Category Archives: Current Events

James Surowiecki explains the whole mess with Bear Stearns. I can explain it even quicker: The way business works in this country now is that a company like that can take any sort of wild, reckless risk with the money they hold because they know that if everything tanks, the federal government will bail them out and make good on their losses. And of course, either way, if they succeed or fail, the senior execs will take many millions of dollars home with them.

Last evening in rush hour traffic, I drove down Ventura Boulevard at about four miles an hour. That's low even for Ventura at that time of day where you can usually average five. One of the reasons for the slowdown was that there were two demonstrations going on a few miles apart — one in favor of a U.S. pullout of Iraq, one against. Since my car was moving at about the speed of Tim Conway's old man character, I had plenty of time to inspect the signs carried by each group.

The "get out of Iraq" folks all had signs that said what we could be spending the money on instead: "Better education instead of war," "Cleaner water instead of war," "Fix our streets instead of war" and so forth. Those are all commendable preferences but I don't think they're a particularly strong argument. The two main cases against the war in Iraq are that an awful lot of people are dying or being maimed, and that the war seems to be accomplishing the opposite of making this a safer world for us. I don't know why but it felt to me like the protest was almost trivializing the human cost by making it sound like if we weren't in Iraq, we'd be spending all that money on schools and roads. I kinda doubt that we would.

The arguments on the signs wielded by the "stay the course" people seemed even weaker to me. Every one I saw said either "Surrender is not an option" or "The surge is working." I'm not sure that us pulling out of that mess over there would actually constitute surrender…but whatever it would be should always be an option, especially when the other option seems to be staying there forever without a way out. I could buy (but have yet to hear) a strong argument that the U.S. is actually achieving its goals, or even that it stands a reasonable chance of achieving its goals. That would mean though that someone had to articulate those goals and not, when they begin seeming more remote, forget them and make up new ones.

As for "The surge is working," same difference. Working to what ends? The way some politicians use that phrase, it sounds like they admit we're stuck there with no exit strategy and no achievable worthy goal…but the death tolls have slowed, so that means less domestic embarrassment for those who got us into this war. The way William Kristol uses those four words, it sounds like that's all they mean. Or care about.

Someone at the convention on Saturday asked why, of all the pundits and commentators on the Internet, I keep linking to Fred Kaplan. It's because he writes columns like this one. If you never click on my Fred Kaplan links, at least click on that one.

It's a clear, concise and factually-sound explanation of why the Iraq War is such an unwinnable mess. Here, I'll even quote the beginning of it to get you started. Kaplan starts by writing, "Imagine it's early 2003, and President George W. Bush presents the following case for invading Iraq:"

We're about to go to war against Saddam Hussein. Victory on the battlefield will be swift and fairly clean. But then 100,000 U.S. troops will have to occupy Iraq for about 10 years. On average, nearly 1,000 of them will be killed and another 10,000 injured in each of the first 5 years. We'll spend at least $1 trillion on the war and occupation, and possibly trillions more. Toppling Saddam will finish off a ghastly tyranny, but it will also uncork age-old sectarian tensions. More than 100,000 Iraqis will die, a few million will be displaced, and the best we can hope for will be a loosely federated Islamic republic that isn't completely in Iran's pocket. Finally, it will turn out that Saddam had neither weapons of mass destruction nor ties to the planners of 9/11. Our intervention and occupation will serve as the rallying cry for a new crop of terrorists.

…and you can read onward from there. I hope you do.

Slate is asking a number of folks who once supported the Iraq War and now don't how they got it wrong in the first place. I'm interested to read all the responses, which will be appearing throughout the week over there, but I was especially interested to read Fred Kaplan.

Fred Kaplan has a peachy suggestion on what George W. Bush should do once he's out of office. But somehow, I suspect that Bush will instead choose to accept huge speaking fees and various rewards from the corporations he's helped make so much money during his eight years in office.

Juan Cole makes the case that John McCain is essentially running for George W. Bush's third term. I think this is a fair and apt viewpoint, though it may not be as we get closer to Election Day. Seems to me that McCain needs to wrap up the nomination, make the convention go as smoothly as possible and unite as much of the party as can be united, plus he needs to not provoke third-party runs to his right. Once he's got all that, and extracted as much as can be extracted from right-wing sources of campaign $$$, then he'll start finding ways to make himself more acceptable to those who think Bush has been a disaster. I suspect there are more of those than even the lowest poll numbers indicate and that their ranks will only grow.

The current issue of Washington Monthly is devoted to the topic of Torture and Why We Shouldn't Do That. A vast array of writers, including some Conservatives, argue that it robs us of the moral high ground, lowers our standing in the world and — perhaps worst of all — doesn't work.

Obviously, I agree. But would someone who doesn't like to suggest some counter-argument articles to which I could link? I'm kinda hoping for one that isn't based around some "what if?" that sounds like a rejected 007 plot with an atom bomb set to explode at the Rose Bowl and the only way to stop it is to get a pair of needlenose pliers and yank out the fingernails of some enemy spy we've captured.

Michael Chabon offers "An essay in unitard theory." How can you not want to see what that's all about?

Accusing a candidate of "flip-flops" only goes so far with me. I'm more leery of a guy who never changes his views, even in light of (often) evolving situations and new evidence, than I am of one who might appear to be consistent over the long haul. Maybe this isn't a great analogy but in my personal life, I've seen more destruction done by inflexibility than outright malice.

The thing is though that one needs to be honest that one is changing one's view. This need not be done by admitting one was wrong, though that doesn't hurt if you don't do too much of it. The world changes, things evolve, hitherto unknown facts become known…and it's not a sign of weakness or incompetence to say, "I believed X three years ago but now I believe Y." What bugs me and loses my backing is when a candidate isn't candid about moving from X to Y, and also when it seems obvious that the shift to Y is just because that's where the votes are at the moment.

Which, of course, brings us to John McCain, a man who has disappointed more human beings than the last three Rob Schneider movies, combined. Were we all wrong to believe he was such a man of character and courage? That when he called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance" and apologized to all clowns for having said Rush Limbaugh was one, he actually meant it? Whatever, that sure isn't the John McCain who's going to be on our ballots later this year, no matter how hard he may try to shift to the left and distance himself from George W. Bush after he has the nomination and whatever cash he can extract from the far right.

Steve Benen itemizes some of the issues on which McCain has been on both sides. You get the feeling that'll be a much longer list by November and that it'll include a return to a lot of positions he once held and recently abandoned?

I don't know if I've mentioned it — probably have — but I'm very much against the idea of granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that may have violated laws in cooperating with the Bush surveillance programs. The only argument I've seen for granting that immunity is along the lines of "If we don't grant them immunity, they won't participate in the program and we need that," which is kind of an admission that what they've been doing is probably illegal. So if we need what they're doing and it was illegal, someone ought to be candid enough to just admit that and we can move on from there. Not that there's much chance of that happening.

Over on his weblog, Kevin Drum offers the interesting speculation — which sure sounds logical — that the reason the telecommunications companies aren't lobbying hard for this protection is that they've already been indemnified by the government; that our beloved treasury is on the hook to pay any fines which are levied against them. That makes sense considering that it's George W. Bush who's getting hysterical about retroactive immunity, not Ma Bell. Apparently, immunity for government officials who ordered the (probably illegal) surveillance is also being snuck in, and that obviously matters a lot to the Bush administration.

Perhaps the thing that depressed me most about the Supreme Court decision in Bush vs. Gore (and its subsequent defense) was that it kind of killed off the idea that that august deliberative body stood above the partisan fray; that the bulk of nine justices put principle over seeing their "team" prevail. Even if you think they came to the proper conclusion, the way they did it — saying it was non-precedential, stopping the vote count as rapidly as possible, plus some of the statements made in justifying it — really made it look like five out of nine justices had worked backwards from the idea that they wanted Bush to win, and had figured out how to support that conclusion.

Before that, you always had the idea — and perhaps it wasn't true even then but it wasn't as hollow as it is now — that the Supreme Court would keep the Executive Branch in check. Even justices who were hailed as right-wingers and who had been appointed by Richard Nixon ruled against Nixon in his big "I'm above the law" case before them. Does anyone think Bush would lose any major case now with the Scalia mob on the bench? That it isn't his ace-in-the-hole on this whole matter of illegal surveillance?

And believe me…I'd be just as horrified at a High Court that wouldn't slap down a Democratic president who decided he had absolute power. I don't trust any politician enough to give them that latitude and I never will.

Fred Kaplan on why things in Iraq are worse than you imagine.

I'm going to send you to two good articles by Michael Kinsley. In this one, he explains why "The Surge" has only been a success if you define success in some very odd ways. Then in this one, he comes up with what is to me, the definitive view on this story about John McCain maybe/perhaps/possibly having some sort of affair which might not have actually happened with a lobbyist.

How much are we spending for defense these days? Apparently, as much as the Bush Administration wants. According to — you guessed it — Fred Kaplan, military budgets are an outmoded concept. We sort of limit the spending in the formal budget and then spend any additional amount requested as a "supplemental" with little or no oversight.

And while I'm hectoring you into reading Fred Kaplan, I might as well go the distance: Mr. Kaplan has gifted me with an autographed copy of his new book, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power, and I'm about halfway through it. It's a stunning, chilling account of mistakes that G.W.B. and his minions have made with regard to defense and foreign relations, not just in Iraq but around the globe. In case after case, someone — often Rumsfeld but there were others — had some new theory about what America should do, how we should position ourselves vis-a-vis some other nation…and it not only didn't work but actually achieved the opposite of the intended goal. The book is not angry and not intended to rouse rabble. It just lays out a pretty sorry history that will scare the bejeesus out of anyone looking for the government to make a safer world for us to all live in.

I don't care if John McCain was having an affair a few years ago. I don't care if he's having one now. Yes, there could be a certain impropriety since the lady in the news reports is a lobbyist…but that impropriety is one I already expect. These guys are all in bed, one way or another, with lobbyists. The sex stuff, if true, is none of our business.

So let me see if I have this straight. Bill Clinton was engaged by a heckler on the campaign trail. NBC News and MSNBC aired some sound bites of the heckler. Bill O'Reilly criticized them by saying, "There are plenty of nuts on the campaign trail but if you're a responsible news agency, you don't legitimize them by giving them airtime." Meanwhile, Sean Hannity — who works for the same news agency as O'Reilly — had the guy on as a guest, thereby giving him a lot more airtime and legitimacy. Jay Leno is having O'Reilly on his show this Friday night. Hey, Jay…how about asking him if he thinks Fox is not a responsible news agency? (Yeah, like that's gonna happen…)

Lastly, if you want to see a political campaigner humiliated on national TV, check out this clip of Chris Matthews interviewing a Texas State Senator named Kirk Watson. Watson was on to stump for his guy, Barack Obama…but when Matthews asked him to name any of Obama's legislative accomplishments, Watson couldn't name one. There actually are a number of things he could have said but apparently he didn't think it necessary to have any of them at hand.

Want to make $40,000? Fred Kaplan will tell you how.