History closed the books on John Edwards' tawdry career a year ago, but his long-suffering wife is adding a footnote to the story of the negligence lawyer who served one term in the Senate, spent more time than that running for president as a champion of the poor while raking in money from a hedge fund and was eventually unmasked as a cheating husband by a tabloid newspaper.
In a forthcoming book titled "Resilience," Elizabeth Edwards now discloses she knew of her husband's infidelity a year before it became public, soon after he announced his candidacy.
"I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up," she writes, according to the New York Daily News' report on an advance copy.
"Long-suffering" is inadequate to describe a woman who, after own successful career as a lawyer, lost her 16-year-old son in a car crash and was diagnosed with cancer that went into remission only to return as she supported her unfaithful husband's second bid for the presidency.
Even now, with this new book, Elizabeth Edwards chooses once again to forfeit her privacy and, while expressing her anger, hold on to a stand-by-your-man outlook.
"I lie in bed," she writes, "circles under my eyes, my sparse hair sticking in too many directions, and he looks at me as if I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. It matters."
It's hard not to feel for her pain and admire her spirit while wishing she had had better luck in love and life.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Can Obama Be Accidental?
On the evidence of his press conference, our president of 100 days seems so right for this critical time that it tempts a secular humanist to suspect Barack Obama came to power, not just by the natural selection of a brutal political campaign, but some more mysterious process of intelligent design.
How else to explain the qualities of mind and heart, and the eloquence to express them, that arrived in the White House just in time to deal with what he rightly calls "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" and a world filled with natural and man-made dangers from pandemics to nuclear weapons in the hands of extremists?
He answered questions on all these and more last night with a command of the issues and his own brand of idealistic pragmatism, tempered with the kind of humility unseen in past presidents who had much more reason to be self-effacing.
In answer to a question on that subject, Obama said he was "humbled by the fact that the presidency is extraordinarily powerful but...just part of a much broader tapestry of American life...I can't just press a button and suddenly have the bankers do exactly what I want or, you know, turn on a switch and suddenly, you know, Congress falls in line...
"This metaphor has been used before, but the ship of state is an ocean liner. It's not a speedboat. And so the way we are constantly thinking about this issue, of how to bring about the changes that the American people need, is to say, if we can move this big battleship a few degrees in a different direction, you may not see all the consequences of that change a week from now or three months from now, but 10 years from now or 20 years from now, our kids will be able to look back and say, 'That was when we started getting serious about clean energy. That's when health care started to become more efficient and affordable. That's when we became serious about raising our standards in education.'"
Ten or twenty years from now, that generation of Americans may also look back and wonder if their parents and grandparents were smart or just lucky in picking a president to attempt all that.
How else to explain the qualities of mind and heart, and the eloquence to express them, that arrived in the White House just in time to deal with what he rightly calls "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" and a world filled with natural and man-made dangers from pandemics to nuclear weapons in the hands of extremists?
He answered questions on all these and more last night with a command of the issues and his own brand of idealistic pragmatism, tempered with the kind of humility unseen in past presidents who had much more reason to be self-effacing.
In answer to a question on that subject, Obama said he was "humbled by the fact that the presidency is extraordinarily powerful but...just part of a much broader tapestry of American life...I can't just press a button and suddenly have the bankers do exactly what I want or, you know, turn on a switch and suddenly, you know, Congress falls in line...
"This metaphor has been used before, but the ship of state is an ocean liner. It's not a speedboat. And so the way we are constantly thinking about this issue, of how to bring about the changes that the American people need, is to say, if we can move this big battleship a few degrees in a different direction, you may not see all the consequences of that change a week from now or three months from now, but 10 years from now or 20 years from now, our kids will be able to look back and say, 'That was when we started getting serious about clean energy. That's when health care started to become more efficient and affordable. That's when we became serious about raising our standards in education.'"
Ten or twenty years from now, that generation of Americans may also look back and wonder if their parents and grandparents were smart or just lucky in picking a president to attempt all that.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Banality of Torture
Like other true Bush believers, the lawyer responsible for the torture memos turns out to be a hair-splitting pursuer of the abstract rather than an impassioned advocate.
Judge Jay S. Bybee says his work as head of the White House Office of Legal Counsel was merely “a good-faith analysis of the law” and that the "central question for lawyers was a narrow one."
We are in Eichmann territory here, the bland leading the morally blind, the self-deprecating functionaries just doing their narrow jobs while following orders that lead to horrors.
Now a friend of Bybee's, anonymous of course, says "I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context--of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under."
Bybee, however, managed to overcome his qualms and keep serving the Bush Administration until he was nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he is still analyzing the law and rendering judgements.
At the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the technician who ran the concentration camps, Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil," to describe how the Nazi hierarchy depended on ordinary, ambitious but morally obtuse people like him to implement their inhuman goals.
A fellow judge of Bybee's now says in a statement: “He is a moderate conservative, very bright and always attentive to the record and the applicable law. I have not talked to other judges about his memo on torture, but to me it seems completely out of character and inexplicable that he would have signed such a document.”
No, it isn't.
Judge Jay S. Bybee says his work as head of the White House Office of Legal Counsel was merely “a good-faith analysis of the law” and that the "central question for lawyers was a narrow one."
We are in Eichmann territory here, the bland leading the morally blind, the self-deprecating functionaries just doing their narrow jobs while following orders that lead to horrors.
Now a friend of Bybee's, anonymous of course, says "I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context--of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under."
Bybee, however, managed to overcome his qualms and keep serving the Bush Administration until he was nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he is still analyzing the law and rendering judgements.
At the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the technician who ran the concentration camps, Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil," to describe how the Nazi hierarchy depended on ordinary, ambitious but morally obtuse people like him to implement their inhuman goals.
A fellow judge of Bybee's now says in a statement: “He is a moderate conservative, very bright and always attentive to the record and the applicable law. I have not talked to other judges about his memo on torture, but to me it seems completely out of character and inexplicable that he would have signed such a document.”
No, it isn't.
Steaming Ahead in Slow-Mo
The news today will be about Barack Obama's whirlwind energy steering the Ship of State for the first 100 days, but below the water line, the crew is still seriously undermanned.
The Cabinet was finally filled yesterday as the President swore in Kathleen Sebelius amid a swine flu scare and an impending Congressional battle over health care reform but, in true Washington tradition, the New York Times reports, "no cabinet department right now has even a third of its top appointees in place."
Secretary Sebelius will start work with no confirmed helpers and, as Treasury struggles with its massive effort to save the financial system, only nine percent of top officials have been approved by the Senate.
This glacial pace matches that of previous administrations, indicating that, for all of Obama's sense of urgency, "politics as usual" goes on in the bowels of the Washington behemoth.
The Wall Street Journal, for one, won't be complaining. "It is once again the liberal hour in American politics," an editorial declares, "and the media and political classes now see energy in the executive as a national asset...
"Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, and sooner or later the twain shall meet. For now, we are living in another era of unchecked liberal government. The reckoning will come when Americans discover how much it costs."
The rest of us may be worrying more about getting that "unchecked liberal government" up and running before any more free-enterprise icebergs show up on the horizon.
The Cabinet was finally filled yesterday as the President swore in Kathleen Sebelius amid a swine flu scare and an impending Congressional battle over health care reform but, in true Washington tradition, the New York Times reports, "no cabinet department right now has even a third of its top appointees in place."
Secretary Sebelius will start work with no confirmed helpers and, as Treasury struggles with its massive effort to save the financial system, only nine percent of top officials have been approved by the Senate.
This glacial pace matches that of previous administrations, indicating that, for all of Obama's sense of urgency, "politics as usual" goes on in the bowels of the Washington behemoth.
The Wall Street Journal, for one, won't be complaining. "It is once again the liberal hour in American politics," an editorial declares, "and the media and political classes now see energy in the executive as a national asset...
"Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, and sooner or later the twain shall meet. For now, we are living in another era of unchecked liberal government. The reckoning will come when Americans discover how much it costs."
The rest of us may be worrying more about getting that "unchecked liberal government" up and running before any more free-enterprise icebergs show up on the horizon.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Shrinking the GOP
The Arlen Specter party switch today is the latest sign of an eight-year process--the shriveling of the Republican Party to a one-size-fits-all collection of conservatives that started in 2001 with Sen. Jim Jeffords leaving and even John McCain flirting with the idea after being splattered by the Rove smear machine in the primaries a year earlier.
Party Chair Michael Steele affirmed the meanness that motivated Specter today by commenting that he “didn’t leave the G.O.P. based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Senator Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don’t do it first.”
Nicely said. Translated, Steele is confirming that Specter's role in crafting a compromise to pass Obama's stimulus bill disqualifies him from the bitter-end party-of-no that is now the Republican brand.
This politically suicidal process cries out for psychiatric intervention, shrinks to stop the GOP from shrinking itself down to Rush Limbaugh and a few office-holding lookalikes.
Party Chair Michael Steele affirmed the meanness that motivated Specter today by commenting that he “didn’t leave the G.O.P. based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Senator Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don’t do it first.”
Nicely said. Translated, Steele is confirming that Specter's role in crafting a compromise to pass Obama's stimulus bill disqualifies him from the bitter-end party-of-no that is now the Republican brand.
This politically suicidal process cries out for psychiatric intervention, shrinks to stop the GOP from shrinking itself down to Rush Limbaugh and a few office-holding lookalikes.
Michelle Obama's First 100 Days
She is something new in the White House. Take it from someone who has met and known First Ladies over five decades, from Mamie Eisenhower on.
Michelle Obama is the first product of a women's movement sensibility, if not its ethos. Like her husband, she is not rooted in how things were before the 1960s, and her amazing popularity reflects that change.
Unlike Hillary Clinton, she has not pushed openly into policy but, unlike Laura Bush, she has not stayed in the shadows as the traditional supportive but invisible wife.
"First Lady in Control of Building Her Image" headlines the New York Times, noting, "The image that Mrs. Obama is projecting, however, fails to fully reflect the multifaceted first lady. A Harvard-trained lawyer and former hospital vice president, she is also a tough-minded professional who cares deeply about influencing public policy and sometimes promotes legislation at her events. Her top aides, for example, are often immersed in policy discussions in the West Wing that are not publicized by the White House."
What this misses is that Michelle Obama is the first woman secure enough to present herself as a full-time wife and mother, as a partner who has temporarily put aside her professional self, at first to help her husband campaign and now govern the country.
The public is responding to this authenticity underlying her promotion of gardening, child-rearing and other domestic concerns, sensing how far she has gone beyond First Ladies who traditionally exercised power through pillow talk.
Unlike the Clintons who touted a two-for-one presidency, the Obamas are offering a couple working together under a 21st century definition of gender equality, taking different roles in apparent comfort with them and each other.
Michelle Obama is the first product of a women's movement sensibility, if not its ethos. Like her husband, she is not rooted in how things were before the 1960s, and her amazing popularity reflects that change.
Unlike Hillary Clinton, she has not pushed openly into policy but, unlike Laura Bush, she has not stayed in the shadows as the traditional supportive but invisible wife.
"First Lady in Control of Building Her Image" headlines the New York Times, noting, "The image that Mrs. Obama is projecting, however, fails to fully reflect the multifaceted first lady. A Harvard-trained lawyer and former hospital vice president, she is also a tough-minded professional who cares deeply about influencing public policy and sometimes promotes legislation at her events. Her top aides, for example, are often immersed in policy discussions in the West Wing that are not publicized by the White House."
What this misses is that Michelle Obama is the first woman secure enough to present herself as a full-time wife and mother, as a partner who has temporarily put aside her professional self, at first to help her husband campaign and now govern the country.
The public is responding to this authenticity underlying her promotion of gardening, child-rearing and other domestic concerns, sensing how far she has gone beyond First Ladies who traditionally exercised power through pillow talk.
Unlike the Clintons who touted a two-for-one presidency, the Obamas are offering a couple working together under a 21st century definition of gender equality, taking different roles in apparent comfort with them and each other.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Obama, Drudge and Swine Flu
As the Drudge Report hyperventilates with 18 headline links about swine flu, President Obama tells Americans the outbreak is "not a cause for alarm" and cites the current scare as an example of why investing in research is vital.
“Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before,” the President said today in a speech at the National Academy of Sciences. “If there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it is today.”
The contrast is more than a textbook example of sensationalism vs. responsibility but a reflection of something more basic in the current American mindset.
Drudge, who is always excited about earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, thrives on stirring up primal emotions without regard to consequences, chalking up millions of web hits daily with irresistible appeals to fear, anger and other primal emotions.
In a 24/7 world of information overload, that's a formula for grabbing eyeballs which used to be the province of tabloid newspapers, now dying off like dinosaurs who just couldn't move fast enough as their environment evolved.
But the swine flu scare is also as good a time as any to emphasize the difference between news and infotainment.
We can get a daily rush from Drudge, but it's important to have Obama in the White House reminding us that "our capacity to deal with a public health challenge of this sort rests heavily on the work of our scientific and medical community" and setting a goal to "exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race, through policies that invest in basic and applied research, create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and medicine, and improve education in math and science."
If Drudge links to that, it will probably be headed SWINE FLU SPACE RACE.
“Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before,” the President said today in a speech at the National Academy of Sciences. “If there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it is today.”
The contrast is more than a textbook example of sensationalism vs. responsibility but a reflection of something more basic in the current American mindset.
Drudge, who is always excited about earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, thrives on stirring up primal emotions without regard to consequences, chalking up millions of web hits daily with irresistible appeals to fear, anger and other primal emotions.
In a 24/7 world of information overload, that's a formula for grabbing eyeballs which used to be the province of tabloid newspapers, now dying off like dinosaurs who just couldn't move fast enough as their environment evolved.
But the swine flu scare is also as good a time as any to emphasize the difference between news and infotainment.
We can get a daily rush from Drudge, but it's important to have Obama in the White House reminding us that "our capacity to deal with a public health challenge of this sort rests heavily on the work of our scientific and medical community" and setting a goal to "exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race, through policies that invest in basic and applied research, create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and medicine, and improve education in math and science."
If Drudge links to that, it will probably be headed SWINE FLU SPACE RACE.
Wall Street's Welfare Queens
As the furor over AIG bonuses fades, Paul Krugman today points to a real outrage: "pay at investment banks, after dipping last year, is soaring again--right back up to 2007 levels."
Such a symbol for unquenchable Wall Street greed may serve a political turning point just as did Ronald Reagan's Welfare Queen who drove a Cadillac three decades ago--with a number of added ironies.
Unlike the Great Communicator's character who was never found to exist, today's investment bankers are all too real and, in the 21st century, are ripping off taxpayers on a scale never imagined in Reagan's wildest dreams. The Welfare Queen's $150,000 has morphed into billions.
As Krugman observes, "Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private sector. It’s a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a 'welfare.'"
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the level of Wall Street compensation has always been disproportionate to achievement but turned astronomic only in recent years, as Krugman notes, as "a reward for their creativity--for financial innovation...new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes."
But the reemergence of such greed may eventually prove to be as powerful a symbol for a new populism as Reagan's Welfare Queen was for the rise of conservatism in the 1980's.
Almost 70 years ago, Fred Schwed in his Wall Street classic "Where Are the Customers' Yachts?" noted: "The burnt customer certainly prefers to believe that he has been robbed rather than that he has been a fool on the advice of fools."
That feeling seems to be stirring again.
Such a symbol for unquenchable Wall Street greed may serve a political turning point just as did Ronald Reagan's Welfare Queen who drove a Cadillac three decades ago--with a number of added ironies.
Unlike the Great Communicator's character who was never found to exist, today's investment bankers are all too real and, in the 21st century, are ripping off taxpayers on a scale never imagined in Reagan's wildest dreams. The Welfare Queen's $150,000 has morphed into billions.
As Krugman observes, "Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private sector. It’s a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a 'welfare.'"
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the level of Wall Street compensation has always been disproportionate to achievement but turned astronomic only in recent years, as Krugman notes, as "a reward for their creativity--for financial innovation...new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes."
But the reemergence of such greed may eventually prove to be as powerful a symbol for a new populism as Reagan's Welfare Queen was for the rise of conservatism in the 1980's.
Almost 70 years ago, Fred Schwed in his Wall Street classic "Where Are the Customers' Yachts?" noted: "The burnt customer certainly prefers to believe that he has been robbed rather than that he has been a fool on the advice of fools."
That feeling seems to be stirring again.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Obama's Bad 100 Days
As good newspapers die across the country, Rupert Murdoch is keeping alive one of the worst, the New York Post, to publish such gems as this weekend's "100 Days, 100 Mistakes" of "Obama's short, error-prone time in office."
Using such unimpeachable sources as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Murdoch's own Sky News, the President is accused, among other acts of malfeasance, of overusing the teleprompter, sending his daughters to a private school, not adopting a dog from an animal shelter and having Rahm Emanuel criticize Rush Limbaugh.
No. 100 is telling a Democratic congressman who voted against the stimulus bill, "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother."
Murdoch apparently is, too, and journalism buffs are breathlessly awaiting the lists of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.
Using such unimpeachable sources as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Murdoch's own Sky News, the President is accused, among other acts of malfeasance, of overusing the teleprompter, sending his daughters to a private school, not adopting a dog from an animal shelter and having Rahm Emanuel criticize Rush Limbaugh.
No. 100 is telling a Democratic congressman who voted against the stimulus bill, "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother."
Murdoch apparently is, too, and journalism buffs are breathlessly awaiting the lists of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Aborting Health-Care Reform
As the legislative battle begins to get medical attention for millions, Senate Republicans are stalling Kathleen Sebelius' confirmation to lead the Obama reform agenda as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Barren of ideas, they are in a late-term effort to win the hearts of right-to-lifers by making an issue out of campaign contributions to Gov. Sebelius by a doctor who heads an abortion clinic.
Michael Steele, the GOP chair, has emerged from his Rush Limbaugh fiasco to harrumph: "Significant questions remain about Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ evolving relationship with a late-term abortion doctor as well as about her position on the practice of late-term abortions. The Senate should not vote, nor should Gov. Sebelius be confirmed, until these questions are answered fully and completely."
The problem is that, during the Senate hearings, there were few questions on the subject and, if any remain, the Governor answered them this week by vetoing a Kansas bill to restrict late-term abortions, saying, "The provisions in this bill that would allow for the criminal prosecution of a physician intending to comply with the law will lead to the intimidation of health care providers and reduce access to comprehensive health care for women, even when it is necessary to preserve their lives and health.
"While I agree that we should try to reduce the number of abortions, it cannot be at the increased risk to the life or health of women."
Clear enough? Majority Leader Harry Reid let his spokesman nail Steele: “This is nothing more than a baseless attack from someone desperate to stake a claim as the leader of the leaderless Republicans and get right with the right-wing of his party.”
And a misbegotten one at that.
Barren of ideas, they are in a late-term effort to win the hearts of right-to-lifers by making an issue out of campaign contributions to Gov. Sebelius by a doctor who heads an abortion clinic.
Michael Steele, the GOP chair, has emerged from his Rush Limbaugh fiasco to harrumph: "Significant questions remain about Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ evolving relationship with a late-term abortion doctor as well as about her position on the practice of late-term abortions. The Senate should not vote, nor should Gov. Sebelius be confirmed, until these questions are answered fully and completely."
The problem is that, during the Senate hearings, there were few questions on the subject and, if any remain, the Governor answered them this week by vetoing a Kansas bill to restrict late-term abortions, saying, "The provisions in this bill that would allow for the criminal prosecution of a physician intending to comply with the law will lead to the intimidation of health care providers and reduce access to comprehensive health care for women, even when it is necessary to preserve their lives and health.
"While I agree that we should try to reduce the number of abortions, it cannot be at the increased risk to the life or health of women."
Clear enough? Majority Leader Harry Reid let his spokesman nail Steele: “This is nothing more than a baseless attack from someone desperate to stake a claim as the leader of the leaderless Republicans and get right with the right-wing of his party.”
And a misbegotten one at that.
Obama's Munich Moment
Pakistan is looking like Cuba in the 1950s and Iran in the '70s as armed zealots start to take over a country without the will to resist.
Accusing Pakistani leaders of "basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded the alarm yesterday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
"We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by continuing advances, now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state."
As Congress debates $7.5 billion in new aid and an "extremely concerned" White House awaits a scheduled visit early next month by the Pakistani president, the growing threat of an extremist takeover of a nuclear-armed nation rises to the top of America's foreign policy agenda.
"The Pakistani government is fiddling as the Northwest Frontier Province burns," warns a statement from Amnesty International, noting that hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are "now at the mercy of abusive and repressive Taliban groups."
The Obama Administration is facing a Munich-like moment in the Middle East, and it will be a true test for a new president who has been accused of overestimating conciliation and lacking toughness in dealing with allies and adversaries.
This one, unlike George W. Bush's pre-invasion rhetoric about Iraq, does involve the real possibility of mushroom clouds.
Accusing Pakistani leaders of "basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded the alarm yesterday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
"We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by continuing advances, now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state."
As Congress debates $7.5 billion in new aid and an "extremely concerned" White House awaits a scheduled visit early next month by the Pakistani president, the growing threat of an extremist takeover of a nuclear-armed nation rises to the top of America's foreign policy agenda.
"The Pakistani government is fiddling as the Northwest Frontier Province burns," warns a statement from Amnesty International, noting that hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are "now at the mercy of abusive and repressive Taliban groups."
The Obama Administration is facing a Munich-like moment in the Middle East, and it will be a true test for a new president who has been accused of overestimating conciliation and lacking toughness in dealing with allies and adversaries.
This one, unlike George W. Bush's pre-invasion rhetoric about Iraq, does involve the real possibility of mushroom clouds.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Torturing Ourselves
The continuing national debate is getting more and more self-righteous as Americans look for absolutes in a world of moral murk.
Dick Cheney emerges from his psychic cave to insist that torture works, but he has no standing after eight years of secrecy and ruthlessness. Barack Obama tells us we are not the kind of people who torture on principle but refuses to punish those who did while believing they had a legal right to do so.
Now we are rooting through the moral wreckage for evidence of whether or not vile treatment of human beings can sometimes serve a greater good. Are those who insist that it never can and insist on punishing anyone who disagrees any less rigid than Cheney?
At 19, I was given a rifle and ordered to kill for my country against all my beliefs and three years later saw an American president command the only use of nuclear weapons in history to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children to save lives like mine in what would have been a bloody invasion of Japan.
Those experiences left me with a lifelong aversion to sanctimony on questions where life and death are involved. Even if the Cheney-minded can show that torture may sometimes produce useful information, does that justify its use as a policy? Even if those who disagree can refute those claims, does it justify their moral certitude?
The dangers of living in a world where rectitude is a zero-sum game (If I'm right, you must be wrong) are the greater threat to our humanity than the issue of torture as an abstraction in a world where, while recognizing ambiguity and ambivalence, nonetheless taking a moral stand is our best hope for surviving as the kind of people we believe ourselves to be.
Dick Cheney emerges from his psychic cave to insist that torture works, but he has no standing after eight years of secrecy and ruthlessness. Barack Obama tells us we are not the kind of people who torture on principle but refuses to punish those who did while believing they had a legal right to do so.
Now we are rooting through the moral wreckage for evidence of whether or not vile treatment of human beings can sometimes serve a greater good. Are those who insist that it never can and insist on punishing anyone who disagrees any less rigid than Cheney?
At 19, I was given a rifle and ordered to kill for my country against all my beliefs and three years later saw an American president command the only use of nuclear weapons in history to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children to save lives like mine in what would have been a bloody invasion of Japan.
Those experiences left me with a lifelong aversion to sanctimony on questions where life and death are involved. Even if the Cheney-minded can show that torture may sometimes produce useful information, does that justify its use as a policy? Even if those who disagree can refute those claims, does it justify their moral certitude?
The dangers of living in a world where rectitude is a zero-sum game (If I'm right, you must be wrong) are the greater threat to our humanity than the issue of torture as an abstraction in a world where, while recognizing ambiguity and ambivalence, nonetheless taking a moral stand is our best hope for surviving as the kind of people we believe ourselves to be.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Getting Down to Earth Day
Barack Obama escapes the White House again. turning up today at an Iowa wind-turbine plant to tout his energy and climate-change plans while Administration members fan out to announce other initiatives and even the Coast Guard twitters about ways of saving the environment.
A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee email from Al Gore, who invented the environment, underscores the import of Earth Day:
"I can tell you that President Obama has signaled in the strongest possible terms that he intends to take bold steps and harness innovative resources to solve the climate crisis. Not only that, but Speaker Pelosi has said she will personally shepherd climate legislation through."
Lisa Jackson, new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, says her agency "is back on the job. And that's not meant to say that the employees who were here all along haven't been working hard, but a lot of that work wasn't allowed to come forth for the American people."
Not all is sweetness and light, however, as environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blasts the President and other politicians as "indentured servants" to the coal industry. "Clean coal is a dirty lie," he says.
Meanwhile. Republicans are in a brown study about how to get into the green act, although House Leader John Boehner made a start Sunday, declaring that worries about carbon dioxide are "almost comical" since human exhalations and cow emissions produce so much of it.
In any case, we can all go out and plant something. Happy Earth Day.
A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee email from Al Gore, who invented the environment, underscores the import of Earth Day:
"I can tell you that President Obama has signaled in the strongest possible terms that he intends to take bold steps and harness innovative resources to solve the climate crisis. Not only that, but Speaker Pelosi has said she will personally shepherd climate legislation through."
Lisa Jackson, new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, says her agency "is back on the job. And that's not meant to say that the employees who were here all along haven't been working hard, but a lot of that work wasn't allowed to come forth for the American people."
Not all is sweetness and light, however, as environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blasts the President and other politicians as "indentured servants" to the coal industry. "Clean coal is a dirty lie," he says.
Meanwhile. Republicans are in a brown study about how to get into the green act, although House Leader John Boehner made a start Sunday, declaring that worries about carbon dioxide are "almost comical" since human exhalations and cow emissions produce so much of it.
In any case, we can all go out and plant something. Happy Earth Day.
The Abbott and Costello of Presidents
Life after the White House is always problematic for former occupants. Jimmy Carter devoted himself to hammering up houses for poor people and monitoring elections in faraway places, Reagan retreated into Alzheimer's and Bush 41 started parachuting out of airplanes, but none ever put together a vaudeville act as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are doing.
The two will appear together at the Metro Toronto Convention Center on May 29th to, as a flier for the event promises, “discuss the challenges facing the world in the 21st century” for 90 minutes that will include audience questions.
How much they are being paid, why they are previewing their routine in Canada and what on earth possessed them to do it in the first place, the flier sayeth not.
For two men who presided during the impeachment of one for lying about sex in the Oval Office and the other for lying the country into an unnecessary war, it might be more seemly to leave 21st century challenges to Barack Obama and go off together and build houses or jump out of planes holding hands, if they crave joint activities.
But the lure of show biz is apparently irresistible. Who's on first, Bill? I don't know, George. No, he's on third...
The two will appear together at the Metro Toronto Convention Center on May 29th to, as a flier for the event promises, “discuss the challenges facing the world in the 21st century” for 90 minutes that will include audience questions.
How much they are being paid, why they are previewing their routine in Canada and what on earth possessed them to do it in the first place, the flier sayeth not.
For two men who presided during the impeachment of one for lying about sex in the Oval Office and the other for lying the country into an unnecessary war, it might be more seemly to leave 21st century challenges to Barack Obama and go off together and build houses or jump out of planes holding hands, if they crave joint activities.
But the lure of show biz is apparently irresistible. Who's on first, Bill? I don't know, George. No, he's on third...
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Stealing Republican Thunder
"Obama is positioning the Democrats as the party of order, responsibility and small-town values," David Brooks writes in the New York Times today. "If he pulls this mantle away from the Republicans, it would be the greatest train robbery in American politics."
Where the conservative Brooks sees theft, the less ideological may find an expectable reaction to eight years of Bush lawlessness and loony laissez-faire. There is an indication of this in new Gallup figures on the relative mistrust of business and government
Historically, Americans have always been more wary of those who want political power than money. In handing out control of the then-limited capacity of radio and later television, for example, they set severe limits on the sales of ideas but practically none on peddling everything else.
That traditional mistrust of government power, Gallup reports, "expanded greatly in the 1990s--reaching a high of 65% in 1999 and 2000."
But Bush changed that: "In 2002, after the wave of accounting scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom, opinions shifted, and the percentage mentioning big business as the greatest threat peaked at 38%, while concern about big government dipped below the majority level for the first time since 1981," then returned to normal "until the recent financial crisis caused more to fear the power of big business."
Now Americans, to Brooks' consternation, are putting their faith in big government to clean up the mess.
"Obama understands," he writes, "that this is primarily an authority crisis. A system Americans have trusted--the market--has failed in important ways. He has found a theme and bids to reassert authority. But he will seem like an impostor and a manipulator if he imposes responsibility on everybody but himself."
His worry is understandable, but there is no alternative to taking that risk. Obama is now the only game in town, and all the chips are on the table.
As John Bogle, a champion of capitalism who founded the Vanguard Funds, puts it in the Wall Street Journal:
"(S)elf-interest got out of hand. It created a bottom-line society in which success is measured in monetary terms. Dollars became the coin of the new realm. Unchecked market forces overwhelmed traditional standards of professional conduct, developed over centuries."
It will take a lot of brains and guts to get through what Bogle describes as "a crisis of ethic proportions," and most Americans will not be fussy about whether they are Democratic or Republican.
Where the conservative Brooks sees theft, the less ideological may find an expectable reaction to eight years of Bush lawlessness and loony laissez-faire. There is an indication of this in new Gallup figures on the relative mistrust of business and government
Historically, Americans have always been more wary of those who want political power than money. In handing out control of the then-limited capacity of radio and later television, for example, they set severe limits on the sales of ideas but practically none on peddling everything else.
That traditional mistrust of government power, Gallup reports, "expanded greatly in the 1990s--reaching a high of 65% in 1999 and 2000."
But Bush changed that: "In 2002, after the wave of accounting scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom, opinions shifted, and the percentage mentioning big business as the greatest threat peaked at 38%, while concern about big government dipped below the majority level for the first time since 1981," then returned to normal "until the recent financial crisis caused more to fear the power of big business."
Now Americans, to Brooks' consternation, are putting their faith in big government to clean up the mess.
"Obama understands," he writes, "that this is primarily an authority crisis. A system Americans have trusted--the market--has failed in important ways. He has found a theme and bids to reassert authority. But he will seem like an impostor and a manipulator if he imposes responsibility on everybody but himself."
His worry is understandable, but there is no alternative to taking that risk. Obama is now the only game in town, and all the chips are on the table.
As John Bogle, a champion of capitalism who founded the Vanguard Funds, puts it in the Wall Street Journal:
"(S)elf-interest got out of hand. It created a bottom-line society in which success is measured in monetary terms. Dollars became the coin of the new realm. Unchecked market forces overwhelmed traditional standards of professional conduct, developed over centuries."
It will take a lot of brains and guts to get through what Bogle describes as "a crisis of ethic proportions," and most Americans will not be fussy about whether they are Democratic or Republican.
Unbundling Health-Care Derivatives
With a goal of passing legislation by June, Congress is getting serious about health care reform, and advocates of change are more nervous about their allies than about lobbyists defending the current failed system.
"More than 70 House Democrats," the Washington Post reports, "recently warned party leaders that they will not support a broad health reform bill that does not offer consumers a government-sponsored policy, and two unions withdrew from a high-profile health coalition because it would not endorse a public plan."
Their action was prompted by suggestions that the Obama Administration may be willing to compromise on that aspect of providing universal coverage.
The health-care crisis, like the home-mortgage meltdown, has no simple solution but there are similarities in their origins--the greedy intervention of third parties to profit from what used to be transactions between buyers and sellers.
Like the derivatives that wrecked the housing market, profit-seeking insurers have created a convoluted system that siphons off one out of every three health-care dollars for themselves, giving Americans less care for more money than any place else in the developed world.
In reform legislation, it's crucial to include what has been called a Medicare-for-All option that would give consumers a chance to buy care directly and pressure private insurers to improve what they offer.
Without such a choice, health-care "reform" could turn out to be like Wall Street bailouts that shovel money to Citibank, Bank of America and AIG and leave all the decisions about spending it to their discretion.
"More than 70 House Democrats," the Washington Post reports, "recently warned party leaders that they will not support a broad health reform bill that does not offer consumers a government-sponsored policy, and two unions withdrew from a high-profile health coalition because it would not endorse a public plan."
Their action was prompted by suggestions that the Obama Administration may be willing to compromise on that aspect of providing universal coverage.
The health-care crisis, like the home-mortgage meltdown, has no simple solution but there are similarities in their origins--the greedy intervention of third parties to profit from what used to be transactions between buyers and sellers.
Like the derivatives that wrecked the housing market, profit-seeking insurers have created a convoluted system that siphons off one out of every three health-care dollars for themselves, giving Americans less care for more money than any place else in the developed world.
In reform legislation, it's crucial to include what has been called a Medicare-for-All option that would give consumers a chance to buy care directly and pressure private insurers to improve what they offer.
Without such a choice, health-care "reform" could turn out to be like Wall Street bailouts that shovel money to Citibank, Bank of America and AIG and leave all the decisions about spending it to their discretion.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Bank Bailout Mission Creep
With less lending now by TARP recipients since getting taxpayer money, the Obama economic team is letting it be known that a slow-motion takeover of banks is in the works.
"In a significant shift," the New York Times reports, "White House and Treasury Department officials now say they can stretch what is left of the $700 billion financial bailout fund further than they had expected a few months ago, simply by converting the government’s existing loans to the nation’s 19 biggest banks into common stock.
"Converting those loans to common shares would turn the federal aid into available capital for a bank--and give the government a large ownership stake in return."
Such temporary, partial nationalization is what some critics have been calling for since the credit crisis started last fall and, now that results of the stress tests, still undisclosed, apparently reveal little improvement in a shaky situation, the Administration is sending up trial balloons for doing just that under the cover of euphemisms.
Doing so by converting to equity positions with representation on bank boards would avoid use of the dreaded N word and steer clear of having to obtain Congressional approval.
As some of the largest banks announce profits and vow to return bailout money, they seem to be playing high-stakes Chicken with the President's economic advisers to encourage the stock markets and investors, but if and when the government takes seats on their boards, the game will become real and messy.
Everyone involved should be hoping that, before that happens, the free markets miraculously recover and start working again.
"In a significant shift," the New York Times reports, "White House and Treasury Department officials now say they can stretch what is left of the $700 billion financial bailout fund further than they had expected a few months ago, simply by converting the government’s existing loans to the nation’s 19 biggest banks into common stock.
"Converting those loans to common shares would turn the federal aid into available capital for a bank--and give the government a large ownership stake in return."
Such temporary, partial nationalization is what some critics have been calling for since the credit crisis started last fall and, now that results of the stress tests, still undisclosed, apparently reveal little improvement in a shaky situation, the Administration is sending up trial balloons for doing just that under the cover of euphemisms.
Doing so by converting to equity positions with representation on bank boards would avoid use of the dreaded N word and steer clear of having to obtain Congressional approval.
As some of the largest banks announce profits and vow to return bailout money, they seem to be playing high-stakes Chicken with the President's economic advisers to encourage the stock markets and investors, but if and when the government takes seats on their boards, the game will become real and messy.
Everyone involved should be hoping that, before that happens, the free markets miraculously recover and start working again.
Twaddle About Obama's Toughness
Lyndon Johnson's appraisal of Richard Nixon comes to mind in the growing debate about President Obama's toughness or lack thereof.
"Not much here," said LBJ, pointing at his head. "Even less here," touching his heart, then lowering a hand to below his belt: "But enough down there."
Now there is clucking on both the Right and Left about how much Obama has "down there."
"In some of his earliest skirmishes," the New York Times worries, "Mr. Obama eventually chose pragmatism over fisticuffs" and quotes a former Clinton official: “The thing we still don’t know about him is what he is willing to fight for. The thing I worry about is that he likes giving good speeches, he likes the adulation and he likes to make people happy. It’s hard to think of a place where he’s taken a really hard position.”
Say what? Ramming through a stimulus bill and budget that could make or break his presidency? Pushing auto makers to the brink of bankruptcy if they fail to shape up? Ordering use of force to rescue an American captain in the Indian Ocean (too much, by Rush Limbaugh's lights)? Making public the torture memos (risky, says Bush's CIA chief as those on the Left complain about his refusal to prosecute former agents)?
The critics are confusing bluster with toughness. Republican Sen. John Ensign huffs, "I think it was irresponsible for the president to be seen kind of laughing and joking with Hugo Chavez" this weekend, but Obama shrugs off such posturing as politics that makes "no sense."
During the campaign, Maureen Dowd had asked Obama, "Do you worry that you might be putting yourself on a pedestal too much? Because people also want to see you mix it up a little. That’s how they judge how you’d be with Putin.”
“When I get into a tussle,” he answered, “I want it to be over something real, not something manufactured. If someone wants to get in an argument with me, let’s argue about how we’re going to fix the health care system or where we need to go on Iraq.”
Critics of all persuasions will have to learn to live with the style of a President who doesn't puff himself up as the Decider but actually goes about the hard work of making decisions by consensus if he can but unilaterally when he must.
"Not much here," said LBJ, pointing at his head. "Even less here," touching his heart, then lowering a hand to below his belt: "But enough down there."
Now there is clucking on both the Right and Left about how much Obama has "down there."
"In some of his earliest skirmishes," the New York Times worries, "Mr. Obama eventually chose pragmatism over fisticuffs" and quotes a former Clinton official: “The thing we still don’t know about him is what he is willing to fight for. The thing I worry about is that he likes giving good speeches, he likes the adulation and he likes to make people happy. It’s hard to think of a place where he’s taken a really hard position.”
Say what? Ramming through a stimulus bill and budget that could make or break his presidency? Pushing auto makers to the brink of bankruptcy if they fail to shape up? Ordering use of force to rescue an American captain in the Indian Ocean (too much, by Rush Limbaugh's lights)? Making public the torture memos (risky, says Bush's CIA chief as those on the Left complain about his refusal to prosecute former agents)?
The critics are confusing bluster with toughness. Republican Sen. John Ensign huffs, "I think it was irresponsible for the president to be seen kind of laughing and joking with Hugo Chavez" this weekend, but Obama shrugs off such posturing as politics that makes "no sense."
During the campaign, Maureen Dowd had asked Obama, "Do you worry that you might be putting yourself on a pedestal too much? Because people also want to see you mix it up a little. That’s how they judge how you’d be with Putin.”
“When I get into a tussle,” he answered, “I want it to be over something real, not something manufactured. If someone wants to get in an argument with me, let’s argue about how we’re going to fix the health care system or where we need to go on Iraq.”
Critics of all persuasions will have to learn to live with the style of a President who doesn't puff himself up as the Decider but actually goes about the hard work of making decisions by consensus if he can but unilaterally when he must.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The Temptation of Sarah Palin
She has become a stereotypical figure--loved or reviled, depending on the beholder's politics--but the other day, for a brief moment, Sarah Palin let herself be seen as a human being with complicated emotions.
The Alaska governor made news by telling a right-to-life meeting that, after learning of abnormalities in the child she was bearing last year, she had for "a fleeting moment" considered abortion.
Palin was emphasizing that she had decided to have the baby, but her description of the inner turmoil in making up her mind had none of the usual pit-bull-with-lipstick comedy of her public persona.
The results of the amniocentesis, she said, "blew me away, rocked my world" and helped her understand "the complexities of what a woman goes through."
Palin went on to explain that no one, not even her husband knew ("I was out-state, nobody knows") and it would have been "easy to make it all go away, take care of it."
The disclosure of such feelings answers a pathologist's question of why, given her convictions, Palin would have undergone amniocentesis, in which "more normal fetuses would be aborted by the procedure than would abnormal ones be detected."
Clearly, as a 44-year-old career woman with four children, Palin was worried about the pregnancy--as most people in her position would be--and it is touching to hear her describe the inner turmoil over it in human terms, even if only to make a political point.
By the end of this excursion into reality, the governor was back to her usual breeziness, telling the audience she had thought, "I was old. Very funny, God. My name is Sarah, but my husband is not Abraham."
But it was nice to see, if only for "a fleeting moment," a real person behind the improbable public figure.
The Alaska governor made news by telling a right-to-life meeting that, after learning of abnormalities in the child she was bearing last year, she had for "a fleeting moment" considered abortion.
Palin was emphasizing that she had decided to have the baby, but her description of the inner turmoil in making up her mind had none of the usual pit-bull-with-lipstick comedy of her public persona.
The results of the amniocentesis, she said, "blew me away, rocked my world" and helped her understand "the complexities of what a woman goes through."
Palin went on to explain that no one, not even her husband knew ("I was out-state, nobody knows") and it would have been "easy to make it all go away, take care of it."
The disclosure of such feelings answers a pathologist's question of why, given her convictions, Palin would have undergone amniocentesis, in which "more normal fetuses would be aborted by the procedure than would abnormal ones be detected."
Clearly, as a 44-year-old career woman with four children, Palin was worried about the pregnancy--as most people in her position would be--and it is touching to hear her describe the inner turmoil over it in human terms, even if only to make a political point.
By the end of this excursion into reality, the governor was back to her usual breeziness, telling the audience she had thought, "I was old. Very funny, God. My name is Sarah, but my husband is not Abraham."
But it was nice to see, if only for "a fleeting moment," a real person behind the improbable public figure.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
CIA Health Care
The lawyers wrote the torture memos, but the medical profession was there to implement them.
According to the Washington Post, "documents show a steady stream of psychologists, physicians and other health officials who both kept detainees alive and actively participated in designing the interrogation program and monitoring its implementation...
"Most of the psychologists were contract employees of the CIA, according to intelligence officials familiar with the program."
The Bush Administration was apparently as active in corrupting doctors as lawyers in violating AMA policies that physicians "must not be present when torture is used or threatened" and may treat detainees only "if doing so is in their best interest" and not just to monitor their health "so that torture can begin or continue."
The Bush version of the Hippocratic Oath apparently interpreted health care as keeping patients alive and well enough to endure continuing abuse, an ethical position that would not have offended Dr. Josef Mengele of Nazi concentration camp fame.
With the economy taking up so much attention, it has been easy to forget just how bad the past eight years of lawlessness have been.
"The health professionals involved in the CIA program broke the law and shame the bedrock ethical traditions of medicine and psychology," says the chief executive of Physicians for Human Rights, an international advocacy group of physicians against torture. "All psychologists and physicians found to be involved in the torture of detainees must lose their license and never be allowed to practice again."
The next time you visit your family doctor, you may want to check his resume for a stint of government service in the past decade.
According to the Washington Post, "documents show a steady stream of psychologists, physicians and other health officials who both kept detainees alive and actively participated in designing the interrogation program and monitoring its implementation...
"Most of the psychologists were contract employees of the CIA, according to intelligence officials familiar with the program."
The Bush Administration was apparently as active in corrupting doctors as lawyers in violating AMA policies that physicians "must not be present when torture is used or threatened" and may treat detainees only "if doing so is in their best interest" and not just to monitor their health "so that torture can begin or continue."
The Bush version of the Hippocratic Oath apparently interpreted health care as keeping patients alive and well enough to endure continuing abuse, an ethical position that would not have offended Dr. Josef Mengele of Nazi concentration camp fame.
With the economy taking up so much attention, it has been easy to forget just how bad the past eight years of lawlessness have been.
"The health professionals involved in the CIA program broke the law and shame the bedrock ethical traditions of medicine and psychology," says the chief executive of Physicians for Human Rights, an international advocacy group of physicians against torture. "All psychologists and physicians found to be involved in the torture of detainees must lose their license and never be allowed to practice again."
The next time you visit your family doctor, you may want to check his resume for a stint of government service in the past decade.
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