Jared Bernstein & Brad DeLong on "Outsourcing": a dialog with interesting discussions

Note: Jared Bernstein on "Outsourcing": Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal

Very interesting posting from Bernstein. DeLong gives an uncharacteristically very weak response, but the comment threads are very interesting. Very much in line with what I've written about for years (mostly personal correspondences). Neo-feudalism beckons!

JK Galbraith junior has a related article in Salon pummeling the Economist. Alas, the Economist is not what it was 10 years ago. It's been infected by rejects from the WSJ.

It's good that we're starting on these topics. Again, I think we need to sever benefits from employment, have mandatory-contribution 529 like plans for use during periods of underemployment, subsidize education and retraining, initiate consumption taxation and estate taxes, etc. etc.

How and why the Neocons missed 9/11, and why they may still be clueless

Peter R. Neumann, NYT OpEd: Why Nobody Saw 9/11 Coming

I love it when someone like this lays it all out in a way that's clear and convincing. The author is a research fellow in international terrorism at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. He combines a military with the tradition of clear minded UK thinking. I'm sure he didn't write the title however -- it's clearly untrue and contradicts his writing. Shame on the NYT headline writers!

The only criticism I'd make of this article is that he fails to fully emphasize the critical role of technologic progress and the dissemination of education in the growth of non-state terrorism.

LONDON — Did the Bush administration, before the 9/11 attacks, fail to take terrorism seriously enough? At first the contention seems unlikely. Isn't this the most hawkish administration in living memory?...

... there is something to these accusations — although perhaps not in the sense that the people making them intend. The administration's early failures on terrorism cannot be pinned down to individual instances of "neglect." To understand what really went wrong, we need to go back to the last decades of the cold war, when people like Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Vice President Dick Cheney first started to make sense of terrorism.

In the 1970's and 80's, the predominant view among Washington hawks was that none of the various terrorist groups that operated in Western Europe and the Middle East was truly independent. They were all connected through a vast terrorist network, which was created and supported by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites. The Communists' aim, the hawks believed, was to destabilize the Western societies without being directly linked to violence.

It all seemed to make perfect sense, and books like "The Terror Network" by Claire Sterling [1981, she later followed up with a 1994 book on organized crime], which argued the network hypothesis with considerable force and conviction, became essential reading for anyone who wanted to make his way in the Reagan White House.

...According to the classically "realist" mindset, only states can pose a significant threat to the national security of other states, because lesser actors simply do not have the capacity, sophistication and resources to do so... it was only by tackling the state sponsors (in this case, the Soviet bloc), that you could root out the terrorists.

With the end of the cold war, however, things changed. While there was no longer a prime state sponsor for any "terror network," there was also no longer any need for one. It became easy to travel from one country to another. Money could be collected and transferred around the globe. Cell phones and the Internet made it possible to maintain tight control of an elusive group that could move its "headquarters" across continents. In fact, by the end of the decade, it seemed as if the model of state-sponsored terrorism had effectively been reversed: Al Qaeda was now in charge of a state — Afghanistan under the Taliban — rather than vice versa.

But the Washington hawks failed to see what was happening. The world around them had changed, but their paradigm hadn't. For them, states continued to be the only real movers and shakers in the international system, and any serious "strategic" threat to America's security could only come from an established nation.

Consider an article in the January/February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine by Condoleezza Rice, titled "Campaign 2000 — Promoting the National Interest." Ms. Rice, spelling out the foreign policy priorities of a Bush White House, argued that after years of drift under the Clinton administration, United States foreign policy had to concentrate on the "real challenges" to American security. This included renewing "strong and intimate relationships" with allies, and focusing on "big powers, particularly Russia and China." In Ms. Rice's view, the threat of non-state terrorism was a secondary problem — in her to do list" it was under the category of "rogue regimes," to be tackled best by dealing "decisively with the threat of hostile powers."

...Sept. 11, 2001, brought about a quick re-orientation of foreign policy. What didn't change, however, was the state-centered mindset of the people who were in charge. According to Mr. Clarke, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld immediately suspected Saddam Hussein, and suggested military strikes against Iraq. While cooler heads prevailed at the time, and there was a real effort to track down and destroy the Qaeda network, there was also a reluctance to abandon the idea that terrorism had to be state-based. Hence the administration's insistence that there must be an "axis of evil" — a group of states critical in sustaining the terrorists. It was an attempt to reconcile the new, confusing reality with long-established paradigm of state sponsorship.

In the end, the 9/11 hearings are likely to find that the intelligence failure that led to the horrific attacks stemmed from the longstanding problems of wrongly placed agents, failed communications between government departments and lack of resources. But it was also a failure of vision — one for which the current administration must take responsibility.

---

There have been two consistent themes in analyses of the Bush administration thus far:

1. Bush likes simple answers. He's not stupid, but his reasoning is heavily faith-based. He has tremendous confidence in his intuition.

2. Rumsfeld, Cheney et al were mired in a world that had passed them by. Remember the missile defense initiative? Many editorials asked how this was supposed to protect us from backpack nukes.

The idea that only states could threaten states was true once. But the cost of weaponry falls much faster than the costs of defense. That trendline continues.

The Rice Foreign Affairs article validates Clarke's testimony. Rice is not stupid, but she was wrong. She knows better than to admit that, but she was simply wrong.

This isn't merely academic, or even about historical justice. The Bush administration STILL doesn't get it.

If Clinton had not been impeached, or if Gore had won ... would 9/11 have been prevented? The conclusion Bush is running from ...

Could We Have Prevented 9/11? - Slate tells you what Richard Clarke's book reveals about the Bush and Clinton administrations' war on terror. By Julia Turner

Although the book amounts to a chronicle of what many in the present Bush administration did wrong (and what Clarke and Clinton did right), it is neither shrill nor overly self-congratulatory. Unlike some of the books Slate has diced and julienned in this space, this one's worth reading, mostly for Clarke's informed account of al-Qaida's rise and the U.S. government's awareness of the threat. But since you may not have time to read the whole thing, Slate presents Clarke's most salient pieces of criticism and praise.

---

Bottom line, the Clinton administration did a good job and they'd have done an even better job if the hell-hounds of the Republican party had not been striving to destroy Clinton.

It's not so much that the Bush cronies did a bad job. Yes, they were arrogant and stupidly dismissive of the Clinton administration. Yes, they had severe misconceptions that caused critical delays. Yes, they were obsessed with Iraq and missed the bigger picture. Yes, Bush is not a strong thinker. BUT, despite their myriad failings, they were heading in the right direction. They're arrogant, foolish, irrational and often wrong -- but they're not dumb.

No, what really enrages Bush et al is how well the Clinton administration comes across. They are left with two terrible, unthinkable and thus far unspoken conclusions:

1. Gore might well have done better than Bush at preventing 9/11.
2. If Clinton had not been impeached, 9/11 might have been stopped.

No, we really can't diagnose abuse by physical exam

BBC NEWS | Health | Doubt over shaken baby diagnosis: "Scientists have cast doubt over the theory that certain eye injuries are a sign a baby has been violently shaken.

---

This whole business is a much greater scandal than physician over-enthusiasm for estrogen replacement.

In the 80s we thought certain vaginal findings were proof of abuse. Until recently in the UK a second case of SIDS in a family was considered proof of murder. Some have thought that retinal bleeds were a sure sign of shaken baby syndrome. Before we understood von-willebrand's disorder I'm sure bruises in affected children led to abuse cases. At one time certain warts were felt to guarantee child abuse (that may still appear in textbooks, but I wonder how good the science is).

Crappy science, crappy logic. There's something about the horror of infant abuse that drives people to nutty conclusions, and drives thoughtful researchers far from the domain. There is no good, reliable, test for child abuse short of the most extreme findings. I doubt we'll ever have one -- unless we research in advanced "lie detection" actually works out. We'll either err towards removing children from loving and trustworthy homes, or err towards leaving them to be hurt and abused. There are no perfect solutions, which is why child-protective services is such a terribly hard business.

BBC NEWS | Health | Aids risk reduced SIX-FOLD by circumcision?!!

BBC NEWS | Health | Aids risk 'cut by circumcision'

en who have been circumcised may be six times less likely to contract the HIV virus than uncircumcised men, research carried out in India suggests.

---

SIX TIMES?!!

If we had a vaccine that reduced infection 6-fold we'd be singing in the streets. This is damned amazing -- if true. It seems too great an effect to be real.

But if it is ...

Whack 'em off. (ouch!)

PS. I've circumcised lots of (male) babies. It's pretty barbaric, though nowadays we at least use anaesthetics. I hated it, but figured it was an American cultural tradition I just had to put up with. Now it looks like there might be an amazingly good reason to lose the foreskin. Circumcising adults is more challenging.

BBC NEWS | Europe | The EU has a terror plan. Now.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Key elements of EU terror action plan

The European Union's summit in Brussels is being dominated by the need to co-ordinate and co-operate in countering terrorism.

This was drawn up by EU interior ministers on 19 March - a week after the Madrid bombings - and then adopted by foreign ministers on 22 March.

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In the days when I chaired a (small) hospital "quality assurance" committee, I was frustrated because I could only effect change in response to serious patient injury rather than before bad things happened.

I was young then. I figured it was just the group I was with; that a more forward thinking group would be proactive, not reactive.

It took me a surprisingly long time to realize that humans are hardly ever proactive. It's simply not in us. We can only react to what's happened, not what is likely to happen.

If some alien species writes our obituary, it will read -- "reactive, not proactive".

Clarke Humilitates his interrogators, GWB gets help from Fox/Pravda (WaPo

Clarke Stays Cool as Partisanship Heats Up (washingtonpost.com)

The Sept. 11 commission shed its bipartisan spirit and turned a Senate hearing room into a courtroom yesterday for the testimony of Richard A. Clarke, the White House counterterrorism chief-turned-Bush administration whistle-blower.

... Shortly before the hearing, the White House violated its long-standing rules by authorizing Fox News to air remarks favorable to Bush that Clarke had made anonymously at an administration briefing in 2002. The White House press secretary read passages from the 2002 remarks at his televised briefing...

Back at the hearing, former Illinois governor James R. Thompson, a Republican member of the commission, took up the cause, waving the Fox News transcript with one hand and Clarke's critical book in the other. "Which is true?" Thompson demanded, folding his arms and glowering down at the witness.

Clarke, appearing unfazed by the apparent contradiction between his current criticism and previous praise, spoke to Thompson as if addressing a slow student.

"I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done, and to minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done," he explained. "I've done it for several presidents."

With each effort by Thompson to highlight Clarke's inconsistency -- "the policy on Uzbekistan, was it changed?" -- Clarke tutored the commissioner about the obligations of a White House aide. Thompson, who had far exceeded his allotted time, frowned contemptuously. "I think a lot of things beyond the tenor and the tone bother me about this," he said. During a second round of questioning, Thompson returned to the subject, questioning Clarke's "standard of candor and morality."

"I don't think it's a question of morality at all; I think it's a question of politics," Clarke snapped.

Thompson had to wait for Sept. 11, 2001, victims' relatives in the gallery to stop applauding before he pleaded ignorance of the ways of Washington. "I'm from the Midwest, so I think I'll leave it there," he said. Moments later, Thompson left the hearing room and did not return.

... Republican commissioners labored to change that reputation. Fred F. Fielding implied that Clarke may have perjured himself when he spoke to a congressional investigation into the attacks but did not raise complaints about Bush's Iraq policy then. Clarke, though the back of his neck and head were a burning red, replied coolly: "I wasn't asked, sir."

The gallery drew quiet when Lehman questioned Clarke. "I have genuinely been a fan of yours," he began, and then he said how he had hoped Clarke would be "the Rosetta Stone" for the commission. "But now we have the book," Lehman said, suggesting it was a partisan tract.

Clarke was ready for that challenge. "Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raised it," he said, noting that he registered as a Republican in 2000 and served President Ronald Reagan. "The White House has said that my book is an audition for a high-level position in the Kerry campaign," Clarke said. "So let me say here, as I am under oath, that I will not accept any position in the Kerry administration, should there be one."

When Clarke finished his answer, there was a long pause, and the gallery was silent. Lehman smiled slightly and nodded. He had no further questions.

---

The gray bureaucrat outguns the pompous senators. Lovely. Washington veterans are tough bastards.

Fox once again plays its role as the American Pravda. In this case, however, they probably didn't do anything wrong. They did earn themselves some political favors, which they'll use wisely. Bush may be corrupt, but he keeps his promises -- to his donors.

In retrospect, even distracted by the insane assaults of the republican right, the Clinton administration comes out well head of the early GWB administration in defending the nation. That must so enrage Bush.

How nice that Kerry didn't have to spend money on attack ads this week.

Wapo is very confused about Microsoft

Regulators, Rivals React (TechNews.com)

The European Union's decision yesterday to fine Microsoft Corp. and require it to make alternate versions of its Windows operating system is a tougher and more far-reaching approach than the one taken by the Justice Department in a similar U.S. case.

When that happens, legal experts said yesterday, it can be hard for companies to know how to behave, which is why regulators on both sides of the Atlantic work to minimize such disagreements.

---

Idiot. The US court that found Microsoft to be a monopoly, and in breach of antitrust law, advocated splitting the company in two. That's MUCH tougher and more appropriate than the relatively limp wristed EU judgment.

Gates made the appropriate donations every businessman has to make, and GWB accepted them. Being an honorable crook, GWB had his administration effectively drop the case.

There's a very intersting case playing out in the Minnesota courts, far from the limelight. This case is exposing how Gates and Co crushed the "Go Corporation" in the 1980s/90s. They were only then emerging into full power, and were relatively crude about destroying perceived threats.

The EU decision is to weak to really impact Microsoft. In any case it will be appealed and more donations will be made along the way. I don't expect much impact.

The only threat to Microsoft is China and India deciding they can't trust their inftrastructure to a US company and instead funding Linux development. I think that's rather a longshot.

Kaplan on Clarke: it's as bad as it looks

Dick Clarke Is Telling the Truth - Why he's right about Bush's negligence on terrorism. By Fred Kaplan

Interesting tidbit from Kaplan. After Clarke came another exit, this one voluntary.:

Most pertinent, Rand Beers, the official who succeeded Clarke after he left the White House in February 2003, resigned in protest just one month later—five days before the Iraqi war started—for precisely the same reason that Clarke quit. In June, he told the Washington Post, "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terror. They're making us less secure, not more." And: "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged, and generally underfunded."

Kaplan's review is dead-on and devastating. I hadn't imagined the Bush situation was this bad. He concludes:

The Principals meeting, which Clarke urgently requested during Bush's first week in office, did not take place until one week before 9/11. In his 60 Minutes interview, Clarke spelled out the significance of this delay. He contrasted July 2001 with December 1999, when the Clinton White House got word of an impending al-Qaida attack on Los Angeles International Airport and Principals meetings were called instantly and repeatedly:

In December '99, every day or every other day, the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, the Attorney General had to go to the White House and sit in a meeting and report on all the things that they personally had done to stop the al Qaeda attack, so they were going back every night to their departments and shaking the trees personally and finding out all the information. If that had happened in July of 2001, we might have found out in the White House, the Attorney General might have found out that there were al Qaeda operatives in the United States. FBI, at lower levels, knew [but] never told me, never told the highest levels in the FBI. ... We could have caught those guys and then we might have been able to pull that thread and get more of the conspiracy. I'm not saying we could have stopped 9/11, but we could have at least had a chance.

The consistent pattern is that Bush is confident in his own vision. He sees the world not as it is, but as he thinks it is.

Psychotic schizophrenics have similar attributes -- delusions are all about confidence and decisiveness. Bush is more mystical than rational, more intuitive than logical, and maybe even a bit delusional. These are good traits in a religious leader, bad traits in a modern president. Bush should have been an evangelist.

NOVA | The Elegant Universe -- Online

NOVA | The Elegant Universe | Watch the Program | PBS

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You can pick segments of 10 or so minutes apiece to watch. Quicktime or RealVideo. Ahhh, PBS.

Phil Carter has some excellent commentary on Clarke and GWB

INTEL DUMPGreat overview.

Why your daughters should be roofers -- not architects

BW Online, Aaron Bernstein | March 22, 2004 | One Giant Global Labor Pool?

Americans have become increasingly worried over the past year about the lack of job growth in an otherwise strong economy, amid fears that the "offshoring" of white-collar work is a key culprit...

A number of economists are worried, too -- but, unlike the politicians, not about how many jobs the U.S. will create between now and November. They're concentrating instead on an aspect of international job competition that hasn't yet gotten much notice: The conceivably widespread impact, at some point, on U.S. incomes and living standards.

...It may sound premature to be concerned about that. For instance, no one has even been able to pinpoint precisely how many white-collar positions have moved overseas of late -- and many economists doubt that the number is high enough to make it a primary cause of sluggish employment gains. Even if a few hundred thousand jobs have departed for low-wage countries such as China and India in recent years, that number pales beside the routine job flux in the U.S., points out Harvard University trade economist Robert Z. Lawrence. In 2002, the latest year for which full data is available, 32.1 million jobs in the U.S. disappeared, while 31.7 million were created, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Even so, the recent transfer to other countries of so-called knowledge work -- jobs requiring lots of education and creative skills -- could be a signal of what lies ahead. For a precedent, look at what globalization has done to the pay of less-skilled U.S. factory workers over the past three decades or so. As low-wage countries developed the ability to produce things such as apparel, electronics, and textiles, Americans in those industries found themselves competing with people who'll work for a tenth of their pay. This has exerted downward pressure on U.S. factory wages that continues today.

True, the domestic economy usually plays a larger role in wage-setting than does foreign competition. That became clear during the boom of the late 1990s, when red-hot demand for employees who were in short supply more than offset the globalization effect and lifted pay of even the lowest-skilled Americans. Still, in non-boom times the downward tug from abroad is powerful. It's probably one reason average inflation-adjusted wages in the U.S. have slumped by 0.1% in the past year. Without the countervailing force of full employment in America, foreign competition rules.

... That's why the spread of global labor competition to the top of the skill ladder could be so significant. The ability of U.S. companies to find architects, engineers, programmers, and financial analysts in places like India for a fraction of what they cost at home almost certainly will create a dampening effect, sooner or later, on the pay of the 80% of U.S. employees who until now have been unaffected by such global job competition. "White-collar offshoring will make the wage outlook worse for high-skilled Americans, no question," says Brookings Institution economist William T. Dickens.

Indeed, trade theory suggests that the impact ultimately could be larger for high-skilled workers than it has been for the lesser-educated. As the world increasingly begins to look like one big labor pool, market forces should tend to move wages everywhere toward the same level for similar work, all else being equal. After all, employers won't pay more for labor in one country if they can easily get the same work done elsewhere for less. They wouldn't remain competitive for long if they did.

Problem is, all else isn't necessarily equal: Wages tend to move toward equilibrium only after productivity is factored into the equation. If American apparel workers earn $10 for making 10 shirts, their pay starts to come under pressure only when a Mexican worker can churn out the same quality shirts for less than $1 each. That has happened with apparel, so the U.S. has lost many clothes-making jobs. But U.S. skill and technology have made many factories at home more productive than their foreign counterparts -- one reason that all American factory jobs haven't shifted abroad.

"DIRECT COMPETITION." The question that white collar offshoring raises is whether American professionals are more productive than their Chinese or Indian rivals. If the answer is no, the result could be sobering. Many of the highest-skilled jobs that are fleeing offshore seem to depend more on brainpower than on capital or technology -- the last lines of defense in manufacturing. After all, a software programmer with sufficient smarts and education needs only an office, a computer, and plenty of caffeine to do a good job. So if an Indian programmer can produce as much high-quality code as an American one, wage equalization for programmers may occur at a faster pace than it has for apparel workers...

---

Not bad. Economists aren't yet concerned about the outsourcing effect, but there are strong theoretical reasons to expect huge impacts in the next decade.

The net effect is more wealth everywhere, but the distribution, as always, will be uneven. Architects, accountants, legal aides -- the losers will be widespread. The author calls for more education, etc. That's far from enough. We need to change the way we related to employment; we need to make it something we move in and out of with appropriate modifications to savings, benefits, etc. The impact will be strongest where a foreign worker can be "virtually" insourced. The enabling technology here is definitely the Internet.

Oh, and why roofers? Can't do virtual outsourcing.

George Bush's Resume

Google Bush's Resume

A friend forwarded an email spoof of GWB's resume. It came without attribution, so I tried a Google search to see who claimed it. I found 29,500 links, mostly to variations on the spoof. The email was better than most I scanned -- evidently it's gone through some evolutionary improvements. So here's yet another example of it, with my selected emphases. BTW, I don't consider GWB's substance abuse history all that relevant -- except that his acolytes felt Clinton's inhalations were somehow remarkable.

RESUME
GEORGE W. BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Law Enforcement:

I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the
influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's
license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost" and
is not available.

Military:

I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a
drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas
Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:

I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.


PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:

I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the oil business in
Midland,Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil
in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land
using taxpayer money.

With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including
Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.


ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:

I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making
Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston
replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.

I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in
borrowed money.

I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American
history.

With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's
appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over
500,000 votes.


ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:

I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal
record.

I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one
billion dollars per week.

I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.

I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.

I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month
period.

I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of U.S. stock
market.

In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and
that trend continues every month.

I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any
administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice,
has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.

I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most
corporate campaign donations.

My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends,
Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S.
history, Enron.

My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure
my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.

I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation
or prosecution.

More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than
has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in
history.

I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to
intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.

I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded
government contracts.

I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any President in
U.S. history.

I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the
history of the United States government.

I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.

I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove
the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.

I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.

I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. "prisoners of war" detainees
and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.

I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election
inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).

I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President
since the advent of television.

I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period.

After taking off the entire month of August 2001, I presided over the worst
security failure in U.S. history.

I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center
attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in
the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.

I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously
protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for
protests against any person in the history of mankind.

I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive
attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against
the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the
world community.

I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty
benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.

In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking
Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.

I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%)
view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.

I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a WMD.

I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama bin Laden to
justice.


RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's
library, sealed and unavailable for public view. All records of SEC
investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are
sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended
regarding public energypolicy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for
public review.

PLEASE CONSIDER MY EXPERIENCE WHEN VOTING IN 2004.

Speech, Journalism, and American Pravda

Frank Rich (NYT): Après Janet, a Deluge

If we lived in Afghanistan under the Taliban, perhaps it might make sense that Janet Jackson's breast (not even the matched set!) would lead to one of the most hysterical outbreaks of Puritanism in recent, even not-so-recent, American history...

Not all of this can be pinned on Ms. Jackson's nipple ring. This story dates back to 9/11, or, more specifically, to two weeks after, when the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, condemned a historically astute Bill Maher wisecrack about America's "cowardly" pre-9/11 pursuit of Al Qaeda. Mr. Fleischer warned Americans that they should "watch what they say," and some Americans took heed. Mr. Maher's "Politically Incorrect" was dropped by a few network affiliates and advertisers and then canceled by ABC.

The message had been sent that governmental media management was in play, and we've seen its ramifications ever since — whether in the docility and self-censorship of the news media in the run-up to the Iraq war or in an episode as relatively trivial as CBS's dropping of "The Reagans." While the current uproar over broadcast indecency is ostensibly all about sex, it is still all about politics, especially in an election year when a culture war rages. Washington's latest crew of Puritan enforcers — in the administration, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission — are all pandering to a censorious Republican political base that is the closest thing America has to its own Taliban. The media giants, fearful of losing the deregulatory financial favors the federal government can bestow, will knuckle under accordingly until the coast is clear.

...Censorship is when the government suppresses speech, so, technically at least, Howard Stern, like Bill Maher before him, has not been censored. The only sanction applied to Mr. Stern's show so far has been the action taken by a corporation, Clear Channel Communications, which yanked him from six stations it owns, as it is freely entitled to do. (Mr. Stern's program, a product of Viacom, continues to air on roughly 35 other stations.)

But the story line is more subtle than that. Both Clear Channel's founder, Lowry Mays, and a director, Thomas Hicks, have long financial associations with George W. Bush, whether as recent campaign contributors or past business cronies (in the Texas Rangers, in Mr. Hicks's case). Clear Channel needs Washington's powers-that-be to protect its huge share of the radio market. It's only after Mr. Stern turned against Mr. Bush on the air that Clear Channel dropped his show, which is otherwise no more or less racy and politically incorrect than it always has been. A Clear Channel executive told Bill Carter of The New York Times this week that his company had "no political agenda," but those words seem like spin when weighed against the actions of its stations and personnel.

It was another of that company's talk show stars, Glenn Beck, who convened pro-war "Rallies for America," some paid for by Clear Channel stations, to counter antiwar dissent last year. Clear Channel stations were also prominent among those that dumped the Dixie Chicks from their playlists after Natalie Maines's dustup with Mr. Bush. If anything, the company's political affiliations are somewhat more consistent than its enforcement of good taste; last month the trade publication Broadcasting & Cable cited Clear Channel's penchant for "tolerating shock jocks so raw they'd make Howard Stern blush." Even as it dropped Mr. Stern and another long-running show, "Bubba the Love Sponge," for indecency, The Daily News reported that one of the company's New York outlets, Z-100, was promoting Eamon's "I Don't Want You Back," a fount of sexual innuendo that contains the four-letter version of the contraband Bono word in its full title.

Clear Channel's banishment of Mr. Stern has troubled even clear-cut Bush allies. In what must be a first, the conservative Sean Hannity and the liberal Alan Colmes on Fox were in agreement that, in Mr. Hannity's words, "this is chilling because I think at the end of the day, those people that have conservative viewpoints on the radio can similarly be targeted." Rush Limbaugh said, "I haven't ever heard the Howard Stern show, but when the federal government gets involved in this, I get a little frightened." He wondered what would happen if "John Kerry-John Edwards-Bill Clinton-Terry McAuliffe types end up running this country someday again" and decide that "conservative opinion is indecent" because it "causes violence." (Some days later, perhaps after realizing Mr. Stern's anti-Bush animus, he took to defending Clear Channel, with whom he is in partnership, in a Los Angeles Times Op-Ed piece.)

... Entertainment built on violence and sex, in other words, isn't going away as long as Americans lap it up. Even now, two networks that missed out on CBS's Janet Jackson action on Super Bowl Sunday have booked her in the weeks to come — ABC for "Good Morning America" and NBC for "Saturday Night Live." Ms. Jackson's nipple ring, meanwhile, still peeks out of a CBS Web site even as the more insidious indecency, of callow media giants bedding down with cynical politicians, remains largely under wraps

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Rich is hopeful that corporate interests will ensure a full package of sex and violence reaches all Americans, irregardless of government intent. No argument there -- Rome will have its circuses. Rome, however, was not known for its vibrant democracy. The real concern is not nipple exposure, it's political exposure. Aside from a few rabid bloggers and some veteran columnists, who's exposing what this administration is up to? Few younger journalists can afford loss of sources and/or loss of employment. Independent journalists can't afford major investigative works.

In an era of media consolidation and Rovian ruthlessness, Clear Channel is a greater threat to our freedom than the American Taliban. Our American Pravda will be profitable.

Bush's 9/11 Obsession: It had to be Iraq (washingtonpost.com)

Aide's Book Faults Bush 9/11 Response (washingtonpost.com)

... For Clarke, then in his 10th year as a top White House official, that day marked the transition from neglect to folly in the Bush administration's stewardship of war with Islamic extremists. His account -- in 'Against All Enemies,' which reaches bookstores today, and in interviews accompanying publication -- is the first detailed portrait of the Bush administration's wartime performance by a major participant. Acknowledged by foes and friends as a leading figure among career national security officials, Clarke served more than two years in the Bush White House after holding senior posts under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He resigned 13 months ago yesterday.

Although expressing points of disagreement with all four presidents, Clarke reserves by far his strongest language for George W. Bush. The president, he said, 'failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from al Qaeda despite repeated warnings and then harvested a political windfall for taking obvious yet insufficient steps after the attacks.' The rapid shift of focus to Saddam Hussein, Clarke writes, 'launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide.'

Among the motives for the war, Clarke argues, were the politics of the 2002 midterm election. 'The crisis was manufactured, and Bush political adviser Karl Rove was telling Republicans to 'run on the war,' ' Clarke writes.

Clarke describes his book, in the preface, as 'factual, not polemical,' and he said in an interview that he was a registered Republican in the 2000 election. But the book arrives amid a general election campaign in which Bush asks to be judged as a wartime president, and Clarke has thrust himself loudly among the critics. Publication also coincides with politically sensitive public testimony this week by Clinton and Bush administration officials -- including Clarke -- before an independent commission investigating the events of Sept. 11.

... "Any leader whom one can imagine as president on September 11 would have declared a 'war on terrorism' and would have ended the Afghan sanctuary [for al Qaeda] by invading," Clarke writes. "What was unique about George Bush's reaction" was the additional choice to invade "not a country that had been engaging in anti-U.S. terrorism but one that had not been, Iraq." In so doing, he estranged allies, enraged potential friends in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and produced "more terrorists than we jail or shoot."

"It was as if Osama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting 'invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq,' " Clarke writes.

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Senior civil servants like Clarke are the people who truly govern our nation. When they resign things are very bad.

Note the reference to the 9/11 committee. It's easy to see why Hastert and Bush have wanted to kill the 9/11 committee -- including chairing it with someone who shares Bush's negligence.

It looks like Bush was wrong to believe Saddam was involved with 9/11. But right or wrong, it's very clear Bush had no particular evidence to justify his beliefs. He believed his intuition, and had no use for contrary facts or opinions.

Bush is certainly decisive. Decisively irrational.

Two comments on the last statements. Some particularly craven journalists give Bush credit for deciding to invade Afghanistan. Jimmy Carter, much criticised for an allegedly pacifist and indecisive nature, wouldn't have hesitated for a fraction of second to invade Afghanistan. That was a forgone conclusion. Bush gets no points for invading Afghanistan. Secondly some have claimed that Kerry is "bin Laden's candidate". I don't think so! No president could have done a better job of serving bin Laden's agenda than George W. Bush. If we can convince the terrorists that their actions will elect Kerry, we may yet avert an attack prior to November.