NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2004, as Loyalty Day. I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance.

Loyalty Day encourages citizens to demonstrate their commitment to our country by supporting our military, serving each other, and teaching our young people about our history and values. Being an American is a privilege, and our patriotism is a living faith in our country's founding ideals and the promise of the American Dream.

Best stay inside tomorrow, you subversives.

Blog prose is written in headline form to imitate informal speech, with short emphatic sentences and frequent use of boldface and italics. The entries, sometimes updated hourly, are little spasms of assertion, usually too brief for an argument ever to stand a chance of developing layers of meaning or ramifying into qualification and complication. There's a constant sense that someone (almost always the blogger) is winning and someone else is losing. Everything that happens in the blogosphere -- every point, rebuttal, gloat, jeer, or "fisk" (dismemberment of a piece of text with close analytical reading) -- is a knockout punch. A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another. They are also nearly without exception men (this form of combat seems too naked for more than a very few women). I imagine them in neat blue shirts, the glow from the screen reflected in their glasses as they sit up at 3:48 a.m. triumphantly tapping out their third rejoinder to the WaPo's press commentary on Tim Russert's on-air recap of the Wisconsin primary.

Oddly enough, that analysis follows Packer's admission that he hates blogs because they consume so much of his time: "To change metaphors for a moment (and to deepen the shame), I gorge myself on these hundreds of pieces of commentary like so much candy into a bloated -- yet nervous, sugar-jangled -- stupor."

For anyone who's spent much time spanning the blogoglobe, it's hard to reconcile these comments. Don't like the "contemptuous" tone of Blogger X? No problem--there are bloggers Y through infinity to turn to instead. Surely Packer's stumbled across a blogger or two among the hundreds who's long-winded and unprovocative. But more than that, I think his blogosphere fisking misses its real value--as an instantaneous filter for news, half of the reason for tuning in is to winnow down the good bits in a short time. The prose style is in many cases in service of getting you to the primary source quicker. A quick stop at the regulars (which of course differ for each of us) and you have an excellent idea of what's going on. Let's see, Kos will have the election news, Max will give me something interesting about the economy, Atrios will alert me to the Zeitgeist of the moment, Liberal Oasis will--well, you know the routine.

And contempt itself is the hardest thing to reconcile with the blogosphere. (From the Latin, contemnere, to despise, it means "open disrespect for a person.") Here you get real people trying to talk to real people. Bloggers really do care what people think--they certainly don't disrespect them. For contempt, let me direct your attention to a network whose "Fair and Balanced" motto is perhaps the most brazen expression of open disrespect for an audience any medium has ever known.

So I don't know what the hell Packer's talking about. But my "little spasm of assertion" here isn't contempt.

Oh hell, maybe it is.

______________
Other bloggers talking about the article: Dan Drezner, OxBlog, CalPundit Political Animal, Matt Yglesias, Wunderkinder. None of them was sufficiently riled by his article to muster much contempt.

Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war; yet it is a great moral advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.

In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices; and everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

I fairly hear the angels singing; I see the dappled light upon his shoulders. Fair enough--he was speaking for a nation and for soldiers (though he was the guy who vamped in a flight suit). So let him overstate the accomplishment. But after that came the boasts he may regret. First there was this one:

The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

Bush then made the mistake of lying, connecting our invasion to the 9/11 attacks--even then a position supported by absolutely no evidence. I'd love to hear a reporter quote these paragraphs and ask Bush to remind us again of the connections he believes he saw between Iraq and al Qaida.

The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the "beginning of the end of America." By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed...

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.

Finally, the words Scott hopes to hang his hat on--the qualifications. But even this may not be a statement the administration will rush to stand on (itals mine).

The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory.

All right, Scott, let's ask again: is there anything the President regrets from this speech?

____________________
The administration's giddy triumphalism lives on digitally. It includes a "Vision for Iraq" ("All the Iraqi people ... should enjoy freedom, prosperity, and equality in a united country." " Iraq must never again be a haven for terrorists of any kind.") There's a photo essay that shares all the subtlety of Soviet Realism. There's further propaganda about the Coalition (representing a high-water mark of support that even then included countries like Slovakia who had not yet been bought off and was never a supporter). And of course, it glowingly highlights all the President's carefully-scripted words.

Q Scott, we're coming up on the year anniversary of when the President landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared that major combat operations were over under the "mission accomplished" banner.... [H]e also declared major combat operations over, and gave the sense that the war was winding down.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let's go back and look at his remarks. He also declared that there is more to do, that difficulties remain in Iraq.

Indeed, let's go back and look at his remarks.

In the images of falling statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. For a hundred of years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Allied forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation.

Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war; yet it is a great moral advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent. (Applause.)

In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices; and everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.


The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.


The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the "beginning of the end of America." By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.


The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.


The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory.

WASHINGTON - Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been pegged as a possible leaker of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to a syndicated columnist, according to accounts in a book by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Plame's husband.

In The Politics of Truth, to be published Friday, Wilson says Libby is "quite possibly the person who exposed my wife's identity," according to The Washington Post, which obtained an early copy.

The vice president's office did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.

Wilson writes that a "workup" of his background was done by the White House in March 2003, after his public criticism of the administration's Iraq policy.

"The other name that has most often been repeated to me in connection with the inquiry and disclosure into my background and Valerie's is that of Elliott Abrams, who gained infamy in the Iran-Contra scandal," he writes.

Another suspect named in Wilson's book: White House chief political adviser Karl Rove. "The workup on me that turned up the information on Valerie was shared with Karl Rove, who then circulated it in administration and neoconservative circles," Wilson writes.

Q So you know that we're a hair shirt to them.

MR. McCLELLAN: No one -- of course no one wants to be occupied, Helen. We don't want to be occupiers. We liberated the country. And now --

Next, the random:

Q Did the White House take stills?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think there were some pictures taken at the beginning.

Q Will you release one for us?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't think we're going to. This was a private meeting.

This next exchange is really fascinating. Apparently the President isn't too pleased with how Ashcroft has declassified material to get back at Jamie Gorelick.

Q Well, the Justice Department keeps releasing documents. They released another -- they declassified 30 pages yesterday that reinforce the idea that Commissioner Gorelick has more that she could offer to --

MR. McCLELLAN: I understand that's what the Justice Department did. We were not involved in it. I think the President was disappointed about that.

Q The President was disappointed in the Justice Department releasing those documents?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, putting that -- putting that on their website, yes.

There's a bit more, but I need to dig around before I quote it. Consider yourself fully updated on the McClellan minutiae.

In his statements about the war in Iraq, do you think George W. Bush is telling the entire truth, is mostly telling the truth but is hiding something, or is mostly lying?

20% - Telling the entire truth
76% - Hiding something or mostly lying

Members of the Bush administration have said that the decision to go to war with Iraq was made in March 2003, just before the war began. Do you think the decision to go to war with Iraq was made in March 2003, or was it made before that?

23% - March 2003
68% - Before that

When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States, do you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly lying?

24% - Telling the entire truth
72% - Hiding something or mostly lying

Those findings are from a NY Times/CBS Poll (only available on .pdf). Other noteworthy findings:

As a result of the US's military action against Iraq, do you think the threat of terrorism against the United States has increased, decreased, or stayed the same? (Percentages in parentheses are results from last October.)

41% - Increased (26%)
18% - Decreased (21%)
39% - Stayed the same (51%)

Do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th, 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?
39% - Yes
51% - No
10% - DK

Is your view of [Kerry and Bush] favorable, unfavorable, undecided or haven't you heard enough about [the candidate] to form an opinion?

Kerry (Bush)
27% (38%*) - Favorable
33% (43%) - Unfavorable
26% (18%) - Undecided
14% (1%) - Haven't heard enough
___________________
*lowest since June 2001

The candidates were within the margin of error for people's preferences (46% Kerry, 44% Bush), but 26% said it "was too early to say for sure."

Country headed in the right direction - 36%; wrong direction - 55%.

In fact, almost all the findings show Bush in freefall. He's still above 50% on his handling of terrorism, but he's around 40% or below on Iraq, "foreign policy," and the economy. Finally, perhaps the finding that says the most about this election is this one. When asked to respond to how strongly they favored their candidate, this is what people said:

Bush
55% - Strongly favor
35% - Like with reservations
8% - Dislike others

Kerry
32% - Strongly favor
28% - Like with reservations
38% - Dislike others

People are going to cast their ballots based on the President, not Kerry, so long as Kerry doesn't give them some seriously compelling reason not to vote for him. Which was, I guess, exactly the calculation folks in Iowa made when they gritted their teeth, blew off the favored Dean, and gave Kerry the win.

Q Yes, thank you, Mr. President. What does Vice President Cheney bring to your 9/11 testimony that you couldn't provide alone? And don't you owe history and the 9/11 families a transcript or a recording?

PRESIDENT BUSH: What he's asking about is a meeting I'm going to have tomorrow morning, talking with this 9/11 Commission about -- my attitude and the attitude of the Vice President about our country, our security, what happened on that particular date, what happened leading up to that. And I look forward to the discussion. I look forward to giving the commissioners a chance to question both of us. And it's a -- it will be an ample -- it will be a good opportunity for people to help write a report that hopefully will help future Presidents deal with terrorist threats to the country.

Then it was McClellan's turn:

Q Scott, just on the 9/11 -- I'm trying to -- I'm still trying to understand the argument behind insisting that the Vice President and the President appear together, and why a transcript -- why you all feel a transcript should not be provided. And I guess I just don't understand why the President wouldn't answer that directly, when it was asked of him today. He completely dodged the question.

MR. McCLELLAN: The President is focused on helping the commission complete its important work. That's where the President's focus is. And I think I've been through --

[Some back and forth]

MR. McCLELLAN: You're talking about a transcript?

Q Well, I'm talking about transcripts and also them appearing together. Is the argument that, look, this is -- we're going to make this an informal meeting and we're going to put them together, you're not going to be able to treat them like witnesses, they're not under oath --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, let's be -- let's be very clear here. This isn't -- this isn't something where it's a game of gotcha. This is very important work that the commission is doing. And the President and the Vice President want to do everything they can to help the commission piece together all the information we've provided them access to. This is -- this is not an adversarial process. We're all working together to learn the lessons of September 11th. I can't reiterate that enough. And that's very important work.

And now, in terms of -- this is a private meeting. This is -- this is not public testimony. The two are sitting down to answer the -- any questions and whatever questions that they may have.

[Later in the press conference.]

Q Yesterday you said the President's Counsel, Al Gonzales, will be present, and you mentioned the possibility of somebody else from the legal office.

MR. McCLELLAN: That's right.

Q How many people are going to --

MR. McCLELLAN: I expect at least one other additional member of the Counsel's staff to be present. And I'll keep you posted on other people that will be present tomorrow. All those details I think are still being finalized. But Judge Gonzales will be present.

[And much later still.]

Q Is the note-taker for the White House a lawyer in the Counsel's Office? Is that person --

MR. McCLELLAN: It will be a member of the Counsel's Office that is a lawyer.

I'm not sure why I find this so endlessly fascinating. And yet I do.

The fan was made 1,700 miles away in Chicago at Lakewood Engineering & Manufacturing Co. A decade ago, the same fan carried a $20 price tag.

But that wasn't low enough for Wal-Mart. So Lakewood owner Carl Krauss cut costs at every turn. He automated production at the red-brick factory built by his grandfather on the city's West Side. Where it once took 22 people to put together a product, it now takes seven. Krauss also badgered his suppliers to knock down their prices for parts.

In 2000, he took the hardest step of all: He opened a factory in Shenzhen, China, where workers earn 25 cents an hour, compared with $13 in Chicago. About 40% of his products now are made in China, including most heaters and desktop fans. The Miraflors' box fan was assembled in Chicago, but its electronic guts were imported.

Once American vendors can no longer produce the products cheaply enough--even when the parts are manufactured abroad, Wal-Mart move overseas.

The company's size and obsession with shaving costs have made it a global economic force. Its decisions affect wages, working conditions and manufacturing practices ? even the price of a yard of denim ? around the world.

From its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., the company has established a network of 10,000 suppliers and constantly pressures them to lower their prices. At the same time, Wal-Mart buyers continually search the globe for still-cheaper sources of supply. The competition pits vendor against vendor, country against country.

This ensures that Wal-Mart can continue to lower prices. Next, it uses these incredibly low prices to drive out other retailers. They can't compete with Wal-Mart because they don't buy in the same volume and can't shave their prices as low. And finally, they affect market economics not just in America, but globally. The value of human labor to produce these incredibly cheap products goes down everywhere. When that happens there's a ripple effect throughout the economy--just like the ones that ripple through Wall Street--that drives the price of labor lower.

The solution in the big picture sense is for workers to regard their own labor as the engine of profitability--not its barrier. We need to begin to see all jobs as integrated. A couple of weeks ago, we had a liberal vision rountable, and Max Sawicky addressed this topic directly:

My fundamental organizing principle is class.... To me the working class is not a group of people. It's a role. There are those who play productive roles (will play, did play, or would play if not for physical adversities), and those who leach off the rest of us. Society progresses as the productive process expands, coincident with the human development of all. Universal human development is the condition of freedom. All would eventually join the working class, if conditions made alternative roles of moochery and scumbaggery impossible to maintain.

Reagan was sort of right about one thing--a rising tide lifts all boats. He was just looking at the problem through the wrong end of the telescope. The tide that rises isn't the "moochers"--those to whom Bush gave tax cuts--but the workers. We're all little drops in that ocean.

[Corrections. The LA Times apparently did win a Pulitzer for that wonderful Wal-Mart piece. It's also apparently not online. It was not Reagan, speaking cynically, who made the tide-rising quote. It was JFK. (I've spent too much time listening to Bush Doublespeak--now I'm crediting conservatives with liberal quotes.) Boy, do I need an editor!]

In the heat of a political campaign, attacks come from all directions. That's why John Kerry's military records are so compelling; they measure the man before his critics or his supporters saw him through a political lens. These military records show that John Kerry served his country with valor, and that those who served with him and above him held him in high regard. That's honor enough for any veteran. (NYT)

I haven't asked my dad--a Korean war vet--how he feels about all this, but I doubt he'll side with the drunken frat boy.

Q Scott, did the White House request there not be any transcribers -- any recording or stenographers in the meeting, in the 9/11 Commission hearing?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think that was a request -- I checked on that -- that we discussed with the commission, and they were fine with it.

Q And what is the advantage that you see in that? This is a very historic meeting.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, this is a private meeting, first of all, Elisabeth. And let's keep in mind that it is extraordinary for a sitting President of the United States to sit down with the legislatively created commission. But these are unique circumstances and the President is pleased to do so. The President appreciates the job of the September 11th Commission. We strongly support their work. And we have been pleased to provide the commission unprecedented cooperation and unprecedented access to information, so they can do their work and help us better fight and win the war on terrorism.

Q Right, if I can just follow up. So if this session is an extraordinary event and such an extraordinary meeting, why do you not want an official record of it?

MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, I don't think that this is unusual at all, if you look back at other meetings that have taken place, private meetings with the commission and other members of the administration....

Q But wouldn't there be better detailed records if you had it recorded, if you had a stenographer?

MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, we have provided the commission with volumes of information, and unprecedented access to information. We've provided more than 2 million pages of documents to the commission. We've provided access to hundreds of administration officials for briefings and interviews so that they can discuss this information. We've provided unprecedented access to some of the most highly classified information in this government.

And this meeting is about helping the commission piece together all that information that they have been provided, so that they can provide a complete and comprehensive report to the American people. And that's what this is about, and we are working to help make sure that they have all the information they need to do their job.

And you're talking -- in some circumstances, some of the information I expect that will be discussed -- it depends on the questions that are raised by the commission -- but some of that information will likely be highly classified. So we think that they will have all the information they need to go back and piece all this information together and report back to the American people what lessons we've learned from September 11th and what recommendations they have that might help us, in addition to the steps we've already taken, to win the war on terrorism.

Q One more question. Doesn't this leave you open to charges that -- doesn't this leave -- doesn't this put a cloud, put a sort of little fuzziness over the proceedings where somebody could go back and say, well, this is not what I meant to say, the note-taker was wrong. Doesn't this make it a little less definite for future -- for historians?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't look at it that way at all. I look at it as the President is taking an extraordinary step in sitting down with the commission and answering whatever questions they may have, and providing them with information that can help them piece together all the information that they have been previously provided. That's the way I look at it. And the commission will be able to provide the American people with as complete a picture as possible about the events leading up to September 11th and the threat that was building and emerging for quite some period of time, going back more than a decade....

Q Can you just clarify. You said he was going to be -- the President is always under oath. I mean, he -- as we understand the procedure and the protocol before the 9/11 --

MR. McCLELLAN: When he came into office --

Q That I understand. But in terms of the Q&A session, he will not be under oath.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's what I -- but he will tell it exactly how it happened.

No recording device, no stenographer, no oath. My, isn't that credible.

Fans of the 40th president hope to have a Ronald Reagan University in Colorado by the fall of 2006.

Already, organizers have a promise of 200 acres of donated land in Adams County, and designs and fund raising have begun on what could be an $850 million campus, said Terry Walker, the Ronald Reagan University founding president.

It's not friday; this is not satire.

On April 22, 1971, a tall, handsome young man with shoulder-length hair turned up a bit late at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John Kerry was the panel's featured witness. He wore green military fatigues over a white T-shirt and a handful of combat ribbons. Striding confidently to the front of the room, he shook hands with the committee chairman, J. William Fulbright. Then he delivered what friends and family still call "The Speech," an indictment of the conduct of the war that riled many prowar advocates and rattled the Nixon White House. To the rapt audience, Kerry seemed sober beyond his years, cerebral, with a penchant for methodical analysis and a delivery that commanded attention. About his service in Vietnam, where he spent four months commanding a river-running "swift boat" and time on a frigate, Kerry expressed anger and dismay. The war, he said flatly, was a tragic mistake.

Bush:

Despite the pressure on the younger Bush to live up to the family name, friends knew him as a wisecracking jock who'd rather talk baseball than discuss his "stupid coat-and-tie job." Until the beginning of 1971, Bush had been living at the Chateaux Dijon, a new apartment complex for well-to-do singles in Houston's fashionable West End. "The scene around the pool was awe inspiring," says Jim Bath, a friend who visited Bush there. "Lots and lots of great-looking girls and people barbecuing and drinking beers...."

Even after moving to quieter digs later in 1971, Bush continued to frequent the Houston YMCA's basketball and racquetball courts, hitting the country club circuit for jogs and tennis. A solid but unspectacular athlete, Bush was relentlessly competitive. "The game wasn't over," says Doug Hannah, a friend and tennis partner, "until he was ahead...."

Friends say Bush was not a heavy drinker, but he held his own in a drinking game called Dead Bug. When someone shouted "dead bug!" everyone had to drop to the floor, belly up, twitching their arms and legs. The last man down bought the next round. Recalls Bath: "It alarmed the hell out of visiting officers and their wives."

Peter Reding, the fellowship's communications director, said Muslims pray to Allah rather than God and contended they are not part of "Judeo-Christian tradition." Both suppositions figured into the steering committee's 7-1 vote to bar Ahmed from praying. The group said he could still attend and sit in the audience. Ahmed has said he will skip the event.

For fifteen years, America has been debating God--where it's appropriate to pray, which groups are allowed to receive federal funds, and what identifying "God" in govermental functions (the Pledge of Allegiance at schools, say) means theologically. Christians have been at the forefront of a movement to loosen the separation of Church and state, arguing that the "establishment" clause of the Constitution doesn't bar commingling. A key component of their argument is this: "God" is generic, not specific, and support of Christianity doesn't mean exclusion of other faiths.

I'm going to go ahead and give the Christian activists credit on this point: I think they sincerely believed these two points, even while they were unable to imagine how non-Christians interpreted the same rulings. It was a failure to see their own assumptions. Perhaps incidents like this will reveal the inherent conflict between religion and government, and the wisdom of the first amendment.

The truth, demonstrated here, is that "God" is not a stand-in for people's own beliefs, a generic signifier of private belief. "God" means a Christian God--not a Jewish God or Allah or Vishnu. Of course it must. Listen to the Fellowship's Vision Statement:

Our vision for the fellowship is based upon a series of prophetic messages given over a period of time and confirmed by a literal vision from God.

In the vision, untold masses of men from every continent and nation, of all races and diverse culture and costume, once spiritually dead, are now alive. Delivered and set free, they are filled with power of God?s Holy Spirit, faces radiant with glory, hands raised and voice lifting their praises to heaven.

We see a vast global movement of laymen being used mightily by God to bring in this last great harvest through the outpouring of God?s Holy Spirit before the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The mission is clear: "To reach men in all nations for Jesus Christ."

The concept of the Prayer Breakfast is something that has been going on for decades--Bush has spoken at them. Their function is actually to dissolve the separation between church and state and turn the US into a Christian nation.

The GOAL is to reach every city across the USA with a well planned Prayer Breakfast.

Our PURPOSE is to reach leaders for Jesus Christ.

Our OBJECTIVE is to Pray for all in authority, that we might live Godly lives.

Our STRATEGY is to use Prayer Breakfast events. They have shown to be highly effective at reaching into our community and impact our leaders. They create a desire to become involved and also remind us of our country's heritage.

(Jeffrey Sharlet wrote a wonderful article on this topic for Harper's).

We live in a democracy, so all voices must be heard. If a group wants to turn the US into a theocracy, they're definitely allowed to argue the point. What we need to be wary of is groups whose agendas aren't clear (even to themselves). The Washington County Prayer Breakfast was a great opportunity for us all to step back and have a good look at our assumptions. "God" is specific. If you don't think so, ask Shahriar Ahmed.

[Update: Iggi points us to this Guardian story.]

Take this directly to the president. Tell him to turn over a new leaf in life and stop being a coward. If the president wants to attack or question your war record or what you did after the war, tell him to do it himself. No special deals, no hidden help from family retainers, no hiding behind Karen Hughes. Tell him, for once, to fight his own fights.

Yestderday, Kerry said:

"If George Bush wants to ask me questions about that through his surrogates, he owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it. That's what we ought to have," Kerry told NBC News in an interview. "I'm not going to stand around and let them play games."

Hmmm. Maybe he's just a reader.

Here is the secret decoder ring of 2004 presidential politics. Recall that the 2000 race between Democrat Al Gore and George W. Bush was about as close to a dead-heat finish as possible.

Here are questions you simply ask yourself between now and Election Day: 1) How many people do you know or meet who voted for Al Gore in 2000 and who now say they intend to switch and vote for George W. Bush in 2004, and 2) How many people do you know or meet who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and now intend not to vote for him in 2004?

From my own limited and admittedly unrepresentative samplings, the second group -- with six months still to go in this campaign -- is larger than the first group.

Astute stats studiers will note that this prediction assumes that roughly the same group will vote in 2004. To add another layer, try this: of those who did not vote in 2000 but who feel sufficiently motivated to hoist their keisters off the barcoloungers in 2004, how many will vote for Bush? Surely 99% will be voting because of him, the dullish Kerry seeming unlikely to motive the masses, but will they vote for or against him?

I leave it for Senator Kerry to explain his votes and his statements about the war on terror, or our cause in Iraq, and the needs of the American military. Whatever the explanation, it is not an impressive record for someone who aspires to become Commander-in-Chief in this time of testing for our country.

I left and the White House was trying to cast doubt on Kerry's war cred; I come back and they're still trying. I wonder who's cred we should really doubt here.

(That Cheney, of all people, made this statement is rich in irony.)

[Update: Josh has an interesting proposal:

But here's some free advice for Kerry.

Don't get mixed up on the details. Take this directly to the president. Tell him to turn over a new leaf in life and stop being a coward. If the president wants to attack or question your war record or what you did after the war, tell him to do it himself. No special deals, no hidden help from family retainers, no hiding behind Karen Hughes. Tell him, for once, to fight his own fights.

I've long felt that Kerry should stay away from negativity (let the press and other Dems take up criticism of the Pres while Kerry promotes his own positive agenda). On this case, I'll make an exception. It's a great idea.]

Critics say the Pentagon's contracting problems started when it tried to save money by slashing oversight staff. Over the past decade, the Pentagon pared its audit and oversight personnel by more than fifty percent. Today, the Inspector General of the Coalition Provisional Authority has a total staff of fifty-eight. And that includes administrative personnel. The Defense Department has about a two-dozen auditors. That's a total of about 80 permanent staff assigned to watch over the largest postwar reconstruction effort in history.

But twice that number is needed, according to the Association of Inspectors General, a non-partisan organization of financial fraud analysts.

Last month, the Pentagon rolled out a new strategy to bolster its drained staff: outsourcing. It awarded one hundred and twenty one million dollars to private contractors to oversee other private contractors.

Further, the Pentagon has outsourced the contracts to other defense contractors--so now one company is overseeing the practices of another company as they provide critical reconstruction services paid for with US taxpayer dollars.

Several of these, like the URS Group in San Francisco and Parsons Energy in Washington, also have large construction and logistical support contracts with the Pentagon in Iraq.

And you know what the really scary thing is? Because we've privatized these critical functions, we've removed the institutional means for oversight as well. Private companies aren't subject to review and don't have to reveal their records. They aren't subject to the Freedom of Information Act. And on and on.

Where are the defenders of the American taxpayer when you really need them?

At prestigious universities around the country, from flagship state colleges to the Ivy League, more and more students from upper-income families are edging out those from the middle class, according to university data.

Experts say the change in the student population is a result of both steep tuition increases and the phenomenal efforts many wealthy parents put into preparing their children to apply to the best schools.

It makes sense--you shouldn't raise the hopes of the poor by letting them earn college degrees. They'll be far happier working at Wal-Mart if they understand from the outset that there's no alternative.

On Feb. 28, 1969, Kerry's craft and two other boats came under heavy fire from the riverbanks. Kerry ordered his units to turn into the ambush and sent men ashore to charge the enemy. According to the records, an enemy soldier holding a loaded rocket launcher sprang up within 10 feet of Kerry's boat and fled. Kerry leapt ashore, ran down the man and killed him.

Kerry and his men chased or killed all the enemy soldiers in the area, captured enemy weapons and then returned to the boat only to come under fire from the opposite bank as they began to pull away.

Kerry again beached his boat and led a party ashore to pursue the enemy, and they successfully silenced the shooting. Later, the boats were again under fire, and Kerry initiated a heavy response that killed 10 Viet Cong and wounded another, with no casualties to his own men.

He won the Silver Star "for gallantry and intrepidity in action" that day. Two weeks later, Kerry was engaged in another firefight that resulted in a Bronze Star for heroic achievement and his third Purple Heart, which would result in his reassignment out of Vietnam.

Kerry was commanding one of five boats on patrol on March 13, 1969, when two mines detonated almost simultaneously, one beneath another boat and one near Kerry's craft. Shrapnel hit Kerry's buttocks, and his right arm was bleeding from contusions, but he rescued a boatmate who had been thrown overboard in the blast and was under sniper fire from both banks.

Again it looks as if the administration has rushed to demand something be declassified before they know what they'll find (remember when Bill Frist challenged Clarke?). Careful, Karl, sometimes you get what you wish for.

(Kerry's records are now posted at his website.)

...two-thirds of Americans acknowledge some concern that terrorists may be recruiting faster than the United States can keep up. A third of those polled feel strongly this is the case; another third say they have at least some worries.

Fears about an attack against this country remain high. Two-thirds in the poll said it was likely terrorists would strike before the November elections. And one-third said it was likely there would be an attack at one of the political conventions this summer....

- More than one-third say they have less faith in government's ability to protect them, and an additional one-fourth say there's at least some truth to that idea.

- Nearly half feel strongly they are more pessimistic about the possibility of there ever being peace in the world while an additional one-fourth say there may be some truth to that.

All of this is fairly surprising to me, but what really blows my mind is this final stat the article offers: "As for the election campaign, President Bush has the advantage over Democrat John Kerry on people's trust to do a better job of protecting the country, 53 percent to 37 percent."

Yesterday I argued that Kerry needs to change his argument to go positive. If you ever wanted strong evidence that his current rhetoric ain't workin', could it be any clearer than this?

Q Scott, you've used the word sovereignty a couple of times here today. You said that the situation is moving forward toward the transfer of sovereignty. Is it really going to be sovereignty, though, on June 30th ... under the way that is understood in international law, true sovereignty?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. That will be an interim representative government. Obviously, on the security side, we've made it very clear that we are going to continue to help provide for the security and stability of Iraq going forward from that date. We will be there to make sure that there is a free and democratic and peaceful Iraq. That is part of our mission in Iraq. But on June 30th that will be the day to transfer sovereignty to an interim representative body that Mr. Brahimi has been talking about. And he's going to be coming back with some more specifics, as he said, in May on that interim representative body.

Q But the U.S. would still, in effect, be the --

MR. McCLELLAN: The Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist come that date.

Q But the U.S. will still, in effect, be the police force, the army, and the treasury of Iraq, right?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, no, I think that you have to look at this as working in partnership with Iraqi people. The Iraqi people want to see sovereignty transferred on June 30th. And that's what we have -- that's what we have committed to do, and that's what we will do because this is about helping the Iraqi people realize a brighter future.

Now look, there's a debate, I readily concede -- some people don't believe if you're a Muslim or an Arab you can be free.

Who are these people? Can Bush identify even a single one? At the next press conference, I'd like someone to ask him who they are. Or, if Scott ever has another briefing, maybe a reporter could ask who the hell he's talking about. I have to think that even the slowest-witted of the slow-witted dittoheads isn't falling for this.

The Pentagon deleted from a public transcript a statement Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made to author Bob Woodward suggesting that the administration gave Saudi Arabia a two-month heads-up that President Bush had decided to invade Iraq.

The transcript, which the Post has put online, is an interesting document. Although the Post is most interested by the Bandar connection, I found this exchange more interesting:

Rumsfeld: Have you met with the Vice President? You're not going to meet with the Vice President are you?

Q: Well I hope so.

Rumsfeld: I doubt it.

Q: You know better than I.

Why is Cheney concerned about Woodward meeting with Cheney? It almost makes it sound as if Rumsfeld's suggesting Cheney has critical data the President lacks. Was Bush out of the loop?

Students at Patrick Henry are on a mission to change the world: indeed, to lead the world. When, after four years or so of study, they leave their neatly-kept campus with its close-mown lawns, they do so with a drive and commitment to reshape their new environments according to the fundamentalist, right-wing vision of their college.

It is also worth making clear that the staff and students at Patrick Henry College are extraordinarily pleasant. The campus itself lies in the small town of Purcellville, about 90 minutes' drive west of Washington DC, amid rolling hills and anonymous commuter communities. The campus is small - there are currently only 240 students, all of them white - and dominated by one large building that houses the classrooms, library and cafeteria where the students and staff take their meals. On one wall is a copy of a famous painting of the revolutionary war hero after which the college is named, 10 years before he made the "Give me liberty or give me death" speech for which he is best known. Students are required to attend "chapel" every morning.

The college was established in 2000 by Michael Farris, who runs the Home School Legal Defence Association, itself set up in 1983 to promote the values of Christian home-schooling as an alternative to what he and others considered the increasingly secular and irreligious culture taking hold in America's public schools. Farris - a lawyer who, with his wife, home-schooled their 10 children - is a prot?g? of Tim LaHaye, well known in the American Christian community as a veteran conservative evangelical author and preacher.

Farris, who is also the president of Patrick Henry, was unavailable for an interview when we visited his establishment, but he has told The New York Times: "We are not home-schooling our kids just so they can read. The most common thing I hear is parents telling me that they want their kids to be on the Supreme Court. And if we put enough kids in the system, some may get through to the major leagues."

[Note. I would like to emphasize that I'm not anti-Christian. To me, this isn't a sectarian issue--if the President were Buddhist (as I am), and was doing the same thing, I'd be equally critical. The issue isn't a Christian issue, it's an issue of how we wish to be governed.]

Number of press briefings by month

December 2003: 12
January 2004: 8
February: 13
March: 11

April 1-20: 2

Scott's gaggle number remains steady, but that's hardly the same thing.

"There Goes the Neighborhood"
Why home prices are about to plummet--and take the recovery with them.

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

A judge on Tuesday ordered a halt to same-sex marriage in an Oregon county that for weeks has been the only place in the nation where gays can get married.

Judge Frank Bearden said he believes the Oregon constitution would allow either civil unions or gay marriage, but he said a state Supreme Court ruling is needed first. He also said "public debate and legislative action may be required to carry out the court's mandate."

From Oregon Public Broadcasting:

Colin Fogarty:"This is not an easy decision to explain in just a few words; it's fairly nuanced. But essentially, Judge Frank Bearden ordered the county to cease issuing marriages to same-sex couples while the legislature and the court works out the issue.

"He created a timeline of 90 days after the next regular or special legislative session for the legislature to deal with this issue. And after that time, essentially, civil unions would be enacted in Oregon. Because he basically said that the tangible benefits of marriage are being denied to same sex couples.

QUESTION: Does the White House have any knowledge of such a commitment?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I’m not going to speak for Prince Bandar. You can direct those questions --

QUESTION: Is there a deal?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- I wouldn’t speculate one way or the other. You can direct those questions to him, but I’m telling you --

QUESTION: I’m not asking you to speculate either. Do you have knowledge of such a commitment?

MR. McCLELLAN: I’m telling you what our views are and what we've stated, and I'm telling you what I do know, which is that our position is very clear when it comes to oil prices and what our views are. And Prince Bandar spoke to you all just a few weeks ago out at the stakeout after meeting with some White House officials and expressed --

QUESTION: So you have no knowledge of such a commitment?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and expressed their view. I'm not going to try to speak for Prince Bandar. You can direct those questions to him.

He might as well just have said "yes." Because, when the press asks if you conspire with a foreign country to help fix an election, you damn sure say "no," if you didn't do such a thing.

This week’s burst of hyper-ventilating was excited by the new Bob Woodward book. From it, we learn – well what exactly? That Colin Powell opposed the Iraq war. Knew that. That Powell engaged in sarcastic and dismissive attacks on those who disagreed with him, up to and including the vice president. Knew that too. That the president ordered planning for Iraq operations before he made the final decision to go to war. Assumed that. And so on.

According to Frum's analysis, Saudi liaison Bandar (a "frequent purveyor of titillating items to selected journalists") must be the source for the Saudi-related information. Thus we can dismiss it. Frum does admit--now hypothetically, given that the accusations are probably not true--that the Saudi material is damaging.

But if it were true, it would suggest several important and disturbing conclusions.

(1) It would rather give the lie to the claim that the Iraq war was masterminded by Israel, wouldn’t it?
(2) It would suggest that by the end of 2002, the president no longer trusted Powell to do the basic work of diplomacy for him.
(3) Again if true, the story would suggest that the breakdown of relations between Powell and the president did severe damage to the national security of the United States – by placing the president in a position where he had to inform doubtfully friendly states of major decisions before he told them to his own secretary of state!

He said it, not me.

And there's only one path to safety and that's the path of action. Congress must act with the Patriot Act. We must continue to stay on the offense when it comes to chasing these killers down and bringing them to justice -- and we will. We've got to be strong and resolute and determined. We will never show weakness in the face of these people who have no soul, who have no conscience, who care less about the life of a man or a woman or a child. We've got to do everything we can here at home. And there's no doubt in my mind that, with the Almighty's blessings and hard work, that we will succeed in our mission.

-- Bush, today, lobbying to renew the Patriot Act. 'Cause, you know, he's shown himself to be such an honest steward of the country.

NO OIL FOR WAR? [Michael Graham]
Jeff Greenfield of CNN says the most disturbing revelation on "60 Minutes" last night was Bob Woodward's claim that the Saudis plan to flood the international market with oil to bring down gas prices in time for the American election. To which I say "Great!" Why shouldn't the Saudis help out the president who's bravely led a coalition against an enemy on their own border, an enemy who has repeatedly threatened to invade Saudi Arabia?

If the Democrats want to argue that having President Bush in office means oil-rich nations will try to help out the American economy, go right ahead. If these nations were driving gas prices up in order to punish Bush, you can bet Teresa Heinz Kerry's dead husband's last dollar that the Democrats would be holding Bush responsible.

Instead, they’re helping a brother out. What's the prob?

The prob, of course, is that conspiring with a foreign government to rig oil prices to get yourself re-elected is, ah, frowned-upon. Apparently the right has been so corrupt for so long, the word doesn't even have any meaning for them.

- The administration began planning an Iraq invasion two months after 9/11.

- During the run-up to the war, the administration secretly diverted $700 million to fund the war, subverting Congress's Constitutional charge to fund government.

- Even while it was actively planning for an invasion, the administration lied about Iraqi designs.

- In discussing an invasion of Iraq, Colin Powell was kept out of the loop until after the decision had been made--and after Saudia Arabia had learned of the US plan. Furthermore, Saudia Arabia was privy to top-secret meetings where war planning was discussed.

- Ultimately, Bush made the decision to invade without any formal recommendation from his advisors. Woodward hinted that he felt authorized to invade by God.

- The White House had a secret plan with Saudi Arabia for the latter to keep the price of gasoline low leading up to the election.

- The administration had no plans for a post-war reconstruction, genuinely believing that the Iraqis would welcome the US as liberators.

- Woodward also presented the President as a dolt with a messianic complex who bobbed on the waves of his advisors' advice--hardly the bold decision-maker Rove sells.

(Incidentally, the Post continues its excerpts today with an account of pre-invasion planning.)

I assume the White House is preparing its counteroffensive, and in the absence of their lead, surrogates are waiting to see how to respond. (The brain trust at the New Republic, for example, though they had all weekend to prepare a rebuttal, instead settled for attacks on Kerry and 9/11 Commissioner Jame Gorelick.) The problem now is that there are so many fronts--simply attacking Woodward isn't gong to be enough. Three of his charges aren't of lapses in judgment--they're of breaking the law. As to the press; I'll be charitable and assume they're checking Woodward's claims through their own sources. If so, that will in turn unleash another wave of accusations for the administration to refute.

Let's be clear: if even one of Woodward's charges about illegal activity--subverting Congress, conspiring with Saudi Arabia--turns out to be true, we may not be looking at an election. We may be looking at an ugly investigation and possibly an impeachment. I'd say the White House far bigger fish to fry this week than whether John Kerry's "misery index" is accurate.

Oh, for those good ol' days.

In the wake of Mr. Woodward's best-selling 2002 book "Bush at War" — which presented a laudatory portrait of Mr. Bush as a fearless and determined leader after 9/11 — the president agreed to be interviewed in depth by the author about how and why he decided to go to war against Iraq. Mr. Woodward, an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, says the president also made it clear that he wanted administration members to talk with him, and that he interviewed more than 75 key players....

President Bush, the object of so much jockeying for position among cabinet members, emerges from this book as a more ambiguous figure than the commanding leader portrayed by Mr. Woodward in "Bush at War." In some scenes he is depicted as genuinely decisive (as in his choice to go to United Nations in 2002). In others he seems merely childish (eyeing Gen. Henry Shelton's peppermint during a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, until the general passed it over.)

"The good news for us is that Dean is not the nominee," Rove now argued to an associate in his second-floor West Wing office. Dean's unconditional opposition to the Iraq war could have been potent in a face-off with Bush. "One of Dean's strengths, though, was he could say, I'm not part of that crowd down there."

No kidding? Gee, I wonder who knew that was a lie a year ago? (Answer: the entire liberal blogosphere.) And on Iraq:

More than a year before -- on Nov. 21, 2001 -- Bush had told Rumsfeld that he wanted to develop a plan for war in Iraq. Since that time the defense secretary had been working closely with Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, and other U.S. commanders, as well as Bush and other members of the war cabinet to develop a plan even as Bush pursued diplomacy through the United Nations.

It's going to be an interesting week.

With the polls showing the president even or slightly behind John Kerry, it means that the Bush campaign's huge financial advantage has now all but disappeared.

The predicament gets worse when you look at where the Bush campaign started financially and where things stand today: The president raised a record $180 million, and half of that was budgeted for campaign operations, the other half for pre-convention advertising. But of the advertising budget, $90 million, the Bush campaign has already spent at least $40 million.

By comparison, John Kerry has spent about $10 million.

I have a hunch that the new Woodward book ain't gonna help Bush's pocketbook:

President Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team, says a new book on his Iraq policy.

Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, journalist Bob Woodward writes in "Plan of Attack," a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion.

Woodward brought down one corrupt GOP president; it looks like he's going for two. You think it's possible Bush at War, his earlier hagiography of Bush, was merely a set-up for this new one? A pre-emptive strike to innoculate himself against the attacks he knew would be forthcoming when he made these accusations against the President? Naaah, me either, but I couldn't resist suggesting it.

Of course, Woodward will roll out the book's central findings this sunday on 60 Minutes. At this point, what else would you expect?

It is now clear that this was yet another lie to stand alongside claims about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s involvement in Sep. 11. On Wednesday President Bush tore up the road map once and for all. He hailed Ariel Sharon’s plan to abandon the unmanageable, overcrowded and destitute Gaza Strip and annex key areas of the West Bank as “historic and courageous”. Bush may not be in an intellectual position to realize it, but this latest breach of a solemn promise will have serious implications for the US-led occupation of Iraq. Moderate Iraqi opinion, which once represented a large core of the population to which the Americans were appealing for support, will now despair. Whatever other horrors may lie ahead, it will become plain to them that the Americans can no longer be part of any solution because they cannot be trusted.

The position of the British is no less disturbing.... At a stroke, the British were robbing their partners in the European Union of a united front to counterbalance the unholy alliance between Washington and Israel. It ought to be clear to Blair that Bush’s Middle East policy is now informed solely by his need to get re-elected. He wants the votes of the Zionists and the fundamentalist Christian right. To get them he has been prepared to destroy the last vestiges of America’s position as an honest broker. Now, in his ultimate volte-face, he will seek to convince the electorate that he did the right thing in Iraq but did not count on the disorganization, selfishness and ingratitude of the Iraqi people.

When in November George W. Bush enters the history books as one of his country’s most inept single-term presidents, he will leave his successor a poisoned legacy in the form of his Middle East policy. Both politically and diplomatically, it will be well-nigh impossible to claw back this momentous concession to expansionist Israel.

When Bush went into Iraq, he did it unilaterally and without considering the long-term (and indeed, short-term) consequences of his actions. Here again he's chosen clarity in the present over consideration about the future. It will reap violent rewards. Those rewards, one imagines, have been calculated to fall after November, when Bush is either in his final term or out of office--in either case, beyond accountability.

The Norquistas comeback would be that all the things you say come from taxes will come more efficiently from the market. It's a hard argument to refute because people have been programmed to hate and fear the government, and of course it's not like there is no basis for either emotion. It's the same problem that unions face today. People have been drilled with union horror stories and now are being led to believe that all the benefits of union organization can come more efficiently from shiny, benevolent corporations. Look at the newest slew of Wal-Mart ads for corroboration. People want to believe in that. For some reason, maybe because gov't is essentially made up of neighbors who are easily knowable, warts and all, people don't trust goverment. Also, I think that we all know, whether we admit it or not, that government, and unions for that matter, require active participation, whereas letting the market magically handle things does not. It's not a realistic idea, but I think it's the one a lot of us are operating under.

She's right, of course, that's exactly what they would argue--but it's again just more of that lying business. (Possibly it's stupidity, but I don't think Norquist can be charged with that.) There are three categories of wrongness in this argument: no they couldn't; no, they wouldn't; and just plain no.

No they couldn't
A key function the government plays is regulatory. We know it's key because we have seen that when it's not performed well (see Russia, ten years ago), things quickly go to hell. Self-regulation by the private sector, where it has been tried at all (see Crisis, California Energy), has been a failure.

No, they wouldn't
Other functions of government--social work, say--have no profit motive. While private nonprofits can help, they don't function under that almighty market logic to which Norquist pays lip service. Other times, when the market is the only way to get things done, they aren't done well. Take the arts. While business doesn't mind ponying up where Jerry Bruckheimer's involved, the are less interested where Jim Jarmusch is. If the US had an interest in preserving the arts and the only method it had was private, we'd see the arts die.

Just plain no
Finally, we know that markets work really well in some areas, and not so well in others. Where productivity can aid the bottom line, businesses do very well indeed. There's an incentive there to function efficiently and offer an enticing product. But in others--take prisons, for example--there's no way to improve on productivity. (It takes as many guards for a private company as the government to watch inmates. See Baumol's Cost Disease for more.) The only way a company can earn more profits is to get more generous contracts from the government (for which, incidentally, we still require taxes). This can end up costing more, and you lose oversight. God forbid if government should ever completely privatize something like prisons. It would get medievel quickly.

No, Virginia--errr, Grover--there isn't a cheap way out. Sometimes pooling money to pay for bulk services is cheaper than opening them up to the market. It's often more reliable and more effective, too. That's what government is. That's why we have it.

The conservative worldview inexplicably ignores the payroll tax (as well as excise taxes on things like liquor) that take their biggest bite, proportionally, from lower-income Americans.

These regressive taxes have quietly (and shockingly) reached near-parity with the income tax as a source of federal revenue. This year the income tax will account for 42 percent of federal revenue; the payroll tax will come to 41 percent (up from 16 percent in 1960).

If you count the portion of the payroll tax paid by employers (which economists agree effectively comes out of workers' wages), four in five workers pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes....

Consider: The top 1 percent of America's taxpayers earn 17 percent of the income and pay 23 percent of federal taxes; the top 5 percent earn 31 percent of the income and pay 40 percent of the taxes; the bottom 80 percent of the earners make 41 percent of the income and pay 31 percent of the taxes (and those numbers are from 2001, the most recent such data available; President Bush's tax cuts have since made the burden on top earners lower). In other words, in aggregate, we have a modestly progressive federal tax system.

Capitalism does not exist. I mean this in exactly the same way that Thatcher meant it when she said that society does not exist. And this is exactly the right rejoinder for the Left to give. To those on the right who would insist that there is no community of individuals above the family unit, the response from the Left must be equally absolute. And ours is the stronger case, for one can not point to a single human society in history in which the market functioned without government. Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman can suggest market utopias in which individuals contract with one another in an environment devoid of a government, but they can?t point to a society where this has ever actually happened. More so, there is something darkly brutal in these visions that would take Hobbes?s war of ?all against all? and make it an ideal for society to aspire to. If a mixed economy is one where the government plays some role in the economy, then every democracy in history has been a mixed economy.

Elayne Riggs sings a tune I dearly love (and no, not the one at the beginning of the essay by Olive Oyl): hope and optimism. She notes that the language of politics must by necessity be hopeful, but that doesn't mean the politics are:

And I think that's what a liberal vision needs to be about. Modern-day Republicans, particularly the radical right-wingers currently in power, have not only co-opted the language of hope and ideals (a language which by rights belongs to all of humanity), they've almost irretrievably twisted it so that just about everything they spout is the opposite of what they're actually doing (or have already done).

She's right: not only must we use the language of hope and optimism to shape our vision, we must recall that it's our faith in that vision which is the basis for the hope and optimism.

I wasn't surprised to see Susan Madrak take a pragmatic approach at Suburban Guerrilla. In all great movements, you have the people who sit in coffee shops an talk about how cool Trotsky was, and then you have people who are actually out on the streets doing the hard work. She has an eye on those who will benefit most:

Liberalism is ultimately about using the power of government to encourage a level playing field. (Contrary to right-wing Conventional Wisdom, the Great Society anti-poverty programs did work ? at least, until we stopped funding them.) And it?s about using the economies of scale to raise the quality of life, as we did with Social Security and Medicare.

In what's becoming a pretty common theme, she argues for inclusion, noting that we can't abandon our Christian colleagues to the right. Bloggers being more the Trotsky-talking type, we don't hear enough of this kind of talk, either:

Survey after survey shows the majority of people support liberal policies. So why don?t they vote that way?

My guess is, no one has ever asked them to their face. No one knocked on their door, no one got them engaged in the discussion. Because conservatives pluck their candidates from the churches, the Little League and the PTA, their policies have a familiar, friendly face. Liberals can?t afford to sit back and think ideas will carry the day. They won?t.

If Ralph Nader has proved anything, it's that politics needs bodies. Without the Green Party, he is finding it very hard to get bodies on the street. If we really are going to implement a liberal vision, we have to remember this: it's hard work and it will take broad participation.

But hey, that's what democracies demand.

Susan Madrak, Suburban Guerrilla, essay here.
Lawrence Krubner, Less is More, essay here.
Elayne Riggs, Pen-Elayne, essay here.
Max Sawicky, MaxSpeak, essay here.
Jesse Taylor, Pandagon, essay not yet live.
Anne Zook of Peevish, was going to post, but life interrupted essay here.

And of course, see below for my thoughts. Over the course of the day, I'll be linking updates and links to responses on this page, so check back. I encourage you to comment and join in the discussion. This is a bit of a trial balloon, and no next step is planned, so offer suggestion on that front as well.

[Update (1:41 pm PDT): Jesse has posted this at his site, so there's some chance life has interrupted him as well. "And I have this blog thing I do. And I haven't started the eassy due at 5:30 today nor the statistics due at 1 tomorrow. And I have nothing good to eat in the house. And my throat hurts." Updates as they become available....]

[Update (3:53 pm PDT): Max is live. Good? Here's a hint; it begins with this preamble: "Jeff of Notes on the Atrocities hornswoggled me in a moment of weakness, along with a group of liberal blog-luminaries, into preparing a comprehensive statement of my liberal view of politics leading to the good society. As I am more busy than usual, plus I haven't finished my taxes yet, this is going to be quick and dirty. And it isn't going to be liberal."]

[Update (4:44 pm PDT): Anne Zook, despite her busy-ness, managed to shoehorn in a post. Go read it.]

[Update (8:19 pm PDT): Jonathan Dresner has joined the rountable. Read his new vision here.]

[Update (8:33 pm PDT): And the ex-lion tamer, R@d@r, also joins the discussion. ]

DCI Group, L.L.C., #5497

Two Lafayette Square
1133 21st Street, N.W., Suite M100
Washington, DC 20036

Union of Myanmar State Peace & Development Council (SPDC)
The registrant agreed to provide an evaluation and analysis of potential means of improving relations between the Governments of the United States and the Union of Myanmar. The registrant will also provide communications and media outreach, issuing press releases to communicate Myanmar positions. In addition, the registrant will brief members of Congress and Administration officials to improve relations between the United States and Myanmar.

$100,000.00 received prior to registration on May 13, 2002

It seems that once again the liberals have committed the crime of being impolite even while their right wing critics are committing actual crimes. (Admittedly, this one is an ethical crime; however, one imagines that if we decided to invade Burma, the DoJ might be interested to see if any actual crimes were committed.)

Nevertheless, Iraqis should be looking forward to getting their country back at the end of June, courtesy of the affable Americans who swept in on their metal chargers to save them. After all, those nice members of the Iraqi Governing Council, including Rumsfeld’s buddy the embezzler and his nephew Nouri Badran, who is the brother-in-law of Iyad Allawi, the cousin of Ali Allawi, the newly-appointed interim defense minister — all council members. This is called "keeping it in the family" which as everyone knows is one of the main principles of democracies since time immemorial. Or am I getting my democracies confused with oligarchies?

The Bush administration sent too few troops into Iraq, and they stuck them in Humvees that couldn't withstand a semi-serious terrorist attack.

Worse yet, the administration never bothered to educate the American people on the nature of war amid uncertainty. The president did not stress beforehand that it was necessary to act, even though some of his suppositions would inevitably prove to be incorrect.

When you read the Shultz speech, you get the impression the country is aging backward. Twenty years ago we had a leader who treated us like adults, mature enough to cope with harsh uncertainties. Now we're talked to as if we're children, which, if you look at the hypocrisy-laden terror debate, is about what we deserve.

Not surprised? You may be when you learn the author: David Brooks. Oh my, things are getting dire.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Commercial messages have seeped into the plots of movies, the very fabric of TV shows and video games, and even into the plots of novels. But that may have been just the beachhead. Now a growing number of marketers want to persuade the nation's print magazines to open the text of their editorial pages to product placements.

In the age of media conglomeration and the vanishing news/advertizing wall, advertizers are trying to force pitches into news holes. Prepare to be shocked:

Magazines today must answer to advertisers who demand sales executives come into a meeting with more than a schedule and rate card. Marketers and their media buying agencies want ever-more-creative ideas, and with ad-page sales still lagging for this year's first quarter, many titles are under competitive pressure from not just their own category, but other media as well. On top of that, custom publishing, where marketers can completely control the editorial content, has steadily grown in the last decade, and an emerging category of magazines, dubbed shop-a-logs, are blurring the advertising and editorial line even further....

More advertisers ask us to blur the lines between advertising and editorial," said Nina Lawrence, president of Conde Nast's Bridal Group and publisher of Bride's and Modern Bride. "It's accelerated in the last year." Ms. Lawrence placed the blame for this squarely on branded-entertainment deals: "Advertisers are asking for what they want on TV, and they're getting it."

That makes me so mad all I can think of is a nice, soothing Bud Light ^(tm) to relax me. Because when you're really angry at the man, nothing calms you down like a Bud Light^(tm) ....

Come on people, let's get a grip.

This week, Chicken Littles like Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd were ranting that Iraq is another Vietnam. Pundits and sages were spinning a whole series of mutually exclusive disaster scenarios: Civil war! A nationwide rebellion!

Maybe we should calm down a bit.

Now, hold that thought while we turn to Pitts, who is displeased with Air America.

Liberal orthodoxy has lately begun generating a bumper crop of its own through a spate of books with titles like the one quoted above. In addition, there is the new Air America radio network which, some people hope, will give liberals the same platform for diatribe conservative broadcasters have enjoyed for years.

The liberal folk would argue that they are simply punching back after serving as punching bags for the better part of a generation. And while you can hardly blame them for that, you still have to wonder if, in the long run, the quality of public discourse is really improved just because somebody is hollering at us from the other direction for a change. Noise is still noise, whatever its origin.

There, do you see it? In the face of public criticism of the President (general or specific) both liberals and conservatives blame the critics.

On the Brooks piece, you can imagine what he'd be writing if the tables were turned. If this were Clinton presiding over a post-war quagmire made of his own hubris and stupidity, I don't know that he'd be calling for calm. If it were Clinton, who, in defending the quagmire, was caught routinely offering up lies (ahem, mis-statements), I doubt we could count on Brooks' reserve.

Pitts, on the other hand, shows us what liberals have normally expected in return--ashamed self-criticism. It's not particularly that Pitts is wrong. Liberals, being devoted to inclusion and freedom of expression, are always somewhat reluctant to return mean-spirited, mendacious assaults in kind. In a perfect world public discourse would be improved if we didn't just holler at each other. But come on. The GOP not only have all the power, but there are no tactics beneath which they won't stoop (dig?) to keep it. At what point do you admit that it's time to fight back?

I'll tell you this, it's not with a radio station. Talk to me when the Democrats have been accused of rigging elections (Diebold controversy), bribing representatives (Michigan Rep. Nick Smith), and gerrymandering entire states (Texas). There's fair play and then there's stupid play. Time for the Democrats to abandon the latter, at the very least.

Ralph Nader once said that your best teacher is your last mistake. Too many of us learned the consequences of not standing together four years ago. This November, we can elect a president who fights for average Americans. But we can achieve this goal only if we join together -- and don't repeat our last mistake.

Dean's analysis has a poignant subtext (if that's possible). Six months ago, he had to endure assualts on his character and motives by people who misguidedly (if that's a word) tagged him as a latter-day Nader certain to spoil the Democrats' success if he didn't win the nomination. That he's the Democrat making this argument now shows how conventional wisdom got it wrong again about Howard Dean.

Since taking office, the Bush administration has repeatedly promised to get tough with tax cheats, saying it has ended a long slide in enforcement of tax laws.

But an independent analysis of new Internal Revenue Service data released today shows that tax enforcement has fallen steadily under President Bush, with fewer audits, fewer penalties, fewer prosecutions and virtually no effort to prosecute corporate tax crimes. The audit rate for the 11,200 largest corporations, which pay nearly all corporate income taxes, has fallen by almost half over the last decade, as has the audit rate for unincorporated businesses.

The effect of this lack of enforcement is massive. Yesterday, NPR reported that losses due to tax cheating amounts to $300 billion a year; meanwhile, the IRS auditing staff has shrunk by 20% since 1992.

If you want a single metaphor of how money has corrupted politics, this wouldn't be a bad choice.

Q Wasn't that current threat information? That wasn't historical, that was ongoing.

THE PRESIDENT: Right, and had they found something, they would have reported it to me.

Compare and contast that to Condi Rice's testimony to the 9/11 Commission on Thursday:

KEAN: ... Did you ever see or hear from the FBI, from the CIA, from any other intelligence agency, any memos or discussions or anything else between the time you got into office and 9/11 that talked about using planes as bombs?

RICE: ...I was in a press conference to try and describe the August 6 memo, which I've talked about here in my opening remarks and which I talked about with you in the private session.

And I said, at one point, that this was a historical memo, that it was -- it was not based on new threat information.

I guess that's why White House is leery to have the President testify alone. He might inadvertently admit the truth.

Two things about that failure are clear to me at this point in our investigation. The first is that 9/11 could have been prevented, and the second is that our current strategy against terrorism is deeply flawed. In particular, our military and political tactics in Iraq are creating the conditions for civil war there and giving Al Qaeda a powerful rationale to recruit young people to declare jihad on the United States.

...We should swallow our pride and appeal to the United Nations for help in Iraq. We should begin by ceding joint authority to the United Nations to help us make the decisions about how to transfer power to a legitimate government in Iraq. Until recently I have not supported such a move. But I do now. Rather than sending in more American forces or extending the stay of those already there, we need an international occupation that includes Muslim and Arab forces.

Time is not on our side in Iraq. We do not need a little more of the same thing. We need a lot more of something completely different.

An additional reason his version of events has the ring of credibility is that he, like Richard Clarke before him, is willing to personally accept responsibility for failing to protect the US.

At the beginning and end of every criticism I have made in this process, I have also offered this disclaimer: anyone who was in Congress, as I was during the critical years leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, must accept some of the blame for the catastrophe. It was a collective failure.

I expect this editorial to cause some pretty big waves.

President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday.

The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford.

The disclosure appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the Qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect a Qaeda attack within American borders.

Globalisation and the US pose a more serious threat to the world than war and terrorism, according to a BBC poll. BBC World asked 1,500 viewers of its news and international channel for the biggest problems in the world with 52% saying the US and globalisation.

Conflicts - war and terrorism - ranked third, with 50%, followed by hunger, 49%, and climate change with 44%.

This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency. (Emphasis added)

Washington Post, April 9, 2004

I would also like to take this occasion to offer an accommodation on another issue on which we have not yet reached an agreement--access to the President and his joint-appearer. I advise you that the President and his staff have agreed to participate in only joint private sessions with authorized press representatives who may take notes during these sessions.*

Added McClellan: "Look, we learned that everything becomes official testimony in the information age. President Clinton was prosecuted for a comment he made to the press about relations with Monica Lewinsky. We just can't take that risk in a post-9/11 world. This isn't an issue of privacy--national security is at stake." In future press conferences or Presidential appearances McClellan further explained, invited guests will be given those stubby little half-pencils and a pad of paper on which to take notes.

Democrats were more perplexed than outraged. Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio, asked about the proposal outside his Washington office, was caught speechless. Eventually he managed, "Huh," then asked: "Who do you work for, again? Is this a Daily Show stunt?" House minority leader Nancy Pelosi called it "bizarre," and said she'd return this reporter's call once she had spoken to Democratic council. (She had not returned the call when the article went to press.)

Following McClellan's announcement, the President took the microphone with Vice President Dick Cheney. After they conferred for a moment, Cheney told the assembled press, "Thank you all. We wanted to personally announce these changes while you all still had your cameras and microphones with you. This will be your last opportunity. Tomorrow it will be old school!" After which he and the President exchanged high-fives.

The President leaned forward and said "Thank you" clearly into the microphone. They will apparently be the last words the public will hear from him until November, at the earliest.

_______________________
* Gonzales actually submitted wording for the Bush-Cheney joint appearance before the 9/11 Commission that was almost identical to this statement. I altered the words for the satire, which was, obviously, inspired by it: "I would also like to take this occasion to offer an accommodation on another issue on which we have not yet reached an agreement--Commission access to the President and Vice President. I am authorized to advise you that the President and Vice President have agreed to one joint private session with all 10 Commissioners, with one Commission staff member present to take notes of the session."

The White House’s retreat got big headlines, but it was less far-reaching than it may appear. The commission is having to pay dearly for what, in his statement, the President called without irony “this level of coöperation.” The fine print was in a letter from Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, to Kean and his Democratic deputy, Lee Hamilton, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee:

The necessary conditions are as follows. First, the Commission must agree in writing that Dr. Rice’s testimony before the Commission does not set any precedent for future Commission requests, or requests in any other context, for testimony by a National Security Advisor or any other White House official.

Second, the Commission must agree in writing that it will not request additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice.

Sounds a little repetitive, no? Gonzales, it would seem, wanted to leave nothing to chance in making the White House’s point, which was this: We’ll give you Rice for a couple of hours, but that’s it. No more questions in public for anybody in the White House, for any reason, in any context, no matter how many contradictions and unanswered questions are left. The end. Now go away.

Placing the event in context, Hertzberg also reminds us that the administration hasn't exactly been a supporter of the commission. (You probably know all of this already, but as a prose geek, I feel compelled to paste this in.)

A few weeks ago, the White House was still holding out for a pair of one-hour sessions, each of which would have only three participants: Kean, Hamilton, and either Bush or Cheney. Then it backed away from its insistence on sixty minutes and not a minute more. And now it says it’s O.K. for the commission to bring its commissioners. But when they get there they will find a team: Bush and Cheney, Cheney and Bush—like Robin and Batman. Is it too uncharitable to suggest that the White House prefers a double act because it doesn’t trust the President to handle the questioning alone and, perhaps more important, doesn’t want to risk too many glaring contradictions between Bush’s memories and Cheney’s?

And what about that “one Commission staff member”? In Cicero’s Rome, having a scribe take notes was the latest thing in audio technology, and so it remained right through the days when the young Charles Dickens earned his living in the press gallery of the House of Commons. Now, though, there are more reliable ways of keeping track of what people say in important meetings. Yet there will be no official electronic recording of Bush-and-Cheney’s testimony (as there was none of Rice’s four-hour private session with the commission on February 7th), and there will be no transcript. Dickens knew how to take shorthand, but that is not among the talents found on the commission’s staff. In its details and nuances, if not in its broad outlines, the record of what the President and the Vice-President say will necessarily be incomplete. This is the White House’s choice, not the commission’s. Trust, but don’t verify.

Of course, we can hope that the March numbers are just the beginning of a torrent of good news. But the straws in the wind aren't wildly encouraging. Weekly first claims for unemployment insurance are down -- but they're still above the 2000 average, and job growth in 2000 barely kept up with population. Average weekly hours, sometimes a clue to future hiring, fell in March -- in fact, they fell so much that total hours worked declined even as the work force increased.

But what I found most interesting was this tidbit, about the likely direction of Kerry's policy:

Leaving the details for another day, it's pretty clear what John Kerry's economic philosophy will be. He's surrounding himself with advisers closely tied to Bill Clinton, and even more closely tied to Robert Rubin, the legendary former Treasury secretary. In office, we can surmise, Mr. Kerry would follow a Rubinesque strategy of bringing long-term budget deficits under control through a mixture of tax increases for upper-income families and spending restraint. No doubt he would move slowly on deficit reduction as long as the economy remained weak, but his advisers would tell him, as Mr. Rubin told Mr. Clinton, that responsible long-run budget policies are good in the short run, too, because they help keep interest rates low.

I wonder if this is such a good idea. Clinton's policies worked because beginning in the mid-90s the US enjoyed a tech boom. The success of Clinton's austerity measures were amply aided by increasing revenues. But the Bush policies Clinton inherited were far more responsible than the Bush policies Kerry will inherit (optimism intended), and there's no evidence the US is poised to ride a new boom. Is recycling Clinton's fiscal policy really so wise?

The war planners never really thought there was any downside to going in, or that anything could go wrong in the aftermath. They assumed that the troops would sweep across Iraq without resistance, that Iraqis would greet them as liberators and stick flowers in the barrels of their rifles, and that an Iraqi government would be installed in relatively short order. They made these assumptions, we now know, not on the basis of any intelligence or understanding of the Iraqi situation. They made them because it seems they were in thrall to an idea that has become a fundamental component of modern American conservatism generally. It is the idea that, in the end, everything turns out well.

But if conservatives act as if happy endings are always in the offing, liberals, by contrast, have come to act as if nothing can ever go right, as if a cloud surrounds every silver lining. Just compare the old liberal version of the "domino theory" in Southeast Asia with the new conservative version in the Middle East. In the first, the dominoes of communist expansion tumble, creating a threatening world. In the second, the dominoes of democracy tumble, creating a free and peaceful world.

It was not always so. Conservatism has its roots in Thomas Hobbes, with his jaundiced view of human nature, and in Edmund Burke, with his emphasis on a natural order with which one tampers only at grave risk. This was hardly a prescription for optimism, much less Pollyannaish faith that all will end well. Rather, it was a form of hard-boiled realism. You had to take the world as it was and hope for the best. Translated into politics, conservatism -- at least in its American incarnation -- encouraged social Darwinism, economic rapacity, protectionism, a minimal government, self-reliance, and independence.

Liberalism has its roots in John Locke, with his faith in human possibility, and in William James and John Dewey, who thought man was less a passive victim of history than an active shaper of it. In political terms, liberalism encouraged social welfare, economic justice, free trade, compassion, and a sense of community. In foreign policy, at least by the 20th century, the outlook was largely internationalist, encouraging democracy and cooperation that would release goodness. This was the ideology of optimism, pointing not to how things inevitably were but to how they should be, and not to man's helplessness in the natural swirl but to his greater destiny.

While conservatism was serving up economic brutes, liberalism was serving up Woodrow Wilson, the last century's first and perhaps greatest idealist who laid as the basis for war not the realpolitik of conservatives but the larger principle of freedom. But somewhere between Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, conservatism and liberalism changed places.

Reagan's major contribution to conservatism was not ideological (he basically followed the old Goldwater line). It was aesthetic. While deploying simplistic sound bites like "government is the problem" that drove liberals to distraction, Reagan, who had been a great admirer of Roosevelt, was accomplishing something much more profound. He managed to graft Roosevelt's implacable optimism and sense of destiny onto a conservative movement that had long resisted those things, and he did so at the very time when liberalism had turned pessimistic.

The aesthetic of certainty, Reagan's gift to the conservative movement, has been a gift that keeps on giving. This is what Bush political guru Karl Rove constantly stresses. Act as if you are the Chosen One. Be certain. Be confident. Don't entertain any doubts. Don't call for sacrifice or introspection. Keep telling everybody that everything will be all right.

Nothing could be more contrary to the new liberalism, which has eschewed simplification, gloss, and certitude for nuance, honesty, and contingency. But while it may be foolish and even dangerous to view the world as anything but tragic, doing so isn't a very promising way to win votes. Twenty-five years ago, conservatives stole liberal optimism, and George W. Bush, currently bumping from one disaster to another, is relying on it to pull him through this election. He may succeed -- unless liberals can rediscover their Rooseveltian sense of hope and convince Americans that they again have a rendezvous with destiny. That is both liberalism's tradition and its traditional appeal.

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2004 — Since Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell promised seven months ago to "substantially reduce" travel funded by outside sources, the agency has accepted $90,000-worth of free trips, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity.

But it's probably all right--I expect they were trying to track down the culprits in "boobgate."

Jason Kirkegaard of the Institute for International Economics (a nonpartisan think tank devoted to careful research on current issues in international economics) made an extremely detailed examination (careful, .pdf) of the BLS’s labor statistics by industry, occupation, and state to try to identify an impact of offshore outsourcing on those occupations said to be most vulnerable. One could spend hours poring over the detailed cross-tabulations showing exactly which types of jobs have been lost in recent years. In general, the report does not turn up any evidence the offshore outsourcing is responsible for significant job losses in any particular industry or occupation....

[E]ven if we imposed a moratorium on offshore outsourcing, the job market would still remain weak because of the weak economy. We won't stop losing jobs, or gain new ones, until demand picks up in the economy, no matter how much or how little international trade the US engages in. So if you’re worried about the job market (which I am), then focus your attention on the pitiful economic management that the Bush administration has shown, and the weak economy that has persisted as a result. [Itals Kash's]

So expect lefty economists to remain skittish about protectionist language. Expect economic dimwits like me to remain skeptical of the rosy(ish) outlook, thus driving Kerry to protectionist policies that will later, apparently, slow the economy's recovery. Expect said dimwits to blame Bush.

Corporations have become the new aristocracy: an enthroned power which shows no sign of being usurped from within. Far from becoming a catalyst for revolutionary change, they have ensured that all that once melted into air becomes solid, as intangible assets - the genome, the internet, even the weather - are bound up by a new generation of property rights. Financial speculators establish the limits of political action: if a government steps over the political line and "loses the confidence of the markets", the economy collapses, and the government soon follows.

Their world order is as dangerous to social welfare as feudalism. While industrialisation still has liberating potential for poorer nations, its global impact on the climate means that it could now destroy more lives than it saves. Environmentalism and social justice have become indivisible. To ignore the environmental impacts of economic decisions, as some on the left still do, is to ignore one of the major sources of oppression.

This is not to say that the classic leftist analysis of power relations has become redundant. At the global level we can discern a dialectic of precisely the kind Marx foresaw. As the same corporations seek to enforce the same conditions everywhere, they create a universal class interest in confronting them. No one needs to persuade the people fighting Monsanto in Britain that they have common cause with the people fighting Monsanto in Bangladesh or Bolivia. But because the corporations have so effectively crushed the global workforce, much of the pressure for change now comes from outside the factory gates....

At the same time, the drive to cut labour costs and find new markets requires constant technological innovation. Science in countries like Britain has been subordinated to the corporate demand for profitable new technologies. To deploy these technologies, companies must also demand ever-lower regulatory standards. These are the reasons why science policy has become such a battleground, and why so many of those who claim to be defending science instead appear to be defending corporate power.

The limiting factor for corporations, in other words, is no longer labour, but the ecosystem and the regulations which protect it. This is why battles over the environment are among the few that the world's dissident movements are winning.

Thoughts?

While working with Environmental Protection Agency officials to write regulations for coal-fired power plants over several recent months, White House staff members played down the toxic effects of mercury, hundreds of pages of documents and e-mail messages show.

Let's see, public health or a kickback to corporate cronies? Hmmm....

Public views of President Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry have changed little in the past month despite millions of dollars of television campaign ads, according to a survey released Monday.

The University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey compared attitudes about the candidates in the first half of March with those in the second half and found that changes in their favorable ratings were "statistically insignificant" in the 18 battleground states where the most ads have run.

The survey in those states found that 41 percent viewed Kerry favorably in the first part of the month, compared to 39 percent during the last half, while Bush's favorability was 49 percent in early March and 48 percent in late March.

Thoughts:

1. The study gauged attitudes in March. March. You think it's possible that the malleable population--those with insufficient data about the candidates who are actually susceptible to TV ads--are more concerned about American Idol than an election seven months from now?

2. Unlike 2000, that malleable population is far smaller. For one thing, there's an incumbant. Presumably, people inspired enough to rise from the Barcolounger to go to the voting booths will have come across some news of the President in the preceding 4 years. It's a referendum on that performance, so. Also, whereas Bush managed to hide his conservatism behind the "compassionate" leaf in the last election--and thus appear moderate--fair to say that he's now suitably exposed. Candidate confusion in 2004 is unlikely.

More money will be spent this year, but likely to less effect.

The blather from both sides obscures the real, but largely hidden, agenda behind the Bush tax cuts. Bush has been open about each item he wants: lowering taxes on capital income, such as dividends and capital gains; creating two big new income-sheltering investment plans; eliminating the estate tax. But he's not been at all forthcoming about the ultimate effect of his program. If Bush gets what he wants, the income tax will become a misnomer—it will really be a salary tax. Almost all income taxes would come from paychecks—80 percent of income for most families, less than half for the top 1 percent. Meanwhile taxpayers receiving dividends, interest and capital gains, known collectively as investment income, would have a much lighter burden than salary earners—or maybe none at all. And here's the topper. In the name of preserving family farms and keeping small businesses in the family, Bush would eliminate the estate tax and create a new class of landed aristocrats who could inherit billions tax-free, invest the money, watch it compound tax-free and hand it down tax-free to their heirs.

By drastically favoring investment income over salary, fees and other "earned income," Bush would make it harder for people who start out with nothing to earn their way up the economic ladder, because they'd pay full taxes on almost everything they make, but he'd shower rewards on people who have already made it to the top rungs.

The central reason Americans haven't been as enraged as bloggers lo these past three years is because the mass press like Newsweek have failed in their duty to counter Bush's propaganda-as-policy. While he rolled out these atrocious assaults on the middle class under the horribly cynical banner of "jobs program," the mass media snored. There wasn't anything particularly subtle about his proposal, yet even the press bought the PR.

The only upside to all of this--if you can call it an upside--is that the press appears finally tired of being the White House's stooge. It's about time.

With the exception of his visceral opposition to affirmative action (see p. 112), integrated capital-murder juries, and that Martin Lawrence King Day thing, President Bush has been consistent in demonstrating a commitment to being perceived as a devoted friend of the Negro--so long as they are not loitering within 500 yards of a working voting machine.

Today, coloreds have equal rights to enjoy congealed gravy and bad service at Woolworth lunch counters around the country, and our President cannot help but feel a deep respect for their many contributions to our professional sports and common street-whore industries. As such, he is determined to foster an environment at White House Inc. where every last do-rag wearing Welfare Queen and Baby Daddy can dream of following in the footsteps of Bob Barr, Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell--and renounce all that "but I like being black" nonsense and start acting like nice high-yellow folks."

Pretty tough stuff--so tough, in fact, that the humor is lost in the verbal violence.

That's not all bad. A lot of people hate this administration and would love to see someone throw the kitchen sink at them. They're tired of the President getting let off the hook with such polite phrasings as "may have misled Congress" and "contained some inaccurate representations." They'd like, just once, to see someone call the President all the vile things they've been secretly feeling about him. A mental palate-cleanser, if you will. If that fits you, this may be your book. If you're looking for something truly satiric, though, you're going to have to keep reading the Onion (or hope to get lucky here).

In February 2001, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, told Congress that terrorism was the top threat facing the United States.

Even four months later, as intelligence warnings about possible attacks by Al Qaeda began to surge, a June 2001 address that Dr. Rice delivered to Council on Foreign Relations on "Foreign Policy Priorities and Challenges of the Administration" made no mention of terrorism....

Administration officials said that even in the context of fighting terrorism, Ms. Rice was reluctant to budge from other matters that were higher on her agenda. They said that concern about an attack on the United States was usually in the context of the potential for a missile from North Korea or another rogue state, buttressing the case for missile defense....

Indeed, Ms. Rice's biggest vulnerability may have been that when she came to Washington in 2001, she was determined to quickly tackle three tasks that had little to do with terrorism: refocusing the nation's diplomacy on big-power politics, chiefly Russia and China; fulfilling Mr. Bush's pledge of a missile-defense system; and steamlining the security council, getting it out of what she called "operational matters."

The second task may be easier--and surely some of the questions will be softballs designed to give her cover. But here's the rub: the bar is so much higher now that members of the administration have spent two weeks flopping around like chickens with their heads cut off. Had they agreed with Clarke, conceded the obvious point that not enough was done, and apologized, I'm confident no further questions would have been asked. But this is an adminstration with a God complex, so any admission of failure apparently blows its self-image of omnicience. Which means that Condi now has a whole slate of claims to defend that were made since Clarke's testimony.

I don't know how others react to Condi, but to me, she's the least credible member of the administration (after Dubya). It seems like whenever the White House is under attack, she offers up the biggest whoppers. I once remarked to a friend that listening to Condi defend Bush was to hear the "sound of lies."

The testimony isn't going to help Bush--the best it can do is stop the bleedng. If she tanks, however, it might mark the tipping point in the election--the moment when Bush lost the election.

"I think it speaks to the lack of confidence that the administration has in the president going forth alone, period," Pelosi, D-California, said Friday. "It's embarrassing to the president of the United States that they won't let him go in without holding the hand of the vice president of the United States."

"I think it reinforces the idea that the president cannot go it alone," she said. "The president should stand tall, walk in the room himself and answer the questions."

Apparently the Dems have been looking in all the wrong places for spines: men.

A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened....

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used ­ but not specifically about how they would be used ­ and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities with skyscrapers."

If her name seems familiar to you, it should be. After the 9/11 attacks, she was hired by the FBI as a translator to search back through documents seized during the investigation. In 2002 she blew the whistle on the FBI's translation team, which was woefully unprepared to deal with the volume of material they suddenly needed to review. She was fired that year and has been under a John-Ashcroft-ordered gag order since (I wonder why).

I'm not shocked there hasn't been much press around her reports thus far (the press seeming generally disinterested in investigations), but a 9/11 report could change all that. In any case, further evidence of gross incompetence on the Bush team's part.

Contrary to his unchallenged – and unsupportable – assertion on the show that he has been labeled racist, Pickering mobilized such significant opposition because he is a bad judge, with a career-long antipathy to civil rights and reproductive freedom. He has been routinely reversed by the Fifth Circuit without comment, indicating that there was no nuance in the law: he simply got it wrong. Further, at his 2002 hearing, he betrayed a complete misunderstanding of employment discrimination law, the apparent reason why he has dismissed almost all of these cases that have come before him. He saw nothing wrong with contacting numerous lawyers in his small town – several with cases before him at that time – to request that they write letters in support of his Fifth Circuit nomination, and that they send those letters to him so he could forward them to the Department of Justice.

And, yes, Pickering is a bad judge because he bullied prosecutors into dropping a charge against convicted cross burner Daniel Swan, that would have alone carried a mandatory sentence of at least five years. His actions in that case raise serious questions about his judgment, his ethics, and his ability to apply the law faithfully and fairly; none of which Wallace challenged Pickering to answer. Referring to the act of terror and intimidation against an interracial couple with a 2-year-old child as a "drunken prank," Pickering railed against the unfairness of Swan's facing a total seven-year sentence when his co-defendants received probation and home confinement. What Pickering – and Wallace – neglected to tell viewers was that there were numerous differences between Swan and the other two defendants, the most significant of which was that the other two defendants – one a minor, and the other of diminished mental capacity – pled guilty while Swan chose to roll the dice, boasting to friends that he would serve no jail time for his actions....

At his 1990 district court nomination hearing, Pickering denied having had any ties to the Sovereignty Commission, a state-funded group established in the 1950s to fight desegregation, notorious for harassing and terrorizing civil rights and labor activists. In fact, the commission's records, which were finally opened in the late 1990s pursuant to a law suit, included a 1972 memo saying that state legislator Pickering and four other politicians were "very interested" in the results of a commission investigation into a local labor dispute and "requested to be advised of developments."

So, keep that eyebrow cocked--but aim it at Mike Wallace.

If the job prediction was nothing more than a return to trend, then the White House was practicing hokum by implying that this return to trend depended on their tax cuts.

If the job growth they predicted was nothing more than a return to trend, then the tax cuts are ineffectual in producing jobs, since all we're doing is getting back to trend.

If the household survey is more accurate because it captures all those magical job gains in self-employment and entrepreneurial pastimes, then this month's report stinks badly.

Nathan:

It's a strong jobs report out this month, but like every number out there, in this back and forth economy, there's a negative kicker-- namely that the number of hours worked per employee fell...

So while job growth was 0.2 percent, the amount of hours worked for everyone else fell on average 0.1 percent.

So when you measure how much additional labor was needed in the economy last month, it was still a pretty enemic 0.1 percent growth in new hours of labor needed.

But what do you expect from pointy-heads like these guys? They just resort to numbers to make their arguments. They need to get the faith--mmmm, tax cuts!

"The voters this year are going to have a clear, unmistakable choice. It is a choice between an America that leads the world with confidence and strength, or an America that is uncertain in the face of danger. I look forward to this campaign. I look forward to the debate. I look forward to reminding the American people that in the last three years, we've accomplished great things. And I look forward -- And most importantly, I look forward to laying out a positive vision for the years ahead; a positive vision for winning the war against terror, and extending peace and freedom throughout the world..."
(George W. Bush at a fundraiser yesterday)

"Men with scarves over their faces hurled bricks into the blazing vehicles. A group of boys yanked a smoldering body into the street and ripped it apart. Someone then tied a chunk of flesh to a rock and tossed it over a telephone wire." (NYT)

Bush: "We confronted the dangers of state-sponsored terror, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. So we ended two of the most violent and dangerous regimes on Earth. We freed over 50 million people, and once again America is proud to lead the armies of liberation."

"Violence continued Thursday as two roadside bombs exploded northwest of Baghdad, apparently targeting a convoy of 25 fuel tankers under U.S. military escort, according to eyewitnesses and military sources." (CNN, 4/1/04)

Bush: "Great events will turn on this election. The man who sits in the Oval Office will set the course of the war on terror and the direction of our economy. Security and the prosperity of America are at stake. The other side hadn't offered much in the ways of strategy to win the war, or policies to expand our economy. So far all we hear is old partisan rhetoric and bitterness. Anger and bitterness are not an agenda for the future of America."

"For hours, young men and boys roamed the streets proclaiming their hatred of the U.S.-led occupation. Iraqi security forces, organized and trained by the occupation authority, were scarce. Local police stayed away from the gory aftermath of the assault. No one dared make an arrest." (Washington Post, 4/1/04)

Bush: "September the 11th, 2001, taught a lesson I will never forget, a lesson this nation must never forget: America must confront threats before they fully materialize. In Iraq, my administration looked at the intelligence information and we saw a threat. Members of Congress looked at the intelligence and they saw a threat. The United Nations Security Council looked at the intelligence and it saw a threat. The previous administration and Congress looked at the intelligence and made regime change in Iraq the policy of this country."

"The visceral hatred for Americans that poured forth yesterday suggested that the city remains as much a cauldron as it was on April 9, when the first attack on Americans after the capture of Baghdad took place. Then, two weeks after Saddam's ouster, U.S. troops who had taken over a school as a barracks opened fire on an angry crowd after shots were fired at the school, killing 17 Iraqis. The clash set off attacks that by midsummer had engulfed the entire Sunni Triangle -- a strategic area of hundreds of square miles in central Iraq, north, south and west of Baghdad." (NYT, 4/1/04)

Bush: "My opponent admits that Saddam Hussein was a threat; he just didn't support my decision to remove Saddam from power. Maybe he was hoping Saddam would lose the next Iraqi election. We showed the dictator and a watching world that America means what it says. Because our coalition acted, Saddam's torture chambers are closed. Because we acted, Iraq's weapons programs are ended forever. Because we acted, nations like Libya have gotten the message and renounced their own weapons programs. Because we acted, an example of democracy is rising at the very heart of the Middle East. Because we acted, the world is more free. And because we acted, America is more secure."