* Bush’s incompetence … and ours

Bob Herbert writes in today’s NYT …

• Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?
• When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance.
• I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.
• The Bush administration specialized in deceit.
• There seemed to be no end to Mr. Bush’s talent for destruction.
• The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.

LMW COMMENT … I agree with Bob Herbert. All of us, especially those who supported him, need to be reminded of our president’s eight year record of staggering incompetence and personal disregard for the American people. Chris Mathews’ hour-long humiliation of President Bush on MSNBC is exactly on point. We have a right to expect an intelligent, energetic, comprehensiveand honest approach to governance, none of which describes George W. Bush. But this means that voters are as much to blame as the people they elect. How anyone could have voted to re-elect President Bush is beyond my comprehension, since just about everything we know today was known in 2004. I believe we made a far better choice in 2008. We’re about to find out.

Read Herbert’s entire column at … http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/30herbert.html?ref=opinion

 

* Israeli attacks on Gaza are justified, but …

Michael Oren writes in The New Republic …

• CNN International’s coverage of yesterday’s fighting in Gaza concluded at midnight with a rush of images: mangled civilians writhing in the rubble, primitive hospitals overflowing with the wounded, fireballs mushrooming between apartment complexes, the funeral of a Palestinian child.
• Missing from the montage, however, was even a fleeting glimpse of the tens of thousands of Israelis who spent last night and much of last week in bomb shelters; of the house in Netivot, where a man was killed by a Grad missile; or indeed any of the hundreds of rockets, mortar shells, and other projectiles fired by Hamas since the breakdown of the so-called ceasefire.
• This was CNN at its unprincipled worst, grossly skewering its coverage of a complex event and deceiving its viewers. 
• Within minutes of the first Israeli air strike, the Arabs were screaming “massacre” and the media had all but forgotten the serial assaults that provoked it.
• The press once again attached the word “disproportionate” and the “continuing cycle of violence” term to describe a supremely justified and largely surgical (the targets were exclusively military, the victims overwhelmingly Hamas gunmen) operation.
• As of this writing, the Security Council is meeting and will no doubt find Israel and Hamas equally guilty for disrupting the ceasefire and demand its immediate restoration.

Michael B. Oren, a professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. Read the entire article at … http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=b80c860d-dca8-4d79-9cc4-05d91b6d4721

LMW COMMENT:

There are two questions here, in this seemingly never-ending Israeli-Palestine conflict: Was Israel justified in attacking Hamas? Why does Hama continue to attack Israel and deny its right to exist?

In my view, the answer to the first question is clearly YES. Israel should and must defend itself, and has every right to do whatever it can to eliminate Hamas killers, even though Israeli leaders surely know that military means will not bring peace. That’s the easy question, and I’m sure President Obama will give the same answer. 

Understanding why Hamas continues to attack Israel (which is essential to ever getting them to stop) is anything but clear or simple. The Palestineans in Gaza live a horrible life, and have for decades. Would making their lives better end the violence? Or is their violence a reflection of a broader antipathy toward Israel, Jews, the U.S. and the West, in which case Hamas is using the horrible conditions in Gaza as an excuse for violence and will thus seek to undermine solutions that others might think are reasonable. Remember that Hamas was elected in Gaza, perhaps in a corrupt election, but elected nevertheless.

It seems to me that only a broad coalition of many world powers, including Arab and Muslim states, can effectively bring to bear the combination of swords and carrots that might lead to permanently changed behavior in Gaza. No recent President has been able to bring about such a coalition, which requires mutual understanding and cooperation on many issues that have little to do with Israel and Hamas. 

President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton (and perhaps special ambassador Holbrooke, if rumors are true) have the task of trying. It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick. And meanwhile, CNN and others will continue to distort the news.

 

* Should Bush, Cheney et al be held accountable for the war crimes they committed?

 Jonathan Freedland, writing in The Guardian, says YES …

• the US Senate has released a bipartisan report – with none other than John McCain as its co-author – into the American use of torture against those held in the war on terror. 
  • It dismissed entirely the notion that the horrors of Abu Ghraib could be put down to “a few bad apples”. 
  • Instead it laid bare, in forensic detail, the trail of memos and instructions that led directly to the then defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
• the 29-page published summary makes horrifying reading. It shows how the most senior figures in the Bush administration discussed, and sought legal fig leaves for, practices that plainly amounted to torture. 
• Approval for this kind of torture, hidden under the euphemism of “enhanced interrogation”, was sought from and granted at the highest level.
• And that doesn’t mean Rumsfeld. 
• The report’s first conclusion is that, on “7 February 2002, President George W Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al-Qaida or Taliban detainees”. The result, it says, is that Bush “opened the door” to the use of a raft of techniques that the US had once branded barbaric and beyond the realm of human decency.
• For this Bush should surely be held to account. 

Read Freedland’s entire article at … http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/24/george-bush-guantanamo-bay-us-government

Mort Kondracke, writing in ROLL CALL, has a different view …

• For the sake of national security and national unity, President-elect Barack Obama should put a stop to efforts to investigate or prosecute Bush administration officials for anti-terror “war crimes.”
• The motive behind such efforts is not — as claimed — “truth” or “justice,” but political vengeance.
• Bush haters are calling for the Obama administration to investigate Bush officials for alleged war crimes and other misdeeds connected with the war on terror.
• Obama should make it clear right now that he opposes such action 
• The main reason has less to do with “turning the page,” uniting the country and letting bygones be bygones — all good Obama impulses — than with preserving the morale of intelligence professionals in wartime.
• But there’s no need to investigate whether Bush — or Cheney — authorized the use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques or warrantless terrorist wiretapping or renditions (“snatching”) of terrorist suspects. They’ve admitted it and defended it as being necessary to defend the nation in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — and justified it by pointing out that the homeland has not been attacked since.

Read Kondracke’s entire article at … http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12/obama_should_say_no_to_war_cri.html

LMW COMMENT … There is substantial evidence that torture does produce information, but not the truth. Tortured prisoners lie; the information they provide is often useless or worse, purposely misleading. America has certain standards which have made us a powerful moral force in the world. The practices of torture, which seem to have been directly authorized by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, undermine our ability to influence a hostile world. Our military might is clearly not enough. To regain our moral stature and world leadership, we need to investigate, and prosecute if warranted, those who demeaned all of us by abdicating what we should stand for.

* facing up to the consequences of failed conservative policies

 Robert Borosage & Eric Lotke write in The Nation …

• America is falling apart, literally. 
  • Conservative scorn for government has produced a crippling public-investment deficit.
  • America’s core infrastructure–roads, bridges, sewers, airports, trains, mass transit–is overcrowded, outdated and crumbling.
• While the old basics are crumbling, twenty-first-century needs are being ignored. 
• It is time to invest in America.
• From all indications, President-elect Obama gets this.
  • In his November 24 press conference announcing his economic team, he pledged to “do what’s required to jolt this economy back into shape.” In his December 6 radio address, he committed to a bold recovery plan founded on strategic public investment to “help save or create” 2.5 million jobs “while rebuilding our infrastructure, improving our schools, reducing our dependence on oil and saving billions of dollars.”
• Is Obama ready to lead this broader fight?
• He’ll have to forget about the “postpartisan” era of good feeling that is all the rage. The creation of a new New Deal will be the mother of all battles. In order to transform priorities, he will have to take on entrenched special interests–epitomized by the iron triangle of the military-industrial complex.
• Obama should have little trouble rallying public support for a bold recovery plan. 
• People voted for change, and they are terrified about the economy. Aid for Main Street rather than Wall Street will be widely applauded. 

LMW COMMENT … This is an astounding agenda, and we are fortunate to have a President who can comprehend it. He will, however, need our support to get it enacted. Failed conservative philosophy has brought us to our current depths, but don’t expect Reaganite “government is the problem” Republicans to simply give up. Obama’s most difficult task may be to bring enough reasonable conservatives to an understanding of the terrible consequences of their flawed approach. 

Read the entire aricle at … http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090112/borosage_lotke?rel=hp_picks

* Nuclear power – the French way versus ours

LMW COMMENT … 

In the debate over lessening our dependence on foreign oil, building more nuclear plants sometimes surfaces as a desirable alternative. There are several problems. Some people are afraid that nuclear plants are not safe, although I don’t think there has ever been a fatal accident in any U.S. plant. Others are opposed to the accumulation of nuclear waste, to be buried somewhere; nobody wants it anywhere near them.

Meanwhile, the French have nuclear plants all over the country and the disposal of waste doesn’t seem to be a problem. What do the French do with their nuclear waste?

It turns out they recycle it, more than 90% of it, safely re-using the uranium to generate more power. It turns out that the U.S. is the only country in the world which does not reprocess its nuclear fuel. Why is that? Especially since we were the one who invented the process by which recycling can be safely accomplished.

The answer to these questions is inextricably linked to our attitude toward government regulation and our definition of free markets which allow anyone (at least anyone who is wealthy and politically connected) to do whatever they want, regardless of how counter-productive it might be. This Ronald Reagan Republican-backed philosophy that “government is the problem” has led us down so many wrong paths (think financial meltdown), denying the public good while transferring enormous wealth from most of us to the very rich.

The article extracted below provides some important perspectives. But the most important ingredient is political will to have government do for all of us what none can do as individuals … another piece of the Obama challenge.

 

Recycling Nuclear Fuel: The French Do It, Why Can’t Oui?
by Jack Spencer  December 28, 2007

• 95 percent of the used fuel from America’s 104 power reactors, which provide about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, could be recycled for future use.
• The sad thing is, the United States developed the technology to recapture that energy decades ago, then barred its commercial use in 1977. We have practiced a virtual moratorium ever since.
• Other countries have not taken such a backward approach to nuclear power.
• France, whose 59 reactors generate 80 percent of its electricity, has safely recycled nuclear fuel for decades. 
• Anti-nuclear fear mongering has proved baseless. The French have recycled fuel like this for 30 years without incident: no terrorist attack, no bad guys stealing uranium, no contribution toward nuclear weapons proliferation, and no accidental explosions.
• The British, Japanese, Indians, and Russians all engage in some level of reprocessing.
• Of course, there is still waste involved. But recycling produces much lower volumes of highly radioactive waste, and the French deal with it effectively–placing some waste in short-term, interim storage or preparing the rest for long-term storage in their version of Yucca Mountain.
• Nuclear fuel reprocessing is a safe activity that should be part of America’s nuclear energy program. It can be affordable and is technologically feasible. The French are proving that on a daily basis. The question is: Why can’t oui?

Jack Spencer is a research fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

 read the entire article at … http://www.heritage.org/press/commentary/ed010108d.cfm

 

* will Obama deliver government as it should be?

Tom Friedman writes in today’s NYT …

• We’ve indulged ourselves for too long with 
  • tax cuts that we can’t afford, 
  • bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines, 
  • energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars, 
  • public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world’s best scientists and engineers 
• and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours.
• To top it off, we’ve fallen into a trend of diverting and rewarding the best of our collective I.Q. to people doing financial engineering rather than real engineering — designing complex financial instruments to make money out of money — rather than designing cars, phones, computers, teaching tools, Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions.
• That’s why we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history.
• Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus.
  • But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely.
  • It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure — without building white elephants.
  • Generally, I’d like to see fewer government dollars shoveled out and more creative tax incentives to stimulate the private sector to catalyze new industries and new markets.
  • If we allow this money to be spent on pork, it will be the end of us.

LMW COMMENT … Friedman is describing government as it should be, serving our national interests instead of the interests of politicians and those who buy them. Obama campaigned for such government. He has chosen a cabinet that is capable of delivering such government. Soon we’ll see if this intelligent, broad-thinking president can fight off the political demons and deliver on his promises. I believe he intends to try. Our future depends on it.

Friedman’s point about financial engineering is correct and too often ignored. In my view, the Wall Street money-making myopia is a fraud, spinning paper that no one understands and paying its proprietors billions of dollars for producing nothing of real value. But too many of us, in our own greed to get something for nothing, support this national game of gambling for dollars. My fear is that, despite the financial collapse, we have learned nothing, and will continue ‘business as usual’ as soon as we can.

read the entire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/opinion/24friedman.html?ref=opinion

* Obama’s outstanding cabinet

The Christian Science Monitor editorial board writes …

• Like a student who finishes his homework early, Barack Obama can vacation in Hawaii with the satisfaction that he’s largely named his cabinet in record time, and that his choices have been generally well received. 
• Ahead lies the real test: Can he manage this group of diverse views and traditions?
  • Obama will have to be a hands-on decider who can balance and bend the steel wills of a Lawrence Summersor a Hillary Clinton while juggling contrasting opinions. 
  • Case in point: the designated secretary of Labor (USRep. Hilda Solis of California, from a working-class union family) versus the named US trade representative (former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, a free-trader and no union favorite).
• Critics cry that Obama abandoned his “change” mandate, appointing retreads from the Clinton and Bush years. How can the new administration diverge when many of its members are insiders?
• But Obama’s instinct to rely on mostly outside experts for areas such as education and energy, while turning to old hands for the two largest challenges – the economy and national security – makes sense.
• And the evidence shows insiders are capable of change.

LMW COMMENT:  I am very pleased with Obama’s choices and look forward to learning if Obama can manage this diverse group as well as I think he can.

Read the entire editorial at … http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20081223/cm_csm/ecabinet;_ylt=A0wNcxfg3VBJ2fQAFwe6e8UF

* Jim Cramer: banks refuse to disclose use of bailout money

Jim Cramer rants on this topic at … http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/22/jim-cramer-slams-banks-fo_n_152996.html

After receiving $350 billion in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

LMW COMMENT: This is an utter disgrace. If the Bush administration will not force transparencey, Congress must. After Jan 20, Obama surely will, but we cannot wait. Congress has once again demonstrated its total lack of competence to legislate effectively. And this was a Democratic Congress. I’m embarrassed and furious. Obama needs to speak out now!

* Hillary … excellent new approaches at State

Mark Landler and Helene Cooper write in the New York Times …

• Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis.
• As Mrs. Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years.
• The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private, said Mrs. Clinton was being supported in her push for more resources by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Obama’s incoming national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones Jr.
• For years, some Pentagon officials have complained that jobs like the economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq have been added to the military’s burden when they could have been handled by a robust Foreign Service.
• “The Pentagon would like to turn functionality over to civilian resources, but the resources are not there,” the official said. “We’re looking to have a State Department that has what it needs.”
• Mrs. Clinton’s push for a more vigorous economic team, one of her advisers said, stems from her conviction that the State Department needs to play a part in the recovery from the global financial crisis. Economic issues also underpin some of the most important diplomatic relationships, notably with China.

LMW COMMENT … This is change we need. The State Department has been too much a weak sister to Treasury and Defense. Mrs. Clinton, surely with Barack Obama’s concurrence, is setting out to redefine State’s role in managing the international implications of U.S. economic and military policy. This is a balance that has been long lacking. I think Hillary will be a brilliant Secretary of State; this article points out some excellent first thoughts.

Read the entire article at … http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html?hp

* gay marriage, Rick Warren and tolerance

Peter Wehner writes in Commentary (12-23-08) …

• Barney Frank is deeply offended by Rick Warren, and he wants to the world to know it.
• What has Frank and other gay rights advocates riled up is that Warren backed a California ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage (the measure was approved by voters last month). 
  • In the course of defending his stand, Warren has made the point that there are lots of arrangements one could envision consenting adults wanting–from polygamy to incest–that we would not want to label “marriage.”
• Now ask advocates of same-sex marriage to make an argument against these arrangements.
  • They will say that marriage isn’t about marrying as many people as you love; it’s about marrying one other person you love. It should therefore be restricted to two people. But why is this? Who are gay-rights advocates to insist that we limit the number of people in marriage to two?
• One may disagree with Warren’s position and believe that gay marriage is simply part of the centuries-long evolution of marriage that has occurred and that it would not harm, and may even marginally help, the institution of marriage. I disagree, but I understand such a case can be made–and, in fact, that case has been made by intelligent and sober advocates for same-sex marriage (like Jonathan Rauch). 
• But to say that the arguments put forth by Warren are “deeply offensive and unfair” is itself, I think, unfair. And the effort to portray Warren as a bigoted and benighted figure is both unfair and wrong.
• President-elect Obama deserves credit for asking Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. It is a symbolic gesture for sure–but symbolism matters, and this reciprocal generosity of spirit is good for the country.
• The outrage directed at Warren is an effort by some to intimidate those who oppose same-sex marriage into silence and de-legitimize their arguments rather than answer them. This effort needs to be resisted, especially by those who claim to care so much about “tolerance” and the free and open exchange of ideas.

LMW COMMENT: I was initially appalled at President-elect Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural. Why provide such a prominent place to an obvious bigot? But, recognizing that Obama always seems to be thinking 6 moves ahead, I was willing to try to understand what he was about. Without in any way changing my views of Pastor Warren, I am beginning to sense the purpose of Obama’s selection, and to see its value. First, it may change Warren, as recent changes to his web site suggest may already be happening. Second, it opens a dialogue that offers the promise of intelligent interaction and compromise on issues where good people have strongly differing views. Third, it is a political inroad into the Republican dominence of right wing conservatives. It is surely a graphic demonstration that Obama meant what he said when he defined himself as President of all Americans, not just those who voted for him. As an outspoken advocate of tolerance (see my novel, The Heretic) I will give Obama the benefit of the doubt and look forward to see how this initiative plays out.

read the entire article at … http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/47591