Before Charles Lane Accuses Others of Hypocrisy, Perhaps He Should Look Up the Definition

I've commented in the past about accusations of hypocrisy, and how they are often misplaced. It's not hypocritical for Warren Buffett to pay only the taxes required by current law, while simultaneously arguing that taxes on the wealthy should be raised. Even assuming that the material facts are identical, it's not necessarily hypocritical for somebody to take a different position than the one they took years or decades earlier, as sometimes people change their minds. It's not hypocritical to stop protesting an action or issue that once drew you out to the streets, every time that issue comes up -- you can continue to feel strongly about the issue while succumbing to issue fatigue, recognizing that your protests are not having any effect, or moving onto other issues or priorities that get in the way of organizing protests and rallies.

Still, accusations of hypocrisy abound. Certainly there are times that they are warranted, but often they're the hallmark of a lazy columnist. Falling into that latter category, Charles Lane is waving his finger at "liberals".

Building the Keystone XL pipeline, to speed the flow of crude from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Texas, would be “game over for the climate,” says NASA-scientist-turned-climate-activist James E. Hansen. Heeding Hansen’s words, environmentalists have sworn to stop the project, which requires U.S. government approval.

Perhaps we should note, up front, that not all environmentalists are liberals, and not all liberals are environmentalists.

Yet large, bipartisan majorities of the House and Senate support Keystone XL, as does 60 percent of the American public, according to the latest USA Today poll.

And... that has absolutely nothing to do with whether the project is environmentally wise.

Today, it is still on hold, because Tuesday night 41 Senate Democrats voted against ending debate on a bill to green-light Keystone XL, thus thwarting what might have been a disastrous exercise of democracy.

Perhaps it escaped Lane's notice, but that is not the first-ever use of a filibuster in the Senate. As Lane himself noted in a prior screed,

Republican opposition to Obamacare may be hypocritical, irrational and opportunistic — especially GOP opposition to the exchanges, which the party previously favored in various forms. And, yes, the modern filibuster takes counter-majoritarianism to an extreme even the Framers probably didn’t contemplate.

But the Constitution lets the Senate write its own rules.

The fact that Senators who are part of an institution that has created and upheld the filibuster actually employ a filibuster is in no way hypocritical. Even if we assume (in defiance of the facts) that each and every one of those Senators would vote for straight majority rule in the Senate, it would not be hypocritical of them to employ the actual rules of the Senate when voting on legislation.

In short, the filibuster may have just saved the planet, at least for now.

Or so it must be believed by Keystone XL’s opponents — even though they include some of the same people who decried the filibuster, not unreasonably, as an obstructionist, anti-majoritarian evil when Republicans employed it against President Obama’s health-care reform, cap-and-trade and other progressive legislation.

Here, through his link, Lane suggests that Markos Moulitsas is a hypocrite for opposing the filibuster and... he doesn't offer a link, but perhaps Moulitsas praised the Senate vote somewhere? As with Warren Buffett and his taxes, even if Moulitsas is overjoyed that the pipeline bill was filibustered, it's not hypocritical for him to advocate changing the Senate's rules while nonetheless encouraging Senators to use those rules to advance policy positions he favors. The concept isn't even slightly difficult to grasp -- it is possible to believe that something is bad on the whole such that it should be eliminated, even when recognizing that it has potential value under certain circumstances.

When I saw the film, Shattered Glass, I had some sympathy for the Charles Lane played by Peter Sarsgaard, a well-meaning guy who got duped by one of his employees. But the Charles Lane who writes for the Washington Post seems to have a different problem -- he seems to be lazy and indifferent to the facts, the sort of approach to journalism that can allow somebody like Stephen Glass to get away with feeding him the most absurd fabrications as long as they don't conflict with his preconceptions. When you click through the link to the actual statement by Markos Moulitsas, Lane's exemplar of a hypocrite, you hear this:

There's a huge movement, and I think it's going to happen, to change the filibuster rules from requiring sixty votes to requiring forty "no" votes. Right now if you want to filibuster you don't even have to show up, you know, the onus is on the "pro" side to round up the sixty votes. So when you turn it to forty votes you gotta have those forty people there, and if one of them has to go to the bathroom, boom, you call cloture, and that's that.

Moulitsas was not calling for the elimination of the filibuster -- he was calling for the perpetuation of the filibuster, but with a change in how you vote for cloture. Given that Lane knows that forty-one Democrats voted to filibuster, and he should know that Moulitsas favors a filibuster rule that would sustain a filibuster based on those forty-one votes, his insinuation of hypocrisy has no basis in reality. It's instead an example of Lane getting his facts wrong. And with that example having been dredged up from September 10, 2010, either Lane couldn't find an actual example of a statement from a liberal that would support his thesis, or he got lazy.

Majority rule is not the only progressive principle some progressives seem ready to sacrifice on the anti-Keystone altar.

First, are we talking about "liberals", are we talking about "progressives", or does Lane view the term as interchangeable? Either way, I am not aware of any consensus among either group that we should eliminate representative democracy in favor of direct democracy.

If we're simply talking about Senate rules, to put it mildly, there is no consensus among liberals or progressives that the filibuster should be abandoned. Some believe that it should be eliminated, but others (as with Lane's exemplar progressive, Markos Moulitsas) favor continuing the filibuster but changing the rules to make it less of a tool for obstruction, and still others would leave well enough alone. Meanwhile, it was not so many years ago that Republicans on the floor of the Senate made frequent calls for a "straight up or down vote" when confronted with the filibuster. Some of that opposition may have been opportunistic, but the fact is that the recognition that the filibuster is anti-democratic and could benefit from reform is not something that is unique to the political left.

Remember the corrupting influence of money on politics? Billionaire Tom Steyer has spent millions on TV ads backing environmentalist Democrats and trashing the pipeline itself, thus purchasing outsize influence in the White House and the Democratic Party.

Although this should go without saying, campaign finance reform has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, once championed by none other than John McCain. As should also go without saying, proponents of campaign finance reform have not proposed that no money be spent on political advertising. But beyond that, we're back to Warren Buffett and his taxes. You can believe that wealthy individuals and corporations gain an outsized voice in politics and government through their direct and indirect contributions, while nonetheless believing that you should take full advantage of the existing laws to advance your causes. There is no hypocrisy in advocating for a change in the law while operating under the existing laws, and it would be extraordinarily foolish to refuse adequate funding for your political goals out of principle when the likely consequence would be that your opponent would win. Heck, Steyer even spoon-fed that reality to those who are a bit slow on the uptake, and Lane quotes the explanation:

“On issues as critical as climate change, we will take action and work within the system that we’ve got until we can change it,” Steyer pragmatically told Forbes magazine.

How can Lane read that statement yet fail to understand that it's not an example of hypocrisy?

Next up, infrastructure,

Most of the time, liberals tout the job-creating potential of critical infrastructure projects, based on the indirect “multiplier effect” that even short-term construction can have on economic growth.

Perhaps lane doesn't realize that with his opening qualifier, he hobbled his argument before it left the starting gate. There is a vast difference between supporting infrastructure projects most of the time, and supporting them all of the time. We should note, also, that many conservative voters recognize the need for and benefit of infrastructure projects -- but that doesn't mean that either side has to embrace every infrastructure project, that they cannot prioritize certain types of project over others, or that they cannot object to an infrastructure project that they deem wasteful or harmful.

For Keystone XL, though, different rules apply.

Apparently, to lane, "different rules" means roughly the same thing as "the same rules".

We are instructed, by Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress, among others, that the $8 billion project will create “only” 3,900 “direct” one-year construction jobs and a mere 50 permanent ones. Forget the 42,000 jobs that a State Department analysis said would be “supported” by the project.

Here, rather than pointing to the actual State Department report, Lane links to a post from the Washington Post's Wonkblog. That blog post indicates that "About 3,900 of [the] jobs would be temporary construction jobs", and that once built, "the pipeline would support 50 jobs". In other words, Lane is complaining not that the one person he mentions got the facts wrong, but that he should have provided additional facts.

When you go to the written statement of Daniel Weiss, you find that his reference to the number of jobs that would be created by the Keystone XL pipeline was specifically addressing the number of permanent jobs that would be created. While Lane can certainly argue that a greater discussion of temporary jobs would make the statement more complete, surely he can understand that temporary jobs are not of great significance to an assertion about permanent jobs. After all, if he cannot make that distinction, he is guilty of the same offense he attributes to Weiss -- Lane does not mention that either that the 42,000 indirect jobs would be temporary, continuing only during the construction of the pipeline.

Lane is also engaged in a sleight of hand. The people -- liberal and conservative -- who favor infrastructure projects have done so in no small basis upon the position that although a typical infrastructure project is relatively short-term, we need to invest in our nation's decaying infrastructure and that the short-term boost in employment can help stimulate the economy. As previously stated, this was never an endorsement of any infrastructure project. In fact, the proposed focus has typically been on public infrastructure.

But as Lane knows, those commenting on the very small number of permanent jobs that will result from pipeline construction are addressing a different issue. They were attempting to rebut exaggerated claims by pipeline proponents about the number of jobs the pipeline would generate, and to point out the indisputable fact that the pipeline will create an inconsequential number of long-term jobs. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the people making these observations about Keystone XL would not say exactly the same thing about other major infrastructure projects.

Construction unions understand that employment in their field is inherently temporary in the sense that it ends when the building is built. They strongly favor Keystone XL. Yet this reliably Democratic middle-class constituency is also being thrown under the anti-Keystone bus.

Wow... crocodile tears for union worker.

It's even slightly surprising that unions whose members would benefit from construction jobs favor construction projects. I would not be surprised if there was significant union support to build "the bridge to nowhere". The question of whether a particular faction supports a project does not answer the question of whether the project is wise or appropriate. Further, given that only a few short paragraphs ago Lane was grousing that progressives have forgotten their principle of "majority rule", Lane wants to have it both ways. If it's hypocritical and an affront to progressive principles to not abide by the judgment of the minority, how can it be simultaneously an affront to progressive principles to not allow a vocal minority to impose its will on the majority? Does Lane not find it obvious that it's one or the other?

The least attractive violation of progressive values by Keystone XL opponents’ was their attempt to recast this joint project of Canada and the United States in xenophobic terms.

Oh, this should be good....

One Steyer-financed ad warned that China is “counting on the U.S. to approve TransCanada’s pipeline to ship oil through America’s heartland and out to foreign countries like theirs.”

So... based on one ad that virtually nobody in the nation has seen, Lane has concluded that progressives have embraced xenophobia.... (Has Lane ever noticed the Republican Party's treatment of issues like immigration?)

The only basis for this claim was that state-owned Chinese companies have a modest investment in Canada’s oil sands. The Post’s Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, awarded the ad four Pinocchios, noting that “it relies on speculation, not facts, to make insinuations and assertions not justified by the reality.”

That's it, then? One ad, financed by one individual, seen by virtually no one? It's difficult to imagine how Lane could build a stronger case.

Speaking of the planet, perhaps the only person on it who still hasn’t made up his mind about Keystone XL is President Obama, though his dithering has recently given way to expressions depressingly reminiscent of those in the Steyer ad.

In reality, President Obama has expressed that he is waiting for private lawsuits over the pipeline's proposed path to be resolved, and for the State Department to complete its analysis of how the pipeline will affect the environment, before taking a position on the pipeline. It's easy to understand why some might want the President to take a firm position, pro- or con-, before all of the facts are in. It's also easy to see why the President would instead choose to remain neutral pending either the outcome of litigation and studies that might prevent the pipeline's construction, or the presentment by Congress of legislation for his signature. Lane chooses the pejorative, "dither", but there is no reason to believe that the President is being even slightly indecisive on the question, as opposed to playing a careful political game on a hot button issue.

And yes, obviously, his suggestion that the President is xenophobic is absurd.

“Understand what this project is,” he said at a news conference in Burma last week. “It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land down to the Gulf [Coast], where it will be sold everywhere else.” Their oil. Our land.

Does Lane disagree that the oil belongs to Canada? Does he disagree that a pipeline that will run across the United States is accurately described by the President as crossing "our land"? If Lane actually believes that the President's statement reflects xenophobia or anti-Canadian agitation, he should seek psychiatric help.

Yet his own State Department’s exhaustive review of the project found that re-exports of the oil, either as crude or in refined form, were unlikely.

This time around, Lane links to the actual State Department report. However, he is not being honest about the report's conclusion:

It is likely that increasing amounts of WCSB crudes will reach Gulf Coast refiners whether or not the proposed Project goes forward (products from this processing will be used in both domestic markets and for export). As a result, future refined product export trends are also unlikely to be significantly impacted by the proposed Project.

The report does not suggest that export won't occur. It suggests instead that enough Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) crude will reach the Gulf, with or without the pipeline, that net exports are unlikely to be affected.

Lane's second link is to a Reuter's analysis of the President's statement, which it declares to "ring[] only half true".

"Some of it will stay in Gulf, some of it will leave," said Sarah Emerson, president of Energy Security Analysis, Inc. in Boston. "I don't think anyone would have built if they thought the oil was just going to stay in the Gulf Coast, that is like bringing coal to Newcastle."

It would be fair to accuse the President of overstatement. However, once again Lane is guilty of the very offense he attributes to others -- he is misrepresenting the State Department's report and is implying, in defiance of the facts and his own sources, that export is unlikely to occur.

Hypocrisy and rhetorical flimflam are standard in politics, and liberals are not the only guilty parties in the Keystone XL battle.

At this point, Lane has identified zero examples of hypocrisy. Not a one. It's not even clear that he understands the meaning of the word. As for "rhetorical flimflam", it's a colorful way of describing something that is inherent to politics. To observe, even with colorful language, that politicians are guilty of practicing politics seems somehow banal.

Keystone XL proponents have undoubtedly tapped corporate coffers to fund their share of exaggerations about the project’s benefits.

Lane speaks of this as if it's an assumption, not a fact. It's a fact.

And of course climate change is real and must be addressed.

Which doesn't mean that Lane isn't going to insist that the President state a firm opinion, or insult him for declining to do so, while we await the environmental impact report.

But in this case progressives are not only being intellectually dishonest and traducing their values, they’re doing so pointlessly: This end doesn’t justify these means.

Really, other than waving his hands a lot, all Lane has documented is that one wealthy person produced one TV ad, approved by nobody but himself and seen by virtually no one, that has an element of xenophobia; and that the President has implied that more of the WCSB crude will be exported than is likely to be the case. And in producing that tepid indictment of "liberals", he has misstated the facts, misrepresented the positions of people he has held up as hypocrites, and misunderstood the basic issues under debate.

Far from being “game over” for the planet, Keystone XL would not boost greenhouse gas emissions significantly, according to State Department experts. With or without Keystone XL, Canada’s oil sands will still be turned into crude oil and shipped, often by rail, to markets in the United States and elsewhere. The environmental movement’s energies — not to mention Steyer’s millions — would be far better spent elsewhere.

Lane's implication is that the crude is going to be extracted, shipped and used, so environmentalists may as well shut down and go home. Sometimes, even a fight for a losing cause can bring about results that benefit the losing side -- a better educated, more aware public, the exercise of greater caution when proposing and planning future projects with significant potential environmental impact, and the like. Also, while Lane writes off the possibility, perhaps those environmentalists don't intend to call it quits if the pipeline is not constructed. But, frankly, it's not his place to tell environmentalists how to expend their energies or to tell Steyer how to spend his own money.

In their tendentious effort to deny these realities, progressives risk violating yet another cherished principle that, in their view, distinguishes them from the right: that of letting facts and science, not ideology, determine policy.

And here Lane is back to his earlier trick of conflating the terms "environmentalist" and "progressive" -- as if there are no conservative environmentalists nor any progressives who don't oppose the pipeline. And in relation to letting the facts and science dictate policy, what was it that Lane said only a few sentences ago?

And of course climate change is real and must be addressed.

So which is it -- is this a situation in which climate change is real and must be addressed, or a situation in which that science is already known and weighs in favor of the pipeline? If Lane's theory is that the oil will be extracted and used, rendering the existence of the pipeline irrelevant to the debate, he's missing the actual goal of the environmentalists opposed to this project -- they don't want that oil to be extracted or used at all. That's not because they are ignorant of science and climate change, or because they are refusing to consider the science when forming their positions on WCSB crude -- quite the opposite. Given that Lane is now endorsing making decisions based on science, it also seems odd that he wants the President to get ahead of the environmental impact analysis for the Keystone XL pipeline. It's almost as if Lane is privileging ideology over science.

Campaigning for a symbolic victory over the fossil-fuel industry, they may end up with a pyrrhic one — if any.

It goes without saying that the environmentalists could lose their fight against the pipeline. But it also goes without saying, even with due respect to Lane's accusations of imagined hypocrisy, if the environmentalists who oppose the pipeline prevail they will not view their victory as pyrrhic. More likely, they will be energized for their next battle.

Do you know what would have made Lane's column better? If, rather than launching a poorly reasoned screed about "liberals", "progressives" and "environmentalists", that did little more than reveal his sloppy, lazy fact-checking, he had tried to lay out the case for why the pipeline is a good idea. He might have tried to explain how the pipeline compares to other possible infrastructure projects in terms of need, job creation and long-term benefit. He could have attempted to address environmental concerns, rather than brushing them off. Too much to ask?

David Brooks, True to Form

I had a discussion with somebody about David Brooks this morning. He was asking me what I thought of various newspaper columnists, and couldn't quite remember the name, but "David" was enough. He mentioned that he thought Brooks was a pretty clever guy who put his own spin on things. I agreed. I asserted that whatever the spin was, Brooks should be recognized as the partisan he is - reiterating a point that I've made here that when he gives advice to Democrats on what they need to do to win elections it's consistently bad (for Democrats) - whether he's advising Democrats or Republicans on strategy they should adopt, he's in fact giving advice that he believes will help the Republicans win the next election. My friend agreed, but expressed in essence that Brooks is a breath of fresh air as compared to other partisan columnists (his example was Peggy Noonan).¹

When I followed a link to his latest piece, I thought for a moment, "Perhaps David Brooks is going to prove me wrong." He starts out with a valid point: It's time for President Obama to tell us what he plans to do in his second term, and why he deserves a second term. Sure, he puts a light Republican spin on Obama's history, and gives undeserved praise to Paul Ryan², but underneath that, in relation to the President, how can you argue with this:

It’s not clear what he is passionate to do if he is elected for another four years.

But from there, pure reversion to form.

First, global warming. President Obama has occasionally said he’d like to do something about climate change if he gets a second term. Given the country’s immediate economic and fiscal problems, this seems obtuse to me. But if this is really where Obama’s passion lies, he should go for it.

In other words, even Brooks can't hold a straight face when telling Obama to focus his second term agenda on global warming - yet it's his number one suggestion. When you read Brooks' specific proposals, you can't help but wonder if he's already viewed the attack ads the Republicans hope to be able to run on the issue.³

Brooks' next idea is that the President should attack capitalism. Seriously - Brooks is claiming that a President whom the Republicans have bashed based upon zero evidence of not understanding capitalism, of hating capitalism, of being a socialist (if not a communist), of hating rich people... all that nonsense... should make an attack on capitalism the centerpiece of his reelection campaign. The attack ads would write themselves.⁴ Again, Brooks can't help but smirk,

This agenda wouldn’t appeal to moderates, or people like me, but it’s huge, it’s serious and it would highlight a real problem.

It's a serious problem that David Brooks can describe but... doesn't care about? Brooks is mostly correct that his ideas "wouldn’t appeal to moderates, or [Republicans]", which translates into an admission that Brooks expects that such an approach would cost the President votes.

Brooks then suggests that the President should embrace wholeheartedly the report of the chairs of the failed Bowles-Simpson Commission, and finally bring to this country the sort of bad policy and austerity measures that have caused Great Britain to have a double-dip recession. After admitting that even the Republicans at most pay "lip service" to Bowles-Simpson - having apparently forgotten that Paul Ryan served on the commission and voted against the final report - he proposes that Obama could endorse a witches brew of ideas from Simpson-Bowles that even the Republicans view as toxic.

At first blush you might respond, "Well, at least the Republicans wouldn't be able to run attack ads against a plan that's to the right of Paul Ryan's deficit-increasing proposals," but nope. The ads will be running the next day, "See? We told you that Obama was taking away your Medicare and now he's also going to slash your Social Security benefit!" It's also amazingly transparent, "You really want to win this election? Well, first thing you gotta do is give the Republicans everything they want, and don't ask for anything in return." I realize that's not far from how beltway pundits define "bipartisanship" on Social Security and Medicare, but by this point does anybody still believe Brooks is sincere?⁵

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1. This is more than damning Brooks with faint praise. As tiresome as his faux-centrism can be, unlike with many of his peers you often have to read more than the headline in order to know what Brooks is arguing and the conclusion he's going to reach.

2. Brooks wrote,

During this time, you knew what Barack Obama was about, where his priorities lay. But, since 2010, that has not been the case. Since then, Representative Paul Ryan has been driving the Washington policy debate with his plan to cut spending and restructure entitlements.

If we define "Washington policy debate" as "the issues over which beltway pundits" obsess, perhaps that's fair. But (a) Ryan's budget is junk - cowardly junk - and the debate has been anything but policy-oriented. Ryan's budget is a political statement, not a policy statement, and those who advocate its merits either do not understand it or share Ryan's political goals.

Ryan has scurried away from certain elements of his budget, particularly the manner in which he proposed privatizing and voucherizing Medicare, without any explanation for how his new voucher program is superior as a matter of policy - but it's pretty obvious how it's superior as a matter of politics.

3. First up, "He could vow to double down on green energy and green technology." Republican Ad: "Soyndra, Soyndra, Soyndra, Soyndra. Soyndra! Soyndra, Soyndra. I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message."

4. First up, "He could vow to strengthen unions". No mention of how that might work, save in Republican attack ads.

5. Brooks laments,

I wish he’d rise above the petty tactical considerations that have shrunk him over the past two years.

Now what was it that happened two years ago that made things in Washington so petty... We had an election and then something happened that let the Republican agenda dominate in the House of Representatives and (further) stymie Obama's agenda... oh, what could it be....

Oh, Come On....

David Brooks is pretending to be concerned that the government might stand up for the environment and against the big oil companies, and impose restrictions against fracking that are so arbitrary and onerous that we might ignore a potential 100 year supply of shale gas, sighing, "It would be a crime if we squandered this blessing." Seriously? The facts or precedent underlying this professed concern would be... what?

David Brooks laments that we need a regulatory regime that balances costs and benefits, lamenting, "This kind of balance is exactly what our political system doesn’t deliver". To support his argument he tells us, "So far, the Obama administration has done a good job of trying to promote fracking while investigating the downsides." In other words, the Democrats are doing exactly what Brooks suggests to be good policy. Is he concerned, then, that the Republicans will impede fracking because of a newly discovered concern for the environment or their distaste for the energy industry? If his argument is that our political system is failing because it is likely to compromise between Obama's position and "Drill, Baby, Drill", he's completely undermining (dare I say 'fracking') his thesis.

Back To Where You Began

One of the consistent criticisms of President Obama is that in his quest for bipartisan legislation he offers compromises up-front, and then has to negotiate from a weak starting point. The conception is that if he were to demand a lot more up front, he would be able to make concessions (giving up the portions of the proposed legislation that were added merely for this purpose) and thereby gain more concessions from the other side. That criticism presupposes two things: first, that it's appropriate for the two sides to a legislative negotiation to start from maximalist positions and work toward common ground, and second that opponents of the legislation had any actual interest in negotiation.

I have a different impression: I believe that President Obama has little patience for political theater, a pretended devotion to maximalist positions that the advocate knows will never gain majority support, that it's possible to identify a consensus position that reasonably advances the public policy goals of even major legislative initiatives in a manner that is acceptable to both sides, and that it thus saves a lot of time and bother to bypass the theater, start with the consensus position and focus on the details.

I do believe Obama made mistakes in his pursuit of healthcare reform, most significantly in assuming that the Republican Party would participate in the debate in good faith, and that his own party would recognize that getting squarely behind healthcare reform would be best for both their party and the country. Instead he got "the Party of No" on one side, and a mad mixture of pandering and demands for pork from his own party that left a lot of people with the impression that they had learned nothing from the Clinton years and weren't fit to govern. The Democratic Congress had the option of demonstrating leadership, if for only a few months focusing on what's good for the country and how to make the best possible healthcare reform bill, and... largely chose self-interest. Had they followed Obama's lead, the difference between the initial framework he proposed and the final bill would have been minimal, but they would have appeared effective in office.

I get the same sense from Obama's tense interactions with Binyamin Netanyahu over restarting peace talks with the Palestinians. Obama appears to accept the consensus view of what a final resolution will look like - at least if it is to be a two-state solution. That is, there will be a final border that roughly follows the Green Line, the Palestinians will have a capital in East Jerusalem, and the end-result will be a genuine Palestinian state alongside Israel. Netanyahu lacks the personal courage to commit to such an outcome, and perhaps more to the point does not desire that outcome. In Netanyahu's initial term as Prime Minister, his government's contemptuous view of what a Palestinian state - a rump state with no control over its borders, water, or airspace, might look like was reportedly, "Well, they want to call it a state? Fine, they can call it fried chicken if they want to." It's obvious that peace can never be achieved on those terms, and it appears that Obama would prefer to work with grown-ups on both sides to start negotiations from the consensus view and focus on the details.

Today, a new criticism - that Obama is offering to allow offshore drilling in areas that were previously off-limits, in order to try to entice Republican support for climate legislation - as well as feckless Democrats like Mary "Louisiana Purchase" Landrieu. Without Republican support, the bill will die. To me it appears that President Obama is starting with the belief that offshore drilling will eventually happen, with the actual debate being over when and how, in a context where the concession will achieve a great good (getting the climate bill passed) based upon a relatively minor concession - and with significant oversight of environmental concerns. If it works, he gets his climate bill. If not, the bill dies and the offshore drilling proposals don't become law.

If my inference is correct, Obama's biggest mistake is his hope that people will rise to the occasion, recognize that maximalist positions will not work, and commence good faith negotiations based upon "what everybody knows" is likely to ultimately happen. For healthcare reform, it took a year for the legislation to evolve into a form remarkably similar to President Obama's proposed starting point. For Israel-Palestine, we have forty years of history that tell us that negotiations that start from maximalist positions will accomplish nothing. For climate legislation, if his proposal works he'll get a bill while making a concession that is very likely to occur in the future, but on his own terms - as opposed to losing the opportunity to pass climate legislation until after the midterm elections.
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Update: From Obama's remarks,

Ultimately, we need to move beyond the tired debates between right and left, between business leaders and environmentalists, between those who would claim drilling is a cure all and those who would claim it has no place. Because this issue is just too important to allow our progress to languish while we fight the same old battles over and over again.

To me that again sounds like, "We all know the approximate destination, so let's skip the theater and work out the details."

Mavericky Goodness on "Cap and Trade"

How long ago was it that we had a guy named John McCain, along with a running mate named Sarah Palin, proposing how to address carbon emissions? What did he call his plan, again... could it have been cap and trade? And he's been proposing various "cap and trade" schemes since... 2003, if not earlier? The conflict with Obama's plan appears to focus on how permits are allocated - Obama supports an auction, while McCain proposed a giveaway to the nation's biggest polluters.

For quite some time, opponents of caps on carbon emissions have been trying to come up with a catchy way to make fun of "cap and trade". Their problem seems to be that the term "cap and trade" sounds innocuous, but at the same time is very difficult to understand. (So we have McCain arguing for years in favor of "cap and trade", but now arguing that it's bad if permits to pollute are obtained through auction as opposed to being distributed, for free, to big polluters who (presumably) would then profit handsomely by selling permits they did not actually need to smaller companies. The "best" term they've come up with so far is "cap and tax", which is also "clear as mud" to anybody who isn't familiar with the concept of "cap and trade". It's policy formation on the level of Beavis and Butthead ("Heheheh. He said 'tax'. Heheheheheheh.) The sad part is, such "rebranding" has been quite successful at times in the past - just ask Frank Luntz.

Whatever it's merit, "cap and tax" is now part of the Republical lexicon, to be used at all times - even by erstwhile supporters of "cap and trade" like John McCain. I would like to see him explain how his "cap and trade" proposal would limit pollution without imposing any cost on anybody, but... what sort of self-respecting reporter would ask such a direct and relevant question to a maverick? Oh, the horror of imposing a tax on business during a recession. We should instead... impose a massive tax increase on middle class wage earners who receive employer-sponsored health care, right? (Starting with McCain, there appears to be huge Republican support for that tax increase, but they are quite coordinated in their refusal to acknowledge it as such.)

In any event, somebody handed Sarah Palin the party memo on "cap and tax" or, perhaps more realistically, handed her a completed editorial and said, "Hey, why don't you submit this to the Washington Post?" And sure enough, now the Post offers a platitudinous regurgitation of the anti-"cap and tax" talking points under Palin's byline. She offers claims like this:

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.

Okay, let's assume that Obama's "cap and trade" will "destroy the economy", while the McCain/Palin model will not. Palin is clearly depicting herself (somebody ignorant of her own state's energy production) as an expert on the issue. She is being given a grand opportunity to make her case to the American public right on the pages of the Washington Post. As you have probably already guessed, she offers up plenty of nothing.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

Oh, what a cute little dig at "liberals". From somebody whose running mate used to unabashedly admit that he didn't understand economics, and who has little apparent understanding of economics herself. Pot, kettle, and all that.

All Palin manages to do in the article is shill for existing energy interests - Alaska's oil and gas industry, and coal producers - and impliedly for major polluters. Not one idea on reducing carbon emissions. Not one suggestion of how Obama's plan could be improved. Her intellectual gas tank, it seems, is empty.

Funding Priorities

Shorter Glenn Easterbrook:

The government's wrong to spend money researching their pie-in-the-sky clean energy schemes that may never bear fruit. They should be directing the money into mine.

Oil Prices

Matt Ygliesias paints a somewhat dismal picture of oil prices going up along with the economic recovery, perhaps resulting in another recession. That's quite possible. While the financial industry's misfeasance and malfeasance is at the heart of the global economic meltdown, the rapid escalation of gas prices appears to have triggered the collapse.

The funny thing is, we could make enormous strides with conservation. But as the world economy gears back up, we're going to be back to the situation of consistent annual growth in demand for oil, with new oil resources being more difficult and more expensive to tap. We really do seem to live in a world that will only respond to disaster, and even at that not very well... but one way or another we will be returning to a world where oil costs $100 or more per barrel, and where gas prices again hit $4 or more.

I doubt that the next generation will enjoy anywhere near the same level of mobility as this generation. Oh, sure, if you can afford it, the options will be there. But high fuel prices will price long road trips and air travel beyond the reach of many families who currently take cheap fuel for granted, and we already have a remarkable national amnesia about the months of $4/gallon gas.

You Only Have To Fool Enough of the People...

The magic Palin brings to the McCain campaign is her remarkable ability to lie about pretty much everything. Apparently, Matt Drudge dredged up a January interview where Obama describes how carbon emission "cap and trade" works, and now Palin's hard at work lying about it:

• Lie: "You hear Barack Obama talking about bankrupting the coal industry" - Truth: You hear Obama state, "this notion of 'no coal', I think is an illusion" given its huge role in powering the U.S. and even greater role in powering China. He raises the question of how we can use coal without creating greenhouse gases. He observes that under a cap and trade system, if cleaner methods of producing coal energy are not developed, new coal power plants will not be economically viable. It's the person who ignores the carbon tax and builds a dirty coal plant who goes bankrupt, not the coal industry.

  Obviously, under any cap and trade system, sources of energy that produce high levels of carbon emission may lose their viability - that's the point of cap and trade - so the coal industry's focus needs to be on developing cleaner energy technology.

• Lie: "John McCain and I, we will not let that happen to the coal industry." - Truth: John McCain also supports a strong "cap and trade" system for carbon emissions, and if he's telling the truth about that his policies will produce exactly the same outcome as Obama's.

• Lie: Palin's demand to know why the video was "withheld from the electorate" suggesting a conspiracy by the media - Truth: "audio of the interview has been available on the web site of the San Francisco Chronicle since mid-January, when Obama made the comments in an interview with the newspaper's editorial board."

They say that when you've got nothin', you've got nothin' to lose. And I guess, when you've given up your honor, you've got nothin'.

Weatherstripping, Nothing....

Bob Herbert endorses conservation, suggesting,

Because of the high price of oil, people in many parts of the country are already frightened, in the heat of summer, about their winter heating bills. Families are worried about having to choose between mortgage payments and fuel bills, or fuel bills and prescription medicine.

The Senate considered but was unable to pass a measure that would have substantially increased financing for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It was a very bad sign. If the government can’t get that done in the current atmosphere, it hardly seems likely that it could move to an even more important step: finding a way to get the homes of these cash-strapped families properly weatherized so that they use substantially less fuel over the course of each winter.

How about we start subsidizing the conversion of their homes to geothermal heating and cooling systems. Using grants, subsidized loans and conventional loans, it should be possible to create affordable paths to geothermal systems for most consumers, with any loans repaid in a manner that still results in a net savings (and much greater stability) in their heating bills.

Try For A Little Internal Consistency....

Michael Gerson complains that Obama wants to tax oil companies:

High oil prices, like a walk under the summer moon, can drive normally rational people to do foolish things they later regret. For Barack Obama, it is a fling with a windfall profits tax on American oil companies - one of the most thoroughly discredited economic policies of the past few decades.

Fair enough. I doubt that the tax would cause harm, but to me it seems like pandering - awfully similar to the gas tax holiday Obama was quick (and correct) to criticize. It would be much more sensible, for example, to instead repeal the billions of dollars in subsidies G.W. Bush has channeled to these energy companies. As you might expect, Gerson is silent on that possibility. But he makes it plain as day - once you pay your money at the pump to a domestic oil company, it's theirs.

Gerson goes on to whine that high oil prices are enriching "Persian Gulf states". (Don't forget Venezuela, Michael.) And those nations are doing crazy things, like investing the money, buying land overseas to ensure their future food supply, or, alas, exporting their way of life. Gerson then announces,

It should not surprise us that oil producers pursue their interests, excesses and ideologies with our money.

No, Michael. Once we buy a barrel of oil from another country, our money belongs to them. That is, it becomes their money, just like when we buy gas from a domestic oil company.

But the massive transfer of wealth to some of the world's least responsible nations should disturb us. And confronting this problem - with rapid increases in auto fuel efficiency and the urgent encouragement of alternatives to oil - will involve a cost and commitment more general and more serious than a misguided windfall profits tax.

Forgive my lapse of memory. Where was Michael Gerson when Dick Cheney declared, "Conservation may be a personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy"? Oh yeah....

You know, if those inside the Bush Administration at that time had through to increase auto fuel efficiency and encourage alternatives to oil, rather than cheering consumption and subsidizing the oil industry, we might not be having this discussion. It's nice that Gerson's eyes may be finally starting to open, seven or so years late, but really - what's his excuse for the lack of commitment and seriousness in the White House while this problem was developing?

The Neverending ANWR Oil Song And Dance

George Will, in a rather typical display of poor thinking, argues against the dastardly environmental concerns that keep our nation from fully exploiting and depleting all of our oil and natural gas reserves.

Rising in the Senate on May 13, Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat, explained: "I rise to discuss rising energy prices." The president was heading to Saudi Arabia to seek an increase in its oil production, and Schumer's gorge was rising.

Saudi Arabia, he said, "holds the key to reducing gasoline prices at home in the short term." Therefore arms sales to that kingdom should be blocked unless it "increases its oil production by one million barrels per day," which would cause the price of gasoline to fall "50 cents a gallon almost immediately."

Can a senator, with so many things on his mind, know so precisely how the price of gasoline would respond to that increase in the oil supply?

Will instructs us,

One million barrels is what might today be flowing from ANWR if in 1995 President Bill Clinton had not vetoed legislation to permit drilling there.

Er, yeah, "might". Now I'll give Will as much credit as he's due for not tossing out a certain figure, particularly on the heels of his attack on Schumer for asserting a projection as fact. But that isn't much, given that the rest of Will's column treats his own projection as a certainty.

Will proceed to attack Schumer, and everybody else who has opposed ANWR oil drilling, as being "complicit in taking $10 away from every American who buys 20 gallons of gasoline". This, of course, is raw fiction. Will pretends that world oil production - on the whole, and by individual nations, can only rise. Will pretends that a nation like Saudi Arabia won't limit its own output, well below capacity, in order to protect its own reserves and maximize its profits - yet if Saudi Arabia weren't doing exactly that, Will's contentions would be even more absurd.

Let's take a moment to consider reality:

President Bush used a private visit to King Abdullah’s ranch here on Friday to make another appeal for an increase in oil production that might give American consumers some relief at the gasoline pump. The Saudis responded by announcing they had decided a week ago on a modest increase of 300,000 barrels a day.

That's Saudi Arabia snapping its fingers and adding to the marketplace 30% of the daily oil production Will optimistically proposes might be drawn from ANWR.

The White House said the increase would not be enough to lower gasoline prices, which are nearing $4 a gallon, and industry analysts called it mostly symbolic.

Meanwhile, what else is happening?

The International Energy Agency, which advises industrial countries, recently reduced its estimates for oil demand growth this year, with consumption expected to fall in the United States, Europe and Japan. But demand should still rise by one million barrels a day thanks to growth in China and the Middle East.

Let's refer back to Will:

One million barrels is what might today be flowing from ANWR if in 1995 President Bill Clinton had not vetoed legislation to permit drilling there.

Bill Clinton? Oh yeah - the guy who was in the White House before ol' whats-his-name, who apparently bears no responsibility in Will's mind for failing to open ANWR to drilling despite having Republican majority in both houses for six years. Will seems intent on flushing the entire G.W. Bush Administration and its record down the memory hole.

The projections for increased world demand for oil highlight another fallacy of Will's argument. He forgets that oil is priced according to a global marketplace. Demand for oil has not stood still since 1995 - it has increased substantially. Saudi oil production has not stood still since 1995 - it has increased by over a million gallons per day. But in some years it decreased - Will deludes himself if he believes that Saudi output would be unaffected by new production in ANWR. (And if he doesn't believe that, but is arguing it anyway....) It's these realiities that lead to projections such as,

If Congress were to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, crude oil prices would probably drop by an average of only 75 cents a barrel, according to Department of Energy projections issued Thursday.

The report, which was requested in December by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, found that oil production in the refuge "is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices."

Will complains,

America says to foreign producers: We prefer not to pump our oil, so please pump more of yours, thereby lowering its value, for our benefit.

You would think that a self-professed conservative like Will would embrace that approach for as long as it works. But Will appears to prefer a model whereby we pump every drop of our own oil, thereby lowering its value, while allowing Saudi Arabia to hold larger reserves.

At this point, we can abandon all pretense that Will was trying to construct an honest argument. The one source he cites gives him away:

In his book "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence,' " Robert Bryce says Brazil's energy success has little to do with its much-discussed ethanol production and much to do with its increased oil production, the vast majority of which comes from off Brazil's shore. Investor's Business Daily reports that Brazil, "which recently made a major oil discovery almost in sight of Rio's beaches," has leased most of the world's deep-sea drilling rigs.

Bryce has been singing the same song for years. To some degree he has a point: We cannot sustain our present way of life without importing energy, other energy sources are decades away from being viable alternatives, and we shouldn't disadvantage ourselves by focusing on domestic energy production rather than seeking the cheapest energy sources in a global commodities market.

Bryce is not as myopic as the title to his book makes him sound, and advocates energy research (particularly new battery technologies for storing large quantities of electricity), solar and nuclear energy. But that part doesn't interest Will - who knows if he really even read past the title - who appears to embrace it as an endorsement of unbridled energy consumption. But Will's perception is once again lacking - the thesis of his column is premised upon the very concept his sole source decries as a myth.

Robert Samuelson On Truth Serum

Oh boy.... Robert Samuelson imagines a world where we put politicians on "truth serum" and suddenly everything the have to say coincides 100% with (you probably guessed it) Samuelson's personal political agenda. Let's supplement some of these remarks, such that they're actually truthful.

"What we can do is preserve an economic climate that favors long-term growth. That means holding down the tax burden to maintain incentives for work and investments. We're already running a $400 billion or so deficit; some broad-based tax increases may be needed. This will disappoint conservatives, who think no one should pay taxes, and liberals, who think only the rich should pay them. But we must also cut spending, because, unless we do, the future tax increases will be crushing.

"Taxes may need to be raised, but only broad-based taxes. Should we need to raise taxes, we need not concern ourselves with progressive taxation or the impact of higher taxes on working families. We should caricature both conservatives (in a somewhat flattering way) and liberals (in a somewhat nonsensical way).

"To cut to the chase - while taxes may need to be raised that's something to be avoided. What we must do is cut spending. And by cutting spending, of course, I mean programs that help the poor and (primarily) the middle class. I have no interest in examining other major expenses, such as the cost of the Iraq War, so don't even go there.

"Of necessity, spending cuts should focus on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These programs are projected to grow from about 45 percent of the present budget to 70 percent over a couple of decades. Paying for that exclusively with taxes would be devastating for the economy and our children. Paying exclusively by cutting other programs would gut vital government services. I admit that raising eligibility ages for baby boomers and cutting some benefits are unfair. People should have received more warning. But our politicians have so dawdled that there's no warning time left.

"Yes, I'm one of those politicians who happily advances the right-wing canard that because we "spent" the money we borrowed from Social Security, even though Social Security owns treasury notes that if repaid would carry it for decades, those taxes you paid to support your retirement are gone and now we need to cut your benefits. We won't pause to reflect on what this means for the oft-heard line, 'the poor and lower middle class don't pay income taxes,' as if we divert your Social Security taxes into the general fund what are they other than just another income tax.

"And no, don't ask me the financial specifics of the Social Security crisis, because the facts hurt my argument. I want you scared that if you don't give up some benefits now, even though we can afford them, the entire system will soon collapse. The truth about Social Security? Not so scary. We have some work to do, sure, but it's dishonest of me to suggest that the sky is falling.

"Now Medicare and Medicaid are a different story, and we do need to find a way to reign in costs. I'm going to start by ignoring how implementation of universal health care could affect this financial picture, because I'm busy pretending that nobody is addressing these issues. While universality of health insurance doesn't directly address the problems of Medicare and Medicaid, it could keep people off the Medicaid rolls who currently intentionally reduce their earnings and assets in order to qualify for benefits.

"My opponent sees a future where the working poor can hold jobs despite having chronic, costly illnesses and still have good health coverage. My vision involves keeping them poor and dependent - then cutting their Medicaid benefits. Let's face it - that's better for wealthy taxpayers like me. We can pay for our own health care - although our ability really isn't the issue, as most of us also have really good insurance and we don't need to worry about the consequences of Medicare and Medicaid cuts.

"Take for example candidate John McCain. His wife could open him his own private medical clinic, staffed with personal physicians and nurses to cater to his every need. She could afford this without even having to sell her private jet or mortgage one of her vacation homes - they have so much money, it wouldn't affect their lifestyle at all. But he and I still want to cut your medical benefits and your medical safety net, because let's face it. We're more important than you.

"And because we're more important to you, when I talk about cutting Social Security and the medical care safety net, I'm not talking about cutting retirement benefits for members of the Senate, or eliminating the generous health insurance packages available to Senators at taxpayer expense. You may notice that while I'm talking about surprising you with less income and more medical expenses in your retirement, I have no interest in sharing your pain. I would prefer it if you didn't notice that, but no matter how hard I wish it weren't the case, not all of you are stupid.

"We've also dawdled on energy. No one likes $125-a-barrel oil. Last year, we paid an average price of $64 a barrel for imports. Some blame the oil companies, but the truth is that we're all to blame. Americans like cheap gasoline and big vehicles. Nothing was done to dampen consumption. Meanwhile, Congress restricted new oil and gas exploration on environmental grounds. So, demand rose and supply fell. In 1985, we imported 4 million barrels of oil a day; now that's 12 million

"Now when I say 'nothing was done', I don't really mean that. I mean that once Ronald Reagan was elected President and energy self-sufficiency and conservation no longer seemed like pressing concerns, those quaint notions were quickly relegated to the status of exhibits at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. I'm also going to pretend that the only issue causing a rise in oil prices is our domestic inability to get more oil out of the ground right now. That it has nothing to do with increased demand for oil around the world, and perhaps especially in China and India.

"I'm also going to pretend that other oil-producing nations would not step down their production in response to any domestic increase, so as to maximize their own profits. I will happily ignore the fact that if we drained ANWR dry, odds are we will get at most a four year domestic supply of oil - then it's gone and we're back where we started. And I'll ignore the very concept of the word "reserves" - because I think it's better that we completely tap out domestic sources of oil sooner rather than later, so we can become even more dependent on foreign oil.

"As I said, I don't want you blaming the oil companies for any of this. It's not like they have intentionally limited refinery capacity so as to maximize gasoline prices in the summer. Well, actually it is like that, but I don't want you to remember that fact. Don't blame the auto industry either, because they made a lot of money off of selling SUV's, even as they ceded the technological advantage in fuel efficient technologies to the Japanese auto manufacturers. And I don't want you to bring up the environmental records of 'big oil' either, because, well, I don't think the environment is very important. And just so you know, if you disagree with me you're stupid.

" 'Energy independence' is a fraud. We simply use too much foreign oil. All we can do is limit our dependence by shifting to more-efficient vehicles and increasing domestic production. But these measures will take years and have only modest effects. The same is true of global warming. Without major technological breakthroughs, making big cuts in greenhouse gases will be impossible.

"And when I say 'Energy independence is a fraud', I mean I don't want to pay the political price of achieving it. I don't want to have to sell you on nuclear power, mass transportation, more energy-efficient living, and massive infrastructure investment - I don't even want to mention those things. I'm happy to pretend that if we get the average vehicle up to 30 or so MPG, everything will come up roses - and that we have no other ways to conserve energy. I'm going to pretend that only gasoline is made from a barrel of crude, and am not going to mention other gases or heating oil. I certainly don't want to ask businesses to ante up, and as you know I'm not going to raise taxes on the rich to pay for any of this.

"Similarly, when I say 'The same is true of global warming,' I'm again passing the buck. Obviously there are things we can do to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. I'm not willing to increase taxes to pay for those things, and again I'm not interested in asking industry to bear the expense, so forget it. It's just not a priority to me. As far as I'm concerned, the whole "global warming" thing is overblown.

"By the way, did you notice that I didn't mention nuclear energy? It would take a courageous politician to bring up nuclear energy as a possible solution to some of our energy needs. Did you see the way I avoided mentioning coal, the environmental impact of coal mining and coal-burning power plants, and the greenhouse gases and environmental damage resulting from coal-burning plants? Because it would take a courageous politician to tackle those issues, and if you noticed that you're probably also noticing that I'm anything but courageous. You did notice? Drat.

"Finally, let's discuss poverty. Everyone's against it, but hardly anyone admits that most of the increase in the past 15 years reflects immigration -- new immigrants or children of recent immigrants. Unless we stop poor people from coming across our Southern border, legally and illegally, we won't reduce poverty. Period. That doesn't mean we should try to expel the 12 million illegal immigrants already here -- an impossible and morally dubious task. Many families have been here for years; many have American children. We need a pragmatic accommodation: assimilate most people now here; shift future immigration to the highly skilled.

"And here you'll note that I'm painting a picture of immigration and poverty that is so misleading that anybody who is conversant with the issues will think I'm lying. But I'm telling the truth, in a relative sort of way, by describing the world in a way that reflects my politics and personal prejudices.

"Now you're of course asking me, 'How are you going to keep those 'south of the border types' out'? I'm not. Oh, I might promise stepped up border patrols, fencing the entire U.S.-Mexican border, or other expensive forms of window-dressing, but at the end of the day I'm simply not the type of politician who is going to ask the agriculture industry to pay the type of wages that will draw citizens to pick our nation's fruits and vegetables, the hospitality or retail industry to pay that type of wage for maids and janitors, or the construction industry to pay that type of wage for workers.

"Heck - since I'm being honest, I'm not willing to pay that type of wage for the guy who mows my lawn and cleans my pool, or the woman who clean my house. So at most I'm talking about trying to shift them into a 'guest worker'-type system that maintains them as a steady supply of cheap labor. If I were to be honest about my hope, it would be that they come here to work they leave their children at home, and by 'home' I mean 'south of the border'.

"By pretending the poverty problem is driven by immigration, I also get to avoid addressing the more difficult aspects of poverty. If I admitted that immigrant populations assimilate, their children mostly speak English and hold jobs, and that their poverty is relatively transitory, you might turn around and ask me, 'What about those populations where poverty isn't a transitional stage? Where people or families are in poverty for years, or even generations? What can we do for them?' You might even argue, 'Can't we learn something from the successful assimilation of immigrants, even those with little or no education, that might help us learn how to move other populations out of poverty?' Truth be told, I don't care about people in poverty. My only solution for them is to cut their entitlements.

"Vote for me. I'll tell the truth."

"That is, the truth as I see it. Which may not be the truth. But that technicality aside, it's the truth."

Samuelson adds,

Of course, our hapless candidate would be dismissed as misinformed, offensive, possibly racist and, of course, unelectable.

No. A fair assessment would be that the hapless candidate is ill-informed, intentionally or unintentionally oversimplifies serious issues, responds to serious problems at best with clichéd non-solutions, and mostly offers no solution whatsoever to anything else he defines as a "critical" issue for the nation.

That isn't a good way to differentiate himself from the rest of the field.

"Gas Tax Holiday" Pandering Is A "Big Deal"

Paul Krugman is right about this much: As compared to other economic issues, the "gas tax holiday" is small potatoes. But to the extent he is trying to minimize the significance of this particular pander, or to suggest that it's politically worse than Obama's use of certain right-wing talking points in criticizing health insurance mandates, I disagree.

If the test is, "Will a candidate embrace right wing talking points", how would this example give me faith in Hillary Clinton? The entiire idea of a gas tax holiday originated with the McCain campaign. When Obama took the grown-up path, rather than joining the irresponsible pandering of the other presidential candidates, what did Hillary Clinton do? She attacked him, directly and through her campaign, as elitist and out-of-touch with the needs of working people. When confronted with the economic realities of her proposal, what did she do? She made a statement dismissive of economists.

I don't like the Obama team's approach to mandates, both because I think mandates are better policy and because their arguments seem weak. (If arguably better than a blanket statement dismissive of economists, not much better.) There's an equivalence here - in both cases we're dealing with election year politics versus good public policy, with the defenders of the weaker policy engaging in attacks on their opponent that, to me, seem unfair, dishonest and opportunistic.

We could debate whether it says more about a candidate that they engage in this conduct over a major economic issue or a minor economic issue. We could debate what it means that one issue deals with a future, theoretical policy that has not been fully fleshed out, and the other proposes immediate action. I suppose somebody could try to introduce some nuance to suggest that somehow one candidate or the other's proposal is "better founded in economics" than the other. But that's a marginal defense, as what is really important is what these conflicts tell us about a candidate and their approach to responsible public policy. A candidate's dogmatically sticking to a weak or bad economic theory, making little to no effort to explain why theirs is the better theory, then resorting to attack mode and right-wing talking points when confronted on the weaknesses, does not impress me.

We Knew He Was Unethical....

Now Tom DeLay's trying to redeem himself by establishing himself as an idiot.

Two years ago this week, Nancy Pelosi – as part of a concerted campaign of opportunistic mendacity – said she and her party had a “commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.” Their "plan" conveniently came to fruition after Democrats voted against a comprehensive energy plan that would increase fuel production and open up untapped oil reserves.

Now, you ask yourself, what party controlled Congress during the preceding six year period, and what was their track record for opening up every inch of U.S. soil to oil exploration and drilling? But that's just standard DeLay-type politics - covering up for his own ineptitude and failures (by his own measure) by pointing the finger at others.

So why do I say he's trying to prove himself an idiot?

• He seems to think that exploration for oil involves sticking a straw into the ground and sucking it out. Even if we started exploring for oil in ANWR two years ago, it won't be until the next President is leaving office that there will be significant oil production. And yes, I'm assuming a two term President. Granted the picture would be a bit different if DeLay hadn't been such a complete failure (again, by his own measure) as a Congressional leader, but that only brings us to our second point of idiocy....
• Cars don't run on crude. Cars run on gasoline. Even if Congress found a way to magically teleport crude oil out of the ground, it wouldn't increase the amount of gasoline available during peak season because the refineries are already operating at maximum capacity.
• In what is probably the least idiotic of his idiotic assumptions, DeLay also assumes that other oil producing countries won't react to an increase in oil supply by reducing their own production in order to keep their profits up. Has he never heard of OPEC?

You know, George Bush and Dick Cheney engaged the energy industry in a series of secret meetings, and came up with a secret energy policy that... well, I'm not sure what it was supposed to do, but the only visible outcome was a huge increase in profits for the energy industry. To this day, we're still not allowed to know who Cheney met with while planning out this energy policy - the truth is that embarrassing. DeLay and his ilk went along for the ride.

So it sure is convincing to hear the disgraced Tom Delay squawk, "It's all the Democrats' fault."

As For Those Gas Prices

Am I being too hard on McCain and Clinton over gas prices? If anything, I'm being too easy on them - and on Obama who, although not joining in "gas tax holiday" silliness, also hasn't articulated an energy policy that will take us off our present course.

What course is that, you ask? Well, as much as one can predict the future, it appears to be this one:

As oil prices soared to record levels in recent years, basic economics suggested that consumption would fall and supply would rise as producers opened the taps to pump more.

But as prices flirt with $120 a barrel, many energy specialists are becoming worried that neither seems to be happening. Higher prices have done little to attract new production or to suppress global demand, and the resulting mismatch has sent oil prices spiraling upward.

* * *

Oil prices might reach more than $200 by 2012, [CIBC World Markets analyst Jeff Rubin] said, a level that would probably mean $7-a-gallon gasoline in the United States.

And if oil prices don't reach $200/bbl in 2012, how many more years do you suppose it will take?

A three month "gas tax holiday", which McCain suggests will increase consumption? How much farther can you get from facing the realities of the situation?

John McCain - Stupid or Dishonest?

Incredible.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Sunday called Democratic rival Barack Obama insensitive to poor people and out of touch on economic issues.

The GOP nominee-in-waiting rapped his Democratic rival for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on fuel during the summer, a proposal that McCain believes will particularly help low-income people who usually have older cars that guzzle more gas.

What a brilliant idea. Create a "tax holiday" that will probably simply result in higher margins for the oil industry, in order to help people owning the least efficient cars drive more miles. Let's not, say, consider subsidizing their transition into newer, more reliable, more efficient vehicles. Let's not offer them a rebate, such that the oil industry doesn't simply raise gas prices ("supply and demand") to turn the "tax holiday" into additional profits.

Hey - here's an idea. Let's not diminish the highway fund at all, but instead suspend subsidies to the energy industry over the summer, and pass the savings along to Americans in the form of an increased "rebate check". Oh... you say that's a "no go" if it involves taking taxpayer money away from wealthy, profitable corporations? Well, there's a surprise....

The Arizona senator deflected questions about his record on the Bush administration's tax cuts — he initially opposed them but now supports extending them — by again criticizing Obama.

"Sen. Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax, which would have a direct effect on 100 million Americans," McCain said. "That means he has no understanding of the economy and that he is totally insensitive to the hopes and dreams and ambitions of 100 million Americans who will be affected by his almost doubling of the capital gains tax."

A standard Republican lie. The suggestion that ordinary taxpayers pay capital gains taxes on their retirement funds. No, John. We pay income tax on our tax-deferred retirement savings when we make withdrawals. That is to say, most of us pay taxes well above the capital gains tax rate. That special rate is best enjoyed by filthy rich families - you know, like you and your wife.

Yes, I'm aware of McCain's many statements that he doesn't understand the economy, and I'm willing to concede that point. But these statements aren't emerging from a vacuum - he didn't create these policies or responses on his own. They're the product of his campaign team, and this is what his campaign stands for. You want to talk elitist - yes, voters, the McCain campaign thinks you're stupid. Worse, they're trusting that the media won't point this out.

(In relation to the title of this post, please note that I don't want to create a false dichotomy - he could be both. As for whether it's impolite to suggest that McCain is stupid? Well, that's apparently his assumption about me, so let's just say "turnabout is fair play.")

Energy Policy As A Precursor To Withdrawal From Iraq... Is That An 800 Pound Gorilla....

Or is it a pygmy marmoset? Either way, in Only Halfway There Thomas Friedman is concerned that the Democrats haven't taken due notice.

To call for withdrawing from Iraq by a set date, no matter what the situation is on the ground there - without a serious energy plan here - is reckless. All we would be doing is making ourselves more dependent on an even more unstable Middle East, because any U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is likely, in the short run, to be destabilizing.

Should I give him credit for departing from other pro-war pundits by no longer arguing that it is reckless, per se, to advocate for withdrawal from Iraq? Or should I observe that he was one of the many enablers of this war, despite its being reckless to have entered the war without a competent plan for at least establishing stability in post-war Iraq. Should I joke that the least he can do is offer the Democrats another six months to formulate the withdrawal plan?

Friedman suggests that we need an energy policy which unchains us economically from the Middle East, and he suggests that policies which bring down the price of oil will bring about positive change in the Middle East by forcing its leaders to "extract the talents of their people by educating, empowering and connecting them." That's a wonderful platitude, but if we look to world history, where exactly do we find the developing nations, poor in natural resources, which do as Friedman describes? Unless the form of extraction he suggests is the extraction of people with marketable skills to work in more developed nations - as with the extraction of nurses and other health professionals from African nations to staff hospitals in Europe and North America.

But to hasten that day, Democrats have to be a lot more serious about energy than they have been up to now. Everyone has an energy plan for 2020. But we need one for 2007 that will start to have an impact by 2008 — and there is only one way to do that: get the price of oil right. Either tax gasoline by another 50 cents to $1 a gallon at the pump, or set a $50 floor price per barrel of oil sold in America. Once energy entrepreneurs know they will never again be undercut by cheap oil, you’ll see an explosion of innovation in alternatives.

Everybody has a plan for "five years from now" or ten or twenty, because our system all-but-ensures that nobody will have to take responsibility for the enactment, success or failure of such a plan. Any President proposing change "in five years" knows that he will either be reelected or out of office when the target date arrives.

The idea that any party will embrace as part of their platform, "We want to increase the tax on gasoline", is absurd on its face. Embracing a regressive tax that hits the pocketbooks of poor and middle class voters once, twice or three times per week? That's a formula for losing elections. There was a point, immediately after the 9/11 attacks, when the Bush Administration might have been able to create such a tax while maintaining popular support. But that would have threatened their overriding agenda of slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and the Bush Administration has never had the slightest interest in energy conservation. ("Conservation may be a personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." Dick Cheney, 2001.) Have we completely forgotten the secret energy policy meetings that Cheney held with energy industry executives, and the hard-fought court battle he ultimately won to keep their identities secret? Apparently so....

Setting a $50 minimum price per barrel for oil sold in the United States.... how does that do anything but ensure that nobody will offer oil for sale to the U.S. market at a price of less than $50/bbl? How does that encourage alternative energy, as opposed to the exploration of oil in regions traditionally deemed too marginal for drilling, or the further development of projects to extract oil from tar sands? How does that affect the monarchs and potentates of the Middle East, which can do just fine, thank you very much, with profits on oil at $50 or more per barrel?

In developed nations where there is a significantly higher tax on gasoline than in the United States.... which, I believe (save possibly for Russia), is all of them, where are the alternative fuel technologies which Friedman believes should have emerged years or even decades ago? Is Thomas "The World Is Flat" Friedman suggesting that only American scientists can develop alternative energy techologies? That American scientists cannot see any long-term profits in alternative energy, and thus won't focus on the problem unless we manipulate market forces?

I find it very interesting that Mr. Friedman struggles with the idea of supporting a Democratic Party which does not have a solid plan for Iraq, but has no trouble giving a Republican Administration incredible latitude in formulating any sort of policy for victory in that war. It would be insanity, after all, for Mr. Friedman to endorse doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome, which is no doubt why he has historically endorsed doing the same thing over and over again only in six month increments. Let's call it "hoping" for a different outcome. I find it interesting that he has thrown his literary weight behind an administration which opposes conservation and alternative energy (save possibly for nuclear power plants and subidizing the manufacture of corn ethanol, to the extent that either of those policies can truly be deemed "alternative"), but expects serious policy only from the Democrats.

Friedman has to know that President Bush detests "the soft bigotry of low expectations", so why is he being so disrespectful of the President?

Huge Gas Taxes - The Tierney Cure-All

It's a bit hard to follow the writings of John Tierney these days, at least without paying money to the New York Times. Still, I stumbled across a reproduction of one of his recent columns in which he proposes higher gas taxes. I will admit some amusement that the person reproducing the editorial wrote, "Curb the deficit (Democrats would like that) and start to solve the US gas hunger." - it wasn't so long ago that the Republicans were supposedly the party that wanted to balance the budget.

For many, many years, a very left-wing radio host in the Detroit area, Peter Werbe, has been calling for an increase in the gas tax, proposing that the revenues from the gax tax be channeled into public transportation - that is, you make it more expensive to drive a car, while making it cheaper and easier to get to the same destination through public transportation. As a left-winger, he's of course attuned to the fact that an increase in the cost of gasoline without improvement in public transportation could translate into an immediate, regressive tax on the working poor who are dependent upon cars to get to work. And I have heard many others on the political left, including environmentalists, call for higher gas taxes as an incentive to reduce energy consumption. I recall hearing many arguments against Bush's demand for oil exploration in ANWR on the basis that, even assuming significant oil reserves, much greater energy savings could be achieved through conservation.

Apparently Tierney missed all of that. In his world, all that the political left has demanded are subsidies for alternative sources of energy, and for regulations which require appliances to be more energy efficient. He complains that the former hasn't worked, and that the latter causes appliances to become more expensive (which he asserts amounts to a regressive tax). In relation to cars,

Besides being costly, conservation rules produce unintended consequences. The fuel-efficiency standards for cars led to that environmentalist nightmare, the S.U.V., which became popular because of a loophole in the rules.

Consumers who wanted a big car had to buy one pretending to be a truck because carmakers were forced to downsize their fleets. As cars became lighter, they
also became more dangerous, resulting in an additional 2,000 deaths per year, according to the National Research Council.

Interesting. So nobody ever "had to" buy a full-size van or minivan, before SUV's hit the market? And we're to pretend that the "loophole" wasn't an open secret - one which, Congress willing, could have been easily closed with the stroke of a pen?

Further, it is generally accepted that when fuel prices reach certain levels, people very much take fuel efficiency into account when purchasing vehicles. That is to say, whether the increase in efficiency comes from CAFE rules being extended to SUV's or from an extra $0.50 to $1 per gallon under the Tierney gas tax, people will still move toward those vehicles Tierney describes as lighter and more dangerous.

His arguments on alternative energy present a similar question - if people won't invest in alternative energy (e.g., solar panels on their homes) because even with any present subsidy they are more expensive than the status quo, their incentives presumably will change if traditional energy sources are made subject to a substantial new tax or tax increase. You might not invest in a solar panel for your roof to save $5/month in electricity; you might think again, though, if due to a tax increase your savings would suddenly jump to $50/month.

Tierney seems to believe that a gas tax, and perhaps consumption taxes in general, are good because they "make people figure out on their own how to burn less gasoline". (Or, conversely, free people to burn as much gasoline as they want assuming they are willing to bear the cost - as Tierney also notes, "Individuals don't always make the best choices about energy use.") But unless phased in over time, a significant gas tax would be immediately regressive, hammering the working poor at a time when higher gas prices are already taking a bigger bite out of their paychecks. (But perhaps I'm forgetting that Tierney doesn't live here - he lives here - he can shrug off concerns about the working poor with "why don't they ride the subway.")

Assuming, though, that the Tierney tax is implemented, what should be done with the revenues? Improve the nation's infrastructure? Subsidize conservation programs? Invest in research into alternative energy sources? Pour it into the general fund? Nope. Tierney is apparently proposing that his "solve-everything" tax be diverted into new privatized Social Security accounts ("By raising the federal gas tax and putting the revenue in new Social Security individual accounts, we can save energy and reform Social Security.") So in the name of individual choice, we'll have the government impose a significant increase on the gasoline tax, place the money into mandatory "individualized" savings accounts that we can't control, and the world will magically be made better on all fronts. While people who must drive their old cars to low-paying jobs five or six days a week will rejoice at being liberated from oppressive CAFE standards?

Leaving aside my natural skepticism of any plan where the government supposedly allocates a new revenue stream to a specific purpose (consider, e.g., the sleight of hand by which lottery revenues "went to schools" without any net increase in school funding), and the seemingly obvious question of whether it would make more sense to increase the Social Security tax to pay for a new Social Security program... beyond "choosing" how to pay my bills despite having my pocketbook lightened by a new tax, in the world of those less privileged than Tierney, what does any of what he proposes actually do to advance individual choice?