvassing knocking on hundred of doors, and entered countless data into votebuilder, and made signs. I have been to two rallies and fundraisers, convinced friends and co-workers to vote for the ticket ObamaBiden. I have personally donated almost $1500 that does not include the money I spent traveling and renting hotel rooms and cars. At the end of the campaign I donated $30 to get my "one voice" t-shirt and here it is over one month later and no t-shirt, and personally I don't think I am going to get one. Friends brag about how they receive t-shirts and autographed pictures from Obama and Michelle, did I receive anything of the sort--no.
So imagine how pissed off I am to open my email and see a letter from the Obama campaign telling me about the pledge they made and asking me for my money. Listen you made the pledge you give her the money. Hillary Clinton and her husband are worth over $100 million I might be worth $65 thousand dollars, who should be helping whom. Obama is making enormous amounts of money from his books he can afford to help Hillary.Hillary decided to run for president, she knew what was involved and did not plan for it. Even though she was losing and her campaign was running out of money she continued the effort. She claims she loaned her campaign money, personally I don’t know how someone lends themselves money. She was investing in herself and unfortunately it didn't pay off, that's how it is sometimes. When my investments fail, no one bails me out, the losses I took when trying to start a small business. She poorly managed her campaign and now I am being asked to reward her, how will she learn the lessons there. She should have suspended her campaign when it became mathematically impossible for her to win. This debt is her responsibility alone. I think it is appalling that a millionaire is asking "common" folk to help them with a debt. How insulting to the hardworking people who donated to this movement, some of us having to endure the insults and injuries Clinton caused with her tactics.
Yes, I know the campaign is over, but I never thought Hillary would be a good president, that's why I did not support her candidacy and I am not going to fund her debt. I think the fact that she is nominated for Secretary of State is enough sacrifice for me, did you promise her that during the campaign too Obama? I don't know how she will do considering her record on healthcare and this recent campaign. If I look at those two incidents as her resume I would say she doesn't manage money well, and she doesn't have an ability to lead. I think she is good at carrying out a task and I am hoping that's the reason Obama is nominating her. I think it is nice that Hillary now has to work for him considering all the mess she talked about Obama not being ready to lead. He did tell her during the campaign that he was looking forward to her working for him, so we did see some type of appointment coming.
I am not sure I trust Hillary yet and she has to show me more than just being a good campaigner, all of this makes me think she was just campaigning because she had the promise of being Secretary of State. Yes, I understand there are valid reasons for choosing her and they have been cited by the campaign and I agree those reasons are all pros for Hillary, and since she has been trusted with such a delicate and high profile position (not a bad conciliation prize) now she can really prove herself by carrying out Obamas agenda. I think it's a good idea to have her in a situation where Obama has control, in the senate she would be his nemesis. Now is the time for her to prove she is a person of integrity and morals by paying off her own debt. This should be a growing process for her; I have a problem with people who crave the spotlight because they are often part of the problem. I am looking forward to the Obama administration and wait to see how it will rise to the many challenges that are dominating the headlines, and those that are not: like education and poverty, racial tension and profiling, the lack of community centers and outreach programs in impoverished neighborhoods. This is what I care about, not some millionaires debt that she brought on herself.
I am sorry Obama, forgiving is good, working together is good, but I also believing in standing for what I believe in. I understand diplomacy and the need for everyone to get along but I have to draw the line here. Maybe you could show me your word is bond by sending my autographed pictures and t-shirt first.
It is a strange feeling to watch a man I have put so much faith in, not only meet my expectation but exceed them. President-elect Obama presented his national security team today and did so with extraordinary vision and confidence. I have never hidden my dislike for Sen. Clinton but if Obama believes she can rise to the challenge, then I will give her the benefit of a doubt. As for the rest of the team I felt they represented not only the change from Bush we all so desperately desire, but also the pragmatism, intelligence and focus that I have come to respect in Obama.
Robert Gates has proved to be a stabilizing and reassuring force in the uncertain and erratic Bush years. It wouldn’t surprise me if history shows he alone kept the world from the brink of disaster as Bush stumbled and rambled. Gates also represents a comforting continuity in the Defense Department. I’m sure the idea of any kind of disruptive or destabilizing element to the US military at this point in time, is probably as frightening to world leaders as it is to ordinary citizens like me. Gates puts most of those concerns to rest and gives us a chance to breathe a little easier tonight.
Susan Rice offers the potential for a much needed effort, and a personal desire of mine, to empower the United Nations after almost a decade of pure neglect. During the disastrous years of Bush we saw the UN falter and fade and the world became increasingly unstable and less safe because of it. The UN is an organization that grew out of the dream that shaped the United States of America, a dream where all humans are created equal and deserve equal right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. It is an organization that cannot exist without the leadership of the country that spawned it. We need a platform for human dialogue, across borders and cultures and we need America to host this platform. I firmly believe that the UN needs to be enforced not dismantled, to allow us all to live in a world that is safer and better and I’m relieved to hear that President-elect Obama and his chosen UN ambassador agrees with this view.
This team may not be the dream of a diehard socialist (!) but I believe it is the dream of anyone who desires peace and stability in the world. I have no illusions about the challenges the US will have to tackle in the years to come, and the recent attacks in Mumbai shows us with painful clarity the fragility of the world. But today President-elect Obama put a strong and confident face to the future of American leadership and that is profoundly encouraging. To chose powerful individuals with strong opinions is dangerous and can easily cripple weak leaders, as was the case with Bush Jr. But in his briefing today Obama effectively eliminated any such concerns and the team he assembled will undoubtedly help empower him as he struggles to resolve the damage done and restore the balance to the world.
I can’t wait for the day when I no longer have to use the phrase “President-elect” but can finally call him; President Obama.
Today is Thanksgiving – a very enjoyable holiday – so why would I risk ruining that positive feeling with a suggestion in very bad taste? I guess that is just the kind of person I am. The other day, we all saw the scene on television where Alaska Governor Sarah Palin “pardoned” one turkey at a turkey farm near Wasilla, and then amiably chatted away with a TV reporter while the gruesome slaughter of another turkey took place on camera a few yards behind her. During the recent campaign, a contributing factor to Ms. Palin’s stardom was her hunting prowess. There is nothing quite like shooting animals from an airplane to bring out the best character traits in all of us… or so I have heard.
The scene at the turkey farm got me to thinking: Who, or what, would I most like to have slaughtered under the smiling gaze of Sarah Palin? The two possibilities that come to my mind are both characters from irritating television commercials: the gecko in those Geico Insurance ads (in the animal category) and the Commissioner of the More Taste League in those Miller Lite ads (in the human category).
Okay, now the disclaimer, like the ones you hear at the end of so many commercials on TV or radio: This is not intended to advocate the murder of actors who are trying to make a living pitching a product. It is the fictitious characters themselves who I would like to see bumped off. No harm intended to any real person or animal.
From inside Barack Obama’s staff, which had been unusually disciplined regarding message, comes the “leak” that President-elect Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton met to discuss the possibility of Clinton serving as Obama’s Secretary of State. The prospect of Clinton as Secretary of State is very interesting, to say the least, but I am curious about the leak itself. Did Obama authorize the leak to the press? If so, why? If not, how is he going to handle it? As of this writing, it is not clear whether Obama actually offered Clinton the job, or that if he offers her the job, she would accept it. My own feeling is that this press leak was a poor idea. If Obama authorized it, he made a mistake in doing so. If somebody on his staff acted unilaterally, he should fire that person, because he cannot have staff members pursuing their own agendas. Maybe everything will turn out very well, but the situation has needlessly invited the potential for major embarrassment to the incoming administration.
I hope that in the case of all the people who are being considered for any position in the new president’s cabinet, Obama would make certain rules and expectations clear. Something like this:
Back to the subject of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, I think it is possible that she can be a good one, but I also have some nagging doubts about whether or not she will be a good team player, and whether or not her administrative skills are good enough. If she is offered and takes the job, and two years later, President Obama decides that he needs to make a change, will she resign gracefully? I know that Obama was very impressed with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, and I can understand the case for making Hillary Clinton Obama’s Secretary of State, but I have my doubts.
For a long time, my preference for that post has been Bill Richardson. Mr. Richardson has the diplomatic credentials at least equal to those of Mrs. Clinton, along with better administrative experience, and (in my opinion) less political and emotional baggage. While it looks like the job is Clinton’s if she wants it (if the job is not being offered to her, then the press leak was uncharacteristically reckless), I hope that the job ultimately goes to Richardson. If Obama wants to make a political payoff to Clinton, which would be understandable, my suggestion is that he appoint her to fill a vacancy in the federal judiciary, along with the understanding that she would at least receive serious consideration later on for the Supreme Court. If Hillary Clinton is going to be our next Secretary of State, I hope she will be a good one and prove my doubts wrong.
Many are proposing a world currency or a "basket" of currencies to replace the dollar. The dollar lost it credibility when it was taken off the gold standard, And at the same time effectively killed Bretton Woods.
A convincing factor within Treasury was that GOLD HAD NO INTRINSIC VALUE. The best response would be to base national reserves upon futures contracts of strategic goods such as oil,copper, titanium, maybe coal and yes,even gold. How these strategic contracts could be structured and if they would be backed by governments or private enterprise should be worked out in the nearest future.
(Commenting on the unsubstantiated rumors of Hillary Clinton in President-elect Obama’s cabinet.)
I don’t really care if he puts her in the cabinet, as long as it’s not in any prominent position, such as Secretary of State.
A list of a few of the reasons why Hillary Clinton should not be Sec. of State:
1. She’s not much of a diplomat, the primary told us that.
2. Her ties to Bill Clinton would weigh her down and along with her the crucial efforts of the Obama administration. Bill might be well liked in some circles “out here”, but he doesn’t command much respect, and that will affected her by proxy.
3. She has no actual experience with foreign policy, at least not on the level that will be required considering the dangers we face.
4. Hillary, like most women in her age group, has a tendency to try too hard. It makes them appear desperate and weak. These are not good qualities in a Secretary of State, a position that is very similar to a soldier in the midst of a battlefield, except you use words and psychological manipulation instead of guns and missiles. Obviously the Sec of State can’t be an actual soldier, if you are no one will trust you not to use guns and missiles…
I kind of like the idea of Bill Richardson as Sec of State, but mainly because of his experience in the UN, brief as it was. In my opinion, anything that pushes President-elect Obama closer to the UN is a move in the right direction.
Choosing John Kerry would be disaster though. The last thing we need is another military man in the US State Department! He has campaigned too convincingly on his war record and it will be very difficult to ignore. The world will not trust a soldier to be a US representative of peace ever again.
But the only American I would really trust handling the deceptive waters of high state diplomacy is James Baker. Unfortunately he is far too Republican for comfort. Anyway, I hope President-elect Obama at least calls him on the phone often.
I do hope, however, that President-elect Obama keeps Robert Gates as Sec. of Defense. There’s no reason not to (that I can think of), and many, many reasons to keep him. Most importantly, the US will be extremely vulnerable for the first year of Obama’s presidency. The less strain put on the military community the safer we’ll all be. Considering the situation the US military is in at the moment and will continue to be for a foreseeable future, I’d strongly advocate not rocking the boat.
Anyway, that’s my two cents’ worth.
Now I’m off to bed.
Everybody who knows me personally is well aware that I have strongly supported the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, and that I am very pleased with his election victory. It has been my feeling that Obama has the intelligence, the real life experience, the temperament, political skills, and (in most cases) the policy inclinations that could make him an outstanding president. At any rate, we will soon be able to find out.
One policy area that has concerned me is trade policy. Obama claims to believe in free markets and free trade, and I have no doubt that he understands the intellectual arguments in support of those principles. Unfortunately, his Senate actions in these areas suggest that his support of free trade is mainly as an abstract idea.
A Wall Street Journal editorial has a useful suggestion. Let the outgoing president take the political heat for some free trade deals which have merit but not popular support. I do not have much regard for the WSJ when it comes to purely political issues (the war on terror, judicial appointments, etc.), but when it comes to economic issues, they really know their subject. Check out the following:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122645083164919237.html
Our president-elect, Barack Obama, will face many tough challenges when he assumes the presidency this coming January 20. I hope that he will not aggravate those already difficult circumstances by having to worry about political correctness.
On the personal level, Barack and Michelle Obama have two decisions to make regarding their family life. Where are they going to send their daughters to school? Also, what kind of dog are they going to get? Just in case Barack and Michelle were about to solicit my opinion on these important topics, I will take this opportunity to state the obvious: In your capacity as parents, act in the interests of your children, and ignore any political ramifications.
I read today that the mayor of Washington, Adrian Fenty, has put out the word that he at least hopes that the Obamas will consider sending Malia and Sasha to a public school in Washington, D.C. It seemed to me that President Carter sent his daughter to a public school because that would reinforce his just-plain-folk image. Perhaps I am being unfair to Mr. Carter, and to the D.C. public schools, but Barack and Michelle Obama should send their daughters to whatever school will best serve the interests of Malia and Sasha. If that should happen to be a private school, even if it is one with considerable snob appeal, then that is where those kids should go. The educational environment is a big consideration, as is the social environment, and the fact that Secret Service protection will be ever-present for the president’s immediate family. What Barack and Michelle should not consider at all is how the choice of a school for their children will impact his political standing.
In a similar way, the choice of a First Dog should be based on what is good for the family. The dog should not be a political prop any more than the children’s school. According to the president-elect, one of his children has allergies to most dogs, but apparently certain dog breeds should not be a problem. He stated his preference for getting a dog from a shelter, but noted that this goal tends to conflict with the more important issue of the allergy in the household. Personally, I think that mutts are often great dogs. My favorite dog was a Save-a-Pet mutt who lasted about 13 years. Then again, nobody in our household has dog allergies. I am sure that, in the end, the Obamas will do the sensible thing and get a dog who presents little or no risk of allergic reactions in the Obama family. Whatever dog they wind up getting, I just hope that political considerations will not enter into the decision-making process.
Okay, so much for two issues that are interesting but of no real importance outside the Obama family. There is a more substantive political correctness matter facing Mr. Obama. Larry Summers, a highly respected Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, is believed to be under serious consideration for the same job in the upcoming Obama administration. However, there is serious opposition to Mr. Summers, because of remarks he made as Harvard University President a few years ago. Mr. Summers noted that, while men and women on average performed about equally in academic achievement in math and science, the variance among men was greater, so that men were over represented at both the top and bottom ends of the spectrum. He suggested that these differences should be studied, both to verify (or refute) the observations, and (if those observations appear to be verified) to test possible hypotheses that might explain the reason for these differences. Mr. Summers never suggested any inherent inferiority of women, but some of the P-C police declared that he was guilty of being out to keep all young women barefoot and pregnant.
Let me add a personal note here. I am the father of two sons (and no daughters). None of the three of us have ever been especially good science students. In contrast, my sister was an outstanding science student, and she has a good job now doing… scientific stuff. She probably would be annoyed to have me publicly characterize her as an “accomplished scientist,” but that label fits her more than almost anybody else I know.
I cannot see that Larry Summers is guilty of any serious wrong-headed thinking. Even if his premise (that males are more likely than females to reach the top academic percentile in math and science) is wrong, he was speaking as the head of a prestigious academic institution, where inquiry and challenging conventional wisdom are supposed to be the way of life. If we think he is wrong, instead of condemning him for heresy, demonstrate the error of his ways by constructing a superior study that will (or at least might) refute his assertions.
We should also keep in mind that Larry Summers is under consideration for Treasury Secretary. I believe that his alleged views about the differences in abilities between men and women have been badly misconstrued, but even if that is not the case, it is of no relevance to the government post in question. If Mr. Summers was under consideration for heading the Department of Health and Human Services, or Education, I could at least understand the objections, and I might agree that the controversy at Harvard would deserve careful scrutiny.
The economy is in recession, possibly the worst recession in the lifetime of most of us, and President Obama will need the best Treasury Secretary he can get. Maybe that person is Larry Summers. The Treasury Secretary should be chosen on the basis of how it is believed he or she will perform in that capacity, and not on the basis of whether he/she offended some people with remarks made on an unrelated subject a few years ago. Maybe somebody else would be better than Mr. Summers for that job, but the decision should be on factors directly relevant to the specific job.
