Jefferson Locke

September 11 has been used to sacrifice our values

2011-09-11T04:05:00.000-04:00

September 11 has been used to sacrifice our values

I've moved

2010-04-27T21:19:00.000-04:00

I now post on Gather.com at http://www.gather.com/viewPostsByMember.action?memberId=642592

One down, two to go?

2009-04-28T13:13:00.003-04:00

Just read that Arlen Specter is going to switch to the Democrats. The Republican full-mooners just keep shooting themselves in the foot. Once Franken gets in, the Democrats will have their sixty. Bear in mind, however, they may not get sixty on every vote as there are Blue Dogs like Landrieu and the Nelsons of Nebraska and Florida. Still, the psychological firebreak of having that number

I wonder if the Republicans, like the Bourbons, will forget nothing and learn nothing to the extent of driving Snowe and Collins out of the party.

China's hooked as much as we are

2009-04-02T11:41:00.001-04:00

China can make all the noises it wants about replacing the dollar as the international reserve currency, but it's stuck on the dollar almost as much as we are. In order for China to sell off US treasuries, they need to find buyers. Given the large fraction of outstanding US securities held by China (about 24% of the value in January, measured in billions of $), they are going to have a hard time finding enough of them to absorb that amount. Further, if the markets even get a scent of a run in these securities, the value might plunge faster than China could sell them off.

China can, and has, sold off US treasures (and divested itself of the US dollar) slowly--but given how heavily invested it is (about a third of its foreign currency reserves are in US dollars, a wholesale switch to, for example, the Euro, would diminish the value of those reserves arguably faster than they could sell them off--if they could even find a buyer.

Failed banks should be nationalized

2009-02-20T16:29:00.000-05:00

Given what has to be negative market value, it's not as if the shareholders/bondholders can legitimately expect compensation. One can argue that, in some cases that would wipe out small stockholders (who are involved via mutual funds) and pension funds, however it seems that one could have a compensation provision that functions like an FDIC guarantee, allowing some coverage for mutual funds and 401(k)s while still subjecting corporate owners and large individual holdings to the full consequences of market risk.

Thus, the taxpayer wouldn't be out an inflated amount for the toxic assets. Consequently, the latter could remain in govt. control until values revive while the rest could be reprivatized. If necessary, this could involve breaking up larger entities into units that aren't "too big to fail".

Since nationalization increases the long-term costs of capital (because of the perception of increased risk), it should only be applied to those companies that have definitely gone bust.

No such thing as animal rights

2009-02-20T16:26:00.002-05:00

Rights are based on moral agency, not the ability to feel suffering. Humans are assumed to be generally morally accountable for their actions because we are assumed to be able to make moral distinctions and choose, or not choose, to act according to them.

Although one might argue that such a definition excludes babies and the developmentally disabled, one can simply point out that, in fact, babies are the responsibility of adults precisely because they are considered to not have fully developed the ability to apply the type of considerations that moral agency entails. Likewise, someone who is developmentally disabled to the point where they can't be held responsible for their actions is generally placed under someone else's care or made a ward of the state. However, because they are part of a species that generally has that ability, they still retain rights that aren't applicable to non-humans.

This is also consistent with the concept of legal insanity, at least as applied in the Anglo-American legal tradition, where the test is based on awareness of one's actions AND the ability to make moral distinctions.

Apply this test--Are you prepared to think in terms of good and evil animals? I rather doubt there is one case of an animal acting viciously were the humans responsible for it weren't considered to be blameworthy.

Third party in the US? Not likely.

2009-02-20T11:53:00.004-05:00

On a couple of the comment boards I sometimes frequent, that partisans of Nader and the Green Party (who ran a non-Nader candidate this time around) often like to argue that if everyone had voted for [insert third-party here]. The possibility of the Greens emerging as Iceland's largest party in the wake of the economic collapse here has some here anticipating a similar development.

Unfortunately, a bias towards a two-party system is hardwired into our constitution (I am deliberate using the small "c" here). Our first-past-the-post system enhances majority representation and a presidential system has a centripetal effect on party formation. This latter comes from the fact that a President can't be removed by a member of a coalition even if it had a party in getting him elected. Further, since a US President has to get a soiid majority of the electoral votes, that support must consist of running him as a fusion candidate instead of having one's own leader who could then cut a deal. A third-party could hope to throw an election to the House, but unless it had a solid presence there, it would wield little influence.

Comparisons to Mexico the UK and Canada don't help here. Mexico does currently have a three-party system but there are two reasons why the case isn't analogous. Mexico had a de facto one-party system for decades after the Mexican Revolution. That may have distorted the dynamic, especially as the "third-party", the PRD, only formed twenty years ago by people breaking away from PRI.

The decline of the PRI can be seen in its representation on the Chamber of Deputies. It has gone from having just over half the deputies in 1988 to about 40% in 2000 to just over a quarter in 2006. Likewise, its percentage of the Presidential tally was about half the votes in 1988 and 1994 down to about a third in 2000 to just under a quarter in 2006. This may very well parallel the process in the ante-bellum US with PRI as the Whigs and PRD as the Republicans.

Further, the Mexican system isn't quite the same as ours. 300 deputies are picked by a first-past-the-post system, 200 others by proportional representation.

Finally, a US President requires a majority of electoral votes (although this can be based on a popular plurality, in 38/56 elections, the winner had a majority of the popular vote). The Mexican Presidency only requires a plurality of popular votes. The majority requirement has centripetal tendencies.

The UK has a de facto two party system. I wouldn't call the Liberal Democrats in the UK a major party. Starting in 1945, the Liberal party and its successors have never had more than 10% of the seats in Commons and there hasn't been a coalition government in the UK since WWII. The regional parties aren't even remotely important. Further, the UK is a parliamentary system, therefore a third-party, should it actually get leverage, is in a position to bring down a head of government.

This dynamic affects Canada as well. Further, the one situation in which a third-party can thrive in such a system is when it represents a regional interest. That's because the first-past-the-post system disproportionately rewards geographically concentrated parties. You can see an example in the 1948 presidential election in the US. Both Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats and Henry Wallce's Progressives received a similar percentage of the popular vote, about 2.4%. However, Thurmond's vote was concentrated in the South and he broke into the electoral vote count with 39 while Wallace had none. Wallace didn't get more than 9% of the vote in any state. Thurmond got from 50-87& in the states that he took.

In Canada, the Bloc Quebecois represents many, if not most, of the Francophone residents of Quebec. Likewise, what is now Stephen Harper's Conservative Party started out as Preston Manning's west-based Reform Party in 1997. Looking at the Canadian election results, it was in 2004 that the Conservatives, formed by a merger of the old Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, the descendant of the Reform Party, became a national party on a large scale by winning about a quarter of the seats in Ontario, its first substantial lodgement outside of its western core area. Since then, it two largest parties have been the Conservative and the Liberal, with Blog Quebecois being a strong third. Thus, what we have is another example of multi-party results being a way station to the replacement of one "second" party by another.

It would require major constitutional changes in the US system for a third-party to become permanently viable; of those changes and their possibility, I will write later.

Bang for the buck

2009-01-30T21:18:00.005-05:00

The chief economist for Moody's Economy.com site has done an overview of the fiscal stimulus plan that came through the House.

I just thought I'd mention where he indicates that demand-side money does much more than tax cuts for boosting the GDP.

The ratio of dollars of GDP generated in a year to dollars spent:

Spending increases
Extending unemployment benefits--1.63
Temporary increase in food stamps--1.73
General aid to state governments--1.38
Increased infrastructure spending--1.59

Tax cuts

Non-refundable lump-sum tax rebate--1.01
Refundable lump-sum tax rebate--1.22

Temporary tax cuts
Payroll tax holiday--1.28
Across the board tax cut--1.03
Accelerated depreciation--0.25

Permanent tax cuts
Extend Alternative Minimum Tax patch--0.49
Make Bush tax cuts permanent--0.31
Make dividend and capital gains tax cuts permanent--0.38
Cut in corporate tax rate--0.30

The aid to states is particularly interesting because most states are barred from deficit spending.

Speaks volumes about the House Republicans tax-cut based stimulus plan

Book review--Revolutionary Road

2009-01-28T08:34:00.001-05:00

I think the writing is first-rate. The plot avoids making melodramatic martyrs out of the characters. There is no portrayal of Frank and April has being these intrinsically Byronic repressed-artist types. The closest the book comes to that are April's vague thespian ambitions. What we have is more of a sense of unsettledness in the milieu of Eisenhower-era suburbia.

The interesting part of their characterization is the depiction of the events of their youths, April's loveless childhood and Frank's wanderlust and his vague sense that he was meant for something big. Thus, it isn't just the intrinsic qualities of suburbia but the Wheeler's ill-adaptedness to it.

At the risk of giving too much away, the shifting in the perspective of the story to the Campbells from the Wheelers was a deft choice. I have to think that having a mentally unbalanced character making the trenchant observations he makes in the book has a cliched feel to it (sort of like having a blind character be the most insightful).

I think that back in 1961, the idea of a dry rot lying inside 1950s suburbia was probably had more of an impact then it would now. This is largely because the Wheeler's of the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, more daring in living out of the box then their 1950s predecessors. Likewise, the use of the consideration of abortion as a plot device would've carried more weight pre-Roe v. Wade.

Notes re the Federal Reserve

2009-01-25T21:34:00.003-05:00

There are certainly problems with the approach the Fed has taken during the Greenspan era. It's allergy to full employment is one. It's excessive trust in the free market is another, for example it's failure to raise stock margins during the bursting of the tech bubble. However, it is also the subject of the rabid imaginings of a whole cabal of conspiracy mongers. I found a couple of links courtesy of Crooks and Liars that I thought I'd post here for future reference.

The first is a series of points made by a professor of economics at Charleston College.

The second is a quick look at some of the more rabid right-wing populism involved.

Finally, here's the link to the overall article on Crooks and Liars.

Two quick snippets

2009-01-20T09:44:00.002-05:00

On the expiration of an administration that virtually screams "epic fail", I offer two snippets.

The first is from Cromwell's statement to Parliament
""You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

The other is an old song lyric
""Na na na na / na na na na / hey hey hey / goodbye."

A long overdue step

2009-01-10T17:19:00.002-05:00

Just noting an item from the McClatchy site on an agreement between Congressional Democrats and Citigroup regarding accepting the idea of mortgage "cram-downs". This is where a bankruptcy judge can adjust the size of the debt owed on a home to reflect the current market value of the home. It only applies to existing mortgages and the borrower has to give ten-days notice to the lender. Given that the bailout money that has been given out has largely gone into allowing big banks to gobble up smaller ones and that lack of a provision in the original plan assisting people at the bottom of the food chain, this is a welcome provision.

No more Good Time Chavez?

2009-01-08T18:50:00.002-05:00

I have long been skeptical of Hugo Chavez's "21st Century Socialism" as being nothing more than the catch-phrase of an egocentric demagogue who happened to be in a position to have access to tons of cash from the rise in oil prices. This sentiment applied just as much to his attempt to buy a geopolitical blog in Latin America as to his domestic policies.

The key test of any such program is how well it does when oil prices drop. According to McClatchy, not so much (see also here and here.)

Executive transitions

2009-01-08T16:28:00.005-05:00

There's a piece on The Nation's blog boards by John Nichols which starts:

In most democratic republics, elections are followed by the rapid transfer of power.

In Great Britain, for instance, the new prime minister takes over the day after the election.

Not so the United States.

Here, the better part of three months pass between election day and inauguration day.

The thrust of his piece is that he is passing out jobs to administration loyalists between Election Day and Inauguration Day. Given the relatively honorific (i.e., no actual power) nature of the appointments (President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, United States Holocaust Memorial Council, etc.), I would think he'd want to focus more on the "burrowing" of political appointees into executive agencies by redesignating them as career civil service staff.

In any event, both issues are part of the so-called "lame duck" period between the election of a new president and his inauguration. Certainly, the outgoing president can do considerable mischief, in fact, Rachel Maddow has created a segment entitled "Lame Duck Watch" to monitor precisely that. There is also historical precedent. The famous case of Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) stemmed from several appointments made literally in the last hours of the John Adams administration

The problem is that any attempt to compare our transition to the one in the UK overlooks the differences between parliamentary and presidential types of government. In a UK-style parliamentary system, the opposition usually has a government-in-waiting called a shadow cabinet. They serve as the opposition's point persons in responding to the policies of the government. A corollary of that function is that they will generally hold similar posts when the opposition has its turn in government. In a sense, the incoming leader's cabinet has already been selected.

They also invariably sit in the parliament. Since the continuation of a government in a parliamentary system depends on maintaining a majority in parliament, such close bonds are unavoidable. In a strong presidential system, cabinet members don't necessarily have to be members of Congress. In fact, our Constitution explicitly forbids that. Article I, Section 6 states that

"No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

The purpose of that clause was to avoid the type of royal co-opting of MPs that took place at the time in the form of bestowing various sinecures on them. The US system is based on independent, coordinate branches of government and thus has such a provision in order to keep any branch from subordinating the other.

As I've said, a prime minister in a parliamentary system is just a first-among-equals. His continued presence in office depends on constantly keeping a majority of his own party behind him. The President has an independent electoral mandate and, although he certainly needs to keep his party lined up behind him, he has greater leeway in his choices since he can't just be removed with a no-confidence vote. With a greater leeway in choices there must also be more time in which to make them.

Although it does make for a longer transition, a wider array of choices also means access to a greater talent pool. A president isn't limited to members of Congress for his choices. Often governors (a position which has no equivalent in a unitary state such as the UK) get chosen. Likewise, one could give a cabinet position to someone with professional experience who isn't in the legislature. Obama's Secretary of Education-designate currently runs the public schools in Chicago.

Roland Burris, continued

2009-01-03T12:44:00.004-05:00

An incident in Burris' career has come to light in the "internets" (think the O.E.D. will adopt that as a word?). The links are too numerous to provide here but any Google search using "Roland Burris" and "Rolando Cruz" will bring them up. The basics are that, in 1985, Rolando Cruz had been convicted of a capital offense and was on death row. In 1992, Roland Burris was the Illinois Attorney General and had received notification from the Assistant Attorney General who was fighting Cruz's appeal that there had been prosecutorial irregularities in the investigation of sufficient scope that she couldn't put her name on the appellate brief. Burris's response was to take her off the case and continue to fight the appeal, without reexamining the case himself. Justice proceeded notwithstanding and Cruz is now a free man, helped in part by DNA evidence exonerating him.

Burris at the time had ambitions for higher office. He ran in, and lost, primaries in 1994 and 1995 and the conclusion that his decision not to reexamine the Cruz case was because of his political ambitions is inescapable. Although such pusillanimous conduct would've been a very good reason for Blagojevich not to have selected him (assuming, with more hope than substance, that the Governor would've been motivated by an ethical consideration), it probably isn't sufficient reason for the US Senate to deny him his seat. First, it doesn't tie in to his selection sixteen years later and so doesn't come into the ambit of Article I, Sec. 5. Second, it's hard to see that kind of low political pandering as a disqualification for elective office, rather the opposite. I am reminded of Bill Clinton's actions regarding Ricky Ray Rector when the former was running for President in 1992. Rector was on death row. The issue wasn't if he had committed the crime but that, shortly before he was arrested, he shot himself in the head in an apparent suicide attempt that had effectively left him lobotomized. Clinton flew back to Arkansas in the middle of the campaign to sign off on the execution, in an action that was partially meant for public consumption. However, Rector was so mentally disabled that when the guards took him away for execution, he left his dessert on the grounds that he was saving it for later. Burris's action is hardly worse than executing a mentally incompetent inmate as a campaign ploy.

The other interesting comment I saw was a piece by Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive calling on Harry Reid to let Burris have the Senate seat. My first comment is that simply citing Powell v. McCormack isn't sufficient. This is more of an elections and returns issue than a qualifications issue. The other issue is that Blagojevich hasn't been convicted yet--

And there’s a larger point here, too: A prosecutor, by accusation alone, should not be allowed to throw someone out of elective office.

Remember, Blagojevich hasn’t even been indicted yet, much less convicted.
To deny him his authority on the basis of a criminal complaint is to hand a prosecutor enormous power.

The problem with that argument is that the presumption of innocence is part of due process, without which no one should be deprived of life or liberty. The Senate's action would only amount to not letting Burris into the Senate. The fact that Art. I, Sec. 5 makes each house of Congress the "final judge" in such matters means that the Senate doesn't have to wait for the judiciary to make it's determination of Blagojevich, it can decide independently if the Burris selection is tainted. In doing so, it isn't handing power to a prosecutor but exercising its own. Rothschild's comparison to Ken Starr is considerably off point.

I reiterate my point that there doesn't seem to be any taint on the Burris selection, and thus the Senate will have to seat him--but the Senate does get to make an independent determination of that.

"Senator Burris"--get used to that sound

2008-12-31T12:09:00.006-05:00

As anyone reading this no doubt knows, indicted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed former Roland Burris to fill the Senate seat vacated by Obama after he was elected President. Burris himself seems unobjectionable, having had an honorable career in Illinois politics--serving as both Comptroller (1979-91) and Attorney General (1991-95).

The issue is with the Governor who appointed him, especially given that the charges against Blagojevich include endeavoring to cash in his power to appoint a replacement for Obama. The Democratic leadership in the Senate has vowed to block the Burris selection for that reason, citing its ability under Article I, Section V of the Constitution that states that "Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members" As legal experts have pointed out, the Supreme Court case of Powell v. McCormack, 390 U.S. 486 (1969) would seem to make the exercise of that power inapplicable in this case.

That case centered on the reelection of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. to the House in 1966. He had been a committee chairman in the 89th Congress and had been accused of misrepresenting travel expenses and ordering illegal salary payments to his wife. When the 90th Congress convened in 1967, it voted to deny Powell his seat. A lawsuit was brought against the House and some of its officers by Powell and 13 voters of his Congressional district which went up to the Supreme Court which held, in an 8-1 decision, that the clause regarding qualifications was limited to the constitutional qualifications regarding age, citizenship and residence. The opinion, written by Chief Justice Warren, placed great emphasis on the importance in a republic of the electorate getting to chose its own representation.

This would seem to preclude Reid acting on his threat to not seat Burris, has being appointed by an indicted governor doesn't fall with the eligibility requirements. However, Reid is taking the position that the appointment itself is tainted by fraud. This would tie into the "elections" and "returns" part of Art. I, Sec. 5 and not the qualifications part. One should note that the grounds used against Powell concerned his actions in the House, not his actions as a candidate. This would seem to flank Powell v. McCormack. One example of this was the reelection of Theodore Bilbo to the Senate in 1946. The majority (of the opposite party, incidentally) move to not seat him on the grounds that he had incited violence against black voters and had taken bribes. Bilbo died before the matter was resolved. An earlier example was in 1927 in William Vare had been elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania. The Senate refused to seat him on the grounds of fraud committed by him in both the primary and the general election.

In both cases, it was the Senator-elect who had been guilty of corrupt practices. In this case, the taint is on the Governor who appointed him. Unless the Senate can find some evidence of a corrupt bargain in which Burris was involved, it's hard to see how the Bilbo and Vare cases are of precedential value. However, reports discussing the people to whom Blagojevich was referring to during the wiretapped conversations don't mention Burris. The Constitution, in specifying what Congress can judge in seating its members, has limited the latter's discretion to what would appear to be corruption in the election process itself.

The other issue is that Art. I, Sec. 5 talks about the Senate judging elections and returns, not appointments. Although this seems like a technical quibble, the fact is that, although there can often be disputes about who won an election, the recipient of an appointment is going to be obvious. On the other hand, this clause was part of the original Constitution, which had state legislatures elected Senators so the clause would seem to cover selections by the political branches of the state. Further, such judgments aren't just a question of who won but of the validity of the votes cast, so there is still a corruption issue.

Given all that, it doesn't seem that Reid has sufficient grounds to bar Burris. But he can certainly stall things for a bit. The Illinois law that covers this issue, 10 ILCS 5/Art. 25, Sec. 8, requires that Burris run in 2010 and again in 2012. He has a weak track record in running for higher office, having lost Democratic primaries for Governor in 1994, 1998 and 2002 and Mayor of Chicago in 1995. Further, he would be 73 when the first election took place, making his age a factor. If Burris insists on taking the seat, nothing prevents someone like, Jesse Jackson, Jr. from running against him in a primary, with the support of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. With a primary challenge facing him and his attempt to sit in the Senate hanging fire in the courts, he may decide that it's too much trouble and withdraw, allowing Blagojevich's successor to make an appointment.

Saturnalia

2008-12-25T08:15:00.001-05:00

As a pagan of largely Italian descent, I like to hearken back to the old Roman holiday of Saturnalia, a Roman festival taking place in mid-December.

I'm also partial to the interpretation of Jasmine, a character on the sadly-defunct comic Boondocks, believed that Christmas was about how Santa died for our gifts, but that he rose on Chrismtas day to forgive us our sins and give us eternal presents.

A Happy Christmahanakwanzakaa to all!

Extreme Papal fallibility

2008-12-22T21:42:00.004-05:00

The BBC News website mentioned that Pope Benedict XVI asserted that "saving" humankind from homosexuality is as important as saving the rain forest.

Two points. First is the question of a lecture in sexual morality from a man who was the point man during the last pontificate for the Church's efforts to keep the US pedophilia scandal under wraps and trying accused priests in secret ecclesiastical courts in Rome.

Second is the vastly different levels of scientific foundation for the threat levels involved. There is a scientific consensus that rain forests provide a great deal of the world's oxygen (in addition to being an important carbon sink). The idea that homosexuality is some sort of disorder was been dimissed by the American Psychiatric and American Psychological Associations back in the 70s.

All hail our new masters!

2008-12-22T21:38:00.004-05:00

The Economist's World in 2009 isn't online so I just thought I'd pass on the precis of its one-page prognostication regarding science next year. Looking backwards, 2009 will mark the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the sesquicentennial of the publication of Origin of Species.

There will likely be the world's first totally artificial living creature. It will use a natural bacterium shell but it's genes were made and spliced in a lab. The biologist is one Craig Venter. When accused of playing God, he replied "We're not playing". Have to love the sheer elan of that.

Advances in stem-cell research should defuse the controversy since the science has advanced to the point that such cells can be manufactured without recourse to embryos.

Likewise, after repairs, the Large Hadron Collider should be up and running.

There is, of course, only one possible outcome. We will one day be dominated by a lab-born race of artificial super-beings who will be able to live forever with the help of stem-cell grown transplants and who will wield artificially-created black holes as a weapon of conquest.

They still can't be any worse than Bush.

Debunking myths about atheism

2008-12-22T05:56:00.003-05:00

I just heard (via Alternet) about a column that the atheist writer Sam Harris wrote in the LATimes back in 2006. As an atheist myself, I thought I'd link to it. Note that this is a "reprint" of that piece on Mr. Harris's website.

The Alternet piece is pretty good too

Political hot potato?

2008-12-21T19:37:00.005-05:00

The Iraqi with the not-quite-good-enough aim has apparently become a cause celebre in Iraq. If Maliki's not careful, he could find that sentiment hurting him in the provincial elections. I wonder if al-Zaidi has formed a PAC yet.

Remedial History for VPs

2008-12-21T17:13:00.003-05:00

Here is the transcript of Cheney's interview today on the Neo-con Press Annex (aka, Fox). This is the fun part...

We did it in a manner that I believe and the lawyers that we looked to for advice believed was fully consistent with the Constitution and with the laws of the land. And there's, I say, ample precedent for it.

If you think about what Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War, what FDR did during World War II, they went far beyond anything we've done in the global war on terror.

But we have exercised, I think, the legitimate authority of the president under Article 2 of the Constitution as commander in chief in order to put in place policies and programs that have successfully defended the nation.

The inaccuracy of those historical comparisons is awe-inspiring. Let's first look at the scope of the crises that Lincoln and FDR faced. The US Civil War (I think War of the Rebellion is more accurate, but that's another post) killed a half-million, that's about 125,000 a year. It was also an existential threat to the United States. WWII involved a global war against two powerful countries (and Italy), one of which had overrun virtually all of Europe--a situation that would've left us with a dictatorial, genocidal foe in command of the resources of a continent.

As for the so-called "War on Terror". 9/11 was a ghastly event but a terrorist strike that killed almost 3000 people isn't close to being on the scale of the two wars in question. Although al-Qaida can cause grievous damage and very much needs to be stopped, it simply doesn't have the destructive power of an armed state. Likewise, outside of Afghanistan, it is more a function of intelligence and police work than a war. Further, the US/Allied non-Afghan military death toll in Afghanistan is about 1,300. Bush doesn't have anything close to the level of justification that Lincoln and FDR could claim.

Cheney wasn't specific as to the exact actions of Lincoln and FDR that was using for a comparison. If he's referring to the mass imprisonment of Americans of Japanese descent and Japanese aliens in concentration camps, it's probably a bad call from a forensic standpoint. Outside of Michelle Malkin, I don't know of any public figure who defends that action now. In fact, the US officially apologized and paid reparations. Cheney uses the argument that such actions "go beyond" anything the Bush administration did. So his defense of torture, extraordinary rendition and Gitmo is that at least we didn't round up all the Arab-Americans in Dearborn and send them to concentration camps in Kansas?

Lincoln did suspend habeas corpus but the Constitution permits that in "cases of rebellion or invasion." The attempted secession of a large part of the country and the seizure of federal assets therein would seem to count as the former. A single terror strike hardly constitutes an invasion. The main objection to Lincoln's act is that such suspension is properly in the power of Congress, not the President. Further, the use of the comparison to justify this administration's actions fails in the face of Ex parte Milligan, which held that, as long as civilian courts were open, military tribunals couldn't be used. Further, nothing in the interview gets around the fact that the policy is 0-3 in the Supreme Court.

None of this should be surprising coming from members of an administration that has started engaging in revisionist history.

UAW canard

2008-12-21T08:58:00.003-05:00

The main obstacle to a bailout plan for the Big Three American automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler) is from Republican senators who have demanded a strict timetable of UAW giveaways such as lowering salaries to that of non-union plants in the South prior to approving any deal. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee has been a point man on this.

However, a piece on CNNMoney.com suggests that much of the Republicans' concerns (including what is probably the big tale out there, the $70/hr. UAW worker) is one big canard.

His points--
Hourly wages in Detroit and at Toyota are about the same.
The big difference is in retiree benefits. One point not made here but that I've seen elsewhere is the the longer presence of the Big Three in this country is one of the reasons for that. The post states that the UAW has created trust funds to cover this so the auto companies won't have to do so indefinitely.

Perhaps part of the bailout could go to the trust funds so the auto companies could stop contributing sooner rather than later.

A report by an auto industry analyst indicates that the ten most efficient auto plans are all unionized and 9 of them belong to domestic automakers. GM did some crowing about that for those who want to see some specifics.

There was also a column in the November 17 (which says that it has been updated since) that deconstructs some of the tales around this issue.

Setting the bar a bit high

2008-12-19T13:59:00.003-05:00

Bush remarked regarding the money he's thrown at the credit crisis that he didn't want to be known as the next Herbert Hoover. Given that he is likely to end up at the very bottom of the presidential rankings along with Buchanan, Harding and Pierce, I'd say he'd have to work his way up to Hoover before that became an issue.

Hoover had failed to arrest the progress of the Depression and he made the mistake of signing the Smoot-Hawley tariff into law, but he had a solid list of accomplishments both before being in office that is far superior to Dubya's history of failure followed by bailouts from his father's friends. Hoover was a SUCESSFUL businessman. During WWI, his relief efforts for Belgian civilians made him a hero in that country and, after the war, expanded those efforts to combat famine in much of the rest of Europe. As Commerce Secretary, he handled relief efforts for the Great Mississippi Flood much better than the Bush administration handled Katrina.

Hoover as President was a competent technocrat who couldn't think outside the box in a situation that required it. Bush probably can't even pronounce "competent technocrat".

Democracy in Iraq? Maliki's purge squad

2008-12-19T01:02:00.003-05:00

There was an article in the 12/17 issue of the Times entitled 35 Iraq Officials Held in Raids on Key Ministry which a round-up of officials who were ostensibly tied to some sort of surreptitious Ba'ath network. This squad had also conducted a raid on a provincial council which rounded up the sole Sunni Arab on it. One of the noteworthy points of the article was that the arrests were made by a force that reports directly to Maliki.

He not only has failed to integrate the Sunnis of the Awakening Councils into the Defense and Interior Ministries, he has started trying to round up many of their leaders. Indeed, McClatchy reported back in August that his government actually aspires to disband the vast majority of them.

I have to wonder if Maliki's "victory" over Sadr in Basra has got him believing his own press regarding how formidable he is. He has had the space to function because the Sunnis felt more threatened by al-Qaida then by him and because the US bankrolled them. His aggressive actions against them threaten the first and his reluctance to take them into the security apparatus after the US pulls out will go far to undo the effects of the latter.

The fact that he is also ticking off the Kurds over federalism and oil issues suggests that he is either delusional over what he can accomplish once American firepower and money start leaving Iraq or he is banking on Iran to back his plays.

Caroline Kennedy? New York can do better.

2008-12-18T14:42:00.006-05:00

Anyone who needs to be told at this point that Caroline Kennedy is interested in being appointed to the Senate to replace Hilary Clinton probably also needs to be introduced to sliced bread and the wheel. Although smart and, presumably, well-versed on the issues (and perhaps, therefore, overqualified for being governor of Alaska), she isn't the best choice, despite the fact that her having been a New York resident since 1964 actually puts her one up on the current occupant.

Her record in any sort of elected, or even appointed, office is very sparse. There is a two-year stint for the New York city Department of Education and that appears to be it. Her work up to this point has otherwise consisted of writing and serving on the boards of various non-profits. She has written two books on civil liberties that have been well-received.

Although she wouldn't necessarily be a bad senator, New York has better qualified people. Andrew Cuomo has executive experience at both the federal (HUD secretary) and state (Atty. General) level. He has run and won a political campaign for himself and worked for his father in politics. Thomas Suozzi has been in New York elective politics for sixteen years and seems to have done a decent job as Nassau County Executive (in addition to having the political chops to break the Republican machine that long ran things there). Byron Brown has served in the state legislature and is currently mayor of Buffalo. I believe there are others who have expressed interest as well.

It is worth mentioning that the person selected would have to run in 2010 to finish the term and again in 2012, when the term expires. However, having even a short stint in the Senate could confer the standard incumbent advantages.

US dynasties not a novelty

2008-12-18T12:39:00.009-05:00

With Caroline Kennedy's throwing herself into contention for Hilary Clinton's soon to be vacated Senate seat, I've seen some talk in punditland about whether this is a dynastic politics unsuited to the United States. Chris Matthews asked if this was the Senate or the House of Lords. They spoke of the Bushes and the Kennedys. In fact, political dynasties have a long history in this country.

The Adams are one of the oldest. Both John Adams and his son John Quincy were presidents (albeit not terribly successful ones). JQs son, Charles Francis, Sr. served in the House during Buchanan's administration and his grandson was Hoover's Secretary of the Navy (what is it with this family and unsuccessful administrations!?!?).

President William Howard Taft was followed by a son and grandson who sat in the Senate. The former, Robert Alfonso Taft was a leading isolationist. His namesake grandson was governor of Ohio from 1999-2007.

William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison are, to date, the only grandfather-grandson pair to be President. The Harrison in the middle, John, served two terms in the House.

Hamilton Fish I-IV also held political office. Number One was a senator and Secretary of State while II-IV represented a part of New York in the House for 53 of the 86 years running from 1909-95.

Thomas Kean (of 9/11 Commission fame, or notoriety, depending on taste) was governor of New Jersey from 1982-90. In addition to having a lineage going back to the Continental Congress, he also has a son who serves in the New Jersey state senate. His father served in the House for twenty years while a grandfather and great-uncle served in the Senate.

For one that came back after an interregnum, I give you the Frelinghuysens. The family went back to Dutch days in New Jersey. Frederick was one of the very first U.S. senators. His son and grandson also served there. You have to skip a few generations to a great-grandson, Peter, Jr., who served in the House from 1953-75. His son, Robert, has been there since 1995.

Such families aren't an innovation in American public life. Reasons? Children of office-holders grow up in that culture and develop a taste for it themselves; growing up in the "family business" gives them connections. Families that are prominent enough to get one office holder in can, in some cases, do so for a few generations.

If I were truly a glutton for punishment, I would want to look at the correlation between percentage of Congressman who had fathers, uncles, etc. in the same business and the extent of the voting franchise. Do such "dynasties" correlate with the extent of the franchise? Also, does the same percentage in the Senate change once you go from selection by state legislatures to elections by the people?

Apropos of Chris Matthew's allusion to the House of Lords, reforms undertaken during Tony Blair's time as PM have created a chamber that is overwhelmingly composed of life peers.

Disappointing picks

2008-12-01T10:58:00.003-05:00

The BBC News website, among others, has announced that Hilary Clinton is to be nominated as Secretary of State while Robert Gates is to stay on at Defense.

The Clinton choice is bad for a couple of reasons. First, there are so many conflict of interest issues regarding her husband. For example, her serving in that position will require that he limit his activities regarding the William Clinton foundation. I don't entirely trust that serial hair-splitter to keep to that. Her vote for the war should also disqualify her as it was a blunder on a key foreign policy issue. She also never served on the Foreign Relations committee in the Senate and being First Lady isn't a qualification for the job. As I've said in a prior post, Bill Richardson would've been a much better choice. So would career diplomat Susan Rice, who got the UN Ambassador spot.

The Robert Gates nomination is clearly an attempt to reach out to the Republicans and I doubt that it will profit him. There's no reason to believe that they will be any less obstructionist than they were in the last congress. Indeed, the Democratic gains in the last elections should mean that Obama shouldn't have to reach out to the extent of offering them a key Cabinet slot. As Bush's Secretary of Defense, he is tied to the Iraq war. He also bears the taint of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Cassandra time

2008-12-01T07:58:00.002-05:00

The CNN/Money website has an article indicating that federal regulators had been getting warnings as early as 2005 about the riskiness of sub-prime mortgages and the exposure of banks to them.

The regulators didn't follow through largely because of the free-market ideology of both the Bush administration and Alan Greenspan and largely because of lobbying by the banks holding these loans, many of which, like WaMu and IndyMac, have since failed.

There would be an element of poetic justice involved in that last bit if there wasn't so much collateral damage.

A Dickensian Economist

2008-11-08T22:03:00.002-05:00

The Economist is one of my regular reads, despite my disagreement with it on the occasional position. However, it is an exceedingly well written magazine, with the cleverness of some of its headings being just one reason.

A leader (opinion piece) in the current issue discusses the future Obama administration. It is entitled "Great Expectations". Two of its sections are entitled "Our Mutual Friends" and "Hard times and a bleak House".

The references are to Dickens novels-Great Expectations, Hard Times, Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend. Couldn't help a quiet chuckle.

Cabinet remodeling

2008-11-08T21:42:00.004-05:00

Transportation--Valerie Jarrett, a long-time backer of Obama, she also chaired the Chicago Transit Board from 1995-2005.

I've read Daniel Tarullo's name in connection with the post of US Trade Representative. I think that works better than my original choice and leaves room for Kathleen Sibelius at Commerce.
Penny Pritzker had been named as a possibility for Commerce but she has been linked to the sub-prime mortgage scandal.

I'm substituting Timothy Geithner for Tyson at Treasury.

I have assumed that Gov. Blagojevic picks Jesse Jackson, Jr. to fill Obama's Senate seat. However, he could go with Tammy Duckworth. In that case, Jackson in HUD and Max Cleland in Veteran's Affairs.

Of course, my calls here will likely be no more accurate than those in the many football and Oscar pools that I've failed to win.

If I picked the Cabinet

2008-11-08T06:41:00.003-05:00

WNYC has a comment board asking for comments on an Obama cabinet
Here are mine, with some revisions
State--Bill Richardson
Treasury--Laura D'Andrea Tyson
Defense--Richard Danzig
Justice--Eric Holder
Interior--RFK, Jr.
Agriculture--Tom Vilsack
Commerce--Dan Tarullo
Labor--David Bonior
HHS--David Blumenthal
Homeland Security--Richard Clarke
HUD--Shaun Donovan
Energy--Jay Inslee
Veterans Affairs--Tammy Duckworth

also
NSC--Susan Rice
EPA--Lincoln Chaffee

Larry Summers--wrong man for the job

2008-11-07T08:24:00.002-05:00

Larry Summers is apparently on the short list for the Treasury Secretary slot. He has been a controversial figure in the past for both written and oral statements. There was his public speculation that women were intellectually disinclined to pursue math-related subjects. There was his memo at the World Bank that argued that it would be economically wise to use LDCs (Lesser Developed Countries) as waste dump sites since they don't live as long there anyway.

An article in Boston Magazine had some interesting insights into Summers. The key point is that he is socially and politically tone-deaf. That wouldn't necessarily disqualify him for an advisory position but the Secretary of the Treasury is often the public face of the administration on economic matters. He may very well have to advocate for Obama's economic policies in Congress.

Summers is spectacularly ill-adapted for the political dimensions of this particular job slot.

Thoughts on the bailout

2008-09-27T06:21:00.001-04:00

The banks ability to have money outstanding on loans is dependent on the capital they actually have on hand (the limit being a multiple of that capital). As long as they have the securities, they have to mark the lost value of that on their books and set it against their capital on hand. That reduced the amount of money they can mark themselves as having and thus reduced available credit.

Further, as long as these are out there, the level of risk of further busts is somewhat uncertain. One of the nastiest problems with all this securitized debt is that is has been so sliced and diced that no one can be sure where the risk lies, thus making lenders more reluctant.

The government purchase creates a minimum price for those securities, essentially giving taxpayers money to their holders. My main concern is that such action must also include the government obtaining equity when they make these purchases, so that they can have that to offset the securities in the event that Paulson's optimism about the ability to sell them at a favorable price in future is unjustified.

Further measures should be in this package to further put more of the loss on the shareholders and the corporate management. Limitations on management pay, minimal or no dividends for a period of time. Further issues of stock to raise capital (which will have the effect of diminishing the value of the holdings of the existing shareholders but also upping the amount of money the bank can lend out).

The first debate--Russia

2008-09-26T22:16:00.003-04:00

Obama emphasized the importance of defending the independence of the small countries in the near-abroad, including keeping NATO membership open for Georgia and Ukraine. However, firmness with the Russians would have to dovetail with areas of common interest, such as non-proliferation. He got in a good shot regarding Bush's claim to have seen into Putin's soul.

McCain made an interesting point on Obama's statement at the onset of the Russian-Georgian war about both sides needing to show restraint not being an accurate assessment of the moral balance. McCain also made a good point, in which Obama concurred, about the fact that the Russian incursion was also about the pipeline and Ukraine.

Obama was able to use the pipeline issue to emphasize the need for alternative energy sources. McCain readvocates offshore drilling. I think that overlooks the Office of Energy Adminstration's report stated that developing such resources wouldn't have a significant impact. In 2030, there would only be an anticipated 7.2% in domestic oil production and 18% in domestic gas production--hardly enough.

The first debate--Iran

2008-09-26T22:03:00.004-04:00

McCain argues that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a regional threat, and an existential one to Israel. McCain invokes his "league of democracies" that could bypass the UN Security Council. I don't think he's been that clear on whom he'd bring in and who he wouldn't. India isn't likely to fall in behind McCain's foreign policy; would he then exclude the world's most populous democracy? He also raised the disputed charge of Iranian IEDs in Iraq. Again, he doesn't mention Iran's influence with the Maliki government. Obama makes a good reply about how going into Iraq has done more to strengthen Iran then anything else.

Obama agrees that we need tougher sanctions but points out that Russian and Chinese support are necessary to have an effective sanctions regime. He also argued that direct diplomacy with Iran must be part of the approach. McCain argued that sitting with Ahmedinejad would legitimize him and his threats to exterminate Israel.

Emphasis on Obama's statement to not have preconditions. Obama made an interesting point that Kissinger, a McCain advisor, supported that position. He also mentioned that there was a difference between not having preconditions and not having preparations in the form of lower level talks and that his position didn't just entail an immediate summit.

McCain goes a bit overboard by arguing that meeting with Ahmedinejad would somehow be dangerous--not just unwise.

The first debate--lessons of Iraq/Afghanistan

2008-09-26T21:39:00.005-04:00

McCain argues that the lesson is not to have a failed strategy such as our early occupation. He then mentions his advocacy of the surge. He argued that the surge has succeeded (but what of the lack of a political solution; the ethnically cleansed city of Baghdad, etc., the fact that the Sunni Awakening actually preceded the surge?). His statement about the consequences of defeat being increased Iranian influence is a bit laughable given how tight Maliki is with Teheran. Unfortunately, Obama doesn't bring these points up.

Obama naturally brings up his 2002 speech against the war and the human and economic losses the war entailed. McCain points out, accurately, that the new president will have to make future decisions on Iraq and that he was right on the surge and Obama was wrong. Obama concedes that the violence had gone down but points out that the gains of the surge essentially just offset the prior Bush disasters. He also mentions how McCain claimed that going into Iraq was going to be easy and that McCain's claim of success in Iraq echoed an earlier claim of having succeeded in Afghanistan.

McCain hits Obama's plan on the grounds that the success in Iraq are fragile. If they're fragile, how can he claim that we've succeeded.

McCain faulted Obama on actually stating that he would strike into Pakistan as the sort of thing that you don't say out loud. McCain also argued that Petraeus would make everything right in Afghanistan. Obama got in a good shot on McCain not being the person to give lectures on prudence in public statements (extinction for N. Korea, singing about bombing Iran). He also made a good point about how we lost legitimacy in Pakistan by coddling Musharraf. McCain pointed out that he had a different track record in supporting military actions (support for Bosnia, Kosovo, Desert Storm--opposition to Somalia and Lebanon).

Interestingly, McCain compared the prospect of defeat in Iraq to having lost in Vietnam. I have to wonder if McCain's position on Iraq is a way of exorcising his own demons from Vietnam.

The first debate--bailouts' required offsets

2008-09-26T21:26:00.003-04:00

The question deals with what the $700 billion rescue plan would force them to give up. Obama would hold on to support for alternative energy development; his health plan and education and infrastructure. I'd be very curious to hear the numbers on that and he didn't actually say what he'd give up. McCain repeats his point on cutting spending. He makes a good point re ethanol subsidies (which Obama, a farm-state senator, supported). Also mentions defense procurement reform. He generally talks about creating efficiencies in government--an old stand-by. Of course, neither one dares mention what he'd cut.

McCain then mentioned a spending freeze (excepting defense, veterans and entitlements). Obama points out that a freeze wouldn't allow a consideration of specific programs. McCain stakes out a position in favor of nuclear power (45 new plants by 2030--covering energy independence and climate change).

McCain reprises his point about fighting spending. Obama hits back on the "orgy of spending" during the Bush administration. McCain invokes is "maverick" reputation and therefore can't be tied into Bush's policies.

The first debate--credit crunch

2008-09-26T21:05:00.007-04:00

I like the idea of skipping opening statements. They are just packaged, canned statements and I'd rather hear questions.

First question on the bailout plan. Obama makes a good point regarding the need for oversight. Also takes aim a Republican deregulation and ties McCain to it. McCain goes for a cheap emotional shot by pointing out that Ted Kennedy is in the hospital. He then praises the bi-partisanship of the negotiations. Interesting that he doesn't mention the obstructionism of the House Republicans.

Obama stays on message in Lehrer's follow-up (follow-up questions being another improvement in the debate format). McCain talks about accountability with a reference to Eisenhower and D-Day--talks about the rewarding of corruption and greed. Obama's riposte hits McCain on his "fundamentals" statement.

Points to Lehrer for trying to get Obama to speak directly to McCain and vice-versa. They don't seem to be biting.

Second question re Presidential policies. McCain talks about cutting spending and mentions earmarks--takes a good shot at Obama re earmarks he's taken. Promises to veto spending bills.
Obama points out that earmarks only account for $18 billion, which are dwarfed by the Bush tax cuts that McCain would extend. OMB figures mention $16.5 billion in 2008. McCain doesn't really cover what he would cut beyond the earmark money.

The dispute centers on tax proposals. McCain doesn't answer Obama's point regarding how the former's statement on business taxes didn't cover the many loopholes that corporations have or how McCain's tax credit for health insurance if offset by removing deductibility for employers' health insurance premiums.

Maybe he can run for drama queen

2008-09-25T22:09:00.002-04:00

John McCain seems to have the chops for it. His melodramatic suspension of his campaign leads one to believe that he considers the current credit crunch to be worse than the Civil War (Lincoln actively ran for reelection) or WWII (FDR ran in 1940 and 1944, although, given his health, he probably shouldn't of run in the latter).

First, although this a serious matter, it isn't 1929 redux. A piece on CNN.com pointed out that, unlike the Great Depression, the Fed has been smart enough to not restrict credit or start a trade war.

Second, it's not as if a deal can't be done without him. Neither McCain nor Obama sit on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee, which is doing the work on this. The key negotiators on this would be the majority and minority leaders of that committee and of the Senate. McCain is none of these.

Third, trying to cancel the debate is just silly. Oxford, MS isn't the far side of the moon. It is only 47 miles from the nearest airport at Tupelo which is, itself, only about 770 miles from DC. They could leave DC mid-afternoon, do the debate and be back by midday Saturday. I think DC will still be there when they get back.

The Obama Bounce

2008-09-04T20:00:00.000-04:00

CBS polling saw an increase in Obama's lead from 3 to 8%s. Gallup saw is lead go from 3 to 6%. Rasmussen saw a McCain 1% lead change to an Obama 3% lead. The only minor shift was CNN which saw only a 1% shift.

The CNN poll taken 8/29-31 had 36% rating the speech "Excellent", 28% rating it "Good" while only 7% labeled it "Poor" or "Terrible". The USA Today/Gallup poll had 35% "Excellent" and 23% "Good" as opposed to only 7% "Poor" or "Terrible".

Since the polling was done as the Palin announcement was coming out, this should be consider net of it's effect.

Afghanistan was perfectly legal

2008-08-05T19:00:00.001-04:00

A recent post on Alternet alleged the illegality of the US war in Afghanistan.

"The invasion of Afghanistan was not legitimate self-defense under article 51 of the charter because the attacks on Sept. 11 were criminal attacks, not "armed attacks" by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after Sept. 11, or Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign."

The fact that the 9/11 attacks were illegal under just in bello doesn't mean that they weren't armed attacks. The two phrases aren't mutually exclusive. The purpose of the requirement for an "armed attack" is to distinguish such actions from economic sanctions or other actions that don't involve deadly force.

The justification wasn't just 9/11. From its Afghan base, al-Qaida did the 1998 embassy attacks, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole and 9/11. In 1998, bin-Laden stated that it was the duty of Muslims to kill Americans wherever the opportunity existed. Thus, we were dealing with a sequence of armed attacks and the clear threat of more. The idea that someone can initiate an ongoing state of hostilities and that we need UN permission to respond as long as the attacks are spaced out is ridiculous. The idea of the need for an attack being imminent is to bar preventive war (the idea that a threat is building up but not imminent), not to require UN permission to deal with an aggressor who is spacing his attacks.

The Taliban not only failed to take action to stop this but also benefitted from the alliance. Specifically from whatever money bin-Laden could bring in and from the presence of his partisans on the front against the Northern Alliance. Afghanistan thus allied with, and provided a base of operations for, al-Qaida's attacks on the United States, giving us a casus belli against them.

Having said that, it is also true that the exception has swallowed the rule here. Dealing with al-Qaida in Afghanistan required military action. To label the entire struggle against Islamist militants as a "war", however, was clearly a propaganda ploy used to justify all manner of sins, including an unconstitutional use of executive power. For the most part, this is a matter of police and intelligence operations. The fact that Afghanistan is an exceptional case doesn't change that.

The post also made some spurious comparisons

Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the United States
after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and he was given
safe haven in the United States. The people in Latin American countries
whose dictators were trained in torture techniques at the School of the
Americas could likewise have attacked the torture training facility in Fort
Benning, Ga.

The only problem with those comparions is that there is no indication that
the Shah was planning counterrevolutionary activities from his hospital
bed. Likewise, whatever was being taught at Fort Benning, the acts of the
students weren't launched from there.

Woops, there goes another benchmark

2008-07-23T21:00:00.001-04:00

This piece in today's NYTimes about the Kurds objective to the just passed provincial elections law in Iraq. Their objections will likely mean rejection of the law by the Presidency Council and a postponement of elections until next year.

As the article pointed out, neither the Sunnis (who boycotted the last elections) nor the Sadrists, who would probably do well, will be pleased with that development. One even has to suspect that both the Kurds and the ISCI faction of the Shi'ites prefer it that way since they have a near-hammerlock on the Iraqi government as things currently stand and, in fact, voted against the law.

Of history and holidays; of sizzle and steak

2008-07-07T21:18:00.003-04:00

July 4 and July 14 are celebrated as national holidays in the US and France respectively. These are celebrated as the acts of American independence and the revolution that saw off the ancien regime in France.

In the case of July 4, the actual declaration took place two days earlier, with the Continental Congress's passage of the resolution (one of the myths about July 4 debunked in the HNN site's page on the topic)

`Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.''

In fact, John Adams had thought that

"The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. . . . It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

However, even that may not have been the true revolutionary act. On May 17, 1775, the Continental Congress advised states to set up their own constitutions and it declared the forces assembled outside Boston to be a Continental Army. Arguably assuming the functions of a sovereign government was pretty damn close to a de facto declaration of independence.

Likewise, the celebration of Bastille Day in France overshadows the Tennis Court Oath. This had its origins on a royal lockout of the Estates-General when it looked like the Third Estate was going to win on a procedural vote that would've given them the dominant position in the ensuing deliberations. On June 20, 1789, over three weeks before the storming of the Bastille, the delegates of the Third Estate assembled at a tennis court and declared themselves a national assembly that wouldn't disperse until the constitution of the kingdom had been rewritten. Again, the true revolutionary act inhered in the assumption of sovereign power.

It is, perhaps, natural for the actual celebrations to center around an easily understood symbolic act than to delve into the more subtle questions of sovereignty. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as it inspires a deeper look into the latter kind of events rather than to limit such contemplations to the flashier parts of history.

It hasn't taken Obama long, has it?

2008-07-04T14:19:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama is exemplifying the political axiom that candidates in American elections run to the flanks in the primaries and run to the center in the general election. Obama got much of his momentum in this race running on the speech against the Iraq war that he gave in 2002. This was a particular standout because of Hilary Clinton's vote for the Iraq war resolution and her refusal to recant it during the campaign.

Now there's this item in yesterday's NYTimes where Obama has said that he would be open to "refine his policies" regarding withdrawal from Iraq depending on the feedback he got from American military commanders in Iraq later this month. Although he later reiterated his intention to stick with his 16-month withdrawal plan, the initial response represents an unfortunately trimming tendency. Further, he mentioned a training mission for the residual force, not something he had hitherto consider part of its mission.

There is Obama's disturbing stand on the FISA legislation that passed the House and is now before the Senate. This bill would immunize the telecoms from civil suits and would limit the FISA court's review of warrant applications to the general procedure used, with no look at the level of proof provided in the individual cases. Although Obama has undertaken to try to have the immunity provisions stripped from the bill, he has indicated approval of the rest of the legislation, hasn't promised to vote against the bill if telecom immunity is retained and has backtracked on his promise to filibuster the bill under those circumstances.

Finally, there is his statement in opposition to the SCOTUS opinion that barred the death penalty for non-homicides. Although the child rape in that case was an act that rightly evoked a desire for violent retribution, the death penalty in this country is problematic enough in the capital cases where it applies. It certainly doesn't merit expansion.

Fortunately, the bottom-up approach to political organization that marks the Obama campaign has meant that his followers can signal disapproval. Obama's social networking site's largest group is now the one that is opposing his waffling on FISA. Perhaps Obama isn't as different as we originally thought, but he may be different enough.

But it's not about the oil!--Pt. 2

2008-07-03T19:15:00.000-04:00

One of the disputes roiling Iraq is the level of Kurdish autonomy. Part of that is the Kurdish government's propensity for signing oil deals on its own without reference to the national government. According to the New York Times, Hunt Oil company of Dallas signed a deal with the Kurds in September and it seems our State Department "did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it". The State Department denies this but there are apparently documents to the contrary.

Ray Hunt is apparently close enough to President Bush to be on his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Board of Trustees of the George Bush Library Foundation. OpenSecrets.org has him as a major contributor to Republican candidates and the Republican party. He was the 33rd largest nationwide in 2004 with $277,984 going overwhelmingly to the Republicans. Sourcewatch has other Hunt-Bush connections. He is on the Board of Directors of Halliburton and the American Petroleum Institute and chaired the National Petroleum Council.

They bit themselves and went mad

2008-06-25T22:24:00.002-04:00

There was an interesting article in The Independent entitled "Special report: Is Al Qa'ida in pieces?" by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank. Bergen is the author of two books on al-Qai'da so I'm rather inclined to listen when he writes on the subject.

The thrust of the piece is that Islamists are turning against al-Qaida. It refers to a conversation between a Libyan militant and bin-Laden, where the former referred to the indiscriminately violent tactics of the Algerian jihadists that ultimately alienated all their support and led to their being crushed.

The jihadi later become one of many religious leaders and ex-militants who have criticized al-Qaida for its takfiri tactics which allowed them to go after any Muslim they don't consider to be a "true" Muslim.

The article referenced polls that showed that support for al-Qaida has been declining worldwide, with support for suicide bombing declining in Indonesia, Lebanon and Bangladesh, for instance. This general trend adds some useful context to the turning of Sunnis in Iraq against al-Qaida in Mesopotamia. As an ICG report pointed out that it was AQI's high-handedness that turned the Sunnis against them even before the surge began and further undercuts its claims of success.

Democratic supineness on the war

2008-06-24T01:15:00.000-04:00

The Democrats were elected to narrow majorities in both houses of Congress to a large extent on anti-war sentiment, however Congress hasn't been able to cut off funding for the war.

A recap, in March-April 2007, Congress passed a war appropriations bill with a mandatory withdrawal timetable to end in August 2008 but it passed both houses with narrow majorities. The vote to override Bush's veto of it failed by a considerable margin. Congress then passed the funding without any timetables. In the House, 40% of the Democrats voted for the measure with no timetables; often for the reason that they didn't want to risk totally cutting off funding for the soldier in Iraq. Thus funding was provided until September.

The Senate's attempts to put through timetables later that year were constantly thwarted by Republican filibusters. As a result, further votes on funding were delayed until the convening of the 2nd session of the Congress, in 2008. Eventually, the Democrats conceded the issue to Bush, assessing that they didn't have the numbers to override a veto or to break a filibuster in the Senate.

Although this would seem to show them flouting the will of the American people, recent polls suggest that there isn't a popular supermajority in favor of ending the war any more than there is one in Congress. ABC's last poll had 55-41 tilted towards withdrawing US forces as opposed to keeping them there until civil order is restored. The latest NBC poll had 54-40 tilting towards victory in Iraq being not possible as opposed to possible. Finally, the latest CBS poll had 42% wanting "large numbers of US troops" there "Less than a year, 21% "One to two years" and only 20% "As long as it takes".

As to that impact on Congress's supineness. First, it takes more than one election cycle for a consistent popular sentiment to change the Senate given its staggered election schedule. Second, although said sentiment is enough to change the House, it doesn't appear to be strong enough to have created a veto-overriding supermajority (although it should change the party in the White House in 2008). This is an intentional part of the Constitutional design--requiring more than one election cycle (anticipating further Democratic gains in the Senate and the White House) to push the government.

This delay on the implementation of changes in popular sentiment into policy is also a function of the separation of powers. One of the intended results of that is that a change in the White House is often as necessary as a change in Congress for policies to be changed. Further, the Democrats can anticipate increased majorities in both houses.

It may also take another election for many of the incoming Democrats to obtain some extra boldness. There are 45 representatives who come from districts that voted for Bush in the last two elections. 22 of them are freshmen and likely looking over their shoulders. Longer term, this could actually be a good development if it represents the beginning of a long-term realignment. For example, three of Indiana's nine Representatives are exactly that type of freshmen. That this could be a harbinger of other things is shown in that Obama is actually competitive in polls in Indiana.

In a parliamentary system, the type of change in power that took place in 2006 or 1994 would've led to a new government. Not so here.

Kristol's balls

2008-06-23T23:33:00.004-04:00

It's hard to pick out which is the more outrageous assertion in Kristol's column in yesterday's Times. His target is a MoveOn.org ad that plays off McCain's stated willingness to be in Iraq for 100 years if necessary. His assertion is that the ad expresses "contempt for all who might choose to serve their country in uniform." It reads as follows:

“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he’s my first. So far his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. And so, John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

Now, Kristol has a rare moment of lucidity when he points out that McCain's statement was in a context of a prolonged peacetime presence such as we have in Germany and Japan and that the implication of the ad is that he envisions a prolonged war. One might point out in response that does, however, speak volumes about his desire to have permanent bases in Iraq, exactly the sort of thing the Bush administration is claiming that it doesn't want.

However, as if he were unaccustomed to accuracy, he then quotes the mother of a soldier who said--

“Does that mean that she wants other people’s sons to keep the wolves at bay so that her son can live a life of complete narcissism? What is it she thinks happens in the world? ... Someone has to stand between our society and danger. If not my son, then who? If not little Alex then someone else will have to stand and deliver. Someone’s son, somewhere.”

This presupposes that what McCain wants is to only use our soldiers when our society is in danger. The problem with that is that such a danger didn't exist either in Iraq, and still doesn't, or in Iran, about which he likes to sing songs about bombing. There is also nothing in the ad that could reasonably support the implication that the mother wants her son to live a life of complete narcissism. Perhaps she envisions her son being a teacher rather than putting his life on the line for the type of neo-con pipe dream that Messrs. McCain and Kristol like to play around with.

Kristol caps off his delusional interpretation of the ad with

The MoveOn ad is unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past.
And the sole responsibility of others.

He has tremendous balls to try to pass that off as the thrust of the ad when the language clearly is aimed at McCain's Iraq policy.

What really calls for the extra helping of chutzpah is when he presumes to accuse other people of considering that military sacrifice is the responsibility of others when many of his neo-con fellow travelers actually acted on exactly that consideration.

People like the President, who pulled strings to get into a National Guard unit that, as such, wouldn't face being deployed to Vietnam, and then failed to put in his time.

People like the Vice President who took five draft deferments because he had "other priorities".

People like Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle who spent some or all of the second half of the 60s in grad school.

But it's not about the oil!

2008-06-19T20:48:00.000-04:00

There is an article in today's NYTimes about how four western oil companies (Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP) and some small fry are negotiating with the Oil Ministry (remember, that's the one government office we protected from looters back in '03) for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest oil fields.

Although the contracts are small, the companies getting them will have an in when longer-term deals are made. The article notes that the Oil Ministry still has American advisors.

Although they are service contracts rather than a license to develop the fields, the companies are being paid in oil.

The Oil Ministry stated that the companies had been chosen because they had already been advising the ministry for the last two years. Of course, the fact that American troops were keeping the government in place had nothing to do with that.

Which Iraqis?

2008-06-19T20:00:00.000-04:00

Thomas Friedman's column in yesterday's Times, Iraq: Still Inscrutable makes a reference to "Iraqis [who] will tell him on day one that we can’t leave Iraq precipitously because it will explode."

The first thing that comes to mind with that statement is that Obama has never advocated a precipitous withdrawal. He position is to be out of Iraq at a rate of 1-2 brigades a month.

The second issue is exactly which Iraqis don't want us to go and how representative are they? Although the Iraqi Foreign Minister lectured Obama about the importance of the US staying in Iraq, other events on the ground suggest a rapidly diminishing Iraqi patience with the US presence there. For example, there is the total breakdown in negotiations for a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The majority of the Iraqi parliament insists on a withdrawal timetable as a condition for any SOFA.

The surge causing long-term problems?

2008-06-18T05:10:00.001-04:00

Here is an article in the current edition of Foreign Affairs, the summary of which reads--

The Bush administration's new strategy in Iraq has helped reduce violence. But the surge is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state and may even have made such an outcome less likely -- by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni tribes and pitting them against the central government. The recent short-term gains have thus come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.

Boumediene--Robert's dissent

2008-06-16T22:58:00.005-04:00

Roberts referred to the mechanism for Gitmo detainees as "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."

As far as the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) are concerned, one military insider has a different take. Col. Abraham, an Army Reserve officer described them as a rubber-stamp designed to ratify decisions already made. The CSRTs don't permit the detainee counsel or the ability to see the evidence against him and permits unlimited hearsay evidence.

His argument that the court's action was premature since the appellate procedures under the Detainee Treatment Act hadn't been exhausted was eloquently answered by Souter's concurrence, which pointed out that many of these people had already been there for six years. As a recent McClatchy story pointed out, many of them were innocent. Further, since the DTA only permits the DC Appellate Court to look at the procedures and whether they were followed, there is no review of the ruling on the case itself. As Roberts himself admitted, any protection offered is because "CSRT and D. C.Circuit review to operate together, with the goal of providing noncitizen detainees the level of collateral process Hamdi said would satisfy the due process
rights of American citizens. " Thus, the inadequacies of CSRT doom Roberts's dissent.

Roberts also places much stock in the ability of the DC Circuit to send the case back to a CSRT for a new assessment. However, without any ability to change the flaws that make the CSRT a rubber-stamp process, such a step is meaningless.

Oops! We got some of the wrong guys in Gitmo

2008-06-16T20:50:00.001-04:00

I just came across an article that McClatchy is doing as part of a series on the detainee prison system that the U.S. has set up. It's thrust is that in Gitmo and elsewhere, we have dozens, possibly hundreds, of people detained "on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments."

Boumediene, a further thought

2008-06-16T19:35:00.003-04:00

In addition to the points I covered in an earlier post on that decision, there is also the question of the military commission that tried the detainees in Eisentrager. In Eisentrager, SCOTUS stated-

The other claim is that they were denied trial "by the same courts and according
to the same procedure as in the case of persons belonging to the armed forces of
the detaining Power," required by Article 63 of the Convention. It may be noted
that no prejudicial disparity is pointed out as between the Commission that
tried prisoners and those that would try an offending soldier of the American
forces of like rank.

Although the specific procedures aren't mentioned, that fact that the court didn't find a significant difference between the commission in question and one that would try American soldiers suggests that, unlike the commissions in Gitmo, the one here made the minimal standards of a fair hearing. Which brings us to the subject of Justice Roberts's dissent.

CCR and ACLU on Boumediene

2008-06-14T03:08:00.005-04:00

I thought I'd just pass this on. It is an analysis of the decision by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The ACLU website also has a history of the Gitmo issue. It starts here.

Constitution 3, Gitmo 0

2008-06-12T21:58:00.002-04:00

In Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court held that the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus does apply to Gitmo detainees. The opinion, written by Kennedy, was 5-4 with a concurrence by Souter and dissents by Roberts and Scalia.

SCOTUS first held that the Military Commissions Act did strip the federal courts of habeas jurisdiction over Gitmo. Although Congress could, and did, remove any statutory right to habeas, it could only remove the constitutional right pursuant to the language covering suspension of the writ--invasion or rebellion.

The big issue was whether that applied to Gitmo. SCOTUS looked at prior cases, The Insular Cases, Reid v. Covert and Johnson v. Eisntrager, and drew from them the conclusion that the question of application of the writ turned on pragmatic questions rather than a determination of who was the formal sovereign. Specifically, on the extent to which US power over the site of the detention excluded any other legal jurisdiction. For example, Eisentrager hinged on the practical problems of producing the prisoners. There was also the fact that the US occupation force in Germany operated under an Allied command, not a US one and that the plan was ultimately to turn power back over to Germany. In Gitmo, the Cubans have been boxed out for over a century. Further, any practical difficulties in applying the habeas writ that had been dispositive in the earlier cases didn't apply in Gitmo.

The court then held that the limited appellate process that the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) assigned for overview of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) was not an adequate substitute for the habeas writ in that it didn't allow for admitting exculpatory evidence discovered after or review of the CSRT's findings of fact.

It's a surprisingly encouraging victory and I expect I'll be sending a celebratory check to the ACLU.

I think Scalia's dissent is the more amusing of the two. His assertions that the opinion "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed" and that "The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today" are exercises in hysterics rather than legal thought. His assertion that the military can't always tell who is a threat and who isn't (invoking stories of released Gitmo detainees killing people after release) is an argument for more civilian oversight, not less. If the military can't get it right, what innocent persons are being held as unlawful enemy combatants?

His dissent also ignores that, in Eisentrager, the holding that constitutional protections didn't apply to an alien enemy was distinguishable since no proper procedure had determined that the Gitmo detainees were enemies to begin with. The petitoners in Eisentrager were "active in the hostile service of an enemy power". Scalia embraces the assumption that Gitmo detainees are enemy aliens, when the enemy part is a key fact in dispute for each detainee.

Scalia also has no response to the implication of the opinion's argument that, if US protections don't apply, who has the jurisdiction? The United States is sovereign in Gitmo in all but name. This is also important since Eisentrager also relied on the petitoners never having been within US jurisdiction. Scalia would have us believe the administration's fiction that Gitmo is somehow a territory beyond the reach of anyone's authority.

He also ignores, as the opinion doesn't, Eisentrager's emphasis on the practical difficulties of effecting the habeas writ on the petitioners in that case.

Is David Brooks kidding?!?!

2008-06-10T20:47:00.007-04:00

In his column today, it seems that David Brooks wants to blame the sub-prime scandal and the increasing rich/poor inequality on a collapse of morals. He opines

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.

First, his history is way off. The United States has long had a history of financial bubbles, manias and panics--it is hardly a recent innovation. Speculation in the United States is older than the country itself, going back to bonds issued by the states to pay their soldiers during the Revolution. Speculators bought up many of these at a discount, leading to a controversy when Hamilton moved to enact Federal assumption of the various debt instruments out there as to whether they should be reimbursed at the face value of the bonds they had purchased at a discount. In fact, that prospect led to a speculative mania at the very onset of the New York Stock Exchange in bank notes and government debt instruments and first stock market crash in 1792.

Since then, there have been financial panics in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1869, 1873, 1892, 1907, 1929 (how could he have missed that!). The crash of 1869 was caused by an attempt by speculators to corner the gold market; those of 1857 and 1873 by railroad speculators. The crash of 1929 came after years of widespread stock speculation fueled by margin buying. These are hardly examples of thrift and frugality.

The so-called Gilded Age was marked by displays of wealth that matched what we had in the 1990s and that gave rise to the phrase "conspicuous consumption". The 1920s were proverbial for consumption ("The Great Gatsby") and an increase in inequality as workers suffered a decline in real wages. The boost in consumer purchases of new products was financed, therefore, by an increase in retail credit and consumer debt--another 90s parallel.

Indeed, the idea of the 1990s that new technologies and increases in productivity caused by better management techniques created a new economy that wasn't subject to the old rules had its parallel in the 1920s.

He should remember that this country wasn't just founded by Puritans. There were merchant adventurers in Virginia and New York. In Devil Take the Hindmost, Edward Chancellor observes that the colonial venture behind the settling of this country was a gamble of sorts. This is enhanced by the fact that, without an aristocracy of medieval vintage, status was more a function of wealth than birth.

Of course, by blaming a corruption of morals, Brooks can ignore the lack of government oversight or deregulatory measures such as the repeal of Glass-Steagall. He can ignore the fact that manias, panics and crashes, to evoke the title of Charles Kindleberger's book of the same name, have had a similar rhythm in American history and often were followed by regulatory and legal reform. It's so much easier to play the neo-con game and wail about contemporary society's fraying moral fiber. Too bad that it has a very scant basis in history.

Election prognostication, 2 of 2

2008-06-09T22:06:00.010-04:00

Here is Lichtman's take on the 2008 election. He predicted a Democratic victory. For a discussion of his theory, see my last post.

He stated that the mandate key (based on representation in the House) turned against the Republicans as a result of the 2006 election and that they wouldn't have the incumbency key. However, he also stated that the Republicans would lose the party contest key. In fact, McCain became the presumptive nominee early on in the campaign and has considerably more than 2/3s of the delegates.

He asserted that the Republicans lost the policy change key; and there haven't been any successful initiatives since then. Had Bush's immigration reform passed, perhaps that would've counted. Lichtman argued that Iraq cost Bush both the foreign policy failure key and the success key. I think this also has been overtaken by events. The surge can't be considered a strategic success by any means as there hasn't been any movement towards a political solution in Iraq. However, it has achieved tactical success and the tamping down of violence that it was a part of (though not the only part) does keep it off the radar of the voting public so that the failure key arguably won't turn against him. He still won't get the success key though.

He then argued that the Republicans wouldn't get the charisma/hero key. Although McCain deserves respect for what he went through as a POW, the hero key appears to tie in with people seen as a key part of a national success. Being a Vietnam POW doesn't meet that standard.

So of the six keys that Lichtman had turn against the Republicans in his October 2007 piece, events have intervened that only have four turn against them.

He has three keys that turn in the Republicans' favor. First, the lack of serious social unrest. Second, the lack of any major scandal. Things such as the torture discussion or the Plame incident simply didn't touch the White House. Arguably they should have but that isn't the political reality. Finally, he argued that the Democrats aren't likely to have anyone who turns the charisma key. That is borderline in my opinion. Certainly Obama has tremendous oratorical and political skills. Whether its on a par with a Roosevelt or a JFK is an interesting question.

Finally, he has three uncertain keys. First, the third-party key. He speculated about a Bloomberg candidacy. That won't happen but I have to wonder if Bob Barr's Libertarian campaign will draw off enough McCain supporters to reach the 5% mark. I think the presumption has to be no, but it is a rebuttable presumption.

Both economic keys were marked as uncertain by him. I believe that they turn against the Republicans. Regarding the recession key; whether we will technically be in a recession is less important than the public perception. CNN.com reported that the Conference Board's Employment Trends Index (ETI) indicated that the job market would continue to sink. Further, unemployment and job losses have risen this year. Consumer confidence is at its lowest level in 28 years. Here are some polls from pollingreport.com indicating the same trend.

Likewise, per capita GDP, although higher in Bush's second term than in his first, is still lower (and here) than the average of the last two terms. 4.7% average growth in Clinton's second term and 3.5% in Bush's first term for an average of 4.1%. The numbers I have for the last three years average out at 4.5. However, if the 2008 figure comes out at 2.5% or less, the second-term average would go below 4.1%. Even if we don't have a recession (negative growth), the slowing economy should come in below that number. I eagerly welcome any correction of these numbers.

To sum up, the mandate, incumbency, short-term economy, long-term economy, policy change, foreign/military success keys turn against the Republicans--hitting the six minimum needed to defeat the GOP. If Obama turns out to be charismatic enough to turn the charisma key or the Barr candidacy gets any traction (by third-party standards), it could be seven or eight.

Election prognostication, 1 of 2

2008-06-09T21:19:00.006-04:00

One of the more interesting books I've read is The Keys to the White House: A Surefire Guide to Predicting the Next President by Allan Lichtman. He and his co-author crunch a number of variables to ascertain which ones most reliably determined who would get more popular votes in a Presidential election. The thesis he derived from this is that such elections are a referendum on the party in power. He posited 13 keys and if 6 or more turn against the party in power, it will lose the popular vote. This system correlates 100% with Presidential elections from 1860 to 2004. Bear in mind that it predicts popular vote and thus didn't pick the actual winner for 1876 (the controversial Hayes-Tilden election, the Gilded Age counterpart to the 2000 race), 1884 and 2000.

The keys are divided into four groups:
The first four deal with the political strength of the party in power in the White House.

Does the party in the White House have more seats in the House after the midterm than it did in the last midterm?
Is there a serious contest for the nomination (serious contest being defined as the winner has less than 2/3s of the delegate vote). Interestingly, such a contest in the challenging party doesn't correlate with election results.
Is the sitting president running?
Is there a significant third-party campaign? Significant being defined as getting at least 5% of the vote.

The next seven deal with the incumbent party's performance.

Is the economy in recession during the campaign? This is more a question of perception of a recession than whether the economic agencies in question declare one. Indeed, such a declaration would not likely take place until after the election.
Per-capita growth in the current term against the average of the prior two terms.
Did the incumbent administration make major policy changes in the current term?
Was there significant social unrest? This has to be on the scale of the Red Scare of the 1920s or the riots of 1968.
Is the administration tainted by major scandal (think Teapot Dome or Watergate).
Did the administration suffer a major foreign policy failure?
Did the administration obtain a major foreign policy success?

The last two deal with the personality of the candidates.

Is the incumbent party candidate charismatic or a national hero?
Is the challenger either or both of these?

The standard here is quite high. For example, Grant and Eisenhower led victorious armies and obtained this advantage in elections occurring less than a decade afterwards. JFK and both Roosevelts had considerable charisma, as did Reagan.

Allan Lichtman did to an analysis of the keys as they could apply to 2008 in October 2007. In my next post, I'll discuss, and update, his analysis with my own take.

Obama in a blowout?

2008-06-08T14:51:00.000-04:00

There is a post on Alternet by one Gary Saperstein in which he predicts that Obama will win the presidential race in a blowout. He cites the generally bad political environment for Republicans, Obama's superior fund-raising and the idea that McCain will prove gaff-prone. He argues that Obama will end up with 300-350 electoral votes.

One of my recommended links is to RealClearPolitics.com. It IS a right-wing site but is tracking polling information in many of the battleground states and so is a good resource.

Ohio (20 Electoral Votes (EV)), Pennsylvania (21 EV), Wisconsin (10 EV), Iowa (7 EV), Missouri (11 EV), New Mexico (5 EV), Nevada (5 EV), Colorado (9 EV), Michigan (17 EV), New Hampshire (4 EV), Virginia (13 EV) and North Carolina (15 EV) all show only single-digit margins for one of the candidates, as does the nationwide popular vote total. That's 137 electoral votes total.

Interestingly enough, RCP doesn't have a polling list for Indiana, which surprisingly is also in play. Pollster.com has three late-April polls that show each with an eight-point lead and one statistical tie.

Given an element of racism that some voters will have; given the snit that some Clinton votes will still be in and given that some of the God, guns and gays crowd will support McCain, I wouldn't feel terribly comfortable predicting a blowout, although I do feel the trend favors Obama.

Just a tad imperial

2008-06-08T11:12:00.000-04:00

All the ostensible progress in Iraq isn't going to offset this. It's an article in The Independent (by the invaluable Patrick Cockburn) on how the US is using its hold over $50 billion in Iraqi assets to get an agreement that would allow the US to maintain bases, 150,000 troops and legal immunity for US soldiers and contractors (read "mercenaries").

There is some time sensitivity here as the UN Security Council mandate that covers the U.S. military presence expires on June 15. The Chinese and the Russians are unlikely to smile upon a renewal of that mandate.

One interesting wrinkle is the administration's argument that this is an agreement rather than a treaty, and therefore doesn't require Senate approval. Although Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA) themselves generally don't require Senate approval, they also usually take place in the framework of a treaty that does (NATO, the defense agreement with South Korea). Certainly, it would be difficult to argue that an agreement that doesn't directly get Senate approval or isn't derived from a Senate-approved agreement (i.e., a treaty), would be at all binding on the incoming administration.

ICG on Iraq, de-Ba'aathification

2008-06-08T02:51:00.000-04:00

I neglected to mention the ICG report's take on the Iraqi legislation passed in January 2008 that ostensibly addresses the sweeping de-Ba'athification implemented during the CPA regime. Although some neo-cons (I'm thinking of a Wm. Kristol column) touted this as an advance, there are problems with it.

First, party officials above a certain rank were forced into retirement. Although that was sweetened with a pension, it doesn't change the fact that you have a Sunni constituency that won't have its members in the higher positions of the bureaucracy. Even the lower-level functionaries have to face a lifetime of the threat of civil suits (no statute of limitations).

International Crisis Group take on Iraq

2008-06-07T14:25:00.000-04:00

I'll start with something fairly simple, just to get in the habit of this blog. A think-tank called the International Crisis Group (ICG) did two reports on the Sunni's apparent switch-over from the insurgency.

The first dealt the Sunnis themselves. The reports acknowledges the improved counter-insurgency capabilities of US forces but points out that much of the Sunni tribes change was in response to the high-handedness and brutality of Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI). The US push against AQI did facilitate this in that its damage to AQI leadership did lead to a breakdown in discipline, however AQI's agenda would seem to have put it on a collision course with the Sunni tribes notwithstanding. Specifically, its methodology and the clash between its ambition of an Islamic state and Sunni nationalism.

The report continued to argue that the tactical changes are potentially transient and contingent upon the long-term political fixes that the surge. Further, the arming of Sunni tribes creates a more powerful non-state actor--a potentially huge complication should the current marriage of convenience break down.

At best, the surge's ostensible success would seem to have consisted of facilitating independently existing developments; at worst, it has produced strategically barren gains.

The strategic aim of the surge was to provide a space that would permit a political solution among the Iraq factions. The claims of its success based on the very real reduction in violence confound means and ends. This may very well be consistent with what I suspect is the unspoken political aim of the surge, which was to get the Iraq issue of the front pages until after the election.

International Crisis Group take on Iraq, part 2

2008-06-07T11:31:00.001-04:00

The ICQ's companion report discusses the four main areas where a political reconciliation would need to happen: Hydrocarbons legislation, resolution of the federalism issue, provincial elections and de-Ba'athification. One interesting point is how what is perceived by some as sectarian warfare is actually a group of intra-communal conflicts.

No bill regarding developing Iraqi oil resources has been passed. One part of the controversy involves who has the ultimate say in signing off on oil contracts in an area. This ties in to the Arab-Kurdish divide over the demarcation of the Kurdish region. There has been no significant progress in either.

Further, the ISCI (former SCIRI) and Kurd factions insist on extreme decentralization and have dragged their feet on provincial elections that may erode their current power. In response to its own question about the possibility of compromise, the report concludes that "forces seem
diametrically opposed without a clear mechanism for resolving the question."

These problems may be resolvable, but it's important to note that any security gains to which the surge may have contributed were supposed to be a means, not an end.