WHOA THERE, MICKEY

The Mickster claims I have reversed myself on the are-there-enough-troops question. Nuh-huh. It seems clear to me that Mickey lost Round One of this debate. There clearly were enough troops to win the war. It’s a separate question whether we now have sufficient troops to keep the peace. Two different issues. Two different views. Are they related? Somewhat. But we’ve had almost a month to get more troops in place – plenty of time. My criticism is directed at the post-war order, not the war-plan.

RAINES WATCH UPDATE

The ramifications of the Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times continue to mount. This piece in the Washington City Paper suggests that the Times’ entire coverage of the Washington sniper case may be compromised. There’s also the news that the Times has seen a big slide in readership – a 5.3 percent drop in the last six months. The Times spokesperson attributes this to an unusual peak in the wake of 9/11. But it would seem to me that the period of the buildup and then execution of the Iraq war would have been just as busy for a newspaper like the Times. Other media outlets – cable news, blogs like this one – boomed in the last six months. The general figures for all newspapers as a whole held steady. The New York Post saw a huge gain of over 10 percent – in the same city as the Times. The only paper to do worse than the Times was the Boston Globe, which coincidentally, has been recently taken over by 43d Street, and has seen its previously pious liberal bias become a left-wing anti-war screech. What’s going on here? There was a price increase, which might have made a difference. But surely the downward lurch of the Times’ editorial standards and its sharp turn leftward may well have something to do with the circulation decline. At some point, I presume, Arthur Sulzberger will see what Raines is achieving.

BYE BYE, MITCH DANIELS

The amazing thing is that he is regarded as a fiscal tightwad. In fact, he presided over one of the biggest binges on government spending in history. Josh Claybourn gets it right. As Stephen Moore put it earlier this year,

President Bush’s $2.25 trillion budget released Monday is almost 30 percent larger than the budget he inherited three years ago. Since the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, the budget has grown by 50 percent… [T]he discretionary budget has grown by nearly 15 percent in Mr. Bush’s first two years in office – more than it did in President Clinton’s first four years in office. In fact, Mr. Bush is on a pace to be the biggest spender in the White House since Lyndon Baines Johnson. It’s not just Democrat obstructionism – in fact, discretionary spending has, after an initial decline, been rapidly expanding since Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994. In their first three budgets (fiscal 1996-98), the Republicans increased domestic spending by $183 billion compared to a $155 billion increase in the three years prior to Republican control of Congress.

Daniel Gross puts the boot in at Slate as well:

According to Brian Riedl, federal budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, overall discretionary spending rose 13 percent in 2002 and will jump 21 percent in fiscal 2003, to $885 billion. Yes, the Pentagon accounts for a lot of that increase. But in Bush’s first two budgets, according to Riedl, even non-defense discretionary spending has risen from $320 billion to $421 billion. Daniels made a particular point of coming down hard on earmarks-the budgetary vehicles that members of Congress use to drive pork to their districts. But earmarks too have soared in the past two years. According to Riedl, in fiscal 2003 there were 9,000 earmarks worth $22 billion, up from 6,500 in 2001.

This is Daniels’ and Bush’s legacy: one of the most recklessly big spending administrations in recent history, higher deficits and mounting debt. I’d be far more sanguine about further big tax cuts if the Bushies had shown even the slightest interest in restraining spending. They haven’t. They need to.

KRUGMAN WATCH

More slipperiness from Raines’ apparatchik. Yesterday, he again questioned the president’s truthfulness. This time he went after Bush’s military record:

[N]obody seemed bothered that Mr. Bush, who appears to have skipped more than a year of the National Guard service that kept him out of Vietnam, is now emphasizing his flying experience. (Spare me the hate mail. An exhaustive study by The Boston Globe found no evidence that Mr. Bush fulfilled any of his duties during that missing year. And since Mr. Bush has chosen to play up his National Guard career, this can’t be shrugged off as old news.)

Actually, that Boston Globe story was indeed followed up by an investigative story a short time later:

Two Democratic senators today called on Gov. George W. Bush to release his full military record to resolve doubts raised by a newspaper about whether he reported for required drills when he was in the Air National Guard in 1972 and 1973. But a review of records by The New York Times indicated that some of those concerns may be unfounded. Documents reviewed by The Times showed that Mr. Bush served in at least 9 of the 17 months in question… On Sept. 5, 1972, Mr. Bush asked his Texas Air National Guard superiors for assignment to the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery “for the months of September, October and November.” Capt. Kenneth K. Lott, chief of the personnel branch of the 187th Tactical Recon Group, told the Texas commanders that training in September had already occurred but that more training was scheduled for Oct. 7 and 8 and Nov. 4 and 5. But Mr. Bartlett said Mr. Bush did not serve on those dates because he was involved in the Senate campaign, but he made up those dates later. Colonel Turnipseed, who retired as a general, said in an interview that regulations allowed Guard members to miss duty as long as it was made up within the same quarter. Mr. Bartlett pointed to a document in Mr. Bush’s military records that showed credit for four days of duty ending Nov. 29 and for eight days ending Dec. 14, 1972, and, after he moved back to Houston, on dates in January, April and May. The May dates correlated with orders sent to Mr. Bush at his Houston apartment on April 23, 1973, in which Sgt. Billy B. Lamar told Mr. Bush to report for active duty on May 1-3 and May 8-10. Another document showed that Mr. Bush served at various times from May 29, 1973, through July 30, 1973, a period of time questioned by The Globe.

This is dated November 3, 2000. Doesn’t Krugman have Nexis? Let’s see if he has to run another correction or if Howell will bury it on page 3.

BILL BENNETT PLAYING CARDS

It was inevitable, wasn’t it?

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “What was really amazing was the speed with which the Americans adapted themselves….They were assisted in this by their tremendous practical and material sense and by their lack of all understanding for tradition and useless theories.” – Erwin Rommel, 1943. One reason I’m optimistic about Iraq.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “I see no difference between the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Poland by Hitler in 1939,” Ritter told the Berliner Zeitung. Hitler had used self-defense as an excuse to send his troops in, and U.S. President George W. Bush had done exactly the same thing in 2003. “It was the same lie,” Ritter was quoted as saying. (Original interview in Der Spiegel, translated by blogger xlrq.)

A RELIGIOUS RIGHT WALK-OUT? The true hardliners are appalled that the Republican leadership didn’t use the Santorum debacle to hound gay people – and their families – even more. The theocrats are threatening to walk out of the party. And where exactly, ahem, would they go? I’m not sure Howard Dean is looking out for Phyllis Shlafly’s vote. Just her son’s will do. (Via Coldfury.)

SAGES ON GAMBLING

I’ve never thought of it as a moral issue, unless you’re bankrupting your family. Here are two unimpeachable sources on the morality of gambling. First, Dr Johnson:

I mentioned a new gaming-club, of which Mr. Beauclerk had given me an account, where the members played to a desperate extent. Johnson: “Depend upon it, Sir, this is mere talk. Who is ruined by gaming? You will not find six instances in an age. There is a strange rout made about deep play: whereas you have many more people ruined by adventurous trade, and yet we do not hear such an outcry against it.” Thrale: “There may be few people absolutely ruined by deep play; but very many are much hurt in their circumstances by it.” Johnson: “Yes, Sir, and so are very many by other kinds of expence.”

My feelings entirely. Then there’s the issue of the glee with which some poor sinners have embraced the news that Bill Bennett is, in some respects, Mr. Vice:

Homer: You know, Marge, for the first time in our marriage I can finally look down my nose at you. You have a gambling problem!
Marge: That’s true. Will you forgive me?
Homer: Oh, sure. Remember when I got caught stealing all those watches from Sears?
Marge: Hmm.
Homer: Well, that’s nothing, because you have a gambling problem! And remember when I let that escaped lunatic in the house ’cause he was dressed like Santa Claus?
Marge: Hmm.
Homer: Well you have a gambling problem!

That’s enough gambling wisdom for one day.

MUSIC STORE: I spent this afternoon procrastinating on a column by browsing through Apple’s new downloadable Music Store. Apart from the beagle, I think my iPod is my most treasured possession right now (although, of course, no one ever really possesses a beagle; you’re lucky if you get to associate with one). Basic review: kinda slow my end and limited choice. No Madonna? Barely any Mozart. Palestrina scarcely present. Only very old Pet Shop Boys. I guess it can’t accommodate everyone’s taste. But I did download a lovely piano version of Faure’s requiem. iTunes is a godsend, of course, and I’m sure the system will only get smoother and more comprehensive. I also feel far more, er, virtuous, actually paying for the stuff. A B+, I’d say. Worth a try. (And, no, I didn’t get payola for the plug.)

FRENCH SUCK-UP WATCH

While they’re providing cover for Saddam’s henchmen, they’re sending bottles of expensive wine to Blair. What two-faced slimeballs. I liked this extract from the BBC story:

Wine merchants praised the French president’s choice. “Chateau Mouton Rothschild is at the very top end of the market,” said UK fine wine merchant Tom Lorimer of Lea and Sandeman. “If he had given our Prime Minister anything less I would have called him up myself to reproach him.” The choice of 1989 vintage, however, while generous, is not the best money can buy, even at $200 a bottle. “If I were Jacques Chirac I would have gone for 1982 – an outstanding year,” said Mr Lorimer. “It is the sort of wine that Saddam Hussein was probably stocking in his palace wine cellars before he lost his country.”

Ouch. I wonder what vintage Chirac used to send to Saddam.

THE REAL THING

It’s beginning to look as if Canada will not take the “separate but equal” route of “civil unions” for gay citizens, but adopt marriage rights for all. Good news for liberals who support civil equality. And good news for conservatives who don’t want a soft-marriage option for gays that would have to be open to straights as well. (Via Discountblogger.)