Month: December 2004

Here’s David Frum’s defense of the Medals of Freedom for three architects of failure in the invasion and occupation of Iraq:

[T]he president is doing something important. He is declaring to the officials and soldiers who are executing this policies that he will stand behind them when things get tough; that he won’t go seeking scapegoats; that he fully, strongly, and publicly supports the individuals he himself chose to carry out the tasks he himself assigned. There’s a lot of loose talk about President Bush’s demands for loyalty. One thing that critics of this president have never grasped is that he has been unprecedentedly successful in claiming loyalty up because he is unprecedentedly committed to loyalty down.

Memo to David: a “scapegoat” is someone unfairly singled out for criticism when he isn’t the man responsible. Take just on example here. George Tenet was CIA chief when the worst intelligence failure since the Bay of Pigs led to the deaths of thousands of people at the hands of Jihadist murderers. He followed up by assuring the president that the case for Saddam’s existing stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction was a “slam dunk.” Not only is this man not fired; he is given the highest civilian medal possible. Frum’s case is that what really matters is not competence or candor or effectiveness – but loyalty. How is the ethic he praises inapplicable to, say, a successful mob boss?

Over at Tech Central Station. By the way, isn’t this a great mini-moment for the blogosphere? Here we have one of the smartest writers in the country testing a hypothesis against the collective brain of the blogosphere. It couldn’t have happened before. And it may actually add substance to an important public policy debate. What’s not to like?

No need to. Rumsfeld already got the Medal of Freedom – in 1977.

“I certainly agree with you that conservative criticism of Sec. Rumsfeld is long overdue, and this piece in the Post is a good start. But I must say that this type of criticism has been around since before the war was even launched, and reached a fever pitch months before the election. So my question to you, and in particular your more conservative counterparts, is: where was this indignation when it mattered? I’m not saying that Kerry would have had all of the answers, and I know that you did you part in voicing many of these same concerns, but for the Sec. of Defense to be such a monumental failure and not get called out for it by his boss is unimaginable. I guess I expected more… Party over Country is the rule of the day.” More feedback on the Letters Page.

Well, they said they’d voice their real criticisms once the election was over. And Bill Kristol comes through today with a stinging piece in the Washington Post on Rumsfeld. It reads at times like the arguments on this blog. The most effective argument is about Rumsfeld’s absolute refusal to take responsibility for any of his own errors, and his instinct, when in trouble, to blame others. This is not straight-talking; it’s buck-passing. And, of course, Kristol’s points about insufficient manpower for the post-invasion period remains blindingly obvious – except, of course, to the people running this war. Check out this simple statistic from one of the official reports on Abu Ghraib: at one point, General Sanchez had only 495 of the 1400 staffers he needed. There were 92 military police guards for 7,000 prisoners in Abu Ghraib. The responsibility for the consequences of that under-manning lies with Rumsfeld and the president. It’s a responsibility they still both refuse to take. And by reappointing Rumsfeld and anointing Bremer and Tenet, Bush has just told his critics to pull a Cheney. I think the stakes in Iraq are too great for this kind of petty intransigence. But that’s the president we have.

MALKIN AWARD NOMINEE: “Republicans know that they may not be able to sway anyone with their ideas on domestic and foreign policy, or their views on the economy, but they do know that hatred and bigotry are great motivators. They get the ear of the leaders of these so called ‘family groups’ and Christian media watchdogs and warn them of the impending storm of gay ‘legitimization’ and they get them all riled up by telling them that gays are going to get married and move into their neighborhoods. As if a newly married gay couple would ever choose to live in a trailer park. They pump up these Bible thumping, cousin humping genetic mistakes with hot air and propaganda which sends them into a mullet fantasia of pink triangles and rainbow flags, and convinces them that their tax dollars will be used to foot the bill for Elton John and George Michael’s wedding.” – former comedian Margaret Cho, from her blog.

GALLOWAY’S NEW LOW: He refuses to condemn suicide bombers against coalition troops in Iraq: “I will not condemn an occupied people for using their legal rights, their legal rights as well as their moral rights to resist the illegal occupation of their country.” Not anti-war, as Glenn says. Just for the other side.

My old boss and friend, Mike Kinsley, now running the editorial pages at the Los Angeles Times, poses the following conundrum, which he invites any of you to refute. Yep, he’s a big media guy turning to blogs for an answer. Write responses to him at michael.kinsley@latimes.com. Here’s his argument:

My contention: Social Security privatization is not just unlikely to succeed, for various reasons that are subject to discussion. It is mathematically certain to fail. Discussion is pointless.

The usual case against privatization is that (1) millions of inexperienced investors may end up worse off, and (2) stocks don’t necessarily do better than bonds over the long-run, as proponents assume.But privatization won’t work for a better reason: it can’t possibly work, even in theory. The logic is not very complicated.

1. To “work,” privatization must generate more money for retirees than current arrangements. This bonus is supposed to be extra money in retirees’ pockets and/or it is supposed to make up for a reduction in promised benefits, thus helping to close the looming revenue gap.

2. Where does this bonus come from? There are only two possibilities: from greater economic growth, or from other people.

3. Greater economic growth requires either more capital to invest, or smarter investment of the same amount of capital. Privatization will not lead to either of these.

a) If nothing else in the federal budget changes, every dollar deflected from the federal treasury into private social security accounts must be replaced by a dollar that the government raises in private markets. So the total pool of capital available for private investment remains the same.

b) The only change in decision-making about capital investment is that the decisions about some fraction of the capital stock will be made by people with little or no financial experience. Maybe this will not be the disaster that some critics predict. But there is no reason to think that it will actually increase the overall return on capital.

4. If the economy doesn’t produce more than it otherwise would, the Social Security privatization bonus must come from other investors, in the form of a lower return.

a) This is in fact the implicit assumption behind the notion of putting Social Security money into stocks, instead of government bonds, because stocks have a better long-term return. The bonus will come from those saps who sell the stocks and buy the bonds.

b) In other words, privatization means betting the nation’s most important social program on a theory that cannot be true unless many people are convinced that it’s false.

c) Even if the theory is true, initially, privatization will make it false. The money newly available for private investment will bid up the price of (and thus lower the return on) stocks, while the government will need to raise the interest on bonds in order to attract replacement money.

d) In short, there is no way other investors can be tricked or induced into financing a higher return on Social Security.

5. If the privatization bonus cannot come from the existing economy, and cannot come from growth, it cannot exist. And therefore, privatization cannot work.

Q.E.D.

Or not?

Here’s a fascinating nugget from the New England Journal of Medicine:

Surgeons also discovered a dismayingly high incidence of blinding injuries. Soldiers had been directed to wear eye protection, but they evidently found the issued goggles too ugly. As some soldiers put it, ‘They look like something a Florida senior citizen would wear.’ So the military bowed to fashion and switched to cooler-looking Wiley-brand ballistic eyewear. The rate of eye injuries has since decreased markedly.

Virginia Postrel, call your office.

A NEW HIV DRUG? Some promising news Rutgers.

“I was very, very disappointed – no, let me put it stronger – I was angry by the words of the secretary of defense when he laid it all on the Army, as if he, as the secretary of defense, didn’t have anything to do with the Army and the Army was over there doing it themselves, screwing up,” – Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, yesterday. I think we should just be grateful that Rummy hasn’t been given a presidential medal of freedom. Yet.

Another charming aspect of the barbaric regime in Iran: a mentally retarded girl sold for sex now faces the death penalty for prostitution.

FISKING NOVAK: The right-wing pundit loses it over an obscure Italian.

HEADS UP: I’ll be on the Wolf Blitzer show this afternoon with my CPAP machine. Thank God I already have a boyfriend.

The presidential medal of freedom goes to George “Slam Dunk” Tenet, Tommy “We Have Enough Troops” Franks, and Paul “Disband the Iraqi Army” Bremer. It’s one thing never to punish error, but to reward it so magnificently! Steve Clemons vents here.