Fast 180 on beef rules just more crisis control
   Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced Tuesday new regulations that will, if vigorously enforced, greatly improve beef safety. These new measures smack of science and good sense, making for a remarkable turnaround for the Bush administration and a stunning blowing-by of beef industry lobbyists used to getting their way.
   The administration is to be commended for the speed and decisiveness of its response to this crisis. The stakes are high; the measures are appropriate. At the same time, there's nothing commendable about the administration's well-established pattern of letting the roof fall in before taking badly needed action.
   As posited by itself and described by its admirers, the Bush administration is a model of well-considered, no-nonsense leadership. It's all about being on top of things, making sound decisions and then sticking to them.

   In reality, Bush and his pro-corporate Republican Congress go about day-to-day governing blinded by ideology and acutely aware of which side of the bread their butter is on. In this election season, we're talking about $110 million worth of butter, most of it from wealthy, powerful people and corporate interests. And that's just for Bush. Congressional Republicans are raking in millions more.
   On occupying the White House, Bush & Co. made a conscious decision to basically ignore as much as possible the Middle East in general and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict especially. Then came the 9-11 attack, with the loss of thousands of lives. Suddenly, Bush was engaged. The Middle East was a priority, meetings were held with Israel's prime minister, the Palestinians' new leader, and the "road map" was developed.
   In responding to the need for increased security in the wake of the 9-11 attack, the Bush administration wanted no part of a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. It spent months stalling and stonewalling. Finally, it decided having such a department was not only the thing to do, but that it had to be done quickly — if only an "obstructionist," then-Democrat-controlled Congress would cooperate.
   This year, Bush, on his say so, led this country into a bloody, horrendously expensive war in Iraq. No sooner had our troops rolled into Baghdad than it became painfully clear the administration lacked a realistic understanding of what to expect from the Iraqis. What's more, Bush & Co. had no realistic appreciation of what would be needed to restore order, as to money, troops or anything else.
   And, not knowing these things, it follows that the Bush administration had no effective plan for the nation-building project it had taken on, or for paying for that dangerous, costly, long-term task.
   There are more examples, but the point is made. America needs and deserves better leadership than it's getting from President George W. Bush, and from his lockstep-voting corporate corporals in Congress.

   By the way, many of the rules and reforms Veneman announced Tuesday were in legislation put forth last fall by Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y. That badly needed legislation, at the behest of the beef lobby and Bush administration, was killed by being left out of an all-Republican House-Senate conference committee.
   For an excellent story on the beef rules about-face, click here. For relief that acts fast, vote for whoever Democrats run against Bush in November.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 1:08 PM

 
Aversion to regulation badly out of hand
   As a good-government gesture, members of Congress ought to put a big sign up in front of the Capitol: "Be careful what you lobby for — you might get it."
   And below that headline, display following story:

   Now, with large quantities of beef being recalled in at least eight states and the Territory of Guam, with 30 or more countries banning U.S. beef, with financial losses mounting for many beef-related business, it's worth asking those who chipped in their hard-earned money to gain so much clout: Was it really worth it?

   Since Ronald Reagan became president, and with considerable help from him and his neoconservative disciples, there has been a reflexive, extreme resistance to government oversight and regulation by business and financial interests, across the board. It doesn't much matter what the specifics are, if a measure calls for government to guide, direct and/or check up on people engaged in some form of money-making enterprise, it will be resisted to the last influence-buying dollar and the dying breath.
   Typically, thanks in large part to the never-ending money chase our national lawmakers must engage in, the keep-government-off-our-back resistance gets its way.
   Yet over and over again, from the incredible shenanigans in the savings and loan industry during the '80s to the horrendous incompetence of airline and airport security prior to Sept. 11, 2001; to the outrageous
deceptions rampant in the accounting industry that brought down one of the Big Five firms and tarnished many others; to the rip-off of the entire Western U.S. by energy industry mobsters, actually bankrupting California; to recent revelations about the mutual fund industry, there's evidence aplenty of the need for reasonable, effective oversight and regulation of business in this country.
   Most adults find speed limits, traffic lights, medical checkups and paying taxes a royal pain in the you-know-what. Yet they realize those things exist for good reasons, usually to prevent grief, and so they go along with them.

   Oh!pinion believes if business powers that be are so blinded by greed and the perceived self-interest of never being interfered with in any way, the voting public should elect lawmakers and a president who will impose the discipline and restraint of sound adult judgment on them, for everyone's benefit — including their own.
   The voting public should do that not just to save the rascals from themselves, but as a matter of enlightened self-interest. Just recall who wound up paying for the savings and loan collapses, the energy industry rip-off, and who bailed out the airline industry to the tune of billions.

Read the rest of "Dairy Farmers Contributed to House Panel" here.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 10:57 AM

 
Dispassionate insight into free-trade disaster
   Oh!pinion puts free trade and globalization policies, as planned, implemented and operated by the U.S., in the same category as cancer, AIDS and crack addiction: perfect for destroying the economic security, future prospects and overall well-being of millions of Americans.
   For their tireless efforts in creating an endless series of incredibly bad free-trade deals, we hold our U.S. trade representatives under Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush fit to be brought up on high-crimes charges, beginning with treason.
   Thus, we read with particular interest a recent New York Times story, "Free Trade Accord at 10: Growing Pains Are Clear." Well done overall, the story is remarkably sterile and bloodless, given the scale of the damage being done and the intensity of the pain being inflicted — not only on millions of Americans, but millions more in Mexico and Canada. A passage relaying our current trade representative's assessment of the North American Free Trade Agreement is a good example:

   Right, Zoellick, as long as trade volume increases and some workers get a pay increase, never mind about millions of jobs destroyed, thousands of businesses ruined or run out of the country, millions of U.S. workers made jobless or marginalized to much-lower-paying jobs, and the trade deficit reaching crisis proportions. Like Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman used to say, "What, me worry?"
   A further example of the story's tone and tenor can be appreciated in this paragraph, which melds striking understatement with a highly questionable supposition:

   National consensus on free trade? No way. There was, in 1994, a drone-like, mindless consensus in Congress and within the Clinton administration. Then and ever more since, a whole lot of us outside the Washington Beltway believed this was going to be a self-inflicted disaster — and we have been proven absolutely correct.
   Doubtful Bush will "stand unapologetically behind deeper trade liberalization"? Hello? Heard the one about the Central American Free Trade Agreement — our chance to say adios to huge numbers more of jobs and businesses and industries, as they make their way from Anytown, U.S.A., en route to China, India and Indonesia, etc., by way of Costa Rica, Guatemala, etc? Bush and his well-trained lapdogs in Congress are all set to push this to the max during the next session. And, like the recently passed free trade agreement with Malaysia, they'll get it through.
   By all means, read the Times story, then have a good ol' primal scream. That might help ease the pain of seeing your country and fellow Americans being sold out to satisfy the greed of a well-situated and conscienceless few.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:36 PM

 
`This Week' qualifies for Fox News Channel
   ABC's "This Week" has gone steadily downhill since David Brinkley's departure several years ago. But with this morning's program, this once worthwhile political talk show hit rock bottom. At first we thought we'd accidentally tuned into Fox News Channel.
   There was George Will, who's never heard of a Democratic office seeker he couldn't run down until said candidate's own mother would want to go into hiding. There was economic Darwinist and Republican stalwart, Larry Lindsey. There was that neoconservative icon, champion of faith, family values, honesty and political ethics, Newt Gingrich.
   On the side, there was a host and chorus (whose names we didn't get) of yuppy newsfolk apparently selected for their willingness and ability to disparage Democrats generally and Gov. Howard Dean most especially.
   For balance, ahem, there was professor and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and former White House chief of staff and Sen. Leon Panetta. Both are bright, well-informed, thoroughly decent men, and staunch Democrats, albeit relatively soft-spoken New Democrats.
   In light of recent events, that last attribute takes on special significance. If the object of the program was to lay waste to Dean, yet give the appearance of some semblance of balance, those running the show at "This Week" wouldn't want a Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Sen. Byron Dorgan or a Rep. Nancy Pelosi on hand, but a couple of well-known, out-of-office New Democrats would do nicely.

   During the show we learned the economy was actually in a state of collapse from 1999 until George W. Bush was sworn in as president. We learned the nation's employers got rid of millions of people as hard and fast as they could because, poor souls, those employers just weren't making any profits — no, they weren't making any profits at all! So, that's why President Bush's plan to shift the tax burden from those poor multibillion-dollar corporations and those poor, long-suffering CEOs and big investors and others, to middle class and working people, now and as yet unborn, was exactly the right thing to do.
   We also learned that Bush has effectively taken all the issues a Democrat could run on "off the table." The economy is real good and getting even better. The war in Iraq is going real good and getting even better. Having Saddam Hussein in custody tidied up that little detail nicely. Having Moammar Gadhafi climb on board is icing on the cake. We learned that, despite our longtime NATO allies taking a pass, we've got sooo many countries working at our side in Iraq, with more showing up all the time.
   We learned that all the Democrats running for president are puny, inconsequential, ineffective people who have no idea what to do. Howard Dean, especially, has no idea what to do. And whenever these puny, ineffectual Democrats say anything, they immediately try to change what they just said, because people who don't know what to do don't know how to stick to what they just said. (For example, if a political leader who really knows what he's doing says, "We're in imminent danger from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction," he will continue saying things as much like that as possible, even after an invasion and months of intensive searching fail to find any weapons of mass destruction.)

   Gingrich made a special effort to impress us with how Bush fits into a pantheon of Great Presidents by, at least four times — and subtly as a sudden release of intestinal gases within the confines of a spacesuit — mentioning Bush in the same breath, not with Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, but with Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt. (This is what political consultants refer to as "image building." We're to believe Bush is as Great as Reagan and Roosevelt; and that Gingrich is a broadminded, bipartisan, good guy for including F.D.R., a Democrat.)
   To all of this imparted knowledge, on cue, the host elicited from the side chorus of yuppy newsfolk nods and brief comments denoting full agreement.
   Oh, Reich and Panetta, in their gentlemanly, understated way, did sound a couple of discordant notes. But these were quickly breezed by or dashed off without in any way disturbing the overall thrust and slant of the program.

   Indeed,"This Week" couldn't have been more dittohead-welcoming, neoconservative-friendly or pro-Bush Republican had it been scripted, staged and produced by the Republican National Committee, with input from the Heritage Foundation, the Business Roundtable and GOPAC.
   The only thing missing was some bald-faced Joe Isuzu type repeatedly saying, "fair and balanced."

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:51 PM

 
Republican Congress notable for its omissions
    Columnist Mark Shields, in one of his weekend TV appearances, said of our Republican Congress (to paraphrase): These Republicans have had control of Congress for a year and in that time they've reached a level of arrogance that it took Democrats 40 years to achieve.
   Shields threw in, so rapid fire we're not sure we caught it all, charges that Republicans have frozen Democrats out of House-Senate conference committees, written and settled on legislation behind closed doors, and held a House vote open for five hours while leaders strong-armed, and in at least one case reportedly bribed/threatened, members into submission.
   With that as fitting background, Oh!pinion presents two fruits of our Republican Congress' labors.

   First, there's a timely Associated Press story by Mark Sherman, "Congress Scuttled Meat Protection Measure":

   The all-Republican conference committee dropped this measure, which the beef industry had opposed. As surely as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, we now have a verified case of mad cow disease; we have millions of worried meat eaters; we have a long list of countries refusing American beef; we have beef-serving restaurants, beef-selling stores and other related businesses facing huge losses; and we have affected stocks in decline. Here's hoping those who are unhappy with all this will give credit where it's due.

   Along similar lines, Ruminate This points to an excellent item at Working for Change:

   Ruminate This and Working for Change hope you'll let your member of Congress know how you feel about the War Profiteering Prevention Act, either by filling in the provided form or by writing on your own. Oh!pinion hopes so, too.

   All this is enough to make a thoughtful person say, "Throw the bums out!" Your next chance comes up in November 2004.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:09 PM

 
Mismanagement story could hurt Dean
   Gov. Howard Dean is drawing heavy fire from several directions, much of it the kind of nonsense a ridiculously long primary campaign season makes inevitable.
   The sputter about Dean's position on the Iraq War comes across as so much low-road backbiting. However, a report about poor management of a Vermont program to spur economic growth could prove troublesome for substantive reasons.
   The recent brouhaha about Dean saying it's good Saddam Hussein was captured but that his capture doesn't make the U.S. safer is a perfect example of the foolishness about Dean's war stance.
   Where Dean's coming from, Saddam and his sorry excuse of a military were well contained by U.S. and other forces in the Gulf region to begin with. Plus, Saddam's regime had only tenuous ties, if any, to al Qaeda. So, the Iraq invasion was a costly distraction from the critical objective of dealing with the real terrorist threat where that threat really exists.
   Anyone who insists we're notably safer since Saddam's arrest should explain this week's increase in deadly attacks on coalition forces and Iraqis, and the orange alert the U.S. is now under.
   Dean's position is only hard to understand and support for those willing to distort it or overreach in an effort to make Dean look bad. Those would include people trying to make out that Dean has flip-flopped on the war because, although he opposed it from the start, he recently said we must see it through.
   Well, no, that's not a flip-flop. It's a case of appreciating the reality of our current situation and proposing to bring it to the only sensible, acceptable conclusion.
   Dean ruffled feathers last week by hitting on New Democrat-style policy-making, citing Bill Clinton's State of the Union declaration that "the era of big government is over." Dean had the audacity to note that Republicans who've done so much to stick it to America's middle class have had enablers and allies among Democrats. We'll have more to say about this later on. For now, we'll assert Dean is absolutely right about this and that the evidence is as plentiful as it is undeniable.
   Dean's only misstep on this is that he subsequently hastened to say he didn't mean to attack Clinton's record. Loyal non-New Democrats have good, solid reasons for critically re-examining many of Clinton's policies and for not jumping to embrace New Democrats' approach.
   The potentially sticky rap comes in a Boston Globe story concerning Dean's oversight of the Vermont Economic Progress Council and its handling of an $80.1 million tax credit program for businesses the state wanted to have locate, stay or expand in Vermont. Here's the story's lead paragraph:

   While not utterly damning, the story raises questions about Dean's management skills and decision-making — legitimate concerns for people choosing a president. On this matter, Dean should come forth with a clear, effective explanation — one he can make once before moving on.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:16 PM

 
May blessings of holidays be yours
   Christmas is a time for closeness with loved ones and friends. We wish you the warmth and blessings of that closeness, in person if possible, otherwise in spirit.
   During this holiday season hundreds of thousands of America's finest men and women are far from home, many of them in deadly dangerous surroundings. For them and for their loved ones and friends, we offer heartfelt thanks and a prayer for our defenders' speedy and safe return.
   Now, we'll break for two or three days for some closeness with our family and friends. Until then, merry Christmas, feliz Navidad and for those of the Jewish faith, happy Hanukah.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 8:58 PM

 
V.P. offer made in so many words
   Gen. Wesley Clark's weekend revelation that Gov. Howard Dean had offered to make Clark his running mate when the two met in September, just before Clark entered the race, seemed both odd and surprising.
   Odd, because such arrangements are usually kept strictly confidential. Surprising because, first, Clark seemingly had nothing to gain by publicizing this now and, secondly, because if Clark had any Plan B intentions for being Dean's running mate, this revelation would likely jinx them. Any presidential candidate expects his running mate to be a loyal team player and unfailingly discreet.
   That Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, and then Dean himself hurried to deny any such offer had been made came as no surprise. However attractive and good a fit Clark might be as a running mate, premature release of that information is not something Dean would want. Too many things could happen between now and the time primary voters have rendered their decision.
   The uncertainties were erased when Clark appeared on Judy Woodruff's show on CNN today. This is from the show's transcript:
   Woodruff: " . . . You have said that Howard Dean offered you the slot as his running mate. He today is saying he never did that. Set us straight. What happened? Did he or didn't he?"
   Clark: "Well, we had a private meeting. And I told him that the key thing for me was to decide whether I was going to run for the presidency or not. He said, Well don't you want to know what the alternatives are?
   "And at first I said no. And then I said, OK, well fine, go ahead and tell me, but that's not going to affect my decision. He said, Well, I'm thinking, you know, the vice presidency, and that kind of thing. It wasn't like, sign on the dotted line.
   "But it was discussed, it was discussed by him. It was brought up by him in a very positive fashion. And it's not something I've ever seriously considered."
   Then, Clark explained why he revealed Dean's in-so-many-words offer:
   Clark: "I think the point here is that his campaign has used this for some time as an effort to sort of buttress his national security flank by saying I might be his running mate. My point is, I'm running to be president of the United States, not to be his vice president. And I'm getting a lot of traction on that."
   Woodruff and Clark then got into a pinning-down joust about the offer, with Clark saying Dean couldn't and didn't make a blatant, formal offer, just dangled it in front of him, coming as close as Dean could without making it a formal offer.
   That strikes us as understandable, where both men are concerned.
   Clark also made clear he feels he has a vital edge of firsthand experience in dealing with foreign interests and in defense and national security matters.
   Near the end of the segment, Clark expanded on why he brought the running mate in-so-many-words offer out.
   Clark: ". . . I agreed I'd keep the discussion quiet. And I've never made anything out of this until right afterwards he began to talk about it. There's all kinds of news releases where his campaign's put out the idea I might be his vice presidential running mate. But what I've said consistently is, this is about running to be the president of the United States. That's it. That's why I'm running."

   Clearly, Clark intends to be his own man in this primary contest. He doesn't appreciate Dean people casting him in the role of No. 2, possibly impressing primary voters that's what they should consider him, or giving them the idea they can vote for Dean and still have him on the ticket.
   Again, that's reasonable and understandable on Clark's part. If the situation were reversed, Dean would undoubtedly feel the same way.
   The thing about it is, should Dean sweep the primaries, Clark could find himself in the position of having burnt a bridge that looks better than it once did.
   Visit CNN's Web site for the complete transcript of Clark's appearance. There's no permalink, so scrolling down is required.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 6:16 PM

 
Better poll numbers at odds with facts
   People feeling better about the economy's prospects gave President Bush a notable bump up in a mid-December Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
   In better numbers for Bush in this poll than seen since early 2002, 55 percent of 1,001 registered voters said they approve of Bush's management of the economy, while 43 percent disapproved. Twenty-three percent registered strong approval.
   This news comes at the same time as a report showing 1.2 million low-income Americans, more than half of them children, have lost health care coverage because of drastic state cutbacks for the poor.
   The AP-Ipsos poll found attitudes about the economy overall trending upward since October, although 51 percent said they expect their local economy to be about the same in six months.
   An AP story on the poll notes: "Groups that have shifted toward approval of Bush on the economy in the past month in the poll are less-educated women, suburbanites, swing voters and Republicans."
   The report on health care retrenchment, to be officially released today, is based on a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That news story includes this sobering information:
   "Thirty-four states have cut health insurance programs for the poor and children because of deep budget deficits over the past two years . . . Further cuts are likely next year, when a temporary federal government increase in its share of Medicaid expires, the group said."
   These news items point up a disheartening reality: an awful lot of us make judgments on the basis of how we feel due to short-term conditions. And how we feel, too often, is based on how we and our immediate family and circle of friends are doing, not on a broader appreciation of what's actually going on in the economy or the country.
   Mammoth tax cuts, drastically reduced interest rates and a massive runup of debt have helped bring about a few relatively good months for the stock market, and have limited slightly the rate of job losses. Tidal waves of cheap foreign-made goods have helped suppress inflation, at the cost of boosting what Americans owe foreigners to dangerous levels. In 2003, we've increased the trade deficit by more than $500 billion, up from $430 billion in 2002.
   Increased government spending on homeland security and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have helped a bit, as has consumers' willingness to keep on spending.
   Against those relatively positive factors, there's the dead weight of a real unemployment level in the 10 percent range. There's the ever increasing reality of older workers losing $60,000-a-year jobs and accepting early retirement, rather than deliver pizzas or clerk in a convenience store, while large but untallied numbers of younger workers without the option of retiring settle for lower-paying jobs, if they can get one.
   There's the reality of an increasing disparity between CEO and worker pay, running upwards of 500 percent. There's the increasing disparity between the number of new millionaires and the number slipping from a middle-class life to poverty, even homelessness. There's the reality of business failures and personal bankruptcies running at all-time highs not for months but for years. There's the 47 million Americans who have no medical insurance coverage at all.
   Some 45 states are in fiscal crisis, with the Republican-controlled federal government unwilling and unable, thanks to the tax cuts and ideology, to help them avoid severe cuts in vital services for millions of nonaffluent people. Republicans blame states for having overspent. Many states cite long-running high unemployment, business failures and flight, and cutbacks in federal aid and spending for their plight.

   Yes, this is all pretty downbeat. But in reading Bush's bouncy poll numbers — 59 percent overall job approval, Ipsos noted — we have to wonder if many of those respondents who shifted from disapproval to approval, especially about the economy, didn't do so more out of a sense of, "Well, I'm doing OK," or outright ignorance, than out of any careful consideration of the realities of our economic situation.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 11:15 AM

 
Gifts pile up beneath yuletide Bu$h
   Democrats have spent the last three years charging President George W. Bush's economic program consists of making huge tax cuts that benefit the rich while shifting more and more of the burden to the nonwealthy.
   Republicans have spent the last three years decrying that charge as "class warfare" and reciting their supply side nostrums.
   Oh!pinion believes much can be learned about where loyalties lie and who's getting preferential treatment by assessing who is giving candidates money, especially incumbents, and by looking at the scale of the giving.
   We take it as an article of faith that, past some point of generosity, campaign donations become investments from which a lucrative return is expected.
   In this holiday season of giving, during which several hundred-thousands of long-term unemployed retrench because Bush and Republicans in Congress refused to pass an extension of unemployment benefits for them ahead of the Jan. 1 expiration, we see an especially telling bit of evidence.
   But for a brass-tacks comparisons, we visited opensecrets.org, which has been making a list of campaign donations and donors, and checking it twice. We looked at giving to Bush and to Democratic front runner Gov. Howard Dean. Figures for gifts to Bush are dated as of Nov. 26; Dean's are as of Nov. 18.
   The first thing that caught our eye was the number and percentage of high-dollar contributors. In the $2,000-plus donation category, 29,806 Bush backers, or 73 percent of all his donors, have given at such high levels.
   Only 13 percent, of 1,553, of Dean's supporters had given more than $2,000.
   We then looked at the industries backing Bush and Dean, finding some interesting contrasts, especially where the scale of giving is concerned.

   Next, we took a look at the top-10 contributors to the Bush and Dean campaigns, again seeing differences we find notable.

   Oh!pinion finds significance in how intensively and generously individual and corporations in the financial industry — people making money off money — give to Bush. That means bankers, credit-lending outfits, stock-and-bond merchants and those in accounting. We say this mindful of the fact that Bush's huge tax cuts have been made in a way that has run up record-setting budget deficits, totaling $2 trillion or more a decade out. Manufacturers, traditional supporters of Republicans, haven't come near to making this top-10 list.
   The open-handed giving by high-finance interests also comes against a Bush record of ironclad support for the free trade and globalization policies that are running up staggering trade deficits. Those deficits are actually U.S. debts totaling hundreds of billions of dollars held by foreign countries and firms. Steady job losses because of outsourcing and offshoring, at the same time, drive down and hold down the revenues that could help pay for some of the huge debt Bush is running up.
   Interestingly, given the president's oil business involvement, his family's ties to the industry and the fact that his vice president was the CEO of a leading oil-services business, Halliburton, the oil/gas industry ranks only 16th among the 80 top-donating industries generally. The industry has pumped $5,379,994 into campaign donations for 2004 so far, 83 percent of it to Republicans.
   We will say one thing for Bush, whose party has for years presented itself as the party of fiscal conservatism: He's awash in the colors of Christmas. Having authorized more debt with more red ink than any previous president in peacetime or war, he's got that color going all over the place. And then there's the record amount of dollar green being stuffed into his campaign war chest, well over $100 million.
   We leave it to you to decide who's being naughty or nice.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 6:22 PM

 
View economic news with a critical eye
   Friday's local newspaper included this headline: "Jobless claims off; indicators strong."
   The Associated Press story beneath began: "A key economic forecasting gauge rose a solid 0.3 percent in November, and the government reported a drop in claims for jobless benefits Thursday, presaging what economists believe could be strong growth in 2004.
   "In New York, the business-funded Conference Board said its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators advanced 0.3 percent in November to 114.2, suggesting that the economic recovery will gain momentum next year."
   Enough to make you feel warm and fuzzy, isn't it?
   We hope there's as much reason for optimism as this and a rash of similar recent stories indicate. However, Oh!pinion sees a strong need for healthy skepticism. We base this on several things.
   First, 2004 is an election year. Republicans in control of national government and many states are pro-corporate, pro-wealth, supply side extremists. In turn, they're funded directly, indirectly, mostly and lavishly by business, investment and Big-Money groups and individuals. Politically and financially, these patrons stand to gain from a rebounding economy. The better voters feel about jobs and money matters, the less likely they will be to make changes at the polls.
   Would corporate and even small-business decision makers on the fence about hiring a few more bodies be tipped toward saying yes by the realization that doing so might keep Bush in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress? If they were to say yes and then regret it, wouldn't relief be just a few pink slips away, once past the election? We don't know, but see good reasons for reading rosy-outlook stories with a bit of skepticism.
   Second, Republicans in government and their business, corporate and high-finance patrons have both the means and the motive to fudge numbers all over the place. Would they actually do such a thing? We don't know for sure. But, recalling what Republicans did in Florida and elsewhere from election day 2000 right through to the circulating of lies about how Clinton people had "booby-trapped" and defaced White House offices, to the recent report of attempted bribery and intimidation on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, we're not greatly impressed with their honesty.
   As for business people, we know very well there are plenty who are as honest as can be. Yet, given a growing body of evidence over the past quarter century, we'd be hard pressed to characterize business people overall as honest and trustworthy. From the New Jersey pharmacist who pocketed tens of thousands by diluting cancer-fighting drugs to high-level executive crooks like Charles Keating of savings and loan infamy, junk bond crook Michael Millken, billionaire Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay and Andrew Fastow of Enron, and so many more, there is reason to believe greed rules, the bottom line is all that matters, and the term "business ethics" is an oxymoron.
   So, if asked whether it's more or less likely business executives would lie about hiring plans, growth, sales figures, income, etc., we'd be inclined to say more likely. Again, there's sound reason to be skeptical of rosy-outlook reports.
   Third, there's the media. The biggest and most influential outlets are owned by big corporate interests. So are many smaller ones. Outright falsification to further political preferences seems unlikely, but a certain bias in what news is presented and how that news is framed and played is certainly possible.
   News spin is inevitable even absent any political motive. The reason is that today's media are trend-obsessed. Every major newspaper, magazine and network news organization wants to be the first to spot and report on any and all new trends, in society, entertainment, sports, business, politics, whatever. When one paper, magazine or network reports a perceived trend, the rest pile on. The result is a bandwagon effect that can grow all out of proportion to the size and importance of what triggered the first report.
   On the reader and viewer end, herd psychology and the snowball effect come into play. The impression that the trend is big serves to encourage people to add to whatever the trend is.
   Thus, corporate CEO X, on reading bullish reports about better prospects in 2004, may cancel planned layoffs or even hire a few more people, not wanting to be caught shorthanded if demand takes off. Thus, Mr. and Mrs. Consumer, after reading Friday's newspaper rosy-outlook story on the economy, may pass the plastic more often and for more-expensive items when doing their last-minute Christmas shopping.
   Now, look again at the news story lead at the beginning of this post.
   "A key economic forecasting gauge rose a solid 0.3 percent in November . . ." In fact, we have a very small fractional increase during a 30-day period. "Key" and "solid" are gratuitous padding words. There have been at least three upticks since recovery was officially declared under way three years ago. They all turned out to be transient.
   ". . . and the government reported a drop in claims for jobless benefits Thursday," Indeed, the story goes on to say that nationwide, for the week ending Dec. 13, new applications for unemployment benefits were 330,000, down 22,000, presumably from the preceding week, though the story doesn't say exactly what the numbers are down from. It does say new claims are at their lowest levels since Nov. 1. Against all that, we notice 330,000 is a very big number and that 22,000 is, by comparison, very small.
   In Oh!pinion's view, citing one-week or even one-month, micro specimens as evidence "presaging what economists believe could be strong growth in 2004" is ridiculous. It's like saying that if you find a nickel on the street in front of your home, you're sure to find a ten-dollar bill on the next block. We also note the writer hedged this trend-heralding opus with the word "could." By the same token, January could become a time when the economy implodes through runaway deflation. Who knows?
   And then there's, "In New York, the business-funded Conference Board said its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators advanced 0.3 percent in November to 114.2, suggesting that the economic recovery will gain momentum next year."
   Note "business-funded" and "suggesting." Again, and without meaning to promote cynicism, Oh!pinion urges regular applications of healthy skepticism to news items like this, and to similarly expansive pronouncements by government sources.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:14 PM

 
Is Bush in denial or using big-lie strategy?
   We missed President Bush's sit-down with ABC's Diane Sawyer Tuesday night, but found the account of it at Liberal Oasis a good read.
   It starts off: "Last night, ABC News aired an hour-long interview of Dubya by Diane Sawyer. A fair amount of it was the typical softball questions we have come to expect.
   "But for about five minutes, Sawyer pressed Dubya on the question of the Phantom WMD harder than anyone has, perhaps harder than anyone has pressed him on anything since 9/11."
   Pressed on all those statements by him, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, etc., about large quantities of anthrax, missiles, uranium and the like, Bush goes through the very same lame our intelligence was sound, because I said so, because Saddam is evil, because everybody knew Saddam had WMD, because I said so . . . litany he recited a year ago when questioned about his justifications for invading Iraq.
   It's as though, once programmed, he doesn't forget and cannot change anything, no matter what realities have emerged to drill more holes in his story. Like the Energizer Bunny, he just goes on and on, shifting about within the narrow range of his previously stated reasons.
   Consistency can be a virtue in a leader, but past some point of insisting on the questionable and touting the invalidated, we have to wonder if an unhealthy unwillingness or inability to face up to reality is involved — or if perhaps a calculated big-lie strategy is being pursued.
   Whatever's going on, we highly recommend "Bush on Phantom WMD: What's The Difference?" to anyone who didn't see the show and, for that matter, to anyone who did.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 10:49 PM

 
Bankruptcy too lenient for spammers
   Like all PC-using Americans in recent years, we've spent more time than we want to think about dealing with spam. We're filtering and have an ISP that's done a remarkably good job of minimizing the inflow. Still, some gets through.
   We never cease to be amazed at how obviously sleazy, offensive and downright stupid spam come-ons are. We're convinced there's a malevolence at work beyond the assumed desire to extract money from the hopelessly naive and/or dumb individuals who actually open, read and act on spam.
   As an index of what the spreaders of this manure are like, consider two spam e-mails that made our blood boil during 2003. One offered a "proven and guaranteed cure" for prostate cancer, using all-natural substances that the medical industry doesn't want people to know about because it would cost them billions in profits.
   That was lowdown but not the lowest. That distinction goes to whoever sent an e-mail with the sender name of "Conner Peterson." Conner is the name of murder victim Lacie Peterson's unborn child, who was also killed. The e-mail was received when the Peterson case was getting wall-to-wall news coverage. We wish whoever was behind that e-mail could be found and counseled with a bullwhip, in a public square.
   With that as background, we were overjoyed to learn New York State and Microsoft are executing joint lawsuits that seek to bankrupt one of the world's biggest spam sources, according to news reports. Targets of the suits are the New York-based e-mail marketing company, Synergy6, which allegedly contracted with a spam outfit, OptInRealBig, to flood millions of inboxes with billions of junk e-mails.
   OptinRealBig belongs to Scott Richter, identified as one of the world's most prolific spammers — a man who has reportedly made millions a month spamming the rest of us.
   Microsoft is said to have set spam traps that were inundated with 8,000 spam messages in a month. Under the law, the spammers could be fined $500 for each fraudulent statement. The spam-trapped e-mails are said to have included 40,000 fraudulent statements.
   Oh!pinion congratulate New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Microsoft, and hopes their lawsuits succeed.
   Our thoughts travel back to an old Western movie scene, set in a rustic courtroom filled with townsfolk. A bad guy is on trial for something awful. During a pause in the proceedings a grizzled old timer rises from his chair and calls out to the bench:
   "Say, judge, can we hurry up and get this here trial over with? We got a hangin' to go to!"

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 4:42 PM

 
Bluenoses drive Dodge away from game
   We weren't panting in anticipation of Lingerie Bowl 2004, but are chagrined at how a bunch of busybodies scared DaimlerChrysler's Dodge division from sponsoring the event.
   The troublemakers also scared away the American Foundation for AIDS Research, which was to get the proceeds from the game.
   This diversion featuring 14 females in panties and bras playing tackle football is planned as a halftime event during the Feb. 1 National Football League championship game. It's to be carried on pay-per-view TV.
   First, reportedly, there are those charging the whole thing is sexist, implying exploitation of the professional, adult models hired to play.
   What nonsense. The women are to wear as much as is standard at beaches and pools across the land, as much as is worn in undies ads and commercials. Big deal.
   So now, are we to expect the models, having been chastened, will refuse to play, turning instead to employment calling for an MBA in a granny dress?
   Then there were the conservative pressure groups that bombarded DaimlerChrysler with e-mailed protests. These groups consist of people suffering from hardening of the attitudes and constipation of the spirit. They pump up group identity and cohesion, and get the donations flowing, through these tantrum exercises. Individuals who belong get to feel big and powerful.
   These are the same folks who've gone around snuffing out the lamp of learning through sex education, if anything more explicit than storks, stamens and pistils is involved. They also have a problem with those most in need of free condoms and of needle exchanges getting any such things. You can measure some of their results in statistics on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancies and abortions.
   Though tempted, we can't bring ourselves to criticize the automaker for sponsoring the event or for dodging this controversy. Most males are avid about football, women and vehicles, although not necessarily in that order. So, Lingerie Bowl would be something of a natural for Dodge. And being on pay-per-view, there shouldn't have been a squawk about channel-surfing kids tuning in.
   But the company isn't out to drive away prudes with the price of a pickup, either. What can you do when so many people think "sex" is a four-letter word?
   According to a Reuters story on this, the producers will go ahead with the game, anyway.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 7:32 PM

 
Of elephants, donkeys and bulls
   Investor's Notebook is a well-done online newsletter by Brendan Boyd. It's Dec. 16 edition included this interesting factoid:
   "Stock investors have already cashed in on this year's
traditional pre-election year bull market. But what happens
in election years? More profits are in store if history is any
guide. According to International Strategy and Investment,
since 1945 the market has risen an average 7.5 percent during election years when a Republican was in office, and 9.7 percent when Democrats held the presidency."
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:40 PM

 
Gephardt should squelch negative ads
   In this season of giving, Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values apparently thinks it's giving Rep. Dick Gephardt a boost by giving Gov. Howard Dean grief with a series of negative TV ads in Iowa.
   One of the ads uses a magazine cover photo of Osama bin Laden to help make the intended point that Dean lacks defense and foreign relations horsepower. Other ads seek to portray Dean as being much like President Bush in some respects.
   The organization refuses to name its backers until it is required to by law. But, in a Tuesday story, Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti identifies laborers, ironworkers and machinists' unions as contributors, noting that the machinists are disgusted with the ads and want them pulled. Two Americans for Jobs principals have ties to Gephardt.
   Gephardt himself says he doesn't like the ads, doesn't know who is funding Americans for Jobs and wishes the backers would reveal themselves. But he claims he can't do anything about them.
   Gephardt is a solid candidate — bright, experienced and thoroughly decent, with a host of good ideas and sound policy proposals. He's good in just about every way Bush is all wrong and would make a great president. We don't like seeing his campaign sullied with low-class attack ads.
   At the same time, it's hard to believe Gephardt would be ignored if he were to get on the phone and tell the people he knows well at Americans for Jobs to can the attack ads.
   Winning by any means and giving free rein to the notion that ends justify the means are how Bush and his people got to the White House. That doesn't speak well for them and shouldn't be emulated by Democrats.
   Far more than driving up Dean's negatives, those ads are likely to energize Dean's supporters and elicit sympathy for Dean from people on the fence. Boomerang, in other words. The ads also contribute to a circular-firing-squad spectacle that's not helpful to Democrats generally. One way or another, they could even come back to haunt the Democratic nominee.
   Gephardt should urge Americans for Jobs to dump these ads and switch to a positive message more likely to help his campaign.
   For more, click here to read Sidoti's story.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:06 PM

 
Crazies inculcate madness in their kids
   Along with concerns about things slip-sliding away in Afghanistan while the U.S. has been preoccupied with Iraq, Oh!pinion wonders if the wider world of jihadist insanity is getting all the attention it could and should.
   For example, there's the matter of Southeast Asian Muslim psychopaths sending their kids to a university in Karachi, Pakistan, to get a good grounding in their faith, plus field trips to learn special skills like carrying out suicide missions and blowing up a U.S. embassy.
   Their families' idea, according to an eye-opening story by Associated Press writers Rohan Sullivan and Jasbrant Singh, was that they would return to Malaysia trained to take positions as second- and third-tier terrorist leaders.
   Sullivan and Singh report, "The students underwent weapons and explosives training in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and some met al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden before the U.S.-led Afghan war started in late 2001, Malaysia police told AP."
   We can see it now. Junior returns to his home in Zombiebad, saying: "Hey, Ma, guess what. I lettered in throat-slitting and at the graduation ceremony they gave me this silver case cutter with my name engraved on it!"
   To which the proud mother replies, "Yes, my son, I'm so proud of you. And what's this? A vest with dynamite sewn in — wonderful!"
   Also in the AP story: "Hundreds of foreign students, mostly from Southeast Asia, Africa and Arab countries, attend religious schools in Pakistan, where authorities have tightened regulations because of concerns about extremism."
   Parents of the arrested students and others being held without trial in Malaysia, of course, deny they were up to anything but Muslim studies.
   Yeah, right.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 9:42 AM

 
Lieberman's doing himself no favors
   Shooting from the lip, Sen. Joe Lieberman blasted away at Gov. Howard Dean today, saying if it had been left up to Dean, Saddam Hussein would be a free man and still in power.
   Indeed, he would. But then 457 U.S. military people killed since the invasion began would still be alive. And 2,259 military personnel injured in hostilities in Iraq would be whole and healthy. A whole lot of Iraqis and others would still be alive and in once piece. And the U.S. would be in $167 billion to $200 billion less debt.
   Furthermore, we would not be on the hook for some still unknown number of deaths and casualties to come. We would not have a nation to restore at great expense and risk, not the least of the risk being that we could easily wake up in two or three years to find a radical Islamic, rabidly anti-American despot has seized power.
   If it had been left up to Dean or someone of like mind, more and better resources would've been available to track down al Qaeda in general and Osama bin Laden in particular. And maybe, just maybe, having not been distracted, we'd finally have the real kingpin of international radical Muslim terrorism in custody, or dead, instead of the sad sack of Baghdad — arguably the most impotent and incompetent dictator-aggressor since Benito Mussolini.
   Lieberman gives evidence that he's swallowed whole the Bush administration's eclectic array of back-and-fill justifications for the war. That doesn't recommend Lieberman to us as a prospective commander in chief. We prefer someone able to think beyond the immediate and two dimensional.
   This has been mentioned before, but here goes: Saddam's links to al Qaeda and other terrorists were few and flimsy, at most; and all those weapons of mass destruction Bush talked about were in reality only a threat to Bush's and this country's credibility.
   Yes, since we're in there, it's good Saddam is in custody and no longer oppressing the populace and menacing the neighborhood. The point of contention is whether we should've gone in there in the first place.
   With his outspoken attack on Dean, Lieberman achieved his obvious goal of drawing attention to himself. Unfortunately, to those with a reasonable understanding of what's going on, Lieberman then demonstrated that he lacks a sound evaluation of the situation and isn't above resorting to demagoguery to drive up an opponent's negatives.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 8:59 PM

 
Computing giant sells out U.S. workers
   With the U.S. pitched into a race to the economic bottom, certainly where working Americans' job security and pay are concerned, IBM is stepping up to do its bit — to hasten the process.
   The computing giant reportedly has definite plans to "offshore" thousands of programmers' jobs to China, India and other countries. Loss of some 4,700 jobs will affect Dallas, Southbury, Conn., Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Raleigh, N.C., and Boulder, Colo., according to news reports.
   An Associated Press story on this development noted IBM CEO Sam Palmisano having made a speech this fall in which he said China, India and other Asian nations have made investments in education and communications networks of the kind that in the past made the U.S. the center of technical innovation. He reportedly said the U.S. should get busy and do likewise now.
   Oh, and in China, India and elsewhere in Asia, educated, skilled workers are much cheaper, Palmisano noted.
   Exactly.
   The news story also indicates soon-to-be-ex-IBM employees will be expected to train their foreign replacements.
   How innovative, in a demeaning, humiliating way.

   Sorry, Palmisano, but you're not fooling anyone by implying the U.S. is bereft of tons of programming talent and barren of modern networking. That fig leaf for your unbridled greed is made of Saran Wrap. As political pundits like to say, "When they tell you it's not about the money, it's about the money."
   Oh!pinion would like to see the U.S. invest more in education, technical infrastructure and innovation — employing and benefiting companies that demonstrate continuing commitment to this country, its people, and its economic integrity and security.
   Since that leaves IBM out, Oh!pinion would like to see Palmisano and other decision makers at IBM go whole hog with offshoring, by removing themselves and their company to the Third-World tech mecca of their choice. And that means no longer selling their wares in this country, either.
   Oh for a president and Congress full of fed-up people who would publicly and loudly demand just that of all the Palmisanos who are selling this country out, bidding them all adios with, "And don't let the door slam you in the butt on the way out."
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 8:18 PM

 
Money — not damaged kids — talks
   You probably noticed last week's warning to pregnant women about eating tuna and other fish. Mercury contamination is a problem. Molly Ivins noticed, too, and had plenty to say about it.
   For those not familiar, Ivins is an author, one hell of a public speaker and a topnotch syndicated columnist. If it were up to us, her columns would be standard equipment on every op-ed page in the land.
   In her Dec. 14 column, Ivins pulls on her cleated work boots and riverdances all over the public officials who've cynically sold out the health and safety of America's children and unborn. The topic: Mercury being turned loose on us by coal and energy companies that care a lot more about money than about x-number more of developmentally disabled young being born.
   If the unconscionable lack of human decency in this doesn't trigger revulsion, realize that most of those developmentally disabled young, whose lifelong care costs are staggering, will be in non-affluent families. So you, as a state and local taxpayer, will help pay most of the tab.
   The callous, greed-driven corporate decision makers involved in this outrage are enabled, aided and abetted by bureaucrats and elected officials. Those officials care more about campaign contributions, an unfettered free market and growth figures they can brag about than they care about damaged kids, families beset by tragedy and state and local taxpayers.
   Ivins writes: "Mercury emissions from power plants get into rain clouds and come down in lakes and rivers, poisoning fish and the people who eat them. Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury, spewing 50 tons a year into the air — about 40 percent of the total.
   "In December 2000, the EPA issued a finding requiring the maximum amount of technically achievable reduction in mercury. This was expected to result in a 90 percent mercury reduction by 2007.
   "Instead, the new EPA proposals downgrade mercury emissions — particularly mercury emissions from the utility industry — by taking it out of the `hazardous pollutant' category.
   "It would be funny if it weren't so sad."
   She then goes on to nail down how well, in return, the industries polluting our atmosphere with mercury are taking care of the Bush administration and other Republicans. There's more, of course, and Ivins ties it all together in a way that delivers nitty-gritty condemnation where it's so richly deserved.
   If you're a citizen of the U.S., you're being ripped off left and right, day in and day out — and endangered — by well-trained, highly paid, strategically placed experts who devote their lives and dedicate their careers to doing just those things. If you're someone who cares about your country, your health and the health of children, click to read "Let it flow, let it flow?"
   If what you learn makes you mad, hold that thought until next year. Then register, if you haven't already, and vote accordingly. Things don't have to be this way.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 5:51 PM

 
Condemn Saddam to live with himself
   Saddam Hussein is in custody in Iraq and that is good.
   Our soldiers have further distinguished themselves with honor, both in tracking him down and in bringing him in, alive and in one piece.
   After so many years of brutalizing, raping, murdering, cheating, stealing, enslaving and terrorizing the people of Iraq, after his aggressions against Iraq's neighbors, may he himself be the last victim of his hubris, greed and evil stupidity.
   As he sits in a cell now between interrogations, may he think about how he could have been a very different kind of leader — the kind admired and respected by his own people, his neighbors, the heads of other nations.
   May Saddam think about how, undeserving though he was, he could've departed Iraq before the invasion, his luggage stuffed with ill-gotten millions, his evil spawn in tow, to live in peaceful, comfortable exile in another Arab land.
   The temptation now is to try him and then execute him. Certainly, his crimes are so heinous and broad in scope that he deserves execution. Sen. Joe Lieberman wasted no time today calling for just such an end to this blight on humanity.
   But executing Saddam is not the thing to do. News reports today indicate other Arab leaders remain publicly silent, apparently fearful of backlash because large segments of their populations see Saddam as some kind of hero. Let these deluded people be shown the rat hole Saddam wound up in. Let them learn the full magnitude of his cruelty. Then, let them see Saddam being tried under international law, to ultimately be consigned to prison for the rest of his life — the very last victim of his greed and evil stupidity.
   As we are learning, blood feuds, vengeance killings and impassioned quests to settle scores that go back centuries are ingrained in Arab culture, glorified in Arab folklore and blessed in dominant strains of Muslim teaching. We should not feed into this.
   So, let's not make Saddam a martyr. Let's not invite for him one shred of glorification. He is a pathetic-looking thug, a criminal finally in custody. Let him be regarded as such, universally.
   Let's consign Saddam Hussein to years of coming to terms with what he was, what he is , what he has done and what that has brought him, all within the barren confines of a small, well-guarded cell.
   For one so ostentatious, so devoted to the trappings of wealth, luxury, power and vainglorious fantasy, that will be a fitting denouement and a proper foretaste of hell. There is justice enough in that.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:46 PM

 
Best comment on SNL gig comes from Sharpton
   The week's political buzz began with everyone with access to a microphone putting in their two cents' worth about the Rev. Al Sharpton's Dec. 6 "Saturday Night Live" star turn. An outtake of his James Brown act got lots of play.
   But the best comment about that appearance came from Sharpton himself, during a Dec. 12 guest shot on Wolf Blitzer's CNN program.
   Before getting into that, of course, Blitzer asked Sharpton about the week's other big-buzz item, Al Gore's endorsement of Gov. Howard Dean. Sharpton said he had no problem with it, but did take exception to anyone pushing the idea others should fall in line and do the same thing.
   "That's bossism," Sharpton said. "People ought to endorse and work for who they want, but they ought not tell other people that they ought to submit to their particular point of view."
   Asked for comment on Gore and Dean showing up in Harlem to talk up the endorsement, Sharpton said he thought it interesting more reporters were on hand than people, adding the two should've involved the people whose support they were seeking.
   Sharpton also pointed out that in his earlier race to become mayor of New York, he won a fair number of votes from whites. He said he's currently picking up more and more white support in his run for the Democratic nomination.
   Here, from the show's transcript, is the exchange between Sharpton and Blitzer about Sharpton's SNL gig. We especially like the zinger Sharpton got in at the end:
   Sharpton: "I think that my judgment was if Bill Clinton can go on `Arsenio Hall' and don dark shades and blow a sax in '92 to show himself more human and reaching out, then Al Sharpton can do `Saturday Night Live' and do the same thing. And I might add, every candidate just about, in this race wanted to do it. Some called and tried to do a cameo on my night, because it just makes sense to show America that you can laugh at yourself, even though you may be firm and passionate about your views."
   Blitzer: "All right. Reverend Sharpton, let me just say one thing. If the political thing doesn't work out, you've always got the show business you can fall back on."
   Sharpton: "Well, I left show business to do politics. And you know, sometimes I find people more honest in show business. At least they know when the show is over. We can't convince President Bush when it's curtains."

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 1:22 PM

 
New-vehicles decline mirrors jobs trough
   Given the way Americans love their cars, trucks and SUVs, registrations of new vehicles may provide a revealing index of the U.S. economy's health and consumers' frame of mind.
   Take this year, for example. Throughout most of 2003, the unemployment rate has been 6 percent to 7 percent, although last month it dipped to 5.9 percent.
   Interestingly, registrations of 2003 model year vehicles are down 6.5 percent from those of 2002, according to R. L. Polk & Co., which compiles and publishes statistical and other information about the automotive industry.
   Overall, 2003 model year registrations totaled 16,434,563, the lowest level since the 1999.
    Polk's Lonnie Miller anticipates an uptick, saying, "We project new vehicle sales to reach 16.6 million for the 2003 calendar year, increasing to 17 million for the 2004 calendar year."
   The bad news for this country's manufacturing sector, which has been devastated by the staggering volume of imports flooding the U.S. marketplace, thanks to free trade and globalization policies, is that domestic automakers continue to lose market share. Ford's F-series pickups were the nation's top-selling vehicles but the automakers' domestic brands lost most, at a combined 11.1 percent. DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler Group vehicles lost 10.8 percent in the 2003 model year, while General Motors' domestic vehicles had a combined downturn of 7.6 percent.
   Asian automakers saw sales volume down slightly, at 1.9 percent less than 2002. But their combined market share grew to 32.5 percent in the 2003 model year, compared to 31 percent in 2002. Honda led the Asian pack, increasing market share to 8.1 percent and registrations by 6.3 percent, according to Polk.
   Additional information about the 2003 model year from Polk is available here.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:45 PM

 
Just think — an anti-union law firm
   How would the idea of highly successful an anti-business law firm strike you? Not just a law firm hired to go after businesses that have allegedly done some particular wrong thing, mind you, but a law firm devoted to destroying businesses and keeping people from going into business for themselves.
   Sounds anti-capitalist, anti-free enterprise, even un-American, doesn't it?
   Very well then, how does the idea of an anti-union law firm strike you? Not a law firm that gets hired to go after unions that have allegedly done some particular wrong thing, but to try and wreck or neuter unions where they exist, and to keep workers from being able to organize where there is no union.
   Oh!pinion finds the very existence of a successful law firm of that type at once repugnant and fully in keeping with the cynical, eat-their-young viciousness and greed-is-a-virtue climate of corporate America over the last 20-some years. It's the kind of atmosphere that brought us the savings and loan debacle, the Enron mega-scams, the accounting industry implosion, the energy industry's incredible rip-off of the Western United States, the HealthSouth and Worldcom scandals, and so much more.
   With that in mind, we found interesting and encouraging a Teamsters news release concerning a march this week by several hundred Teamsters, members of other unions and civil rights activists in Atlanta against the firm of Jackson Lewis.
   The Teamsters claim the Jackson Lewis law firm "has a well-documented history of advising its clients on actions that would inhibit workers exercising their right to choose a union. Jackson Lewis literally wrote the book on union-busting.
   "The Teamsters and coalition partners are bringing attention to these efforts to circumvent the National Labor Relations Act — including the use of captive meetings, forced overtime, use of armed guards to stop organizing campaigns and efforts to prohibit communication between workers."
   In fairness, we acknowledge we have only one side of the story here, although we strongly doubt the Teamsters are just blowing smoke with this because the 1.4-million-member union values its own credibility.
   It's doubtful such a demonstration will cause sweat to break out on many brows at Jackson Lewis. However, we hope it will give pause to some Atlantans, to think about the needs and rights of working people.
   We also hope the Atlanta march will focus attention on the need for an administration and Congress that value labor — Big Labor like the Teamsters and small labor, like the many less-well-known unions — that are vital to keeping fairness and balance in the country's economic life.
   When we think of that in presidential terms, we think first of Rep. Dick Gephardt, who would make an excellent president, and of Gov. Howard Dean, who exhibits a good grasp of the need for this kind of balance as well.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 1:59 PM

 
Bad to the bone and making things worse
   Americans, including the Bush administration, are getting a couple of hard object lessons.
   The first is that bad thinking leads to bad policy. The second is that a bad attitude is just the thing to make a bad-policy situation worse.
   Case in point: Wednesday, President Bush found himself obliged to ask French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Shroder and Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the phone, to take the sharp stick he'd poked in their eyes out long enough to listen to reason about writing off Iraq's large debts to their countries.
   That "sharp stick" was the previous day's declaration by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz saying countries that had not joined the so-called coalition of the willing to invade Iraq would not get any of the prime contracts for some $18.5 billion in reconstruction work in Iraq. Adding insult to injury, the declaration cast nonparticipants as security risks.
   Not surprisingly, Russia's foreign minister promptly declared there would be no write-off and the others are not jumping at the chance to be of help.
   This result is in keeping with a pattern going back more than a year. The Bush administration's coalition of the willing for the invasion in reality consists of the U.S., Britain and a small handful of countries that have provided a token presence. It is but a faint shadow of the broad assemblage of truly willing allies participating in the 1991 Gulf War.
   Our supposedly staunch ally, Saudi Arabia, staunchly refused to let combat missions be flown from its territory. Turkey, despite massive bribes, refused to take part and forbade sending troops into Iraq from its territory.
   Post-invasion, with Iraq not secure and counterinsurgents proving to be equal-opportunity murderers of people of any kind, the U.N. and several aid organizations are largely or completely gone from Iraq, and Japan and Korea have begged off sending their troops in.
   The administration's donor conference efforts to elicit money for reconstruction yielded much less than had been hoped for, administration after-spin notwithstanding. And an administration attempt to get other nations to send troops to relieve U.S. troops has gone nowhere.
   To sum up, the Bush administration took faulty information, grossly distorted it, then presented it as justification for a pre-emptive invasion. The United Nations, our NATO allies and most of the nations of Europe, Asia and the Third World didn't buy that justification, and resented what they considered a cavalier, to-hell-with-you attitude.
   The administration's predictions of other nations falling in behind us once the coalition had successfully invaded Iraq proved to be just more proof of bad thinking.
   Now, the number of our dead approaches 500. Our tab is up around a quarter-trillion dollars. There is no end in sight for either kind of loss. Our counterinsurgency efforts are doing as much or more to alienate the Iraqi population as to quell the violence. Crime and random killings hamper our efforts to provide a sense of safety and stability, and undoubtedly get in the way of recruiting the numbers of Iraqis needed to re-establish a native government, and police and military forces. Ongoing sabotage confounds all efforts to restore the oil industry. Baghdad's airport is less safe for coalition aircraft today than in the first post-invasion days.
   All the evidence indicates the U.S. is diplomatically isolated, bogged down militarily in a deadly quagmire, on the hook for an outrageously expensive experiment in nation building, lacks an adequate comprehensive plan for resolving all this — and our president is more high-handed and dismissive toward what should be our allies than ever.

   Conclusion: the U.S. military executed its mission to invade Iraq expertly; in every other respect, because of bad thinking by incompetent leaders, this episode is a horrendous mistake, a complete failure and an unwarranted distraction from the global war on terrorism.
   Click here for a good news story on Bush's embarrassing attempt to get Iraq's debts written off.

   For some contrasting excellent thinking by one of the best-informed and most capable Americans in the foreign policy field, please see the next post.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 10:04 AM

 
Biden tells how to put things right
   On Oct. 28, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., made a keenly insightful and timely speech at The Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.
   Few if any Americans are better qualified to recommend new directions in our relations with other countries. Biden, who is ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, eats, sleeps and breathes this stuff, brilliantly.
   In "Toward Enlightened Nationalism," you get to see why we say that. Biden makes clear where and how U.S. foreign policy has gone completely off the track with respect to Iraq, our longtime allies, the community of nations and the war against terrorism.
   Biden's purpose, however, is not simply to criticize. He offers a sound, workable way to proceed, neither advocating a precipitous exit nor condemning the U.S. to indefinitely carry 90 percent of the burden and cost of postwar Iraq. Here's a brief sample:

   We urge you to click here and read the full speech. You will be treated to a tour de force of good thinking in an area where this country desperately needs all the good thinking it can get.


  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 10:00 AM

 
Perpetual rip-off machine fuels Iraq
   One of the most outrageous, onerous and expensive features of President Bush's unnecessary invasion of Iraq involves the large quantities of gasoline being trucked in from Turkey and Kuwait.
   Adding to the outrage is the sky-high price a subsidiary of Halliburton, the Houston-based oil services giant, is charging for gasoline it brings in. Kellogg Brown and Root makes 26 cents a gallon for "overhead" for hauling from Kuwait, 22 cents a gallon for hauling from Turkey.
   Halliburton says the costs are justified by the dangers involved, citing one death, a bunch of injuries and truck damage. Presumably, other contractors face the same dangers, but KBR charges a lot more than any other fuel transporter.
   As reported in an excellent New York Times story, the cost of fuel transport into Iraq is already more than $500 million and there is no end to this expense in sight.
   Note in the story two key points: 1, a California fuel economist's statement Halliburton/KBR is getting a "monopoly premium" price; and 2, that Halliburton is charging $2.64 per gallon, which is much higher than its high prices that caused a commotion back in October.
   Never mind about Iraq having the third-largest oil reserves in the world. Never mind about those pie-in-the-sky prewar assurances by Iraq invasion mastermind, Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz, and others that Iraq's oil would pay for postwar reconstruction.
   The reality is that now, U.S. taxpayers have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to keep Iraqis supplied with gasoline, with the U.N.'s oil-for-food paying even more, for now. Come 2004, U.S. taxpayers will foot all the bills, with money borrowed by the Bush administration from future generations of taxpayers. The funding will come out of the $87 billion gift Bush insisted on.
   Of course, the Bush administration is not fazed by the high costs and, despite wanting "market forces" to rule Medicare and everything else domestically, is not bothering with trying to inject competition into the Iraq gasoline racket. The reason why was explained in an Oct. 31 Los Angeles Times story based on a public interest group's report, "Report Ties Iraq, Afghan Contracts to Cronyism." That story begins:

   The more we look the more we find that what we have in a Washington, D.C., controlled by Bush and the Republican Congress is not so much a government as it is a conveyor-belt operation where the people's tax dollars are taken in and transported to corporate coffers. That being the case, it's no surprise those corporate interests and big-money investors continue to lavish huge donations on Bush and the Republicans in Congress.
   What we have here is a perpetual rip-off machine.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:34 PM

 
Gore helps Dean, hurts Lieberman
   Al Gore's ringing endorsement certainly gives Gov. Howard Dean a boost.
   In making the announcement to a cheering Iowa crowd, with a beaming Dean at his side, Gore exhibited a kind of impassioned conviction rarely seen in him. He gave the impression he wants an industrial-strength anti-Bush who can win, and is certain he's found one in Dean.
   That's fitting, because there are few things as pathetic as a half-hearted political endorsement.
   Regrettably, in making the endorsement, Gore publicly blindsided and, in a personal sense, betrayed his 2000 running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman.
   We fail to understand how Gore could go public with his pick before giving Lieberman the courtesy of a personal call.
   Lieberman is one of our last choices for the Democratic nomination because of several of his policy preferences. As a person, we see him as intelligent, thoroughly honest, decent, hard-working, sincere and loyal to a fault, and have never seen or heard anything to the contrary about him. Which makes Gore's callous disregard for Lieberman's feelings utterly appalling.
   Yes, we know, a political race is not a meeting of the Ladies Wednesday Night Bible Class and Tea Social. As MSNBC motormouth-in-residence Chris Matthews put it, everybody's going on about the "soap opera" of how Gore hurt Lieberman's feelings. Matthews said he doesn't care about that and doesn't want to hear it.
   No surprise there. Matthews loves to talk about his one-time boss, the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who was a tough competitor but also a good-hearted individual who knew the value of giving someone at a disadvantage a graceful way out. Matthews, judging by his attitude and approach, is very much a creature of what Washington became thanks to people like former Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Majority Leader Dick Armey, current Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Sens. Phil Gramm, Don Nickles and Rick Santorum. Workday civility and after-hours friendships fell victim to raw ideology, personal alienation and the geometrical proliferation of grudges and score settling. Anger and vindictiveness soon gave free rein to "the politics of personal destruction."
   Yeah, Matthews, it's tough luck about Lieberman's feelings; you don't want to hear it.
   We know just where you're coming from — and we pity you.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 11:13 PM

 
All gain, no pain for Premier Wen
   Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao paid a visit to President Bush in the White House today and the two made themselves available for the customary photo op plus a few questions from reporters.
   During that session Bush reiterated U.S. policy opposing any unilateral act by Taiwan asserting its independence and separateness from the People's Republic. One such act would be the government of Taiwan holding a planned referendum concerning Taiwan's relationship with mainland China, implicitly, one asserting independence..
   Let's look at this a little more closely. Here we have the nominal leader of the free world, chief of state of one of the world's longest-running and most successful democracies, identifier of the "Axis of Evil" and liberator of Iraq. And here he is, engaged in a pleasant sit-down with the leader of the world's largest surviving communist totalitarian state. It is a particularly brutal state where human rights are suppressed and violated as a matter of course. It is also a state with which the U.S. ran a staggering $103 billion trade deficit in 2002 and this year will up that amount by about $27 billion.
   A question arises concerning a small, fiercely anticommunist, enthusiastically capitalistic, democratic state that throughout the Cold War served as a staunch U.S. ally in the far Pacific. This tiny breakaway island nation, this longtime friend, Taiwan, wants to undertake a quintessentially democratic project. And in doing so, its people might assert what has been a functioning reality for half a century: that it is an independent nation, not just a renegade province.
   What does Bush say to that? He says nothing doing.
   If that seems paradoxical, hold it up next to our policy toward Cuba. Here we have a fiercely independent island nation, a communist totalitarian state, a brutal dictatorship. Because of all that we refuse to normalize relations with its government, restrict travel to it and persist with an embargo that severely limits trade.
   Bottom line: a policy of engagement with a brutal despotism that controls 1.3 billion people on the far side of the world is OK. But engagement is not OK for a similarly despotic nation of a few million people 90 miles from our shore.
   And, while the U.S. is supposedly committed to furthering the cause of democracy around the world, especially in Iraq, which we're gifting with $250 billion-plus on the slim chance that doing so might help democracy take root, we draw the line on supporting an officially free and independent Taiwan.
   Go figure.

   One of the hallmarks of good leadership is logical consistency in pursuit of readily discernable ends — a quality missing from U.S. foreign policy for quite some time now. In fact, the more closely U.S. foreign policy is scrutinized, the more it appears to be a basket overstuffed with loose ends, with administration after administration working harder and harder just to keep the lid on.
   This has a lot to do with why nations whose friendship and cooperation the U.S. has long been able to count on increasingly choose to sit things out or go their own way. Let's face it, human nature is such that people universally would rather win with a winner than cope with a coper — or bungle with a bungler.
   Aside from two invasions, a forced-hand about face on the Israeli-Palestinian miasma and cheerfully playing ball with our predatory trading partners, Bush's foreign policy consists of continuing past policies in a manner neither inspired nor inspiring. Where personal diplomacy is concerned, the word "graceless" comes to mind. There were high hopes early on for Secretary of State Colin Powell, but if he's had an original, innovative idea, it remains a well-kept secret.
   The closest we have to foreign policy movers and shakers right now is the Defense Department's corps of neoconservative hawks. They are intent on conducting a crusade to strike fear in, and inject democracy into, the Middle East, preferably by force of arms and the sheer crushing weight of hundreds of billions of American taxpayers' dollars.

   Whatever else may be said about the Chinese premier's visit, it's a safe bet he left the White House feeling extremely comfortable about U.S.-China relations.
   The question is, is this something Americans should feel the least bit comfortable about?
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 7:52 PM

 
Enough of this ennui and nonsense
   With the country beset by really big problems and a raft of long-term issues of great consequence to be sorted out, the Democratic primary race — or at least too much of the reporting on it — has settled into making much of a few niggling, peripheral matters.
   Gen. Wesley Clark is drawing critical notice from pundit Craig Crawford for having given voice to good sense about the embargo against Cuba while speaking in southern Florida.
   Heaven forbid that the diehard Castrophobes of southern Florida should be confronted with how nonsensical the policy they back really is. Supposedly, a presidential primary campaign should be a time when candidates steep themselves in what is, instead of pointing out what ought to be; when candidates should tell listeners what they want to hear or else keep their mouths shut about touchy topics.
   What complete nonsense!
   As a matter of fact, history shows embargoes lose strategic and psychological value in a fairly short time. Typically, it isn't long before the targeted nation, aided by other nations, finds ways over, around and through the embargo. History also shows that embargoes over time tend to make things hard on people in the targeted country who have little or no say about their country's policies.
   A good case can be made that both situations apply with respect to the 40-plus-year-old embargo against Cuba. If it was ever going to do anything to dislodge Castro from power or make things hard for him, it would've done so long, long ago.
   Both houses of Congress are on record as favoring a lifting of the travel ban to Cuba. The U.S. is virtually alone in banning trade with Cuba. Castro will be in power until he lapses into senile dementia or croaks altogether. Yes, he's a no-good despot, but those are the realities.
   Meanwhile, antiquated, ineffective, brain-dead U.S. policy toward Cuba is looked on by other nations as further evidence that Uncle Sam, despite being a tech wizard and nuclear superpower, is a bumbling amateur in the international relations arena.
   Clark may have spoken good sense to south Floridians who didn't want to hear good sense out of naiveté, but we'll give him an attaboy for having done the right thing anyway. He was right on the issue and we hope he will stick to his guns about it, wherever he's speaking. It's something that should be encouraged, not reported as a gaffe.

   Elsewhere, Sen. John Kerry is attracting tut-tuts , including from Bush aide Andrew Card, for having uttered the F-word during a magazine interview. Indeed, Kerry and all the rest would do well to confine the use of four-letter words to private moments and strive for language suitable for sixth-graders during media interviews.
   That said, we ask, what's the big deal? If all the presidents who've uttered similar bad language were stripped out of American history, our history textbooks would look like magazines. And if all our generals, admirals and war heroes who were given to indelicate utterances had been run out of the service at their first transgression, we'd be loyal subjects of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

   Gov. Howard Dean's big deal that isn't concerns records from his administration which, he says, may include sensitive matters that could hurt or embarrass citizens who had commun