Staying on Bush's Course

Here's some straight talk: McCain's fiscal program is either a joke or a fantasy.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Friday, March 28, 2008, at 2:56 PM ET


John McCain

In the last week, the three remaining presidential candidates made big-picture economic speeches that were perfectly in keeping with the tone of their campaigns. Barack Obama delivered his speech, introduced by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (a potential Obamacan?), at Cooper Union, a venue long identified with great oratory. Hillary Clinton tactically delivered her speech in the current battleground state of Pennsylvania and offered a list of solutions. Both campaigns have remarkably detailed (and remarkably similar) platforms on how to attack the various economic woes facing America.

John McCain, fresh from a whirlwind tour aimed at demonstrating his foreign-policy credentials, took a somewhat different approach. There's an emerging theme surrounding his campaign: The problem with the last eight years isn't that the Bush administration had the wrong policies or was incompetent. No, the problem is that it lacked intensity. Which is why McCain is bent on offering a more concentrated, sustained, high-energy form of Bushism. Bush has been adamant about staying in Iraq until the end of his presidency; McCain is adamant about staying up to 100 years, if necessary. Bush has taken to carefully cherry-picking facts and metrics (the number of soccer games visible from the air, to cite one) to construct a narrative on how well things are going there. (I bet there weren't many soccer matches in Sadr City today.) McCain prefers simple declarations to data points: "We're winning. I don't care what people say. I've seen the facts on the ground."

The same holds true for the economy. By virtue of his history as a deficit hawk, a foe of earmarks, and an opponent of the Bush tax cuts—not to mention the presence of reality-based advisers like Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office—McCain deserves some benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, the brains behind the economic operation seems to be former Sen. Phil Gramm, the Texas A&M; economist-turned-senator who confidently forecast in 1993 that the Clinton program of spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy would be "a one-way ticket to recession." And the sections on McCain's Web site about domestic policy reveal, as Matt Yglesias noted, "a nearly astounding level of vacuity."

Reading McCain's economic agenda and listening to his speech, it appears that the problem with the last eight years is that we haven't seen enough tax breaks for the wealthy, that economic royalism hasn't been pursued with sufficient vigor, and that the middle and working classes haven't been stiffed sufficiently.

McCain wants to extend the Bush tax cuts, which he once opposed as a needless sop to the rich in a time of war. (I await David Brooks' inevitable explanation of how opposing taxes in a time of war in 2001 and 2003, when deficits were low, but supporting them in 2011, in a time of war and high deficits, is deeply moral and admirable.) But McCain wants to see Bush's tax relief and raise it some. McCain would slash the corporate-income-tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent (because corporate profits as a percentage of GDP didn't spike enough this decade?), and he'd abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax, which would be a welcome move for many upper-middle-class taxpayers. "In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain campaign," the Wall Street Journal reported. And how to make up for the lost revenues? Hmmm. McCain promises to cut earmarks; to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; and to reduce the projected growth of Medicare; but he won't provide many numbers. As the WSJ deadpanned: "The cost will make it difficult for him to achieve his goal of balancing the budget by the end of his first term." That's perhaps the understatement of the year. The 2009 budget calls for a deficit of $407 billion on projected receipts of $2.7 trillion*, as this table shows. Essentially, McCain wants to cut revenues by about 15 percent from current levels, with nothing close to that in spending reductions, in a time when, even after spending excess Social Security payroll taxes, the deficit is running at more than $400 billion. Here's some straight talk: McCain's fiscal program is either a joke or a fantasy.

McCain's housing speech, delivered in Orange County, Calif., ground zero of the housing crisis, was a mixed bag. He provided a good description of the problem. But his solution to an era in which financial deregulation set the stage for federal bailouts, rampant speculation, and reckless lending is ... less regulation. "Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting, and tax impediments to raising capital." Bizarrely, he has also joined the chorus arguing that mark-to-market accounting—the rules that require companies to, you know, tell investors the actual market value of assets they hold—should be revisited.

The Federal Reserve and the Bush administration have justified the extraordinary help offered to investment banks and investors by saying that it matters less how we got here and more how we deal with the situation as it is. For McCain, however, it's all about the journey. Poor decisions should not be rewarded—unless those poor decisions are made by really rich people who run investment banks and hedge funds. While "those who act irresponsibly" shouldn't be bailed out as a matter of principle, it's OK to take extraordinary measures to help banks prevent "systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy." Obama and Clinton—and the Bush administration, through its various efforts to ease the mortgage crisis—have argued that it might be possible to spare further systemic risk if something were done to buck up the fortunes of homeowners. Bollocks, says McCain. People should just put up more money for down payments and work harder to keep current with their mortgage payments.

Straight talk? No doubt. At a time of rampant economic insecurity and low consumer confidence, at the end of a business cycle in which median incomes didn't rise and the percentage of working people with health insurance fell, McCain won't succumb to the easy temptation of saying that government policy can help improve the situation. But smart politics? I wonder. What's left of the Republican Party is becoming increasingly downscale, and many swing states have been ravaged by the housing crisis (Nevada, Florida) and globalization (Ohio, Michigan). Besides, he's already got the let-them-eat-cake vote sewed up.

Correction, March 31, 2008: This article originally misstated that the 2009 budget projected receipts of $2.7 billion. The correct figure is $2.7 trillion. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

Boos for Bush

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, March 31, 2008; 1:52 PM

There's a reason President Bush almost never appears before members of the general public: They really don't like him.

Despite the delirious mood of Washington Nationals fans on opening night at their new stadium, Bush was greeted with loud boos when he came to the mound to deliver the traditional first pitch.

Video from the Washington Times indicates that the boos were lusty. An ESPN video, via ThinkProgress.org, is more of a mixed bag of boos and cheers. But in additional Youtube videos from fans in right field and high above first base the boos had it.

It was a rare moment for Bush, who avoids public expressions of disagreement by appearing almost exclusively before carefully selected audiences. In fact, this is the first time in years I can recall him appearing before the unscreened masses. Far more typical are events like his most recent Thanksgiving address. As I wrote then, even when he was talking about something as uncontroversial as the essential goodness of our country, he wanted his audience prescreened for obsequiousness.

Back during Bush's Social Security barnstorming, University of Texas political scientist Jeffrey K. Tulis noted: "Certainly, in the past, presidential advance teams have on occasion taken steps to assure friendly audiences. It has not been uncommon for presidents to seek invitations to speak at friendly venues. But systematically screening audiences. . . . may be a new phenomenon, and one that the president should be asked to defend and justify in terms of his constitutional obligations."

Truly, it's one of the most blatant, indefensible examples of how Bush has turned his into the most divisive of presidencies.

Lame Duck in Flight

Terence Hunt writes for the Associated Press: "Winding down his presidency, George W. Bush is beginning his farewell tour on the world stage trailed by questions about how much clout he still wields.

"Unpopular abroad, as he is at home, Bush nevertheless has been a commanding presence among world leaders for the past seven years. Now, with fewer than 300 days left in his term, other presidents and prime ministers are looking beyond Bush to see who will occupy his chair a year from now.

"It's an open question whether Bush's foreign policy priorities will be embraced by his successor in the Oval Office. Other world leaders have to calculate how far they should step out on the ledge with a president whose days are numbered and whose legacy had been darkened by the long and costly war in Iraq. . . .

"Around the world, there are hopes the next president will adopt a different style from what critics have called Bush's cowboy diplomacy and go-it-alone foreign policy."

Matt Spetalnick writes for Reuters: "Seeking to reassert himself on the world stage in the twilight of his term, Bush will press NATO for more troops in Afghanistan, try to keep up momentum in the alliance's eastward expansion and attempt to ease strains with Russia.

"But with Bush even more unpopular overseas than at home, he could have a hard time swaying world leaders at this week's Bucharest summit as they look to whomever will succeed him in January 2009."

Eastern Europe would once have seemed safe territory for Bush -- it may be the only region in the world largely supportive of his war in Iraq. But John D. McKinnon writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that "the mood among many Eastern European leaders toward the U.S. president is growing less enthusiastic, even as they continue to pour outsized numbers of troops into the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, compared with their Western European counterparts."

John Ibbitson writes in Toronto's Globe and Mail: "All presidents in the final year of a final mandate are lame ducks. But Mr. Bush is experiencing something unheard of for a U.S. president. He's being ignored. . . .

"The U.S. economy teeters on the brink of recession, threatened by falling home prices and worthless mortgages; even Wall Street has lost confidence in Wall Street.

"What is the President doing to avert the crisis? Who cares? Economically, what really matters is what Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is doing. Politically, what matters is what Mr. McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say they would be doing if they were in charge. . . .

"The problem is that Mr. Bush's legacy is unambiguously dismal. He is leaving the economy in worse shape than he found it, with an extra $4-trillion added to the national debt for good measure.

"He presided over a vast expansion, and abuse, of the powers of his office. The legacy of Guantanamo, torture and wiretaps will not soon be forgotten.

"The war on terror has had few tangible successes and many apparent failures. And elsewhere in foreign policy, the record has been bleak. . . .

"Mr. Bush, it has been said, compares himself to Harry Truman, a president who left office dogged by an unpopular war and low public approval, but who is today viewed as one the 20th century's finest presidents.

"It is possible that posterity will be equally kind to Mr. Bush. But if you're going to compare yourself to Mr. Truman, it helps to have your own equivalent of the Marshall Plan, the containment policy against Russia, the formation of NATO, the defence of South Korea and desegregation of the armed forces on your r¿sum¿. What in the Bush legacy even comes close?"

Another Cheney Backfire?

Vice President Cheney visits Iraq, and just over a week later, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launches a surprise attack on political rivals in Basra. Just a coincidence? Or another spectacular Cheney backfire? You decide.

There's little doubt that Cheney went to Iraq with two things most on his mind: The continued U.S. troop presence and the threat posed by Iran. A bold and successful move by Maliki would have been a huge PR victory for the central government -- and if it increased tensions with Iran, all the better.

The White House evidently had high hopes. Bush on Friday described "what's taking place in Basra and in other parts of Iraq" as "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq."

But what's taking place appears to have only weakened the U.S.'s puppet government -- while strengthening Iran. Surprise.

The latest development in Iraq is that Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, after six days of fighting between his followers and U.S. and Iraqi forces, has agreed to a truce -- on certain conditions. The big winners appear to be Sadr and Iran. The big loser: Maliki.

Charles Levinson writes in USA Today: "Iranian officials helped broker a cease-fire agreement Sunday between Iraq's government and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, according to Iraqi lawmakers.

"The deal . . . may signal the growing regional influence of Iran, a country the Bush administration accuses of providing support to terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere."

Leila Fadel writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "Iraqi lawmakers traveled to the Iranian holy city of Qom over the weekend to win the support of the commander of Iran's Qods brigades in persuading Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to order his followers to stop military operations, members of the Iraqi parliament said. . . .

"The Qom discussions may or may not bring an end to the fighting but they almost certainly have undermined Maliki - who made repeated declarations that there would be no negotiations and that he would treat as outlaws those who did not turn in their weapons for cash. The blow to his own credibility was worsened by the fact that members of his own party had helped organize the Iran initiative.

"'The delegation was from the United Iraqi Alliance (dominated by the Dawa party and the Supreme Council of Iraq), and the Prime Minister was only informed. It was a political maneuver by us,' said Haider al Abadi, a legislator from Maliki's Dawa party."

Erica Goode and James Glanz write in the New York Times: "The negotiations with Mr. Sadr were seen as a serious blow for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who had vowed that he would see the Basra campaign through to a military victory and who has been harshly criticized even within his own coalition for the stalled assault.

"Last week, Iraq's defense minister, Abdul Kadir al-Obeidi, conceded that the government's military efforts in Basra have met with far more resistance than was expected. Many Iraqi politicians say that Mr. Maliki's political capital has been severely depleted by the Basra campaign and that he is in the curious position of having to turn to Mr. Sadr, a longtime rival, for a way out.

"And it was a chance for Mr. Sadr to flaunt his power, commanding both armed force and political strength that can forcefully challenge the other dominant Shiite parties, including Mr. Maliki's Dawa movement and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq."

Meanwhile, Sudarsan Raghavan writes in The Washington Post: "For Iraqis, widespread clashes this past week have exposed their nation's brittleness. After months of relative calm and declining violence, many people were locking themselves inside their homes and shops again as Shiite gunmen battled U.S. and Iraqi forces. Curfews restricted their movement, yet they were still unable to escape the mortar and rocket fire.

"In Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood Sunday, the despair was palpable. In alleyways and storefronts, people spoke about their frustration and dread, and about the misguided politics they blamed for running Iraq into the ground. Many said they were worried not about sectarian conflict but about war erupting right in their community. "

And Peter Graff writes for Reuters: "The United States confirmed on Sunday that U.S. special forces units were operating alongside Iraqi government troops in Basra, where the government is battling militants loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr."

Charles J. Hanley of the Associated Press puts Bush administration confidence in context: "Iraq's new army is 'developing steadily,' with 'strong Iraqi leaders out front,' the chief U.S. trainer said. That was three-plus years ago, and the trainer was David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq. Some of those Iraqi officials at the time were busy embezzling more than $1 billion allotted for the new army's weapons, according to investigators."

Iran Watch

When does the CIA director not believe his own agency's conclusions? Apparently, when it's not politically expedient.

Greg Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times: "CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said Sunday that he believes Iran is still pursuing a nuclear bomb, even though the U.S. intelligence community, including his own agency, reached a consensus judgment last year that the Islamic Republic had halted its nuclear weapons work in 2003.

"Asked on NBC's 'Meet the Press' whether he thought Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon, Hayden said, 'Yes,' adding that his assessment was not based on 'court-of-law stuff. . . . This is Mike Hayden looking at the body of evidence.'

"He said his conviction stemmed largely from Iran's willingness to endure international sanctions rather than comply with demands for nuclear inspections and abandon its efforts to develop technologies that can produce fissile material.

"'Why would the Iranians be willing to pay the international tariff they appear willing to pay for what they're doing now if they did not have, at a minimum . . . the desire to keep the option open to develop a nuclear weapon and, perhaps even more so, that they've already decided to do that?' he said."

Conclusion by rhetorical question. When have we heard that before?

Here's the transcript. Tim Russert asked the obvious follow-up question:

Russert: "I can hear a lot of listeners, viewers asking, 'Well, then why did Saddam Hussein not cooperate more fully if he, in fact, did not have weapons of mass destruction?' Sometimes, people behave in strange ways that we don't understand."

Hayden: "Oh, yeah, I understand. But, but, again, you've asked me for an assessment, you've asked me--and I can only work from the facts that I see. In Saddam's case, he had a nuclear weapon program, he had a weapons of mass destruction program. He stopped it, but in--almost in a deathbed confession, he tells us that he maintained, he continued to maintain the illusion because he wanted the world, or at least the neighborhood, to think that he still had these, these weapons."

An authoritative assessment from the intelligence community issued in December concluded Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons work in 2003. But Hayden's political masters had no use for that conclusion.

In an interview with ABC News last week, Cheney alleged without any evidence that Iran was "heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade levels."

And as I wrote in my March 21 column, Bush falsely and inflammatorily stated that the Iranian government has "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people."

These people appear to have learned nothing.

Torture Watch

A segment of CBS News's " 60 Minutes" yesterday described the case of Murat Kurnaz, who at the age of 19, "vanished into America's shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one."

First, he was taken to a U.S. base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. "Kurnaz claims his interrogations at Kandahar turned to torture. He told 60 Minutes that American troops held his head underwater.

"'They used to beat me when my head is underwater. They beat me into my stomach and everything,' he says.

"'They were hitting you in the stomach while you're head was underwater so that you'd have to take a breath?' [CBS's Scott] Pelley asks.

"'Right. I had to drink. I had to . . . how you say it?' Kurnaz replies.

"'Inhale. Inhale the water,' Pelley says.

"'I had to inhale the water. Right,' Kurnaz says.

"Kurnaz says the Americans used a device to shock him with electricity that made his body go numb. And he says he was hoisted up on chains suspended by his arms from the ceiling of an aircraft hangar for five days.

"'Every five or six hours they came and pulled me back down. And the doctor came to watch if I can still survive to not. He looked into my eyes. He checked my heart. And when he said okay, then they pulled me back up,' Kurnaz says.

"'The point of the doctor's visit was not to treat you. It was to see if you could take another six hours hanging from the ceiling?' Pelley asks.

"'Right,' Kurnaz says.

"'I suspect you know that the U.S. military will deny this happened. The U.S. military will deny that you were shocked. It will deny your head was held in a bucket of water. It will deny that you hung from a ceiling for days at a time,' Pelley remarks.

"'Doesn't matter whatever they will say. The truth will not change,' Kurnaz says. . . .

"After six weeks in Afghanistan, Kurnaz was loaded onto another plane, this time bound for Guantanamo. The Pentagon labeled the prisoners 'unlawful enemy combatants.' They didn't have the rights of prisoners of war and were beyond the reach of any court.

"At Guantanamo Kurnaz says he endured endless months of interrogations, beatings at the hands of soldiers in riot gear, and physical cruelty which included going without sleep for weeks and solitary confinement for up to a month in cells that were sealed without ventilation or were set up to punish him with extreme conditions.

"'It's dark inside. No lights. And they can punish you in isolation by coldness or by the heat. They have special air conditioners over there. Very strong. They can turn it very cold or very hot,' Kurnaz says.

"He says it went on year after year, always the same questions about al Qaeda, and the endless effort to break his will. He heard nothing from the outside and wondered whether anyone knew that he was there."

Resignations Watch

Carol D. Leonnig writes for The Washington Post: "Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced his resignation today, citing "personal and family matters." He has come under pressure from Congress for his refusal to answer questions about a federal lawsuit and whether he tried to steer land to a business friend. . . .

"According to two government sources who work on housing issues, Jackson was called last Monday to the White House, where top Bush administration aides discussed his ability to continue to lead the agency. The sources requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

"That meeting came three days after two senior Senate Democrats called on Bush to oust Jackson. Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) advised the president that his secretary's refusal to answer lawmakers' questions made him unable to lead the $35 billion agency. A White House spokesman replied that Bush continued to have confidence in Jackson."

Jackson also famously asked in 2006: "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

Christopher Lee writes in The Washington Post: "A mid-level White House staff member has resigned after informing officials of allegations that he misused federal grant money for personal gain before he joined the government, a White House official said yesterday.

"Felipe Sixto quit as special assistant to President Bush on March 20 after learning that the nonprofit Center for a Free Cuba planned to take legal action against him, said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel. Sixto was chief of staff at the Washington-based group for about three years before joining the White House's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs last July. . . .

"Sixto's resignation comes on the heels of another mid-level staff member's abrupt departure from the White House. Special assistant Tim Goeglein resigned Feb. 29 after acknowledging that he had plagiarized material for a newspaper column."

Treasury Plan

Howard Schneider writes for The Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. today proposed a broad overhaul of the way the nation oversees the financial system, elevating the role of the Federal Reserve in monitoring markets and recommending other changes in hopes of curbing some of the practices that have slowed the economy in recent months and led to steep losses at mortgage and financial companies."

Edmund L. Andrews writes in the New York Times: "Many of the proposals, like those that would consolidate regulatory agencies, have nothing to do with the turmoil in financial markets. And some of the proposals could actually reduce regulation."

Damian Paletta, Greg Ip and Michael M. Phillips write in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "Congressional Democrats and others say the current crisis is the result of too little regulation, not too much. 'It takes a certain chutzpah to say the appropriate response to a financial crisis is to loosen regulation,' said Barbara Roper of the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer-advocacy group. 'Wall Street [in the plan] generally looks to me like they didn't get hit with anything they don't want.'

Paul Krugman writes in his New York Times opinion column: "Anyone who has worked in a large organization -- or, for that matter, reads the comic strip 'Dilbert' -- is familiar with the 'org chart' strategy. To hide their lack of any actual ideas about what to do, managers sometimes make a big show of rearranging the boxes and lines that say who reports to whom.

"You now understand the principle behind the Bush administration's new proposal for financial reform, which will be formally announced today: it's all about creating the appearance of responding to the current crisis, without actually doing anything substantive. . . .

"So, will the administration's plan succeed? I'm not asking whether it will succeed in preventing future financial crises -- that's not its purpose. The question, instead, is whether it will succeed in confusing the issue sufficiently to stand in the way of real reform."

A New Housing Plan?

Lori Montgomery and David Cho write in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration is finalizing details of a plan to rescue thousands of homeowners at risk of foreclosure by helping them refinance into more affordable mortgages backed by public funds, government officials said. . . .

"The plan is similar to elements in legislation proposed two weeks ago by Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, officials said. . . .

"If enacted, the plan would mark the first time the White House has committed federal dollars to help the most hard-pressed borrowers, people struggling to repay loans that are huge relative to their incomes and the diminished value of their homes."

Wrong Number

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush visited a credit counseling service here Friday to promote his administration's efforts to help homeowners crunched by the mortgage crisis. 'I want my fellow citizens, if you're worried about your home, to call this number: 1-88-995-HOPE,' he said. 'Let me repeat that again: 1-88-995-HOPE.'

"The only trick? He was one '8' short. As the president shook hands with guests after his statement, Danny Cerchiaro, a homeowner from Iselin, N.J., who had gotten help restructuring his mortgage, whispered something in Bush's ear. The president promptly went back to the lectern. 'Danny just told me I've got to get the number right,' he said sheepishly. '1- 888-995-HOPE.' . . .

"It was not the first time, though, that the president got the number wrong. When he announced the program in December, he gave the first four digits as 1-800 instead of 1-888. That incorrect number he announced led callers to a Christian education academy near Dallas."

Karl Rove Watch

Adam Nossiter writes in the New York Times: "Former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, released from prison Friday on bond in a bribery and corruption case, said he was as convinced as ever that politics had played a leading role in his prosecution.

"Speaking by telephone in his first post-prison interview, shortly after he had left the federal penitentiary at Oakdale, La., Mr. Siegelman said there had been 'abuse of power' in his case, and repeatedly cited Karl Rove, the former White House political director.

"'His fingerprints are smeared all over the case,' Mr. Siegelman said, a day after a federal appeals court ordered him released on bond and said there were legitimate questions about his case."

Husna Kazmir writes for the George Washington University newspaper, the Hatchet: "Republican strategist Karl Rove was unfazed by two separate interruptions from protesters calling him a war criminal as he spoke about the 2008 election in front of a sold-out crowd at the Elliott School of International Affairs Friday night."

Said Rove: "I was introduced as a genius so you gotta make up your mind. I'm either an idiot or a genius!"

Thinkprogress.org has some video clips.

March 28, 2008
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, Benjamin Armbruster, and Sarah Dale
ECONOMY
All Indicators Pointing Down

This week's economic news didn't leave a lot of reason to start the weekend smiling. Whether it be the revised fourth-quarter U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures, a falling consumer confidence report, plummeting home prices, drastic Federal Reserve intervention in the financial markets, or a volatile stock market, the American economy seems to be living out an old saying: things get worse before they get better. Examining this past week in the context of the new GDP numbers is helpful in understanding exactly where the economy stands today -- and how much it needs to improve. The revised fourth-quarter numbers were as expected, confirming what many economists have been predicting -- that growth in the last three months 2007 was virtually unchanged from the previous quarter, sitting near zero at 0.6 percent. The numbers are even more disappointing when looking at the past 12 months; growth slowed to 2.2 percent over the entire year, the slowest pace since 2002. If one were to argue six months ago that the American economy was not faltering, it may be possible to scrape together the numbers to prove the point. But yesterday's announcement shows that American economic future may have storm clouds ahead. This is just the opening salvo to slower economic growth.

RIPPLES THROUGH THE ECONOMY: A further breakdown of yesterday's report reveals the magnitude of the crisis. Real personal spending rose just 1.9 percent from a three percent average over the last year, showing that consumer confidencehas reached rock-bottom lows. CNN reported, "The [consumer confidence] indicator, which is based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households, fell 11.9 points from February to a five-year low of 64.5. Analysts had predicted a reading of 73.0, and the rapid decline in confidence could affect consumer spending significantly in the coming months." The Conference Board, which publishes this index, didn't mince words, either. "The decline in the Present Situation Index implies that the pace of growth in recent months has weakened even further. Looking ahead, consumers' outlook for business conditions, the job market and their income prospects is quite pessimistic and suggests further weakening may be on the horizon." Another component of GDP worth highlighting is the drop in residential investment, which sank 25 poercent, the largest quarterly dive since the fourth-quarter of 1981. On Tuesday, new reports revealed that U.S. home prices had taken their steepest drop since the indicator was first used in 1987. Falling 11.4 percent in January alone, the decline reported in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index shows that for the past 19 months, prices have been consistently faltering. The numbers for Gross Domestic Purchases -- the total value of goods and services bought by Americans -- fell by 0.4 percent from last quarter's figure, the first time since 2001 there has been a decrease in the total worth of American consumption.

THE DOMESTIC CONSENSUS: Mainstreet America is increasingly feeling the economic squeeze. In Ohio, "a record 1.1 million Ohioans are getting food stamps, the state's welfare agency said. "That's about 10 percent of the state's population. Caseloads have almost doubled since 2001, when an estimated 628,000 people were in the program," according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. In West Virginia, "about one in every six West Virginians gets food stamps, the highest level of participation in at least 30 years." In Oklahoma, "after 18 months of steady declines, the number of Oklahomans receiving food stamps increased in February compared with the same month a year earlier. Food stamps were distributed to 417,624 Oklahomans in February 2008, compared with 416,622 in February 2007." "More than one out of every three Oklahoma children received food stamps at least one month during the past year," said Howard Hendrick, director of the state Department of Human Services. "The February increase is a bad sign, since food stamps are considered a leading economic indicator," Hendrick said.

HOW LONG WILL IT LAST?: Looking through the lens of fourth-quarter GDP numbers only confirms what America already knows: the U.S. economy is shaking. Tighter credit, declines in housing, and plunging consumer and business confidence have greatly increased the risks for slower growth, while skyrocketing oil prices have been felt heavily by the sagging U.S. labor market. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in a speech he delivered Wednesday, pointed towards another leading economic indicator: new home construction. "Data releases every month creates headlines about declining housing sales, starts and prices," he said. "Yet declines are exactly what we should expect during a correction? The question many are asking is how deep the correction will be and how long it will last."

Let's Try a Dose. We're Bound to Feel Better.

By Jacob S. Hacker
Sunday, March 23, 2008; B01

"Socialized medicine" is the bogeyman that just won't die. The epithet has been hurled at every national health plan since the New Deal -- even Medicare, which critics warned would strip Americans of their freedom.

And now it's back. Republicans from President Bush on down have invoked the specter of socialism in denouncing Democrats' attempts to expand publicly funded health insurance for children. Erstwhile GOP presidential contenders Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney lambasted the health plans of the leading Democratic candidates for mimicking "the socialist solution they have in Europe" (Giuliani) and trying to impose "a European-style socialized medicine plan" (Romney). The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, hasn't used the S-word yet, but after sewing up the nomination in early March, he criticized Democrats for intending "to return to the failed, big-government mandates of the '60s and '70s to address problems such as the lack of health-care insurance for some Americans."

Never mind that nobody is proposing to turn doctors into public employees and hospitals into government institutions -- the literal meaning of socialized medicine. The slogan gets its punch because it invokes a visceral public fear: that government involvement will drive up costs and drive down quality, wrecking the economy and damaging your health. Expanding government's role, the naysayers insist, will destroy what McCain calls "the world's best medical care."

But the critics have it backward. The best American medical care is indeed extremely good, but much of our system falls short -- especially when you consider how costly it is, how heavy a burden it places on employers and families, and how many it excludes. And far from being a threat, getting the government more involved in health care would actually reduce costs, improve quality and bolster the U.S. economy -- which helps explain why public insurance is the secret weapon in both of the leading Democratic candidates' plans. If socialized medicine means doing what our public-insurance programs and other nations' health systems do to control costs, expand coverage and improve the quality of care, it's high time for a little socialization.

To see the advantages of public insurance, just look at the program that once prompted the fiercest charges of socialized medicine, Medicare. Since the introduction of cost controls in the 1980s, Medicare's expenditures have grown at a substantially slower rate than spending on private insurance, according to a recent analysis by the health-care experts Cristina Boccuti and Marilyn Moon. And despite Medicare's comparative frugality, the program's beneficiaries express greater happiness with their coverage than do privately insured patients in surveys of consumer satisfaction.

Other industrialized nations have also seen the benefits of public insurance. Around the same time that Medicare cracked down on payments, most rich nations began more actively negotiating with doctors and hospitals to keep prices from rising through the roof. Lo and behold, medical inflation in most of the industrialized world has slowed dramatically, as the health policy specialist Chapin White has shown. But without such coordinated restraint, U.S. spending on health care has continued to rise rapidly -- a far cry from the 1970s, when our health-care spending per person was comparable to that of other rich nations and growing at about the same rate.

You'd think that those lower costs abroad would mean worse care. (You'd certainly think that if you listened to GOP candidates sneering at the British, French or Canadian systems.) But the closer one looks, the more unexceptional -- and often downright mediocre -- U.S. care looks.

Consider some basic measures of health-care infrastructure, such as those surveyed in a series of analyses by a team led by Gerard Anderson of Johns Hopkins University. The United States has fewer doctors, hospital beds and nurses per person than the norm among rich nations: 2.4 doctors per 1,000 people in 2004, for example, compared with 3.4 in France, which spends just over half what we do per person. Moreover, Americans visit doctors and hospitals less frequently and have shorter hospital stays than citizens in other affluent countries: The oft-maligned French see their doctors enough to rack up an average of 6.4 visits per person in 2004, but the American number was just under four visits. And we lag far behind other rich nations in the use of information technology, such as electronic prescription systems, to improve quality and lower costs.

Indeed, by some measures, U.S. health care looks downright lousy. A six-country study by researchers at the Commonwealth Fund, a health-care think tank with a generally liberal bent, concludes that the United States "scores particularly poorly on its ability to promote healthy lives, and on the provision of care that is safe and coordinated." Meanwhile, a recent analysis of 19 rich nations by Ellen Nolte and C. Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that the United States has the highest rate of "amenable mortality" before age 75 (the odd term of art for deaths that could have been prevented with timely care) -- and that we're falling farther behind.

Yes, the United States performs well in some areas of high-tech care and preventive screening. And, yes, waiting lists for non-emergency procedures do crop up in other rich nations. But even countries without such lists spend vastly less than we do. (And if you find an American who's never had to wait for care, get me their doctor's number.) Given how much we shell out, what's really striking is how poor our care frequently is. Back in the 1940s and '50s, corporate America promoted private benefits as an alternative to government insurance on the grounds that they offered better value. Now bosses -- and the rest of us -- are living with a raw deal that U.S. business would never stand for in other areas of today's competitive economy.

It's time, in other words, to embrace a government role in health care, rather than run from it.

Americans seem ready. They increasingly back government action to expand health coverage -- by more than 2-to-1 margins in recent polls. And the old bugaboos of government control don't seem to scare them as they once did. In fact, in a survey last month by the Harvard School of Public Health, 60 percent called Medicare socialized medicine -- a perception that hasn't dented the allure of this wildly popular program. Of the 82 percent who professed to know what the loaded phrase meant, more people thought that this long-demonized prospect would be good for the nation than thought that it would be bad.

Corporate America, too, seems more ambivalent than ever about the Faustian bargain it made to kill national health insurance in the 1940s. The nation's automakers, for instance, once stood on the front lines in the battle against socialized medicine. Now they spend more on health care than steel. No wonder they're talking about "national solutions" to reduce the medical burden.

The political landscape is shifting, too. Leading Democrats now seem far more willing to discuss public insurance than was President Clinton in the early 1990s (who backed a market-based plan and saw it caricatured as a big-government monstrosity anyway). Both Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are arguing that workers whose employers don't provide coverage should be able to buy into a public program modeled after Medicare. And they've emphasized that Washington will need to take the lead in developing the technology, information and standards necessary to improve the quality of care.

That's wise, because the only proven way to provide good affordable care to all Americans over the long run is to expand public insurance.

Don't take my word for it. The Lewin Group, a well-respected health-care consulting firm, recently estimated the potential impact of a health plan I've developed with the support of the Economic Policy Institute. The proposal -- which resembles the plans of the leading Democrats, whom I've advised -- requires employers either to cover their workers or to contribute to the cost of their workers' coverage. Workers whose employers make the contribution will be enrolled in a public plan modeled after Medicare. Like those covered by Medicare, they will have the option of purchasing regulated private insurance instead. According to the estimates, this proposal would cover all but a tiny sliver of the non-elderly population -- about half through the new federal system and half through employers. Yet it would actually reduce national health spending, cost the federal government an eminently reasonable $50 billion a year (about what the Medicare drug benefit costs) and save states and employers big money.

How is it possible to cover everyone without driving up costs? The one-word answer is "government" -- specifically, government's ability to lower service prices, streamline administration and get a better deal on drugs, thus reducing medical inflation over time. And these are only the direct savings. Reducing the burden of health care on employers will allow them to compete more effectively (and on a level playing field) with foreign producers. Just as important, making coverage affordable for everyone will allow people to change jobs or start their own businesses without the fear of catastrophic costs or the hassle, expense and inadequacy of individually purchased coverage.

Maybe socialized medicine doesn't sound so bad after all.

jacob.hacker@yale.edu

Jacob S. Hacker, a professor of political science at Yale and a fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of "The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/03/7755_mcc...

McCain on the Housing Crisis: Quick, Do Nothing!



Don't just do something, stand there! And wait for somebody else to suggest a course of action.

That appears to be John McCain's approach to the housing credit crisis. On Tuesday, he delivered what his campaign billed as a major address on the housing crisis. What made it notable was that it contained nothing notable.

McCain started off stating the obvious: there was a housing bubble: "speculators move into markets, and these players begin to suspend the normal rules of risk and assume that prices can only move up -- but never down....The normal market forces of people buying and selling their homes were overwhelmed by rampant speculation. Our system of market checks and balances did not correct this until the bubble burst." Lenders went wild and some Americans bought homes they could not afford. And, he added, "the housing bubble was made worse by a series of complex, interconnected financial bets that were not transparent or fully understood....Because managers did not fully understand the complex financial instruments and because there was insufficient transparency when they did try to learn, the initial losses spawned a crisis of confidence in the markets."

Anyone who watches a cable business show--even only during the commercial breaks on American Idol--knows this. The question is, what would a President McCain do about it. Short answer: not much.

"I will not play election year politics with the housing crisis," he declared, adding, "I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers." That's a fine sentiment. Tough love. Let the markets take care of things. But does he have any idea how to make the system work better? How to make sure that people victimized by predatory lenders have a shot at solvency? How to ensure that whole neighborhoods don't collapse?

Not really. Instead McCain only offered guidelines for what might be acceptable; he did not offer any specific initiatives:

In our effort to help deserving homeowners, no assistance should be given to speculators. Any assistance for borrowers should be focused solely on homeowners, not people who bought houses for speculative purposes, to rent or as second homes. Any assistance must be temporary and must not reward people who were irresponsible at the expense of those who weren't. I will consider any and all proposals based on their cost and benefits.

He called for greater transparency and a high standard of ethics in the mortgage business and noted that home buyers ought to provide "responsible" down payments. "I am prepared to examine new proposals and evaluate them based on these principals," McCain said. In other words, let someone else come up with a good idea.

McCain did call for a "meeting of the nation's accounting professionals," and he urged the top mortgage lenders "to do everything possible to keep families in their homes and businesses growing." But his general approach was clear: hands off. He's not offering much to voters who are hurting financially or nervous about the housing crisis.

If this is a preview of McCain's fall campaign, Democrats ought to be heartened. Assuming that economic insecurity will be an issue in the general election, will voters be hankering for a laissez-faire champion who says that the markets will sort it all out and who is willing to do no more than to beseech big financial firms to do right by the little guy and gal? McCain's speech signaled he might be even less of an economic activist than George W. Bush. If so, that could set up a fall contest reminiscent of the Bill Clinton-George Bush match of 1992--whether or not a Clinton is involved.

Posted by David Corn on 03/25/08 at 2:47 PM

McCain on the Red Phone





By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, March 26, 2008; Page A19

It is 3 a.m., and the stillness of the White House night is shattered by the ringing of the red phone. President John McCain, rousing himself from a deep sleep, turns on the light and picks up the receiver. A U.S. embassy in a Middle Eastern country, he is told, has been blown up, and al-Qaeda is taking credit.

McCain takes a deep breath. "Character counts, my friend," he says. "Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb Iran."

There is a rustling of blankets, and, brushing aside Cindy McCain, a concerned Joe Lieberman rises from the bed. "Not Iran, Mr. President," he says. "They hate al-Qaeda."

"That's right," the president says. "I remember now." He sighs with relief. "Good thing you're here every night, Joe."

But suppose, dear reader, that John McCain becomes president and Joe Lieberman doesn't bunk with the McCains on a nightly basis. How easily should the rest of us sleep? It's anything but an academic question after McCain's bizarre performance in Jordan last week.

There, he told reporters that he was "concerned about Iranian [operatives] taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back" to Iraq. "That's well known," he continued -- at which point Lieberman whispered a correction in his ear. "I'm sorry," McCain then said. "The Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

What are we to make of this moment? Was it a senior moment? A jet-lagged moment? Or, worse, was it really a moment at all? After all, the evening before, McCain had told listeners of Hugh Hewitt's radio talk show that "there are al-Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."

So the al-Qaeda-Iran alliance wasn't just a passing thought. It was a thought that had taken up residence in McCain's brain for at least a day, possibly longer. Whether it was a simple mistake, a neoconservative delusion or a habit of mind that lumps together all of America's enemies (either sincerely or calculatedly, to build public support for military action), we cannot say. What we can say is that the idea of any or all of these options is profoundly disquieting. The very thought of a president who deliberately conflates or erroneously confuses our adversaries with each other is appalling, though not without precedent. We're mired in a war that has its roots in George W. Bush's both imagining and fabricating an alliance between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Do we really want to perpetuate these habits of mind in the next administration?

McCain's meshugas didn't really get the attention it deserved, however. He was fortunate that his descent into fantasy occurred in the same week as Barack Obama's reverend crisis and Wall Street's near-meltdown. He got a pass from most of the media, too, in part because his statements in Jordan ran so completely counter to his image as an expert on national security.

What's been missing from the prevailing narrative of McCain's national security expertise, however, is any serious assessment of the nature of his beliefs. As early as 1999, McCain was recommending "rogue state rollback" as our policy toward such nations as Iraq. He remains an unabashed advocate of preventive war, as his comments on bombing Iran have made clear, and of permanent war, as his comments on remaining in Iraq have made clear. His advocacy of a missile defense system is rooted in a preference for military unilateralism -- though it may stimulate a new arms race -- over diplomacy. If you liked Bush's foreign and military policy, you'll love McCain's.

But McCain's thinking, unlike his life, remains an undiscovered country to his countrymen, though he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. On economic matters, that may be because he doesn't seem to have devoted much time or energy to thinking about the economy. That dearth of thought was apparent yesterday in his speech on the financial crisis. Even some of the barons of Wall Street, looking at the mess they've made, have been recommending stepped-up regulation of financial practices and institutions, but not McCain, who called for "removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital." Never mind that a leading cause of our liquidity crisis is that so many financial institutions are exempt from the regulations that would require them to back their investments with actual assets or would enable them just to value the assets that are on their books.

Hard to say what's more dangerous -- McCain's approach to the economy or McCain's approach to the world. The thought of him answering the red phone at 3 a.m. fills me with foreboding. Hell, I don't want him answering the red phone at 3 p.m.

4,000 Dead for What?





By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; Page A15


A funeral at Arlington National Cemetery for one of the 4,000. (By Chip Somodevilla -- Getty Images)

Four thousand.

When U.S. military deaths in Iraq hit a round number, as happened Sunday, there's usually a week or so of intense focus on the war -- its bogus rationale, its nebulous aims, its awful consequences for the families of the dead. Not likely this time, though. The nation is too busy worrying about more acute crises, some of them real -- the moribund housing market, the teetering financial system, the flagging economy -- and some of them manufactured, such as the shocking revelation that race can still be a divisive issue in American society.

So the fact that 4,000 men and women serving in the U.S. armed forces have been killed in Iraq is somehow less compelling than the zillionth playing of snippets from a sermon that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright preached more than six years ago.

For now, that is: Sooner or later, attention is bound to turn back to the war and the stark choice voters will face in November.

It may happen sooner. A few weeks ago, it looked as if Iraq might be entering another cycle of headline-grabbing violence. Now, the increase in mayhem is clear. On Sunday alone, more than 60 people were killed in several incidents, including a car bombing. Insurgents even sent rockets crashing into Baghdad's ostensibly secure Green Zone, a rare occurrence. While the violence hasn't risen to the levels that prevailed at this time a year ago, when the country seemed to be coming apart, it is clear that both civilian and military deaths are on the rise.

Dick Cheney, who in 2005 told us that the insurgency was "in the last throes, if you will," was asked last week about polls showing that two-thirds of Americans don't think the fight in Iraq is worth it. Cheney's response: "So?"

At least Cheney was being candid, if breathtakingly arrogant. He and George W. Bush have never cared what the American people think about this elective war. A little bamboozling was necessary at the beginning -- overblown claims about weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds and being "greeted as liberators" by smiling Iraqi children. Once that hurdle was surmounted, and once Saddam Hussein's government had been destroyed, there was essentially nothing anyone could do to force the Bush administration to bring the war to an end.

Let me revise that, since on three counts it's not quite accurate. First, the war did end once, an occasion Bush marked nearly five years ago in his "Mission Accomplished" speech; according to Associated Press, 97 percent of the 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq came after Bush stood on the deck of that aircraft carrier and declared major combat operations over. Second, we keep calling this conflict a war, but it's really an occupation, though the Bush administration doesn't like to use that word; it must not test well with focus groups. Third, the American people did what they could by snatching control of Congress from the Republicans. But even if Democrats in the House had the political will to end the occupation by cutting off funding, they don't have the 60 votes they would need in the Senate.

That's how we arrived at 4,000. And from the way John McCain talks, there's no telling what round-number milestones we'd have to mark if he were to become president.

On Iraq, McCain vows to continue the occupation as long as it takes for the United States to win. Like Bush and Cheney, he is quick to define any kind of withdrawal as defeat, but he makes no real attempt to describe what victory would look like. He at least realizes that the repressive and ambitious government of Iran has been the real beneficiary of the Bush administration's blundering in Iraq -- but the way he talks about Iran is just plain frightening.

The 71-year-old McCain's recent misstatement that al-Qaeda terrorists were being aided by the Iranian regime -- quickly corrected by Sen. Joseph Lieberman in a whispered aside -- might have been simply a senior moment. Or it might have reflected an intention to do something precipitous about Iran's growing stature in the region. Either way, scary.

It's understandable that Americans are riveted by the most exciting presidential nomination campaign in decades. It's natural that they're worried about the shrinking value of their homes and their 401(k) plans. Come the fall, though, they're going to have to decide on Iraq: Bring the troops home, as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both say they will do. Or keep them in, as McCain pledges -- and watch the numbers continue to rise.

The Ultimate Casualty





By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; Page A15

You know him well. His nickname was Gilligan, and he was a prisoner at Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein's vast prison transformed into a vast American one and then transformed again by the Bush administration into a vast national disgrace. Gilligan was deprived of sleep, forced to stand on a small box, hooded like some medieval apparition, wired like a makeshift lamp and told (falsely) that if he fell he would be electrocuted. He was later released. Wrong man. Sorry.

The story of Gilligan is recounted in a forthcoming book and movie, both titled "Standard Operating Procedure" because that is precisely what the abuse of prisoners was at Abu Ghraib. Much of the book, written by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris (he made the documentary) and excerpted in last week's New Yorker, relies on the verbatim testimony of the Americans who staffed Abu Ghraib. Some of them were the very ones who took the revolting pictures -- including the iconic photo of Gilligan -- that stunned the world.

What the interviews make clear is how pervasive and public the abuse of prisoners had been. Physical and mental abuse was conducted in the open. Photos were taken and passed up the chain of command. "Sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sensory disorientation and the imposition of physical and psychological pain," Gourevitch and Morris write, were all permitted under the makeshift rules of the camp.

"They couldn't say that we broke the rules because there were no rules," said an Army reservist named Megan Ambuhl. Others talked of something even more insidious: the growing tolerance for inflicting pain. This is the stuff of famous psychology experiments (Milgram, etc.), but it also reminds me -- and I know this is the extreme case -- of the willingness of ordinary German soldiers in World War II to spend whole days in the routine murder of civilians.

One of the most terrifying books I've ever read is called "Ordinary Men." It is Christopher Browning's chronicle of Germany's Reserve Police Battalion 101, which consisted of civilian cops, firemen and dockworkers who were not Nazi Party members and not particularly anti-Semitic but who nevertheless murdered Jews in occupied Poland because they were ordered to do so. At first a few of them balked, but ultimately they all participated. They were ordinary men.

Abu Ghraib, too, was staffed by ordinary men -- and women. Because they were allowed to be cruel, because they were encouraged to be cruel, they became cruel. "So, over time, you become numb to it, and it's nothing," said Sgt. Javal Davis. They knew, in Gourevitch and Morris's words, that "the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy," a consequence of the sneering contempt for international law evinced by the president, by his vice president and by his secretary of defense.

Of all the casualties of this sad war, the good name of the United States is certainly one. It evaporated in the desert like a shallow pool of water. I do not mean to belittle the lives lost or soldiers maimed, and I know full well that we are not a country of innocents. We've massacred prisoners of war and murdered civilians -- at My Lai in Vietnam, for instance -- but these were mostly moments of madness or terror, not a policy virtually posted outside the orderly room.

In the end, the photos taken at Abu Ghraib produced an explosion of outrage. When I visited Jordan in 2005, my driver -- Bassam was his name -- brought it up himself. Just as the military's interrogators knew the intense shame Muslim men feel when stripped naked and viewed by women, or when forced to wear women's underwear on their heads, so did Bassam deeply feel that shame himself. "We are Muslims," he said.

The firestorm over Abu Ghraib subsided. Courts-martial were held, and no one higher than a sergeant was convicted. All the rest, the officers who knew what was happening at the prison and said nothing, or the higher-ups in the field and in Washington who suggested indifference, were not touched. In fact, the Bush administration's position on torture was much like the military's on gays -- don't ask, don't tell.

This week we reached the mark of 4,000 American dead in Iraq. It is a sad milestone in a grinding war that can never be won and is already lost in so many ways. But even when this war, like Norman Bates's mother, is gussied up by its embalmers and declared a glorious effort, the shame of Abu Ghraib will forever stain George Bush and his top aides. For them, the photos from Abu Ghraib are not pictures. They're mirrors.

Cheney's Unforgivable Egotism





By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; 1:22 PM

That President Bush and Vice President Cheney live in a bubble of flattery and delusion, largely sheltered from the people who are actually suffering from the consequences of their actions, is not exactly news.

But perhaps nothing has crystallized their detachment and self-involvement so vividly as Cheney's assertion yesterday that when it comes to the war in Iraq, it is Bush -- not the soldiers and Marines who fight and die, or their families -- who is bearing the biggest burden.

And in an era where failing to support the troops is the ultimate political sin, Cheney's breezy dismissal of their sacrifice -- heck, they're volunteers, and dying goes with the territory -- was jaw-dropping even by the vice president's own tone-deaf standards.

Does Cheney really believe that Bush's burden is so great? The president tells people he's sleeping just fine, thank you, and in public appearances appears upbeat beyond all reason.

Or does Cheney simply have no idea what it means to go to war? He and Bush, after all, famously avoided putting themselves in the line of fire when it was their time.

Or are they just so wrapped up in themselves they can't see how ridiculous it is to even suggest such a thing?

Here's the transcript of Cheney's interview yesterday with Martha Raddatz of ABC News -- his second in less than a week. Here's a video clip.

Raddatz: "Mr. Vice President, I want to start with the milestone today of 4,000 dead in Iraq, Americans, and just what effect you think that has on the country. Your thoughts on that?"

Cheney: "Well, it obviously brings home, I think for a lot of people, the cost that's involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. It places a special burden, obviously, on the families. We recognize, I think -- it's a reminder of the extent to which we're blessed with families who have sacrificed as they have. The President carries the biggest burden, obviously; he's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans. But we are fortunate to have the group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us. You wish nobody ever lost their life, but unfortunately it's one of those things that go with living in the world we live in. Sometimes you have to commit military force, and when you do, there are casualties."

PBS's Tavis Smiley asked retired Gen. Wesley Clark about Cheney's comment last night. Clark's response: "Well, I guess you could say he does bear an enormous burden of guilt and responsibility, for misdirecting the resources of the United States and for the travesty of going to war in Iraq . . . But that's not a burden that's anything like the burden these families bear when their loved ones are overseas, and they suffer losses, or they come back home and they've got post-traumatic stress disease and other problems, when the little kids don't recognize the parents when they come in the door because of the frequent deployments and so forth. This is an entirely different kind of burden. So I think that Vice President Cheney is not being fair to the men and women who serve. He should recognize the enormous sacrifices they're making."

Bush's Peace of Mind

This isn't the first time Bush White House officials have said things that suggest they just don't get what they've done or how lucky they are, relatively.

Last week, in a videoconference with U.S. military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan, Bush said that he envied them. Tabassum Zakaria of Reuters quoted Bush as saying: "I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you . . . in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger."

Last September, Bush told military bloggers that he wished he could be alongside the troops in Iraq -- except that he's too old (see my column, Bush's Battlefield Envy).

At a June 14, 2007 White House briefing, then-press secretary Tony Snow insisted that Bush was on the front lines of the war "every day."

In April 2007, first lady Laura Bush asserted " no one suffers more" than the president and she do when watching television footage of the carnage in Iraq.

And in January 2007, when PBS's Jim Lehrer asked the president about the notion of shared sacrifice, Bush responded: "Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night. I mean, we've got a fantastic economy here in the United States, but yet, when you think about the psychology of the country, it is somewhat down because of this war."

Many presidential observers are amazed at how little this stuff seems to get to Bush.

People magazine asked Bush in December 2006 if he had trouble sleeping. As Karen Travers blogged for ABC News, his response was: "I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot better than people would assume."

That echoed statements Bush made in June 2005 to board members of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. "I'd say I'd spend most of my time worrying about right now people losing their life in Iraq. Both Americans and Iraqis," he said. But then he added: "You know, I don't worry all that much, other than what I just described to you. I attribute that to . . . I've got peace of mind. . . . I'm sleeping pretty good. Seriously. I get asked that. There's times when I hadn't been. I've got peace of mind."

Fred Barnes wrote in the Weekly Standard just over a year ago: "Bush's relentlessly upbeat demeanor, which he flaunts at press conferences and other public events, infuriates his political opponents and much of the mainstream media. They want him to act like the broken man they think he should be. Sorry, but he's a healthy man, mentally and physically. He's bolstered by his religious faith, his sense of mission, his scorn for elite opinion, and what an aide calls 'his really good physical shape.' Exercise and sleep help to 'keep his spirits high,' the aide says."

Yesterday, as the American military death toll in Iraq passed 4,000, Bush's first public appearance was at the annual Easter Egg Roll, where he appeared in high spirits. Today he participated in a photo op with two bass-fishing champions. "There's nothing better than fishing," he said.

In between, however, he did say something about the war.

The Coverage

Karen DeYoung and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post: "As the American military death toll in Iraq reached 4,000, President Bush conferred yesterday with top U.S. officials in Washington and in Baghdad and vowed in a public statement that the outcome of the war "will merit the sacrifice."

"Bush held a two-hour videoconference with Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. Petraeus reiterated his plan to halt U.S. troop withdrawals, begun late last fall, at the end of July. At that point, he has said, he will "evaluate" whether Iraqi forces and a reduced number of U.S. troops can maintain the lower levels of violence. . . .

"Petraeus has offered no guarantee that conditions will allow further withdrawals before Bush leaves office. . . .

"After speaking with Petraeus and Crocker yesterday morning from the White House, Bush attended a briefing by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department on cooperation between military and civilian officials in Iraq and elsewhere. In a statement to reporters, he spoke of the U.S. civilians who have died in Iraq and said: 'I will vow so long as I am president to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain.'"

Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker write in the New York Times that "it now appears likely that any decision on major reductions in American troops from Iraq will be left to the next president. That ensures that the question over what comes next will remain in the center of the presidential campaign through Election Day. . . .

"Mr. Bush, according to officials, could decide to make no further reductions in troops after the departure this summer of the last of the additional troops, leaving roughly 140,000. That number includes the 15 combat brigades in Iraq before the troop increase, as well as additional support, training and other units that are expected to stay. . . .

"[O]fficials said that Mr. Bush and General Petraeus, recognizing public and Congressional wariness about the toll of the war, would publicly hold out the possibly of withdrawing more troops, but only if conditions allowed it. Mr. Bush, in particular, is eager to end his presidency with the appearance that things are getting better in Iraq."

Here's Bush's statement yesterday, implicitly acknowledging, while at the same time diminishing, the day's milestone: "I'm fully aware that folks who have worked in the State Department lost their lives and -- in Iraq, along with our military folks. And on this day of reflection, I offer our deepest sympathies to their families. I hope their families know that the citizens pray for their comfort and strength, whether they were the first one who lost their life in Iraq or recently lost their lives in Iraq -- that every life is precious in our sight.

"And I guess my one thought I wanted to leave with those who still hurt is that one day people will look back at this moment in history and say, thank God there were courageous people willing to serve, because they laid the foundations for peace for generations to come; that I have vowed in the past, and I will vow so long as I'm President, to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain, that, in fact, there is a outcome that will merit the sacrifice that civilian and military alike have made; that our strategy going forward will be aimed at making sure that we achieve victory and, therefore, America becomes more secure and these young democracies survive, and peace more likely as we head into the 21st century."

Opinion Watch

A lot of folks are still marveling at Cheney's earlier interview with Raddatz.

Eugene Robinson writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Dick Cheney, who in 2005 told us that the insurgency was ' in the last throes, if you will,' was asked last week about polls showing that two-thirds of Americans don't think the fight in Iraq is worth it. Cheney's response: 'So?'

"At least Cheney was being candid, if breathtakingly arrogant. He and George W. Bush have never cared what the American people think about this elective war. A little bamboozling was necessary at the beginning -- overblown claims about weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds and being 'greeted as liberators' by smiling Iraqi children. Once that hurdle was surmounted, and once Saddam Hussein's government had been destroyed, there was essentially nothing anyone could do to force the Bush administration to bring the war to an end."

The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board writes: "Barring a miracle, there is nothing to stop this total from hitting 4,500, 5,000 - or beyond. The White House curtly noted the latest milestone as 'a sober moment,' but there is no sign the president is changing his stubborn, fruitless direction. To him, and an ever-shrinking pack, this war is somehow winnable.

"Last week, as the body count climbed, a news interviewer asked Vice President Dick Cheney about polls showing two-thirds of Americans thought the war wasn't worth fighting. His answer: 'So?'

"This arrogance, plus the rising death figure, should push the war to the front of any agenda about this nation's future. It remains the central topic by any measure of lives, national reputation or financial cost."

Meanwhile, In Iraq

Sholnn Freeman writes in The Washington Post: "Followers of influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr launched a civil strike Monday to protest raids and mass arrests by Iraq's security forces, underscoring the growing frustrations of Sadr's group, which U.S. military officials say is playing a key role in keeping down violence in Iraq."

Abu Ghraib Revisited

Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris write in the New Yorker: "The low-ranking reservist soldiers who took and appeared in the infamous images were singled out for opprobrium and punishment; they were represented, in government reports, in the press, and before courts-martial, as rogues who acted out of depravity. Yet the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy. The authorization of torture and the decriminalization of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of captives in wartime have been among the defining le