Sunday, January 25, 2004

Bush goes AWOL in 2003--and takes the country with him   Michael Moore and others argue that Bush went AWOL in the 1970s while he was in the National Guard. Now Bush is going AWOL again—and this time he’s taking the country with him. The US, alas,  has gone AWOL from the global community. We’ve become  A one-note superpower , worries Fareed Zakaria. A   funny thing has happened. While the war on terrorism has dominated the headlines, the great engine of globalization has kept moving. rewarding some, punishing others, but always keeping up the pressure by increasing human contact, communication and competition. For almost every country today, its primary struggle centers on globalization issues—growth, poverty eradication, disease prevention, education, urbanization, the preservation of identity. On all these, America is now largely silent. "It's not that we don't worry about terrorism," a head of government (of a pro-American country) said to me. But for him, as for other leaders, it's not how he sees the world: "I have to grapple with a different set of issues. And I have the feeling that the United States has gone off into its own universe and cannot hear or say anything to me about my problems." There is a disconnect between America and the world. While Washington worries about traditional problems of empire—disorder on the periphery—there is a new globalizing world slowly taking shape, in search of leadership.   Not only does the current administration show no inclination to lead, but they haven’t even taken the dimensions of the emerging new battlefield. Bush & Co. are otherwise engaged: running up deficits, cooking the intelligence books, insulting the rest of the world, compelling our top stem cell research scientist  to relocate to Britain, trashing the environment, and substituting crony capitalism for entrepreneurship. This time, Mr. Bush, the price tag for going AWOL is enormous—and we’re all going to end up paying for it.   The nothing-if-not-controversial Moore recently endorsed Wesley Clark for president. During a presidential debate in New Hampshire, presenter Peter Jennings asked Clark about his failure to distance himself from Moore’s AWOL accusations. Clark, to his credit, tried to shift the emphasis from the 1970s back to Bush’s more recent derelictions of duty, such as the administration’s lack of post-war planning.   The 1970 AWOL saga, concerning the alleged misdeeds of one young man in 1970, was covered by the Boston Globe and several other publications in 2000. But Bush & Company’s current AWOL problem goes deeper—and cries out for media coverage. Also, it would be a powerful talking point for Moore and his candidate-of-choice Clark.       6:16:32 AM

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

A Fantasy Press Conference with Dubya   Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Did a senior official blow the cover of a CIA operative because her husband revealed some politically inconvenient facts? Who was the culprit, and why didn’t Bush demand to know who he or she was? Who met with Dick Cheney and his national energy policy taskforce back in 2001? Why did it take 13 months to launch an investigation into the 9/11 attacks, 74 days to launch an investigation into the leak that blew the cover of a CIA agent, and 24 hours to launch an investigation into Paul O'Neill? Is American democracy  an open form of government where information is public, or is there such an overwhelming need for secrecy that criticism or dissent should be considered unpatriotic? Does the Bush family have a conflict of interest in Middle Eastern matters? Why was the opening portion of the preliminary report on causes of 9/11—which concerned Saudi Arabia—blacked out?  The goal the United States hopes to reach in Iraq -- a successful counterinsurgency that does not drag on for years and does not involve a large amount of killing -- has never been achieved by any army in history. Why will it succeed this time? Why is the government withholding names and other details about hundreds of foreigners who were detained in the months after the  September 11,  2001 attacks?  Why did the White House tell the EPA  to downplay concerns about  air quality  and toxic contamination in lower Manhattan following 911? Am I more or less likely to believe in the veracity of future government-agency reports? Why did the administration edit out material about global warming from an EPA report? Why did the government remove from the  U.S. Agency for International Development Web site remarks by an administration official that had badly understated the cost of Iraqi reconstruction after 911? What would George Orwell say about this? If this government tells me I have nothing to fear from the US beef supply and Mad Cow disease, should I believe them? If we’re in an economic recovery, where are the jobs? (Total employment fell last year by 331,000 on top of a 1.5 million drop in 2002.) The last time employment, as measured by the survey of 400,000 establishments, declined for two consecutive years was in 1944 and 1945 as war production wound down.) Is prosperity, as Herbert Hoover constantly assured the American people, “just around the corner?” Why did a recent IMF (International Monetary Fund) report warn that the U.S. deficit and proclivity for borrowing will drive up interest rates around the world, thereby threatening the global economic  recovery and U.S. productivity growth? Is it possible to invade a country and impose democracy in a place where nothing like it has ever existed before? Can you think of a comparable example in history? If the administration was unable to persuade such familiar institutions as the U.N. Security Council or the established governments of France, Germany, Turkey, Russia, China—even Canada that the Iraq invasion was justified last March, then how did it expect to handle Iraq's feuding opposition groups, Kurdish separatists, and myriad ethno-religious factions, to say nothing of the turbulence throughout the region? For 1991 Desert Storm, the U.S. footed 1/10 of the cost; our allies picked up the remaining tab. For the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom adventure, do you think the U.S. has the budgetary resources, the military manpower, the international legitimacy (especially in the region), and the political wherewithal to go all the way to the finish line alone?    1:14:11 PM

Monday, December 29, 2003

Unseal those records, Dr. Dean   The bad news is the probable victory of George W. Bush in November. The good news is that a probability is not a certainty. So what are the issues-of-opportunity for Democrats?   My own big-three are foreign policy/national security, the loss of high-quality jobs, and the increase in government secrecy.  Trashing the public’s right to know could be a powerful talking point for Democrats—but not if their own guy is easily tarred with the same brush. I’m speaking, of course, about Democratic frontrunner Howard  Dean and his decision to keep his Vermont governorship records under lock and key till 2013.   "Well, there are future political considerations,” Dean told Vermont Public Radio last  January. “You wouldn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor," he said of his decision to seal the records from prying, supposedly-partisan eyes.   Yeah, right. "The last place you want to be is in the post-nomination period when you haven't fielded the best candidate,” said Joe Lockhart, White House press secretary in the Clinton administration. “My point all along is not that Dean’s not the best candidate, but that for whatever reason, it doesn't feel like we've resolved all this. I think it's important for the party as a whole that the process raises the right questions and the candidates give the right answers.” One of the right questions concerns how government decisions get made and vetted in post-9/11 America. Under the Bush administration, millions of government documents -- including many historical records previously available -- have been removed from the public domain. Inquiring minds still want to know who participated in Dick Cheney’s energy policy task two years ago. Hint: It wasn’t California Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose January 2000 requests to meet with administration higher-ups to resolve California’s energy woes were conspicuously ignored.   Why did the administration wait two weeks before disclosing that Bremer's convoy was under attack in Iraq? Was it to make conditions over there look better than they actually were?   And why does the administration balk over releasing 9/11 information? We can't fix the problem unless we understand what caused it. As a self-anointed  spokesperson for the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party, Dean, I assume, does not support removing valuable information from the public domain and running a closed government that doesn't brook criticism. But how do I know he doesn’t suffer from the same secrecy itch that ails the current administration? By unsealing his governorship papers now rather than in 2013, Dean would go a long away toward  underscoring his commitment to open government and the public’s right to know. By way of disclosure, I’m a banner-carrying member of the Wes Clark 2004 campaign. But as a realist of the anyone-but-Bush persuasion, I want the Democrat running next November to have the best possible chance against the incumbent. Since that Democrat will most likely be Dean, I implore Deaniacs to persuade their man to unseal those records—and do it now.     12:06:40 PM

Friday, November 28, 2003

9:10:06 AM

Sunday, November 16, 2003

Sometimes the pundits are right They warned me about the Clark campaign--and it seems that they were right. There's a learning curve--and he's a novice. A baseball season is different from post-season play. The long season gives rookies a chance to slump, stumble, fumble and recover. Before he was running, Clark was fabulous on Meet the Press. But the interviewer was throwing softballs then. It was also before that infamous interview--after Clark declared--with 4 heavy-hitting journalists during an airplane ride. Clark relaxed and philosophized--as he might have with military reporters when he was a general--and came across as an amateurish waffler. He's still warm and impressive one-on-one--and stilted in press interviews. He has yet to find that middle ground--between spilling your guts and coming across guarded. Joe Biden has it exactly right--after years of practice--and he's not running. So after this morning's MTP interview, I'll probably quit the clark campaign. Next question: Is there any way whatsoever to turn the Dean campaign into a mainstream one that showcases a party with some international-affairs savvy? Would Hart, Gore and Clark go to work for clark asap to convey a different image? Dems rail against notions of bipartisanship--whether it's Bloomberg, Schwartzenegger or clark who's doing the talking--but it's that politically-induced carping and negative advertising that turns so many people off--and keeps them from going to the polls--or so we're told by poly sci professors. 5:53:41 AM

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Muckraking is back! As a history major, I'm accustomed to reading and thinking about the past. Getting to relive it is another story entirely. Why shell out for a time machine or bother to invent one, when life under the current administration is a return to the pre-Teddy Roosevelt era of robber barons, Mark Hanna, President McKinley, and the railroad tycoons? There's plenty of muck to rake, Paul Krugman assures us, in his 11/20/03 NY Review of Books piece on muckraking books and authors.    We're living in a replay of the Gilded Age, in which robber barons openly bought and sold government officials and their policies. And just as the Gilded Age brought forth a golden age of muckraking, our modern descent into money politics has brought forth a new wave of outraged reporters. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose are worthy heirs of an honorable tradition.  Despite the volume-length carpings of all those liberal authors, there are plenty of anecdotes to go around.   You might think that with all the books out there—Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Joe Conason's Big Lies, David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush, and even my own column collection—there would be a lot of repetition. Yet the Bush era provides, as my New York Times colleague Thomas Friedman says, a "target-rich environment." While there is some overlap between the liberal books of this fall, each book focuses on a different piece of the picture. Toxic waste, the Enron ripoff, corporations that write policy rather than merely influencing it (read energy taskforce Cheney held a few years ago. He still refuses to release the notes and attendance list for those meetings) 6:46:28 AM

Monday, November 10, 2003

Damage control is futile  The Clark campaign is doomed. It hit me as I was reading this week's profile on Clark's military career in the New Yorker, it occurred to me that there's no way of refuting this he-said/she-said verbiage. The military, alas, like the CIA or FBI, has too much classified information, too many scruples about talking out, and it becomes an endless back-and-forth of who-to-believe-and-why. G.H. Bush was head of the CIA but by the time he was elected president, he had also been VP. It would have been impractical for him to run based solely on his secret CIA experience. Clark's sole claim to legitimacy as a presidential candidate is his military experience. It won't wash. I realize that now. That leaves Kerry (a non-starter), Edwards (whose campaign seems to be going nowhere) and Dean (who lacks foreign policy and national security experience and comes across as an angry, middle-aged liberal). So batten down the hatches. . .It's Dubya again in 2004--without or without Dark Princes Cheney and Wolfowitz of Arabia. 4:46:38 AM