Month: September 2009

Raymond Clark III (R) stands next to Assistant Public Defender Joseph E. Lopez (L) at his arraignment at the New Haven Superior Court after earlier this morning when he was arrested at a Super 8 Motel in connection with the murder of Yale University graduate student Annie Le on September 17, 2009 in New Haven, Connecticut. Le, whose body was found behind a wall on September 13, in New Haven, Connecticut, had been missing since September 8, after being seen in the morning on surveillance videos entering but not leaving the laboratory building. Raymond Clark III, a lab technician at the Yale laboratory building, was taken into custody from the motel after not resisting arrest by the police as a suspect in the murder of Annie Le. By Douglas Healey-Pool/Getty.

Elise Foley describes the process:

Who decides how to merge Baucus's conservative plan with its more liberal counterpart, to create the official Senate bill that will receive a vote in the full chamber? After the Finance committee votes on the plan, it's all up to the Senate leadership. According to congressional expert Norman Ornstein, Harry Reid is empowered to combine the Senate proposals using whatever method he considers most likely to attract a minimum of 51 votes and avoid a filibuster. Reid could designate a formal committee to mesh the bills, or he could assemble the final product in a closed room that includes the leadership and a few important senators.

Stan Collender thinks that the Baucus bill is important because it allows the process to move forward. Ezra Klein notes that Baucus isn't very popular on the Hill right now but that Obama has his back.

The unhinged hysteria of Norman Podhoretz is not shared by Ehud Barak:

"I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel." Barak concluded: "Israel is strong, I don't see anyone who could pose an existential threat."

And yet the neocon chorus is now spinning that Obama is "pushing Israel to war." Why is anyone still listening to these fanatics?

Haven't they been proven wrong about almost everything in foreign policy in the last decade? And yet they still pontificate with the certainty of those whose ideology is impervious to empirical data or history. They were never wrong; they are always right; and Israel is always on the brink of extinction unless neoconservative Americans rush constantly to its rescue (and harm Israel deeply in the process).

Mercifully, their monopoly on media discourse has been broken by the blogosphere. But they still dictate the editorial position of the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, TNR, National Review and The Weekly Standard. These editorial platforms carry much less sway than they once did. But they could still help tilt the US into another unecessary and deeply destructive war.

Ta-Nehisi's take on Limbaugh's race-baiting is here. TNC celebrates that Obama is no Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson:

Barack Obama, bourgeois in every way that bourgeois is right and just, will not dance. He tells kids to study–and they seethe. He accepts an apology for an immature act of rudeness–and they go hysterical. He takes his wife out for a date–and their veins bulge. His humanity, his ordinary blackness, is killing them. Dig the audio of his response to Kanye West–the way he says, "He's a jackass." He sounds like one of my brothers. And that's the point, because that's what he is. Barack Obama refuses to be their nigger. And it's driving them crazy.

It's about time.

Tom Ricks vents:

Stories like this from the Associated Press drive me nuts. The Afghan army is "hard to train." Why? Because the soldiers are illiterate. Pop quiz: How many of the Spartans at Thermopalye were literate? […] The average private soldier in Afghanistan does not need to be literate. Nor does he need diversity training, by the way. (FWIW, he probably has a lot more liberated attitude toward gays than does the average Marine recruit.) He only needs the sort of literacy classes described in the AP article if his American trainers lack the imagination and historical knowledge to train him to be an Afghan, instead of an imitation American, soldier. If we are going to make any progress in dealing with failed states, we are going to have to learn to train across cultures.

Walt:

Several friends and associates have asked me how it feels to have our book on the Israel lobby plugged by Osama bin Laden. While it is usually gratifying to get kudos for your work, that is certainly not the case in this instance, given what bin Laden has done in the past and given what he stands for. I just wish we had captured him long ago, making it impossible for him to issue any statements to the world.

Rothkopf:

Every book gets the readers it deserves.

AtlanticWire rounds up the five worst parts of the bill.

Scott Horton responds to my conciliatory cover-essay in the current Atlantic:

We are still far from fully understanding the internal processes that led to the introduction of the torture regime. At this point, however, it is clear both that Dick Cheney originated the torture policies and that, since the 2008 election, he has taken ownership of them. Bush’s own role is ambiguous, but it seems clear than around the time of the Abu Ghraib disclosures he took a decision to halt many of the worst abuses of the program. It also seems clear that this program was a point of friction between Bush and Cheney that became progressively more acute as his term wore down.

Is there any serious prospect that Bush will do as Sullivan asks?

One of Bush’s most revealing traits throughout his presidency was his tenacious refusal to acknowledge any mistakes. Of course, that may have been motivated by tactical political concerns, which fade at the end of a presidency. If Bush really is concerned about his legacy, there is little he could do now that would restore it more than to offer the public the candid and critical introspection that Sullivan recommends.

I wrote the essay after some heart-searching about what the most constructive step might now be. I have only the power of the pen and the pixel. I am not a politician. But I wanted to put down in one clear place my own conclusions about what happened to this country's moral compass, and how to rebalance it. We have already done a great deal – by nominating McCain, electing Obama, and ending the Cheney torture-and-abuse program. But the one person who needs to take full responsibility is the one person who has refused to do so.

I have no expectations. Just a wavering grip on hope.

A montage of some wonderfully vintage graphics and fonts. Yes, in the end, anything can become an aesthetic.

Leonhardt's data do not ring true to many. A reader writes:

I can’t help but wonder if this is a case of the numbers giving an impression that is quite different than the realities of day to day life. I have been fortunate enough to keep my job. Like many others, my salary is frozen, because of the economy. My employer has cut their contribution to my 403B by 50%. My employer increased the amount employees pay for health insurance this past January, and they will be doing the same in January 2010. I have less take home pay and my retirement savings has taken a hit. It is hard for me to interpret this as some sort of increase in wages.

Some goods may be cheaper to purchase, but my rent increased this year. The City of Chicago increased the sales tax rate to 10.25%, and the city and state have found a hundred little ways to increase fees and fines to try to solve their budget issues. When I consider all of these other factors, I just don’t see how my wages have increased. My money just doesn’t go as far as it did a year or so ago. While Leonhardt may be right in theory, it doesn’t feel that way in practice.

Dean Baker says the data Leonhardt uses are misleading:

Most importantly he uses year over year data. This includes the large fall in prices at the end of last year, which still outweighs the impact of falling real wages through 2009. Using year over year data, we can say that real wages have risen in the last year. We will not be able to say that four months from now.

Leonhardt also uses weekly rather than hourly data. This adds to the error in the measurement, since hours are also erratic month to month, and the random movements in reported hours can easily swamp the actual movement in the hourly wage. Finally, he misreads a recent data release, the June employment cost index. This release showed an insignificant rise in the rate of compensation growth between the first and second quarter. The increase is completely driven by a modest rise in the rate of reported compensation growth in the public sector, with the private sector showing no increase at all.