Do YOU Carry Three Photo IDs and Know Kerry’s Health Plan? August 17, 2004March 28, 2017 So Bob Herbert had this column in yesterday’s New York Times, reporting that . . . [Florida] state police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd ‘investigation’ that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November. The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election. . . . prompting a friend of mine to ask, ‘am I naïve, or is this incredible?” . . . to which query he got this response from a black Floridian friend of a friend: In 2000, less than 30 miles from my home, in a rather poor area, state police set up roadblocks between areas where blacks live and where their voting polls were. They were inspecting tail lights, headlamps, etc., and were turning anyone back on the road that had any infractions. Several of my co-workers live in that area and told me about it. And once you did get to the polls, if you were black, you might be required to produce three forms of photo ID, as Gore Campaign Manager Donna Brazile’s sister was. Or you might find that you had been removed the voter rolls altogether for being a convicted felon – even though you were not a convicted felon. One wants to say to the Bush crowd, have you no shame? Just be sure to say it in a free-speech zone. (It turned out that the Texas company whose list knocked convicted felons off the rolls was hired by none other than the co-chair of George W. Bush’s Florida election campaign – she doubled as Florida Secretary of State – and that about 47,000 of the 50,000 voters in question were not felons after all.) You probably knew all these things, but most people don’t. Most people don’t realize that the person in the Fox News control booth who suddenly called the election for Bush (leading the other networks to follow within minutes lest they look foolish) was George Bush’s cousin. Most people don’t realize that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 attack. (“President Clinton tried to eliminate bin Laden and missed by a few miles,” writes Roy Abrams. “President Bush tried and missed by an entire country.”) Q: Why are most of us so ill-informed? Other, that is, than the obvious . . . that the Bush team has been actively misleading us from day one. (“By far the vast majority” of the benefit from his proposed taxed cuts, he told us in a bold trillion-dollar lie, would go “to people at the bottom of the economic ladder.”) A: The answer, of course, is the press. And as so often happens these days, the case was best made by Paul Krugman in the New York Times. If you need to get to work, come back and read the Krugman column tomorrow. Otherwise – why break stride? – read it today: Under the headline “Voters Want Specifics From Kerry,” The Washington Post recently quoted a voter demanding that John Kerry and John Edwards talk about “what they plan on doing about health care for middle-income or lower-income people. I have to face the fact that I will never be able to have health insurance, the way things are now. And these millionaires don’t seem to address that.” Mr. Kerry proposes spending $650 billion extending health insurance to lower- and middle-income families. Whether you approve or not, you can’t say he hasn’t addressed the issue. Why hasn’t this voter heard about it? Well, I’ve been reading 60 days’ worth of transcripts from the places four out of five Americans cite as where they usually get their news: the major cable and broadcast TV networks. Never mind the details – I couldn’t even find a clear statement that Mr. Kerry wants to roll back recent high-income tax cuts and use the money to cover most of the uninsured. When reports mentioned the Kerry plan at all, it was usually horse race analysis – how it’s playing, not what’s in it. On the other hand, everyone knows that Teresa Heinz Kerry told someone to “shove it,” though even there, the context was missing. Except for a brief reference on MSNBC, none of the transcripts I’ve read mention that the target of her ire works for Richard Mellon Scaife, a billionaire who financed smear campaigns against the Clintons – including accusations of murder. (CNN did mention Mr. Scaife on its Web site, but described him only as a donor to “conservative causes.”) And viewers learned nothing about Mr. Scaife’s long vendetta against Mrs. Heinz Kerry herself. There are two issues here, trivialization and bias, but they’re related. Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped reporting on candidates’ policies, and turned instead to trivia that supposedly reveal their personalities. We hear about Mr. Kerry’s haircuts, not his health care proposals. We hear about George Bush’s brush-cutting, not his environmental policies. Even on its own terms, such reporting often gets it wrong, because journalists aren’t especially good at judging character. (“He is, above all, a moralist,” wrote George Will about Jack Ryan, the Illinois Senate candidate who dropped out after embarrassing sex-club questions.) And the character issues that dominate today’s reporting have historically had no bearing on leadership qualities. While planning D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower had a close, though possibly platonic, relationship with his female driver. Should that have barred him from the White House? And since campaign coverage as celebrity profiling has no rules, it offers ample scope for biased reporting. Notice the voter’s reference to “these millionaires.” A Columbia Journalism Review Web site called campaigndesk.org, says its analysis “reveals a press prone to needlessly introduce Senators Kerry and Edwards and Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, as millionaires or billionaires, without similar labels for President Bush or Vice President Cheney.” As the site points out, the Bush campaign has been “hammering away with talking points casting Kerry as out of the mainstream because of his wealth, hoping to influence press coverage.” The campaign isn’t claiming that Mr. Kerry’s policies favor the rich – they manifestly don’t, while Mr. Bush’s manifestly do. Instead, we’re supposed to dislike Mr. Kerry simply because he’s wealthy (and not notice that his opponent is, too). Republicans, of all people, are practicing the politics of envy, and the media obediently go along. In short, the triumph of the trivial is not a trivial matter. The failure of TV news to inform the public about the policy proposals of this year’s presidential candidates is, in its own way, as serious a journalistic betrayal as the failure to raise questions about the rush to invade Iraq. The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page – which archives Krugman’s past columns and media appearances – has posted a noteworthy reaction to this column, along with Paul Krugman’s response: JIM MURPHY, executive producer, “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather”: The entire staff of the “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather” was pretty miffed after reading Paul Krugman’scolumn today that claimed not a SINGLE issues piece has aired on the big newscasts in the past two months. He must have missed the SIXTEEN different “issues” pieces we did over a four week period during that time, part of a series that will continue until the election. With the resources of the New York Times you would think that would be kind of difficult to miss. The Washington Post‘s media critic found the series so intriguing amid all the debate over campaign coverage he actually wrote an article about it. How can anyone take an editorialist’s arguments seriously when he ignores some FACTS completely? PAUL KRUGMAN: In response to Jim Murphy’s comment regarding my July 30 column on the absence of issue coverage in this election, and the “miffed” staff at CBS Evening News . . . Mr. Murphy apparently misread what I said. I did not say that there has been no issue reporting at all over the past two months; I said that issue coverage is very thin, and that there has in particular been no clear explanation of even the most basic elements of the Kerry health care plan. That statement is, alas, true. The CBS evening news report from June 29 was the best coverage of the competing health care plans I could find. But did it explain that the Kerry plan would cover most of those now uninsured? No. Did it explain that the plan would, according to the Kerry campaign, be financed by a tax-cut rollback? No. In fact, by giving time to Bush claims that “the Kerry plan would break the bank,” without mentioning Kerry’s plan to pay for it with a tax-cut rollback, the CBS report conveyed the false impression that the plan is unfunded pie in the sky. Bear in mind that this is not one among many issues: health care-cum-tax cut rollback is Kerry’s signature domestic policy proposal. Yet a voter who gets his or her news from TV, even CBS with its “issues” series, would have little or no idea of what Kerry is offering, or how it differs from Bush. But I’ll bet not two Americans in ten will miss the reference if you mention “the blue dress.” So, to sum up, two problems (at least) imperil a healthy democracy going into this election: African Americans being discouraged from voting, and voters being discouraged from thinking. It’s going to work out. We’re going to win. But we would win bigger if more people knew what was going on.
Where To Put Your Money Now? August 16, 2004January 20, 2017 One reason I haven’t written much about money these last few months is that the topic leaves me glum. My being glum is often a good sign, because I am often glum just as the market is about to spike. But with stock prices high and real estate prices higher, it’s hard for me to get enthusiastic about either. Look at some of the Big Picture items: 1. Terrorism is a huge, productivity-sapping problem that is not quickly or easily resolved. Legions of security guards may make us safer, but not more prosperous. 2. We’ve gone from a giant global surplus of goodwill on September 12, 2001, to a giant global deficit. Having much of the world dislike and mistrust us can’t be good for business. 3. Having a higher proportion of our GNP go to nonproductive (even when necessary) military expenditures doesn’t make us richer either. On July 20, 2000, I was able to write in this space: ‘The U.S. used to spend 6% of its GNP on defense, now closer to 2%.’ What a huge, prosperity-aiding swing that was! The peace dividend. But now we’ve headed back up around 5%. 4. Interest rates – whose long-term downward march from 1982 to 2004 so aided business and stocks and bonds and real estate prices – seem to have bottomed. So at the very least, they will not continue to fall (not for ‘good’ reasons, anyway) . . . and at a time when we are running annual budget and trade deficits each in excess of half a trillion dollars, it’s possible to imagine they may rise. 5. Personal debt levels as a percentage of GNP keep rising. Yes, with higher real estate prices, homeowners have more to borrow against. But does a homeowner whose home value rises from $200,000 to $300,000 get any richer? Or does he still own exactly one home of exactly the same size? Does the fact that he is able to owe $250,000 on it, after refinancing, instead of the $160,000 he owed before, make him richer in some fundamental way? 6. Educating our kids well does make us richer in a fundamental way, as does deploying energy-efficient technology, to take two important examples. But have you noticed that we’ve been cutting back on after-school programs, and so much else? And that it is Japan, not Detroit, that seems to be leading the way on energy efficiency? 7. Oil is our major import. As we burn ever more of it, at ever higher prices, we shift more of our wealth to producing nations. 8. The gap between rich and the rest grows ever wider. There’s no hard and fast rule as to how prosperity ‘should’ be distributed. But, at one extreme, if a single family controlled all the loot and everyone else were too poor to buy anything beyond bare essentials, how would an economy prosper? Broadly distributed, prosperity begets prosperity . . . even if, in the real world, mechanisms are needed, like the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit and a progressive income tax and Social Security – and scholarships – to help spread the wealth. In the long run, I would argue, such mechanisms, when not carried to extremes, make the rich richer, too. And yet the powers that be have opposed the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit . . . and have succeeded in making the income tax less progressive (with rumored plans in their next term to make it less progressive still). The Congressional Budget Office study released Friday finds that the wealthiest 1% – folks earning an average $1.2 million a year – saw their share of the total income tax burden fall from 22% to 20% under George W. Bush. The Bush administration looked at the world of 1993-2000, in which rich folks made out very, very well, and decided that they hadn’t made out very, very well enough, relative to everyone else . . . that the overall tax burden needed to be shifted in a significant way off the very richest among us and onto everybody else. The way it was reported on NBC Nightly News, the annual tax cut for folks in the top 1% was $78,460, while for the 20% in the middle (average household income $57,000) it was $1,090. Tom Brokaw left it at that, as if these were the two extremes – the top 1% and the middle 20% – never mentioning all the households below the middle 20%, for whom the tax cut was negligible. Surely some American households fall into that last 40%, no? (Actually, about 120 million of us.) Might it not have been worth mentioning how tiny their tax cut was . . . or how it was overwhelmed by the impact of higher local taxes, tuition and health care costs? And by the cuts to various local and federal government programs and services? (The other thing NBC did was run a man-on-the-street clip of a fellow untroubled by the $78,460 versus $1,090 comparison because, for heaven’s sake, the rich already pay so much more in taxes, it seems only fair. And we do pay a load more in taxes. But people are often surprised to learn that the crushing, confiscatory federal tax burden on the truly rich, even back in 2000, before Bush rode to their rescue, was only 22.3%, what with so much of it coming from long-term capital gains and tax-free bonds.) 9. The deep division in our country makes it hard for one side to cooperate with the other. Unity of vision and purpose (putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade!) do wonders for prosperity. As do trust and mutual respect. 10. And I haven’t even mentioned China and India, whose growth offers many Big Picture positives but lots of challenges as well . . . or global climate change, whose costs may be felt more and more in the years to come. What I would love is for all these negatives to be reflected in the prices of stocks and bonds and real estate . . . and for an additional layer of irrational fear to have driven them lower still. A little panic never hurt, either. I remember the long, long bear market of 1973-1974, when every article I wrote could end cheerfully the same way: ‘If the world doesn’t end – and it generally doesn’t – stocks should be a great buy here. (And if it does end, what difference does it make?)’ Today, my sense is that while there are always special situations and interesting opportunities – I bought some more NTII last week because a very smart guy who does his homework (I don’t do my homework) thinks it just might work out – this is not a time of widespread bargains or irresistible values. I wish TIPS were still at par (100) so I could recommend them with some excitement again. But closing over 126 Friday, the big fun would seem to be over. Ditto sunny retirement properties. Hope you bought yours a few years ago and are enjoying it’s new value. Harder to recommend rushing to buy one now. The stock market at these levels? Well, as always, if you’re in it for the long haul, investing something every month via one or two or three Vanguard index funds, keep it up. And hope the market goes down, so you can buy future shares at cheaper prices. But I disagree with those who believe stocks are (or much of anything else is) cheap these days. Our timber keeps growing, having given us a 20% total return in the year since it was suggested here. I’m holding that for the long term. The aforesaid TIPS in my retirement plan are a long-term core holding. I have my special situations and nutty speculations (largest among them, the ‘stock that must surely go to zero,’ Borealis). And I am not ashamed to have paid off my debts and credit cards and to have some money on the sidelines, just in case great bargains do one day appear. They always do.
The Ever Narrowing Free Speech Zone August 13, 2004February 27, 2017 From a letter in yesterday’s Des Moines Register: I am a registered Democrat voting for John Kerry, but I thought it would be educational for my daughters and me to go see President Bush speak at the Davenport riverfront Aug. 4. I wanted them to see that the president was supposed to be working for all Americans. Even if I didn’t agree with his policies, I could still show my children how elections and politics work. I waited in line, picked up my Bush tickets and waited in line to enter the park to hear the president. When I got up to the front of the line, I was grabbed by security, pushed to the side (in front of my children and Republican friends) and my ticket was ripped. They said, “We don’t like your pin, so get out of here.” I was wearing a small pin that said, “John Kerry 2004.” The worst part is the security team did this in front of my children. I want my daughters to understand that in America we have the right to free speech. We have the First Amendment, but that was blatantly violated. I wasn’t making a scene. I didn’t even say anything. My daughters don’t understand why this happened. They thought in America people could express themselves without repression. – Glen Wooldridge, Davenport. ☞ Yesterday we had the folks with the LOVE AMERICA, HATE BUSH t-shirts led away in handcuffs in West Virginia . . . and reference to the South Carolina man with the NO WAR FOR OIL sign prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department for displaying his sign outside a free-speech zone (guided by the belief, he argued, that all America was a free speech zone). The May 4 Telegraph Herald tells the story of Bill Ward, a World War II vet, who tried to get tickets to see Bush in Dubuque, IA. ‘He waited in line for an hour, and when it finally came time to show his identification, campaign staff asked him if he had voted for Bush in 2000. ‘I didn’t vote for him then and I won’t vote for him now,’ declared Ward.’ Out he went. In last Friday’s Saginaw News there was the story of the Millers – ‘husband, wife and daughter’ – who were removed from a Bush-Cheney campaign event because the wife, Barbara, had brought a pro-choice t-shirt with her. A campaign worker confiscated the t-shirt informing the family that ‘We don’t accept any pro-choice, non-Republican paraphernalia.’ The campaign worker returned an hour later with another worker and a security guard and accused the Millers of ‘smuggling t-shirts.’ Barbara Miller, who brought the t-shirt because she was cold and had not considered the implications of its pro-choice logo, reports that a guard grabbed their three tickets from her hand and ripped them up ‘violently and told her, ‘They’re no good anymore.” A Bush campaign spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise, defended the right of the campaign to ask individuals who intend to ‘disrupt campaign events’ to leave. ‘These events are put on … for people of an open mind who are interested in hearing [Bush’s] positive message and his vision for a future,’ she said. Theresa Miller, the daughter, said that was what she was there to do. ‘I’m not an American? I can’t see my president?’ she asked. NOW YOU SEE HIM, NOW YOU DON’T Denise Nicholson: ‘With this Electoral College Tracking Map, you can click to toggle between the ‘with Nader’ and ‘without Nader’ views.’ ☞ The map makes it abundantly clear why Nader is getting strong Republican support. Click here to watch one example of that . . . albeit through a whimsical lens. And if you didn’t find time to watch yesterday’s suggested Daily Show clip, about the smear of Kerry’s military service, here it is again. Monday I think I’ll write about money. Have a great weekend.
Please Watch This Jon Stewart on the Swift Boaters August 12, 2004February 27, 2017 SHAVING THE COST OF BLADES Tom Ciullo: ‘You can usually buy Mach 3 Turbo blades on an eBay auction for around $1.25 per blade, vs. the $2.00 or more you will usually pay at your local drugstore/mass merchandiser.’ FINDING THE NEAREST FREE-SPEECH ZONE Last summer we had the story of the man who held up a NO WAR FOR OIL sign in a crowd gathered to welcome Bush at a South Carolina airport. He was not only arrested, he was prosecuted with your tax dollars by the Ashcroft Justice Department. This summer we have the story of a couple charged with trespassing on the Fourth of July for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts at a Bush event in West Virginia. When they refused to leave the event, for which they had tickets, they were handcuffed and ejected. Shortly thereafter, on stage, President Bush said, ‘We’re thankful that this nation they created 228 years ago remains free and independent and the best hope for all mankind.’ In part, from the July 8 West Virginia Gazette: A worker with the Federal Emergency Management Agency who wore an anti-Bush T-shirt at the president’s July Fourth rally in Charleston has been sent home to Texas. Nicole Rank, who was working for FEMA in West Virginia, and her husband, Jeff, were removed from the Capitol grounds in handcuffs shortly before Bush’s speech. The pair wore T-shirts with the message “Love America, Hate Bush.” The Ranks were ticketed for trespassing and released. They have been given summonses to appear in court, Charleston Police Lt. C.A. Vincent said Wednesday. FEMA spokesman Ross Fredenburg would not say Wednesday whether Nicole Rank had been fired. “All we can say is that our federal coordinating officer, Lou Botta, sent Nicole home,” he said. “We cannot comment further, to protect her privacy. Federal privacy laws prevent us from saying anything.” . . . Those who attended Bush’s speech were required to have tickets that were distributed by various employers in the area and by the office of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. Those who applied for tickets were required to supply their names, addresses, birth dates, birthplaces and Social Security numbers. A two-page document given to ticket holders said they were prohibited from bringing certain items to the event, including: weapons, video-recording equipment, food, beverages, umbrellas, signs and banners. T-shirts, political buttons and lapel pins were not on the list of prohibited items. PLEASE WATCH THIS I know you don’t all see ‘The Daily Show.’ But see at least this much – and pass it on.
Pray for Us August 11, 2004February 27, 2017 FORGET THE POLLS – DRAW YOUR OWN ELECTORAL MAP Click here. THE TWO THINGS ABOUT INVESTING Peter L. DeWolf: ‘Or, for the short-sellers: 1) Sell High 2) Buy Low.’ MACH 3 TURBO-CHARGED NANO-TEFLON LASER-GUIDED . . . The name’s pretty silly – the Gillette Mach 3 Turbo. But Sweeney Todd couldn’t have hurt a flea with this thing. It really is a better shave. GOD SPEAKS THROUGH OUR PRESIDENT I mean – how lucky can we get? Thanks to Allan Tanner for spotting this story: Bush meets with Amish group during July campaign stop By Jack Brubaker Lancaster New Era LANCASTER, Pa. – President Bush met privately with a group of Old Order Amish during a campaign visit to Lancaster County on July 9. He discussed their farms and their hats and his religion, and got a pledge for prayers, if not votes. A member of the group told Bush that since most Amish do not vote, they would pray for him instead. Bush had tears in his eyes when he replied, according to an Amishman who was present. Bush reportedly said he needs the prayers of the Amish and that having a strong belief in God is the only way he can do his job. . . . Bush said he had never met any Amish before and was curious about why the men were wearing straw hats instead of black wool hats. The Amish explained that they wear cooler straw in summer. Bush tried one on. The president also commented on the appearance of Amish farms, and an Amishman spoke apologetically about how he and his friends were not expecting to see the president and were wearing soiled work clothes. Bush said he did not mind that, according to Stoltzfus. Another man remarked that he has twin daughters, as does Bush. The man said one of his twins had dreamed the night before that she was shaking hands with the president and now she actually had done that. ‘One of the young girls wanted to give Bush a whoopie pie cookie,’ Stoltzfus said. ‘Bush declined it. The Secret Service man took it, as presidents aren’t supposed to eat untested food.’ At the end of the session, Bush reportedly told the group, ‘I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.’ As the president left the room, one Amish man wished him good luck in November. ‘The Amish group headed back to their farms and shops,’ Stoltzfus said. ‘Mothers took their children home for a nap and went back to their sewing and gardens.’ Bush then moved on to an appearance in York County, leaving behind a group of Old Order admirers who will have tales to tell for the rest of their lives. ☞ Sweet, no? It wasn’t President Bush’s idea to cut taxes on the rich while cutting after-school programs for at risk kids, it was God’s idea. The prescription drug plan that benefits drug companies more than the elderly? God came up with that. All those executions while he was Governor of Texas? Jesus. Letting the ban on assault weapons expire a few weeks from now? Jesus. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge while providing tax incentives to purchase 6,000-pound SUVs? Himself. Invading Iraq expecting flowers, over the advice of his dad? Wrong father to look to. So if you really want to help, join the 2.8 million members of the Presidential Prayer Team. As one of our generals said a while back in rallying the troops, ‘Our God is bigger than their god.’
Pickles August 10, 2004February 27, 2017 OUR JOB PICKLE Dan Keech: ‘Should the right column on today’s chart be 1,000s? It’s hard to believe all those presidents presided over creation of between -1000 and 22,000 jobs.’ ☞ You got me. It’s all in thousands. Sorry. And as someone else noted, it’s not fair to compare Bush 43 with, say, Reagan, because Reagan was in office so much longer than Bush has been. So here it is again, but with a second column showing job growth as of the 42nd month of each presidency (if it lasted that long). Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly Data (1939-2004) (in thousands) Presidential Administration Overall Job Growth Job Growth after 42 months Truman (1945-53) 8,702 3,807 Eisenhower (1953-61) 3,538 2,438 Kennedy (1961-63) 3,572 NA Johnson (1963-69) 12,183 8,363 Nixon (1969-74) 9,181 4,322 Ford (1974-77) 2,073 NA Carter (1977-81) 10,339 9,403 Reagan (1981-89) 16,102 3,430 Bush I (1989-93) 2,592 1,507 Clinton (1993-2001) 22,663 9,922 Bush II (2001-2004) -1087 -1087 So I say again: maybe huge budget deficits don’t stimulate the economy as well when you run them to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy as when you run them to provide jobs and buying power to average folks. Worse Still, the blend of jobs is shifting from higher to lower paying. By one reasonable estimate, the new jobs being created pay $9,000 a year less than the old ones being lost. OUR IRAQ PICKLE Sue Hoell offers this telling story from the Oregonian, which begins: BAGHDAD — The national guardsman peering through the long-range scope of his rifle was startled by what he saw unfolding in the walled compound below. From his post several stories above ground level, he watched as men in plainclothes beat blindfolded and bound prisoners in the enclosed grounds of the Iraqi Interior Ministry. He immediately radioed for help. Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi detainees who said they had been beaten, starved and deprived of water for three days. In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices — metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals. Many of the Iraqis, including one identified as a 14-year-old boy, had fresh welts and bruises across their back and legs. The soldiers disarmed the Iraqi jailers, moved the prisoners into the shade, released their handcuffs and administered first aid. Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of Albany, Ore., the highest ranking American at the scene, radioed for instructions. But in a move that frustrated and infuriated the guardsmen, Hendrickson’s superior officers told him to return the prisoners to their abusers and immediately withdraw. It was June 29 — Iraq’s first official day as a sovereign country since the U.S.-led invasion. The incident, the first known case of human rights abuses in newly sovereign Iraq, is at the heart of the American dilemma here. In handing over power, U.S. officials gave Iraqis authority to run their own institutions — even if they made mistakes. But officials understand that the United States will be held responsible when the new Iraqi authorities stumble. ☞ At least we’ll likely catch or kill Osama bin Laden sometime within the next 84 days. But it’s astonishing it has taken this long, and a tragedy that we moved 13,000 Special Forces from Afghanistan to Iraq before the job was done. What were we thinking?
Neither Compassionate NOR a Conservative? August 9, 2004February 27, 2017 NOW SHE TELLS ME Anna Marasco: ‘The ‘Two Things’ About Investing: 1. Buy Low. 2. Sell High.’ I THOUGHT WARS AND HUGE DEFICITS CREATED JOBS Presidential Administration Overall Job Growth Truman (1945-53) 8,702 Eisenhower (1953-61) 3,538 Kennedy (1961-63) 3,572 Johnson (1963-69) 12,183 Nixon (1969-74) 9,181 Ford (1974-77) 2,073 Carter (1977-81) 10,339 Reagan (1981-89) 16,102 Bush I (1989-93) 2,592 Clinton (1993-2001) 22,663 Bush II (2001-2004) -1087 ☞ Maybe it doesn’t work as well if you run the huge deficits to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy instead of jobs and buying power to everyone else? McCAIN ON THE LATEST KERRY SMEAR ‘I condemn the ad, it is dishonest and dishonorable, I think it is very, very wrong. I hope that the president will also condemn it.’ CONSERVATIVES: READ THIS Or maybe you know some conservatives. Forward it to them. I am two weeks late in posting it, but it’s as on point today as it was July 25. And remember, this comes from a serious pro-life Bush 2000 supporter. Click here.
You’ve Got to Watch This Video August 6, 2004January 20, 2017 I’m saving the video to the end, but – especially if you’ve not seen Jon Stewart’s fake news show – I hope you’ll find three minutes to watch it. But first . . . I HAVE A READER WHO’S APPEARED BEFORE JUDGE DOWNING! Robert Gould: ‘As an attorney in Seattle I have been privileged to appear on behalf of clients a number of times in cases tried before Judge Downing or in his courtroom. I have read his decision. I am an active, married heterosexual. His decision [upholding the right of same-sex couples to civil marriage, from which you quoted yesterday] is a beacon of clarity, reason and logic. Everyone should read his well crafted, thoughtful and almost lyrical decision.’ I HAVE A READER IN MONTANA! Leroy Beeby: ‘The former [RNC chair you wrote of yesterday was also] governor of Montana and spearheaded energy deregulation here. That led to higher prices for consumers, the bankrupting of utilities, and the loss of millions of dollars in pensions and assets of people who bought a ‘stable’ utility company stock. Of course the upper echelon of the companies were protected by ‘change of control’ provisions and made millions while their companies went broke. The companies were Montana Power, TouchAmerica, and Northwestern Energy. The kicker is the guy still walks on water in our state.’ ☞ If there is another side to this story – as there well may be if he walks on water – I like to think that some other reader in Montana (could I have two?) will offer it. TRUTH SQUADS Jon Frater: ‘Snopes.com [suggested yesterday] is an excellent source of information. I’d also recommend factcheck.org which has been very good in straightening out the recent accusations against Theresa Heinz Kerry regarding her finances and political contributions.’ ☞ When it comes to discrediting bogus attacks, there’s also John McCain, who – though a Bush supporter – called the latest one ‘dishonest and dishonorable’ and urged the White House to condemn it. It comes as a book, Unfit to Serve, and in a TV commercial featuring 13 Vietnam vets who did not serve in John Kerry’s swift boat. (Those who did all endorse him.) We have not heard from President Bush’s comrades in the Alabama Air National Guard . . . no one can seem to remember his being there, or why he failed to show up for his medical exam . . . but, thanks most recently to the Harvard Crimson, we do have an account from one of his Harvard Business School professors. In very small part: . . . Tsurumi-now a professor of international business at Baruch College in the City University of New York-said he remembers the future president as scoring in the bottom 10 percent of students in the class. . . . ‘I vividly remember that he made a comment saying that people are poor because they’re lazy,’ Tsurumi said. . . . ‘All Harvard Business School students want to become president of a company one day,’ Tsurumi said. ‘I remember saying, if you become president of a company some day, may God help your customers and employees.’ ☞ Those of you who taught President Bush and hold a different view will be given equal time if you send your recollections. NOW WATCH JON STEWART I think this clip is speaks volumes about how the world works, and why it’s not working better. Even without broadband it shouldn’t take too long to load. If you agree it provides needed insight, cut and paste the URL from your browser and pass it on. Have a great weekend.
Can Comedy Central Really Have the Best News Show? August 5, 2004February 27, 2017 But first . . . Springsteen speaks! (Executive Summary: for God’s sake, vote Kerry.) And this . . . ‘The characteristics embodied by these plaintiffs are ones that our society and the institution [of marriage] need more of, not less. Let the plaintiffs stand as inspirations for all those citizens, homosexual and heterosexual, who may follow their path.‘ – decision of Superior Court Judge William L. Downing, yesterday, overturning Washington State laws that deny equal rights to same-sex couples (of special note: the respect with which Judge Downing treated the arguments of both sides) And now . . . (I have a larger point here, so bear with me) . . . Mark P: ‘I receive virtually daily e-mails from friends and family saying various negative things about John Kerry. It would be really helpful if there were a web site where people could go to get responses to those e-mails, so we could reply with facts.’ ☞ Well, start with this, from the best known of the Urban Legends web sites. I especially like the one that has Senator Kerry voting against every vital weapons system. (‘Status: False.‘) Most of the folks forwarding this message around the Internet probably don’t know how dishonest it is (‘inaccurate and grossly misleading,’ as the web site characterizes it, and ‘all the more ridiculous’ because Dick Cheney opposed some of the very same weapons systems himself) . . . but its originators surely knew what they were doing. Indeed, this is not a casual effort. It was the same calculated dishonesty that led nearly half the voters in 2000 to favor for President a man whose top priority (his budgets have now confirmed) was the plight of the very rich rather than the challenges faced by ordinary Americans. Why would so many Americans vote against their own economic interest? A large part of the answer is the Republican ‘echo chamber’ that so effectively diminished a very good man (Gore), and which now attempts to diminish another. To wit, and well worth reading, excerpted almost in full from yesterday’s Daily Howler: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 2004 It isn’t that hard to debunk phony spin. Let Jon Stewart-a comedian!-show you: . . . [I]t isn’t that hard to debunk bogus spin-points-the scripted, repetitive, ginned-up claims that now decide our White House elections. On Monday night’s Daily Show, in fact, Jon Stewart showed how easy the process can be. By Tuesday morning, we were flooded with e-mails about his effort, like the one we report below. But then, we often get rueful e-mails about Stewart: E-MAIL (8/3/04): Did you see The Daily Show last night? Jon Stewart interviewed Congressman Henry Bonilla and actually forced the issue about the ‘number one liberal’ statement, citing the National Journal’s actual lifetime averages. It’s a sad day when we have to rely on a ‘fake’ news show to tell the truth. Readers often note how sad it is-that Stewart, a comedian, debunks this crap, but our ‘journalists’ resolutely will not. . . . As we’ve noted, Republicans cite the National Journal when they claim-as they now do whenever they breathe-that Kerry and Edwards are the first and fourth most liberal members of the Senate. But as the Journal has clearly explained, those figures cover 2003 alone-a year in which Kerry and Edwards, out campaigning, missed about half the relevant votes. (Note: That’s the way our system works. While still governor, Candidate Bush spent seventeen months campaigning outside Texas.) Indeed, as the Journal has made abundantly clear, Kerry is far from the ‘number one liberal’ if you measure his lifetime record, and Edwards is nowhere near number four, the claim voters hear again and again, recited by a gaggle of hacks who are sent on the air to mislead them. But so what? RNC shills state their bogus point-and millionaire ‘journalists’ sit, drool and stare. For example, here’s how Newt Gingrich began his closing remarks on this week’s Fox News Sunday: GINGRICH (8/1/04): I think what decides this race in the end is, do you think America can go forward better with President Bush continuing to lead, or do you really want the most liberal member of the Senate and the fourth most liberal member of the Senate, people to the left of Teddy Kennedy, people to the left of Hillary Clinton? And I think that choice is going to be so wide and so clear by mid-September. Did Chris Wallace challenge this scripted point-a claim which baldly misled viewers? Of course not! Instead, here’s what he said when Gingrich stopped speaking: ‘I’ve got to say, Speaker Gingrich, that’s the biggest bumper sticker I ever heard, but it was a good answer.’ In short, it’s easy to mislead voters this way. Our ‘press corps’ is happy to let you. Which brings us back to that fateful moment when the RNC began its campaign against Gore. As noted yesterday, the RNC made it clear, in May 1999, that it hoped to make Gore a figure of ridicule; quoting major Republicans, Alison Mitchell described the plan in some detail, right in the New York Times (see THE DAILY HOWLER 8/3/04). The GOP had run endless probes of Clinton, she noted, but they were planning a different approach with Gore. ‘[W]ith Mr. Gore, Republicans are betting that well-timed ridicule can be more devastating than any inquiry,’ Mitchell wrote. ‘In essence, they are trying to do to him what Democrats tried to do to former Vice President Dan Quayle.’ As we noted in yesterday’s HOWLER, history is repeating itself; Republican sources described a similar plan for Kerry in a front-page report in Sunday’s Times. ‘Mr. Bush’s advisers plan to cap the month at the Republican convention in New York, which they said would feature Mr. Kerry as an object of humor and calculated derision,’ Adam Nagourney wrote. The plan he described was the very same plan that proved so effective with Gore. And the evidence is clear-in the case of Gore, the campaign of ridicule worked. From March 1999 through November 2000, the RNC churned a string of bogus stories about Delusional Gore, the guy who ‘doesn’t know who he is,’ and the mainstream press corps made little attempt to challenge their idiot renderings. (Indeed, the mainstream press corps took the lead in conducting the War Against Gore.) Al Gore said he invented the Internet. Al Gore said he discovered Love Canal. Naomi Wolf told Gore to wear earth tones. Al Gore misstated the cost of dog pills. The tales were bogus-and never-ending-but the mockery and misstatements worked. Mocking Gore became second nature. . . . The RNC had hoped to make Gore a figure of ridicule. With the corps’ active help, they succeeded. And the RNC will succeed with Kerry-unless more pundits perform like Jon Stewart. Everyone knows what the current spin-points are-we’ll list them on Friday-and we’ll soon learn what the new points will be. In most cases, these points are fairly easy to debunk, as Stewart made clear Monday night. But last Friday, we saw a more typical effort-an effort typical of what he saw from pundits in Campaign 2000 as well. Performing his usual yawning vivisection, Sean Hannity ate Janeane Garofalo for lunch, belched three times, then spat her back out (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/2/04). Liberals, progressives, centrists-and all Dems-have to stop accepting this level of performance. Democrats have to tell Dem pundits-this hapless work isn’t OK. Why, oh why, are Dem-friendly pundits so incapable of strong performance? One thing is clear-your ‘press corps’ won’t challenge fake RNC claims until Dem pundits go out there and make them. Our e-mailers ask us the obvious question: When a comedian, like Stewart, can do so well, why can’t other pundits perform? The answer leads straight to the DNC, an organization with which Dems should be furious. [Needless to say, as DNC Treasurer, I don’t agree. – A.T.] TOMORROW: Why on earth can’t Terry McAuliffe prep our major Dem pundits? WATCHING SPIN GROW: Your mainstream ‘journalists’ sleep, snore and burble. For example, here was Kate O’Beirne, pimping the script on The Capital Gang: O’BEIRNE (7/31/04): In a 45-minute speech, this is [Kerry’s] fundamental problem, one of his problems, he spent 26 seconds talking about 20 years of his public career. He acted as though he disappeared after 1971, when he testified against the war in the Senate, and reappeared magically 30 years later. But an object of the exercise in Boston was to try to persuade people that he’s not a Massachusetts liberal, and of course, his voting record has him No. 1, the most liberal member of the Senate, so he ain’t gonna talk about that much, even though he has 45 minutes. Except in Cartoon Nation, of course, Kerry isn’t ‘the most liberal member of the Senate.’ But how are American voters supposed to know that? Shields, Hunt and Carlson sat, drooled and stared. No one challenged what O’Beirne said. This is how White House elections are now decided, but your millionaire pundits-Hunt, Shields and Carlson-in a phrase, just don’t really care. They simply don’t care if the rubes are misled. They no longer care about that. How much longer will Dems and their allies put up with their sit-and-stare conduct? TOMORROW: Tom Vilsack, chumped by Bill Hemmer! FROM THE GREAT PLANET WASHINGTON POST: On what planet does the Washington Post’s editorial board now reside? In Tuesday’s paper, the board expressed pride in Tom Ridge’s recent performance: WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL (8/3/04): In his statement, Mr. Ridge stayed away from politics, although he did, as in the past, find it necessary to attach a list of his homeland security achievements along with the warning, which did reduce its impact. Really? Mr. Ridge ‘stayed away from politics?’ That came as news to a letter writer whose missive appeared in yesterday’s New York Times. . . NEW YORK TIMES LETTER (8/3/04): I live in northern New Jersey and work in Midtown Manhattan, near the Citicorp Center. I was listening carefully to Tom Ridge’s warning, as the sites he was mentioning for possible attacks basically encompassed all of my daily life. Then he said, ‘We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president’s leadership in the war against terror.’ I realized that I was listening to a paid political announcement and turned the radio off. The credibility of the announcement had been reduced to zero. J- M- Ridgewood, N.J. ‘We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president’s leadership in the war against terror.’ There was more to Ridge’s TV ad, but let’s keep it simple. To the Post, that wasn’t politicization. Indeed, the Post went out of its way to say that Ridge didn’t do that. For the record, someone else noticed the politicization. And yes, you guessed it-at The Daily Show, Jon Stewart played tape of that very statement by Ridge, and his young audience hooted and groaned. So let’s see. A letter writer in Jersey could see it. A comedian and his comedy audience could see it. But the brilliant eds at the Washington Post? Somehow, they just couldn’t see it-indeed, insisted it hadn’t occurred! And readers, this is the context in which those spin-points are being recited, embroidered and spun. And this is why Dems and liberals must insist that their public spokesmen be better prepared. Your mainstream ‘press corps’ is asleep, snoring, absent. Dems must remember Campaign 2000, and they must insist-they must insist-that the hapless, inert, inept DNC not let this mess happen again. Your spokesmen are good at losing elections. More on this problem tomorrow. ☞ I do think this is unfair to the DNC. We don’t control the Washington Post editorial page or the TV pundits . . . and if Jon Stewart can nail it night after night, why can’t others? But . . . (a) You can be sure I will be reading tomorrow’s Daily Howler (which is to say, today’s). (b) The problem the Daily Howler has identified is hugely important and very real. The morning after John Kerry’s home-run Convention speech, I watched CNN’s Bill Hemmer interview former RNC chair Mark Racicot. And sure enough, there was Racicot feigning perplexity, pretending to try to square Senator Kerry’s strong defense rhetoric with the fact that he’s voted against every major weapons system (or words to that effect). Obviously, Mark Racicot knows this is ‘inaccurate and grossly misleading‘ – just as he must know Senators Kerry and Edwards are not the first and fourth most liberal senators in the Senate . . . and just as the Republican leadership surely knew Al Gore never said he invented the Internet and all the rest. Just as, indeed, candidate Bush must have known it was a trillion-dollar lie to look into the camera and tell the American people, with regard to his proposed tax cut, that ‘by far, the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.’ But what does Bill Hemmer know? It would be ideal if he knew enough to challenge Mark Racicot on an inaccurate and grossly misleading statement. Failing that (and I’m not saying I would be any better in such a situation than Mr. Hemmer), wouldn’t it be great if CNN and others had a segment called REALITY CHECK periodically throughout the day? What more valuable role could CNN and all the other news organizations play than to give prominent and repeated air time to moments like this? The effect would be two-fold. First, of course, and most directly, millions of people would be better informed. The next time they heard the same false charge echoed, they could nudge their compatriot and say, ‘That’s not really true. They’re scamming us.’ Second, and of perhaps even more significance, talking heads on TV (on both sides of the desk) might make an effort to avoid the embarrassment of a REALITY CHECK, and thus better serve the viewing public. Yes, ‘my side’ might come in for the occasional REALITY CHECK, too. But to quote James Carville again from the 1992 campaign: ‘We say one plus one equals three, and the Bush folks say one plus one equals three thousand, and [the press reports], ‘both of them are wrong.” Why is fake news guy Jon Stewart doing the best job out there? C’mon, real news guys, catch up!
Protecting America August 4, 2004February 27, 2017 THE TWO THINGS ABOUT INVESTING John Lange: ‘I think ‘the two things about investing’ are: 1) Diversify 2) Start early (or start NOW as in “the two best times to plant a tree are 20 years ago and now”) IS THIS BOREALISTIC? As some of you saw yesterday, Borealis issued a press release that its Chorus Motor does not deliver three times the start up torque of same-size traditional motors, as originally claimed – but five times. All I know about TORQUE is that, like QAT, QAID and FAQIR, it’s good for Scrabble. But for those of you who understand such things, behold (or debunk). PROTECTING AMERICA So the 9/11 Commission issued its report a couple of weeks ago calling for strong action to avert grave danger. The House Republican leadership sprang into action, spending six hours on a bill to prevent courts – even the Supreme Court – from challenging anti-gay-marriage laws . . . passed that (surely unConstitional) law . . . and then adjourned for summer vacation. SOFTBALL OF THE WEEK Bill Davis: ‘I voted for W. in 2000 and have had enough of him and his cronies. My question is this: How can I contribute, besides donations, to the Kerry campaign?’ ☞ Visit johnkerry.com and sign up at the Volunteer Center for lots of ideas.