Devout florists will no longer be coerced into providing their services for the nuptials of same-sex couples if a new law being proposed in Connecticut is enacted.
To protect professionals from violating their consciences, a Catholic Church lobbyist is asking the State Legislature's judiciary committee to codify the rights of business owners "opposed to gay marriage who have faced legal action elsewhere because they declined to provide goods or services to gay couples."
Last fall, the state Supreme Court ruled that gay and lesbian couples had the right to marry and Connecticut became the second state to recognize same-sex marriage, but no one could foresee the assault on the civil rights of florists, caterers, wedding cake makers and tuxedo renters that would ensue.
If the new law passes, gay nuptials will have to do without the services of those talented but principled people who have made America's small-town wedding halls the envy of art lovers all over the world.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
The Interactive Presidency
FDR gave Americans fireside chats on radio. JFK came into living rooms through live TV news conferences. Barack Obama is connecting with worried voters by Internet--email, online videos and proliferating web sites.
In each case, as a new medium of communication became universal, the White House wired into it to speak directly to people--one at a time.
What's different now is that voters are invited to talk back, which may in part account for the President's continuing popularity during the darkest period in generations. In this interactive presidency, Americans are not feeling abandoned.
This week, the Obama Administration unveiled another web site, on health care reform, to go with White House.gov, Recovery.gov and others sure to come, giving information and asking for feedback.
In another move on the tech front, the President appointed as the first federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra, 34, to oversee expanded use of cutting-edge technology for information sharing between agencies, greater public access to government information and questions of security and privacy.
Whatever happens in the coming months, nobody will call Obama another George W. Bush, out of touch with the American people.
In each case, as a new medium of communication became universal, the White House wired into it to speak directly to people--one at a time.
What's different now is that voters are invited to talk back, which may in part account for the President's continuing popularity during the darkest period in generations. In this interactive presidency, Americans are not feeling abandoned.
This week, the Obama Administration unveiled another web site, on health care reform, to go with White House.gov, Recovery.gov and others sure to come, giving information and asking for feedback.
In another move on the tech front, the President appointed as the first federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra, 34, to oversee expanded use of cutting-edge technology for information sharing between agencies, greater public access to government information and questions of security and privacy.
Whatever happens in the coming months, nobody will call Obama another George W. Bush, out of touch with the American people.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Dissing Michelle Obama
No First Lady since Jacqueline Kennedy has caught the American imagination so quickly that, after only six weeks, there are early signs of media backlash.
In his Los Angeles Times blog today, Andrew Malcolm reports on the First Lady's stint serving food at a DC soup kitchen for the homeless but raises a question about the photo op that shows a man on line taking her picture with a cellphone:
"If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone? And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?"
This mild debunking of Mrs. Obama's activities pales in comparison to a British snit over this week's White House visit of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. A London Times columnist complains that, while Mrs. Brown brought thoughtful gifts for the Obama girls, the First Lady presented the Brown boys with "dismissive" models of Marine One (“Mum and Dad went to see the President, and all we got was this lousy plastic helicopter”).
Worse yet, a Telegraph columnist rails at Mrs. Obama under the headline, " Was 'Lady Macbeth' behind Barack Obama's snub of Gordon Brown?", making the loony case that the First Lady still resents the British for their part in the slave trade.
Fleet Street bilge aside, the American public still seems fascinated and affectionate. Even CNN's resident curmudgeon Jack Cafferty admits, "I think I am developing a crush on America's First Lady...
"Watch her when she visits a local school and you see the warmth and affection she instantly triggers in people. Kids are pretty much totally honest with very good BS-detectors. If they sense you're a phony, forget it. But around the First Lady, they want to hug her and laugh with her and tell her stories."
Even so, in the voracious 24/7 appetite for news, the kind of super-celebrity Mrs. Obama is becoming will inevitably draw her share of sniping from media mongers who can't think of anything else to say...and perhaps comments like this from bloggers in the same situation.
In his Los Angeles Times blog today, Andrew Malcolm reports on the First Lady's stint serving food at a DC soup kitchen for the homeless but raises a question about the photo op that shows a man on line taking her picture with a cellphone:
"If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone? And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?"
This mild debunking of Mrs. Obama's activities pales in comparison to a British snit over this week's White House visit of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. A London Times columnist complains that, while Mrs. Brown brought thoughtful gifts for the Obama girls, the First Lady presented the Brown boys with "dismissive" models of Marine One (“Mum and Dad went to see the President, and all we got was this lousy plastic helicopter”).
Worse yet, a Telegraph columnist rails at Mrs. Obama under the headline, " Was 'Lady Macbeth' behind Barack Obama's snub of Gordon Brown?", making the loony case that the First Lady still resents the British for their part in the slave trade.
Fleet Street bilge aside, the American public still seems fascinated and affectionate. Even CNN's resident curmudgeon Jack Cafferty admits, "I think I am developing a crush on America's First Lady...
"Watch her when she visits a local school and you see the warmth and affection she instantly triggers in people. Kids are pretty much totally honest with very good BS-detectors. If they sense you're a phony, forget it. But around the First Lady, they want to hug her and laugh with her and tell her stories."
Even so, in the voracious 24/7 appetite for news, the kind of super-celebrity Mrs. Obama is becoming will inevitably draw her share of sniping from media mongers who can't think of anything else to say...and perhaps comments like this from bloggers in the same situation.
A Better Foreclosure Fix?
Good old American free-enterprise vultures may be trumping Obama's Treasury theorists in slowing down the rate of mortgage defaults.
Instead of complex schemes to lower interest payments for under-water home owners, speculators are buying up loans at distress prices and cutting the principal but still keeping it high enough to profit--a market-based solution if there ever was one.
The media have been quicker to endorse this approach than the government. A New York Times editorial notes that, rather than reducing interest, "A better way to lower the monthly payments for these people is to reduce the principal remaining on the loan. That way, the payments become affordable and, as equity is rebuilt, the borrower has both an incentive and the means to keep current. The Obama plan provides subsidies for lenders to reduce principal balances, but the option is not promoted as prominently as simply reducing the interest rate. That’s a shame. It is a better way to go..."
The day before, an OpEd piece had argued: "For subprime and other non-prime loans, which account for more than half of all foreclosures, the best thing to do for the homeowners and for the bondholders is to write down principal far enough so that each homeowner will have equity in his house and thus an incentive to pay and not default again down the line. This is also best for taxpayers, who now effectively guarantee the securities linked to these mortgages...
"For these non-prime mortgages, there is room to make generous principal reductions, without hurting bondholders and without spending a dime of taxpayer money, because the bond markets expect so little out of foreclosures."
Bloomberg reports a December study by the Comptroller of the Currency showing that, after six months, more than 55 percent of the loans modified last year re-defaulted while only 28 percent of homeowners whose modifications trimmed their principal by a fifth or more were late after six months.
Banks and other mortgage holders are resisting such immediate markdowns in the value of loans in the hope of more taxpayer bailouts and/or a rebound in the real-estate market.
Then, too, there is a natural revulsion that some of the new vultures are the same people who started this mess, such as the former Countrywide executives who wrote sub-prime mortgages and are now in business buying them back at 38 cents on the dollar. “It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer selling body parts to a clinic," Gail Collins notes.
But it seems to make economic sense--and, in the larger picture, even social justice--for the makers of bad loans to eat their losses now and stabilize the housing market sooner rather than later.
Instead of complex schemes to lower interest payments for under-water home owners, speculators are buying up loans at distress prices and cutting the principal but still keeping it high enough to profit--a market-based solution if there ever was one.
The media have been quicker to endorse this approach than the government. A New York Times editorial notes that, rather than reducing interest, "A better way to lower the monthly payments for these people is to reduce the principal remaining on the loan. That way, the payments become affordable and, as equity is rebuilt, the borrower has both an incentive and the means to keep current. The Obama plan provides subsidies for lenders to reduce principal balances, but the option is not promoted as prominently as simply reducing the interest rate. That’s a shame. It is a better way to go..."
The day before, an OpEd piece had argued: "For subprime and other non-prime loans, which account for more than half of all foreclosures, the best thing to do for the homeowners and for the bondholders is to write down principal far enough so that each homeowner will have equity in his house and thus an incentive to pay and not default again down the line. This is also best for taxpayers, who now effectively guarantee the securities linked to these mortgages...
"For these non-prime mortgages, there is room to make generous principal reductions, without hurting bondholders and without spending a dime of taxpayer money, because the bond markets expect so little out of foreclosures."
Bloomberg reports a December study by the Comptroller of the Currency showing that, after six months, more than 55 percent of the loans modified last year re-defaulted while only 28 percent of homeowners whose modifications trimmed their principal by a fifth or more were late after six months.
Banks and other mortgage holders are resisting such immediate markdowns in the value of loans in the hope of more taxpayer bailouts and/or a rebound in the real-estate market.
Then, too, there is a natural revulsion that some of the new vultures are the same people who started this mess, such as the former Countrywide executives who wrote sub-prime mortgages and are now in business buying them back at 38 cents on the dollar. “It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer selling body parts to a clinic," Gail Collins notes.
But it seems to make economic sense--and, in the larger picture, even social justice--for the makers of bad loans to eat their losses now and stabilize the housing market sooner rather than later.
Limbaugh/Rove: Separated at Birth?
If Spy Magazine had survived the Clinton era, its satire would have had a hard time competing with the news. What would the political pranksters have made of two rotund figures in the headlines this week?
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says with a straight face that Rush Limbaugh is the “voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
Then Limbaugh lookalike Karl Rove complains on Fox News that Emanuel is practicing "old-style politics" in the White House:
"How does this serve the country for us at this point when we’re discussing these big, vital things like the budget and health care and the stimulus bill and the omnibus spending bill--how does it well serve the country for this little sideshow concocted in the chief of staff’s office in the West Wing?"
Rove, now a paid bloviator for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, is not in the same paycheck league as Limbaugh, who has a talk radio contract worth $400 million, but as the biggest gasbags in the conservative alternate reality, there are striking similarities.
Limbaugh is thriving on the negative notice from the White House and the backtracking Republican Chairman Michael Steele, and Rove is putting a brave face on the upcoming Congressional grilling about his role in firing US Attorneys for not being political enough, calling it a "show trial."
All that's missing is Spy showing them side by side and asking, "Separated at Birth?"
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says with a straight face that Rush Limbaugh is the “voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
Then Limbaugh lookalike Karl Rove complains on Fox News that Emanuel is practicing "old-style politics" in the White House:
"How does this serve the country for us at this point when we’re discussing these big, vital things like the budget and health care and the stimulus bill and the omnibus spending bill--how does it well serve the country for this little sideshow concocted in the chief of staff’s office in the West Wing?"
Rove, now a paid bloviator for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, is not in the same paycheck league as Limbaugh, who has a talk radio contract worth $400 million, but as the biggest gasbags in the conservative alternate reality, there are striking similarities.
Limbaugh is thriving on the negative notice from the White House and the backtracking Republican Chairman Michael Steele, and Rove is putting a brave face on the upcoming Congressional grilling about his role in firing US Attorneys for not being political enough, calling it a "show trial."
All that's missing is Spy showing them side by side and asking, "Separated at Birth?"
Thursday, March 05, 2009
White House Health Care Rally, Web Site
On a day dominated by news of falling retail sales and a diving stock market, the President held a pep rally for health care.
He told 150 members of Congress and heads of labor unions, business groups, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and consumer organizations:
“Since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform nearly a century ago, we have talked and tinkered. We have tried and fallen short, stalled time and again by failures of will, or Washington politics, or industry lobbying...This time, there is no debate about whether all Americans should have quality, affordable health care. The only question is, how?”
There were no specifics to Obama's call for "bottom up" reform, but his optimism got a reality check in a letter from five Senators saying they are "eager" to work with him while rejecting his campaign call for “a new public insurance program” to compete with private insurers.
“Forcing free-market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition,” said the letter from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Michael Enzi, Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch and Judd Gregg, Obama's drive-by, would-be Commerce Secretary.
“Ultimately, we would be left with a single government-run program controlling all of the market.”
This is the same Bushspeak that led the former president to veto extension of SCHIP coverage for children and presages a bitter battle for health care reform.
But Obama seems ready to fight it. As he spoke, the White House unveiled a new Web site, www.healthreform.gov, and said it plans to hold town-hall meetings across the country to rally public support.
Teddy Roosevelt would approve.
He told 150 members of Congress and heads of labor unions, business groups, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and consumer organizations:
“Since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform nearly a century ago, we have talked and tinkered. We have tried and fallen short, stalled time and again by failures of will, or Washington politics, or industry lobbying...This time, there is no debate about whether all Americans should have quality, affordable health care. The only question is, how?”
There were no specifics to Obama's call for "bottom up" reform, but his optimism got a reality check in a letter from five Senators saying they are "eager" to work with him while rejecting his campaign call for “a new public insurance program” to compete with private insurers.
“Forcing free-market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition,” said the letter from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Michael Enzi, Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch and Judd Gregg, Obama's drive-by, would-be Commerce Secretary.
“Ultimately, we would be left with a single government-run program controlling all of the market.”
This is the same Bushspeak that led the former president to veto extension of SCHIP coverage for children and presages a bitter battle for health care reform.
But Obama seems ready to fight it. As he spoke, the White House unveiled a new Web site, www.healthreform.gov, and said it plans to hold town-hall meetings across the country to rally public support.
Teddy Roosevelt would approve.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Makings of a Mismatch
Hearty laughs are so scarce these days that political observers should be grateful for news that John Boehner has ordered his House pygmies to attack President Obama directly instead of aiming their fire at Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a "triangulation" strategy.
Unleashing the likes of Eric Cantor and Mike Spence, who launched the effort by taking aim at Obama's campaign promise about earmarks, will remind old timers of the movie, "The Mouse That Roared," in which the world's smallest nation, on the brink of bankruptcy, attacks the US with a handful of warriors in chain mail and carrying long bows, to get attention and some kind of reparations.
Boehner, apparently miffed by the White House emphasis on Rush Limbaugh as the face of the Republicans, wants the spotlight back.
“This," he said after rallying his troops, "is nothing more than a distraction created by the administration to take people’s attention away from the fact that they’re going to raise taxes and grow the size of government.”
If the GOP is aiming for comedy, they will get more slapstick from House Republicans, but Limbaugh is better at delivering punch lines.
Update: In the Washington Post Friday, Boehner pushes the blame-Obama charge with an OpEd piece claiming "in a carefully calculated campaign, operatives and allies of the Obama administration are seeking to divert attention toward radio host Rush Limbaugh, and away from a debate about our alternative solutions on the economy and the irresponsible spending binge they are presiding over." Bring on the long bows.
Unleashing the likes of Eric Cantor and Mike Spence, who launched the effort by taking aim at Obama's campaign promise about earmarks, will remind old timers of the movie, "The Mouse That Roared," in which the world's smallest nation, on the brink of bankruptcy, attacks the US with a handful of warriors in chain mail and carrying long bows, to get attention and some kind of reparations.
Boehner, apparently miffed by the White House emphasis on Rush Limbaugh as the face of the Republicans, wants the spotlight back.
“This," he said after rallying his troops, "is nothing more than a distraction created by the administration to take people’s attention away from the fact that they’re going to raise taxes and grow the size of government.”
If the GOP is aiming for comedy, they will get more slapstick from House Republicans, but Limbaugh is better at delivering punch lines.
Update: In the Washington Post Friday, Boehner pushes the blame-Obama charge with an OpEd piece claiming "in a carefully calculated campaign, operatives and allies of the Obama administration are seeking to divert attention toward radio host Rush Limbaugh, and away from a debate about our alternative solutions on the economy and the irresponsible spending binge they are presiding over." Bring on the long bows.
Those Titillating Republicans
In all the hooha between Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh, the GOP is overlooking the fact that, by long tradition, John McCain is the titular head of their party.
That precept struck me in 1964 during a long conversation with former President Eisenhower. Discussing various issues, he clearly could not bring himself to mention Richard Nixon by name but kept calling him "the titular head of the party" as their 1960 candidate, even though Ike himself was the most recent Republican to occupy the White House.
This year, Republicans are no more enamored of McCain than Ike was of Nixon back then. Their 2008 candidate was non grata at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, where they also pummeled their 21st century Ike, George W. Bush.
The only prominent national politician who seems to recognize McCain's standing is his former opponent, Barack Obama, who had the Arizonan at his side today as he ordered his administration to conduct a review of how contracts are awarded throughout the government.
At a White House meeting last week, McCain had needled the President about the extravagant cost of new helicopters for the Commander-in-Chief and this week is pressuring him to do something about earmarks in the budget.
While most Republicans are howling in the wilderness with Limbaugh and Steele, John McCain is acting every inch as the titular head of the party, the loyal opposition on substantive issues.
That precept struck me in 1964 during a long conversation with former President Eisenhower. Discussing various issues, he clearly could not bring himself to mention Richard Nixon by name but kept calling him "the titular head of the party" as their 1960 candidate, even though Ike himself was the most recent Republican to occupy the White House.
This year, Republicans are no more enamored of McCain than Ike was of Nixon back then. Their 2008 candidate was non grata at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, where they also pummeled their 21st century Ike, George W. Bush.
The only prominent national politician who seems to recognize McCain's standing is his former opponent, Barack Obama, who had the Arizonan at his side today as he ordered his administration to conduct a review of how contracts are awarded throughout the government.
At a White House meeting last week, McCain had needled the President about the extravagant cost of new helicopters for the Commander-in-Chief and this week is pressuring him to do something about earmarks in the budget.
While most Republicans are howling in the wilderness with Limbaugh and Steele, John McCain is acting every inch as the titular head of the party, the loyal opposition on substantive issues.
Oink
As John McCain rails like King Lear, Barack Obama is doing Scarlett O'Hara ("I'll think about that tomorrow") over Congressional pork in the new budget.
Literally. The President is scheduled to speechify about wasteful spending today after his press secretary promised yesterday, "The rules of the road going forward for those many appropriations bills that will go through Congress and come to his desk will be done differently."
Getting between a member of Congress and meat for the voters back home is a dangerous move for a president, no matter how high his approval ratings.
"I don't think the White House has the ability to tell us what to do," House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer huffs, adding, "I, philosophically, believe that it would be an undermining of the Article I responsibilities given to the Congress of the United States if it were to abandon its right to add items that it believes are priorities for our country...That's our responsibility, and we ought to keep that responsibility."
So taxpayers will keep underwriting the promotion of astronomy in Hawaii, improving blueberry production in Georgia, cricket control in Utah and all those other vital expenditures in a crashing economy.
“When do we turn off the spigots?” McCain wailed on the Senate floor yesterday. “Haven’t we learned anything? Bills like this jeopardize our future.”
But, until some form of public financing for elections kicks in, projects like tattoo removal for former gang members will be a priority for insuring the future of his Congressional colleagues.
Literally. The President is scheduled to speechify about wasteful spending today after his press secretary promised yesterday, "The rules of the road going forward for those many appropriations bills that will go through Congress and come to his desk will be done differently."
Getting between a member of Congress and meat for the voters back home is a dangerous move for a president, no matter how high his approval ratings.
"I don't think the White House has the ability to tell us what to do," House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer huffs, adding, "I, philosophically, believe that it would be an undermining of the Article I responsibilities given to the Congress of the United States if it were to abandon its right to add items that it believes are priorities for our country...That's our responsibility, and we ought to keep that responsibility."
So taxpayers will keep underwriting the promotion of astronomy in Hawaii, improving blueberry production in Georgia, cricket control in Utah and all those other vital expenditures in a crashing economy.
“When do we turn off the spigots?” McCain wailed on the Senate floor yesterday. “Haven’t we learned anything? Bills like this jeopardize our future.”
But, until some form of public financing for elections kicks in, projects like tattoo removal for former gang members will be a priority for insuring the future of his Congressional colleagues.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Muscular Moderation
For over two years, David Brooks has been torturing himself--and us--over his infatuation with Barack Obama and the nagging conservative conscience that makes him feel guilty about it.
In today's column, he tries to resolve his anguish with "A Moderate Manifesto" that accuses his love object of leading "a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor--caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once."
His attack on the Obama budget tries to put an intellectual gloss on the reflexive attacks of know-nothing Republicans by finding in it "a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new."
Say again? The unconflicted part of Brooks' brain surely knows that the social engineering in this century has been the Bush-Cheney attempt to weaken government and revive 19th century laissez-faire capitalism with deregulation and tax cuts for the very rich that helped create an economic mess, which now demands an attempt to "solve all problems at once."
But it is not enough for him to maintain his conservative credentials by joining in the general unease over the uncharted territory into which Obama by necessity is leading a country on the brink of bankruptcy. Brooks has to find something positive to proclaim:
"We moderates are going to have to assert ourselves. We’re going to have to take a centrist tendency that has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid and turn it into an influential force."
Lots of luck to Brooks on inventing a new form of muscular moderation, but meanwhile the rest of us can join him in this reality check:
"The only thing more scary than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it."
In today's column, he tries to resolve his anguish with "A Moderate Manifesto" that accuses his love object of leading "a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor--caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once."
His attack on the Obama budget tries to put an intellectual gloss on the reflexive attacks of know-nothing Republicans by finding in it "a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new."
Say again? The unconflicted part of Brooks' brain surely knows that the social engineering in this century has been the Bush-Cheney attempt to weaken government and revive 19th century laissez-faire capitalism with deregulation and tax cuts for the very rich that helped create an economic mess, which now demands an attempt to "solve all problems at once."
But it is not enough for him to maintain his conservative credentials by joining in the general unease over the uncharted territory into which Obama by necessity is leading a country on the brink of bankruptcy. Brooks has to find something positive to proclaim:
"We moderates are going to have to assert ourselves. We’re going to have to take a centrist tendency that has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid and turn it into an influential force."
Lots of luck to Brooks on inventing a new form of muscular moderation, but meanwhile the rest of us can join him in this reality check:
"The only thing more scary than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it."
Unknown and Unknowable
News about a "diplomatic" exchange between the US and Russia over an anti-missile system in Europe and Iran's pursuit of WMDs underscores how little we really know about the threat of nuclear war.
The "we" includes not only those who have watched a half century of posturing on the subject from the outside but, in large measure, the generations of leaders who have been acting as if they knew what they were doing.
From today's leak, we learn that President Obama sent a "hand-delivered" letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev three weeks ago saying "the United States would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles."
This was quickly followed by a Drudge Report banner, "Russia Brushes Off Obama: No "Haggling,'" over a picture of Vladimir Putin with a macho wink.
Under all that non-news seems to be the simple fact that Obama has indicated he is willing to talk about trading off the deployment of a missile system of unknown reliability for a Russian effort of uncertain effectiveness to slow down an Iranian pursuit of weapons, the status of which is not at all clear.
At the height of the Cold War, when JFK was pursuing a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, he urged Americans not to leave the debate to "experts," since the survival of the human race was at stake.
Since then, there has been an Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (which George W. Bush scrapped), Ronald Reagan's fervent pursuit of a Star Wars system to shoot down nuclear weapons, which was then and still is mostly a pipe dream, and now, as far as we know, in the best-case scenario possibly capable of intercepting a missile launched by "a rogue state."
What we do know is that billions have been spent and we (including our political leaders, unless hundreds of Washington insiders have honored a pledge of secrecy) are not sure about any technology that would protect Americans from nuclear attack.
If Obama is going to change any of this, while he is talking to the Russians, it would help if he could give us all some idea of what is known, unknown and unknowable about the odds of human survival in a nuclear age.
The "we" includes not only those who have watched a half century of posturing on the subject from the outside but, in large measure, the generations of leaders who have been acting as if they knew what they were doing.
From today's leak, we learn that President Obama sent a "hand-delivered" letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev three weeks ago saying "the United States would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles."
This was quickly followed by a Drudge Report banner, "Russia Brushes Off Obama: No "Haggling,'" over a picture of Vladimir Putin with a macho wink.
Under all that non-news seems to be the simple fact that Obama has indicated he is willing to talk about trading off the deployment of a missile system of unknown reliability for a Russian effort of uncertain effectiveness to slow down an Iranian pursuit of weapons, the status of which is not at all clear.
At the height of the Cold War, when JFK was pursuing a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, he urged Americans not to leave the debate to "experts," since the survival of the human race was at stake.
Since then, there has been an Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (which George W. Bush scrapped), Ronald Reagan's fervent pursuit of a Star Wars system to shoot down nuclear weapons, which was then and still is mostly a pipe dream, and now, as far as we know, in the best-case scenario possibly capable of intercepting a missile launched by "a rogue state."
What we do know is that billions have been spent and we (including our political leaders, unless hundreds of Washington insiders have honored a pledge of secrecy) are not sure about any technology that would protect Americans from nuclear attack.
If Obama is going to change any of this, while he is talking to the Russians, it would help if he could give us all some idea of what is known, unknown and unknowable about the odds of human survival in a nuclear age.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Tell-All by Mr. Sell-All
Rod Blagojevich is outdoing Chicago hog merchants famous for marketing every part of the pig but the squeal by signing a book contract for his story.
The publisher, Phoenix Books, has announced a "six-figure deal" for a memoir by the ex-governor to be titled "The Governor," to go along with their current volumes--"a sexy, darkly funny, and surprisingly poignant memoir" by a hooker known as the $2000-an-hour woman and a tome, "Interview With a Cannibal," about a German gentleman who "killed a man and ate him with a glass of fine red wine."
“The governor chose to go with a large independent company because he wanted to tell his story without any restrictions over content that might’ve come with a major publishing house," a publicist explains. "He simply did not want to accept constraints or conditions on what he could say in this book.”
Blagojevich's new best-selling effort will have to overcome the hurdles of a pending criminal indictment as well as a bill just introduced in the Illinois Legislature covering any book or movie deals about a crime for which an elected official was convicted, specifying that profits would have to be turned over to the state.
But the Governor, who showed his literary inclinations by citing Kipling and the short story, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," before his impeachment, is unlikely to be deterred by such considerations as money from telling a story that "won't pull any punches."
The publisher, Phoenix Books, has announced a "six-figure deal" for a memoir by the ex-governor to be titled "The Governor," to go along with their current volumes--"a sexy, darkly funny, and surprisingly poignant memoir" by a hooker known as the $2000-an-hour woman and a tome, "Interview With a Cannibal," about a German gentleman who "killed a man and ate him with a glass of fine red wine."
“The governor chose to go with a large independent company because he wanted to tell his story without any restrictions over content that might’ve come with a major publishing house," a publicist explains. "He simply did not want to accept constraints or conditions on what he could say in this book.”
Blagojevich's new best-selling effort will have to overcome the hurdles of a pending criminal indictment as well as a bill just introduced in the Illinois Legislature covering any book or movie deals about a crime for which an elected official was convicted, specifying that profits would have to be turned over to the state.
But the Governor, who showed his literary inclinations by citing Kipling and the short story, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," before his impeachment, is unlikely to be deterred by such considerations as money from telling a story that "won't pull any punches."
Godfatherly Advice for Financial Crisis
The Bush family consigliere wants to make American banks an offer they can't refuse.
Writing in the Financial Times, James Baker advocates that, after subjecting them to stress tests, the government divide banks "into three groups: the healthy, the hopeless and the needy. Leave the healthy alone and quickly close the hopeless. The needy should be reorganized and recapitalized, preferably through private investment or debt-to-equity swaps but, if necessary, through public funds. It is time for triage."
Baker, who was Reagan's Secretary of the Treasury, warns against repeating Japan's mistake in the 1990s of providing guarantees and piecemeal government bail-outs that created “zombie banks,” neither alive nor dead, and led to feeble economic performance for a “lost decade.”
There has always been a Corleone streak in Baker's approach to problem-solving. Toward the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, as Bush I's Secretary of State, he warned Iraq that use of WMDs would bring nuclear retaliation and, in the Florida recount battle of 2000, he played legal hardball to get W into the White House.
If the consigliere is now advising them to get tough with the banks, the Obama Administration might do well to give Baker's approach more consideration than the second President Bush did with his advice from the Iraq Study Group before going ahead with The Surge.
Writing in the Financial Times, James Baker advocates that, after subjecting them to stress tests, the government divide banks "into three groups: the healthy, the hopeless and the needy. Leave the healthy alone and quickly close the hopeless. The needy should be reorganized and recapitalized, preferably through private investment or debt-to-equity swaps but, if necessary, through public funds. It is time for triage."
Baker, who was Reagan's Secretary of the Treasury, warns against repeating Japan's mistake in the 1990s of providing guarantees and piecemeal government bail-outs that created “zombie banks,” neither alive nor dead, and led to feeble economic performance for a “lost decade.”
There has always been a Corleone streak in Baker's approach to problem-solving. Toward the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, as Bush I's Secretary of State, he warned Iraq that use of WMDs would bring nuclear retaliation and, in the Florida recount battle of 2000, he played legal hardball to get W into the White House.
If the consigliere is now advising them to get tough with the banks, the Obama Administration might do well to give Baker's approach more consideration than the second President Bush did with his advice from the Iraq Study Group before going ahead with The Surge.
The Melting of American Wealth
How did we get so poor so fast? Under the radar of stimulus bills and bailouts, economists are toting up the damage and super-investors like Warren Buffet are still trying to figure out what happened.
Now we learn the economy is shrinking twice as fast as originally thought--at an annualized rate of 6.2 percent in the last three months of 2008 rather than the original estimate of 3.2, making it the worst quarter since 1982.
The downward spiral, reflected in a sinking stock market, has troubled banks taking taxpayer money but hesitating to lend and nervous companies laying off workers (an expected 700,000 job losses in February) leading to deeper consumer cuts in spending that will deprive businesses of revenue and more falling behind on house, car and credit card payments, multiplying losses throughout the financial system.
Looking back at how all this happened, even the Sage of Omaha is blaming himself for doing "some dumb things" but aiming most of his scorn at derivatives devised by “a nerdy-sounding priesthood, using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like...Beware of geeks bearing formulas.”
With typical Warren Buffet bluntness, he concludes, “Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease: It’s not just whom you sleep with, but also whom they are sleeping with.”
But Buffet's aw-shucks posture of earthy wisdom is too easy on himself and lesser investors who thrived in a world where manipulating money was the most prized skill of all, at the extremes allowing con artists like Bernard Madoff to bilk so-called savvy investors of billions.
Now, as the government tries to move money into the real world--agricultural subsidies from corporate farms to feeding poor children, students loans from private banks to direct Pell grants--much of the effort is still going into propping up "too big to fail" entities like AIG, the remnants of a financial system that detached itself from reality and shows few signs of finding its way back.
When the stimulus money finally starts flowing into the hands of people who work and make things or help sick people or teach children, that will be a sign that the downward spiral may finally be ending.
Now we learn the economy is shrinking twice as fast as originally thought--at an annualized rate of 6.2 percent in the last three months of 2008 rather than the original estimate of 3.2, making it the worst quarter since 1982.
The downward spiral, reflected in a sinking stock market, has troubled banks taking taxpayer money but hesitating to lend and nervous companies laying off workers (an expected 700,000 job losses in February) leading to deeper consumer cuts in spending that will deprive businesses of revenue and more falling behind on house, car and credit card payments, multiplying losses throughout the financial system.
Looking back at how all this happened, even the Sage of Omaha is blaming himself for doing "some dumb things" but aiming most of his scorn at derivatives devised by “a nerdy-sounding priesthood, using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like...Beware of geeks bearing formulas.”
With typical Warren Buffet bluntness, he concludes, “Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease: It’s not just whom you sleep with, but also whom they are sleeping with.”
But Buffet's aw-shucks posture of earthy wisdom is too easy on himself and lesser investors who thrived in a world where manipulating money was the most prized skill of all, at the extremes allowing con artists like Bernard Madoff to bilk so-called savvy investors of billions.
Now, as the government tries to move money into the real world--agricultural subsidies from corporate farms to feeding poor children, students loans from private banks to direct Pell grants--much of the effort is still going into propping up "too big to fail" entities like AIG, the remnants of a financial system that detached itself from reality and shows few signs of finding its way back.
When the stimulus money finally starts flowing into the hands of people who work and make things or help sick people or teach children, that will be a sign that the downward spiral may finally be ending.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
President Limbaugh
But enough of reality, let's spend some quality time in Republican Fantasyland, where Barack Obama has a 4 percent approval rating and Rush Limbaugh is making his State of the Union speech.
In a self-proclaimed "first address ever to the nation" (on Fox and C-Span) President Rushbo spent an hour and a half at the Conservative Political Action Conference, railing against "rampant government growth" and "indebtedness that has wealth that has not even been created yet being spent."
He told the faithful: "Ronald Reagan used to speak of a shining city on a hill. Barack Obama portrays America as a soup kitchen in some dark night in a corner of America that's very obscure."
In concluding, President Limbaugh urged his followers: "Don't treat people as children. Respect their intelligence. Realize that there's a way to persuade people. Sometimes the worst way is to get in their face and point a finger. Set up a set of circumstances where the conclusion is obvious. Let them think they came up with the idea themselves."
Looking forward, his aroused constituents voted their choice for President Limbaugh's successor--Mitt Romney by 30 percent, with Bobby Jindal at 14, and Sarah Palin tied with Ron Paul at 13.
Forty-four percent wished they had better choices but in their world there are no term limits. Why not Rush Limbaugh as President-for-Life?
In a self-proclaimed "first address ever to the nation" (on Fox and C-Span) President Rushbo spent an hour and a half at the Conservative Political Action Conference, railing against "rampant government growth" and "indebtedness that has wealth that has not even been created yet being spent."
He told the faithful: "Ronald Reagan used to speak of a shining city on a hill. Barack Obama portrays America as a soup kitchen in some dark night in a corner of America that's very obscure."
In concluding, President Limbaugh urged his followers: "Don't treat people as children. Respect their intelligence. Realize that there's a way to persuade people. Sometimes the worst way is to get in their face and point a finger. Set up a set of circumstances where the conclusion is obvious. Let them think they came up with the idea themselves."
Looking forward, his aroused constituents voted their choice for President Limbaugh's successor--Mitt Romney by 30 percent, with Bobby Jindal at 14, and Sarah Palin tied with Ron Paul at 13.
Forty-four percent wished they had better choices but in their world there are no term limits. Why not Rush Limbaugh as President-for-Life?
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Obama's Defining Time
This week Barack Obama became who he is going to be for the next four years. Amid a flurry of crucial decisions on the economy and foreign policy, his presidency is showing what may be its ultimate shape--out of necessity daring on domestic issues, more conventional and cautious on foreign policy.
Liberals who criticized his response to the financial crisis as too careful, like Paul Krugman, were finally impressed: "If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course...(F)ears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished."
Conservatives also noted a difference. "A mysterious thing happened in that speech Tuesday night," Peggy Noonan writes. "By the end of it Barack Obama had become president," pointing to a moment "about four-fifths of the way through the speech. He was looking from the prompters to the congressmen and senators, and suddenly he was engaging on what seemed a deeper level. His voice took on inflection. He wasn't detached, as if he was wondering how he was doing. He seemed equal to the moment and then, in some new way, in command of it."
There is also a new edge to his determination to confront "the special interests and lobbyists...gearing up for a fight," and the days of wooing Republicans rather than defeating them in Congress, at least on domestic issues, seem to be winding down.
But foreign policy is something else. The pace of withdrawal from Iraq is slow enough to satisfy John McCain, and the decision to send more troops into Afghanistan while announcing a "soup to nuts" rethinking of our mission there has a cart-before-the-horse Bushlike feel to it. Shouldn’t the strategy precede the deployment?
Special envoy Richard Holbrooke is barely back from a whirlwind visit to the region, and the nature of Pakistan's role in fighting the Taliban is still unclear. For Obama, who puts so much emphasis on diplomacy, the military commitment seems premature.
As an incoming President with more on his plate than any in half a century, Barack Obama is shaping up fast and well enough to maintain good poll ratings from a jittery public, but the road looks long and uphill for the months ahead.
Liberals who criticized his response to the financial crisis as too careful, like Paul Krugman, were finally impressed: "If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course...(F)ears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished."
Conservatives also noted a difference. "A mysterious thing happened in that speech Tuesday night," Peggy Noonan writes. "By the end of it Barack Obama had become president," pointing to a moment "about four-fifths of the way through the speech. He was looking from the prompters to the congressmen and senators, and suddenly he was engaging on what seemed a deeper level. His voice took on inflection. He wasn't detached, as if he was wondering how he was doing. He seemed equal to the moment and then, in some new way, in command of it."
There is also a new edge to his determination to confront "the special interests and lobbyists...gearing up for a fight," and the days of wooing Republicans rather than defeating them in Congress, at least on domestic issues, seem to be winding down.
But foreign policy is something else. The pace of withdrawal from Iraq is slow enough to satisfy John McCain, and the decision to send more troops into Afghanistan while announcing a "soup to nuts" rethinking of our mission there has a cart-before-the-horse Bushlike feel to it. Shouldn’t the strategy precede the deployment?
Special envoy Richard Holbrooke is barely back from a whirlwind visit to the region, and the nature of Pakistan's role in fighting the Taliban is still unclear. For Obama, who puts so much emphasis on diplomacy, the military commitment seems premature.
As an incoming President with more on his plate than any in half a century, Barack Obama is shaping up fast and well enough to maintain good poll ratings from a jittery public, but the road looks long and uphill for the months ahead.
Fighting Words From the White House
The President's Saturday morning address is far from sweetness and light today, featuring a challenge to health insurers, banks, oil companies and their lobbyists, among others, to put up or shut up.
" I realize," he says, "that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.
"I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries.
"I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
"So am I."
As should we all be.
" I realize," he says, "that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.
"I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries.
"I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
"So am I."
As should we all be.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Obama in Democratic Crossfire
Not everything is Change in the new Washington. When Attorney General Eric Holder had the temerity to mention gun control the other day, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid shot him down with a hair-trigger NRA response.
To Holder's suggestion of reinstating the 1994 ban on assault weapons, Pelosi harrumphed, "I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now" as Reid's spokesman hastened to reaffirm the Majority Leader's votes against the original ban and the effort to reinstate it on expiration in 2004.
During the campaign, Obama took heavy flak for his remark that during hard times some people "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" and it cost him the Pennsylvania primary.
In Congress, there are still long memories of the National Rifle Association's ability to mobilize opposition to any member who votes against the God-given American right to hunt squirrels with automatic weapons and, in the absence of any recent Virginia Tech massacre, our lawmakers will take on Wall Street, Detroit, health care lobbyists but not the self-appointed protectors of the Second Amendment.
To Holder's suggestion of reinstating the 1994 ban on assault weapons, Pelosi harrumphed, "I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now" as Reid's spokesman hastened to reaffirm the Majority Leader's votes against the original ban and the effort to reinstate it on expiration in 2004.
During the campaign, Obama took heavy flak for his remark that during hard times some people "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" and it cost him the Pennsylvania primary.
In Congress, there are still long memories of the National Rifle Association's ability to mobilize opposition to any member who votes against the God-given American right to hunt squirrels with automatic weapons and, in the absence of any recent Virginia Tech massacre, our lawmakers will take on Wall Street, Detroit, health care lobbyists but not the self-appointed protectors of the Second Amendment.
Middle East Flypaper
The decision to keep up to 50,000 American troops in Iraq after August of next year underscores the need for extreme caution in escalating our involvement in Afghanistan and any future commitment of forces in the region.
Those originally drawn to support Barack Obama's presidential campaign by his determination to get out of Iraq will have to be persuaded that continuing US presence of such magnitude is justified. Calling it a "transition force" will not mask the fact of an indefinite occupation.
Congressional Democrats are reacting with disappointment, but stronger emotion will have to pressure the Obama Administration to provide its vaunted transparency on this issue.
American voters rejected John McCain's vision of the Iraq war last November, but the Obama timetable for withdrawal is now earning his approval as "thoughtful and well prepared." How did we get from there to here?
Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule about Iraq ("You break it, you own it") is morphing into a flypaper rule: "You go there and you're stuck indefinitely."
The President we chose to end what he called "a dumb war" owes us an explanation for why he is authorizing what looks like a not-so-smart extension of it into a distant future.
Those originally drawn to support Barack Obama's presidential campaign by his determination to get out of Iraq will have to be persuaded that continuing US presence of such magnitude is justified. Calling it a "transition force" will not mask the fact of an indefinite occupation.
Congressional Democrats are reacting with disappointment, but stronger emotion will have to pressure the Obama Administration to provide its vaunted transparency on this issue.
American voters rejected John McCain's vision of the Iraq war last November, but the Obama timetable for withdrawal is now earning his approval as "thoughtful and well prepared." How did we get from there to here?
Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule about Iraq ("You break it, you own it") is morphing into a flypaper rule: "You go there and you're stuck indefinitely."
The President we chose to end what he called "a dumb war" owes us an explanation for why he is authorizing what looks like a not-so-smart extension of it into a distant future.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Jumping on Jindal
Among other Change that Barack Obama advocates is a return to civility in American politics, but this week the media and the politicians who feed it failed to get the memo in piling on Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal for his rebuttal to the President's Congressional speech.
Ineffectual and lame (my word) as it was, the outpouring of invective over Jindal's effort has prompted both the New York Times and Washington Post today to treat it as an event in itself.
"Governor Jindal, Rising G.O.P. Star, Plummets After Speech" is the Times headline as Howard Kurtz in the Post asks, "How Bad Was Jindal?"
Nobody, except the Republican National Committee, asked the governor to expose himself by following the most gifted orator of our time, but there is a troubling undertone to the personal nature of the barrage of criticism and ridicule.
Chris Matthews, caught by an open mic muttering "Oh God" as Jindal appeared, is now covering his aspirating with the claim that his reaction was to the scene in the Governor's mansion, not over a dark-skinned young man looking like a deer caught in the headlights.
The Jindal-bashing has been bipartisan. "Conservative commentators," the Times notes, "were among the harshest critics, calling Mr. Jindal’s delivery animatronic, his prose 'cheesy' and his message--that federal spending is not the answer to the nation’s economic problems--uninspired."
Be that as it may, the Palinization of Bobby Jindal is both premature and unhealthy for the body politic. Wrong as he may be, Jindal is no airhead. On "Meet the Press" recently, the former Rhodes scholar came off as a serious man and, in the climate that Barack Obama is trying to recreate in American political discourse, dumping on him does not advance the cause.
Ineffectual and lame (my word) as it was, the outpouring of invective over Jindal's effort has prompted both the New York Times and Washington Post today to treat it as an event in itself.
"Governor Jindal, Rising G.O.P. Star, Plummets After Speech" is the Times headline as Howard Kurtz in the Post asks, "How Bad Was Jindal?"
Nobody, except the Republican National Committee, asked the governor to expose himself by following the most gifted orator of our time, but there is a troubling undertone to the personal nature of the barrage of criticism and ridicule.
Chris Matthews, caught by an open mic muttering "Oh God" as Jindal appeared, is now covering his aspirating with the claim that his reaction was to the scene in the Governor's mansion, not over a dark-skinned young man looking like a deer caught in the headlights.
The Jindal-bashing has been bipartisan. "Conservative commentators," the Times notes, "were among the harshest critics, calling Mr. Jindal’s delivery animatronic, his prose 'cheesy' and his message--that federal spending is not the answer to the nation’s economic problems--uninspired."
Be that as it may, the Palinization of Bobby Jindal is both premature and unhealthy for the body politic. Wrong as he may be, Jindal is no airhead. On "Meet the Press" recently, the former Rhodes scholar came off as a serious man and, in the climate that Barack Obama is trying to recreate in American political discourse, dumping on him does not advance the cause.
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