Sunday morning news from the sanctity-of human-life front:
"George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions, was shot to death on Sunday as he attended church, city officials in Wichita said.
"Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions since the 1970s, had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion, particularly in Kansas, where abortion opponents regularly protested outside his clinic and sometimes his home and church. In 1993, he was shot in both arms by an abortion opponent but recovered."
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Obama in the Operating Room
Today's joint statement by Sens. Max Baucus and Ted Kennedy promising to “seek common ground on health reform legislation” is, in essence, a declaration of war over inclusion of a public insurance plan to compete with private companies.
As chairmen of the two powerful committees shaping the legislation, Baucus (Finance) and Kennedy (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) will be jousting over the core issue that the Obama Administration has been tap-dancing around but will eventually have to face head-on in what promises to be a serious test of the President's toughness and resolve.
After failing to get more than a glimmer of bipartisanship on the stimulus bill, the President up to now has been wooing both the health care establishment and its Republican mercenaries, but the public option (Medicare-for-all) is the deal-breaker he will eventually have to face.
Baucus' Finance Committee, to get Republican Chuck Grassley and his crew on board, has been bending over backward with compromises that would give lip-service to a public plan but "only if private insurance companies had not made meaningful, affordable coverage available to all Americans within several years."
Kennedy and 28 other senators are not buying that, insisting, as are large numbers of House Democrats, on a public plan in the bill that would be sent to Obama, who has said it is needed to “keep the private sector honest,” but thus far has signaled only his vaunted pragmatism if the eventual showdown materializes.
Today's statement is an attempt to put a Band-Aid over Senate differences, but health care reform is ready for the operating table and the Surgeon-in-Chief will have to decide soon about where and how deep to make the incision.
As chairmen of the two powerful committees shaping the legislation, Baucus (Finance) and Kennedy (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) will be jousting over the core issue that the Obama Administration has been tap-dancing around but will eventually have to face head-on in what promises to be a serious test of the President's toughness and resolve.
After failing to get more than a glimmer of bipartisanship on the stimulus bill, the President up to now has been wooing both the health care establishment and its Republican mercenaries, but the public option (Medicare-for-all) is the deal-breaker he will eventually have to face.
Baucus' Finance Committee, to get Republican Chuck Grassley and his crew on board, has been bending over backward with compromises that would give lip-service to a public plan but "only if private insurance companies had not made meaningful, affordable coverage available to all Americans within several years."
Kennedy and 28 other senators are not buying that, insisting, as are large numbers of House Democrats, on a public plan in the bill that would be sent to Obama, who has said it is needed to “keep the private sector honest,” but thus far has signaled only his vaunted pragmatism if the eventual showdown materializes.
Today's statement is an attempt to put a Band-Aid over Senate differences, but health care reform is ready for the operating table and the Surgeon-in-Chief will have to decide soon about where and how deep to make the incision.
Sound-Bite Coming of Age
Grownups are just children who owe money, said a character in the 1992 movie "Peter's Friends" and now, with the economic crisis, they owe even more and, thanks to 24/7 cable TV, seem less mature than ever.
"Republicans, Let's Play Grown-Up," Peggy Noonan urges in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that "idiots" in her party rise above temper tantrums in opposing Sonia Sotomayor:
"Don't grill and grandstand, summon and inform. Show the respect that expresses equality and the equality that is an expression of respect. Ask and listen, get the logic, explain where you think it wrong. Fill the airwaves with thoughtful exchanges."
As a grown-up White House tries to deal with overheated attacks on Obama's nominee as "racist," thoughtful exchanges are in short supply.
In his weekly address, the President observes, "There are, of course, some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor’s record. But I am confident that these efforts will fail; because Judge Sotomayor’s seventeen-year record on the bench--hundreds of judicial decisions that every American can read for him or herself--speak far louder than any attack; her record makes clear that she is fair, unbiased, and dedicated to the rule of law."
But how many Americans will read any of those hundreds of decisions? How many more will make up their minds based on Keith Olbermann's rage about G. Gordon Liddy's radio rant comparing La Raza to the KKK and hoping that "key conferences" of the Supreme Court don't take place "when she's menstruating or something"?
Noonan says, "Comment-thread conservatives, like their mirror-image warriors on the left ("Worst person in the woooorrrlllddd!") are perpetually agitated, permanently enraged. They don't need to be revved, they're already revved. Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think."
Sounds good, but don't hold your breath from now until 2012 waiting for them all to grow up.
"Republicans, Let's Play Grown-Up," Peggy Noonan urges in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that "idiots" in her party rise above temper tantrums in opposing Sonia Sotomayor:
"Don't grill and grandstand, summon and inform. Show the respect that expresses equality and the equality that is an expression of respect. Ask and listen, get the logic, explain where you think it wrong. Fill the airwaves with thoughtful exchanges."
As a grown-up White House tries to deal with overheated attacks on Obama's nominee as "racist," thoughtful exchanges are in short supply.
In his weekly address, the President observes, "There are, of course, some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor’s record. But I am confident that these efforts will fail; because Judge Sotomayor’s seventeen-year record on the bench--hundreds of judicial decisions that every American can read for him or herself--speak far louder than any attack; her record makes clear that she is fair, unbiased, and dedicated to the rule of law."
But how many Americans will read any of those hundreds of decisions? How many more will make up their minds based on Keith Olbermann's rage about G. Gordon Liddy's radio rant comparing La Raza to the KKK and hoping that "key conferences" of the Supreme Court don't take place "when she's menstruating or something"?
Noonan says, "Comment-thread conservatives, like their mirror-image warriors on the left ("Worst person in the woooorrrlllddd!") are perpetually agitated, permanently enraged. They don't need to be revved, they're already revved. Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think."
Sounds good, but don't hold your breath from now until 2012 waiting for them all to grow up.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Court's "Miss Congeniality" Contest
Heartbreaking news for Antonin Scalia (irony alert): His reputation as the warmest, fuzziest Justice may be endangered by Barack Obama's new choice.
"Sotomayor’s Sharp Tongue Raises Issue of Temperament" is a New York Times headline, reporting the Supreme Court nominee's "occasionally combative manner--some lawyers have described her as 'difficult' and 'nasty'--raises questions about her judicial temperament and willingness to listen."
The message is that Judge Sotomayor is no pussycat. Shades of Lupe Velez, who starred in those "Mexican Spitfire" movies before World War II! Back then, audiences were highly entertained by the antics of an explosive, volatile Latina, who paraded her emotions to comic effect. But those days are long gone, along with the old stereotype of black men as lazy, shiftless Stepin Fetchits...aren't they?
Further down in the Times story, the verdict on Sotomayor is downgraded to "brilliant" and "assertive" with the observation by a male judge, a former dean of the Yale Law School, “Some lawyers just don’t like to be questioned by a woman. It was sexist, plain and simple.”
Be that as it may, the debate over Obama's nominee promises to be as enlightening as an "American Idol" competition, with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich leading the way by suggesting that Judge Sotomayor is a "racist ."
Even if Scalia hasn't, the standup comics have clearly met their match.
"Sotomayor’s Sharp Tongue Raises Issue of Temperament" is a New York Times headline, reporting the Supreme Court nominee's "occasionally combative manner--some lawyers have described her as 'difficult' and 'nasty'--raises questions about her judicial temperament and willingness to listen."
The message is that Judge Sotomayor is no pussycat. Shades of Lupe Velez, who starred in those "Mexican Spitfire" movies before World War II! Back then, audiences were highly entertained by the antics of an explosive, volatile Latina, who paraded her emotions to comic effect. But those days are long gone, along with the old stereotype of black men as lazy, shiftless Stepin Fetchits...aren't they?
Further down in the Times story, the verdict on Sotomayor is downgraded to "brilliant" and "assertive" with the observation by a male judge, a former dean of the Yale Law School, “Some lawyers just don’t like to be questioned by a woman. It was sexist, plain and simple.”
Be that as it may, the debate over Obama's nominee promises to be as enlightening as an "American Idol" competition, with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich leading the way by suggesting that Judge Sotomayor is a "racist ."
Even if Scalia hasn't, the standup comics have clearly met their match.
Good-Cop, Bad-Copping Obama
With a decade of rehearsal, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have their act down pat--the regular guy who never raises his voice and his hair-trigger partner who chews the scenery. After weeks of shaking up by the Snarler, here is the former Decider to sooth our nerves.
Defending his torture policy as unequivocally as his vice president has done, Bush gave an audience of business people yesterday a spoonful of sugar with the reheated argument that, after checking with the lawyers, he only did what was legal and necessary and that "the information we got saved lives."
If Obama differs, Bush insists, he is not going to blame him (implicitly for not saving lives). "Nothing I am saying is meant to criticize my successor," he said. "There are plenty of people who have weighed in. Trust me, having seen it first-hand. I didn't like it when a former president criticized me, so therefore I am not going to criticize my successor. I wish him all the best."
Such fake "generosity" is even more grating than Cheney's outright attacks on Obama for making the country less safe, but it's par for the course in Bush's act as the good cop in their collaboration.
Asked what he would like his legacy to be, the 43rd president had a ready answer:
"The man showed up with a set of principles, and he was unwilling to compromise his soul for the sake of popularity."
Or reality.
Defending his torture policy as unequivocally as his vice president has done, Bush gave an audience of business people yesterday a spoonful of sugar with the reheated argument that, after checking with the lawyers, he only did what was legal and necessary and that "the information we got saved lives."
If Obama differs, Bush insists, he is not going to blame him (implicitly for not saving lives). "Nothing I am saying is meant to criticize my successor," he said. "There are plenty of people who have weighed in. Trust me, having seen it first-hand. I didn't like it when a former president criticized me, so therefore I am not going to criticize my successor. I wish him all the best."
Such fake "generosity" is even more grating than Cheney's outright attacks on Obama for making the country less safe, but it's par for the course in Bush's act as the good cop in their collaboration.
Asked what he would like his legacy to be, the 43rd president had a ready answer:
"The man showed up with a set of principles, and he was unwilling to compromise his soul for the sake of popularity."
Or reality.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Ted Kennedy's Health Manifesto
For the coming political battle, the last Kennedy of his generation is sounding the trumpet for health care reform.
"Over the last year," he writes in a Boston Globe OpEd today, "I've seen our healthcare system up close. I've benefitted from the best of medicine, but I've also witnessed the frustration and outrage of patients and doctors alike as they face the challenges of a system that shortchanges millions of Americans."
In his manifesto, Kennedy hits all the notes of Obama's proposal for change and, albeit in a somewhat tentative way, for the highest of all. After promising more transparency in health insurance plans, negotiation for lower premiums and regulation to prevent denial of coverage for previously existing conditions, Kennedy writes:
"We're also hearing that some Americans want the choice of enrolling in a health insurance program backed by the government for the public good, not private profit--so that option will be available too."
That wording presages the crucial struggle to include a Medicare-for-all provision in the bill that would put pressure on private insurers to compete in the health care market instead of maximizing their profits.
Since his medical crisis last summer, Ted Kennedy has been fighting his own battle to survive. Now he clearly intends to leave a legacy that will give other Americans better odds in theirs.
"Change," he concludes, "is never easy, but the status quo is no longer acceptable to any except those who profit from the current broken healthcare system.
"We cannot afford to wait--or to fail. And we will do neither.
"And when successful reform takes hold, the American people will wonder what has taken us so long."
"Over the last year," he writes in a Boston Globe OpEd today, "I've seen our healthcare system up close. I've benefitted from the best of medicine, but I've also witnessed the frustration and outrage of patients and doctors alike as they face the challenges of a system that shortchanges millions of Americans."
In his manifesto, Kennedy hits all the notes of Obama's proposal for change and, albeit in a somewhat tentative way, for the highest of all. After promising more transparency in health insurance plans, negotiation for lower premiums and regulation to prevent denial of coverage for previously existing conditions, Kennedy writes:
"We're also hearing that some Americans want the choice of enrolling in a health insurance program backed by the government for the public good, not private profit--so that option will be available too."
That wording presages the crucial struggle to include a Medicare-for-all provision in the bill that would put pressure on private insurers to compete in the health care market instead of maximizing their profits.
Since his medical crisis last summer, Ted Kennedy has been fighting his own battle to survive. Now he clearly intends to leave a legacy that will give other Americans better odds in theirs.
"Change," he concludes, "is never easy, but the status quo is no longer acceptable to any except those who profit from the current broken healthcare system.
"We cannot afford to wait--or to fail. And we will do neither.
"And when successful reform takes hold, the American people will wonder what has taken us so long."
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Sotomayor's Singleness
Since the President made so much of biography in introducing his Supreme Court nominee, every facet of Sonia Sotomayor's life seems up for discussion, including her marital history.
Divorced in her twenties, the new Justice would be taking over what is being called "the single seat" on the Court from David Souter, a bachelor. At her 1994 appellate confirmation hearing, Sotomayor introduced a fiancé who subsequently faded from the picture.
If matrimonial status has any bearing on Supreme Court deliberations, the new nominee is at the far end of the spectrum from William O. Douglas, who served longer than any other Justice (almost 37 years) and was married four times, going through three divorces while on the Court.
Yet Sotomayor shares with Douglas a background of extreme poverty after the early death of a father, in his case working as a waiter, janitor and cherry picker on the West Coast, where he saw "cruelty and hardness" by police against migrant laborers and "Chicanos."
Those experiences informed Douglas' work on the Court, which eventually resulted in an unsuccessful impeachment attempt in 1970, led by Rep. (later President) Gerald R. Ford, who attacked his "liberal opinions" and lifestyle.
Sotomayor may or may not turn out to be a philosophical soulmate of Douglas, but there is nothing in her history to suggest that she will emulate his flamboyance.
In the early 1950s, as a junior editor of a men's magazine, Argosy, I edited an article by Douglas, an avid outdoorsman who always needed extra money to support his ex-wives. It was about a cowboy obsessed with a wild black stallion, whose pursuit of the animal leads to grief at its death in captivity.
It's hard to imagine careful Sonia Sotomayor celebrating that kind of wildness.
Divorced in her twenties, the new Justice would be taking over what is being called "the single seat" on the Court from David Souter, a bachelor. At her 1994 appellate confirmation hearing, Sotomayor introduced a fiancé who subsequently faded from the picture.
If matrimonial status has any bearing on Supreme Court deliberations, the new nominee is at the far end of the spectrum from William O. Douglas, who served longer than any other Justice (almost 37 years) and was married four times, going through three divorces while on the Court.
Yet Sotomayor shares with Douglas a background of extreme poverty after the early death of a father, in his case working as a waiter, janitor and cherry picker on the West Coast, where he saw "cruelty and hardness" by police against migrant laborers and "Chicanos."
Those experiences informed Douglas' work on the Court, which eventually resulted in an unsuccessful impeachment attempt in 1970, led by Rep. (later President) Gerald R. Ford, who attacked his "liberal opinions" and lifestyle.
Sotomayor may or may not turn out to be a philosophical soulmate of Douglas, but there is nothing in her history to suggest that she will emulate his flamboyance.
In the early 1950s, as a junior editor of a men's magazine, Argosy, I edited an article by Douglas, an avid outdoorsman who always needed extra money to support his ex-wives. It was about a cowboy obsessed with a wild black stallion, whose pursuit of the animal leads to grief at its death in captivity.
It's hard to imagine careful Sonia Sotomayor celebrating that kind of wildness.
Burris, Obama's Bookend
A newly released transcript shows the President's Senate replacement craven but just short of corrupt in his slavering for the appointment by the former Gov. Rod Blagojevich--more "pray" than "pay to play."
"In the call," the New York Times reports, "he seemed almost in a crass negotiation with Mr. Blagojevich’s brother--also his chief fund-raiser--over how he could help the governor, win the appointment and not run into trouble over negative connotations that he might be trying to buy an appointment by fund-raising for him."
Burris, an embarrassment to the President and his party who may well escape the grasp of prosecutors and serve out the term, is a bookend to Obama in exemplifying the range of American politics from superb to sleaze.
In his phone call to the governor's brother soon after the seat opened up, Burris shows an exquisite sensitivity to the line between being crooked and appearing crooked by trading fund-raising for the position:
“If I do that, I guarantee you that that will get out, and people said, ‘Oh, Burris is doing a fund-raiser,’ and, and then Rod and I both going to catch hell...God knows, No. 1, I want to help Rod. No. 2, I also want to, you know, hope I get a consideration to get that appointment.”
Now, everybody knows and the bottom line, whatever the outcome of the probe by the Senate Ethics Committee, is that Roland Burris, whatever he chisels on his headstone, is no Barack Obama.
"In the call," the New York Times reports, "he seemed almost in a crass negotiation with Mr. Blagojevich’s brother--also his chief fund-raiser--over how he could help the governor, win the appointment and not run into trouble over negative connotations that he might be trying to buy an appointment by fund-raising for him."
Burris, an embarrassment to the President and his party who may well escape the grasp of prosecutors and serve out the term, is a bookend to Obama in exemplifying the range of American politics from superb to sleaze.
In his phone call to the governor's brother soon after the seat opened up, Burris shows an exquisite sensitivity to the line between being crooked and appearing crooked by trading fund-raising for the position:
“If I do that, I guarantee you that that will get out, and people said, ‘Oh, Burris is doing a fund-raiser,’ and, and then Rod and I both going to catch hell...God knows, No. 1, I want to help Rod. No. 2, I also want to, you know, hope I get a consideration to get that appointment.”
Now, everybody knows and the bottom line, whatever the outcome of the probe by the Senate Ethics Committee, is that Roland Burris, whatever he chisels on his headstone, is no Barack Obama.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sotomayor Doesn't Suit Yoo
As Republicans mull their response to the naming of a Latino woman to the Supreme Court, they have the benefit of legal scholarship from John Yoo, who suggests that Sonia Sotomayor would be "voting her emotions and politics rather than the law."
George W. Bush's torture expert is troubled by the nominee's lack of legal "firepower." He points out, "There are no opinions that suggest she would change the direction of constitutional law as have Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, or Robert Bork and Richard Posner on the appeals courts."
Disregarding for the moment the murmurs of "Thank God!" from the Left, Yoo's commentary may reflect a shrewd legal strategy in his own self-interest. As the lawsuit against him by convicted terrorist Juan Padilla winds its way through the courts, Yoo may be setting the stage for asking Judge Sotomayor to recuse herself if it reaches the Supreme Court.
Padilla is suing Yoo as one of the architects of unlawful policies that led to his designation as an "enemy combatant," detention in a military brig and the interrogations he underwent there.
Ironically, the Obama Justice Department is siding with Yoo in deeming a civil suit an inappropriate vehicle for this issue, however much the Administration has reversed and repudiated his legal judgments on torture during the Bush era.
Just in case the suit continues and reaches the Supreme Court, Yoo could claim that his dismissive opinions on Justice Sotomayor's qualifications might prejudice her against him from the bench.
In the alternate universe John Yoo inhabits, that makes as much sense as the rest of his thinking.
George W. Bush's torture expert is troubled by the nominee's lack of legal "firepower." He points out, "There are no opinions that suggest she would change the direction of constitutional law as have Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, or Robert Bork and Richard Posner on the appeals courts."
Disregarding for the moment the murmurs of "Thank God!" from the Left, Yoo's commentary may reflect a shrewd legal strategy in his own self-interest. As the lawsuit against him by convicted terrorist Juan Padilla winds its way through the courts, Yoo may be setting the stage for asking Judge Sotomayor to recuse herself if it reaches the Supreme Court.
Padilla is suing Yoo as one of the architects of unlawful policies that led to his designation as an "enemy combatant," detention in a military brig and the interrogations he underwent there.
Ironically, the Obama Justice Department is siding with Yoo in deeming a civil suit an inappropriate vehicle for this issue, however much the Administration has reversed and repudiated his legal judgments on torture during the Bush era.
Just in case the suit continues and reaches the Supreme Court, Yoo could claim that his dismissive opinions on Justice Sotomayor's qualifications might prejudice her against him from the bench.
In the alternate universe John Yoo inhabits, that makes as much sense as the rest of his thinking.
Super Week for the South Bronx
The New York Yankees went on a winning streak at their new stadium last week, and two products of the neighborhood have scored big on the political scene--Colin Powell in a challenge to save the Republican Party from Dick Cheney and today Sonia Sotomayor as President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court.
As the confirmation buzz starts, Americans will get to know much more about the new nominee, potentially the first Hispanic on the Court, but for a start, Judge Sotomayor grew up near Yankee Stadium and, in one of her first notable cases as a jurist in 1995, ended the Major League baseball strike by ruling against the owners for trying to subvert collective bargaining in labor negotiations.
In the past half century, the South Bronx has become the poster child for urban poverty and devastation but, as a product of that neighborhood, I can testify that, through generations of Eastern European refugees, African-Americans and Hispanics, it has also housed families with a burning desire to educate their children into the American Dream.
In the era of Barack Obama, efforts to improve life in such communities are part of the national agenda, and the emergence of such figures as the new Supreme Court nominee foreshadows the dividends that those investments could be paying in the future.
Update: In announcing the selection of Judge Sotomayor, President Obama praised her "rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law” and added that it is vitally important that a justice know “how the world works, and how ordinary people live.”
Sotomayor described herself as "a kid from the Bronx." She sounds like all of the above.
As the confirmation buzz starts, Americans will get to know much more about the new nominee, potentially the first Hispanic on the Court, but for a start, Judge Sotomayor grew up near Yankee Stadium and, in one of her first notable cases as a jurist in 1995, ended the Major League baseball strike by ruling against the owners for trying to subvert collective bargaining in labor negotiations.
In the past half century, the South Bronx has become the poster child for urban poverty and devastation but, as a product of that neighborhood, I can testify that, through generations of Eastern European refugees, African-Americans and Hispanics, it has also housed families with a burning desire to educate their children into the American Dream.
In the era of Barack Obama, efforts to improve life in such communities are part of the national agenda, and the emergence of such figures as the new Supreme Court nominee foreshadows the dividends that those investments could be paying in the future.
Update: In announcing the selection of Judge Sotomayor, President Obama praised her "rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law” and added that it is vitally important that a justice know “how the world works, and how ordinary people live.”
Sotomayor described herself as "a kid from the Bronx." She sounds like all of the above.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Memorial Day
Flags, parades and speeches celebrate those who fought and died for their country, but what they did--and still do--is better commemorated by silent grieving over them than with bombast and color.
In "A Farewell to Arms," Ernest Hemingway had his World War I soldier saying:
"I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them on proclamations...and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.
"There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity...Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene besides the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates."
Today is a day for honoring the fallen but disowning not glorifying what the worst in human nature made them endure.
In "A Farewell to Arms," Ernest Hemingway had his World War I soldier saying:
"I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them on proclamations...and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.
"There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity...Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene besides the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates."
Today is a day for honoring the fallen but disowning not glorifying what the worst in human nature made them endure.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Cheney on the Couch
Stooping to psychobabble this Memorial Day weekend, I find myself wondering: What is the former Vice President, who evaded military service in his youth, trying to prove with his late-in-life display of extreme machismo? What fuels his tougher-than-thou attacks on Barack Obama, a Commander-in-Chief from a post-draft generation that did not have to face a public test of personal courage?
In his weekend address today, the President observes that "our survival as a nation came down not simply to the wisdom of our leaders or the resilience of our people, but to the courage and valor of our fighting men and women."
Below that simple statement of fact are many millions of individual struggles of conscience by young people over risking their lives for their country. (As one of them in World War II, I can testify to the fears as well as the courage of what is now called the Greatest Generation.)
In the 1960s, Dick Cheney resolved his own conflict by asking for and getting five draft deferments during the Vietnam war. Looking back, he said in a Washington Post interview, "I had other priorities in the 60's than military service."
Ever since then, as a member of Congress, Secretary of Defense and Vice President, Cheney has been part of a process that sends young people to give their lives for their country--without the deeply felt experience of those like John McCain, who doesn't share his views on torture.
What's disturbing about this disconnection between rhetoric and reality is the sense that Dick Cheney is, at some level, driven to prove that his earlier choices in life are not the true test of his manhood. No reasonable person would argue that they are, but does he himself believe that?
However unfair it may be to put Cheney on the couch this way, there is an oblique recognition of the issue in Gail Collins' comment today:
“'To bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come,' snarled Dick Cheney in his 'no middle ground' speech. Although really, for the sake of the national mental health, it might be better if we all just ignore the former vice president until he agrees to undergo therapy."
That's not likely to happen, but it would help if lay Republican leaders would advise him to stop acting out in public.
In his weekend address today, the President observes that "our survival as a nation came down not simply to the wisdom of our leaders or the resilience of our people, but to the courage and valor of our fighting men and women."
Below that simple statement of fact are many millions of individual struggles of conscience by young people over risking their lives for their country. (As one of them in World War II, I can testify to the fears as well as the courage of what is now called the Greatest Generation.)
In the 1960s, Dick Cheney resolved his own conflict by asking for and getting five draft deferments during the Vietnam war. Looking back, he said in a Washington Post interview, "I had other priorities in the 60's than military service."
Ever since then, as a member of Congress, Secretary of Defense and Vice President, Cheney has been part of a process that sends young people to give their lives for their country--without the deeply felt experience of those like John McCain, who doesn't share his views on torture.
What's disturbing about this disconnection between rhetoric and reality is the sense that Dick Cheney is, at some level, driven to prove that his earlier choices in life are not the true test of his manhood. No reasonable person would argue that they are, but does he himself believe that?
However unfair it may be to put Cheney on the couch this way, there is an oblique recognition of the issue in Gail Collins' comment today:
“'To bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come,' snarled Dick Cheney in his 'no middle ground' speech. Although really, for the sake of the national mental health, it might be better if we all just ignore the former vice president until he agrees to undergo therapy."
That's not likely to happen, but it would help if lay Republican leaders would advise him to stop acting out in public.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Bush's Unleashed Dog Dilemmas
"And there I was, former president of the United States of America, with a plastic bag on my hand," George W. Bush told high-school students yesterday about having to clean up after his dog Barney relieved himself in a neighbor's yard.
When he shares a stage with Bill Clinton next week, will anyone in the audience ask Bush about the mess that his attack dog Cheney is making in Washington?
Compared to the former vice president, Barney is a model of loyalty, according to David Brooks in today's New York Times:
"When Cheney lambastes the change in security policy, he’s not really attacking the Obama administration. He’s attacking the Bush administration. In his speech on Thursday, he repeated in public a lot of the same arguments he had been making within the Bush White House as the policy decisions went more and more the other way."
As Cheney goes rabid against the Obama Administration, Bush loyalists are anxious to point out the vice president's declining influence during their second term in the White House.
Writing about "The Cheney Fallacy," former White House Counsel Jack Goldsmith disputes his claims that Obama has reversed Bush policies and argues, "The Bush administration shot itself in the foot time and time again, to the detriment of the legitimacy and efficacy of its policies, by indifference to process and presentation."
More and more, the current brouhaha is looking not like Cheney vs. Obama, but Cheney vs. Bush and recalling the old saying, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."
But only as long as you can keep him on a leash.
When he shares a stage with Bill Clinton next week, will anyone in the audience ask Bush about the mess that his attack dog Cheney is making in Washington?
Compared to the former vice president, Barney is a model of loyalty, according to David Brooks in today's New York Times:
"When Cheney lambastes the change in security policy, he’s not really attacking the Obama administration. He’s attacking the Bush administration. In his speech on Thursday, he repeated in public a lot of the same arguments he had been making within the Bush White House as the policy decisions went more and more the other way."
As Cheney goes rabid against the Obama Administration, Bush loyalists are anxious to point out the vice president's declining influence during their second term in the White House.
Writing about "The Cheney Fallacy," former White House Counsel Jack Goldsmith disputes his claims that Obama has reversed Bush policies and argues, "The Bush administration shot itself in the foot time and time again, to the detriment of the legitimacy and efficacy of its policies, by indifference to process and presentation."
More and more, the current brouhaha is looking not like Cheney vs. Obama, but Cheney vs. Bush and recalling the old saying, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."
But only as long as you can keep him on a leash.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Dueling Speeches and Ragtag Terrorists
The 9/11 world is back with full force as Barack Obama makes the case for a judicious approach to terrorism, Dick Cheney argues that only bare knuckles can keep us safe and New York police stage a perp walk of petty criminals scammed into believing they could bomb synagogues and shoot down Air National Guard planes.
It's one of those wake-me-when-it's-over days as the overloaded mind wants only to watch an old movie on TV or hide under the covers, but the dueling speeches and the terrorist bust are part of the way we live now. There is no escape.
For someone of advanced age, there are powerful echoes of the 1950s in all this--another era of anxiety about threats to "our way of life" from evil forces and politicians eager to exploit them with an easy sell of fear.
Dick Cheney is no Joe McCarthy, but here he is attacking the Obama Administration for closing Guantanamo with a desire "to bring some of these hardened terrorists into the United States" and praising Congressional exploitation of fears that "the terrorists might soon be relocating into their states," as if they were going to be walking the streets rather than being held in maximum-security prisons.
But Cheney's retroactive paean to torture, which has raised his approval ratings a few points from abysmal to awful, is less relevant than the President's attempt today to reconcile national ideals with what has to be done "to keep the American people safe."
Obama reviewed what he called the Guantanamo "mess--a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my administration is forced to deal with on a constant, almost daily basis, and it consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country."
Along with a dissection of the legal and moral issues involved, the President, who prefers to focus on the future, nevertheless acknowledged the demagoguery of "fear-mongering" surrounding the issue.
"Listening to the recent debate," he said, "I've heard words that, frankly, are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country."
As this rhetorical duel was going on, New York Police were illustrating the complexities of the post-9/11 world by arresting four would-be jihadists for an "aspirational" plot (translation: they had the desire to bomb and kill but apparently neither the brains nor means until authorities provided them with harmless "explosives" and fake surface-to-air missiles).
The sadness in all this what used to be "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" comedy is that it now has to be treated with dead seriousness since Osama bin Laden took away our innocence almost eight years ago.
It's one of those wake-me-when-it's-over days as the overloaded mind wants only to watch an old movie on TV or hide under the covers, but the dueling speeches and the terrorist bust are part of the way we live now. There is no escape.
For someone of advanced age, there are powerful echoes of the 1950s in all this--another era of anxiety about threats to "our way of life" from evil forces and politicians eager to exploit them with an easy sell of fear.
Dick Cheney is no Joe McCarthy, but here he is attacking the Obama Administration for closing Guantanamo with a desire "to bring some of these hardened terrorists into the United States" and praising Congressional exploitation of fears that "the terrorists might soon be relocating into their states," as if they were going to be walking the streets rather than being held in maximum-security prisons.
But Cheney's retroactive paean to torture, which has raised his approval ratings a few points from abysmal to awful, is less relevant than the President's attempt today to reconcile national ideals with what has to be done "to keep the American people safe."
Obama reviewed what he called the Guantanamo "mess--a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my administration is forced to deal with on a constant, almost daily basis, and it consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country."
Along with a dissection of the legal and moral issues involved, the President, who prefers to focus on the future, nevertheless acknowledged the demagoguery of "fear-mongering" surrounding the issue.
"Listening to the recent debate," he said, "I've heard words that, frankly, are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country."
As this rhetorical duel was going on, New York Police were illustrating the complexities of the post-9/11 world by arresting four would-be jihadists for an "aspirational" plot (translation: they had the desire to bomb and kill but apparently neither the brains nor means until authorities provided them with harmless "explosives" and fake surface-to-air missiles).
The sadness in all this what used to be "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" comedy is that it now has to be treated with dead seriousness since Osama bin Laden took away our innocence almost eight years ago.
Elizabeth Warren As Pecora
A note to Washington Central Casting: Now that the President has signed on for a 9/11 Commission to investigate the economic downturn, let's skip the usual suspects to head it and, as in the 1930s, find a fresh face for the role of shaking up Wall Street.
Back then, ethnic outsider Ferdinand Pecora was the new star. This time, Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren looks like the best choice for a gender change in taking on the old-boy network that brought the country to the brink of ruin.
As Congressional watchdog for the bank bailout, Warren has been rehearsing for the part by showing a rare directness in calling for a clean sweep at the top. "The very notion that anyone would infuse money into a financially troubled entity without demanding changes in management is preposterous," she has said.
Along with her other qualifications, Warren has a public presence that inspires confidence, last weekend leaving Bill Maher in dumbstruck admiration.
In the past, she has proposed a new agency modeled on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to protect the public in buying financial merchandise.
"It is impossible," she has written, "to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street.
"Why are consumers safe when they purchase tangible consumer products with cash, but when they sign up for routine financial products like mortgages and credit cards they are left at the mercy of their creditors?"
If she were to ask questions like that and get beyond the usual mealy-mouthed answers, Elizabeth Warren would play the 21st century version of Pecora to perfection.
Back then, ethnic outsider Ferdinand Pecora was the new star. This time, Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren looks like the best choice for a gender change in taking on the old-boy network that brought the country to the brink of ruin.
As Congressional watchdog for the bank bailout, Warren has been rehearsing for the part by showing a rare directness in calling for a clean sweep at the top. "The very notion that anyone would infuse money into a financially troubled entity without demanding changes in management is preposterous," she has said.
Along with her other qualifications, Warren has a public presence that inspires confidence, last weekend leaving Bill Maher in dumbstruck admiration.
In the past, she has proposed a new agency modeled on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to protect the public in buying financial merchandise.
"It is impossible," she has written, "to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street.
"Why are consumers safe when they purchase tangible consumer products with cash, but when they sign up for routine financial products like mortgages and credit cards they are left at the mercy of their creditors?"
If she were to ask questions like that and get beyond the usual mealy-mouthed answers, Elizabeth Warren would play the 21st century version of Pecora to perfection.
Obama v. Roberts, Round One
As the President begins one-on-one interviews with replacements for David Souter, his eventual choice will be only the start of a four- or eight-year struggle for the soul of the Supreme Court in the 21st century.
The lines are clearly drawn. In voting against the confirmation of John Roberts, then-Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged the Chief Justice's intellect and scholarship but questioned "what is in the judge’s heart. It is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak.”
In his tenure, Roberts has justified Obama's doubts. As Jeffrey Toobin observes in the New Yorker, "In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff...Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party."
President Obama's choice now will not alter the philosophical makeup of the Court but may go some distance in shifting its tone. If the rumored list of finalists is right, the new Justice is likely to share Souter's opinions but express them with more passion.
Judging from the President's track record so far, his pick will be confirmable but not bland. Gender and ethnicity will be in play but not determinative.
The actuarial tables suggest that Obama eventually will have his chance to alter the balance of the Court away from the Bush mindset in his own direction. Next week's decision will be a preliminary skirmish with the main battles yet to come.
The lines are clearly drawn. In voting against the confirmation of John Roberts, then-Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged the Chief Justice's intellect and scholarship but questioned "what is in the judge’s heart. It is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak.”
In his tenure, Roberts has justified Obama's doubts. As Jeffrey Toobin observes in the New Yorker, "In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff...Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party."
President Obama's choice now will not alter the philosophical makeup of the Court but may go some distance in shifting its tone. If the rumored list of finalists is right, the new Justice is likely to share Souter's opinions but express them with more passion.
Judging from the President's track record so far, his pick will be confirmable but not bland. Gender and ethnicity will be in play but not determinative.
The actuarial tables suggest that Obama eventually will have his chance to alter the balance of the Court away from the Bush mindset in his own direction. Next week's decision will be a preliminary skirmish with the main battles yet to come.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Profits Inevitable As Death and Taxes
Banks getting taxpayer bailouts are also cashing in on the demise of people who work for them or once did.
Today's Wall Street Journal has a tutorial explaining how banks are holding $122.3 billion in life insurance on workers and retirees with themselves as beneficiaries in order to escape taxes, inflate their earnings and to fund bonuses and pension benefits:
"Though not improper, the practice is similar to what is known as 'janitors insurance,' an insurance-on-employees technique that has long been controversial. Critics say the banks' insurance contracts are a way for companies to create tax breaks for funding executive pensions...
"Companies don't use the policies as piggy banks to pay for compensation and benefits. Rather, they benefit from keeping the money in the contracts."
Gains on investments are not only tax free but reported as income each quarter to offset interest on deferred pay owed to executives.
According to the Journal, banks have nearly doubled the amounts of such insurance in the past four years. Bank of America, which has taken $52.5 billion from taxpayers so far, holds an estimated $17.3 billion of such investments in the deaths of employees while Wells Fargo (including its Wachovia acquisition) has a similar amount awaiting future obituaries.
You may not be able to get blood from a stone, but American banks are doing very well with corpses.
Today's Wall Street Journal has a tutorial explaining how banks are holding $122.3 billion in life insurance on workers and retirees with themselves as beneficiaries in order to escape taxes, inflate their earnings and to fund bonuses and pension benefits:
"Though not improper, the practice is similar to what is known as 'janitors insurance,' an insurance-on-employees technique that has long been controversial. Critics say the banks' insurance contracts are a way for companies to create tax breaks for funding executive pensions...
"Companies don't use the policies as piggy banks to pay for compensation and benefits. Rather, they benefit from keeping the money in the contracts."
Gains on investments are not only tax free but reported as income each quarter to offset interest on deferred pay owed to executives.
According to the Journal, banks have nearly doubled the amounts of such insurance in the past four years. Bank of America, which has taken $52.5 billion from taxpayers so far, holds an estimated $17.3 billion of such investments in the deaths of employees while Wells Fargo (including its Wachovia acquisition) has a similar amount awaiting future obituaries.
You may not be able to get blood from a stone, but American banks are doing very well with corpses.
Steele, the Un-Obama
Some divine Anthropologist must be balancing the racial books for America, giving us an African-American as president who is a superbly talented politician and, to lead the opposition, another who can't seem to get out of his own way.
Michael Steele's un-Obama skills were on display at a party luncheon yesterday, and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank reports:
"The RNC chairman has managed to get into trouble with comic regularity during his first few months on the job. His latest brush with trouble had come only minutes before the lunch, when Fox News broadcast an interview with Steele in which he complained that party leaders--the very people he was about to have lunch with--have 'their knives bared' for him."
Milbank catalogues Steele's self-inflicted wounds as head of the Disloyal Opposition:
"He called Rush Limbaugh 'incendiary' and 'ugly.' He described abortion as an individual choice. He spent $18,500 decorating his office, which he had called 'way too male for me.' He offered some 'slum love' to Indian American Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, and speculated that the GOP base rejected Mitt Romney 'because it had issues with Mormonism.'"
In fairness, it's unlikely that anyone could galvanize today's remnant rabble of what was once the Grand Old Party, but Steele's ineptitude is looking more and more like a grotesque example of the Affirmative Action that Republicans always used to denounce.
The question now is how to depose him without adding accusations of racism to their heavy load of political baggage.
The opportunity may come up today at a meeting of state party heads who, if they curtail his power over funding, will be calling his threat to quit if they do.
Steele ended his rallying of the troops at yesterday's luncheon with "In the best spirit of President Reagan, it's time to saddle up and ride."
Into the sunset perhaps?
Michael Steele's un-Obama skills were on display at a party luncheon yesterday, and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank reports:
"The RNC chairman has managed to get into trouble with comic regularity during his first few months on the job. His latest brush with trouble had come only minutes before the lunch, when Fox News broadcast an interview with Steele in which he complained that party leaders--the very people he was about to have lunch with--have 'their knives bared' for him."
Milbank catalogues Steele's self-inflicted wounds as head of the Disloyal Opposition:
"He called Rush Limbaugh 'incendiary' and 'ugly.' He described abortion as an individual choice. He spent $18,500 decorating his office, which he had called 'way too male for me.' He offered some 'slum love' to Indian American Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, and speculated that the GOP base rejected Mitt Romney 'because it had issues with Mormonism.'"
In fairness, it's unlikely that anyone could galvanize today's remnant rabble of what was once the Grand Old Party, but Steele's ineptitude is looking more and more like a grotesque example of the Affirmative Action that Republicans always used to denounce.
The question now is how to depose him without adding accusations of racism to their heavy load of political baggage.
The opportunity may come up today at a meeting of state party heads who, if they curtail his power over funding, will be calling his threat to quit if they do.
Steele ended his rallying of the troops at yesterday's luncheon with "In the best spirit of President Reagan, it's time to saddle up and ride."
Into the sunset perhaps?
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Coming or Going? GPS in Trouble
As Americans struggle metaphorically with where the country is heading comes news of an imminent loss of our literal sense of direction.
A GAO report on the $2 billion Air Force modernization of global position satellites warns that the system is at risk of failing as early as next year:
"If the Air Force does not meet its schedule goals for development of GPS IIIA satellites, there will be an increased likelihood that in 2010, as old satellites begin to fail, the overall GPS constellation will fall below the number of satellites required to provide the level of GPS service that the U.S. government commits to."
Such shortcomings would affect all GPS users, the GAO says, not only the military that relies on them but the rest of us who can't find our around without the devices on car dashboards and electronic gizmos.
To make things worse, there is Galileo, a European rival satellite navigation system scheduled to start rolling out later next year as Russia, India and China expand their own efforts.
The Obama Administration has to get moving on this so we don't have to depend on foreigners to tell us whether we're coming or going.
A GAO report on the $2 billion Air Force modernization of global position satellites warns that the system is at risk of failing as early as next year:
"If the Air Force does not meet its schedule goals for development of GPS IIIA satellites, there will be an increased likelihood that in 2010, as old satellites begin to fail, the overall GPS constellation will fall below the number of satellites required to provide the level of GPS service that the U.S. government commits to."
Such shortcomings would affect all GPS users, the GAO says, not only the military that relies on them but the rest of us who can't find our around without the devices on car dashboards and electronic gizmos.
To make things worse, there is Galileo, a European rival satellite navigation system scheduled to start rolling out later next year as Russia, India and China expand their own efforts.
The Obama Administration has to get moving on this so we don't have to depend on foreigners to tell us whether we're coming or going.
Biden's Bittersweet Speech
The Vice-President pinch-hit for his old friend Tim Russert yesterday and scored high on nostalgia.
Replacing the late Meet the Press host as the scheduled graduation speaker at Wake Forest University, Joe Biden recalled their 1970s arrival in Washington from blue-collar families "where we never had to wonder whether or not we were loved...
"We were both raised by parents who had an absolute conviction, an absolute belief in the promise of this country...We grew up in a time when our parents told us, and meant it and believed it, even though they were of modest means, that if we worked hard, played by the rules, did what we were supposed to, loved our country, there wasn’t a single thing we couldn’t do."
Biden seemed to be grieving not only for his lost friend but for an America that is almost unrecognizable after decades of greed and playing fast and loose with "the rules" of good behavior.
In true commencement oratory tradition, the Vice-President overcame nostalgia to pump up the diploma holders, telling them "you're about to graduate into a point in history where everything is going to change no matter what you do, but you can affect the change.”
He urged them to think positively: “Doing nothing, or taking history into our own hands and bending it, bending it in service of a better day. So embrace the moment. Don't shy away from it.”
If they can find jobs.
Replacing the late Meet the Press host as the scheduled graduation speaker at Wake Forest University, Joe Biden recalled their 1970s arrival in Washington from blue-collar families "where we never had to wonder whether or not we were loved...
"We were both raised by parents who had an absolute conviction, an absolute belief in the promise of this country...We grew up in a time when our parents told us, and meant it and believed it, even though they were of modest means, that if we worked hard, played by the rules, did what we were supposed to, loved our country, there wasn’t a single thing we couldn’t do."
Biden seemed to be grieving not only for his lost friend but for an America that is almost unrecognizable after decades of greed and playing fast and loose with "the rules" of good behavior.
In true commencement oratory tradition, the Vice-President overcame nostalgia to pump up the diploma holders, telling them "you're about to graduate into a point in history where everything is going to change no matter what you do, but you can affect the change.”
He urged them to think positively: “Doing nothing, or taking history into our own hands and bending it, bending it in service of a better day. So embrace the moment. Don't shy away from it.”
If they can find jobs.
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