The Dish

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.

“Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth … Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns – oh, God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest – no, the hand was cupping her entire right – Now!” – the winning entry in this year’s “Bad Sex” writing award, given by London’s Literary Review. It’s Tom Wolfe, from his new novel.

JEFF VERSUS JUAN: It’s a beaut.

The striking thing about this piece of video propaganda for the insurgency in Iraq is how Western-left it appears. From the British accent narrating the talking points to the weird challenge to “use the euro!”, it’s an interesting mesh of the anti-globalist, anti-American ideology in Europe and the murderous, Jihadist creed. The merger of the anti-globalist left and the anti-Semitic Jihadist right was always possible. Maybe this tape is evidence of its progress.

MCCAIN AND RUMMY: He’s right, of course. The sheer cumulation of incompetence, arrogance and denial make our current defense secretary a serious and continuing liability in the war on terror. The trouble is that Rumsfeld’s critical errors – misrreading pre-war intelligence, needlessly alienating allies, under-manning the occupation, the loosening of ethical restraints that led to Abu Ghraib, leaving troops in the theater without adequate armor, and on and on – are inextricable from the president’s own policy decisions. So Rummy stays.

“For four years it’s been one big all-you-can-eat buffet for the corporations, and now they’re coming back for more. Go ahead, you marvelous bastards! Rip out all the trees, pave the beaches, build 12-lane freeways, plunder the treasury, destroy our future. Cook the books, rig elections, pack the courts, hand the regulatory agencies over to fascist maniacs. Invade more countries, declare code red, invoke martial law, and keep going until your oil-sucking exploits kick off a nuclear exchange.” – Dean Opperman, Pasadena Weekly. The whole article is pretty hard to beat.

WHY MARRIAGE MATTERS: Married men are healthier:

The team, from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said the findings strengthened previous research suggesting that marriage improved people’s quality of life. A recent study concluded that single men were at greater risk of dying than smokers. Researchers said that singletons tended to drink more because they socialised more. They also worked longer because they had no partner to make time for and often missed meals. Dr Patricia Mona Eng said that increased alcohol consumption among widowed and divorced men could be linked to the stress of being alone.

That goes for gay men as well. The social pressures designed to keep them single and without family also makes them more liable to shorter, less healthy lives. So why do we have public policy that discourages health and encourages social isolation among a minority of Americans? Is the argument really that gay male health actually detracts from straight male health? How exactly?

More irreverent Catholic calendars for the new year.

NYT’S “HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT”: Not in the newsroom, but at the Edison, New Jersey, printing plant. Money quote:

The Jewish plaintiff is Harvey Alpert, a 53-year-old resident of Marlboro, N.J., who began working at the Edison plant as a chauffeur in 1977 and is now a floorman. The complaint alleges that, like the other men bringing the suit, Alpert was “subjected to very offensive epithets” that included being addressed by a colleague as “a (expletive) fat Jew Bastard.” The same colleague is alleged to have said “I hate that Jew bastard. I want to kill him.”… The other complainants, two Latinos and six African-Americans, also alleged that fellow employees addressed them as “nigger,” “coon,” and “spook.” “This stuff is highly pervasive and of long standing in the sewer where these people have been working,” said one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Jeffrey Bernbach of White Plains, N.Y., in an interview with New Jersey Jewish News. “The New York Times has long been aware of it and has done nothing to clean it up.”

I have no idea what truth there is behind these claims, but the suit is continuing.

CPAP UPDATE: I have a little piece in this week’s Time special on sleep about my apnea diagnosis and treatment. But there have been some subsequent developments. In general, I haven’t had the amazing burst of energy I had after my night in the hospital. Maybe the psychosomatic explanation holds up. But my sleep has been better; and longer; and deeper. I’m told it takes time to feel the cumulative effects; I do feel more rested; and sleeping itself has been much easier than I anticipated. But one side-effect has surprised me. It probably shouldn’t have. It makes sense, after all. I’ll give you a subtle hint: when you have air being pumped into you with a face mask for eight hours a night, and when there’s nowhere for it to escape, except some small holes in the top of the mask, then the air finds other outlets. So now, I officially have hot air coming out of both ends. The boyfriend has to choose between being deafened or fumigated. But my sleep is heavenly.