Another Economic Disconnect: PAUL KRUGMAN - Profit Gusher

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Another Economic Disconnect

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 30, 2007

In the Bush years high profits haven’t led to high investment, and rising productivity hasn’t led to rising wages.

Last fall Edward Lazear, the Bush administration’s top economist, explained that what’s good for corporations is good for America. “Profits,” he declared, “provide the incentive for physical capital investment, and physical capital growth contributes to productivity growth. Thus profits are important not only for investors but also for the workers who benefit from the growth in productivity.”

In other words, ask not for whom the closing bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Unfortunately, these days none of what Mr. Lazear said seems to be true. In the Bush years high profits haven’t led to high investment, and rising productivity hasn’t led to rising wages.

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Diplomacy at Its Worst: NICHOLAS KRISTOF

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By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: April 29, 2007

A document shows that there was a real hope for peace with Iran; now there is a real danger of war.

In May 2003, Iran sent a secret proposal to the U.S. for settling our mutual disputes in a “grand bargain.”

It is an astonishing document, for it tries to address a range of U.S. concerns about nuclear weapons, terrorism and Iraq. I’ve placed it and related documents (including multiple drafts of it) on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground.

Hard-liners in the Bush administration killed discussions of a deal, and interviews with key players suggest that was an appalling mistake. There was a real hope for peace; now there is a real danger of war.

Scattered reports of the Iranian proposal have emerged previously, but if you read the full documentary record you’ll see that what the hard-liners killed wasn’t just one faxed Iranian proposal but an entire peace process. The record indicates that officials from the repressive, duplicitous government of Iran pursued peace more energetically and diplomatically than senior Bush administration officials — which makes me ache for my country.

The process began with Afghanistan in 2001-2. Iran and the U.S., both opponents of the Taliban, cooperated closely in stabilizing Afghanistan and providing aid, and unofficial “track two” processes grew to explore opportunities for improved relations.

On the U.S. side, track two involved well-connected former U.S. ambassadors, including Thomas Pickering, Frank Wisner and Nicholas Platt. The Iranian ambassador to the U.N., Javad Zarif, was a central player, as was an Iranian-American professor at Rutgers, Hooshang Amirahmadi, who heads a friendship group called the American Iranian Council.

At a dinner the council sponsored for its board at Ambassador Zarif’s home in September 2002, the group met Iran’s foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi. According to the notes of Professor Amirahmadi, the foreign minister told the group, “Yes, we are ready to normalize relations,” provided the U.S. made the first move.

This was shaping into a historic opportunity to heal U.S.-Iranian relations, and the track two participants discussed further steps, including joint U.S.-Iranian cooperation against Saddam Hussein. The State Department and National Security Council were fully briefed, and in 2003 Ambassador Zarif met with two U.S. officials, Ryan Crocker and Zalmay Khalilzad, in a series of meetings in Paris and Geneva.

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All the President’s Press: FRANK RICH - The Press’s Failures

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All the President’s Press

By FRANK RICH

Published: April 29, 2007

The White House correspondents’ dinner has become a crystallization of the press’s failures in the post-9/11 era.

SOMEHOW it’s hard to imagine David Halberstam yukking it up with Alberto Gonzales, Paul Wolfowitz and two discarded “American Idol” contestants at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Before there was a Woodward and Bernstein, there was Halberstam, still not yet 30 in the early 1960s, calling those in power to account for lying about our “progress” in Vietnam. He did so even though J.F.K. told the publisher of The Times, “I wish like hell that you’d get Halberstam out of there.” He did so despite public ridicule from the dean of that era’s Georgetown punditocracy, the now forgotten columnist (and Vietnam War cheerleader) Joseph Alsop.

It was Alsop’s spirit, not Halberstam’s, that could be seen in C-Span’s live broadcast of the correspondents’ dinner last Saturday, two days before Halberstam’s death in a car crash in California. This fete is a crystallization of the press’s failures in the post-9/11 era: it illustrates how easily a propaganda-driven White House can enlist the Washington news media in its shows. Such is literally the case at the annual dinner, where journalists serve as a supporting cast, but it has been figuratively true year-round. The press has enabled stunts from the manufactured threat of imminent “mushroom clouds” to “Saving Private Lynch” to “Mission Accomplished,” whose fourth anniversary arrives on Tuesday. For all the recrimination, self-flagellation and reforms that followed these journalistic failures, it’s far from clear that the entire profession yet understands why it has lost the public’s faith.

That state of denial was center stage at the correspondents’ dinner last year, when the invited entertainer, Stephen Colbert, “fell flat,” as The Washington Post summed up the local consensus. To the astonishment of those in attendance, a funny thing happened outside the Beltway the morning after: the video of Mr. Colbert’s performance became a national sensation. (Last week it was still No. 2 among audiobook downloads on iTunes.) Washington wisdom had it that Mr. Colbert bombed because he was rude to the president. His real sin was to be rude to the capital press corps, whom he caricatured as stenographers. Though most of the Washington audience failed to find the joke funny, Americans elsewhere, having paid a heavy price for the press’s failure to challenge White House propaganda about Iraq, laughed until it hurt.

You’d think that l’affaire Colbert would have led to a little circumspection, but last Saturday’s dinner was another humiliation. And not just because this year’s entertainer, an apolitical nightclub has-been (Rich Little), was a ludicrously tone-deaf flop. More appalling — and symptomatic of the larger sycophancy — was the press’s insidious role in President Bush’s star turn at the event.

It’s the practice on these occasions that the president do his own comic shtick, but this year Mr. Bush made a grand show of abstaining, saying that the killings at Virginia Tech precluded his being a “funny guy.” Any civilian watching on TV could formulate the question left hanging by this pronouncement: Why did the killings in Iraq not preclude his being a “funny guy” at other press banquets we’ve watched on C-Span? At the equivalent Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association gala three years ago, the president contributed an elaborate (and tasteless) comic sketch about his failed search for Saddam’s W.M.D.

But the revelers in the ballroom last Saturday could not raise that discrepancy and challenge Mr. Bush’s hypocrisy; they could only clap. And so they served as captive dress extras in a propaganda stunt, lending their credibility to the president’s sanctimonious exploitation of the Virginia Tech tragedy for his own political self-aggrandizement on national television. Meanwhile the war was kept as tightly under wraps as the troops’ coffins.

By coincidence, this year’s dinner occurred just before a Congressional hearing filled in some new blanks in the still incomplete story of a more egregious White House propaganda extravaganza: the Pat Tillman hoax. As it turns out, the correspondents’ dinner played an embarrassing cameo role in it, too.

What the hearing underscored was the likelihood that the White House also knew very early on what the Army knew and covered up: the football star’s supposed death in battle in Afghanistan, vividly described in a Pentagon press release awarding him a Silver Star, was a complete fabrication, told to the world (and Tillman’s parents) even though top officers already suspected he had died by friendly fire. The White House apparently decided to join the Pentagon in maintaining that lie so that it could be milked for P.R. purposes on two television shows, the correspondents’ dinner on May 1, 2004, and a memorial service for Tillman two days later.

The timeline of events in the week or so leading up to that dinner is startling. Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004. By the next day top officers knew he had not been killed by enemy fire. On April 29, a top special operations commander sent a memo to John Abizaid, among other generals, suggesting that the White House be warned off making specific public claims about how Tillman died. Simultaneously, according to an e-mail that surfaced last week, a White House speechwriter contacted the Pentagon to gather information about Tillman for use at the correspondents’ dinner.

When President Bush spoke at the dinner at week’s end, he followed his jokes with a eulogy about Tillman’s sacrifice. But he kept the circumstances of Tillman’s death vague, no doubt because the White House did indeed get the message that the Pentagon’s press release about Tillman’s losing his life in battle was fiction. Yet it would be four more weeks before Pat Tillman’s own family was let in on the truth.

To see why the administration wanted to keep the myth going, just look at other events happening in the week before that correspondents’ dinner. On April 28, 2004, CBS broadcast the first photographs from Abu Ghraib; on April 29 a poll on The Times’s front page found the president’s approval rating on the war was plummeting; on April 30 Ted Koppel challenged the administration’s efforts to keep the war dead hidden by reading the names of the fallen on “Nightline.” Tillman could be useful to help drown out all this bad news, and to an extent he was. The Washington press corps that applauded the president at the correspondents’ dinner is the same press corps that was slow to recognize the importance of Abu Ghraib that weekend and, as documented by a new study, “When the Press Fails” (University of Chicago Press), even slower to label the crimes as torture.

In his PBS report last week about the journalism breakdown before the war, Bill Moyers said that “the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush administration to go to war on false pretenses.” That’s not universally true; a number of news organizations have owned up to their disasters and tried to learn from them. Yet old habits die hard: for too long the full weight of the scandal in the Gonzales Justice Department eluded some of the Washington media pack, just as Abu Ghraib and the C.I.A. leak case did.

After last weekend’s correspondents’ dinner, The Times decided to end its participation in such events. But even were the dinner to vanish altogether, it remains but a yearly televised snapshot of the overall syndrome. The current White House, weakened as it is, can still establish story lines as fake as “Mission Accomplished” and get a free pass.

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The Next Sam Zell? Howard Milstein Buys Into the Times

NYT's sales keep dropping, but the Israel Lobby holds on to the paper. The rah-rah for the destruction of Iraq, the devastation of Somalia, and the smearing of Iran will continue.
---
Apr 19 2007 2:58PM EDT

As the New York Times Company braces for a shareholder revolt at its annual meeting scheduled for April 24, Chairman Arthur Sulzberger may have found a potential lifeline: billionaire Howard Milstein.

Milstein, the C.E.O. of Emigrant Bancorp--the privately held New York bank with a history stretching back to 1850 and assets of $15 billion--bought 6 million shares of the New York Times Company in December, according to S.E.C. filings. He is now the sixth largest institutional shareholder with a 4.3 percent stake in the Times Company worth $150 million.

A person with knowledge of Milstein's investment said Milstein is an ally of Sulzberger. Before making the investment, Milstein called Sulzberger and said he was making a friendly investment in the Times, this person said. Another source said that while Milstein's investment is friendly, he is putting money into the Times Company as a long-term value play.

Milstein is the latest shareholder to emerge as a player in the proxy fight championed by Hassan Elmasry of Morgan Stanley Investment Management that is seeking to unseat Arthur Sulzberger's control of the paper.

The appearance of Milstein comes as the New York Times Company reported first quarter earnings results today, and a 9.9 percent decline in operating profit.

Milstein declined to comment. John R. Hart, vice chairman and treasurer of Emigrant Bancorp, declined to comment on the investment.

Times Company spokesperson Catherine Mathis, said: "We're delighted Mr. Milstein sees potential in the shares of the New York Times Company."

Still, Milstein's presence as the Times Company's sixth largest institutional shareholder is the latest twist in a deepening feud between Sulzberger and hostile shareholders, including Elmasry of Morgan Stanley, and Private Capital Management's Bruce Sherman.

In April, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis both issued reports recommending that New York Times Company stockholders withhold their votes for the board of director nominees at this month's annual meeting.

Recently, Sherman placed a call to Milstein seeking comment on his intentions but the call went unreturned.

With Milstein's support of the Sulzberger family, one theory is that with access to Emigrant Bancorp's financing, the Sulzbergers, perhaps teaming up with private equity investor Steven Rattner, could take the Times private.

If so, this wouldn't be the first flamboyant investment for Milstein. The 56-year-old Bronx-bred billionaire is the heir to one of New York's largest family real-estate fortunes that was ripped apart by an internecine struggle.

A media play for the New York Times would parallel other high-profile ventures Milstein has made over the years. In the 1990s, he owned the New York Islanders hockey team (he sold the franchise for $190 million in 2000), and in 1998, he made an unsuccessful $800 million bid for the Washington Redskins football team, then a record price offered for an NFL team.

by Gabriel Sherman

Gilded Once More: PAUL KRUGMAN

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Gilded Once More

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 27, 2007

We’ve gone back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s.

One of the distinctive features of the modern American right has been nostalgia for the late 19th century, with its minimal taxation, absence of regulation and reliance on faith-based charity rather than government social programs. Conservatives from Milton Friedman to Grover Norquist have portrayed the Gilded Age as a golden age, dismissing talk of the era’s injustice and cruelty as a left-wing myth.

Well, in at least one respect, everything old is new again. Income inequality — which began rising at the same time that modern conservatism began gaining political power — is now fully back to Gilded Age levels.

Consider a head-to-head comparison. We know what John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in Gilded Age America, made in 1894, because in 1895 he had to pay income taxes. (The next year, the Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional.) His return declared an income of $1.25 million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United States at the time.

But that makes him a mere piker by modern standards. Last year, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, James Simons, a hedge fund manager, took home $1.7 billion, more than 38,000 times the average income. Two other hedge fund managers also made more than $1 billion, and the top 25 combined made $14 billion.

How much is $14 billion? It’s more than it would cost to provide health care for a year to eight million children — the number of children in America who, unlike children in any other advanced country, don’t have health insurance.

The hedge fund billionaires are simply extreme examples of a much bigger phenomenon: every available measure of income concentration shows that we’ve gone back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s.

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A Hostage Situation: PAUL KRUGMAN - Iraq Funding

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A Hostage Situation

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 23, 2007

In response to a confrontation over financing for the Iraq surge, President Bush is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders.

There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.

If this were a normal political dispute, Democrats in Congress would clearly hold the upper hand: by a huge margin, Americans say they want a timetable for withdrawal, and by a large margin they also say they trust Congress, not Mr. Bush, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.

But this isn’t a normal political dispute. Mr. Bush isn’t really trying to win the argument on the merits. He’s just betting that the people outside the barricade care more than he does about the fate of those innocent bystanders.

What’s at stake right now is the latest Iraq “supplemental.” Since the beginning, the administration has refused to put funding for the war in its regular budgets. Instead, it keeps saying, in effect: “Whoops! Whaddya know, we’re running out of money. Give us another $87 billion.”

At one level, this is like the behavior of an irresponsible adolescent who repeatedly runs through his allowance, each time calling his parents to tell them he’s broke and needs extra cash.

...

...Mr. Bush’s refusal to face up to the failure of his Iraq adventure, his apparent determination to spend the rest of his term in denial, has become a clear and present danger to national security.

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Ridiculous NYT and Pentagon claims of Shiite Iranian arms going to Sunnis

April 18, 2007

When all else fails, blame Iran (Part II)

Posted by Scott Harrop at April 18, 2007 11:47 PM

Matters must be really deteriorating in Afghanistan. Why else would the Pentagon brass now be darkly suggesting that Iranian arms have been "captured," supposedly on their way to the Taliban? It sounds suspiciously like the tired old formula; when matters go really bad somewhere in the Middle East, change the subject and blame Iran.

Michael R. Gordon today is competing yet again to be chief salesman for such ominous news. Media bloggers have taken to deeming him the resident "ghost of Judith Miller" at the New York Times, the journalist most willing to "take out Cheney’s trash."

Lately, Gordon has been quite active in reviving support for getting tougher on Iran.

Last week, I commented here on the Pentagon's odd claim that Iran was now not only supporting Iraqi Shia insurgents, but Sunni fighters as well. On February 10th, it was Michael R. Gordon who had started the latest round of Iran-as-the-source-of-trouble-in-Iraq" with a front-page "scoop" that breathlessly cited un-named US sources to contend that Iran was intentionally providing deadly munitions to kill Americans. Gordon's follow-up report generously allowed his sources to defend their claims amid the "controversy," which even a NYTimes editorial criticized. (Amazingly, that editorial neglected to mention that it was their own reporter - Gordon - who catalyzed the controversy).

Like Judy Miller, Gordon has long specialized in providing red meat for neoconservative circles.

Last November, it was Michael R. Gordon reporting that "Iran-backed" Hizbullah was training Iraqi Shia fighters. And throughout the fall, Gordon filed one “report” after another citing "experts" and "analysts" cautioning against quick withdrawal from Iraq, then condemning the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (particularly the idea to talk to Iraq’s neighbors), and then advocating a "surge" of more troops into Iraq.

Back in 2002, it was Michael R. Gordon who wrote regularly with Judith Miller about Iraqi WMD capabilities, most infamously about the aluminum tubes presumed for Iraq's nuclear program. The obvious intent of such articles was to drum up support for invading Iraq sooner rather than later.

The New York Times flagellated itself last year for such bad reporting, and specifically cited the Miller-Gordon "tubes" story as one of the worst examples. Yet Michael R. Gordon remains the Times' lead "military" correspondent.

In a contentious interview last year with Amy Goodman, Gordon curiously claimed that he was merely a recorder of the best intelligence and analysis available (pre-Iraq invasion) and that later "dissenters" had not contacted him.

That's a curious defense. Shouldn't the reporters be the ones casting about for different views?

Gordon may have thought himself funny when he told Goodman: "I'm actually not Judy Miller." !

Really?

Today, the NYTimes designates none other than Michael R. Gordon to tell us that Iran is supporting the Taliban (sic) in Afghanistan. That's right, Iran is now accused of sending arms to the Taliban, Iran's mortal arch-enemy.

In 2000, then Bush advisor Condoleze Rice well-illustrated her lack of Middle East credentials (coming into office) when she confidently told the Washington Post that the Taliban were "clients" of Iran. The media has largely forgotten that absurd gaffe.

Now, thanks to Michael R. Gordon, we have insinuations floating that by golly, maybe Condi Rice was “right” all along.

Not!

By Gordon's (very low) "standards," his report on the alleged Iran-Taliban link is relatively tame:

First, this time he has a named source at the top: Joint Chiefs’ Chair, Peter Pace, who said simply, “We have intercepted weapons in Afghanistan headed for the Taliban that were made in Iran.” Gordon also included Pace's caution that, “It’s not as clear in Afghanistan which Iranian entity is responsible.”

About half of Gordon’s report about Iran in Afghanistan repeats Gordon's claims about Iran's alleged involvement in Iraqi (sic) mayhem. But Gordon lamely notes that Iran's role in Afghanistan has been more "complicated," noting past Iranian clashes with the Taliban, Iran's support of the Afghan Northern Alliance (which resisted the Taliban), and Iran's firm, cooperative role establishing the current Karzai government.

Gordon manages to find one scholar, Barnett Rubin, to lend a plausible, yet highly speculative argument that Iran, or some element therein, might be consciously interested in supporting their mortal foe - the Taliban.

"The Iranians believe the No. 1 threat is an American attack to overthrow their government. They may do anything it takes to make the United States and its allies uncomfortable there.”

Gordon doesn't bother quoting any of those observers who would counter that Iran has little, if any, interest in supporting the Taliban or the Iraqi Sunni insurgents. No doubt Gordon might again disingenuously claim that no such "dissenters" contacted him.

AP even worse:

Robert Burns, an AP military correspondent, has the "distinction" for out-hyping Gordon. Burns cites two unreliable sources to magnify the Pace claim. First, Burns quotes Mohammad Mohaddessin, a spokesman for the "National Council of Resistance of Iran" (aka the "People's Mujahedin") who claims that,

"Export of fundamentalism and terrorism to neighboring and Islamic countries has been one of the pillars of the clerical regime's foreign policy - something that the Iranian resistance has warned about for the past two decades."

With respect to Iran's ties to Afghanistan, such a black and white statement is ridiculous -- as even Michael Gordon's report should demonstrate. Burns also doesn't mention that the NCR/PMOI is still on the State Department's terrorist list.

Burns also trots out Michael Rubin, now of the neoconservative bastion at the American Enterprise Institute. Rubin attempts to debunk any suggestion that Iran might have ever played a constructive role in Afghanistan, deeming any Iranian efforts to increase its influence in Afghanistan as nefariously aimed at America....

"Iran's leadership often strikes pragmatic relationships to further their influence at our expense... A lot of testimonials about Iranian assistance in Afghanistan are based more on wishful thinking than reality."

Rubin thus still sings the rigid tune of the neocon ideologue - that nothing good, by definition, can come out of Iran, short of regime change.

Not surprisingly, these reports from Gordon and Burns make no mention of far more likely and substantial sources of support for the Taliban – namely, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Guardian Stands out...:

Curiously, the Washington Post hasn't even bothered to report on the Pace claim - perhaps they saw it for what it was. In my searches thus far, only Britain's Guardian (April 19th edition) has cast a skeptical eye on the intended insinuation. Writing from his base in Kabul, Declan Walsh reports Pace's charge and then (unlike Burns & Gordon) runs a reality check with locals in Afghanistan:

First, he quotes Afghan General Mohiyadeen Ghori, commander of the 205th Corps stationed in Helmand, who said his troops had recovered Iranian-manufactured weapons from insurgents in Farah province, and that Iran was funding insurgents in Garmser district, where several British soldiers have died in heavy fighting.

However, General Ghori also indicates that such funds were being channelled through drug smugglers based in Iranian Baluchistan, and "All they are interested in is money."

Walsh closes his report with the following telling observation:

"Some western officials in Kabul treated the allegations of Taliban support with scepticism yesterday. One said Iranian weapons had been freely available on the black market since the 1990s, when Tehran shipped arms to groups fighting the Taliban. "Out of every 10 Kalashnikovs, one is Iranian," he said. "This is all a war of words. It has very little basis in reality."

Walsh's story also cites western officials suspecting that such charges "coincided with mounting speculation about possible US air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities."

Tehran Radio

Tehran Radio (VOIR in Persian - trans. BBC monitoring) earlier today broadcast a dismissal of the Pace allegations. Apart from noting the strong cultural bonds between Iran and Afghanistan which made an active Iranian presence "inevitable," the commentary noted that,

Iran is one of the few countries that have fulfilled its financial aid promises for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, and the measures Tehran has taken for the reconstruction of Afghanistan have all been important and effective.

As for accusations from America to the contrary,

"The military machine of America is stuck in the Afghan mountains and quagmires. In order to justify this situation, American has to blame others and attribute its own problems to foreign countries. There was no mention of Iran up until yesterday, but the more America is frustrated in Afghanistan, the more it focuses its psychological warfare on Iran. The statement of America's chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday is an example of this.

In short, when all else fails, blame Iran.

Tehran Radio also dabbled a bit in analyzing American politics:

The claim is concurrent with the pressures exerted by the Congress and America's public opinion for withdrawal from [Iraq?] and having constructive interaction with Iran. This can be interpreted as a new attempt to cause the Democrats in the Congress to fail in their move to approach Iran.

So that's what it's all about. Senator Webb, take notes.

Cupid and Cupidity: MAUREEN DOWD - Wolfie and Shaha

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Cupid and Cupidity

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: April 18, 2007

Never has a star-crossed romance so perfectly illuminated a star-crossed conflict as the unfolding saga of Wolfie and Shaha.

There have been many tender love stories in war.

Ike and Kay. Pamela Harriman and Edward R. Murrow. Aeneas and Dido. Achilles and his tent temptation, Patroclus.

But my favorite is the unfolding saga of Wolfie and Shaha. Never has a star-crossed romance so perfectly illuminated a star-crossed conflict.

The weekend meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were consumed with the question of how the bank chief could fight corruption while indulging in cronyism. Who could focus on a weak yen when you had a weak Wolfie with a strong yen for Shaha?

In addition to the story about Paul Wolfowitz’s giving his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, a promotion and a $60,000 raise because he felt guilty that she had to be transferred from the World Bank to the State Department when he took over, The Times reported yesterday on more imperialist hanky-panky.

Steven Weisman and David Sanger wrote that in 2003, when Wolfie was No. 2 at the Pentagon, the office of his consigliere, Douglas Feith, directed a private contractor to hire Ms. Riza, then at the World Bank, to spend a month traveling in Iraq to study ways to set up the new government.

(It was simple to get the contractor, the Science Applications International Corporation, to play along. As Vanity Fair reported, the Pentagon awarded SAIC seven contracts valued at more than $100 million before the war, without competitive bidding. Mr. Feith’s deputy was Christopher Henry, a former SAIC senior vice president.)

Wolfie and Shaha did not let a little thing like World Bank rules — which barred the bank from providing economic assistance to an area under military occupation — keep them from pushing the neocon delusions.

--MORE--

More Con Than Neo: MAUREEN DOWD - Wolfowitz

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More Con Than Neo

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: April 14, 2007

Wolfie in love is no less deceptive and bumbling than Wolfie at war.

Usually, spring in Washington finds us caught up in the cherry blossoms and the ursine courtship rituals of the pandas.

But this chilly April, we are forced to contemplate the batrachian grapplings of Paul Wolfowitz, the man who cherry-picked intelligence to sell us a war with Iraq.

You will not be surprised to learn, gentle readers, that Wolfie in love is no less deceptive and bumbling than Wolfie at war.

Proving he is more con than neo, he confessed that he had not been candid with his staff at the World Bank. While he was acting holier than thou, demanding incorruptibility from poor countries desperate for loans, he was enriching his girlfriend with tax-free ducats.

He has yet to admit any real mistakes with the hellish war that claimed five more American soldiers yesterday, as stunned Baghdad residents dealt with bombings of the Iraqi Parliament, where body parts flew, and of a bridge over the Tigris, where cars sank.

But he admitted Thursday that he’d made a mistake when he got his sweetheart, Shaha Ali Riza, an Arab feminist who shares his passion for democratizing the Middle East, a raise to $193,590 — more than the taxpaying (and taxing) Condi Rice makes. No doubt it seemed like small change compared with the money pit of remaking Iraq — a task he once prophesied would be paid for with Iraqi oil money. Maybe he should have remunerated his girlfriend with Iraqi oil revenues, instead of ripping off the bank to advance his romantic agenda.

No one is satisfied with his apology. Not the World Bank employees who booed Wolfie and yelled, “Resign! Resign!” in the bank lobby. Not Alison Cave, the chairwoman of the bank’s staff association, who said that Mr. Wolfowitz must “act honorably and resign.”

Not his girlfriend, who says she’s the suffering victim, forced by Wolfie’s arrival to be sent to the State Department (where, in a festival of nepotism, she reported to Liz Cheney).

And not his critics, who say Wolfie has been cherry-picking again, this time with his anticorruption crusade. They say he has used it to turn the bank into a tool for his unrealistic democracy campaign, which foundered in Baghdad, and for punishing countries that defy the United States.

***

...retired Marine Gen. Jack Sheehan...“The very fundamental issue is, they[White House] don’t know where the hell they’re going.”

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6-Year-Olds Under Arrest: BOB HERBERT

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By BOB HERBERT

Published: April 9, 2007

An outlandish trend of criminalizing very young children has spread to many school districts and law enforcement agencies across the country.

Avon Park, Fla.

When 6-year-old Desre’e Watson threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class a couple of weeks ago she could not have known that the full force of the law would be brought down on her and that she would be carted off by the police as a felon.

But that’s what happened in this small, backward city in central Florida. According to the authorities, there were no other options.

“The student became violent,” said Frank Mercurio, the no-nonsense chief of the Avon Park police. “She was yelling, screaming — just being uncontrollable. Defiant.”

“But she was 6,” I said.

The chief’s reply came faster than a speeding bullet: “Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we’ve arrested?”

--MORE--

Sweet Little Lies: PAUL KRUGMAN

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Sweet Little Lies

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 9, 2007

Before 9/11, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots.

Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can’t picture their leaders being dishonest about such things.

But there’s another political lesson I don’t think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie — the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren’t meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong.

For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush’s credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most people found it inconceivable that an American president would, for example, assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies. Mr. Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn’t believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security.

Before 9/11, however, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots.

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Sunday in the Market With McCain: FRANK RICH - COMPLETE WITH ALL HYPERLINKS

THE COMPLETE ARTICLE WITH ALL HYPERLINKS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Sunday in the Market With McCain

By FRANK RICH

Published: April 8, 2007

If defending the indefensible can reduce even a politician of John McCain’s heroic stature to that of Dukakis-in-the-tank, the Iraq war die-hards have nowhere to go but down.

John McCain's April Fools' Day stroll through Baghdad's Shorja market last weekend was instantly acclaimed as a classic political pratfall. Protected by more than a hundred American soldiers, three Black Hawk helicopters, two Apache gunships and a bulletproof vest, the senator extolled the "progress" and "good news" in Iraq. Befitting this loopy brand of comedy - reminiscent of "Wedding Crashers," in which Mr. McCain gamely made a cameo appearance - the star had a crackerjack cast of supporting buffoons: Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who told reporters "I bought five rugs for five bucks!," and Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, who likened the scene to "a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."

Five rugs for five bucks: boy, we've really got that Iraq economy up and running now! No wonder the McCain show was quickly dubbed "McCain's Mission Accomplished" and "McCain's Dukakis-in-the-Tank Photo Op." But at a certain point the laughter curdled. Reporters rudely pointed out there were 60-plus casualties in this market from one February attack alone and that six Americans were killed in the Baghdad environs on the day of his visit. "Your heart goes out to just the typical Iraqi because they can't have that kind of entourage," said Kyra Phillips of CNN. The day after Mr. McCain's stroll, The Times of London reported that 21 of the Shorja market's merchants and workers were ambushed and murdered.

The political press has stepped up its sotto voce deathwatch on the McCain presidential campaign ever since, a drumbeat enhanced by last week's announcement of Mr. McCain's third-place finish in the Republican field's fund-raising sweepstakes. (He is scheduled to restate his commitment to the race on "60 Minutes" tonight.) But his campaign was sagging well before he went to Baghdad. In retrospect, his disastrous trip may be less significant as yet another downturn in a faltering presidential candidacy than as a turning point in hastening the inevitable American exit from Iraq.

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Distract and Disenfranchise: PAUL KRUGMAN - Power Abuses

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THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Distract and Disenfranchise

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 2, 2007

I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses of power that are now, finally, coming to light. Ultimately, I believe, they were driven by rising income inequality.

Let me explain.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House, conservative ideas appealed to many, even most, Americans. At the time, we were truly a middle-class nation. To white voters, at least, the vast inequalities and social injustices of the past, which were what originally gave liberalism its appeal, seemed like ancient history. It was easy, in that nation, to convince many voters that Big Government was their enemy, that they were being taxed to provide social programs for other people.

Since then, however, we have once again become a deeply unequal society. Median income has risen only 17 percent since 1980, while the income of the richest 0.1 percent of the population has quadrupled. The gap between the rich and the middle class is as wide now as it was in the 1920s, when the political coalition that would eventually become the New Deal was taking shape.

And voters realize that society has changed. They may not pore over income distribution tables, but they do know that today’s rich are building themselves mansions bigger than those of the robber barons. They may not read labor statistics, but they know that wages aren’t going anywhere: according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of workers believe that it’s harder to earn a decent living today than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

You know that perceptions of rising inequality have become a political issue when even President Bush admits, as he did in January, that “some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind.”

But today’s Republicans can’t respond in any meaningful way to rising inequality, because their activists won’t let them. You could see the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and privatization.

The Republican Party’s adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can’t offer domestic policies that respond to the public’s real needs. So how can it win elections?

***

The good news is that all the G.O.P.’s abuses of power weren’t enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats — who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren’t really populists — seem to be realizing that times have changed.

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The Ongoing Bigotry of Thomas Friedman

March 29, 2007

Wake Up, You Live in America!

The Ongoing Insults of Thomas Friedman

By MAHMOUD EL-YOUSSEPH, TSGT / USAF [Ret.]

Bigotry has once again reared its ugly face in a piece by columnist Thomas Friedman, published in the New York Times on March 2,2007. Part of his piece was based on a poem he retrieved from the Middle East Media and Research Institute [MEMRI] web site. It read in part:

"When you find that the large majority of people oppose freedom and find joy in slavery -- do not be too distressed, you are in an Arab country."

First of all, MEMRI is an organization that is well known for its anti- Arab and anti- Muslim reporting. It is founded and operated by a former Israeli military intelligence officer. According to a recent article published in the British Guardian newspaper, MEMRI reporting is slanted toward Israel and it disseminates information that defames Arabs and Muslims. Citing MEMRI as a reference on Arab/Muslim issues is like consulting Hugo Chavez of Venezuela about a documentary on the U.S.A.

Secondly, the last time an Arab nation had a genuine and free election on January, 2006, the United States , along with Israel led the Western nations in a boycott of the election results by imposing a collective punishment on the Palestinian people. Simply put, cutting off the food supply line and the millions a month in collected tax revenue that Israeli owes the Palestinian Authority.

When the Palestinians were asked to choose their own representative, the majority choose Hamas. Immediately, Secretary of State Rice has the audacity to demand the return of the 50 million dollars given as an economic aide to the Palestinians. A true lesson in promoting a democracy!

By contrast, when Israel elected its 11th prime minister in March 2001, it chose Ariel Sharon for the position. He was an indicted war-criminal by his own government for war crimes committed in Lebanon . America 's official reaction was, we do not interfere in the "internal affair" of other nations. So, the U.S. president rolled out red carpet for him at the White House and even called him a "man of peace".

Thomas Friedman's insulting of an ancient and rich culture is cheap shot. Perhaps Friedman should take heed from the popular saying, "If you live in a house of glass, don't throw stones..." If I were to add to the above poem, for Friedman's reading pleasure, and others like him who frequently degrade and bash Arabs and Muslims, I would propose the following:

When the leader of a foreign nation, like the King of Jordan could speak better English than your own president--don't feel ashamed, you live in America .

When a married female school teacher has sex with five of her own middle school students--don't call them the lucky 5, you live in America .

When you perform a DNA test on a 5 month old baby to determine which one out of 5 men is the biological father-- what a way to go, you live in America.

When 7 out of 10 adults surveyed could pick out a photograph of Yassir Arafat, but not those of their own Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense-- it's time to wake up, you live in America .

When a mother pays for her daughter's breast enlargement on her 16th birthday, so she would look more appealing to the opposite sex-- get out of town, you live in America .

When you elect a president who was arrested 3 times-- don't ask, don't tell, you live in America .

When your president's name is reduced to one letter, "W" so he could spell it-- that's silly, you live in America .

When you are able to sue the weatherman--what will they do next, you live in America .

When what was once called the "People's House" suddenly turns into a 'whore house'-- just ask Slick Willy, you live in America .

When you have more jails and more criminals that any other country on earth"I rest my case, you live in America .

When more people in Western European nations consider you to pose the most threat to world peace -- the truth is a bitter pill to swallow, you live in America .

When 34 of your sailors are killed, 172 injured, and a 23-year old brave peace activist is run over by a military bulldozer by the same foreign nation, and you are not allowed to publicly express outrage, retaliation, or initiate an investigation without the fear of retribution-- don't be a wimp, you live in America !

Mahmoud El-Yousseph (TSGT / USAF [Ret.]) lives in Ohio.
He can be reached at: el-yousseph6@yahoo.com

Time to Change The ‘Back Channel’

March 26, 2007

By Rory O'Connor

Leave it to the New York Times to pronounce something “corrupt” and then wholeheartedly embrace it as “crucial.”

This week’s Sunday magazine piece by Max Frankel is the most recent and stunning example of the Times’ weird worldview. In a cover story, the paper’s former executive editor concludes that “the real lesson” of the recent Scooter Libby trial is that Washington’s “black market in information” — which the Times defines as “the messy and at times illicit traffic in secrets carried out among Washington officials and those who report on their doings” — is an evil necessary for democracy. “Leaks, backgrounders, favors, masked attribution: For decades, journalists and government officials have…manipulated one another and, to some extent, readers too,” the magazine noted. “It’s not pretty – as the Libby trial revealed. But it’s crucial.”

True, the trial provided a rare public glimpse at the corrupt nexus of Big Politics and Big Media — of which the Times is of course a charter member. While Frankel’s assessment that “it’s not pretty” is certainly sound, the rest of his analysis is unsurprisingly skewed. “Favors and masked attribution” do sound journalistically ugly and corrupt – as does “manipulating readers” – but the Washington back channel is certainly NOT crucial for anyone except perhaps the privileged players who participate in it. Moreover, it’s demonstrably BAD for our democracy. (Witness the ongoing carnage in Iraq, which the Times manipulated many of its readers into supporting!) Only charter members of the Big Media club, which performed so shamefully during the run up to both the war and the Libby trial, could conclude otherwise.

“So there I sat, watching the United States government in all its majesty dragging into court the American press (in all its piety),” Frankel’s article begins, mockingly, “Forcing reporters to betray confidences, rifling their files and notebooks, making them swear to their confused memories and motives and burdening their bosses with hefty legal fees — all for the high-sounding purpose, yet again, of protecting our nation’s secrets. Top-secret secrets! In wartime!”

Frankel is accurate in noting that Libby was indicted “as an agent of government who lied and obstructed justice to protect the misuse of secrets.” He is “no Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the top-secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times to expose the nation’s devious drift into war in Vietnam.” Instead, Libby’s intent was “to defend misjudgments and misrepresentations on the path to war in Iraq.”

And that’s not all Frankel managed to get right. He also decried reporters’ “messy relations with officialdom,” as “celebrated correspondents routinely grant anonymity — better called irresponsibility — to government sources just to hear whispered propaganda and other self-serving falsehoods.”

To Frankel, it all sounds “so familiar”– and no wonder. As he writes, “government officials spreading secrets to shape a story and to advance their interests, large and small” have long been a staple of Washington. This is particularly of the New York Times, whether it involved LBJ whispering in Frankel’s ear or Scooter Libby nibbling on Judith Miller’s. A case in point, per Frankel: “On Tuesday, July 8, in what his normally detailed calendar listed only as a ‘private meeting,’ Libby spent two hours at breakfast with Judith Miller to enlist her help in countering Wilson’s attack. He told the grand jury that he admired her reporting, on Al Qaeda and chemical and biological weapons, and presumably also her prewar articles lending credence to the administration’s wild alarms about Iraqi W.M.D.’s — credulous articles that The Times eventually disowned.”

Frankel fails to explain, however, how the back channel relationship between Libby/Big Politics and Miller/Big Media was somehow “crucial” to our democracy. “Miller testified that Libby brought her selected excerpts from a top-secret National Intelligence Estimate to buttress his claim that long after Wilson’s mission, the C.I.A. still endorsed reports that Saddam Hussein had ‘vigorously’ pursued uranium in Africa,” Frankel reports. Credulous, indeed! Corrupt? Yes. Crucial? Hardly…

Instead of blaming the system, Frankel – like many Times writers before him – simply blames Miller, who he says should have realized, “that the remedy for bad leaks is more leaks.” He then takes a few gratuitous swipes at poor Judy, noting her “role in the case served no one very well. On cross-examination, she was rattled into multiple confessions of uncertainty, poor memory and wobbly note-taking.”

But somehow, while coming up with the correct diagnosis – “the shameless ease with which top-secret information is bartered in Washington for political advantage” — Frankel amazingly contends that the disease of corrupt relationships between Big Politics and Big Media is really good for all of us, and that our dying democracy needs no cure!

Explain to me, Max, why it is good for me that Vice President Cheney can use Meet the Press – “our best format,” as his communications chief Cathie Martin testified – to control “our message.” Maybe I’m dense – why are all your pals in Big Media so convinced they can do their jobs “only by subscribing to the convoluted code of conduct governing Washington interviews?”

After all, as you admit, “the system is sloppy and breeds confusion.” Scooter Libby, for example, often spoke “off the record” when he really meant “deep background.” And Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper seems equally confused, testifying that “off the record” meant a reporter couldn’t use the information given him – and then went ahead and used information Libby had given him “off the record.”

Despite these and numerous other examples of incompetence mixed with perfidy, Frankel somehow concludes it’s all for the best. “Clearly, from the perspective of the public interest, there are and always have been both good and bad leaks, true and illuminating betrayals of secrets as well as false and conniving ones.” To the Times man, “there are no neat lines of distinction.”

It’s quite clear how such ambiguity can serve the special interests of both sides of the Big Politics/Big Media equation. But how does it serve the reader, the citizen, and our democracy?

“Much as I enjoyed the human drama and revelations of the Libby case, I wound up regretting the rough ride of the law through the marketplace of information,” Frankel concludes. “Attorneys general should resist the temptation to interfere with newsgathering or to delegate such a decision to a single-minded special counsel. When a White House leak is suspected, it is hard to avoid an independent prosecutor, but it’s a pressure worth resisting.

“It may sound cynical to conclude that tolerating abusive leaks by government is the price that society has to pay for the benefit of receiving essential leaks about government. But that awkward condition has long served to protect the most vital secrets while dislodging the many the public deserves to know.”

In loose translation: Prosecutors of the realm let this back-alley market flourish. Attorneys general and others armed with subpoena power, please leave well enough alone. Back off. Butt out.

It’s true that the damage to newsgathering from the Libby trial “has been significant,” as Frankel notes. But it’s even truer that preserving the corrupt black market in information that pours through the “Washington back channel” is even more dangerous to journalism – and democracy – than a dozen Special Prosecutors could ever be.

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Iran’s Operative in the White House: NICHOLAS KRISTOF - Dick Cheney

THE COMPLETE ARTICLE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Iran’s Operative in the White House

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: March 20, 2007

Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole?

f an 18-year-old American soldier were caught slipping obscure military paperwork to Iranian spies, he would be arrested, pilloried in the news media and tossed into prison for years.

But in fact there’s an American who has provided services of incalculably greater value to Iran in recent years. So you have to wonder: Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole?

Consider that the Bush administration’s first major military intervention was to overthrow Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, Iran’s bitter foe to the east. Then the administration toppled Iran’s even worse enemy to the west, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

You really think that’s just a coincidence? That of all 193 nations in the world, we just happen to topple the two neighboring regimes that Iran despises?

Moreover, consider how our invasion of Iraq went down. The U.S. dismantled Iraq’s army, broke the Baath Party and helped install a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad. If Iran’s ayatollahs had written the script, they couldn’t have done better — so maybe they did write the script …

We fought Iraq, and Iran won. And that’s just another coincidence?

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Marching With a Mouse: THOMAS FRIEDMAN - A Message

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Marching With a Mouse

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: March 16, 2007

If you do your homework, have your facts right and the merits on your side, and then build a constituency for your ideals through the Internet, you, too, can be at the table of the biggest deal in history.

There aren’t a lot of environmental groups with their own investment bank consultants, so when you hear that Environmental Defense has just hired the boutique Wall Street firm Perella Weinberg Partners, you know that we’re in a new world. Every college activist should study this story, because it is the future. In the old days, when activists wanted something done, they held a sit-in or organized a protest march. Now they hire an investment bank.

O.K., maybe every activist group can’t afford Goldman Sachs, but such groups should nevertheless analyze how Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council used the Internet and the market to save the planet from tons of CO2. The story started last year when a giant Texas power company, TXU, announced plans to build 11 coal-fired, CO2-belching power plants, raising the ire of environmentalists worried about climate change. Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, which has an office in Texas, wrote to John Wilder, TXU’s chairman, and asked for a meeting, but was brushed off. TXU made it clear that it was on a fast track to build its plants and had the governor of Texas on its side.

Talk about not knowing what world you’re living in.

So Environmental Defense and its allies turned to the Web and created the Stoptxu.com Web site, which put out regular electronic newsletters on the TXU plans and built a national constituency opposed to the deal. They also took TXU to court.

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Overblown Personnel Matters: PAUL KRUGMAN - The Purge

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THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Overblown Personnel Matters

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 12, 2007

It is surprising how fast the truth is emerging about what Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general, dismissed just five days ago as an “overblown personnel matter.”

Nobody is surprised to learn that the Justice Department was lying when it claimed that recently fired federal prosecutors were dismissed for poor performance. Nor is anyone surprised to learn that White House political operatives were pulling the strings.

What is surprising is how fast the truth is emerging about what Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general, dismissed just five days ago as an “overblown personnel matter.”

Sources told Newsweek that the list of prosecutors to be fired was drawn up by Mr. Gonzales’s chief of staff, “with input from the White House.” And Allen Weh, the chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, told McClatchy News that he twice sought Karl Rove’s help — the first time via a liaison, the second time in person — in getting David Iglesias, the state’s U.S. attorney, fired for failing to indict Democrats. “He’s gone,” he claims Mr. Rove said.

After that story hit the wires, Mr. Weh claimed that his conversation with Mr. Rove took place after the decision to fire Mr. Iglesias had already been taken. Even if that’s true, Mr. Rove should have told Mr. Weh that political interference in matters of justice is out of bounds; Mr. Weh’s account of what he said sounds instead like the swaggering of a two-bit thug.

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Politics Lite: No Sacrifice, No Substance, No Success: RORY STEWART

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THE NEW YORK TIMES
GUEST COLUMNIST

Politics Lite: No Sacrifice, No Substance, No Success

By RORY STEWART

Published: March 10, 2007

It is patronizing to assume that voters can’t handle demanding, imaginative and risky policies.

The accepted wisdom in British political circles is that Tony Blair won three elections by giving the British voters charisma and energy unfettered by dull or controversial policies. The Tories have now taken the lesson to heart. They are fighting back with feel-good, idea-light campaigns of their own, and it seems to be working. They are now significantly ahead in the polls.

This is not just electoral strategy. Many of them believe that we live in a postideological age, that there are no great questions anymore and that there can be no new solutions for domestic poverty or problems with immigration, energy or the economy.

But why do people stand as politicians if they have no policies? Many politicians claim privately that they are simply concealing their policies until they are elected. It is more likely that when the winds of office change in their favor, they will find their faces frozen into an expression of affable inaction. The role of a modern politician is apparently to be likable, to tinker with existing institutions and to manage occasional crises.

Churchill has been replaced by Bertie Wooster.

In Iraq, hundreds of thousands have died over the last few years and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent by the U.S.-led coalition. The international system is fractured; the Islamic world is angry.

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Edwards Gets It Right: PAUL KRUGMAN - Health Care

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THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Edwards Gets It Right

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 9, 2007

Senator John Edwards has put forward a smart, serious health care proposal.

What a difference two years makes! At this point in 2005, the only question seemed to be how much of America’s social insurance system — the triumvirate of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — the Bush administration would manage to dismantle. Now almost all prominent Democrats and quite a few Republicans pay at least lip service to calls for a major expansion of social insurance, in the form of universal health care.

But fine words, by themselves, mean nothing. Remember “compassionate conservatism?” I won’t trust presidential candidates on health care unless they provide enough specifics to show both that they understand the issues, and that they’re willing to face up to hard choices when necessary.

***

People who don’t get insurance from their employers wouldn’t have to deal individually with insurance companies: they’d purchase insurance through “Health Markets”: government-run bodies negotiating with insurance companies on the public’s behalf. People would, in effect, be buying insurance from the government, with only the business of paying medical bills — not the function of granting insurance in the first place — outsourced to private insurers.

Why is this such a good idea?

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