perfidy

...don't underestimate their ability to get it. Late last week, Paul Wolfowitz announced his resignation from the presidency of the World Bank. Having sensed the inevitability of the outcome, his Thursday started with an offer to resign on his own terms. From that morning's Financial Times, in a story entitled "Wolfowitz discusses terms of resignation":

Paul Wolfowitz yesterday began negotiating terms that could lead to his resignation as president of the World Bank. Last night the Bank board said the discussions had been adjourned and would continue today.
...
His lawyer, Robert Bennett, insisted he would not leave "under a cloud" and would rather risk the prospect of a vote on the board to dismiss him.

Given his repeated insistence, apparently supported by the facts if not by the rhetoric of his (many) enemies within the institution, that he'd done nothing wrong, neither his defense of his position nor his desire, after the defense has failed, to leave on his own terms can come as a huge surprise.

A quick summary of the case, from WSJ's OpinionJournal:

• Wolfowitz's girlfriend, Shaha Riza, was a staffer at the World Bank before he became president in 2006
• At the time he became president, he was directed by the bank's ethics committee to find a new job for her, even though he asked to recuse himself from the task.
  

  The committee suggested an "in situ promotion" to the next paygrade or an "ad hoc salary increase" as part of a "settlement of claims." The offer was intended to be generous, given that Ms. Riza--who already had been shortlisted for promotion--was being forced out of the bank, possibly for good, for a conflict she did not create and to a job she had not sought.

• She got an assignment at the State Department, with a significant increase in pay
• All hell has now broken loose, because he played a role in setting her new salary

Ms. Riza was eventually given an external assignment at the State Department with a salary (paid by the bank) of $193,000, up from the $133,000 she had previously made at the bank. To Mr. Wolfowitz's critics, this was improper and excessive, especially given that Condoleezza Rice makes about $10,000 less.

For other background, see:

• "World Bank Scholar"
• "The Real World Bank Scandal"
• "The Wolfowitz Files - Anatomy of a World Bank Smear"
• "A Tale of Two Scandals"
• "World Bank Jobbery - More evidence the Wolfowitz accusers chose to ignore"

If one chose to ignore all the facts, the affair would seem very sinister, to be certain. But of course, it's not at all. A reasonable person could look at the chain of events and come to the conclusion that Wolfowitz bent over backward to avoid both the fact and the appearance of impropriety. The near-50% increase in Ms. Riza's salary looks odd, but the fact that it's more than Dr. Rice makes is a red herring. In any event,

...this is highly selective outrage given normal procedure at the bank.

Of its roughly 10,000 employees, no fewer than 1,396 have salaries higher than the U.S. Secretary of State; clearly "fighting poverty" does not mean taking a vow of poverty at "multilateral" institutions. At the time of Ms. Riza's departure from the bank, she was a Grade "G" (senior professional) employee; the typical salary in that grade hovers around the $124,000 mark. For the next level, Grade "H"--the level to which Ms. Riza was due to be promoted--salaries average in the $170,000 range, with an upper band of $232,360. No fewer than 17% of bank employees are in this happy bracket.

So, no, it's not sinister in the least.

Sinister or not, Wolfowitz has now chosen to give up the ghost. As reported in Friday's WSJ, "Wolfowitz Quits World Bank as U.S. Relents". The mythical "reasonable person" could conclude he was railroaded. (For the record, the corrolary of the previous statement is not "Anyone who thinks he wasn't railroaded is unreasonable").

Unable to overcome charges of ethical misconduct, Paul Wolfowitz resigned as World Bank president yesterday within hours of getting a final White House signal that he should abandon a fierce battle save to his job.

So, why all the feigned outrage, and why the blatant politics involved in the ouster of Wolfowitz? At least four things, according to reports.

• Most often reported is the Bank's constitutional aversion to ensuring that it's not flushing money down various ratholes. The signature of Wolfowitz's administration at the Bank has been his anti-corruption drive. Doing so, of course, makes the jobs of the Bank's staff more difficult, and it subjects them to standards they're not used to, and unwilling to abide.
  

  Some of Mr. Wolfowitz's accusers--notably, former general counsel Roberto Danino--are angry precisely because he upset their lifetime sinecure by demanding higher performance.

  So there's that.

• Also at issue is the discomfiture of the staffers from the other countries which comprise the Bank's shareholders (of which the US is the largest) at the fact the US has named the last ten presidents of the Bank. Like many of the world's international institutions, smaller countries get chapped at the continually recognition of the US present role at the head of the table, in terms of financial heft. In addition to their successful hounding of Wolfowitz from office, the rumbles for non-American leadership at the bank are flowing, as advocated at Reuters, pseudo-reported at the Globe and Mail, and surely made part of the palaver elsewhere.
• Furthermore, there are those who trace the beginnings of this end to Wolfowitz's involvement elsewhere, to matters utterly unrelated to his actions at the World Bank. An example can be found in the Telegraph story entitled "Downfall precipitated by Iraq war"
• And of course, the generalized "Bush Explanation", from the Globe and Mail, prior to the resignation:
  

  The scandal that is likely to cost Mr. Wolfowitz his job was narrowly about favouritism toward Ms. Riza. More broadly, however, the showdown at the World Bank became a metaphor for Mr. Bush's troubled relations with the rest of the world -- and particularly Europe -- over Iraq, the broader Middle East, global warming and trade.

Oddly, without giving any of them any credence for operational worthiness, each of those four rationale for his ouster seems far more solid than the one by which he was finally forced to fall on his sword.

Whatever the actual reasoning of those wanting a head on a pike, resourceful enemies in politics, just like activists in the business world or, for that matter, a group of sixth grade girls, can find a way to introduce chum into the water. And if they're able to fool enough of the people enough of the time, they'll get their man.

Possible successors, according to the New York Times?

Speculation about Mr. Wolfowitz’s successor ranged from Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, to Mr. Blair and Stanley Fischer, the finance minister of Israel and a former top official at the International Monetary Fund. Also mentioned have been various prominent figures on Wall Street, including Douglas A. Warner III, a former chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase and chairman of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

In addition, speculation has centered on two officials close to Mr. Bush: Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmitt and Robert B. Zoellick, a former deputy secretary of state.

There are some worthies in there, but I'd prefer Fischer be removed from the list, as he's no longer American (relinquished citizenship and took Israeli residency) and I see no problem with continued American stewardship of the Bank.

My favorite two choices, not on the list? John Bolton, or failing that, Dick Cheney. Because sometimes, the best response to a defeat such as the US (no, not Bush, and not Wolfowitz - the US) has had jammed down its throat by the bureaucrats at the World Bank (or the other international institutions whose design allows the pretense that each crappy little country has just as much to add as all others) is the same thing, only more so.

Addendum - Worth reading, the after-action op-ed at OpinionJournal.

The NY TImes and the BBC are reporting on a late day compromise that brings America closer to an immigration reform bill that will leave everyone disappointed.

According to those sources, the crux of the bill is a two visa system. One, for esteemed gastarbeiters, has a 2 year duration but is renewable only twice, must include a year in country of origin in between renewals, and will not track applicants to permanent residency or citizenship. The other, which would put applicants on the path to citizenship, seems to go like this:

-Get out
-Pay $5,000 penalty
-Apply for new visa to work in the US
-Wait up to 13 years for final decision on permanent residency or citizenship

Neither news outlet includes mention of what the stick is here; what is the compelling factor to do all this? What happens to illegals who do not take this route and remain here and continue to work?

Because if you ask me, it's a sucker bet.

If I'm already here, paying no taxes, no auto insurance, largely immune from legal action beyond all but the grossest of criminal enterprises, why the holy *hades* would I give that up to go back to the pit I came from, pay 5 g's while I'm at it, plus fees for a new visa ($700-ish, iirc) and come back to the same job I have but now I have to pay state taxes, federal taxes, FICA, and all the other jazz now?

No thanks.

I don't see how the bill, as described, would make more than a small dent in the illegal population. Unless there are stiff penalties for the people who still choose to remain in the "underground economy", like deportation and permanent bar to return, this is all just alot of wind.

Heh, well, and a windfall to immigration lawyers.

Dang. I can't find the best quote by Michael Bloomberg on his chances of being elected President of the United States. The gist of it is that he's a short, Jewish, divorced New Yorker. Words which he has used to describe himself. He's got the goods and the gumption to stir up the pot. Virtual biscuit to anyone who can find the original citation. Wikipedia doesn't have it anymore.

Personally, I've met him, talked to him about non-trivial issues, and he's a jackass. But a very smart and competent jackass. I'd vote for him. He's exactly the centrist-Republican that kept me registered as one in Pennsylvania through all my years of college. (Being a Democrat was political suicide where I came from, closed primaries and old-money Republican domination.)

Hat tip to Kingsland Report for the Washington Times article. (However, I think Rev Moon is crazy, so take their reporting with a grain of salt.)

War, I say, War! I think this is quite an admirable trend, in general...corrupt members of a party aren't often watching their backs, and...ka-blam. We of the center (known as the left to everyone on the hard right) really ought to respond in kind, locate a "troubled" Democrat, and out the bastard. I'm sure there are plenty out there.

It does bring me to this simple way of thinking about partisanship. Rank the following in order of preference:

• Honest Republican
• Corrupt Republican
• Honest Democrat
• Corrupt Democrat

For the majority of us, I think the resulting list ends up having a certain shared characteristic...we would do well to keep that in mind as we look at our friendly neighborhood pols this time around.

President Bush has declared that global warming and greenhouse gases will "greet Americans with flowers" in the upcoming century. Much to the chagrin of the "conservative" establishment, Fox News accidentally published a news article foolishly acknowledging the possible certainty of a global warming trend. As the news establishment of record Fox News executives will shortly fall all over themselves explaining the disruption of their tango with Bush as "left foot steppage", with an accompanying chorus/chant of "UFO!" and "Terrorist!" from the gallery.

"We greet the flowering of our democracy with hope and renewed vigilance", noted El Presidente, adding that "America will grow strong, her great garden of freedom plants will grown stronger still, and we will ride these great beanstalks of global warming into the terrorist skies! Let no-one mistake our intent! This is our country, and these are our trucks!"

Tom Tancredo, desperate for attention, added that "big giant junipers on the borders would prickle mexicans into staying home and destroying their own economies for a change. Maybe we could fund that with wall money."

Mitt Romney pointed out that African Americans would be able to use the beanstalks to live above Utah, where they have been freely able to join the Mormon church since 1978! "Horticulture", Romney reportedly snickered to himself repeatedly.

Giuliani decried the global warming story, stating that any topic of conversation other 9/11 was unamerican, and even the giant beanstalk in Central Park didn't count. Then he got divorced again.

...that Barack Obama was correct when he singled out the most important problem that we, the people of the United States of America, need to deal with:

"The biggest enemy I think we have in this whole process (and why I'm so glad to see a lot of young people here, young in spirit if not young in age)--the reason I think i'ts [sic] so important, is because one of the enemies we have to fight--it's not just terrorists, it's not just Hezbollah, it's not just Hamas--it's also cynicism," Barack Obama told a reception after the AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] policy conference last night.

Mr. Obama, I'd like to introduce you, via the May 2, 2007 Star-Ledger, to former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey:

Former Gov. James E. McGreevey has started the process to become a priest in his newly adopted Episcopal faith and has been accepted into a three-year seminary program starting this fall.

[wik] As an added bonus, one of the very few commenters on that story who actually seemed to be supportive of McGreevey (or McCreepy, as he was referred to a time or two) was able to inject into the conversation some of that delicious truthiness we all crave:

Reader11722 says...

McGreevey has a right to become whatever he wants. We should not censor his free expressions. After all, censorship is becoming America's favorite past-time. The US gov't (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, shut down Imus and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings. Free Speech forever (even for McGreevey). Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):

America Deceived (book)

Posted on 05/02/07 at 2:22PM

Of course, we live in a fascist dictatorship, which is why "Reader11722" was immediately collected and shipped off to a re-education facility. Free speech forever, indeed! Even for, nay, especially for, utter dipshits.

Ouch. Johno gets Mitt. Buckethead gets Joe. I get Hillary. One of these choices is not like the other two.

Why? Well, Mitt's a serious guy with a serious reputation among a fairly small subset of serious people who don't otherwise know too much about him, as Johno's undressing of him might indicate. He's not widely or well known, but Mitt has a vocal support group, and will do fine until the heat reaches room temperature in a national campaign. At that point, he's toast. Which is hard to do at room temperature, and don't ask me how long it took me to find that out.

Joe? He's famous for the same things that make him infamous, as Buckethead's clearheaded yet evenhanded rant exposes. There's a chance that he's a decent guy, underneath his hugely irkssome and noticeable but ultimately unimportant flaws. The fact that he can't seem to keep anyone's words from coming out of his cakehole, let alone his own, seems even more damning than the fact that he also has a history of not caring whose words he's using.

Easy targets, the both of them.

Not so, Hillary Clinton. Ms. Clinton is far more broadly known than either of the other two, and is still the frontrunner by a wide margin in the Democratic Party field. (See Mar 29 2007 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll). In that poll, Mitt Romney is tied for fourth place (at 6%) in the Republican ranks. He's tied with a guy who's not even sure he's running (Gingrich), a guy who, if he runs, would be a very interesting candidate and among the most (simultaneously) intelligent and arrogant candidates we've had to choose from in recent memory. Perhaps worse, Mitt's also trailing a guy in third place who wasn't even included in the poll until the March 29th issue, a man who has only recently entered the collective imagination for the presidency - Fred Thompson, at 9%. Fred's a guy who may still not run due to lack of energy, desire, or freedom from "indolent lymphoma". Worse yet for Fred's supporters, he's a guy who may even be too late to successfully run. And yet Mitt's still sniffing his exhaust. Like I said, easy pickings, both Mitt & Joe. 

Hillary, on the other hand, at 36%, finds favor with more Democratic voters than those for Barack Obama and Al Gore combined. She may be one of the most polarizing figures in national politics since, well, since George W. Bush, but she's not someone who can be trivialized or taken lightly. And yet, that's my task here. Since this is stream of consciousness composition, I may find I've started and ended the trivialization with the picture above, one of many such candid photos that, if you pick the right frame from your choices, can make anyone look like they've got a ferret up their skirt. Pant-suit. Whatever.

Ms. Clinton is the other half of the most politically adept, yet managerially sloppy and morally "flexible", presidencies in my lifetime. I've often wondered whether she is, in raw intelligence, the smarter of the two, and a case can be made that perhaps she is. In the alternative, she's surely not far behind Mr. Clinton in intelligence. In political finesse, he has her beat by a country mile, but she'd surely have access to his gifts in that area during a national campaign. He owes her that, at a minimum, just for the dry-cleaning bills paid.

The political tactics that the Clintons, then and now, have been able to muster are brazen beyond belief. That's politics, however, and tells me more about what they're able to do to get her elected (anything required) than it does about their character (sketchy as all hell, just like all other politicians from either party). As a for instance, this, from HRC's Wikipedia page (provenance unknown, as always):

Former Bill Clinton fundraiser and ally David Geffen spoke out against Hillary Clinton in an interview with Maureen Dowd, stating that Clinton had no trouble lying and was overproduced and overscripted.^[20] In response, the Clinton campaign attacked Geffen and the candidate that he is supporting for President, Barack Obama, charging that Geffen's comments reflected on Obama negatively and that Obama should return Geffen's money.

That's so Machiavellian that not only wouldn't I have reacted the way the Clintons did, I am incapable of having even considered it. If Barack Obama did anything other than laugh so hard he coughed up his lunch, I'd be hugely disappointed. But the story had the desired effect - deflection of tarnish on Bill Clinton's, and by extension, Hillary Clinton's, control of his network of allies.

Not that this is meant to be a post about him, but everything about Bill Clinton, the good and the bad, can be see as indicative of how Hillary will act as she moves her campaign forward. Sometimes the comparisons are parallels, but far more often, you'll find that they're opposites. When Bill Clinton was getting the snot kicked out of him by a rabid subset of the American body politic, it wasn't he who invented the term "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" - it was Hillary. This, of course, was after he'd be catting about with the porcine intern, a fact about which Hillary couldn't plausibly have been ignorant. That sort of "Hey! Look over there!" defense isn't taught in grad school, as far as I know - it comes from a deep seated willingness to do whatever it takes to take and hold power. Bill was such a bad-ass smooth talker that he really didn't need to care about things like his reputation. If Joe Klein's faux-novelization of the 1992 presidential campaign, Primary Colors, is any indication, Hillary wasn't willing to rely on people forming their own impressions, unguided, of the Clintons, and had the same focus on the result, damn the impediments, even back then.

Her stewardship of the attempt at nationalized health care, in 1993, points to another polar opposite tendency between she and her husband. He was a consummate politician - a smooth talking pragmatist who, love him or hate him, had the gift of making many people listen to, if not agree with him. Hillary? Not so much. When the firestorm started after her foray into health care policy, Professor Martha Derthick (quoted in a 2006 George Will WaPo op-ed) wrote:

In many years of studying American social policy, I have never read an official document that seemed so suffused with coercion and political naiveté . . . with its drastic prescriptions for controlling the conduct of state governments, employers, drug manufacturers, doctors, hospitals and you and me.

Polar opposite of Bill? Yeah. Shrill? Pretty much.

Are her actions from the 1990s useful for predicting her likely trajectory in the 2008 Presidential campaign? Not completely. Some of the political wisdom of her husband has clearly sunk in since her initial campaign for her NY Senate seat. She's matured politically, and can, at times, seem positively statesmanlike. The risk remains, however, that she'll let out the shrildabeest. Two issues seem ripe for such a result.

First, she's called "off limits" any discussion of her relationship with Bill. I'm instinctively sympathetic to that request, not least because I'm no fan of reality TV, as I don't like to see people humiliated purely for entertainment purposes. According to James "The Lizard" Carville, in a December 2006 WaPo piece:

Despite all that, the subject of the marriage is too hot to handle. "It's uranium-242," said longtime Clinton adviser and friend James Carville, earlier this year. "You pick that stuff up and it'll blow up in your face . . . I'll talk about anything. But I ain't gettin' near anybody's marriage, especially the Clintons.' "

He's right. But the media and her opponents aren't likely so soft-hearted to leave this issue alone, and a real test of her ability to play on the big stage will be the manner in which she enforces her self-declared ban on this topic.

Another touchy spot is evident in the details of an LA Times article from Feb 18, 2007, entitled "GOP activists circling Clinton's campaign". In it, the actors discuss the tactics required to avoid a fate similar to that of John Kerry in the 2004 campaign:

Clinton has been publicly bracing for "Republican machine" attacks from the moment she launched her exploratory committee last month. Whether she can strike back quickly may prove crucial to winning over Democratic primary voters looking for assurance that she can survive a bruising general election and Swift-boat-style attacks. 

"For Democrats, there's a strong sense this time around that they can't allow those same tactics to define Democratic candidates," said Democratic media consultant Jim Margolis.

If Ms. Clinton responds to "swift-boat style attacks" in the same was as Kerry did, she's toast. Swiftboating, you see, isn't slander or libel, as the LA Times and others who use the epithet would have you believe. As it applied in Kerry's case, assertions of fact were made by people close to him during his days in Vietnam, and he had a chance to respond. He largely failed to do so, and instead chose to whine about how unfair it all was. Swiftboating, then, is better defined as being put in a position where it's easier to whine than it is to rebut, respond, or explain the inconvenient facts because they're not rebuttable.

Partly because her opponents in this regard, such as StopHerNow, seem so unhinged, I don't think Ms. Clinton will be subject to the sort of factual expose and undressing Kerry begged for by his murky claims to heroism, and as a result, her best bet will be to respond only enough to such attacks that she can be seen to be responding, but not fully engaging, as it's beneath her. Claims that she's a rabid left-winger don't ring true. So what if, as StopHerNow says, she's left of her husband? He was really quite a centrist, believe it or not, and one could be to his left without being too awfully offensive. But as an apparent control freak, Hillary may not be able to stay above the fray, and that seems a risk she needs to mitigate.

One last slug in this already-overlong post, and perhaps the elephant in the room for Hillary, from that same December 2006 WaPo article entitled "The President in the Room", and an item that cements this as not just a Hillary campaign, but a Hillary and Bill campaign:

Yes, Bill can deliver political superstardom. He's a razor-sharp political strategist. He knows the institution of the presidency. His fundraising chops are unrivaled. All that is well and good -- perhaps too good, according to a September CNN poll, which showed his favorable rating higher than hers, 60 percent to 50 percent.

[wik] Other possible negatives? One word: "cankles" Two words: "pants suits"

Joe Biden was born a poor black sharecropper in Scranton, PA. From an early age, little Joe made a name for himself by copying the work of others. This talent served him well until, in the 1988 presidential campaign, he was caught on tape repeating nearly verbatim a speech written by British Labor Party magnate Neil Kinnock. Along with some shenanigans from his law school days, wrapped up in a vicious little ad package by his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis, Biden’s proclivity for plagiarism dropped him from the race.

In the intervening twenty years, Joe Biden has remained a long serving senator from an inconsequential state. He has slowly moved his way into the leadership of the Senate, and gained a reputation for loving the sound of his own voice. That Joe should be marked, even among other politicians for this quality is a stunning achievement. Like a professional hockey team saying, yeah, but that guy really likes to skate.

Joe Biden once took over twelve minutes to ask a question of Supreme Court nominee Alito. A five minute speech can last as long as a half hour – as Barrack Obama found to his dismay. He can take five minutes just to say hello. As Barrack Obama also discovered, Joe Biden will keep talking when a wiser man would stop. Biden, in describing his competitors, made this frighteningly stupid remark about Obama:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

As many noted during the plagiarism flap two decades ago, it’s not so much that he said something that could be interpreted as racist, or that he gave a speech that was danger close to one given by a British politician. It’s the stupidity that it implies. Decades of political experience should, one would hope, instruct the candidate to avoid these mistakes. That it has not is worrisome at best.

About Joe Biden’s anti-Coolidgeness, columnist Richard Cohen had this to say:

“The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer's day in Death Valley, a winter's night at the pole (either one) -- an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess. This, alas, is Joe Biden…

The tragedy is that Biden, who is running for president, is a much better man and senator than these accounts would suggest. But his tendency, his compulsion, his manic-obsessive running of the mouth has become the functional equivalent of womanizing or some other character weakness that disqualifies a man for the presidency. It is his version of corruption, of alcoholism, of a fierce temper or vile views -- all the sorts of things that have crippled candidates in the past. It is, though, an innocent thing, as good-humored as the man and of no real policy consequence. It will merely stunt him politically.”

Not knowing when to shut up is a central indicator of foolishness, vanity, or cluelessness. Or all of these things. More than almost any of our 100 senators, Joe Biden does not know when to stop flapping his mouth.

Now it is early in the campaign, but I fear that like many other candidates doomed in the past to fall by the wayside, Joe Biden has no real reason to be President. This is not to say that the man is possessed of an overreaching ambition, not at all. Joe Biden is the long service bureaucratic placeholder who, after thirty years of service wants his GS-14 and reserved parking place. And like that retired in place civil servant, there is no good reason for that promotion save for seniority and a species of political inertia. In the words of the political satire, Happy Gilmore, “It’s Shooter’s turn.”

I have looked at Joe’s campaign website. There are any number of statements that can be interpreted with a generous eye as indicative of a coherent policy. But I’m not feeling generous. Joe Biden believes that there is a global economy, and that America has a role in it. Joe Biden believes that the United States, as the world’s most powerful nation, must take a leadership role in limiting or eliminating every factor that has made us the most powerful nation in the world.

There is a curious circularity to his policy positions as described on his website. For “Jobs” the key factors are energy policy and health care. For “Health Care” its jobs, econmy and using electronic records in hospitals. For “Energy” Joe Biden believes that energy policy is the center of both foreign and economic policy. Since all the oil is under where crazy people live, we should do without and invest in solar cars. And for “Climate Change” we should do without, invest in solar cars, and trade not emitting greenhouse gases.

Though energy is the center of our foreign policy, Joe Biden believes that NATO should impose a “No-Fly” zone over Darfur. He is particularly bold in calling for this even if the Sudanese don’t approve.

In short, what we the electorate have in Joe Biden is a time-serving motor mouth with a nice haircut. The next logical step in Joe Biden’s public service career is to move to the White House. However, Joe Biden has never held any sort of executive power beyond managing his Senatorial staff. Joe Biden has never exhibited any evidence of mastery of any complicated (even nuanced) policy matter. And most important to us, he has never demonstrated the ability or desire to ever shut the fuck up.

If you happened to pick up a copy of today's issue of USA Today, you could find a story entitled "Katrina claims stagger corps". You could find the same thing if, as happened to me, you saw it on a newswire, and thus didn't have to trouble yourself with purchasing the paper, with its sometimes-difficult-to-stomach format and voice. (n.b. - not it's opinion voice, but the clipped, short attention span voice they seem to choose for their stories, often resulting in news that, while it's neither more nor less accurate than anywhere else, didn't get the name "McNews" for nothing)

The story's key points are a bit breathtaking - New Orleans is seeking $77 billion in restitution and Louisiana's attorney general wants $200 billion.

New Orleans and Louisiana, swamped when the city's storm protections failed during Hurricane Katrina, demand the federal government pay a damage bill that is more than double the entire cost of the massive Gulf Coast rebuilding effort.

So many claims have been filed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the agency needs at least another month even to tally the floor-to-ceiling stacks, spokesman Vic Harris says.

{...}

Those two alone are more than double the $110 billion Congress approved for Florida and the Gulf Coast after Katrina and two other hurricanes struck in 2005.

(ellipsis mine) Ouch.

The story, having specifically listed the amounts above sought by New Orleans and the state itself, goes on to elaborate:

New Orleans and Louisiana seek broad requests for costs after Katrina but don't list specific damages.

The great thing about suing for damages, from a defendant's point of view, is that the damages do have to be enumerated. In addition, any mitigation already provided will have to be taken into account, and surely the federal government's $110 billion so far approved must have contained some funds which have been applied against such damages.

There's also the sticky matter of shared responsibility. Particularly in the case of New Orleans, the actions taken and omitted by Mayor Nagin and his government in the aftermath of the hurricane would imply competence at some small fraction of anything the Corps might have exhibited. In any event, it's going to be a royal mess to sort out.

Luckily, there's an attorney involved, so don't you worry; this should all end up right as rain:

Homeowners could seek damages of an additional $200 billion or more, says Jerrold Parker, a lawyer whose firm is trying to organize a class-action suit against the corps.

"Just looking at the place, it's clear that there's tremendous damage," he says. "The fact is, everyone knew the protections were inadequate."

{...}

The corps must either pay or reject each of the claims. Those whose claims are rejected can take the agency to court. Parker says his firm represents more than 3,000 people who want to sue.

(ellipsis, again, mine) For the record, “Just looking at the place, it’s clear that there’s tremendous damage” doesn't count as "enumeration of damages". He also presumes, of course, that his 3,000 clients' claims and the contingent fees he hopes to glom from them are all in addition to the generous amounts sought by the various government agencies. This doesn't even pass the "red face test", let alone the "giggle test".

Left undiscussed in the story is the rationale by which the government and its agencies are liable for failing to provide absolute and flawless protection for flooding in, say, New Orleans.

A city that lies "5-10 feet below sea level". On the same page linked just left, you will see that...

The Army Corps of Engineers verifies that the New Orleans area has 325 miles of Congressionally authorized hurricane protection including: Westbank (66 miles); New Orleans to Venice, La. (87 miles); LaRose, La to Golden Meadow, La. (40 miles); Grande Isle, La. (7 miles); Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity (125 miles).

...but Mother Nature doesn't pay much attention to the Army Corps, let alone (just like the rest of us) to Congress.

Bad things happen to good cities. They also happen to New Orleans, which is not now, nor has it been in the past, a "good city". It's a truly unique city, and a very interesting one, but neither of those connotes goodness. While less, or at least differently, so than in the past, due to the effects of the hurricane, it's still a bit of a cesspool.

It's cops are notoriously and blatantly corrupt. They've had more than their fair share of murderers wearing the uniform, too. And, aside from the murder, that's just the cops - the elected politicians are no better. William Jefferson, he of the refrigerated cash, is a stellar example of this breed, but hardly the only one.

But it doesn't stop there. From the Autumn, 2005 issue of the City Journal:

The second job is less obvious. New Orleans’s immutable civic shame, before and after Katrina, is not racism, poverty, or inequality, but murder—a culture of murder so vicious and so pervasive that it terrorizes and numbs the whole city.

In 2003, New Orleans’s murder rate was nearly eight times the national average—and since then, murder has increased. In 2002 and 2003, New Orleans had the highest per capita city homicide rate in the United States, with 59 people killed per year per 100,000 citizens—compared to New York City’s seven. New Orleans is a New York with nearly 5,000 murders a year—an unlivable place. The city’s economy has sputtered over the past generation partly because local and state officials have failed to do the most elementary job of government: to secure the personal safety of citizens.

And then there's the race card, described in the same article:

In the aftermath of the storm, hand-wringers wondered why they hadn’t noticed before that so many American blacks live in Third World conditions—supposedly only because they’re black. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer voiced white America’s knee-jerk best: “You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals. . . . So many of these people, almost all of them that we see, are so poor, and they are so black,” he mused on the air.

But Americans didn’t notice this before because it’s not true. Despite the president’s rhetoric, and despite those indelible images from the Superdome and the Convention Center, New Orleans is just as much a black success story as a black failure story.

Yes, New Orleans has a 28 percent poverty rate, and yes, New Orleans is 67 percent black. But nearly two-thirds of New Orleans’s blacks aren’t poor.

Yes, it’s true that nearly 25 percent of New Orleans’s families live on less than $15,000 a year, according to the 2000 Census. But 19 percent of New York’s families live on less than $15,000—and it’s much more expensive for poor people to live in New York, making them poorer.

New Orleans itself, its attorneys, and their clients, even more so than the state of Louisiana, appear to be trying to make their myriad problems those of all their fellow U.S. citizens. Simultaneously claiming poverty and race-based neglect from the federal government along with dismay at how wretched the city is now, ignoring that it's pretty much always been wretched, they're going for the gusto.

Or trying to.

It seems unlikely that, once the mess of layered claims, some bogus, some inflated, and some already addressed by insurance or other government single- double- or triple-handouts, is parsed, the extent of damage related to the breach of the levee system might be anywhere near crystal clear.

Add to that the absurdity of expecting guarantees from anyone, government or not, of protection against the weather, it becomes easier to hazard a guess as to what the outcome of this might be. I expect that the Army Corps, and by extension, all U.S. taxpayers, will be absolved of the imaginary financial responsibility that the plaintiffs in these cases are trying to foist off onto us.

(also posted at issuesblog.com)

Welcome to the Ministry of Minor Perfidy's series Meet Your Candidates!

With the 2008 Presidential season already in full swing, it is important that interested voters be out in front of the ever-evolving cast of characters vying for a place at the big table. With that mandate in mind (man-date... isn't that a little gay? Someone find out where Brownback stands on mandates!), we here at the Ministry will be profiling each of the very early candidates for the 2008 Presidential election over the next few weeks for your general edification and amusement. With such an absurdly long and diverse cast of characters (from Tancredo to Kucinich), it's hard to know who's for real and who's just a white shirt stuffed with ambition and the souls of dozens of big donors. We're here to help.

I myself will be profiling the following contenders: US Congressman and composting enthusiast Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Former Massachusetts Governer and yachting type Mitt Romney, former Saturday Night Live host and Mayor of 9/11, excuse me, New York City Mayor Rudy 9/11 Guiliani, retired General and George Clooney stunt-double Wesley Clark, former fatty and the other Man from H.O.P.E., Arkansas Governer Mike Huckabee, and Savior Made Flesh Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

First, some little known facts about your candidates:

The combined candlepower of Romney's, Edwards', and Obama's smiles could provide enough energy to power Bangladesh for a full day. Obama has produced a white paper exploring this phenomenon as a practical solution to Southeast Asia's energy crisis.

Places you could safely hide all the candidates: Mitt Romney's hair; Newt Gingrich's self-regard; Bill Clinton's ballsack (with room to spare).

Of all the candidates, Mike Huckabee has the sweetest smell.

WTC 7 did not collapse, as widely believed, due to damage sustained in the collapse of WTC 1 and 2. Neither was it deliberately demolished by Jews, the CIA or the Trilateral Commission. Rather, it collapsed when Rudy Guiliani, in the heat of his 9/11 crisis-management mode, roundhouse kicked it for being, as he tells it "goddamn insolent."

Newt Gingrich once gave a homeless man $20 to dance for him.

Sam Brownback's safe word is "peaches."

John McCain once carried a litter of wolf pups to term and nursed them to adulthood after accidentally killing their mother while hunting in the Rockies.

Dennis Kucinich is a top-notch shooting guard, especially dangerous from the high post.

Tom Tancredo broke up with his first high-school girlfriend for ordering a burrito for lunch.

Barack Obama has only one kidney. The other currently belongs to a Guatemalan orphan named Paco.

Fred Thompson has repeatedly sought counseling for uncontrollable rages. Onlookers mistake for avuncular pauses the times when he must take a moment to master his urge to crush his coffee mug into dust and, as his children put it, "Hulk out."

Rudy Guiliani practices "Hulking out" in the mirror nightly before bed.

First, let's meet the stormin' Mormon, the man with the million-dollar smile and perfect hair, former Massachusetts Governer Willard "Mitt" Romney.

The first thing to remember about Mitt Romney is that he's a second-generation politician, his father being the Michigan Governor, HUD Secretary, American Motors chairman, Presidential candidate and victim of Asian brainwashing, George W. Romney. It is an iron law of American politics that talent is not cross-generational, and it is this warning that should shape America's perception of Romney. Witness such prodigies of witlessness as John Quincy Adams (a strong contender for our worst President of all time), and George Walker Bush (ditto?) - parental ambition and a childhood familiarity with the political world are no substitute for actual talent, integrity, and all the other bullshit that should be for real but isn't that goes on yard signs during election season.

(And before we go any farther, let us stop a moment to wonder if, after eight years of '70s-era Harvard MBA leadership from son-of-a-politician George W. Bush, we want four to eight more years of '70s-era Harvard MBA son-of-a-politician leadership from Mitt. Call me crazy, but that particular, shall we say 'strategery,' hasn't worked out quite as well as might be hoped so far.)

Anyway, back to the facts... Mitt Romney's biggest claims to fame, prior to his election as GOV, were as head of Bain Capital (where he oversaw a wildly successful run of 113% yearly growth) and as CEO of the 2002 Olympics.

Like other candidates with a business background, Romney claims that this experience makes him an ideal fit for the managerial demands of the Presidency. Truth be told, I'd place more trust in my local School Board chairman to run the United States then a CEO. Note to all hopefuls: Presidents can't fire anybody, restructure or spin off any of the fifty operating divisions, or attempt LBOs of rival firms by way of entrenching market share, and the shareholders and entrenched interests are notoriously tetchy. When Germany stops importing American-made goods in protest of a new policy, there isn't anything in any HBS Case Study (not even PeoplePower, Inc.) to help you power through the issue. Frankly, a turnaround specialist is the worst person to step into control of what is still the most powerful and stable economy the world has ever seen - why fix what ain't broke on that level?

As for his Olympic experience, see above regarding the fitness of CEOs for the Big Seat, and add to this the mistaken equivalence between mediating among the two hundred nations participating in a multinational sporting event and engaging in trilateral talks with North Korea, China and Japan about just where Pyongyang is thinking about landing those nukes that are achieving apogee right about... nnnnnnow.

From the moment of his election to GOV in 2002, Romney openly telegraphed his intention to look past the job to bigger and better things. He was a johnny-come-lately carpetbagger with the air of a Republican in search of a state to win, in order to get that on his resume ASAP. While in office, he openly mocked the people of Massachusetts (as in a 2005 appearance in South Carolina). He practically disappeared from public view, emerging only to pick losing fights with entrenched state interests, to chime in on hot-button issues, or to howl for the heads of Turnpike Commission authorities whenever the Big Dig sprung a leak or killed anyone. If there's any justice in this world, Mitt will be branded a bigger "flip-flopper" than his Bay State nemesis, John Kerry. Mitt was against gay marriage before he was for it, and then against it again, for abortion choice and stem-cell research before he declared that life begins at conception, a lifelong hunter who has hunted once or twice, and against big-government mandates before he passed the nation's first state-funded universal health care scheme.

Truth is, nothing is as important to Mitt Romney as politics itself. As I recently wrote in a comment,

Mitt Romney is a mealy-mouthed walking haircut, an empty suit whose political instincts to find the nearest camera and beam into it are as acute and uncontrollable as a dog in frantic search of a leg to hump.

As governor of Massachusetts (and let’s not forget that getting elected governor of Massachusetts as a Republican hasn’t been any kind of feat since Bill Weld in 1992) he did, well, practically nothing. He lost most of the big showdowns, and tied the rest. Billy Bulger retired from the Senate to take a sinecure of equal if more subtle power as head of UMass. The turnpike commission smacked him around like a skinny third-grader. The state’s finances failed to improve measurably by any standard. Although he didn’t actively *hurt* the state, Romney showed absolutely no spark, no genius for leadership, nothing indeed except for a genius for pandering to whatever audience was in front of him at the time. I don’t give a rat’s ass that he’s a Mormon. What matters is that he thinks failing to outmaneuver the Massachusetts Turnpike Commission qualifies him to enter into deep negotiation with Iran (not to mention Senate Democrats).

Next time you see Mitt in front of a camera, look for two things: a statement that exactly contradicts something he said in the past, with no apology or acknowledgement, and that slightly spastic bending-over thing that men in suits do when they need to surreptitiously move a raging erection from one side of the zipper to the other.

Mitt Romney is the worst possible Republican candidate for President, aside from all the others. He is a big-government moral conservative who readily panders to more libertine interests when it's convenient to poll ratings, a smug and overtrained businessman whose governance playbook consists of scribbled quotes from "7 Habits of Highly Successful People," Bain Capital annual reports from the Reagan era, and headshots of himself, and a foreign-policy novice whose positions at this point seem reducible to five words: "I agree with the President."

Orson Scott Card, author, Mormon, and Democrat, has an interesting essay up over at his site the Ornery American. In it, he examines the Mormon aspect of Romney's candidacy from the point of view of a fellow Mormon, but one who is also occasionally in the public spotlight. Interesting stuff, especially this bit:

When I heard that Mitt Romney was actually running for President, my first thought was, "Is he serious?"

Doesn't he know that there is zero chance of a Mormon ever being in the White House?

Actually, no, that wasn't the bit, is was this one:

Only Dumb and Crazy People Believe Those Doctrines!

Ah. Here's where we come to the ugly part.

This is what that article about Mormon beliefs in The Week was really about -- making Mitt Romney seem like an idiot for believing in Mormon doctrine.

In his book, Hugh Hewitt recounts some really offensive, outrageous attempts by opponents of Mitt Romney to try to force him, in press conferences, to answer questions about Mormon belief.

"Do you, personally, really believe in [insert wacko-sounding doctrine here]?"

Sometimes the people asking that question will be evangelical Christians out to "expose" how false and ridiculous Mormon doctrines are.

But when the press picks it up, it'll be anti-religious people using a man's religious faith as a reason to ridicule him so he can't be elected President.

Do you think Mormons are the only people who can be treated that way?

If you're a Catholic, would you appreciate some reporter asking a Catholic presidential candidate, "Do you really believe that when you take the communion wafer, it literally turns into human flesh in your mouth? Isn't that cannibalism?"

If you're a Baptist, would you think it was legitimate for a heckler at a press conference to ask a Baptist presidential candidate, "So you think that when Jesus comes again, you're going to just rise right up into the air, no airplane, no jet pack, you'll just fly? Or aren't you a good enough Baptist to be in the Rapture?"

This was in the context of discussing the fears of the electorate in regard to a Mormon candidate. I think Card has it spot on here, and I believe we will see this, and much more as long as Romney stays in the race.

Another point that Card raises, one that I'm not so sure of, is this:

The mainstream media have taken a look at Mitt Romney and, just like George W. Bush in 2000, he's the nightmare candidate for them -- the one they have to kill.

Why? Because he's exactly what they most fear: A conservative who can appeal to moderates. After all, this guy won an election for governor in Massachusetts. As a Republican.

I think that to the extent that the media are going to gang up on someone, they're waiting. Except for targets of opportunity as conservative candidates come into range. The target that the liberal media must kill is the one that the Republicans nominate. In the meantime, I think they'll be going after the most "extreme" right wingers, and puffing up the tame Republicans like Romney, Guiliani and McCain. Until all the bad ones are gone, anyway.

This bit also amused me, considering my recent reentry into political bloviating:

Is Mitt Romney the Best Candidate?

I have no idea. I don't know enough about the other candidates -- or about Mitt Romney, for that matter. Just as I hope no one will reject him because he's a Mormon, I am not going to support him just because he's a Mormon.

I'm a Democrat. I would be really grateful if my party would nominate somebody who doesn't make my skin crawl just thinking of them in the White House (i.e., someone who isn't Hillary Clinton).

I'm glad that there are Democrats that feel that way. Very glad.

Card wraps things up with a question: "Let me ask you Republicans who would consider yourselves moral conservatives: Would you really let a person's religious beliefs absolutely disqualify him from the Presidency? And if you're leaning that way, think about this: If it was a choice between a moral conservative and decent person like Mitt Romney, who happens to be a Mormon, and Hillary Clinton, would you really sit out the election rather than cast your vote for a Mormon?" This question doesn't really apply to me, but I think it will be the most important question determining the success of Romney as a presidential candidate. Can he convince the religious parts of the Republican party that he is an acceptable candidate? For me, its a no brainer when it comes to choosing between Hillary and anything else. I'd vote for Dark Cthulhu before I'd vote for Hillary. Mormon barely registers. But for the born again, someone who is born again wrong is a real stumbling block, no matter how much he might agree with them.

Read the whole article, it's worth your time.

"It", in this case, is the 2008 Presidential election pre-pandering season. How could I tell? Today's mail contained solicitations for donations from:

• Rudy Giuliani
• John McCain
• Mitt Romney
• Tommy Thompson
• Bill Richardson

Pfft. Into the trash with the lot of them, after emitting a muttered "Holy shit!"

However, I was intrigued by several things about the mess of politically motivated mail feces pieces. First off, one of the items on that list is not like all the others. No, not the Mormon - the other odd item. Yeah, Richardson. I haven't a clue how his campaign is doing its targeting, but as much as I'm sure he's a stand-up guy and all, I don't know that I've ever taken any action which would have tagged me as anything other than, well, someone who would throw his mail into the garbage, unopened.

As for the rest, it's early days, and I guess there's a school of thought that the entirety of the Republican Party's mailing list (if not its "base", which excludes me) is ready for its quadrennial colorectal exam, to see if there are any changes in tendencies, proclivities, and candidate preferences. Oh, and IQ, too.

However, for anything other than a truly zero-cost mailing (which things don't exist), I'm amused that the GOP thinks the right marketing mode is "carpet bomb". At a minimum, given how early in the game it is, might it not make sense to attempt such mailings in waves, and adjusting the targets as responses from the gullible are tabulated?

I think it would, but they didn't ask me.

If they had, I'd have made the recommendation above, and I'd also have reminded them of John Wanamaker's famous saying:

"I know I waste half the money I spend on advertising," department store pioneer John Wanamaker said. "The problem is, I don't know which half."

I'd then point out that, according to Seth Godin, that's a myth:

Half my advertising works, I just don't know which half. Actually, it's closer to 1% of your advertising that works, at the most. Your billboard reaches 100,000 people and if you're lucky, it gets you a hundred customers...

Please ignore the casual numeric disdain of Mr. Godin - he's a marketer, not an arithmeticist. 100 people out of 100,000 is a lot closer to 1% than it is to 50%, but it's even more closer to 0% than it is to 1%.

And finally, I'd point them back to me, proof positive that the ratio that works is actually 0.00%

Note the two-decimal precision - that last bit is not only precise, it's accurate.

I am slowly, grudgingly, becoming interested in the 2008 presidential race. There are three reasons for this. First is $26 million dollars, and the second is The Hunt for Red October. The last is the fact that this will be the first completely wide open presidential election in god knows how long. No incumbents running. One hope, one fear, and history.

History first. This will be the first election with no incumbents with their hats in the ring since 1928, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. In that long ago election, President Coolidge declined to run, and Vice President Dawes was so roundly disliked that he was not even considered. In the intervening 80 years every election has involved either a sitting President or Vice President, and while that is no guarantee of victory, it does simplify the process – since no party is going to piss on the inherent advantages that a incumbent brings to an election.

This year, we’ll have double the fun, as both parties will go through the agonizing (for the electorate) and embarrassing (for the candidates) process of anointing a contender for the hot seat. So, this time around we’ll have double the number of concept candidacies, twice as many extremist loons who seemingly believe that they have a real shot, and two times as many blustering hollow shells who think that a nice hairdo is qualification enough for the highest office in our republic.

It should be a good show.

Next, fear. Recent news reports have handicapped the performance of the various presidential wannabes over the first quarter of fundraising. Prominent and smirking at the top of that list is Hillary Clinton. Unless Obama surprises everyone and turns in some huge numbers, Clinton is the clear leader in the Democratic money stakes. And that bothers me.

To be sure, the Democratic Party, and its members, have a perfect right to nominate whomever they choose. Individuals and companies have a perfect right to make donations to whomever they choose. But Jesus Swordswallowing Christ, why Hillary?

I simply do not understand the appeal of this woman to anyone, especially including Bill Clinton. Now, as a symbol, she has some plus points: a woman in politics, a former first lady, senator from a moderately serious state, an abused wife, etc. But as for her personal qualities, what she actually is, I can’t get it. She’s shrill, the cliché is her primary mode of discourse, she’s disingenuous, an obstructer of justice, her one major policy initiative was a failure for more reasons than I can comfortably list, and she’s married to Bill Clinton. As bad as I feel Hillary would be as President, the idea of that walking, glad-handling hormone as First Lady is starkly terrifying.

I sincerely hope, and am fervently praying, that the Democrats will nominate someone else. Even Kucinich would be an improvement.

Lastly, we have the GOP candidates. It would not be fair to compare, as Dennis Miller did of the 2004 Democratic candidates, the current lineup to that of the 68 Mets. But the only serious announced candidates are McCain, Romney, Guiliani. A mick, a mormon, a wop. And I don’t throw those slurs out randomly – they seem to actually reflect, to me at least, the characters of the candidates. McCain is famously hot tempered, and I’m sure there’s a bit of him that would like to get roaring drunk and beat the crap out of people. Mitt Romney acts like a Mormon: sober, responsible, good to his family, and just a leetle creepy. And Guiliani is slicker than Hell, and a bit of a womanizer, and one suspects that he might not be that good in a standup fight against the Germans.

While I have nothing against these front runners, I know enough about them that I’m not feeling particularly for them.

The other candidates, they don’t do much for me. Unless one of them pulls a rabbit out of his ass, none of them are going anywhere. (Where are you going? Nowhere.) I am a bit of a political junkie, and while I haven’t posted on politics in sometime, I do keep up. Up until I saw a list of GOP candidates, I had never heard of Ron Paul, I had to be reminded that Gilmore was once governor of my state, and Sam Brownback brought to mind several bad jokes that have nothing to do with Kansas. The rest are mostly faceless, characterless boobs. Not that I am singling them out for opprobrium – that is the nature of all but a few politicians.

Which leaves Fred Thompson. The Hunt for Red October. That was the first time I became aware of Fred Thompson, playing the role of Adm. Josh Painter in the movie version of Clancy’s best novel. "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it." Fred isn’t running yet, though Novak thinks he will, and the results of this interweb poll would seem to be encouraging.

I dig the guy. I think he’ll be the next Reagan. I hope he joins the race.

[wik] Thanks to the Maximum Leader for the link to the nifty interweb poll.

Regarding Tom Delay:

"I just think we need to break loose from what was happening with the Republican Party in the post-Reagan era," said Pauken, citing a number of concerns including the scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The money quote, for my money, in an article from Saturday's version of my hometown paper, the Houston Barnacle. A complete piece of crap reactionary lefty rag, from an opinion perspective, but one which provides occasionally readable editorial content.

This story? Simple proof that not all conservatives toe the line (or tow the line, depending on your metaphoric preferences) of the former supposed face of the Republican Party, it's defenestrated House Majority Leader. Further, simple proof that not all conservatives are prima facie stupid. However, an argument could be made that since only 4 of the 33 board members of the American Conservative Union resigned rather than sit on a board with the porkmeister from Sugar Land, TX, 88% of conservatives are still in need of a clue.

I blame the small sample size for overstating the remaining stupidity of conservatives, and hope that some of the remaining 29 adherents reassess Delay's significant negative impact on policy, conservative and general, as well as his cheesy and embarrassing complicity in the descent of the former Republican majority into petty graft and corruption. I remain convinced that he's been wrongly indicted in Texas, but that's just a technicality, really. He should have been indicted instead for sheer arrogance, and his apparently solid belief that those who voted for him and his party are naive morons.

At least 12% are not, or so projections might indicate.

[wik] Oh, Christ. From this morning's email, an easily-ignored solicitation to get me to buy a copy of the shit-witted Delay's new book, "No Retreat, No Surrender".

I really don't consider this a book about Tom DeLay.

...says Tom Delay, referring to himself in the third person.

And of course I talk about the so-called "scandal" that led to my indictment by a politically-motivated prosecutor. The sad truth is that
the Democrats plotted to destroy me personally because they couldn't beat me any other way.

...says Tom Delay, back to referring to himself in the first person, and providing a hint that he doesn't know what "about" is about.

Rush Limbaugh was kind enough to contribute the book's foreword, and Sean Hannity graciously wrote a preface.

Sad, really - Limbaugh is a fine radio entertainer, and on those rare occasions when I listen to him, it's for the entertainment, not the politics. Hannity? Loud-mouthed professor of indignation, and not even a good entertainer.

Please, Mr. Delay - Retreat. Surrender. Get the fuck off the stage. Please.

[alsø wik] Embarrassingly, I find myself being agreed with by the Houston Barnacle's opinion page.

People who know me well know that my political views are a hybrid - I'm incredibly socially liberal (in fact I'm buying heroin from a gay BDSM enthusiast right now while putting the finishing touches on my homemade beer sales business) but economically variable.

You see, I’m a knee-jerk fiscal liberal. How can it possibly be that there are limits to what the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world (and how good it feels to write that, ya know!) can accomplish? But of course, this lovely theory crashes and burns in practice. I would love, in an ideal world, for our government to handle feeding the poor and clothing the naked and fighting all the good wars and making peace in all the bad ones, but here in the real world, the list of low points in government competence just in recent years is longer than King Kong’s member and growing. Therefore all available evidence suggests that, no matter what my candyland fantasies are, the government is really bad at doing anything even slightly more important than deciding on which Thursday Thanksgiving should fall.

Let me share with you a story I heard recently. It’s a funny story, if by funny you mean “sad,” and it’s a perfect parable for why our government is not to be trusted under any circumstances.

You see, the small seaside town I live in is home to a National Park Service historical site, which as I’m sure you’re all aware means there’s some land, a brown building, and some signs around telling people what it’s all about. As far as parks go there’s a lot of cool stuff to draw on, including a fullsize working replica of a cargo ship from the great age of sail, numerous historic homes, and the good (?) luck to have been the site of a major event in early American history that still brings in tourists by the busload.

But for all the potential, the tours and interpretation at this park (“interpretation” in the public history sense of ‘helping people understand what they’re looking at and why it matters’) are kind of for shit, and I’ve always wondered why.

Back in the 1980s, my small seaside town was not as gentrified as it currently is, and very close to downtown there existed some pockets of serious sketchiness. At that time, the lead protection ranger (the guys with guns) at the Park was a guy whose name I’ll say was Duke. Duke’s job was to enforce the laws of the USA and the Commonwealth on the grounds of the park and in all the adjacent buildings it owned. He had a team of armed rangers who helped him with this important mandate.

One day, the local police force turned up in great numbers to a house owned by the National Park Service, and proceeded to invade the upstairs apartment, which was rented out to civilian tenants. It turned out that this raid was the culmination of a three-year investigation into a major drug trafficking ring operated out of that apartment, which I remind you was owned by the United States of America. Among the parties convicted of felonies were two of the park’s protection rangers, who had participated in drug transactions while armed, on duty, in the employ of the Federal government, on the grounds of the very park they were being paid to protect.

Duke was taken entirely by surprise by the raid; nobody had thought to tell him. It soon emerged that this was deliberate – the drug activity had gone on for so long, and so blatantly, that the local police were convinced that he was either in on it or spectacularly, stupendously, incompetent.

This being the US Government, Duke was not fired from his job for being stupendously incompetent at doing it. Instead, he was placed on a brief administrative leave and then moved to another department. That’s right… Duke, a dangerously incompetent law enforcement officer whose training was nonetheless in the area of law enforcement, was put in charge of the Interpretation department, with the historians and tour guides, where he remains to this day. That is why the tours for the most part suck at the National Park in my small seaside town.

In another more recent case, it took four years for the National Park Service to terminate the employment of a ranger at the same park who was convicted on child porn charges, including, I believe, some based on evidence found on his work computer.

So, as I prepare my 1040s this year, I thank the deity of my choice (“none of the above”) that the business of running our country is in good hands. Clearly the US Government is using my little National Park site as a holding cell for all the morons and misfits, the drain circlers and mouthbreathers, the nebbishes and ne’er-do-wells, who they accidentally gave jobs to and now feel too sorry for to fire. With all of them here, everyone else can go about the business of managing our nations’ affairs with the intelligence, decency, and wisdom that such weighty matters deserve.

Clearly.

Old story - ancient, in fact. Didn't this come out last week some time? The week before? Whatever.

What makes it new again, at least for me, is the commentary in today's hometown Houston Chronicle by the Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts, Jr.:

Somewhere, the gods are amused.

Sharpton is not. He has pronounced himself torn by conflicting emotion: humiliation, anger, pride and, above all, shock.

The reaction from Thurmond's family, meanwhile, has been characterized by that curious shrug of shoulders, that ambivalence and eagerness to change the subject, one often finds in white people when slavery gets personal.

"I don't feel one way or the other," Thurmond's 74-year-old niece, Doris Strom Costner, told the Washington Post.

"I have no comment," Paul Thurmond, the senator's youngest son, told the New York Daily News.

Somewhere, all the other the race-baiters like Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton are also amused.

---

Note: Strangely missing from the Wikipedia entry linked above is the Sharpton Jew-baiting incident which resulted in riots and dead Hasidim in Crown Heights during 1991. Also missing, the incitement to burn Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem during 1995, resulting in yet more deaths. So much for Wikipedia's previously impeccable reputation for completeness. Oh, it also omits his 1983 brush with the FBI, reported in 2002 along with his apparently still-unsuccessful $1 billion lawsuit against HBO for having aired the tape of the event, after which he allegedly turned into an FBI informer to avoid investigation for involvement in drug transactions on behalf of Don King and the NY Mob. A complete and total piece of shit work, this guy.

---

Anyway, Pitts seems surprised to find that Thurmond's descendants don't feel personally responsible, or even embarrassed, by the actions of people whose lives predate their own by 100 years or more. Imagine that! What the hell's wrong with those people?

Sharpton feels humiliation (as though Thurmond had owned him?), anger (for what, I don't know), pride, and shock. Those last two, I can understand - it's not often that a demagogue of his stature is handed an issue, on a silver platter, that his mouth-breathing fellow travelers in the "professional outrage for shake-downs, fun, and profit" community, if nobody else, can take seriously and run with. So he's equally shocked and proud.

Normally, you see, such agitators have to incite or invent their own, well, agita.

Pitts continues:

Of course, by this point, maybe he has stopped listening. Maybe you have, too. Mention of that 350 years tends to have that effect.

Hence the ambivalence — "nervous chuckles," reported the Orlando Sentinel of a visit to Thurmond's hometown — that greeted last week's news in some quarters. Small wonder. It removed the shield of abstract. It put a face on the thing. And the danger is that if we can imagine that face, we can imagine others.

Condoleezza Rice purchased as breeding stock.

Oprah Winfrey raped on a nightly basis.

Will Smith, his back split open by a whip.

Sen. Barack Obama living with the same rights under the law, the same expectation of dignity, as a horse or a chair.

We spend a lot of time running from this. But we never escape.

Lost on Pitts is the utter absurdity, in today's world or any world that's existed in the past 50 years, for ANY of the things he lists as bogeymen to actually occur. So we're "running from" putative, but completely imaginary, future shit that would never, ever occur anywhere but in the fevered brains of those who can't bear to see the racial divide bridged.

And if Pitts, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the myriad others who make all or part of their livings being the agents for the perpetually aggrieved have their way, damned straight, we'll never escape.

A 1972 (or thereabouts) Chevy pickup, nicely restored, with a "Nixon/Agnew" bumpersticker. I wish I had had my camera handy.

As the clock tolls the end of the year, after five years of delays, millions of pages of secret, top secret and otherwise classified documents will become unclassified, unsecret and un-top secret.

But in theory if not in immediate practice, what was set in motion by the Clinton administration in 1995 is coming to fruition. Executive Order 12958 declared that in 2000, every classified document 25 years of age or older would be automatically declassified unless the classifying agency had already sought and received that document's exemption (anything that could cause an "identifiable" risk to national security, would violate a person's privacy or involves more than one agency is exempt). After two three-year extensions granted by the Bush administration in response to cries from the CIA, FBI, NSA and other agencies that they didn't have the manpower to review all of their papers in time, the final deadline has arrived. And President Bush is enforcing it.

The FBI alone will be declassifying 270 million pages of heretofore secret material. This is a good thing. While I recognize that keeping secrets is necessary, the government has had a nasty habit of classifying basically anything, regardless of whether it truly needed to be secret. I look forward to seeing what people dig out of this staggeringly large treasure trove.

As shadowed (whined about, really) in a comment to an earlier post by Minister Buckethead, I don't see much intelligent political discourse these days. Which is a shame, really - I've always enjoyed reading it and have, at times enjoyed writing it or attempting to.

But these days, political discussions tend to appear most often from mouth-breathers with no critical thinking skills or rank partisans pushing buttons on a presumed-ignorant voting populace. The ratio must be somewhere around 90% today, unlike back in the "old days", where it was only, oh, 75%-80%.

As an example of the former, I'd give Debbie Schlussel's recent rant on Barack Obama ("Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim") and some of the comments (not the post by the estimable Allahpundit, but some of the comments) in the story at Hot Air, "Schlussel: Is Obama a Muslim manchurian candidate?". Anyone who feels compelled to use Sen. Obama's middle name, other than perhaps his mother, is an unserious rabble-rouser and should be vigorously ignored. Anyone who thinks he's DQ'd from further political office solely due to his Muslim heritage is no different, and has the added disadvantage of being incapable of forming a coherent thought in support of an argument they're incapable of considering. Rubes, the lot of them.

Examples of the latter abound; far too many to list, but they include the hubbub about Harold Ford Jr. and his taste for white women and the creepy predilections of Mark Foley. In the comments to a story (linked to the story) that Buckethead provided below (referenced above), about a congressional aide named Shriber who solicited help from hackers in adjusting his undergraduate GPA, most of the noise wasn't focused on the fact that Shriber had attempted to violate a federal law, nor that he'd been played so majestically by the supposed hackers he thought he'd found to help with his nefarious plot.

No, the comments went straight to the heart of the matter - that he was an aide to a Republican. The first of these stories flatly didn't matter, not a bit, the second was interesting primarily due to Foley's immediate resignation but not at all due to his party affiliation, and the third indicated that the commenters were humorless drones, politically tin-eared morons without meaningful lives, beating on a drum that people with IQs over 100 wouldn't even hear.

Those pushing stories like these either don't know or wilfully ignore how low-budget and minimally meaningful their rants are, to thinking adults. Yet they continue; they happened throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, throughout the most recent mid-term elections, and are sure to play a part in the 2008 federal elections as well. Truly a shame, and a waste of opportunity to have an intelligent discussion about what we really want our legislative overlords and masters to do on our behalf.

But enough of my setup - as you all know, Scott Adams' Dilbert speaks for the common man, and hasn't let us down in our hour of need. Witness:

Dec 22, 2006:

(click for original @ Dilbert.com)

Dec 23, 2006:

(click for original @ Dilbert.com)

They pretty much summarize my view of the landscape as it sits today. We, as an electorate have to get smarter, and while we're working on that, we have to reject the button pushers and the slobbering retards. Yeah, that's a plan.

This just hit my inbox:

__________________________________
NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal

Dec. 13, 2006
Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota suffered a possible stroke Wednesday and was taken to a hospital, his office said. If he should be unable to continue to serve, it could impede the scheduled Democratic takeover of the Senate. Democrats won a 51-49 majority in November, but South Dakota's governor, who would appoint any temporary replacement, is a Republican.

For more information, see:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116604516212049325.html?mod=djemalert

__________________________________

And it occurred to me that, in the unfortunate event Senator Johnson is unable to continue to serve, I'd consider it rather shitty for South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds to appoint a Republican to the slot.

Hey, I'm all for what I consider the potentially less-damaging of the two parties controlling the Senate, but I'm more in favor of respecting the voters' wishes. And the voters elected a Democrat in 2002, so they should have a Democrat in that Senate seat until 2008.

Or am I looking at this too simplistically?

[wik] "Mr. Johnson won his 2002 bid for reelection in the predominantly Republican state by just 524 votes out of more than 334,000 votes cast." So there's that. But a win's a win, and a miss is as good as a mile.