The Lighthouse

2004-02-03T12:17:00.000-05:00

the bolsheviks take over at business week

a comment i posted over at calpundit:

interesting tid-bit from a business week article:

YOUNG HAVE-NOTS. "Not only are there going to be a lot more people retiring, but how many of them have made any preparations beyond relying on Social Security and Medicare?" wonders Deak. Some economists even speculate that as boomers start selling off their assets -- primarily homes and stocks -- to fund their retirements, they'll create gluts that could drive down housing prices and the stock market.

Most economists insist that such worries are premature. For now it's enough to fret about mounting federal debt, a huge Social Security funding gap, and worsening retirement-plan shortfalls at the same time the first boomers are getting ready to retire.

"The most fundamental conflict is between the haves and have-nots," says Zandi. "But younger workers tend to be in the have-not group." Thus, pressure is mounting on both aging boomers and the Gen X-ers that will follow them. And soon, they may be ready to rumble.

is it considered class warfare when conservative commentators and analysts begin to use terms like "haves" and "have-nots?"

UPDATE: added the article's hyperlink

2004-01-07T11:10:00.000-05:00

shorter nicholas kristof

The God Gulf

if i ignore my own assertion that george bush's irreligious policy decisions are completely opposed to his religious rhetoric, then i cannot help but conclude that he is a truly devout man whose "religious convictions are deeply felt."

2004-01-06T11:05:00.000-05:00

shorter david brooks

The Era of Distortion

liberal conspiracy theories that suggest that high ranking defense and state department officials with clearly articulated neo-conservative views are influential in setting bush administration foreign policy are as dangerous, radical, and off-base as conservative conspiracy theories that suggest that bill clinton was an international drug kingpin who murdered one of his closest friends.

2003-11-14T09:13:00.000-05:00

shorter andrew sullivan

Bi-Polar Nation

although the title of this op-ed suggests i will be making an unbiased analysis of the rise in american partisanship amongst both parties, i will actually use it to slander the entire liberal movement by using the extreme statements of fringe radicals and insinuating that said statements are representative of the Left in general.

2003-11-14T09:07:00.000-05:00

shorter william safire

Never Love a Stranger

i am completely insane.

2003-11-14T09:05:00.000-05:00

shorter charles krauthammer

Success On the High Seas

i have now passed so far into fantasy-land that i have begun looking to hollywood--which by the way is full of bleeding-heart, pinko, liberal scum who want to turn your kids into queers--for inspiration on iraq.

2003-11-14T00:59:00.000-05:00

mission accom...DOH

Op-Chart

A few main messages emerge. For starters, violence against coalition troops has increased as the occupation has lengthened and, in regard to the all-important objective of winning Iraqi hearts and minds, unemployment rates are still too high. However, most other trends are encouraging -- declining crime rates in Baghdad, increasing numbers of Iraqi police officers being trained, and telephone and water services at about 80 percent of pre-war levels. Once one accepts the premise that the United States and its partners are still at war in Iraq, and that the mission there is clearly the most challenging American military operation since the Vietnam War, the most accurate long-term outlook is one of guarded optimism. (emphasis added)

hey, wait a minute, someone forgot to tell this guy.

2003-11-13T23:59:00.000-05:00

to snark or not to snark

tbogg can be pretty smart when he wants to be.

Getting back to Totten, my beef with him is his constant "the party is leaving me behind" mewling. He's so wrapped up in the war-war-kill-the-Islamofascists-before-they-destroy-my-way-of-life swill that the administration is selling that he's not only drinking it, he's having Sparkletts deliver it in five-gallon bottles. If he supports the war, fine. But while supporting the administration's foolhardy attempt at reshaping the Middle East, he is giving tacit approval to their assault on the environment, workers rights, and on a woman’s right to choose. He is allowing them to hand out huge tax cuts to the rich while impoverishing our children. He agrees with the insertion of government-sponsored Christianity into our secular society. He thinks packing the courts with Federalist Society judges is a good thing. (emphasis mine)

but wait, tbogg, didn't you get the memo: 9/11 changed everything.

2003-11-07T11:58:00.000-05:00

shorter tnr

The TNR Primary

despite the fact we are a "liberal" publication, we nonetheless find every single one of the major democratic presidential candidates so personally unappealing that the weighted average of all their General Likeability scores for the past six-months is an utterly average 2.0. oh, and we really hate howard dean.

candidate: total points earned (total entries), six-month average

clark: 21.3 (11), 1.9
dean: 43.2 (28), 1.5
edwards: 18.1 (8), 2.3
gephardt 20.1 (7), 2.9
graham 15.1 (7), 2.2
kerry 56 (24), 2.3
lieberman 4 (2) 2.0

totals 177.8 (87), 2.0

2003-11-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

mmmmmm, testosterone...

i spend a lot of time attacking andrew sullivan and i'm not really sure why. to be honest, i actually like some of his longer magazine pieces (you know, the ones that an editor has to look at to ensure that the piece is intellectually consistent, well argued, and devoid of too many instances of glaring hypocrisy and paranoid hysteria). but when it comes to his blog, i have to make fun, because it's just too easy.

take, for example, this post in which he defends himself against eric alterman's assertion that andy is a "wannabe ayatollah"--at least in terms of his exuberance in denouncing as an unpatriotic america-hater anyone who disagrees with his (i.e. the bush admin's) positions.

If you've read this blog for a while, you'll know I don't pull a lot of punches in exposing what I think is dumb or malign or just wrong out there in the media and politics. If such criticism means I'm an ayatollah, then I guess Alterman is entitled to his opinion. But I'm a First Amendment absolutist, an opponent of all attempts to control people's thoughts and ideas, a long opponent of religious fundamentalism of all kinds, an anti-theocrat, a supporter of the war against Islamist terror, and a strong proponent of gay rights.

Now this post was written at 12:51:02 AM (at least that's what it says on his blog. but go over to sullywatch if you want an explanation of how these time stamps are often incorrect) and i can just imagine the situation. the boyfriend went to bed hours ago; the beagle's snoozing on the couch; andy's just rubbed a whole tube of andro on his newly naired chest, and he's starting to feel a little giddy. Which explains why, a scant three minutes later, he writes this post, in which he applauds as a "new media triumph...CBS's welcome decision to punt on its anti-Reagan biopic" (tbogg has some choice words about andy's love of the "new media meme"; emphasis in quote mine). now, i never went to no harvard, but i got me a good sniffer, and i know when i smell the putrid stench of hypocrisy. in fact, it smells like horseshit, and let me tell you, right now i think a herd of incontinent clydesdales just galloped by:

[The biopic] was so egregiously designed to attack a beloved president in his waning years, so riddled with obvious lies and distortions, so hateful in its intent, that I doubt any major network would have gotten away with it in any time.

"designed to attack?" perhaps. "riddled with obvious lies and distortions?" maybe. "hateful in its intent?" possibly. "beloved president?" debatable. at any rate, the point is, andy, even if this despcription of the movie is 100% correct, remember, you're a self-styled "FIRST AMENDMENT ABSOLUTIST" which means you should be outraged--OUTRAGED--to learn that a small interest group pressured a media outlet into spiking programming simply because said programming disagreed with said focus group's agenda.

in fact, what i think you meant to say is that you are a first amendment relativist and that you are a staunch defender of every american's right to free speech provided they don't say anything that runs contrary to the opinions expressed by (including but not limited to): the reagan and bush administrations; the rnc; fox news channel; charles krauthammer; the wall street journal editorial page; or any other of your sacrosanct heroes, the fond memories of which must be preserved for all eternity and must not be besmirched by any castro-loving, terrorist-adoring, islamofascist-supporting, america-hating, left-leaning media mogul like les moonves, who--as the head of a multi-billion dollar media corporation--has an obvious stake in perpetuating the current system but nevertheless harbors a deep-seated wish to turn the united states into stalinist russia, if he only had the chance.

2003-10-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

shorter david brooks

True Believers, Please Rise

i am shocked--SHOCKED--to learn that many of the republicans in congress who painted themselves as staunch defenders of fiscal responsibility and small government during their campaigns are in fact duplicitous opportunists and shameless hypocrites.

2003-10-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

shorter william safire

The Doughnut's Hole

the pharmaceutical companies could solve all our prescription drug problems if they simply began gouging canadians as well as americans.

2003-10-24T10:51:00.000-04:00

thigh strokers of the world unite

bob somerby's daily howler is required reading for anyone who wants to know the depths to which the SCLM "watchdogs" have sunk. he's got some interesting insight on why they were so reluctant to call bush on his obvious tax-cut lies during the 2000 election.

also, eric alterman has a new media column on the center for american progress website that refutes some of the my own arguments about the bush admin's massive $87 million package for iraq

2003-10-21T08:24:00.000-04:00

shorter david brooks (again)

Rescuing the Democrats

if the democrats could just find a candidate like george bush--who by stumbling over his words and appearing stupid is capable of deceiving the american people into believing he is an everyman despite the fact that he comes from one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the country--they might finally win an election.

2003-10-20T10:11:00.000-04:00

longer officerblog on shorter david brooks

all kidding aside, however, i unfortunately have to agree with brooks on this one--now that we are in iraq, we must do everything we possibly can to ensure that the country becomes a stable, democratic nation. to do anything less would ultimately create a more dangerous threat in the middle east than saddam ever posed.

of course, this was the bush administration's plan from the start. that's why he started deploying troops to the gulf well before either the u.s. congress or the united nations had approved any military action against iraq. but that's this administration's standard operating procedure: they create an untenable situation in which the only option available is--surprise, surprise--the one for which they were arguing from the beginning.

take the deficit, for example. the federal government is now well on its way to insolvency due to the ridiculous tax cuts that the administration rammed through congress (with nary a peep from the cowed "party of opposition"). but when the economic shit hits the fan--which it inevitably will--the solution will not be to raise taxes. instead, the solution will be to implement drastic cuts in government spending. faced with an economic crisis of staggering proportions, the congress, regardless of party affiliation, will have no choice but to eviscerate all those social programs that the "compassionate" conservatives--like tom delay and grover norquist--so despise.

by manufacturing these crises, the administration creates situations in which the only option is to accept their radical policies. it's a brilliant approach, really, because the immediacy of the crisis precludes any debate and thus makes it difficult to counter the radical solutions put forth by the administration. indeed, the only way to resist such a strategy is to attack the actions that are meant to create the crisis BEFORE THE ADMINISTRATION ENACTS THEM. of course, this requires that the opposition party engage in a spirited debate about the dire consequences of such actions before such actions occur, rather than bending over, grabbing their ankles, and meekly acceding to the admin's radical agenda. because if you don't stand and fight from the beginning it's already too late.

2003-10-20T09:07:00.000-04:00

shorter david brooks

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

that the iraq war was a war of choice sold to the american people under false pretences is irrelevant to the fact that it is unconscionable for the democrats to refuse to give president bush the funds he needs to rebuild the country that he destroyed.

UPDATE: alternative shorter david brooks

the bush administration's plan to ensnare the country in a dubious nation-building exercise in iraq has worked perfectly--if it weren't for those uppity pelosi democrats.

2003-10-15T09:59:00.000-04:00

growing insurgency

a few months ago, billmon linked to this policy brief by ahmed s. hashim, a professor of strategic studies at the u.s. naval war college. it's a long essay, but dr. hashim's basic point is that the united states military must act quickly and decisively in order to prevent the largely sunni insurgency in iraq from becoming a more generalized insurgency that draws in the country's majority shi'ite population. it's a very insightful study and well worth a full read if you have time.

of course, it's beginning to look like dr. hashim was shouting into the wind:

Shiite Factions Clash Near Shrine in Iraq

KARBALA, Iraq, Oct. 14 -- Rival Shiite Muslim groups exchanged gunfire overnight in this Shiite holy city, the first serious armed clash between Shiite factions since the Iraq war, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq warned Tuesday that American forces may soon have to move against one of the factions.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez said armed followers of Moqtada Sadr, a young Shiite cleric who has loudly opposed the presence of foreign troops in Iraq, have been regarded for months as an evolving threat to U.S.-led forces. Last week, in what American commanders described as an ambush, Sadr's Imam Mehdi army battled a U.S. patrol in Baghdad, killing two American soldiers.

now, this does not necessarily mean that the shi'i and the sunni are working together against the u.s. military, but it does represent the beginnings of what could potentially be quite a disturbing trend. as dr. hashim says:

Having been disempowered for much of their history, Shi'is have learned to calculate prudently the correlation of forces between them and the powers that be, to develop their own parallel social and political networks, and to be more patient in formulating a response to perceived oppression. To put it simplistically, Sunnis are more likely to rebel; Shi'is are more careful before they engage in rebellion.

thus, these violent outbursts from a shi'ite faction--whom, dr. hashim suggests, have usually taken a "wait and see" approach towards newly imposed authority--may indicate that they have finally waited and seen enough.

it is also possible, however, that moqtada sadr, the leader of one of the Shi'ite factions is merely trying to take advantage of the chaotic political situation to make a power grab:

Sadr, 30, is the son of the late Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, a cleric whose memory is revered across Iraq's Shiite heartland. But many Iraqis say the younger Sadr has neither the years nor the religious authority to assume the leading role he has presumed to take against the U.S.-led occupation. Last week, he announced that he would form a government to challenge Iraq's Governing Council, whose members were appointed by the U.S.-led occupation authority.

[snip]

But in Najaf and Karbala, authority over Iraq's Shiite majority remains in the hands of far more senior clerics, who have remained largely silent on the U.S. occupation while quietly lobbying to ensure Shiites' rights and advantages as Iraq prepares to create a new constitution. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani evidently retains the largest following, along with a handful of other senior clerics.

so perhaps the most disturbing trend is not necessarily the fact that shi'i are now attacking american troops, rather it is the fact that the disgracefully inept post-war planning by the bush administration has created a situation in which local religious leaders have more power than the occupying power. again, dr. hashim:

The American inability to restore law and order and basic services has redounded to the advantage of the Shi'i clerics from the Hawza, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and Al-Sadriyyun, who have established effective, informal networks of local governance and resource allocation in cities where they have established their respective presence. These clerical networks provide the distribution of food and medical supplies, guard important buildings such as clinics and hospitals, dispense justice, and collect looted goods that have been returned.

there is a silver lining in the cloud, however, as it seems that sadr's popularity is declining precipitously.

The officer said he believes Sadr is actually becoming desperate as his calls for demonstrations draw smaller and smaller crowds. The Thursday attack on U.S. forces, the officer said, "was a plea for propaganda. . . . He's trying to draw attention to himself."

thus, sadr's actions are more likely a last-ditch attempt to draw the american occupational forces into armed confrontation in order to paint them as aggressors, thereby strengthening his waning credibility. if so, the situation may not be quite as dangerous as it seems.

but either way, the u.s. military is going to have to act very carefully so as to avoid creating more people like this guy:

"America is the leader of the strife," said another [Iraqi protestor], visibly angry. "There is no stability. There is no security. They are energizing the terrorist people."

update: the inimitable billmon has beaten me to the punch.

2003-10-15T09:11:00.000-04:00

iraq: check; syria: check; iran: check; palestine: check
looks like we've now succeeded in getting just about everyone in the middle east pissed off with us:

At Least 3 Dead as Blast Hits U.S. Convoy in Gaza

it's unclear from the story whether this attack was deliberately aimed at americans or not, but if it was, this is a truly scary development.

2003-10-15T09:08:00.000-04:00

it is imminently clear that the threat is imminently close to becoming imminent

the more i think about this whole "imminent" debate, the more i realize how specious the administration apologists' arguments are. let's face it: they dug their own grave on this one during the pre-war buildup by muddying the waters with a half-dozen shifting rationales for the war. if people are now unjustly accusing the administration of characterizing the threat as "imminent," it's only a result of the administration's inability to clarify its rationale for the war beforehand.

furthermore, as i said in my last post, this whole question of "imminency" (is that even a word) is a red herring. what exactly constitutes an imminent threat? what's the difference between a "grave and growing" danger and an imminent threat? who knows and who cares--under the doctrine of pre-emption, either one constitutes justification for war.

so my advice to conservatives is to stop trying to clear up the waters that you yourself were so successful at muddying before the war. whether the war was supported under the rhetoric of "imminency" or "imminent imminency" or whatever, the admin still sold the american people a bill of goods.

2003-10-13T10:46:00.000-04:00

fearmongering

it's funny to see the moralizers on the right carefully parsing bush's pre-war words in a clintonian effort to prove that the administration never explicitly hyped the threat from saddam hussein as "imminent." dandy andy, for example, uses this quote from bush's state of the union speech to prove his point:

"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."

now, it would behoove us to look closely at this statement to see exactly what bush was trying to say. at first glance, it appears that sullivan is correct: bush is being careful to say the threat is not imminent. but a closer analysis suggests a rather different interpretation: that bush is seeking to establish that the old definition of what constituted an imminent threat is no longer applicable in a post-9/11 world. that, in point of fact, the danger posed by terrorism is so acute and so ubiquitous, that every threat should be treated as imminent.

he does this mainly by exploiting his audiences' uncertainties and apprehensions about terrorism. the rhetorical question that follows the opening sentence, for example, is a clear appeal to the american people's post-9/11 fears:

"Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?

his point in asking this question is to assert that terrorists, because they work clandestinely and underhandedly, never pose an "imminent threat" in the traditional sense that, say, the ussr did during the cold war. rather, in a post-9/11 world, the threat of terrorism is very real, extraordinarily dangerous and--most importantly--omnipresent. in essence, he suggests that the threat, whether visible or not, is always imminent.

he then builds on this point with his next sentence:

"If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.

here, he suggests that we can never know for certain when a threat is or is not "imminent," and thus we must assume that all of them are. that is, once we perceive a threat is "imminent" in the traditional sense, it is already too late.

he then brings the argument back to his central focus--i.e. saddam hussein--saying:

"Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."

once again, he exploits the fears of his audience. saddam hussein is an untrustworthy tyrant of questionable sanity and wholly without restraint. given the opportunity, he would attack the united states with the deadliest weapons in his arsenal, and therefore, we cannot afford to let him remain in a position to do so.

taken as a whole, the entire statement was not meant, as sullivan and other administration apologists would have you believe, to undermine the immediacy of the threat of saddam hussein. it's not like bush was saying, "sure, the guy's not an imminent threat but we have to take him out anyway." rather, what bush is arguing is that while hussein did not pose an "imminent" threat in the traditional sense, in a post-9/11 world we must assume a threat exists, whether it is explicitly stated or not.

indeed, this is the very same argument that sullivan himself made in the run-up to the war (and is still making in a modified and far more stubtle form after it). he went out of his way to suggest that the burden of proof was on the terrorists, that, in a post-9/11 world, the threat posed by terrorism was a given, was an indelible fact of life, and thus required strong and decisive action on the part of our government. in essence, he was arguing that these semantic debates--just how much danger did saddam actually pose? would a secular baathist and a religious extremist ever really unite against the united states? could the threat saddam hussein represented really be considered "imminent?"--were superfluous because we had to assume the threat was real.

the point is, whether or not the administration ever stated explicitly that the threat posed by saddam hussein was "imminent," by preying on americans' post-9/11 fears they created the perception that it was. and of course, they had to create such a perception, because, as sullivan himself well knows, if they hadn't, the american people would have never supported the war.

2003-08-14T08:38:00.000-04:00

warren buffet: billionaire commie and scourge of the unborn

the freepers are up in arms after conan the candidate's announcement that warren buffet will be his "finincial and economic advisor." (does the finincial advisor part mean buffet will be providing arnold with stock tips and recommendations on term life insurance?)

anyway, the freepers prove that their idiocy knows no bounds. here's a sample of some comments (thanks to atrios for the link):

Sheesh. This gets worse daily. Buffett is a frickin' socialist.
courtesy of EternalVigilance

A lover of the communist graduated income tax. And other despicable things. A creep of the first degree in my mind.
courtesy of Protagoras

and then, this classic:

Warren Buffett is the greatest single enemy of the unborn in the world today. He embodies the culture of death. With him on board nothing a Schwarzenegger administration will ever do will be socially conservative.
courtesy of wideawake

you'd think making--oh, let's see--BILLIONS OF DOLLARS through capital allocation would be enough to qualify one as a good ole capitalist. but apparently the freepers have a different set of standards. kind of like their different set of standards for determining when a republican "lies" (i.e. never) and when a democrat lies (i.e. whenever they speak).

2003-08-13T22:31:00.000-04:00

priceless

holy shit this guy is priceless.

“I know what we have done is right and we had to do it but there must have been a better way to do it.”

When a soldier starts his conversation like this you can’t help but really really like him. He was standing in the heat, yesterday it was about 52C, guarding the entrance to building where our “governing council” meets. And he was on a roll, the next victims of his attack were the members of the governing council themselves.
“these guys, they work only four days and take the rest of the week off, they should be working 16 hour days to get their constitution going”. Give the man a cigar.
“they have huge lunches, throw tons of food out and they drive stolen cars”, by now we were laughing so loud in the car people were looking at us like we were crazy. He said that if his name is ever mentioned he will be in trouble and mentioned something about an “article 15”. We had 20 minutes with him while we were being OK-ed for meeting a Council member, he was so cool I wish the Americans didn’t freak out every time an Iraqi walks towards them I wanted to shake his hands and say thank you. He made sure I got my pieces of paper back and let us in. But he left us with one more pearl of wisdom:

“They tell you it’s the Oil but I know it is not the Oil, I just can’t figure out what the hell it is we are here for.”

He should be on TV.

read the blog.

2003-08-13T22:24:00.000-04:00

ha ha ha, screw you, infidel

via calpundit i get a hook-up to this iraqi blogger. i'm not sure what to make of this, but it's really pretty goddamn funny--in that jackbooted-stormtrooper-coming-to-smash-my-face-in kind of way:

G. my friend got beaten up by US Army last night, he was handcuffed and had a bag put on his head. he was kicked several times and was made to lie on his face for a while. All he wanted to do was to take pictures and report on an attack, he works for the New York Times as a translator and fixer. He got more kicks for speaking english.
his sin: he looks Iraqi and has a beard.
story will be told, I need to get him drunk enough to get the whole thing out of him he doesn't want to talk.

oh, and he has this to say about good ole' tom friedman:

...He is thinner than that picture they have on the site and he is very nice.

this guy is absolutely priceless! this blog is a must read. here's a sample--you can see the irony dripping off of every phrase:

Sanchez the genius has it finally figured out:

"Their message, he said, has been that 'when you take a father in front of his family and put a bag over his head and put him on the ground, you have had a significant adverse effect on his dignity and respect in the eyes of his family.' "

General Sanchez said the message from the Iraqis was that in doing this, you create more enemies than you capture.

Well, DUH dude. Would you like it if I try that on your family and see how you would feel about it?

any blogger who can start a phrase with, "Well, DUH dude..." is alright by me.

2003-08-13T08:46:00.000-04:00

now that we've won the war...

there's been something of a backlash amongst liberals against tom friedman lately due to his support of the war in iraq. he's also been a tad repetitious in the last few months with his endless refrain of: "we've won the war, now we have to win the peace." that being said, he's a lot sharper in today's editorial, although the message is still largely the same. perhaps it's the quality of the writing--his last line sums it up brilliantly:

It would be a tragic irony if the greatest technological power in the history of the world came to the cradle of civilization with its revolutionary ideas and found itself defeated because it couldn't keep the electricity on.

he also relates a story about getting robbed in broad daylight just outside of baghdad and has this to say:

...We drove for two more hours before we ran into the soldiers of a U.S. patrol and told them what had happened.

"Sorry," the sergeant said, "we just don't have enough people."

It's a travesty that four months after the fall of Saddam, the main road in and out of the country is still not safe. It underscores how much the Pentagon's ideological reach exceeds its military grasp. All of America's friends in Baghdad say the same thing: I love your ideas, but my daily life — salary, electricity, security — is worse since you came, not better.

i don't understand. is this a joke? it's gotten to the point where our soldiers just shrug and say "sorry," as if the pentagon's complete failure to adequately plan for the occupation of "a nation the size of california" is merely an acceptable hazard of the job? memo to donnie rumsfeld: GET MORE MEN TO IRAQ NOW!!!

i don't know what friedman thinks, but i'd say that winning the war won't mean anything unless we now win the peace.

UPDATE: looks like calpundit is thinking along the same lines.

2003-08-12T13:46:00.000-04:00

you say you're knee is hurting you? how about some open heart surgery?

does anyone doubt that the healthcare system in this country is broken? via south knox bubba, we learn that you might as well not even bother trying to go outside the system when obtaining health insurance.

So the moral of the story is, you can't beat the system. Don't even think about trying. Just go along to get along. But too bad if you are unemployed, underemployed, or a sole proprietor with no employees. In that case, as the State of Tennessee said "there are no options".

and then, i find this story about how tenet healthcare bilked medicare out of $54 million by performing unnecessary heart surgery on everyone and their brother in redding, california. i think this quote pretty much sums it up:

"I sometimes just shake my head at the American system, where the financial intent is almost cleverly designed to create mischief," said Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University health care economist. "For administrators, it creates a conflict of interest when they're trying to deliver the numbers at the same time that doctors are saying the hospital is doing too much cardiac surgery."

so let me get this straight, private companies are getting fat off of government largesse? how can this be? oh no, i'm having an o'reilly moment: TENET'S SPENDING MY TAX DOLLARS ON UNNECESSARY SURGERIES SO THEY CAN IMPROVE THEIR BOTTOM LINE? THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.

whew, sorry about that. now back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

2003-08-05T08:53:00.000-04:00

how to screw a country in one term

paul krugman--through his alternate site--links to this testimony to the congressional budget committe given by william g. gale, senior fellow at the NONPARTISAN brookings institute. he doesn't mince any words:

...The conventional wisdom is accurate: The United States faces substantial projected fiscal deficits in the coming decades.

and what, pray tell, are the causes of for these "substantial projected fiscal deficits?" well, mr. gale gives a number of reasons, one of which--surprise, surprise--is the bush administration's irresponsible tax cuts:

These facts imply that the aggressive tax-cutting agenda that the Administration has pursued the last few years deserves equal billing with Social Security and Medicare as "the real fiscal danger." They also imply that the decisions you [Congress] make about extending the tax cuts, about removing the sunsets, have long-term fiscal implications that are greater than those that arise from fixing the entire social security problem.

he also puts the smack down on one of the meme's that's been making the rounds lately: i.e. that the release in the next few years of baby-boomers' tax-deferred retirement accounts will more than offset any potential budgetary shortfalls.

Third, there is no hidden pot of gold waiting for us in future revenue from tax-deferred retirement accounts. Recent press reports have grossly overstated the impact of research undertaken by Stanford University Professor Michael Boskin. The press reports and some aspects of Boskin's paper suggest that future revenues from tax-deferred saving plans are (i) omitted in fiscal gap calculations, (ii) large enough to eliminate most or all of the fiscal gap, and (iii) likely to raise $12 trillion in revenues through 2040.

These suggestions are flawed. In fact, the underlying fiscal gap calculations already contain almost all of the projected revenues. As a result, adjusting the conventional estimates for the difference between Boskin's projections and the projections that are built in to the fiscal gap estimates has trivial effects on the estimated long-term fiscal gap and on estimated future budget deficits. Nor are we ever likely to see $12 trillion in net revenues from tax-deferred retirement accounts. After adjusting Boskin's estimates for reasonable parameter values, an error in the computer code, and proper treatment of interest payments, the revenue effect will be either close to zero or possibly negative.

in addition, he argues that the real danger of deficits is not their impact on interest rates (he calls that debate a "side show") but rather is their detrimental effect on national savings and income:

The real problem created by budget deficits is that they reduce national saving, which in turn reduces the assets owned by Americans and hence reduces future national income. These effects can be sizable, especially in the long-term. Conventional estimates, based on models developed by the CEA Chair Gregory Mankiw, indicate that the decline in the fiscal outlook since January 2001 has reduced GDP by at least 1 percent in 2012 and national income per household by $2,300 in 2012. These effects will persist over time. To put it differently, controlling the deficit is a pro-growth policy. [emphasis mine]

and finally, the coup de grace for all those youngish republicans of my generation who so strongly supported tax cuts because they so naively thought they would benefit:

Fifth, the fiscal problems the country faces are unlike any other the country has faced in their origin and nature. We will likely have to find a new way of dealing with them. The notion that federal spending can be held to its post-WW II norm of about 18 or 19 percent of GDP seems virtually impossible to maintain without severely cutting the major entitlement programs or eliminating the rest of government. In future years, spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone is anticipated to exceed 19 percent of GDP. The unpleasant implication is that a long-term resolution of these issues that does not destroy the role of the federal government in American society will have to include significant increases in tax revenues as a share of the economy. [emphasis mine]

so let's recap: the incipient retirement of the baby boom generation when combined with the bush administration's tax cut will result in huge budgetary shortfalls in the coming decades. these deficits will occur despite the expected future release of revenue from boomers' tax-deferred retirement accounts. the eventual impact of deficits will be a marked decrease in GDP and national income. and finally, my generation will be the ones footing the bill for the boomer generation's irresponsibility.

yup, i think that pretty much sums it up...

2003-06-26T19:00:00.000-04:00

frankly, my dear...

you're an idiot. you know, i like to think of myself as open-minded. i try and read conservative blogs as well as liberal ones--engage in the democratic process and all that. expose myself to the other side's opinion. listen to them. maybe even learn something from them. but when i have to read shit like this, it just makes me want to lay a steaming pile in the corner of sullivan's nice little beachfront bungalow. of course, i can't do that--not because i know it's wrong, mind you. it's just that i don't have his address--so i did the next best thing. i wrote him this letter:

Andrew,

Your attack on Howard Dean is despicable. I don't understand how you can criticize him for making "deceptive smears" while engaging in just such smears yourself. Not only do you imply he's a "bad doctor" because he can't resist the "obvious temptation" to let his authority and control "go to his head," but you also explicitly insult him by calling him an "intemperate, arrogant bully." At least the latter smear isn't "deceptive."

As for Dean's actual comment, I don't see it as a smear at all, let alone a "deceptive" one. A compelling case can be made that this administration, in its policies of promoting business concerns over those of workers; of giving large tax cuts to the wealthy at the expense of the lower and middle class; of favoring small private interests over those of the public at large bears more than a small resemblance to the Republican administrations of the late-19th and early-20th century. Perhaps Karl Rove hasn't waxed nostalgic to the press about the good ole' days of robber barons and union busting, but he himself has unquestionably drawn the parallel that Dean is merely exploiting. Without a doubt the rhetoric is polemical--it's meant to be so--but within the context of a contentious election, it hardly rises to the level of a "deceptive smear."

In a mere 179 words, you manage to denigrate Dean's ability as a doctor and his character while hypocritically accusing him of engaging in a "deceptive smear." Given your obvious willingness to engage in mean-spirited attacks, I find it hard to believe that you can muster such righteous indignation towards a rather innocuous statement of Howard Dean's

not quite as satisfying as what i'd really like to do, but it'll have to do for now.

2003-06-25T16:59:00.000-04:00

yeah, that's it, like i was saying...

looks like josh marshall has taken notice of sullivan's little bit of logical gymnastics as well. he takes a somewhat different approach then i do, however:

If the 'better safe than sorry' doctrine is what we're now operating under, there shouldn't be any need for exaggeration. The president might just have said, "They had chemical and biological weapons in the past. It's a brutal regime that's used these weapons in the past. They probably have them now. They might even be trying to develop nuclear weapons or strike up ties with al Qaida. We don't have much evidence on these latter points. But the possibility is just too dire to chance. Better safe than sorry." [author's emphasis]

if i take him correctly, marshall is suggesting that the "better safe than sorry" argument isn't necessarily flawed, but that the administration's choice to bury it in favor of the "imminent threat" argument led them to deceive the american people. in essence, they trumped up the charges--despite much evidence to the contrary--that saddam posed a clear and present danger to our national security, and thus misled us into war.

while i agree with him generally, i still think the larger issue is the logical bankruptcy (not to mention the inherent danger) of the "burden of proof is on the accused" argument. to use marshall's analogy, it's like a dirty cop planting evidence to frame a suspect he knows is guilty, and then that same cop becoming the final arbiter of the evidence that is admissible in court. in this scenario, it's entirely possible to imagine the accused finding some evidence to exonerate himself, only to have it be disallowed by the dirty cop who has a stake in the outcome of the proceeding.

2003-06-25T16:16:00.000-04:00

He's keepin' it real...

real dumb, that is. Here's how Sullivan is trying to explain away (to himself more than anyone else, I'd guess) any nagging doubts about those missing WMDs. It's the "better safe than sorry" argument:

But there's a premise here that strikes me as off-base. The premise is that after 9/11, only rock-solid evidence of illicit weapons prgrams [sic] and proven ties to terrorists could justify a pre-emptive war to depose Saddam. But the point of 9/11 was surely the opposite: that the burden of proof now lay on people denying such a threat, not those fearing it. Would I rather we had an administration that remained Solomon-like in the face of inevitably limited and muddled intelligence and sought the kind of rock-solid consensus on everything that would satisfy Jacques Chirac or the BBC (or John Kerry)? Or would I rather we had a president who realized that post-9/11 it was prudent to be highly concerned about such weapons and connections and better, by and large, to be safe than sorry?

Jesus Christ is this guy serious? Now, you can make a case that the "burden of proof is on Saddam" argument might have held some water, however precariously, during the build-up to the war--after all, he had agreed to voluntarily disarm and to show documentation that he was doing so. But that argument only works within the VERY narrow confines of the debate about Iraq. Is Sullivan really suggesting that every regime the administration arbitrarily decides is developing chemical or biological or nuclear weapons needs to PROVE that they aren't? How do you prove the non-existence of something?

Okay, we'll grant that dangerous regimes can offer documentary evidence that they've destroyed their WMDs, so to that extent they can "prove" they have disarmed. But leaving this strain of argumentation aside, the fundamental flaw in Sullivan's logic is that even HE would have to grant that we now know that the administration only deems as credible the intelligence that fits it's own agenda. When confronted with evidence and analysis that conflicted with their pre-conceived view of Iraq's weapons programs, they either chose to ignore it or to explicitly contradict it (go back and read that TNR article again, Andy. They didn't just exaggerate. They lied). The administration's predisposition to believe, listen to, or see as credible only the evidence that supports their case (and to discredit all that does not), effectively renders moot any attmepts by the accused to counter the administration's accusations. Indeed, had Saddam offered proof of the destruction of his weapons program, it seems quite likely in retrospect that the administration would have come up with some way to discount his evidence--or, more likely, they would have simply ignored it.

It's not about making Chirac or the BBC happy, as Sullivan so smugly points out. If he's willing to cede so much power to one individual (or group of individuals)--to effectively make that individual the judge, jury, AND prosecutor--then he better be damn sure that this individual has the integrity to pass judgement based on ALL of the available evidence...and not just on what he wants to hear. So far, this administration has failed that test.

2003-06-25T15:20:00.000-04:00

Inspirational Words from Billy Moyers

If you have some time, take a look at this speech from Bill Moyers to the Take Back America Conference--it's well worth the read. If you don't have time, here's my favorite part:

What will it take to get back in the fight? Understanding the real interests and deep opinions of the American people is the first thing. And what are those? That a Social Security card is not a private portfolio statement but a membership ticket in a society where we all contribute to a common treasury so that none need face the indignities of poverty in old age without that help. That tax evasion is not a form of conserving investment capital but a brazen abandonment of responsibility to the country. That income inequality is not a sign of freedom-of-opportunity at work, because if it persists and grows, then unless you believe that some people are naturally born to ride and some to wear saddles, it's a sign that opportunity is less than equal. That self-interest is a great motivator for production and progress, but is amoral unless contained within the framework of community. That the rich have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more homes, vacations, gadgets and gizmos, but they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else. That public services, when privatized, serve only those who can afford them and weaken the sense that we all rise and fall together as "one nation, indivisible." That concentration in the production of goods may sometimes be useful and efficient, but monopoly over the dissemination of ideas is evil. That prosperity requires good wages and benefits for workers. And that our nation can no more survive as half democracy and half oligarchy than it could survive "half slave and half free" – and that keeping it from becoming all oligarchy is steady work – our work.

2003-06-13T00:10:00.000-04:00

on second thought

he's a lying sack of shit

2003-06-13T00:09:00.000-04:00

the costanza rules of governance

"it's not a lie if you really believe it..."
george costanza

kristof is willing to give president i can bench more than saddam the benefit of the doubt when it comes to lying about wmds. myself, i'm torn--i don't want to believe the president has outrighted lied in order to go to war, regardless of his political affiliation. nonetheless, this president's penchant for dishonesty has become, at the least, a bit disconcerting.

2003-06-12T23:56:00.000-04:00

warning: do not operate while under the influence

these pictures are too good to pass up. i'm trying hard not to fall into the "bush is a semi-retarded imbecile" trap, but when i see stuff like this...
(link courtesy of atrios)

2003-06-12T23:43:00.000-04:00

maybe if they were hiding wmds in their rectums...

overblown rhetoric that turns out to not be entirely true...

misuse of data to support hysterical rantings...

willful misinterpretation of the facts in order to arrive at a predetermined conclusion...

is dandy andy talking about the bush administration's mendacious presentation of intelligence to bolster their case for war against iraq? no, he's talking about an aids article that was written three years ago. is it me, or does this guy hold a grudge about everything?

2003-06-12T23:24:00.000-04:00

if they had wmd's, then maybe, just maybe, we'd intervene

it's been awhile, but i'm back with a vengeance...

apparently, al qaida's been a little more active in liberia than they've been in iraq. but that doesn't seem to bother president tell me what i want to hear and then shut the hell up:

Charles Taylor [the illegitimate leader of liberia]--surprise!--has harbored members of Al Qaeda, who use his diamond-smuggling operation to launder money.

the cynical, hypocritical spew that emanates from this administration regarding human rights is beyond disgusting. apparently american lives are worth risking only when a country is "swimming in a sea of oil" (paraphrase courtesy of good ole wolfie wolfowitz).

but more than anything else, stories like this just make me sad--sad for liberians for having to live in such an effed up place; sad for americans for not giving two shits about the suffering of others; and sad for all of humanity for being able to inflict such brutality on our own fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters.

2003-06-08T17:38:00.000-04:00

well, it's either a germ warfare trailer or a really loaded rv

experts are now disputing how "smoking" the gun of germ warfare trailers really is. of course, given the bush administration's history (remember those centrifuge tubes?), we all knew this would happen eventually. so it could go either way, which most things in life can. but, the pertinent question is: did these trailers present an imminent threat to american lives? i wouldn't expect an answer from the administration anytime soon.

2003-06-06T12:22:00.000-04:00

i want my two dollars!

well, well, well, it looks like senate republicans have hearts after all (excepting of course the honorable mr. nickles and mr. inhofe). now, the bill just needs to get through the house, which might be a bit trickier:

The bill, which would allow 6.5 million minimum-wage families to begin receiving checks of $400 per child, now goes to the House, where its prospects are uncertain. Two senior House Republican officials said today that House leaders would vote for the increased child credit only as part of a much broader tax bill that could cost the Treasury about $100 billion. That could cost the bill Senate support. The Senate bill is projected to pay for itself with increased customs fees and would not come at a cost to the Treasury.

but, what's this? it looks like the senate, in order to sweeten the deal, is now extending the child credit to families making up to $150,000 a year.

Anticipating objections from the House, the bill approved by the Senate today added several more provisions favored by Republicans to the original relief for the minimum-wage families. The most significant would extend the full $1,000 child credit — increased from $600 in the new tax law — in 2010 to married couples making $110,000 to $150,000. Under current law, the credit begins to phase out for couples making $110,000.

The new provision would allow some couples earning up to $200,000 to receive a portion of the tax credit, depending on how many children they have.

keep up the good work, boys. let's see, by my calculations then, the federal coffers should be completely dry by the time bush leaves office.

2003-06-05T14:32:00.000-04:00

ahh, parting is such sweet sorrow

looks like that's it for howell raines. while i think much of the coverage was overblown--spurred as it was by a bunch of right wing screechers--it was definitely time for raines to step down. now, can we possibly get off this subject and worry about something else? like say, the fact that our soldiers continue to get sniped andTHERE'S STILL NO SIGN OF THOSE TERRIFYING WMDS

2003-06-05T14:21:00.000-04:00

that vision thing

okay, i'll try to make this short. calpundit writes:

as much as I like Dean's message and his charisma, I keep reminding myself that his opposition to the war and his lack of credibility on national security make him unelectable.

but i say: credibility? dean don't need no stinkin' credibility. it seems to me that national security falls into two categories: domestic security and foreign policy. i'll try and tackle foreign policy first.

while dean admittedly has very little--if indeed any--"experience" in foreign policy matters, we should note that the same was said of bush during the 2000 election (sure he could pronounce "victor chernomyrdin" without stuttering badly, but that doesn't count). what candidate bush did have, however, was a vision of foreign policy that resonated with the american people--against nation building, for pressuring saddam through sanctions and inspections, and, most importantly, acting humbly on the world stage. now, it's open to debate whether his stated vision has been carried out in practice (after all, "9/11 changed everything"), but the fact remains that people were willing to overlook his paucity of experience because they liked his vision.

now, however, he has a record on which to run, and this can be both beneficial and potentially dangerous. on a number of issues--his penchant for unilateralism; his disdain for international bodies like nato and the u.n.; his radical neo-con influenced agenda in the middle east; the (current) lack of any wmd evidence in iraq; and, most importantly, the long and expensive "nation building" effort we now face in iraq--i believe bush is vulnerable. he is strong however, (and dean is admittedly weak) in his prosecution of the war. but if dean can successfully attack those issues where bush is weak while articulating a foreign policy vision that resonates with the large numbers of americans who are skeptical of to horrified by bush's actions, i think he can become a viable "foreign policy" candidate. of course, it comes down to winning the rhetorical battle, which history has proven is quite a bit easier said then done when running against bush.

next, i'll tackle the domestic security front, where i think bush is even MORE vulnerable.

2003-06-05T13:07:00.000-04:00

ding ding ding: dean comes out swinging

and it's about time, too. here's what the good doctor had to say about president (cut) tax and spend:

With the President’s proposed budget and the $350 billion tax cut package he is signing today, it has become clear what this President is attempting to do, and why we must repeal the entire package of cuts – both those signed today and those passed in 2001.

It is time to level with the American people. The economic plans put forth by President Bush and the Republican party are a fundamental assault on the basic American ideals that we all share -- an assault on our schools, our health care, our environment and our social security.

I will not go along with it.

The sooner we recognize that this isn't a fight over tax cuts, but a battle for our country's heart, soul and future - the sooner the American people will join our cause.

Let me be clear. The President’s tax cuts are part of a radical agenda to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, and our public schools through financial starvation.

In Oregon last week, the state had to close schools three weeks early because there was no money. In New Hampshire this week, the sheriffs made it clear that, because there was no money, they couldn’t provide the basic law enforcement protection communities expect in this time of heightened alerts about terrorism. All across the country, hospitals and health care systems are cutting back – and cities are cutting services because there is no money.

What America needs now is a Democratic Party with the backbone to stand up for fiscal responsibility and against this President's recklessness with the facts, and our future.

No Republican president has balanced the budget in 34 years – and if this president succeeds, no future American president from either party will be able to do so without massive tax increases that will break the backs of the American people – or without destroying Medicare, social security, our schools and even our nation’s security.

My central commitment upon taking office will be to repeal these tax cuts to put our fiscal house in order, and save the very fabric that holds our American community together.

We will not be able to meet our fundamental obligations to teach our children, care for our parents, and defend our nation if we bankrupt our country.

If we fail to defeat this President and end his radical agenda, we will have lost the central ideal proclaimed from one American generation to the next throughout our history: “We are one nation, and we are all in this together.”

i especially like that last part about losing fundamental american ideals, not only because he's right, but because i think it's an area where president gordon gecko is vulnerable. (more on that to come, as well as a respectful difference of opinion with calpundit on dean's electability and lack of foreign policy creds)

2003-06-04T19:17:00.000-04:00

boy do those wingtips taste good

looks like hoof-in-mouth-disease ridden paul wolfowitz has done it again. south knox bubba has the goods from the guardian, but here's, as dandy andy would say, the money quote (is that anything like the money shot?):

Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war.

The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

okay, okay, so maybe the quote was taken slightly out of context, but what i want to know is whether wolfie was salivating noticeably when he said it.

2003-06-04T18:54:00.000-04:00

can't post...blogger refusing...is it a republican conspiracy?

2003-06-04T18:46:00.000-04:00

doug feith, purveyor of truth

imagine that, doug feith saying the entire flap over echo-chamber intelligence analysis is, surprise surprise, completely unfounded.

The senior official, Douglas Feith, said he felt compelled to rebut inaccurate and "hyped" news accounts that were gaining "the status of urban legends," even though many of them amounted to "a goulash of inaccuracies."

(snip)

Mr. Feith said that, contrary to some suggestions by journalists, the Bush administration's evaluation of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was not markedly different from those of previous administrations. He cited a statement by former President Bill Clinton in 1998 that Iraq was concealing chemical and biological weapons, and a 1999 report by United Nations weapons inspectors that large stores of weapons in Iraq were unaccounted for.

excellent job, doug. you even managed to get a subtle clinton dig in. here's a cookie. but, riddle me this, my friend, if the intel was so good, then why the hell haven't we found any wmd's yet?????

2003-06-04T18:39:00.000-04:00

ahhh, blogger, i see you want to eff with me. well, so be it. i shall not be deterred.

2003-06-04T18:34:00.000-04:00

"there is a great disturbance in the blogosphere..."

i have arrived. officer blog is here, broadcasting from the lighthouse to bring light and truth to the blogosphere. it is my job, nay my sacred duty, to rail against the excrement and filth that spewth forth from the foul orifices of conservative bloggers. too long have i lain silent, reading the unceasing mental vomit that these so-called conservative pundits put forth for their audience to lap up like rats. but no more! the battle has been joined, you're either with us or against us, and, make no mistake, WE SHALL BE VICTORIOUS.

so let's get down to it. looks like president judge and enforcer is working on getting everyone on board with his "roadmap." so what's the over-under on how fast the admin turns tail and runs when the shit inevitably hits the fan? a year? six months? a week?