Month: May 2009

The Long Game

OBAMA09CampDavidSaulLoeb:Getty

A reader writes:

I’d love for you to help me understand how it could ever be “dangerous” to seriously criticize a president when they act in a corrupt way. If, if, IF you are right that Obama is acting corruptly on purpose, as part of a hidden plan, don’t you and I have the exact same responsibility as active citizens to criticize him passionately nonetheless?  Are you suggesting that Obama’s long range plan requires a citizenry and blogosphere that both gains access to the reasons of his corrupt action AND THEN quietly stands on the sidelines?

 And for the sake of context- I’m not disagreeing with the possibility that Obama has secret plans. I just don’t understand at all the mentality that suggests we must try to figure that out in order to support it when the immediate actions are awful. 

These are important points. In the last couple of days, this blog has done both – rip him a new one over his decisions (or non-decisions)  on torture and marriage but also grant him some moral and political benefit of the doubt over the long haul.

This was also, I should add, this blog’s take on Bush.

I gave him every benefit of the doubt in the war and on gay rights until he took decisions that, in my view, violated the core integrity of the enterprise – the reckless incompetence of the Iraq occupation, the decision to allow torture, and the backing of a federal marriage amendment. In some ways, Bush wanted to argue the long game on all these fronts as a defense, and I felt it was unwarranted. The betrayals were too deep. Violating core values on the treatment of prisoners, amending the constitution to marginalize gay couples and refusing to acknowledge a failed strategy in Iraq until all hell broke out: these were decisions that crossed lines that could never be excused by the long game.

Politicians are not saints. They cannot live in the pristine world of a blogger who can make abstract arguments with only a responsibility to keep telling the truth to his readers as best he can. The task of an intelligent critic is both to grasp the core issue without holding these guys to impossible standards of purity and truth in a flawed and miserable world. Obama’s revisiting of his decision not to release the photos is a sign of a president able to re-think difficult stances. If it leads to a cover-up of serious crimes, then he deserves real opposition. If it is a measure to keep the ship of state afloat – and soldiers morale high – as the process of discovery and legal accountability continues, then give him some time and space.

Bush First Rejected The Awakening

Then he relented. David Rose has a scoop:

The Sunni Awakening, when it did finally come, provided welcome relief, says Jerry Jones. But the cost of delay is quantifiable. “From July ’04 to mid-’07,” he points out, “you can directly attribute almost all those K.I.A. [killed in action] in the Sunni regions of Iraq to this fatal error, and if we hadn’t been fighting the Sunni, we’d have had a lot more resources for dealing with Shia militia leaders like Moqtada al-Sadr in places such as Baghdad. It didn’t have to happen. Those lives did not have to be lost.” To put the matter concretely: if the compromises accepted later by the Bush administration had been accepted when a rapprochement was first broached by the Sunnis, in 2004, some 2,000 Americans and thousands more Iraqis might not have died.

The Power Of Photos

Ryan Sager on the impact of graphic evidence of crimes:

Social science research has made it clear that confronting the true gruesomeness of a crime makes us much more likely to want to punish it — and more likely to want to punish it more harshly.

Take that Lacy Peterson example. Sure, a written description of the crime will let you know what happened. But take this description of research conducted by David Bright of the University of New South Wales: “Jurors presented with gruesome evidence, such as descriptions or images of torture and mutilation, are up to five times more likely to convict a defendant than jurors not privy to such evidence.”

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

You say, "The vast majority of gays are already protected." Wow. Aren't you completely overlooking the fact that, according to the map you provide, the states that do NOT have these protections are also the states (UT, ID, MT, most of the Deep South) where bigotry and hate crimes against gays are presumably the most likely to occur? And also the least likely to pass this sort of legislation at the state level? That's why federal legislation is necessary.

How Green Are Your Shoots?

Ryan Avent defines "green shoots":

For some people, only a return to previous output levels will count as green shoots. For others, only an end to actual contraction — where the rate of decline hits zero — is a marker of the greening of various shoots. Still others might herald the inflection point at which contraction slows as green, a harbinger of better times to come. When I speak about green shoots in the economy, I’m using this last interpretation. This is quickly dismissed by pessimists who say things like, “Things are just getting worse more slowly!” Quite so. That is exactly how one moves from things getting worse more quickly to things getting better.

A Sixth State For Marriage Equality

Readers know I favor strong legal language to ensure that no one's religious freedom can in any way be curtailed by civil equality for gay couples. That's why I think governor Lynch of New Hampshire is right to sign on to marriage equality – as he just did – as long as the following language is attached:

I. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a religious organization, association, or society, or any individual who is managed, directed, or supervised by or in conjunction with a religious organization, association or society, or any nonprofit institution or organization operated, supervised or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious organization, association or society, shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges to an individual if such request for such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges is related to the solemnization of a marriage, the celebration of a marriage, or the promotion of marriage through religious counseling, programs, courses, retreats, or housing designated for married individuals, and such solemnization, celebration, or promotion of marriage is in violation of their religious beliefs and faith.

Any refusal to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges in accordance with this section shall not create any civil claim or cause of action or result in any state action to penalize or withhold benefits from such religious organization, association or society, or any individual who is managed, directed, or supervised by or in conjunction with a religious organization, association or society, or any nonprofit institution or organization operated, supervised or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious organization, association or society.

II. The marriage laws of this state shall not be construed to affect the ability of a fraternal benefit society to determine the admission of members pursuant to RSA 418:5, and shall not require a fraternal benefit society that has been established and is operating for charitable and educational purposes and which is operated, supervised or controlled by or in connection with a religious organization to provide insurance benefits to any person if to do so would violate the fraternal benefit society's free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States and part 1, article 5 of the Constitution of New Hampshire 

III. Nothing in this chapter shall be deemed or construed to limit the protections and exemptions provided to religious organizations under RSA § 354-A:18. 

IV. Repeal. RSA 457-A, relative to civil unions, is repealed effective January 1, 2011, except that no new civil unions shall be established after January 1, 2010.

Pelosi And Boehner Urge Investigation

There seems to be a growing bipartisan chorus for a Truth Commission:

Pelosi renewed her call for a "truth commission'' to investigate the Bush administration's use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques and the legal arguments devised to support it. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, his administration calling it "torture,'' he has been cool toward any independent inquiry that might distract attention from his own agenda. Boehner says that if they want to get to the bottom of this, then fine, put everything on the table.

Amen. The notion that dealing with this can somehow be put off without a commission does not seem to make sense to me. By not setting up a commission, Obama will ensure that this stuff is hashed out in partisan fashion in ways that cannot provide the proper context. Besides, we now know that even the 9/11 Commission was based on tortured intelligence, thereby rendering its judgments suspect.

You can't cure a cancer by telling the patient to "move forward". You need first to find out where the cancer started, where it has spread, and how to destroy it.

It’s Not Just Rising Health Care Costs

Tyler Cowen tackles Robert Reich and the rising health care costs fallacy once again:

…if Medicare were less generous, much less would be spent on health care.  Now you might think that would be a bad result and that of course a debate worth having.  But the mere fact that you favor some amount of Medicare does not lower the cost burden of the amount you favor.  If your preferred policy induces say "40 percent more of health care costs" and you can't put all the blame on the preexisting level or path of health care costs.  You also have to accept responsibility for the 40 percent boost or whatever the increment is.

Biggs also goes after the former Clintonite:

Reich says that higher economic growth would fix the [Social Security] problem. Well, GDP growth isn't a direct input into the system – we don't tax GDP and we don't pay benefits based on GDP – but we can analyze how higher wage growth would affect Social Security's finances. The answer is that even if real wage growth doubled, that would fix only around half the long-term Social Security deficit. And there's no way any policy can make long-term real wage growth double.

All Eyes On New York

Nate Silver doesn't think New York is likely to pass its marriage equality bill:

Democrats may take some solace in the fact that, when gay marriage bills were approved by legislatures in states like Maine and Vermont, they tended to pass with slightly more votes than anticipated. Still, based on the most recently available information, I would guess that their odds of securing 32 votes are not better than about one in three.

If you are a New Yorker, write your representatives, especially the undecided ones Silver lists.