From today's Boulder Daily Camera, "Two more feathers in Bush's cap":
It was just an unlucky selection. President Bush had more than 1 million lawyers from whom to choose and thanks to bad staff work he made a couple of really unfortunate choices. He probably doesn't even realize it, but those with concerns about the quality of people who are appointed to the federal bench cannot help but notice.The appointees in question are lawyers. One is now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the other has been nominated to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It's hard to know which of them is the bigger embarrassment.
Jay Bybee is the sitting judge. When he was nominated one of the criticisms of him was that he was no fan of civil liberties. He may have been appointed because of his law journal articles bashing Roe v. Wade and legal protection for homosexuals, or for his innovative attack on the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the popular election of U.S. senators. (He reportedly suggested returning to the days when senators were appointed by state legislatures.)
Mr. Bybee has also argued that conditions on state action tied to federal aid are unconstitutional because they are coercive, a view that would invalidate dozens of congressional mandates protecting civil rights. He argued that Bob Jones University should not have had to give up its tax-exempt status because of its discriminatory policies, calling the government's policy in that case "capricious." He also argued that discrimination laws to protect gays and lesbians conferred "favored status" on them rather than equal rights. As the sole lawyer representing the Defense Department, he argued that subjecting gay and lesbian contractors to heightened scrutiny was justified not only because they were subject to blackmail but because they were "emotionally unstable."
All those positions would have made him a sympathetic candidate in the president's eyes. He cinched it, however, with the memorandum on torture he prepared for Alberto Gonzales, counsel to the president. In that now famous memorandum, Mr. Bybee suggested that torture is not as bad as words used to describe it sound. Thus, cruel, inhuman or degrading acts do not necessarily constitute torture. If the torturer doesn't intend to torture, the acts may not be torture. In addition, a coercive procedure cannot be considered torture unless it caused pain equivalent to that accompanying "serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."
The memorandum on torture that almost certainly played a role in helping Mr. Bybee get his new job has been disavowed by legal advisers to the administration. They say it will be reviewed and revised because it creates a false impression that torture could be legally defensible. What other meaning could be ascribed to that memorandum, false or otherwise, is a mystery someone else can solve. The only conclusion one can draw is that the memorandum, like torture, is not only evil but wrong.
The other embarrassment for Mr. Bush is Thomas B. Griffith, who has been nominated to serve on the federal court of appeals for the District of Columbia. Mr. Griffith practiced law for three years in the District of Columbia without a law license. That is a disciplinable offense in most states. It can result in suspension of the right to practice law or even disbarment. Mr. Griffith blamed his staff. He said it was their fault that he practiced law without a license since they should take care of such administrative minutiae. From D.C., he went on to become chief legal counsel for the University of Utah. He served in that capacity for four years without obtaining a license. He didn't say whose fault that was. He apparently thinks that rules don't apply to him. That attitude should serve him in good stead if he becomes a federal judge. If confirmed, he'll be yet another feather in George Bush's cap. Few other than Mr. Bush would be willing to wear such a cap.
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency for two Republican presidents criticized President Bush's record on Monday, calling it a "polluter protection" policy.Russell E. Train, who headed the EPA from September 1973 to January 1977 -- part of the Nixon and Ford administrations -- said Bush's record on the environment was so dismal that he would cast his vote for Democrat John Kerry.
"It's almost as if the motto of the administration in power today in Washington is not environmental protection, but polluter protection," Train said. "I find this deeply disturbing."
In 1988, Train was co-chairman of Conservationists for Bush, an organization that backed the candidacy of George W. Bush's father. (CNN)
“More Jobs, Worse Work” – Stephen Roach in the New York Times:The state of the American labor market remains the defining issue of the current economic debate. Through February, the United States was mired in the depths of the worst jobless recovery of the post-World War II era. Now, there are signs the magic may be back. More than a million jobs have been added to total nonfarm payrolls over the past four months, the sharpest increase since early 2000.
These gains certainly compare favorably with the net loss of 594,000 jobs in the first 27 months of this recovery. But there's little cause for celebration: the increases barely make a dent in the weakest hiring cycle in modern history. From the trough of the last recession in November 2001 through last month, private sector payrolls have risen a paltry 0.2 percent. This stands in contrast to the nearly 7.5 percent increase recorded, on average, over the comparable 31-month interval of the six preceding recoveries.
Nor is there much reason to celebrate the type of jobs that have been created over the past four months. In general, they have been at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
By industry, the leading sources of hiring turn out to be restaurants, temporary hiring agencies and building services. These three categories, which make up only 9.7 percent of total nonfarm payrolls, accounted for 25 percent of the cumulative growth in overall hiring from March to June. Hiring has also accelerated at clothing stores, courier services, hotels, grocery stores, trucking businesses, hospitals, social work agencies, business support companies and providers of personal and laundry services. This group, which makes up 12 percent of the nonfarm work force, accounted for 19 percent of the total growth in business payrolls over the past four months.
[…]
In short, jobs are growing at both ends of the spectrum, but the low-paying jobs are growing much more quickly. The contribution of low-end industries to the recent pick-up in hiring has been almost double the share attributable to high-end industries.
An equally dramatic picture emerges from the survey of American households. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total count of persons at work part time - both for economic and non-economic reasons - increased by 495,000 from March to June. That amounts to an astonishing 97 percent of the cumulative increase of the total growth in employment measured by the household survey over this period. By this measure, as the hiring dynamic has shifted gears in recent months, the bulk of the benefits have all but escaped America's full-time work force.
[…]
Consequently, from three different vantage points - employment breakdowns by industry, by occupation and by degree of attachment - the same basic picture emerges: While there has been an increase in job creation over the past four months - an unusually belated and anemic spurt by historical standards - the bulk of the activity has been at the low end of the quality spectrum. The Great American Job Machine is not even close to generating the surge of the high-powered jobs that is typically the driving force behind greater incomes and consumer demand.
This puts households under enormous pressure. Desperate to maintain lifestyles, they have turned to far riskier sources of support. Reliance on tax cuts has led to record budget deficits, and borrowing against homes has led to record household debt. These trends are dangerous and unsustainable, and they pose a serious risk to economic recovery.
After launching two wars, President Bush said on Tuesday he wanted to be a "peace president" and took swipes at his Democratic rivals for being lawyers and weak on defense.With polls showing public support for the war in Iraq in decline, the Republican president cast himself as a reluctant warrior as he campaigned in the battleground state of Iowa against Democrat John Kerry and his running mate, former trial lawyer John Edwards. Bush lost the state in 2000 by only a few thousand votes.
"The enemy declared war on us," he told a re-election rally. "Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president."
[...]
Despite a surge in attacks in Iraq and U.S. warnings that al Qaeda is plotting another major strike, Bush said U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had already made America safer, and that his re-election would let him finish the job.
"For a while we were marching to war. Now we're marching to peace. ... America is a safer place. Four more years and America will be safe and the world will be more peaceful," Bush said. (Reuters)
UPDATE: "Annan Rejects Bush Claim That World Is Safer Now"
From yesterday's Press Briefing by Scott McClellan:
Q Prime Minister Blair took full personal responsibility for taking his nation into war under falsehoods -- under reasons that have been determined now to be false. Is President Bush also willing to take full, personal responsibility --MR. McCLELLAN: I think Prime Minister Blair said that it was the right thing to do; that Saddam Hussein's regime was a threat.
Q Those were not the reasons he took his country into war. It turned out to be untrue, and the same is true for us. Does the President take full, personal responsibility for this war?
MR. McCLELLAN: The issue here is what do you to with a threat in a post-September 11th world? Either you live with a threat, or you confront the threat.
Q There was no threat.
MR. McCLELLAN: The President made the decision to confront the threat.
Q Saddam Hussein did not threaten this country.
MR. McCLELLAN: The world -- the world, the Congress and the administration all disagree. They all recognized that there was a threat posed by Saddam Hussein. When it came to September 11th, that changed the equation. It taught us, as I said --
Q The Intelligence Committee said there was no threat.
MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, it taught us that we must confront threats before it's too late.
Q So the President doesn't take full responsibility?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President already talked about the responsibility for the decisions he's made. He talked about that with Prime Minister Blair.
Q Personal responsibility?
MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, go ahead.
In its obsession with Iraq, the Bush administration dropped the ball disgracefully in Afghanistan just as the effort to rebuild that violence-wracked nation began in earnest after the ouster of the Taliban regime more than two years ago. Now that fractious nation, once the breeding ground of the al-Qaida terror network, is in danger of reverting to the entropy of tribal warfare and its ruinous economic addiction to the opium poppy trade.Worse yet, the vanquished Taliban is resurging, mounting ever more daring raids against the sparse and inexperienced Afghan security forces backed by a pathetically small contingent of NATO peacekeepers. What was once a signal victory in the war on terror is teetering on the edge of turning into a lamentable, avoidable failure.
Facing increasingly precarious elections, the fledgling government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul needs all the help it can get. It's not getting enough of it, either to ensure the minimum security needed to hold a national vote or to rebuild its decrepit infrastructure. Unless the Bush administration makes a stronger commitment to improving security and, above all, persuades its reluctant NATO allies at least to double, if not triple, their almost ludicrous contingent of 6,500 peacekeepers - in a nation of 26 million people - the Kabul government will fall and Afghanistan could once again become a mecca for radical Islamists. (Newsday)
The Bush administration will withhold $34 million in congressionally approved assistance to the U.N. Population Fund because of the fund's connection to China and forced abortions, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday.The State Department said it was convinced the fund helped China manage programs that involved forced abortions.
Powell said the administration would continue to help the world's women and children through other programs.
The U.N. fund called the U.S. allegation baseless. "UNFPA has not, does not and will not ever condone or support coercive activities of any kind, anywhere," said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the fund formerly known as the U.N. Fund for Population Activities.
The U.N. group estimated the blocked U.S. funds could have helped prevent 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, 4,700 mothers' deaths in childbirth and 77,000 infant and child deaths. (yesterday's AP wire, via the Indianapolis Star)
This is the third year the Bush administration has used these allegations to cut off funding to the UNFPA, and it worth noting that the allegations did not originate with State Department:
Last year [2001] Bush himself asked for $25 million for UNFPA activities. Congress upped that to $34 million. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate that UNFPA's work in maternal and child health care, voluntary family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention was "invaluable."Then, a tiny far-right group called the Population Research Institute (PRI), backed by Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), charged that UNFPA was promoting the cause of forced abortion and sterilization in China. UNFPA, which works in more than 139 countries besides China, vehemently denies that claim. In fact, its officials say, their policy is just the opposite. In China, they are trying to change policies that force women to have abortions and punish families that want more than one child.
UNFPA's impressive executive director, Thoraya Obaid, says firmly, "A condition for our programs [in China] is to eliminate the coercion."
"The Population Institute says we work through the Chinese. Yes, we do, but to retrain them to have a different view," Obaid says. "We do not in any way believe in abortion. We do not fund abortion." That policy, she adds, applies not only to China but also to the whole world.
But Bush didn't have to take Obaid's word. The State Department sent out a fact-finding mission in May that found no evidence the UNFPA program knowingly supported or participated in programs of coercive abortion. The British Parliament also sent out an investigative team, led by a leading conservative member of Parliament, Edward Leigh, which came to the same conclusion.
And, keep in mind, according to current law none of the $34 million would have gone to U.N. programs in China. Instead, it would have helped women all over the world.
Nonetheless, based on the false PRI claims, Bush axed the UNFPA funds and assigned the money to much narrower U.S. aid programs that reach only half as many countries. Trying to protect the Bush image of compassion, the White House asked the State Department to make the announcement. This was yet another rebuff of Colin Powell.
Even more disturbing is that the President would base his decision on testimony from the PRI. This is a fringe group that writes in a fund-raising appeal, "Suddenly, you and I have a god-given opportunity to drive the final nail into the coffin of U.N. Population Fund abortionists."
PRI is a spin-off of Human Life International (HLI), a group with an anti-Semitic bent. Its founder, the Rev. Paul Marx, repeatedly charged that Jewish doctors controlled the abortion movement. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, criticized Marx for his "ludicrous claims." (from an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer, July 2002)
From Harper's, via Helpful Reader Eric, "Negative Capability":
Posted on Thursday, July 15, 2004. The following assertions were collected from public statements made by George W. Bush and his official spokesmen since 1997. Originally from Harper's Magazine, May 2004.The President of the United States is not a fact-checker.
I’m not a statistician.
I’m not a numbers-cruncher.
I’m not one of these bean counters.
I’m not very analytical.
I’m not a precision guy.
The President is not a micromanager.
I’m not a member of the legislative branch.
The President is not a rubber stamp for the Congress.
I’m not a censor-guy.
I’m not a lawyer.
I’m not a doctor.
The President is not an economist.
I’m not a stockbroker or a stock-picker.
I’m not a forecaster.
I’m not a predictor.
I’m not a pollster, a poll-reader guy.
I’m not a very good prognosticator of elections.
I’m not a committee chairman.
I’m not of the Washington scene.
I’m not a lonely person.
I’m not a poet.
I’m not a very good novelist.
I’m not a textbook player.
I’m not an emailer.
I’m not a very long-winded person.
I’m not a very formal guy.
I am not a revengeful person.
I’m not an Iraqi citizen.
I’m not a divider.
I am not a unilateralist.
I’m not a tree, I’m a Bush.
Press Briefing by Scott McClellan
July 15, 2004
Q Scott, the White House chose not to use the NAACP today as filter to get its message out to African Americans. But beyond housing issues, beyond education, many African Americans say the real civil rights issues, the teeth of civil rights issues is injustice in the Justice Department. Where has the Bush administration been with the Justice Department in helping the African American community?MR. McCLELLAN: Leading the way. As I pointed out, this administration was the first to ban racial profiling in federal law enforcement. This administration has worked to vigorously enforce our civil rights laws. We have a strong record of enforcing our civil rights laws. You mentioned just a couple of issues. I also pointed out the faith-based initiative that this President has worked on. He's worked very closely with African American leaders in communities across the nation to level the playing field so that faith-based organizations, who are about helping people in need, can compete on a level playing field with other organizations.
This is about saving lives and improving lives for those who suffer. He has also provided unprecedented leadership when it comes to fighting AIDS at home and abroad. This President has made a strong commitment to combating this pandemic.
[…]
Q The last -- the previous Republican presidential candidate in 1996, Bob Dole, had the same problem with the NAACP's invitation. He rejected it, said, they're trying to set me up. Does the Republican Party have a problem when it comes to running for the White House and its relations with the African American community?
MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I talked about how, if you look at this President's record, it's one of inclusiveness, it's one of offering a hopeful agenda that brings America together around shared priorities. And look at the results of what we've achieved on behalf of all Americans, including the African American community. Traditionally, we recognize where the African American community has been when it comes to supporting Republican candidates, and that's why, if you look back at the President's record and look back at his -- what happened in Texas, as well, he has always worked to reach out and expand those outreach efforts, because the agenda that he has put forward is a compassionate conservative agenda that is inclusive. And he will continue reaching out to all Americans, and he will continue reaching out to the African American community, based on his vision and his agenda and his record of results.
So, according to Mr. McClellan, the Bush Administration has shown leadership on African American issues by 1) enforcing civil rights laws; 2) instituting faith-based initiatives; 3) fighting AIDS; and 4) maintaining an inclusive, compassionate conservative agenda. Just look, says Mr. McClellan, what happened in Texas.
To which we say: 1) Huh. 2) Well…. 3) Barely. 4) Ludicrous.
Just look what happened in Texas.
So Tuesday brought us this little gem:
American officials are discussing the possibility of postponing November's presidential election, for the first time in US history, in the event of a devastating terrorist attack, it emerged yesterday.A spokesman for the homeland security department said the possibility of a postponement in extreme circumstances was being contemplated, four days after the department warned that al-Qaida was plotting a large-scale attack aimed at disrupting the November 2 election. (The Guardian)
Our reactions, in order:
- We picked our jaws up off the floor.
- We listened carefully to the reassuring choruses of "Hell, no!" from both sides of aisle.
- We took a moment to enjoy the sight of Republicans and Democrats coming together over a sentiment we shared, too.
- We took an even longer moment savoring the delicious timing of this story breaking right on the heels of the "We're safe...safer...safer..." speech (didn't Tom Ridge get the memo?).
- We agreed with the wisdom of having contingency plans, but those contingency plans should be focused how we keep the election going in spite of an attack by al-Qaida, not on how efficiently we can give up. Postponing elections is not the way we defeat terrorism.
"Onward G.O.P. Soldiers" - op-ed in today's New York Times:
The Bush-Cheney campaign is buttonholing Christian churches nationwide to serve as virtual party precincts in the Republican drive to turn out voters in November. The campaign has sent congregation volunteers marching orders — a schedule of 22 "duties," beginning with the submission of local church membership directories to party headquarters, the better to compare them with voter registration lists.The Bush team maintains that this ham-handed proselytizing is legal and somehow nonpartisan. That is hard to comprehend, given that other "duties" for pro-Bush volunteers include lobbying congregation groups to talk up the Bush-Cheney ticket and producing "voters' guides" on hot issues. Ministers are being pressed to create registration drives and speak out about "all Christians needing to vote."
Churches have been a favorite campaign stop for political candidates throughout the nation's history. But this crude initiative crosses the line that separates organized religion from organized political parties. Last month, after Republican workers began soliciting hundreds of "friendly congregations" in the swing state of Pennsylvania, the Internal Revenue Service sent out a blunt warning to political leaders that they could cost churches their tax-exempt status by enlisting them in transparent partisanship.
The Bush team's strategy disrespects religion as much as it does democratic ideals. Churchgoers are entitled to a little sanctuary from politicians.
It's not hard to tell when President Bush is really, really serious about getting a particular message out.He repeats it, over and over again.
But it's unusual even for him to say the same thing seven times in one short speech.
That's what he did yesterday, in Oak Ridge, Tenn., asserting that because of his foreign policy initiatives and the war on terror, "the American people are safer." (Here's the text.)
Bush said it so many times that CBS and ABC both spliced a sort of dance mix and inserted it into their reports on the evening news: "The American people are safer. . . . The American people are safer. . . . The American people are safer."
Here's the problem for Bush, though: A lot of Americans don't feel safer -- more than 50 percent, in some polls.
And while Bush did undeniably remove Saddam Hussein from power, last week's Senate intelligence committee report thoroughly undermined the argument that Hussein posed an immediate threat.
But here's the good news for Bush: When you're the president, and you repeat something often enough, a lot of people do start to believe it -- unless of course the press is constantly, doggedly reminding people it isn't true.
Case in point: The August 2003 Washington Post poll that found that 69 percent of Americans thought it at least likely that Hussein had a role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- at least partly the result of months of suggestions from the Bush administration. (New York Times)
For years, Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based organization devoted to adolescent sexual health, says, it received government grants without much trouble. Then last year it was subjected to three federal reviews.James Wagoner, the president of Advocates for Youth, said the reviews were prompted by concerns among some members of Congress that his group was using public funds to lobby against programs that promoted sexual abstinence before marriage. Although that was not the case, Mr. Wagoner said, the government officials made their point.
"For 20 years, it was about health and science, and now we have a political ideological approach," he said. "Never have we experienced a climate of intimidation and censorship as we have today."
Mr. Wagoner is among the professionals in sex-related fields who have started speaking out against what they say is growing interference from conservatives in and out of government with their work in research, education and disease prevention.
A result, these professionals say, has been reduced financing for some programs and an overall chilling effect on the field, with college professors avoiding certain topics in their human sexuality classes and researchers steering clear of terms like sex workers in the title of grant applications for fear of drawing attention to themselves.
"Programs almost have to hide what they do," said Richard Parker, a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. "We have a major challenge ahead of ourselves."
Professor Parker is also a co-chairman of the International Working Group on Sexuality and Social Policy, an association of researchers and other professionals, which released a report two weeks ago citing examples of what it called sex policing under the Bush administration. The report cited, for example, changes in factual information about sex education and H.I.V. transmission on government Web sites as well as questioning by members of Congress about research grants approved by the National Institutes of Health.
[...]
In May, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists called the Bush administration's increased financing of abstinence-only programs at the expense of comprehensive sex education a violation of children's human rights.
"Over 40 percent of 15-year-olds are sexually active and they're not getting information on how to protect themselves from pregnancy and diseases," Barnaby B. Barratt, the association's president, said in an interview.
In June, Nils Daulaire, the president of the Global Health Council, an international group of health care professionals, denounced the Bush administration's decision this year to drop $367,000 in financing for the council's annual conference, which he said was the first time the federal government had withheld sponsorship in more than 30 years.
Mr. Daulaire said in a recent speech in Washington, "It's time to say to those who would stifle debate and dialogue, and to those in power who would allow them to prevail, Have you no shame?" (New York Times)
From yesterday's Seattle Times, via the Washington Post, "Pentagon: some Bush documents destroyed":
The accidental destruction of microfilm seven years ago has handicapped Pentagon efforts to turn up records documenting President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during part of 1972, a Defense Department official said in a letter to The Washington Post and other news organizations.Records released to reporters on a CD-ROM this week essentially duplicate what the White House handed out in February regarding the president's Vietnam War-era service from 1968 to 1973. The records do not provide evidence that Bush performed military service in Alabama, where he had been transferred in May 1972.
Bush had sought the transfer to the Alabama unit to work on a Senate campaign. Some Democrats have questioned whether the president performed his Guard duty in Alabama after the transfer was granted.
While the records gap was discussed at a White House news conference in February, details about why the records were missing were not known until the letter was sent by Pentagon Freedom of Information Officer C.Y. Talbott to news organizations.
"I am not able to provide complete copies of President Bush's payroll records for his National Guard service," Talbott said.
He said this was because of "the inadvertent destruction of microfilm containing certain National Guard payroll records."
The records for "numerous service members" were damaged in 1996 and 1997 while officials tried to salvage deteriorating microfilm payroll records. The payroll summaries destroyed were for the first quarter of 1969 and the third quarter of 1972. "President Bush's payroll records for those two quarters were among the records destroyed," Talbott said.
Four years ago, presidential candidate George W. Bush went before the NAACP convention in Baltimore and conceded that the Republican Party and the black civil rights group have not always been the best of friends."The NAACP and the GOP - not always been allies, I know that," Bush told the convention in 2000. "But recognizing our past and confronting the common future with a common vision - by doing that, I believe we can find common ground. It won't be easy work, but a philosopher once advised, when given a choice, prefer the hard because only the hard will achieve the good."
Since assuming the presidency, Bush's relationship with the NAACP has been more hard than good, a condition that each side blames on the other. Whatever the reason, for the fourth straight year Bush has declined an invitation to attend the venerable civil rights organization's convention, which opens Saturday in Philadelphia and runs through Thursday. He's the first president since Herbert Hoover not to address the group. (via Knight Ridder)
Press Briefing by Scott McClellan
July 6, 2004, 12:33 P.M. EDT
[…]Q Scott, on that point, the President has talked about changing the tone in Washington, to making the debate more civil. But the Republican National Committee put out this statement on Edwards, calling him "disingenuous and unaccomplished." The Bush-Cheney campaign put out talking points saying that Senator Edwards "delivers his pessimism with a southern drawl and a smile." Is that helpful?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I mean, is there something in there you're disputing? (Laughter.) I think it's perfectly reasonable to talk about the differences on the issues and to talk about the record. And I think that's what you're seeing being discussed here by the campaign and by the RNC. The President believes that we should focus on the policy differences and focus on the leadership styles, and that's what he will continue to do as we move forward on this campaign.
Q So you're agreeing with those statements then, that he is disingenuous and unaccomplished?
MR. McCLELLAN: Like I said, it's perfectly legitimate to talk about the issues and the differences on those issues, as well as to discuss the record. There are individuals in this race who have records, and those records are a reflection of how they would lead in office.
Q You don't seen this as personal attacks, you see this as policy --
MR. McCLELLAN: Suzanne, there are clear choices in this election, and the President wants the discussion to focus on the issues and the differences on those issues. There are clear choices and there are clear philosophical differences for the voters, come November. And the President will keep this focused on the issues and talking about his positive vision for the way forward for our country.
Q So you don't have a problem with the language and the tone?
MR. McCLELLAN: Like I said, it's perfectly legitimate to talk about the issues and the differences and to talk about the record.
[…]
Q So let me see if I've got this straight. The President will continue to talk about the issues and the record. And the RNC and the campaign will continue to put out statements about Kerry's disingenuousness and liberal tendencies?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think that --
Q You'll have sort of a two-track thing going here, right?
MR. McCLELLAN: I don't -- I don't think I agree with your characterization. I think that it's, like I said, perfectly legitimate to point out the differences and to discuss the record. And that's what campaigns are about. The voters deserve to know what the choices are, and they deserve to have an honest discussion of the differences and an honest discussion of the records.
Q What about the rhetoric? What about the rhetoric and the changing of the tone?
MR. McCLELLAN: I just don't agree with the way you characterized -- the way you characterize it.
Q But the moment you called a person disingenuous, Scott, you're no longer talking about the record. You're talking about their personality, aren't you, when you call him, disingenuous?
MR. McCLELLAN: As I said --
Q That's a personal --
MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, James, we've been through this issue. I think I've addressed it. The President is going to continue to focus on the issues and the differences and the choices that voters face. And he'll continue to talk about his vision and his leadership for the future of America.
From yesterday's New York Times, "Inquiry Confirms Medicare Chief Threatened Actuary":
An internal investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services confirms that the top Medicare official threatened to fire the program's chief actuary if he told Congress that drug benefits would probably cost much more than the White House acknowledged.A report on the investigation, issued Tuesday, says the administrator of Medicare, Thomas A. Scully, issued the threat to Richard S. Foster while lawmakers were considering huge changes in the program last year. As a result, Mr. Foster's cost estimate did not become known until after the legislation was enacted.
But neither the threat nor the withholding of information violated any criminal law, the report said. It accepted the Justice Department's view that Mr. Scully had "the final authority to determine the flow of information to Congress.'' Moreover, it said, the actuary "had no authority to disclose information independently to Congress.''
Mr. Scully, who resigned in December, in part to become a lobbyist for health care companies, had denied threatening Mr. Foster but had acknowledged having told him to withhold the information from Congress.
The report, by Dara Corrigan, the department's acting principal deputy inspector general, said, "Our investigation revealed that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not provide information requested by Congressional members and staff, and that Scully threatened to sanction Foster if he disclosed unauthorized information.''
The report said that if Mr. Scully still worked for the government, he might be subject to disciplinary action for possible violation of the department's standards of ethical conduct.
[. . .]
In recent weeks, Mr. Scully has registered as a lobbyist for major drug companies, including Abbott Laboratories and Aventis; for Caremark Rx, a pharmacy benefit manager; and for the American Chiropractic Association and the American College of Gastroenterology, among other clients. All are affected by the new Medicare law, which Mr. Scully helped write.
Mr. Scully did not reply to messages left Tuesday at his office and his home and on his cellphone. In an interview in March, he acknowledged disagreements with Mr. Foster but said, "I never told Rick he would be fired.''
Mr. Foster had estimated that the Medicare legislation would cost $500 billion to $600 billion over 10 years. The White House told Congress the cost would not exceed $400 billion.
Ms. Corrigan said she had uncovered numerous requests from Congress for data and cost estimates prepared by the Bush administration. In many cases, she said, Mr. Scully did not recall the requests.
"On June 17 and Nov. 7, 2003,'' the report said, "the minority staff director for the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health made written requests to Foster for estimates of the total cost of the Medicare bill. Scully did not recall the staff director's requests.''
Mother Jones magazine reports that at least five current and former [baseball] owners are Bush-appointed U.S. ambassadors, including former Seattle Mariners owner George Argyros, now ambassador to Spain despite his inability to habla español; Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals co-owner Mercer Reynolds III, now ambassador to Switzerland, who speaks neither German nor Italian; St. Louis Cardinals co-owner Stephen Brauer, our man in Brussels, who doesn't speak French or Flemish; Texas Rangers co-owner Jeffrey Marcus, who very briefly was appointed ambassador to Belgium but never reported for duty because of sticky divorce proceedings; and former Texas Rangers co-owner and Bush cousin-by-marriage Craig Stapleton, ambassador to the Czech Republic, who reportedly stormed out of a tough meeting on Iraq with the Czech prime minister and undiplomatically slammed the door behind him.(New York Daily News, via Wonkette)
The Bush administration has succeeded in reshaping the Endangered Species Act in ways that have sharply limited the impact of the 30-year-old law aimed at protecting the nation's most-vulnerable plants and animals, according to environmentalists and some independent analysts.The Bush initiatives, which have ranged from recalculating the economic costs of protecting critical habitats to limiting the number of species added to the protected list, reflect a policy shift that Interior Secretary Gale Norton calls the "New Environmentalism."
Under this approach, federal officials have focused more on providing incentives to private landowners to protect the habitats of endangered species than on prohibiting human activity on those lands.
While some environmentalists praise the incentive programs, they say these projects are not enough to protect animals and plants on the brink of extinction.
Federal officials have added an average of 9.5 species a year to the endangered list under Bush, compared with 65 a year under President Clinton and 59 a year under President George H.W. Bush. They have designated as "critical habitat" only half the acreage recommended by federal biologists. And they are transferring key decision-making powers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to agencies with different priorities.
"Instead of taking the Endangered Species Act head on, the administration is working to destroy the effectiveness of it through executive rule changes," said Brian Nowicki, a conservation biologist at the Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity. (Washington Post via the Seattle Times)
"The Sluggish Wage Recovery" from the New York Times:
It would be wrong to read too much into one month's statistics, but there is plenty of reason to worry that this expansion is not raising wages as much as American families need. The American economy added 112,000 new jobs last month, far fewer than expected. That number represents a notable slowdown from the strong pace of hiring in the previous three months.President Bush tried to put a good spin on the jobs report yesterday in talking about the economy to a group of business executives: "This economy of ours is steady and strong. It's steady and strong. It's steady and strong, which means people are going back to work: 1.5 million jobs since last August. That is steady growth." Mr. Bush's speech attributed much of this strength to his tax cuts.
Assigning the White House too much blame or credit for job losses or gains is a silly game in a free-market economy that is cyclical by nature. What's surprising is that President Bush would want to play the game. The economy has still lost 1.1 million more jobs than it has gained on his watch, leaving Mr. Bush at risk of being the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs.
In his rosy remarks yesterday, Mr. Bush also failed to mention that average hourly earnings have not kept up with inflation in the last year. They are up only 2 percent. Nor did he mention that his huge tax cuts for the affluent have done little to help those living from paycheck to paycheck.
The nation's impressive productivity growth will make it difficult to significantly reduce the 5.6 percent unemployment rate. And in the absence of a tighter labor market, there is little chance that workers will see wages increase anywhere near as much as corporate profits have. Indeed, take-home pay, as a share of the economy, is at its lowest level since the government started keeping track in 1929. All of this suggests that the recovery remains a work in progress for many Americans.
When they first heard the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776, New Yorkers were so electrified that they toppled a statue of King George III and had it melted down to make 42,000 bullets for the war. Two hundred twenty-eight years later, you can still get a rush from those opening paragraphs. "We hold these truths to be self-evident." The audacity!Read a little further to those parts of the declaration we seldom venture into after ninth-grade civics class, and you may feel something other than admiration: an icy chill of recognition. The bulk of the declaration is devoted to a list of charges against George III, several of which bear an eerie relevance to our own time.
George III is accused, for example, of "depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury." Our own George II has imprisoned two U.S. citizens — Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi — since 2002, without benefit of trials, legal counsel or any opportunity to challenge the evidence against them. Even die-hard Tories Scalia and Rehnquist recently judged such executive hauteur intolerable.
It would be silly, of course, to overstate the parallels between 1776 and 2004. The signers of the declaration were colonial subjects of a man they had come to see as a foreign king. One of their major grievances had to do with the tax burden imposed on them to support the king's wars. In contrast, our taxes have been reduced — especially for those who need the money least — and the huge costs of war sloughed off to our children and grandchildren. Nor would it be tactful to press the analogy between our George II and their George III, of whom the British historian John Richard Green wrote: "He had a smaller mind than any English king before him save James II."
But the parallels are there, and undeniable. "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power," the declaration said of George III, and today the military is indulgently allowed to investigate its own crimes in Iraq. George III "obstructed the Administration of Justice." Our George II has sought to evade judicial review by hiding detainees away in Guantánamo, and has steadfastly resisted the use of the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows non-U.S. citizens to bring charges of human rights violations to U.S. courts.
The signers further indicted their erstwhile monarch for "taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments." The administration has been trying its best to establish a modern equivalent to the divine right of kings, with legal memorandums asserting that George II's "inherent" powers allow him to ignore federal laws prohibiting torture and war crimes.
Then there is the declaration's boldest and most sweeping indictment of all, condemning George III for "transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation."
Translate "mercenaries" into contract workers and proxy armies (remember the bloodthirsty, misogynist Northern Alliance?), and translate that last long phrase into Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib.
But it is the final sentence of the declaration that deserves the closest study: "And for the support of this Declaration . . . we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." Today, those who believe that the war on terror requires the sacrifice of our liberties like to argue that "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." In a sense, however, the Declaration of Independence was precisely that.
By signing Jefferson's text, the signers of the declaration were putting their lives on the line. England was then the world's greatest military power, against which a bunch of provincial farmers had little chance of prevailing. Benjamin Franklin wasn't kidding around with his quip about hanging together or hanging separately. If the rebel American militias were beaten on the battlefield, their ringleaders could expect to be hanged as traitors.
They signed anyway, thereby stating to the world that there is something worth more than life, and that is liberty. Thanks to their courage, we do not have to risk death to preserve the liberties they bequeathed us. All we have to do is vote.
(Barbara Ehrenreich in the New York Times)
Bush advocates democracy on an as-needed basis:
First, President Bush hailed the political handover in Iraq as a giant step toward democracy for the entire Middle East.Then, his administration announced it was resuming direct diplomatic ties with Libya, where Moammar Gadhafi has ruled for 35 years.
Democracy may be the administration's future hope for the region. But for now, as the warming of relations with Libya makes clear, it still gets trumped by security concerns in the fight against terrorism.
Oil-rich and terrorism-laden Saudi Arabia is not democratic, either, nor is Egypt. But both are U.S. friends.
The United States has not cut ties with Syria, though it considers Syria a sponsor of terrorism.
[...]
"I believe that freedom is the future of the Middle East, because I believe that freedom is the future of all humanity," Bush said in Istanbul, Turkey. "And the historic achievement of democracy in the broader Middle East will be a victory shared by all."
[...]
Gadhafi has not stopped his extremist rhetoric. In Europe last April, he said he hoped that no evil would "force us to go back to the days when we use our cars and explosive belts."
In June, Gadhafi expressed regret that President Reagan died before standing trial for the 1986 U.S. airstrikes that killed Gadhafi's daughter and 36 other people. The air raid was in response to a discotheque bombing in Berlin allegedly ordered by Gadhafi. (AP, via pennlive.com)
Do we think Bush should have opened diplomatic ties with Libya? Absolutely. But to claim that the effort to bring democracy to Iraq was worth 900 American lives, thousands of Iraqi lives and an increase in terrorist violence in the Middle East and Europe, while at the same time supporting non-democratic regimes across the region, is utter stupidity.
It's an insult to the American public that Bush keeps feeding us this utter bullshit.
From yesterday's AP wire, via the Guardian, "Bush Plan Opens More Forests to Logging":
Governors would have to petition the federal government to block road-building in remote areas of national forests under a Bush administration proposal to boost logging.Environmentalists say the proposed rule change, outlined this week in the Federal Register, would signal the end of the so-called roadless rule, which blocks road construction in nearly one-third of national forests as a way to prevent logging and other commercial activity in backcountry woods.
[. . .]
Forest Service spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevitch stressed that the proposal was preliminary, but called it an accurate statement of the administration's intentions.
Officials had said last year they would develop a plan to allow governors to seek exemptions from the roadless rule. The latest plan turns that on its head by making governors petition the Agriculture Department if they want to maintain restrictions on timbering in their state.
"The roadless rule is struck down nationwide,'' Valetkevitch said, referring to a 2003 ruling by a federal judge in Wyoming. "We are trying to create a rule that will pass legal muster.''
Mark Rey, the Agriculture undersecretary who directs U.S. forest policy, said the Federal Register notice was just one of many options the administration is considering.
"What you have here is a summation of one option that has not been decided on. There's no reason for anybody to get agitated about it,'' Rey said. "When we finally close in on an option people will have plenty to say whether they like it or not.''
Asked why other options were not published, he said they were "fairly complicated.''
UPDATE: Roadless Rules for Forests Set Aside
Vice President Dick Cheney spent about 20 minutes in Manager Joe Torre's office and in the clubhouse shaking hands with players before the Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 11-3, last night at Yankee Stadium.Cheney studied the photographs inside and outside Torre's office and asked Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame catcher, why he was playing the outfield in one picture. Cheney started watching the game from the private box of the Yankees' principal owner, George Steinbrenner, switched to a seat beside the Yankees' dugout for a few innings, then returned to Steinbrenner's box.
"I told him before the game I hope he brings us more good luck than he brings them," Torre said. "It's great any time a dignitary like that visits. It slaps you with pride."
During the singing of "God Bless America" in the seventh inning, an image of Cheney was shown on the scoreboard. It was greeted with booing, so the Yankees quickly removed the image.
(New York Times, via Wonkette)
We might have been slapped with something other than pride, but that’s just us.
It’s not the "City on a Hill" version that Bush espouses (minus the meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality). No, what is truly great about America’s democracy is the system of checks and balances that we memorized in the eighth grade. Sure, it was boring then, but to see it in action – say, smacking down Bush’s belief that he can label someone an “enemy” and throw him in jail without rights – is truly a wonderful thing.
It is America’s rule of law that is worth exporting, not all the other crap. The fact that the Supreme Court’s word is accepted as final, that a president does not change the law to give himself a third term, that political enemies do not murder each other (they just say, “Go fuck yourself”) – these are the things that make a democracy. All of it is based on the rule of law. And the founding fathers, though all male and all white, had the foresight to create a system that even a former alcoholic C student from Texas with a family grudge and not an original thought in his head couldn’t screw up, as hard as he may try:
In the fall of 2001, President Bush justified his decision to treat some captured terrorist suspects as "enemy combatants" without access to lawyers, courts or other long-established legal rights on the grounds that he could not let the United States' "enemies use the forums of liberty to destroy liberty itself."On Monday morning, the Supreme Court upended a good-sized chunk of that logic, and offered a powerful reminder that in the United States, even in wartime, no prisoner is ever beneath the law's regard, and no president above its limits.
It was Justice Robert H. Jackson who first noted 52 years ago this month, in another wartime election summer, that a president is not commander in chief of the country, only of the military. Justice Jackson wrote that in his concurring opinion overturning Harry S. Truman's seizure of the American steel industry during the Korean war, and Justice David H. Souter cited those words approvingly in his concurrence on Monday.
The effect of the current court's rulings in two related cases was to place a classic institutional and political check on Mr. Bush's effort to keep some citizens and aliens held as the most dangerous "enemy combatants" from ever having their day in any court. It is precisely the right to some such hearing, the court held, that defines the constitutional separation of powers and by extension the American governing creed. (New York Times)
Bush was wrong when he said, "enemies use the forums of liberty to destroy liberty itself" - terrorists have destroyed buildings and taken lives, but only we can destroy liberty by allowing fear mongers to tear away at the foundation of America's great promise. This is a strong and resourceful nation - we can protect our shores and our principles, and we should be unwilling to sacrifice one for the other.
Bush's attempt to permanently undermine the democratic rule of law would have been a victory for the enemies of freedom and democracy he invokes so often in his speeches. He failed. Score one for America.
