Calling Chicken Little

Big news from the Heritage Foundation - "The liberals seek to tear our nation apart." Yup. You heard that right. According to President Ed Feulner:

While our troops wage war against terrorists, we conservatives are in a battle of our own – a fight against liberal extremists right here at home.

These extremists are working to undermine the war on terrorism and destroy America’s reputation and credibility around the world.

They seek to destroy the bedrock values of marriage, family and freedom that are the very foundation of our country.

The liberals’ weapons? Activist judges who rewrite laws from the bench. Domination of the main stream news media and entertainment industry. Unprecedented power over America’s classrooms and universities.

The liberal extremists will stop at nothing to attack America’s founding principles and weaken America’s sovereignty.

[Insert eyeroll here.]

Better to be Liked than Trusted?

In a rather odd editorial in the Guardian, it is suggested that in politics, trust is an exaggerated commodity. The author suggests,

But this trust is anyway a worthless commodity. Its manifest lack didn't wreck Lloyd George or SuperMac or the wizard called Wilson. Nobody gave it to Bill Clinton (though he was more poll popular when he left office than Ronald Reagan). Nobody in full sentience would dream of trusting Charlie Kennedy to tell the same story in Aberdeen and Penzance - or Michael Howard to explain why he sacked the head of the prison service. Too much ado about synthetic sincerity.

I recall in GW's election campaign, how campaign analysts were gushing over his nonsense line to the voters, "I trust you". Voters, they declared, were too cynical to trust a politician who said "trust me", but GW's pretense that he trusted the voters supposedly inspired us to trust him despite our cynicism. Since that time, of course, he's run one of the least trusting, most closed and most secretive administrations in U.S. history.

So is the lesson here that it is better to be liked than trusted in politics? We'll support politicians whom we don't trust, as long as we like them? "Al Gore, I'd trust to manage my retirement account, but I would rather guzzle beer with Clinton or GW." Or is it that we compartmentalize our trust - we didn't trust Clinton to tell us the time of day, but we trusted that he was nonetheless working for the betterment of the nation. That's a different sort of trust, after all, than a consistent expectation of the unvarnished truth, or the expectation of candor regarding extramarital exploits.

We want our political leaders to tell the truth...

But will we let them? The Guardian suggests that, as a whole, we won't:

And so, in the eighth year of [Prime Minister Blair's] premiership, this legendary truth-teller was asked whether he agreed with the warning against mortgages given by Britain's leading banker. The reply was utterly standard Westminster dead-bat: not sure he actually said that, need to look at what the words actually were, important not to take out of context, and so on.

For anyone who remembers Blair as a young politician, trying, at least within the limits of Westminster and journalistic conviction, to be candid, this was a distressing sight. The idea that all politicians are liars is a cheap jibe promoted by those who dislike politics, but there is actually a deeper truth in it. A culture has evolved in which our leaders must evade and paraphrase to their voters, keeping the truth for the ghost-writers.

Taking Responsibility

Steve Bell, whose dislike for the Bush Administration is quite patent in much of his work, addresses the issue of responsibility:

While Bell's stridency can be a bit off-putting, it nonetheless remains that the Bush Administration has a horrendous record of taking responsibility for anything. The closest we have is Rumsfeld's meaningless "It's my responsibility - just don't ask me to accept any consequence" over abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Bush Administration: We don't really care about malpractice, victims, but....

... we do want to avoid bad press when we limit their access to the courts.

Going Nuclear Over Iran, Revisited

A few months ago, I wrote what I thought was pretty obvious (so no pats on the back for my prescience):

While Iran, which is high on the Bush Administration's list for "preventive" intervention, probably does fear military consequence, it is no doubt aware that the U.S. military is in no position to simultaneously occupy both Iraq and Iran. I fully expect it to exploit that fact, and to attempt to complete its nuclear weapons program under the noses of the IAEA inspectors, such that it can be relatively certain of deterring any future U.S. invasion.

If you have been following the news lately, it has become apparent that pretty much every promise Iran made about its nuclear program, and how it was peaceful and intended only for electricity, was false. Now, according to Jim Hoagland, diplomats are hoping for a resolution that might prevent Iran from assembling the pieces of its atomic arsenal, such that it only lacks nuclear weapons in the most technical of senses:

Agreeing to live with an Iran that is a screwdriver's turn away from the bomb would be a bitter pill to swallow. It would accommodate a charter member of President Bush's "axis of evil" and a sworn mortal enemy of Israel. And it would undermine the goals and terms of global nonproliferation agreements that aim at halting the spread of nuclear weapons technologies to nations that do not now possess them.

Hoagland compares this situation to Pakistan, which delayed assembling and testing its nuclear arsenal for almost ten years, at which time "exploded its first device nine years later to respond to India's nuclear testing".

Personally, I don't think that Iran will forestall assembly for a decade. I think that at best Iran will delay assembly to ensure that no military strike against its nuclear facilities is imminent, and possibly until it is relatively sure that its nuclear devices can be adequately delivered by its missiles, and then to assemble, test, and declare itself a nuclear power. I won't be patting myself on the back for that prediction, either, should it become true - I think that the hope that Iran can be convinced to abandon, scale back, or delay its nuclear weapons development in any real sense is mere wishful thinking.

White House Press Briefings... By Maxwell Smart

Would you believe,

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was told in 2002 that Cheney's former company would receive no-bid work to secretly plan restoration of Iraq's oil facilities, but the information wasn't given to the vice president, a White House official said Tuesday.

Well then, would you believe

Q Can I ask about Vice President Cheney, because yesterday he repeated what is a very controversial claim. He said that Saddam Hussein had long-established ties with al Qaeda. Does the President believe that Saddam Hussein had long-established ties with al Qaeda?

MR. McCLELLAN: We certainly talked about the ties with terrorism between the -- between the regime that was removed from power, and we talked about those ties prior to the decision to remove that regime from power. So that was well-documented. Secretary Powell went before the United Nations and talked about some of those ties to terrorism, as well. And Zarqawi is certainly a senior al Qaeda associate who was in Iraq prior to the decision to go in and remove the regime from power.

Q There's also al Qaeda in the United States. That does not mean the United States is cooperating with those members of al Qaeda. Just by the presence of someone does not mean there's a cooperation.

MR. McCLELLAN: But, remember, we're talking about an oppressive regime that was in power in Iraq that exercised control over that country. And go back and look at what we documented, Norah. We documented all this, and I think that's what the Vice President was referring to.

No? Just because the President and Prime Minister Blair disclaim any such connection, and because the 9/11 commission finds no such connection?

What sort of CONTROL Agent are you?

Recording Interrogations

I once heard a police polygraph examiner speak, and he waxed poetically about the wonders of his machine and his tremendous skill in discerning the truth from a lie. (Nobody believes in the validity of a polygraph machine more than a polygraph examiner.) He went on to explain how he reviews the entire police case file, to form an opinion as to a suspect's guilt or innocence, before he administers the test - a peculiar way to prejudice the results if he in fact truly believes in the machine.

The examiner's most infamous case involved a confession elicited after an extended interrogation which culminated in a polygraph test. The Court of Appeals reviewed a videotape of the suspect's confession, and found him to be sleep and food deprived, and at the point of exhaustion. His confession was suppressed, and the prosecution had to proceed without it. He was ultimately convicted. (The videotape might have backfired on the prosecution had the Court of Appeals allowed the confession to be used, as a jury might have had questions about the tactics of a police agency which would interrogate a suspect in that condition.)

The polygrapher's police agency created a new policy to ensure that this wouldn't happen again. Allowing suspects to rest during marathon interrogations? Ensuring that adequate food was supplied to suspects at appropriate intervals? Hardly. They ordered that no further polygraph examinations would be videotaped. End of problem.

There have been some troubling "false confession" cases, such as the New Baltimore, Michigan teens who falsely confessed to a murder plainly committed by others. The prosecutor in that case insisted that the teens, who were separately interrogated and who separately confessed, knew things about the crime scene that only the offenders would know. Yet it has since become plain that the source of that information was the police during the interrogation.

There are also many cases involving police incompetence or misconduct, where police officers either misreport what a suspect has said (often when "condensing" an interview that took place over several hours into a paragraph or two for a police report, before destroying their notes from the actual interview), or deliberate misconduct. It is difficult to tell whether the two boys, aged 7 and 8, who allegedly confessed to murdering an 11-year-old girl in New York City were the victims of police incompetence or deliberate misconduct, but it is apparent that the police frequently fail to follow appropriate protocols when interviewing minors.

The New Yorker presented a detailed analysis of that case, and found one of the boys to have a learning disability which made it difficult for him to articulate even a single sentence - yet he supposedly had provided an extremely articulate, detailed narrative of the murder. Unlikely? To say the least. The worst aspect of that case is that the false accusations against the boys destroyed the opportunity to convict the probable offender - a man whose semen was found on the dead girl's underwear.

Today's New York Times editorializes in favor of recording all police interrogations, noting "Now a new study has found that in the small number of jurisdictions that record their interrogations, law enforcement has come to favor it." That's not difficult to believe - like the Miranda ruling, rules which effectively compel the police to engage in better, more professional practices make it more likely that a confession will be admitted into evidence, and more likely that it will be believed by a jury. Recording would also make it more difficult for a suspect to change or finesse his story. There's nothing wrong with that.

Sidestepping? That's an understatement....

The Supreme Court "sidesteps" the Pledge question? Year after year after year, thousands of people petition the United States Supreme Court for redress of grievances. The Supreme Court entertains a very small number of cases, ostensibly those which raise the most significant issues of constitutional law:

Every year, the Supreme Court hears about 100 cases (in recent years, that number has dwindled down to about 90 cases per year). This is only a small fraction of the many cases (about 7,000 a year) filed before it.

The issue of "standing", whether or not an individual has the right to commence a particular lawsuit, is a pedestrian issue.

So when the United States Supreme Court takes a matter that many of the people in this nation perceive as of great import - whether they detest or support the lower court decision - and then vacates it on a technicality without addressing the constitutional questions, there is good cause to ask, "What's really going on?" Were they really convinced by the "lack of standing" argument - or did they regret taking a contentious case, and scramble for any way out which would let them avoid upholding an unpopular lower court ruling?

Perish the Thought!

Commenting on a failed British effort to get greater voter turnout with mail-in ballots, the Guardian notes that problems with voter fraud arose without any significant upturn in voting. (There was an increase in votes cast within test areas, but a similar increase occurred in other areas.) They suggest a different reason for low voter turnout than persistent claims of voter apathy:

Yet, according to a four-year study of the reasons behind falling turnout made by the Constitution Unit, people are not turned off politics, as politicians like to believe. Young people in particular remain full of idealism. It isn't politics that is at fault, it is the politicians. Voters trust them less than ever. And, says the Constitution Unit, trust is the most important element in political engagement - trust that politicians will keep their promises, and trust that they will behave with propriety.

They Don't Know Him From Adam

All the news that's fit to misprint.

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Today, the Times has printed an editorial favoring the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. The author appreciates the new U.S. sanctions against Syria, but only as a first step:

The sanctions may be helpful, and the United States has long called for an end to the Syrian military presence of Lebanon — just last week President Bush said that "the people of Lebanon should be free to determine their own future, without foreign interference or domination." But the Bush administration, working with the European Union, should be doing more to encourage Syria's withdrawal.

The author notes, most likely in recognition of the protracted civil war which plagued Lebanon from 1975-1990, that Lebanon has the potential to explode:

American sanctions have heightened pressures on Mr. Assad. Yet by themselves they will not improve Syrian-Lebanese relations. In fact, trying to force a Syrian pullout may be dangerous. It could lead to domestic tension in Lebanon that Syria would highlight, and even encourage, to reaffirm its indispensability to civil peace.

But beyond that intimation, the author doesn't hone in on the reasons why the U.S. is probably not pressing for withdrawal, with or without European participation.

First, Syria is unlikely to agree to any withdrawal from Lebanon unless it achieves Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Despite coming close to an agreement under Barak, the Sharon Administration does not want to return the Golan Heights to Syria, giving Syria an excuse to walk away from any discussions on Lebanon.

Second, Europe would likely press for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The Sharon Administration does not want to engage in peace talks, as it wishes to perpetuate the myth that "there is no one to talk to" and wants nothing that will interfere with its unstated plan to annex much of the occupied West Bank.

Third, to avoid the collapse of Lebanon into a renewed civil war, the West would likely have to deploy tens of thousands of peacekeeping troops to the region for several years. The United States is already overcommitted in Iraq. European nations are likely to comment that they have already committed significant numbers of troops to present, more pressing peacekeeping efforts (e.g., the Congo Region), and are likely to observe that there are areas of the world, such as Darfur, far more in need of immediate intervention than Lebanon. They are likely to also consider the past experience of peacekeeping troops in Lebanon - experience which helped inspire even Reagan to "cut and run".

It would be nice to achieve peace and democracy for Lebanon - and a more wise or pragmatic administration might have made Lebanon a model for economic development and democratization in the Middle East rather than invading Iraq - but at present there does not appear to be the political will to achieve that end.

Death By Inches

A couple of months ago in Vieth v Jubelirer, the Supreme Court chose not to revisit precedents which permit the extraordinary gerrymandering which has led to the overwhelming majority of Congressional seats being "safe", or for one political party to carry a majority of a state's Congressional seats even when the majority of the state's voters supported the other party. Four Justices (Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist and O'Connor) wanted to upset precedent and declare gerrymandering to be a nonjusticiable "political question":

Eighteen years of judicial effort with virtually nothing to show for it justify us in revisiting the question whether the standard [for review of gerrymandering claims] promised by Bandemer exists. As the following discussion reveals, no judicially discernible and manageable standards for adjudicating political gerrymandering claims have emerged. Lacking them, we must conclude that political gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable and that Bandemer was wrongly decided.

The precedent was saved by the reticence of Justice Kennedy, who refused to accept the majority's opinion of nonjusticiability:

Relying on the distinction between a claim having or not having a workable standard of that sort involves a difficult proof: proof of a categorical negative. That is, the different treatment of claims otherwise so alike hinges entirely on proof that no standard could exist. This is a difficult proposition to establish, for proving a negative is a challenge in any context.

It could also be noted that there are other contexts where the Supreme Court has had great difficulty articulating a workable standard for review of difficult questions (e.g., with the First Amendment's Establishment Clause) - but has nonetheless attempted to live up to its constitutional obligations by asserting and refining various standards and tests.

This week, three of the Justices who wrote the majority opinion for the Vieth decision, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas, dissented to the Supreme Court's refusal to take a Colorado redistricting case, and were seemingly frustrated that they could not overturn a Colorado Supreme Court decision which interpreted Colorado's state constitution.

The court ordered Davidson to employ the judicially created plan through the 2010 elections. While purporting to decide the issues presented exclusively on state-law grounds, the court made an express and necessary interpretation of the term “Legislature” in the Federal Elections Clause in concluding that “[n]othing in state or federal law contradicts this limitation.”

The majority presumably did not find compelling the argument that a passing mention that there was no state or federal precedent on an interpretation of a particular term ("legislature") transformed the interpretation of the state's constitution to a proper subject for federal review.

While there is more technical validity to the hairsplitting than the New York Times suggests, today's editorial does get to the true politics at play in both decisions.

What is troubling, however, is a dissent by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and two of his colleagues that argues for diving into the conflict. Given these justices' eagerness to defer to the states in other matters, the dissent smacks of partisan politics and raises new concerns about the court's neutrality. ... By departing from his deeply held belief in state autonomy to side with the Republican Party in a redistricting case, Chief Justice Rehnquist has once again invited the public to question this court's motives.

When the same Justices prevent a state recount on the principle of "Equal Protection" - a clause the same justices had pretty much written out of the Constitution in any other context - and at the same time express that the opinion cannot be used as precedent, attempt to remove federal oversight of gerrymandering, and advocate the reinterpretation of decisions made under a state constitution - a position again seemingly in conflict with their long-standing positions on federalism - it becomes more than fair to question if this pattern truly reflects an evolution of their legal thinking (albeit an evolution limited to the subject of federal elections), or if it in fact reflects a desire to interfere with and impede the exercise of democracy as intended by the Founding Fathers.

Who Do You Trust?

According to a Pew Research Center poll, about 45% of Democrats see CNN as credible, while 26% of Republicans see CNN as credible. Fox is considered credible by 29% of Republicans and 24% of Democrats. So, as you would expect, the two networks are....

... quite happy with the figures?

CNN:

"We're obviously pleased -- once again we've been voted the most trusted news organization in America," says spokesman Matthew Furman.

Fox:

"The study confirms that while our audience continues to increase and our credibility expands, our competitors are hemorrhaging viewers and losing America's trust," says spokeswoman Irena Briganti. She adds: "It's fair to ask why so many Democrats are watching CNN if everyone has to ask why so many conservatives are watching us."

[Insert eyeroll here]

"Don't You Want Me"

With the press coverage of the Kurdish reaction to the new UN Resolution on Iraq being evocative of a jilted lover ("Why do we take our proven allies for granted?"; "Is it too late to mend the rift?"), I suddenly have this horrible song running through my head....

The Logic of War

I caught a few moments of a show where somebody was questioning children about war. A well-socialized child, about ten years old, expressed that he didn't think that there was ever a reason to have a war - that it should always be possible to reach a compromise to avoid war. In essence, he was arguing that war results from a failure of reason.

This, of course, is not the case. As anybody who has played chess can attest, sometimes to win you must sacrifice a pawn to win the game. In their quest for wealth, power, and empire, the world's leaders have historically been quite satisfied to view soldiers and civilians as expendable. Certainly, there's a cost-benefit analysis - they had to weigh the potential losses among their populations of soldiers and civilians against not only the fruits of victory, but the possibility that their weakened post-war state might be targeted by another. Today, the goals may be different, the calculus may be different, but the same type of cost-benefit analysis applies. And when the leaders decide that the cost of war is sufficiently low or the cost of diplomacy or compromise is sufficiently high, war "makes sense".

I am reminded of a conservative friend's comments on the character "Spock" in Star Trek. He was amused by the notion that Vulcans were supposed to be creatures of pure logic, as the Vulcans were also depicted as being extremely moral and protective of the lives of others. Logically, he argued, if the Enterprise were faced with a crisis that could easily be resolved by obliterating all life on a planet that was otherwise of no interest, Spock should have been advocating that resolution rather than risking the ship or the lives of crewmembers to reach a peaceful resolution. When applying pure logic, morality doesn't necessarily compute. Despite the claims of the Vulcans, it was the "immoral" Romulans who were the creatures of cold logic.

The British tradition of having the sons of the wealthy fill the officer ranks, while the working classes served as infantry, was arguably transformative of that society after World War I, where the men of the "upstairs, downstairs" society fought shoulder-to-shoulder and couldn't easily transition back into the former master-servant relationship. But for most wars, those making the decision to go to war, and those deciding who will do the dying on the battlefield, are well-insulated from the bloodshed. Their assessment of whether the costs outweigh the gains may be based on goals ranging from pure greed and self-interest to pure egalitarianism, but they are making decisions that primarily affect the lives (or result in the deaths) of others.

If you could save the lives of 10,000 people by killing one person, would you do so? If you could save the lives of 10,000 people by dying, would you volunteer to die? Many people would give very different answers to those two questions - they would sacrifice the other, but not themselves. (And many who would state in the abstract that they would sacrifice themselves, in my humble opinion, are not being entirely honest.) Yet this is the calculus of the egalitarian war - the "war of liberation". How many people (other than me) should perish in the name of their own freedom? (And, when arguing that thousands of soldier and civilian deaths are "worth it", are they making that assessment as "Romulans" or as "Vulcans"?)

Life is easier, I suppose, or at least a lot less complicated in the faux-Christian, "might makes right" world of somebody like Ann "What's Wrong With A War For Oil" Coulter.

Missing the Point....

Although more than a bit hyperbolic and partisan in tone, in today's Guardian, Niall Ferguson does a decent job of outlining how "limited sovereignty" on the heels of an occupation may well be the best approach to transforming a conquered nation. But in presenting his case, he states,

You are either pregnant or not; there is no such thing as partly pregnant. Does the same apply to sovereignty? The answer is no. It is perfectly possible - and, under certain circumstances, highly desirable - for sovereignty to be limited. Yet the debate over the future of Iraq has been dominated for weeks by the distinctly misleading concept of "full sovereignty"

The reason is pretty obvious, isn't it? Deception from the "coalition" political leaders.

If the leaders were honest about their plans, they wouldn't be speaking of a "transfer of sovereignty" to an "interim government", and suggesting that everything will be rosy - and we might even be able to pack our bags and go home - after the first national election. As a result of that deception, it is fair game for people to question the motives of Bush and Blair, to question what they really intend in terms of a transfer of sovereignty, and to question whether they actually have a plan for ultimately creating a sovereign Iraq - and even to question the assumption that Bush and Blair want to create a sovereign Iraq.

It wouldn't take much for Bush and Blair to set the record straight. They've done a joint press conference before. They can go on camera, explain the facts of their plan and give a sense of their strategy. Then they can end their deceit. Wouldn't that be interesting - a policy of truth?

Darfur

As usual, all words, no action.

Ronald Reagan

I think my most vivid recollection of a "Reagan Moment" was when he was shot by John Hinkley back in 1981. I was never one to lionize or vilify the man. May he rest in peace.

Political Polarization

In his neverending quest to divide the world into "red" and "blue", David Brooks today tells us that our party affiliation may affect our political views - that is, people who identify with a particular political party are likely, over time, to shape their views to be consistent with the party's platform. Brooks notes from one book what seems to be, on the whole, true - that many people choose the party affiliation of their parents, and many others select a party during early adulthood, with few people switching party affiliation past middle age. He then cites an Arizona State University professor whose research shows that party affiliation often shapes values - "In fact, you're more likely to find that people become Democrats first, then place increasing value on equal opportunity, or they become Republicans first, then place increasing value on limited government." And he notes what has long been established - that people tend to overvalue information with reinforces their worldviews, while undervaluing or ignoring information which challenges their biases. Brooks concludes,

The overall impression one gets from these political scientists is that politics is a tribal business. Americans congregate into rival political communities, then embrace one-sided attitudes and perceptions. That suggests that political polarization is the result of deep and self-reinforcing psychological and social forces.

This theory doesn't explain how the country moves through cycles of greater and lesser polarization. Still, I have to say, depressingly, this picture of tribal and subrational partisanship does accord with the reality we see around us every day.

Brooks overlooks something I think is rather obvious - that even if his various assertions are correct, the philosophies of the political parties change over time. The Republican Party today is not the Republican Party of the 1950's, and is in no way, shape or form "the Party of Lincoln". The Democratic Party today is not the Democratic Party of the 1970's - and (with all due respect to Brooks' observation that even major historic events "and the Watergate scandal" did not do much to shift party affiliation, the Democratic Party's decision to endorse the end of the Jim Crow area and to stand for racial equality did cause many former Democrats to become Republican.

Through his columns, Brooks seems to suggest that there is a diminishment in the number of nonaligned voters or "swing voters" in this nation. In this column, he expresses confusion about "how the country moves through cycles of greater and lesser polarization". The answer doesn't seem to me to be particularly obscure. As the parties attempt to attract "swing voters" - the so-called "middle" - they risk alienating their core supporters. The Clinton/Gore Democratic Party alienated the hard-core left and environmentalists, who voted for Nader. The perceived secularism of George H.W. Bush alienated the religious right, which voted for Buchanan. When the parties cater to extremists, they risk alienating the middle. When they move to the middle, they will alienate the extremists, but free themselves up to reshape the party's platform.

If you were to apply Lincoln's assessment of the public, we might simplistically break the voting public into four groups... The first group is the faction which exists in every party which is as Brooks describes - they don't really exercise independent thought about the issues, don't think about their party affiliation, and allow their positions to be dictated by what their party's leaders tell them they should think. Brooks apparently thinks that a very large percentage of Americans fall into "group one".

The second group consists of "single issue voters" - people whose party affiliation is based upon one issue. While they may not change their party affiliation if the other party came to accept their position on the issue, they would change their party affiliation in a heartbeat if the two parties switched their positions. Pro-life voters are a classic "single issue" group. The racists who switched party affiliation when the Dems endorsed integration are another.

The third group consists of people who try to follow the issues, but are consumed by their daily lives - jobs, kids, and other pressing demands on their times - and thus may be predisposed to take their political leaders at their word, or to defer too much to the shallow, sound-bite oriented media coverage of modern America. I think a lot more Americans fall into this group than the first - and to the degree that their party affliations seem unaffected by what's "really going on", beyond surveying a newspaper and perhaps watching the evening news they don't have the time and energy to keep up with events the rest of the world. And with the sorry state of the modern media, even with that level of good faith effort it is very hard to stay informed.

The final group actively follows the issues, and goes out of its way to remain informed. This group includes people of most political persuasions, and includes a lot of people who can't bring themselves to pick a party. (After all, if you take the time to come to an informed political perspective on a range of important issues, the simplistic, disingenuous, and even dishonest treatment that the major parties give to crucial issues of the day isn't attractive.) Statistically, this is about five percent of the population.

Lincoln's assessment, if you recall, was "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." On this scale, we have group one as the easiest to fool, group four as the hardest, and groups two and three along for the ride, somewhere in the middle.

If you wake up enough people in group 3, the political calculus for the nation can change. You may suddenly have a group of voters that the parties' counted on both for their party loyalty and for a particular number of votes, who are suddenly disenchanted with their party's candidates (and thus at risk of not showing up to vote) or who are actually considering voting for a different party. The parties then adapt their platforms to try to attract these voters, and at some point may have to consider whether the shifting tides require them to cast off a single issue group - as the Democrats did with the racist vote. The parties then need to consider how to keep these new voters in the fold - and going back to their prior platforms is unlikely to do that. So we get shift.

A good friend of mine, a military veteran, unabashedly describes himself as a "conservative". He has always voted for Republican presidential candidates. He has told me that he eschews any party affliation - while recognizing that it is the party which better shares his political perspective, he has never called himself "a Rebpubican" - and is sufficiently offended by GW's departure from "classic conservative" values that he may well stay home in the next election. Several other friends who unabashedly describe themselves as "liberal" indicate that they would have voted for McCain over Gore in the last election. Some people, it seems, are downright hard to fool.

Analogies to Vietnam

Perhaps those who love or hate comparisons between the present conflict in Iraq and the Vietnam war should read this analysis by the Army War College, Vietnam and Iraq: Differences, Similarities and Insights.

U.S. political and military difficulties in Iraq have prompted comparisons to the American war in Vietnam. The authors conclude that the military dimensions of the two conflicts bear little comparison. Among other things, the sheer scale of the Vietnam War in terms of forces committed and losses incurred dwarfs that of the Iraq War. They also conclude, however, that failed U.S. state-building in Vietnam and the impact of declining domestic political support for U.S. war aims in Vietnam are issues pertinent to current U.S. policy in Iraq.

"Gaza First"

Jonathan Freedland shares a pessimistic view of the prospect for peace in Israel-Palestine. (An unexpected departure from the usual optimism. [Insert smiley here for the sarcasm-impaired])

A Jon Stewart Commencement Address?

Sure enough - at The College of William and Mary, where it is thoughtfully transcribed.

Is It Fear?

The Washington Post has observed that, while both parties are using deceptive, negative ads, the Bush Administration is setting new records in its use of such tactics. What does this mean?

Is the Bush Administration so afraid of its record, that it fears running "positive ads" featuring the President's "accomplishments"?

Is the Bush Administration so afraid of how Kerry's skills honestly stack up against those of the President, that they fear an honest comparison?

Ordinarily, one might expect the incumbent to point to his victories, and to argue that his opponent is less suited to carry them forward. Bush seems to be trying to avoid addressing his failures, and to convince the nation that although he created a big mess for the nation, Kerry is even less suited to lead us out of the mess. Other than ideologues like Bill Kristol, does anybody find that message to be compelling?

Science?

Today's Washington Post warns us that the United States is at risk of falling behind the rest of the world in the hard sciences:

Yet the reports from the National Science Foundation and elsewhere indicate that the decline is not only relative. It is also absolute: American science is growing weaker, although not across the board. The boom in research and funding for the biological sciences -- including genetics and molecular biology -- has been matched by a decline in funding for, and interest in, physics and math. Because the decline has multiple sources, the solutions will have to be multiple. Poor teaching, and especially poor high school math teaching, bears part of the blame. Even in an era of heavy testing, the standards for high school math are very low. The American Diploma Project pointed out that few states even require the basic Algebra I-Geometry-Algebra II sequence needed just for many entry-level jobs, let alone for higher education.

(Apparently we leave no child behind if kids can add, but don't leave any children behind if they can't do algebra?)

The collapse of science in public education in the United States is not a new phenomenon. Sometimes, as with evolution, it is part of a deliberate effort by pressure groups to strip science out of the classroom. Sometimes, as with the math example presented in the Post, it is a matter of student interest (making the "tough" classes elective) coupled with an institutional desire to save money (nobody takes the "tough" classes, so they can be cut from the curriculum).

In the past week, I have seen two movies which reminded me of the state of science in America. The first, "Super Size Me", highlights the issues of nutrition and obesity in this "fast food era". The film does raise some valid scientific points, but the central experiment (the filmmaker's undertaking a decidedly unhealthy "McDonalds-only" diet) is nonscientific, and many of its broad assertions represent the filmmaker's opinions as opposed to the result of scientific or social research. The film suggests, for example, that fast food is the only major change in our nation's diet, because the other factors (home cooked meals, neighborhood restaurants) have existed for centuries - but overlooks the fact that in the modern era the portion size at most restaurants has been significantly increased, that even "home cooked meals" now often rely heavily on high-calorie packaged and prepared foods, and that (in contrast with most of human history) red meat is now both abundantly available and affordable, and is made a part of a typical meal in portions which would astonish our ancestors. Many of its points are valid, and the film has a significant impact, but the nonscientific approach to the issue may serve to diminish even its most valid points in the eyes of skeptics.

The second film, "The Day After Tomorrow", starts out as a decent action pic - a bit slower than most of its genre, as its action relies on bad weather as opposed to car chases and shootouts - but decent nonetheless. Then it becomes an adventure story. Finally, it culminates with heavy-handed environmental moralizing which is exceeded perhaps only by the Steven Seagal voiceover in "On Deadly Ground". Actually, it is perhaps more comparable to the moralizing at the end of "The China Syndrome", but you get the idea.

It is a bit like watching "Get Smart" in reverse. Rather than Smart's, "This place is surrounded by 5,000 agents... would you believe 30 agents and a K9 unit... would you believe three old ladies with umbrellas", we get "Global warming could plunge us into an ice age in perhaps 1,000 years; no, make that six or seven months; no, make that by the end of the week; actually, supercooled air from freakish storms will instantly freeze people into human popsicles as fast as a dip into liquid nitrogen." Granted, it is hard to make an apocalyptic action picture based upon actual scientific knowledge of the behavior of storms, but as one reviewer put it, the director's prior work, "Independence Day", is more scientifically plausible.

I don't want to draw too many conclusions from those two examples. Even with the sermonizing, it isn't reasonable to expect Hollywood to put hard science before box office bucks. And "Super Size Me" makes many valid points about the state of the world's nutrition, while being far more watchable (albeit sometimes queasily watchable) than many "traditional" documentaries (which, for that matter, are not necessarily better rooted in hard science). But I wonder if movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" ultimately trivialize the subjects they supposedly treat seriously, making it even harder to teach the real science.

No Child Gets Ahead?

NewsHour questions whether the "No Child Left Behind Act" is resulting in a nationwide trend to defund programs for gifted education. (Programs that are typically woefully underfunded to begin with.)

Tax & Spend versus Spend and spend and spend and spend....

It has been obvious since Reagan's time that the classic definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" have no real meaning in American politics. Even as compared to recent history, the definitions are shifting. A few years ago, a political conservative would have been expected to be a fiscal conservative - concerned with the growth of the government, fiscal responsibility, and balanced budgets. Now, thanks to G.W. Bush, we have a new definition of "conservative" which scoffs at the notion of restrained spending, balanced budgets, and governmental bloat. While this new brand of "conservative" still uses the tired cliche of the "tax and spend Democrat", this new "conservative" can perhaps be fairly described as the "spend and spend and spend and spend and spend and spend Republican".

So is the objection of the "GW Bush Conservative" that Democrats are too fiscally responsible? They are too focused on raising revenue before spending the nation into an oblivion of oversized deficits? Or is the objection that the Democrats spend on the "wrong things" - that, rather than offering staggering subsidies to corporate interests and engaging in a huge military build-up, the Democrats want to spend money to improve America for the average, and even the disadvantaged, American? Increasingly, I think the objection is both: The "GW Bush Conservative" wants to see a tax policy that puts pretty much the entire burden of financing the nation and the servicing of the exploding national debt on the working masses, but wants a spending policy which almost exclusively favors the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporate interests.

As he complains about "income taxes", why doesn't Bush want to address payroll taxes, and the absurd double- and triple- taxation of the wages of working men and women? Why doesn't Bush want to address the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which will soon rake back most or all of the meager tax benefit his "reforms" have provided to the working masses? It isn't Bush's fault, I suppose, that so many wage earners are ignorant of what the term "income tax" means, don't know the difference between "income tax" and "payroll tax", and have never heard of the AMT - a lot of the fault for that lies with the media's abysmal coverage of these issues - but he certainly takes advantage of their ignorance in pitching "tax reforms" that overwhelmingly favor the rich, while refusing to even consider reforms which would truly benefit the working masses.

What Does Al Qaeda Want?

As the Department of Homeland Security issues a notice of increased terrorist threat which apparently does not justify an increase in the alert level, various commentators have suggested that this announcement has less to do with a genuine threat of terrorist activity and is instead intended to boost Bush's falling popularity. The history of such announcements and changes in the alert level gives some amount of credence to that cynicism - but it really is impossible for anybody without a high level security clearance to assess the "buzz" or information behind the alert changes, so as to know if they are truly justified.

One reaction to the latest announcement from the DHS has been, "Al Qaeda would be stupid to attack before the election", because conventional wisdom is that such an attack would boost Bush in the polls and help him secure reelection. This country is unlikely to follow Spain's example of punishing a government which failed to protect them from an attack on the eve of an election - and lied about the probable identity of terrorists. Not only has this nation has demonstrated over the past several years a surprising willingness to excuse and rationalize lies and false claims from the highest levels of government, there is a popular sense that Republicans are "better at defense". (While some question whether the facts bear out that popular conception - and it is fair to observe that the military which acquitted itself so well in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a level far beyond its performance a decade earlier, is the product of Clinton's defense policies - it nonetheless persists.)

But to presuppose that Al Qaeda would forestall an attack to prevent Bush's reelection is to presuppose that Al Qaeda doesn't want Bush to be reelected. Is that truly the case? What would better advance Al Qaeda's stated goal of drawing the U.S. into a large-scale conflict in the Middle East that it cannot win? A presumed Kerry policy of using a combination of international cooperation, pressure on "rogue nations", and special forces operations to detect, defund, decapitate, and "take out" terrorist cells and networks? Or a presumed Bush policy of invading additional nations in the Middle East? Which is more likely to result in the overextension of the U.S. armed forces, an unpopular conscription to man a growing number of military operations and occupations, and an economic stress which may reach the magnitude of that which helped collapse the former Soviet Union?

Who says Al Qaeda isn't cheering for Bush?

Well, this explains a lot....

"ACHTUNG!

Aaron may actually be a spider-human hybrid

From Go-Quiz.com

It's A....

Razing Abu Ghraib

Now that the decision has been made to tear down Abu Ghraib prison "as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning", what message will the demolition send? A year ago, it might have been the Iraqi equivalent to the storming of the Bastille. A few years from now, though, will that land contain a monument to the nation's liberation from Saddam Hussein, or will it be our prison scandal that is most remembered?

Palestinian Elections?

In today's Washington Post, Jackson Diehl does a pretty good job of examining the benefits of holding elections in the Palestinian territories - and why they are not favored by either Bush or Sharon.
_________
Addendum: If only.... As time went on, Bush ignored warnings of the likely outcome and pushed for the inclusion of Hamas in Palestinian elections over the objections of the Israel, resulting in the election of Hamas.

If it doesn't leave marks....

Is it still torture?

I recall once hearing an anecdote about a police officer who had elicited a confession from a suspect by handcuffing the suspect into an uncomfortable position, and forcing him to remain in that position until he confessed. The defense attorney claimed that the confession was false, and was given only in response to the severe pain inflicted by the officer, and sought to suppress the confession. The police officer insisted that he had done nothing wrong or coercive. The judge indicated to the officer that, if that was the case, surely he wouldn't mind giving his testimony while seated in the same position he had required the defendant to hold. The officer agreed. About fifteen minutes later, as the officer's visible discomfort grew unbearable, the court declared the confession to have been coerced.

This, as it turns out, is deemed by the Pentagon to be a "stress position", and apparently (along with simulated drowning and sleep deprivation) is an accepted "interrogation" technique in Iraq.

Love At First Sight

When I read editorials about Ahmed Chalabi, they tend to be either by people who have never met him or never liked him, in which case they are typically critical, and by people who have met him, in which case they are typically flattering and dismissive of all criticism.

How powerful is this man's charisma?

Parents & Education

Apparently, Bill Cosby recently addressed the subject of the role of parents in raising educated, well-socialized children, or perhaps more accurately the failure of many parents in impoverished communities to do so. In describing Cosby's statements, Colbert King suggests that this is in large part a racial issue. However, my experience with similar populations of individuals of other ethnicities suggest to me that Cosby's comments, for the most part, can be widely applied to a subset of any given ethnic group.

Unfortunately, this is one of those problems which is easy to identify and very hard to solve. Particularly in a society that, although extraordinarily wealthy, is unwilling to make a significant investment in breaking that cycle.

Legal Defense for Indigent Clients

Many years ago, when I started my first private legal practice, I accepted court appointed clients through a County court system. The county at issue paid a decent hourly rate for legal work and, despite a few instances with judges who took the attitude of "I don't care how much you worked or whether it was necessary, because you exceeded what the court administrator tells us is appropriate for this case", for the most part had no problem getting my bills approved. (And, in case you were wondering, not once did I have a judge or court administrator complain that my bills were too low.) Taking appointed clients can be a great way to get experience with court time, and also to learn client management skills with some very difficult clients. (While most are not any more difficult to work with than private clients, a minority of appointed client will be among the most trying a lawyer is likely to encounter in the course of a career.)

The system in that county worked pretty well. A surprising number of experienced lawyers kept their names on the list. But the experience was quite different in neighboring counties, where different systems of appointment and reimbursement existed, and it was difficult to get any reasonable number of appointments without knowing a judge, or without engaging in some form of "assembly line justice" - going to court with several appointed clients, such that an aggregate of the typically flat fees paid for particular cases provided a decent return. Going to trial was almost guaranteed to be a money losing proposition. Nonetheless, there were some excellent trial attorneys accepting appointments in those counties. But the inadequate "flat fee" system is also the type that makes for the worst stereotypes about appointed practice - the client meeting the lawyer for the first time in court, and getting only a few minutes of consultation before being called up to enter a plea.

There is a national prejudice against "public defenders" - which, technically speaking, are different from appointed attorneys (although a public defender's office or an attorney from that office may well be "appointed" to represent a particular indigent client). An appointed attorney is typically an attorney in private practice, who accepts appointments to provide indigent defense. A public defender is employed by a governmental unit to provide indigent defense on a full-time basis. (A third possibility is where the county will accept bids from private lawyers and law offices to provide indigent services, and the winning bidder essentially becomes a public defender - usually with far less money and resources to work with than a true public defender's office.) Contrary to stereotype, full-time, professional public defenders are typically sound legal practitioners. The best and worst criminal defense attorneys are typically private lawyers.

In many, perhaps most, parts of the U.S., indigent criminal defense is not adequately funded. For example in Virginia, even after increased funding,

Crimes that can land a defendant in prison for 20 years, for example, can net an attorney no more than $395 -- no matter how hard a lawyer works or how long a trial goes. The state pays on average only $12 more for a criminal defense than it did three decades ago. No reform that fails to lift these ludicrously low fee caps will give Virginia the system it needs to meet its constitutional obligations and protect people from wrongful convictions.

Of course, that is unlikely to change unless people become concerned about wrongful convictions and quality of justice. In other words, that is unlikely to change.

The Obsessive Need to Declare....

"I told you so".

Pretty much from the age children understand the meaning of those words, they (or some variant) become a common part of playground banter. It's human nature not only to want to be right, but apparently also to want to rub an opponent's nose in their defeat. Fear of an "I told you so" is probably one of the factors which explain why some people have such great difficulty apologizing for their misconduct or admitting to errors.

Watching the world of punditry, it is not uncommon to see editorials which are little more than an "I told you so". So perhaps we should not be surprised that the so-called "blogosphere" is replete with individuals who can't wait to use some form of that retort on their rhetorical enemies. But in some debates an "I told you so" seems out-of-place; and admission of error seems like the best course of action.

In relation to the Iraq conflict, to their credit, an increasing number of pundits associated with the neo-con movement have been issuing statements which have been anything but "I told you so". They have admitted that things are not going as planned in Iraq, but pressing for perseverance in the face of what might happen if we don't stabilize that nation with a reasonable government prior to withdrawal. That may not satisfy those who were opposed to the war, or whose skepticism to the apparent lack of planning for the original invasion and occupation - well, let's face it, some people really want to grab a neo-con by the scruff of his neck, stick his nose in a big pile of Abu Ghraib photos, and exclaim "I told you so".

And perhaps that reaction is made more understandable by the number of "I told you so's" issued by pro-war factions during the prior year. The "I told you so" after Iraq's defenses quickly collapsed. The "I told you so" when President Bush landed a military jet on an aircraft carrier and declared an end to major combat operations in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner. The "I told you so" when many Iraqis did express gratitude at Hussein's removal. Muttering, "Where are the WMD's" was probably of little solace.

During the past year, however, despite the claim that the problem is one of media focus - "they're only telling us the bad news, not the achievements of the occupation forces" - it has become pretty clear that the occupation has not gone as well as planned, and democratization even less well. It is hard to know what to make of some of the opinion polls, where some Iraqis express that their lives were better before Hussein's ouster, but it is apparent from the polls that a growing number of Iraqis see things as getting progressively worse post-liberation as opposed to progressively better. Whether this is a true comparison to the former regime, or if it reflects fatigue from living under a clumsy occupation, is a question I'll leave to others. But I do know that if we can't convince the Iraqi public that their lot in life is improving, our opinion of the occupation doesn't much matter.

Some partisans just can't stop declaring "I told you so" - those on the extreme anti-war side who declare that Abu Ghraib proves that Iraq is a failure, versus those defenders of the war who turn to any minor news (such as the recent discovery of a spent artillery shell which may have contained sarin) as a basis to declare "I told you so", are missing the point - and, in my opinion, the pro-war partisans who engage in such conduct are doing far more damage to the end goal in Iraq than the fiercest anti-war activist. Why do I say that? Because we are presently occupying Iraq, and emphasizing the mistakes and misrepresentations of the early conflict distracts us from our ultimate goal, while emphasizing those subjects upon which the pro-war side has the least credibility.

Whatever side you're on, it seems like it's long past time to bite your lip and swallow your "I told you so's". This is too important.

And the World Didn't End....

Congratulations to the lucky couples.

Getting Out

The media focus toward Iraq has seemingly shifted from "we have to stay the course" and "we have to get it right" to "how can we get out - and how soon?" This weekend, the Washington Post provided a perspective on possible "exit strategies", none of which are ideal (and some of which seem a bit loopy). Other editorials, such as this one, endorse a particular exit strategy with a zeal that is, perhaps, excessive. (Think of how well the "Articles of Confederation" worked, even given the similarities between the early U.S. colonies, and....)

Whatever "exit strategy" is chosen, the media seems increasingly convinced that Bush and Blair want out, ASAP. If true, political reality (i.e., their futures at the polling booths of their respective nations) is getting in the way of the notion of reinventing Iraq as a stable, progressive democracy.

Do you think these stories are correct, incorrect, or that they represent the Bush and Blair Administration's manner of testing the water - of gauging public reaction to a rapid exit in advance of announcing an official strategy? I'm guessing #3.

Doing The Math, II

The New Yorker poses a possible explanation for the seemingly anomalous numbers I commented on yesterday - the extraordinary number of pictures and videotapes of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, as compared to the number of people charged with offenses:

The government consultant [and former senior intelligence official interviewed for the article] said that there may have been a serious goal, in the beginning, behind the sexual humiliation and the posed photographs. It was thought that some prisoners would do anything—including spying on their associates—to avoid dissemination of the shameful photos to family and friends. The government consultant said, "I was told that the purpose of the photographs was to create an army of informants, people you could insert back in the population." The idea was that they would be motivated by fear of exposure, and gather information about pending insurgency action, the consultant said.

Granted, an unnamed informant.

Hating That Comments Thing

A visitor notes, quite appropriately, "Oh yeah, I hate your comments thing now."

Don't we all. It's part of the reinvented blogger, along with a block on the execution of the javascript which powered the previous, unattractive but easy-to-use third party comments function.

Beyond having to click through two pages to enter a comment, the comments function is probably not so bad if (a) you have a blogger account, (b) you are logged into it, and (c) you want to post under your default name. Oh yes - and (d) assuming it is working. It's been down quite a bit since it came online. Otherwise, at least in my humble opinion, it blows giant chunks.

Doing the Math

Last I heard, seven reservists have been charged in association with abuses at Al Ghraib prison. Yet apparently there are more than one thousand, eight hundred (1,800) pictures and videos of abuse, torture and rape at Al Ghraib, presently in the hands of military investigators.

As I look at those numbers, either the seven reservists were some of the most unreserved shutterbugs in military history, or a lot more people need to be charged....

British Sarcasm and Cynicism

Writing in London's Independent, Mark Steel brings us some trademark British sarcasm (and cynicism):

There's a charmingly off-key, surreal logic to the line coming from the British establishment, that any repercussions from torturing people are the Daily Mirror's fault for telling us it happened. For example, this Colonel Black says, "The decision to publish has played right into the hands of the insurgents. There will be more people prepared to kill the troops." So it's not torturing that annoys people, it's showing photos. Perhaps the people who've been tortured will scream, "Oh my God they've shown my worst side. I told them my left profile always makes me look chubby when there's a sack on my head. Now I'm really annoyed."

Whatever the origins of the photos, none of the figures condemning them seem to dispute that torture is taking place. So the idea must be that the Iraqis would never have known we were torturing them if it wasn't in the newspapers. They'd think "There is a sharp buzzing in my left testicle consistent with the pain experienced following primitive torture techniques, but there must be some other explanation because I've looked in the Daily Mirror and there's nothing about it at all."

Sexual Privacy

Sure, it's a few days old, but it is worth making a few comments about Buckley's latest idiotorial. In 1967, the late Prime Minster of Canada, Pierre Trudeau, refusing to advance an reactionary sodomy bill into law, famously observed that "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." Apparently, Buckley's clipping service is running behind, as he devotes an entire editorial to dissecting that notion:

Nobody should be permitted to say flat-out that "the government should stay out of the bedrooms of America." What if a civil-rights hate act was being conducted in the bedroom? For that matter, what if Daddy was forcing his way with a 10-year-old girl? Or Mom was starving her 10-month-old boy?

The phrase is an idiotic invocation of a taboo whose single purpose, in current usage, is to illegitimize concern about sexual activity.

Well, no. It is now what it has been since day one: An expression that the state should not be criminalizing consensual sexual acts which occur between adults in the privacy of their own homes. It is Buckley (and opponents of sexual privacy for adults) who wish to twist the phrase to give it different meaning. And when Buckley asks, "There is to be no concern over sodomy in the bedroom. But are there limits?" he knows the answer. It isn't with his reductio ab absurdum, that Trudeau's line might be used to somehow excuse civil rights crimes or infanticide within a bedroom. It begins and ends, as always, with the private, consensual sexual lives of adults.

Buckley continues by railing against those who criticize the Catholic church for the suggestion that John Kerry should not receive communion, because he has taken a pro-choice stance. Buckley tells us that the expression of such an opinion is somehow wrong, because it attempts to impose state values on a church. Perhaps Buckley confuses private comment with state action - there is nothing in the Constitution which prevents individuals from criticizing religious institutions, or noting hypocritical stances (such as going after Kerry for being pro-choice, but refusing to take any note of Catholic politicians who oppose other aspects of church doctrine, such as by supporting the death penalty, or who oppose the Pope - who by church teaching is infallible - in his opposition to the war in Iraq). I don't recall that Buckley, either, has run a piece taking on such "hypocritical" politicians in the manner in which he presently attacks Kerry. Go figure.

Sex Education

The London Guardian takes on efforts to export "abstinence education" and "virginity training" to England:

"Studies of the Dutch experience ... have concluded that the underlying reason for success has been the combination of a relatively inclusive society with more open attitudes towards sex and sex education, including contraception." Requests for contraceptives there "are not associated with shame or embarrassment", and "the media is willing to carry explicit messages" about them that are "designed for young people". This teeming cesspool has among the lowest abortion and teenage birth rates on earth.

America and the UK, by contrast, are "less inclusive societies" where "contraceptive advice and services may be formally available, but in a 'closed' atmosphere of embarrassment and secrecy". The UK has a higher teenage pregnancy rate not because there is more sex or abortion, but because of "lower rates of contraceptive use".

With regard to "abstinence education", the author notes that the most pronounced effect appears to be through the non-use of contraceptives by participants,

Abstinence campaigns such as the Silver Ring Thing do delay sexual activity, but when their victims are sucked into the cesspool (nearly all eventually are), they are, according to a study at Columbia University, around one-third less likely to use contraceptives, as they are not "prepared for an experience that they have promised to forgo". The result, a paper published in the British Medical Journal shows, is that abstinence programmes are "associated with an increase in the number of pregnancies among partners of young male participants". You read that right: abstinence training increases the rate of teenage pregnancy.

The author also notes the political agenda of the Bush Administration: "[Bush] also forced [the CDC] to drop their project identifying the sex education programmes that work, after they found that none of the successful ones were "abstinence only"."

I Just Read This Book, And....

If you read enough weblog entries, inevitably you will come across entries which praise various books, often involving political or economic theory. Sometimes the blogger posts a review worthy of publication, but more frequently you get something else. While a good book review tests an author's theories and assumptions, far too many weblog book reviews are adulatory - the author is not analyzing the book, but is instead endorsing it as if Moses just delivered it from the peak of Mount Sinai.

Sometimes this is taken to an even more comical extreme, such as where a blogger will insist that nobody can present valid criticism of his ideas until they have read a particular book, as if reading a single book on economics or politics could provide a global and current understanding of anything but that particular subset of the author's beliefs. In fact, anybody who would believe that a single book on economic theory, directed at a lay audience, could be so transformative could only be somebody with a very incomplete understanding of economics. The same applies to law, politics, and history.

The mistake behind these reviews essentially boils down to "I agree with this author, so this author must be right". Sometimes the author has thought about the subject more deeply than the blogger, and perhaps the blogger's thinking has been shifted by the book. But the uncritical blog entries at issue don't even suggest that much thought has occurred. This is not to suggest that the ideas endorsed are necessarily wrong - but such a nicety is of little consequence to the blogger's agreement or endorsement.

If you read professional editorials, perhaps particularly in the U.S., you will find that this phenomenon is not limited to bloggers. For example, in yesterday's Washington Post, George Will gushes over an author's theory of "Hard America, Soft America". Being hard on people - depriving them of such things as a social safety net, job security, unions and workplace regulation - the author (and thus Will) postulates, results in a more efficient, competitive, functional society.

In the Soft America of 1970, the tapestry of welfare benefits had a cash value greater than a minimum-wage job. In the Harder America of 1996, welfare reform repealed Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a lifetime entitlement to welfare. And in the 1990s, welfare dependency -- and crime -- were cut in half. A harder, self-disciplined America is a safer America.

I can't speak for the book, as I have not read it, but Will's understanding of the book seems to be an absurdly simplistic confusion of correlation and causation. (He also makes the mistake of looking only at our society, whereas other nations have had markedly different experiences - for example, similar drops in crime while maintaining high welfare benefits.) Were Will as conversant in social research as he is with, say, baseball, he would not have endorsed such a simplistic analysis. But since the book corresponds to his politics, and he had a certain number of column inches to fill, he uncritically endorses some rather weak thinking.

As if to prove my point, after describing how the book's author criticized racial preferences on the basis that they "fence some blacks off from Hard America, insulating them in 'a Soft America where lack of achievement will nonetheless be rewarded'", Will continues,

What institution is consistently rated most trustworthy by Americans? The institution that ended its reliance on conscription, that has no racial preferences and that has rigorous life-and-death rules and standards: the military.

An admiration that, in Will's case, has always occurred from a very safe distance. Too far away, it appears, to recognize that the military continues to advance affirmative action programs, and has absolutely no intention of reducing or eliminating those "soft" programs. Positive experience with affirmative action has made such military notables as Colin Powell and Wesley Clark speak firmly in its favor.

Will also doesn't want to think about the other side of his argument - that the absurd wages, lack of oversight, and general "softness" of both the regulatory and law enforcement response to corruption and incompetence has led to the "corporate scandals" of recent years. While Will seemingly endorses the end of welfare and a return to the workhouses for indigent families, all in the name of saving them from themselves, he utters not a single word about the mismanagement and looting of firms like Enron or Tyco, let alone a system that would tolerate Dennis Kozlowski's $2 million birthday bash for his wife.

From what he has written, Will derived no lessons from this book which did not accord with his prior beliefs. If the book actually advanced the notion that the military does not utilize affirmative action, Will didn't even engage in even the most basic fact-checking. Will's column is, unquestionably, worthy of being posted to a mediocre weblog. But I am left wondering why it is in a national newspaper.

Pressing "Reset"

In today's Times, David Brooks tells us that the advancement of U.S. interests around the world remains possible, but only if we "reboot":

We've got to reboot. We've got to come up with a global alliance of democracies to embody democratic ideals, harness U.S. military power and house a permanent nation-building apparatus, filled with people who actually possess expertise on how to do this job.

Brooks presents the peculiar caution that,

In this climate of self-doubt, the "realists" of right and left are bound to re-emerge. They're going to dwell on the limits of our power. They'll advise us to learn to tolerate the existence of terrorist groups, since we don't really have the means to take them on. They're going to tell us to lower our sights, to accept autocratic stability, since democratic revolution is too messy and utopian.

I am not sure that I would support continued governance by "unrealists" who believe we can ignore the limits of our power, act when we lack the means to properly take on our targets, and promote "democratic revolution" when we aren't prepared to pay the price associated with seeing it through. I certainly don't want to support the "surrealists" who advocate all of those positions while telling us that accomplishing our goals will be easy, and that people around the world will welcome us as liberators with cascading showers of candy and flowers.

But perhaps Brooks should also recognize that sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too - you just might have to moderate your portion. To the extent that the "realists" argued that reconstruction and democratization of Iraq would not be a cakewalk, they were right. To the extent that the "realists" argued that it would have been a good idea for the Bush Administration to entertain the thoughts of people they instead ignored - that is, everybody who had any expertise regarding the Arab world, and anybody who had any expertise on nation-building... and let's not forget the advice of military experts such as General Shinseki about what it would take to effect a successful occupation - and to go into Iraq with an appropriate plan for the post-war period, they again were right. Even if that would have meant modifying the Administration's plans, setting more realistic goals, or delaying the start of the war. In retrospect, there is a growing consensus that the cost of getting it right is dwarfed by the cost of getting it wrong.

Brooks intentionally conflates "realists" with a different set of people: those who (figuratively speaking) stand on streetcorners in dirty robes, ringing bells and crying "doom". That's understandable, given that Brooks was at best an "unrealist" and quite possilbly a "surrealist" in his pre-war cheerleading efforts. He diminishes the contribution of the "realists" because any alternative would force him to look in the mirror and be confronted by the ugly truth.

In any event, whatever Brooks means by his call for a "reboot", I think we should interpret it as follows: The system is up for a full check this November, at which time we can effect a system-wide "reboot" by voting Bush out of office.

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