bustardblog

Retreat is the Only Option

By issuing a partisan attack piece on the morning of the State of the Union Address,The Bush administration reiterates it's position on Iraq: no matter what is said tonight, there will be no real change in strategy or policy. Bush will leave office to crawl back to Crawford with a full complement of troops fighting, and dying in Iraq, and he will do everything within his power to blame the next President for his failures.

Liz Cheney doesn't even bother to make effort to disguise her op-ed in the Washington Post as an analysis.  Instead, she makes it clear what she's about when she begins with a childish smear about Hillary Clinton's ambitions. The following is a slur, not an argument:

Anyone who has watched her [Clinton's] remarkable trajectory can have no doubt that she'll do whatever it takes to win the presidency."

Cheney (fille) then writes a lot of garbage that defies  both historical and current reality in Iraq. One of her more outrageous assertions is that we must stay to protect allies like Pakistan's  Pervez Musharraf. Based on a lot of recent reporting, the N.Y. Times wrote in an editorial today:

Pakistan is now the third-largest recipient of American foreign aid. Yet more than five years after 9/11, the Bush administration has still not been able to secure Pakistan’s active and consistent support against the Taliban. The very least Washington should be demanding of President Musharraf is that he enforce an immediate halt on Pakistani military support for the Taliban insurgents who are crossing the border and killing American troops.

Frankly, I don't want to see a single U.S. soldier die to protect Musharraf, and his "support... for ...insurgents... who are... killing American troops.

Cheney writes that the recent rout of Republicans in Congressional elections did not show that Americans:

want us to allow Iraq to become a base for al-Qaeda to conduct global terrorist operations., They did not say that they would rather fight the terrorists here at home.

They also did not say that they want permanent war. What their votes did prove is that they no longer believe the lies of the Cheney/Bush team, nor do they accept the use by this administration of fear, of terror, as a campaign tool.

Although I have strongly opposed to this war since before it began, I am concerned about our responsibilty to Iraq for the evil we have unleashed in that  benighted land.  I would welcome serious analysis or suggestions on what we should do next - but there is no way that these will come from an administration that relies on Dick Cheney or  Karl Rove.

These guys are poison to our body politic. They insult us by continuing to use slurs, lies and fear in lieu of arguments which would sway us.

(Thanks [?] to memeorandum)

 

Bustard Reads

Barry R. Chistwick wrote an anti-immigrant in today's NY Times. I have had no training in economics, and would appreciate any comments that might help me understand his position better.  I am especially confused by these three issues:

1. He talks of the "goods that other countries can produce more efficiently", but he seems to really mean that 'they can produce more cheaply.' To an economist, are these terms synonymous?  A country that pays a child pennies for his labor, or even uses slave labor, will produce a T-Shirt more cheaply than we can in the U.S.? Is this "more efficient"?
2. He states that new immigrants are not evenly distributed in the U.S, and instead are concentrated in the "big six" - California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas. If you forget New Jersey, the remaining "big five" for immigrants are the "big five" for everyone else in this country. They are the five most populous states in the U.S. (New Jersey is #10.) What's the point?
3. He then takes it to the next level, and points out the unequal distribution of where the immigrants move to within those states: "while there are many in New York City"... "relatively few are in upstate New York." It might be news to Chiswick, but nobody is moving to upstate New York. It's population decreases each year. What is the significance of stating that immigrants are not moving to places that American workers are fleeing from

Chiswick seems to be one of a thankfully small group of academics whose opinions are supported by "facts" - facts which are utterly without relevance to the argument at hand.

The Bustard Writes

Today. John Tierney wrote of the crime of rent control in New York.  He confessed to his having benefitted from this unfair practice, and we're sure that he'll return his ill gotten funds. He's written before on rent control - on June 12, 2001 he admitted that he was a "profiteering thief."  An e-mail to Mr. Tierney was sent today, as follows:

Dear Mr. Tierney,

Luckily, you work for the Times. Thus it won't be difficult for you to find classified ads for apartments similar to the one you lived in for the 17 years you were a "rentocrat." You can easily calculate how much less you paid than the market cost for your apartment, and can start reimbursing your former landlords. Personally, I look forward to hearing how much money is involved, and what your re-payment plan will be.

Sincerely,

p.s. (What rate of interest will you pay?)

He's Baaaaaack!!!!!!!!

Real wages are falling, gas prices are shooting up - but in fact, we're Rich.  Yes Frank Rich is back at the Times. Thank your Grey Old Lady.

In today's piece he does depress the reader by noting that unless Bush were to come clean about his lies that led us into War, we will have a deteriorating disaster on our hands. Purely cosmetic changes like the hiring of Tony Snow, or even if Rumsfeld were to be fired, could not be sufficient. Either  the President must change; or we must change the President.

Despite this, there is joy in Mudville again.  Frank Rich is back.

The Israel Lobby

Please, a round of applause is in order for the sub-editor who did the layout for today’s Op-Ed page in the N.Y. Times. With Maureen Dowd’s piece on the left, Thomas Friedman’s on the right, and Tony Judt’s central argument occupying the center-left stage, today’s paper is enough to make any editor proud: both symbol and content were handled perfectly.

The central piece, “A Lobby, not a Conspiracy” argues for calm in the storm caused by over-reactions to Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer’s essay on “The Israel Lobby.” Judt did not over-react; if anything he is too gentle with those who attacked the essay, which asked for a more honest and open conversation about the State of Israel, and our country’s relationship to it. Judt notes that the lack of a realistic appraisal of the relationship is caused by fear – “America’s fear of anti-Semitism when discussing Israel.”

Part I of this post will discuss the reality of that fear, and Part II will demonstrate the harm done by its result.

That such fears end up benefiting neither country is discussed by Judt. The fact that the fear is a realistic response to recent intimidation of critics of Israel is not mentioned. The co-authors of “The Israel Lobby” are distinguished American scholars, one at Harvard and the other at the University of Chicago, yet their work did not appear in any American journal; it was up to the “London Review of Books” to be sure that the article saw the light of day.
 
Similarly the play, “My Name is Rachel Corrie,” based on the writings of a young American college student who died under an Israeli bulldozer while protesting the treatment of Palestinians, has never been produced in this country. It had two sold out runs in London, followed by a move to a larger stage in The West End. The New York Theater Workshop reneged on its agreement to produce the show – citing concerns about the recent election of Hamas, and of the health of Ariel Sharon.  Quite correctly, the London producers condemned this as “censorship.” (link)
 
Writers and producers who criticize Israel are not the only ones intimidated. Sir Richard Rogers, the British architect who won a billion and a half dollar contract for revamping New York City’s Convention Center, was forced to resign from, and then renounce, a group opposed to the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The Jerusalem Post’s reportof March 5 on the successful efforts of the Anti-Defamation director Abraham Foxman, the  N.Y. State Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver, and Congressman Anthony Weiner to force Lord Rogers to publicly repudiate the group, or face the cancellation of the contract which had been signed months before.

 On April 17^th, Daniel Pipes bragged about the ability of a group he founded, Campus Watch, to frighten college professors. He describes it as an organization that “reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them.”  The President of Hillel at Georgia Tech wrote an article for Front Page, complaining of the supposed bias of a professor. The student complained that the teacher had used the “word occupation in every statement. It was like a propaganda lesson from the Nazis”, and that “her intellectual capacity” should be questioned. The Professor later wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education, under a pseudonym, of the experiences of some of her “friends over the past few years” who had been “placed on blacklists.”  (Proudly Pipes informs us that it was Campus Watch that produced the dossiers.) She mentions the self-censorship that is prompted by this fear, and the resulting “feelings of anger and frustration.”  Pipes, referring to these feelings, thanks the Professor “for the encouragement and guidance.” Pipes considers her response “the most eloquent, if unintended, testimony to” the “effectiveness” of Campus Watch. Pipes and the neo-con paper, the New York Sun, both call for financial vengeance against the institutions that employ Walt and Mearsheimer, authors of “The Israel Lobby.”

 Fear, then, is a response fully warranted by the actions that some supporters of Israel have taken against academics, producers, writers and architects. It is not an illogical response. But aside from some artists and intellectuals, who is hurt by this aggressive silencing of any debate on our relationship with Israel? Tens of thousands of Israelis and Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have suffered.

Part II will prove this, as well as the genius of that layout sub-editor at The Times.

 

Our Miss Brooks- Your Mr. Chips

David Brooks has actually had some reasonable columns recently. Today wasn't one of them. Lately, he's had some intelligent, if inconsistent, comments on immigration reform, as well as calling for Rumsfeld's head on a platter. Good Stuff.

In his most recent effort, Brooks calls upon Moses and Martin Luther King Jr in an attempt to defend our nation's blighted Iraq policy. As powerful as those individuals are, they can not conquer reality.

A good editorial writer is able to synthesize some of the conflicting bits of data that constantly bombard us into an integrated understanding of events.  Like his colleague at the Times, Tom Friedman, Brooks sees the goal of synthesis as being synonymous with the yearning for simple-mindedness.  It ain't the same.

Lurching backwards to the intellectual level of a Mr. Rogers viewer, Brooks reported today on a conversation between "Mr. Past" and "Mr Future."

"Mr. Past" could just as easily be named Mr. Negative - this Meany believes that great historical problems cannot be fixed, and that we are doomed by our flaws, just as the hamster is doomed to repeatedly, futilely run round and round on its treadmill.

"Mr Future," on the other hand is in fact the spawn of "Miss Pollyanna." He like, George W. Bush, Martin Luther King and Moses, understands that cultures and societies can be transformed. They all realize that change can take generations to occur, and that sacrifice is required, but that in the end it is all that is worthwhile.

Of course this is a dishonest dichotomy. It is the right who  believe that humans cannot bind together to improve anything.  Everyone is corrupt in their world, and the world's recognition of this  'fact,' and it's realization that self-interest, as reflected in the marketplace, is the only possible orgainizing principle; is all that separates us from slavery or anarchy.

The article might, just might, make sense if Brooks had left Bush and his Iraq adventures out of it.  Moses asked his people to take enormous risks and to make huge sacrifices. King was repeatedly jailed, and in the end lost his life to his cause. This isn't the way Bush "leads." Neither Moses nor King suggested that the path they fought for would be easy, while knowing otherwise.

Sadly, Brooks lacks the honesty necessary to examine the issues he writes about.  Reminiscent of a Tweedy Teacher at one of the North East boarding schools he so admires, his connection to Lofty, Utopian, Classical, ideals stops where the realities of tuition begin.

 

Orwellian Swill

Sometimes the N.Y. Times get's it absolutely right:

Today's editorial accurately sums up the Republican senators' plan to cover the cost of additional tax cuts for the rich: "That's swill."

It also finds the following statement that our Department of Justice issued yesterday "profoundly Orwellian:"  "The attorney general's comments today should not be interpreted to suggest the existence or nonexistence of a domestic program or whether any such program would be lawful under the existing legal analysis."

You Go Gail!

Brooks Forgets.

David Brooks has often written of the glorious world of elitist boarding schools. One  of the things he seems to admire most about them is their distinguished history and their institutional memory.

Diminutive David now thinks memory an ugly word.

In today's Op-Ed for the Times he writes of the "pivotal" week of March 24, 2003.  Brooks heaps praise upon those pundits who understood the reality of Iraq at that point.

He makes an oblique reference to the prescient rag he then edited, The Weekly Standard, "which had been bashing Rumsfeld for years."  But the opinions he himself voiced that week were entirely wrong. I refer to his appearance on NPR's "All Things Considered" on March 28,2003.  In today's paper  he wrote that "Everybody denigrates pundits and armchair generals, but immediately the smartest of them realized that something unexpected was happening: the U.S. was not in the midst of a conventional war, but was in the first days of a guerrilla war."

In his 2003 interview, he's the one doing the denigrating. "I especially like to blame the armchair generals who have been mercurial and bipolar."  Today he wrote that "when you look at the commentary - at least during that week [3/24/03] -  you are struck by how smart it was."  But Brooks himself on March 28 was emphatic: "I agree with the  Bush policy on the war fervently."

He now dares to state that if only adjustments to that policy had been made then, "much of the horror could have been averted."

Brooks is nothing if not dishonest.

At least in today's piece he finally is saying that the administration's policy was a disaster. The fall guy he selected is Rumsfeld.  I don't disagree that Rummy has been a disaster, but last I heard Mr Cheney and Mr Bush were also part of this government.

Rat, Author of "Impostor"

NationaIt is a genuine pleasure to watch rats fleeing the sinking ship that is the Bush administration. But they are still rats.

A fine example is Bruce Bartlett, former Reagan adviser and supply-side economics advocate, whose book entitled "Impostor: How George W Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy" is a harsh indictment of President Bush. He is currently writing Op-Eds in the timesselect section of the NY Times.

Paul Krugman recently wrote a column in which he reminded readers of how Bartlett had  characterized him in September of 2003; "if [Krugman] were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one of his famous tirades.

Krugman's piece pleads that undue credit not be given to those who supported Bush when his approval was at 80%; and oppose him when it's about 38%. He reminds us that for years guys like Bartlett and Sullivan were insulting pundits like Krugman for writing about the clear and obvious failings of W. et al.   He doesn't expect it, but thinks a nod of respect from those who failed to see the truth when he did, would be appropriate.

Bartlett's response yesterday make it clear that he remains a rodent.

He begins by defending his voting for Bush twice by saying that Gore and Kerry "were awful candidates who ran dreadful campaigns." So it is their ability to campaign, the likelihood of their victory, that determines who Bartlett supports - not their policies, competence or character.  Bush has made it abundantly clear that the ability to campaign is totally unrelated to the ability to govern.

He also didn't like "the shrillness and nastiness of much of the left-liberal critique of Mr. Bush." Last week Bartlett used the words ""unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive," and "inept"" to describe the President. I am so glad that he didn't get shrill and nasty.

As final proof of his personal valor, Bartlett speaks of the personal risks and sacrifices that he took. Unlike a tenured Professor (Krugman), Bartlett's job at a conservative think tank was endangered. But the fact is that he accepted a six figure advance and asked for a reduction in hours to produce the book. According to his employer he lied about the nature of the book he was working on. So it's hardly surprising, but not at all bad for publicity, that when he presented the book to his boss, he was fired. He concludes his response to Krugman by writing "If all this makes me a Johnny-come lately Bush critic, then so be it. In the end, I was fired from my think-tank job without severance for writing my book. That's a price none of my critics have had to pay."

Although he acts the martyr in his reply to Krugman,and in order to promote his book, Bartlett speculated to the Dallas Observer that "maybe he was looking to get fired."  A six figure advance isn't bad for a guy who has never been married and is proud of his "Spartan" lifestyle.

And Bartlett continues to write fundamentally dishonest smears against Democrats. Last month he wrote a piece about race, concluding that the "record shows that Democrats, not Republicans, have been the party of racism." His historical analysis is heavy on the 19th century and light on the 20th. His quotes from Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat, come from 1858. He fails to mention Kennedy or L.B.J. In fact he only mentions the Civil Rights Act as a way to smear Sen.Robert Byrd. Bartlett points out that F.D.R appointed Hugo Black to the Supreme Court and describes Black as a "life member of the KKK." Black was a member - for two to three years, not life, and Bartlett failed to mention that "Justice Black quickly established a record sympathetic to African Americans and the civil rights movement....Similarly, he was part of the unanimous Brown v. Board of Education (1954) Court that struck down racial segregation in public schools. He was burnt in effigy by segregationists back in Alabama."

This kind of deceit is standard operating procedure for Bartlett.  In January he wrote  a piece about corruption in Congress, saying "a reasonable person reviewing all the evidence would have to conclude that Democrats are much more likely to be corrupt." "All the evidence" is really only one piece of evidence: the record of the last 30 years of the House Ethics Committee. And Bartlett fails to mention that the Republicans emasculated that process in 1977. For only the first two years of  the Republican's control of the House has there been a functioning committee.

Simply put, Bartlett's expertise was in the thoroughly discredited arena of supply- side (voodoo) economics. As Bush's poll numbers sank,  he jumped ship. He lied to his boss about the book he was working on. When the book is finished, he gets fired. The poor guy received no severance (although he was sitting on a six figure advance). He now works full time promoting his book, and writing pieces for the N.Y Times that exploit his victim-hood.

So, now he's a Bush critic, but he's still very much the rat.

Brooks & Reality:D-I-V-O-R-C-E

True naked ambition. (well, not actually naked)

(h/t blog.reidreport.com)

When David Brooks takes a break from bragging about his superior education, instructing us on precisely which of Plato's dialogs we should be reading, and asserting his masculinity, he should spend a little time with Rand McNally.

The crumbling edifice of Brooks' brain is in serious need of a reality restoration.

In today's op-ed for the Times, Brooks attacks Hillary for being a "nakedly ambitious demagogue" because of her stance on Dubai operating our ports.  He is happy to report that Hagel and McCain passed the test of character that this issue presents. But Brooks does not seem to know that one of the ports in question is in New York, the state Mrs. Clinton represents.  A cursory glance at a map of the U.S. might remind Mr. Brooks that neither Arizona nor Nebraska have a lot of ports.

He denounces Hillary because her husband's library accepted "up to a million dollars" from the U.A.E., but neglects to mention that George H.W. Bush's library accepted "at least a million."  Generally, "at least" is bigger than "up to" a million. Brooks also complains of money that Bill earned from the U.A.E. in speaking fees, but forgets those collected by the Bush family.

He is even more scornful of Hillary's  playing to the "rawest form of xenophobia." To Brooks, all Arab states are the same. He cannot make even the gross distinctions that Condi Rice's State Department can. Not all Muslim nations have been designated Level III human traffickers. (the worst level) But Dubai has. In not all Arab states are only 10% of the residents considered citizens. But that's how it is in Dubai. 

Her stance reminds him of the "Clinton years at their worst: the me-me-me selfishness." How he can write a sentence like that after years of Republican corruption and thievery is utterly beyond me.

Brooks trashes her Presidential ambition in part because she "is the only presidential candidate who does not offer a break from the current polarization and bitter partisanship." He admits that "a lot of the bitterness would not be her fault," but goes on to say that "she is happy to be a crude partisan." So, who is to be blamed for the bitterness? Brooks fails to ask. Both Hillary and Bill are far closer to the center than the current Republican party. And opposition to Dubai's operating our ports is about as bi-partisan an issue as we have seen in five years of Bush's divisiveness.

His pompous conclusion is that "over the long run, people vote on character." Yes, he wrote that during the second term of George W. Bush's Presidency.