Rubicon

But I won't be worried long

Yes, I admit it, I'm a worried man. There's the crazed and sexualized campaign: bomb bomb Iran and a whiter shade of Palin, terrorists and angry old men and ignorant pit bulls with lipstick. There's the punctured biosphere: extermination of 25 percent of all mammals, our near relative the gorilla leading the way. There's the plunge to a four-figure Dow, to say nothing of the inscrutably balanced but strangely threatening Tao. A worried man, that's me.

But I won't be worried long. Today, 29 days before the election, Barack Obama moved into a winning position in electoral-college votes. That cautious statistician Mark Blumenthal over at Pollster.com now shows the preternaturally calm senator ahead of his erratic rival 296 to 163 (26 more than enough to win), cruising along on a 7-point lead. It's enough to allow even a worried man to exhale. And perhaps to exclaim in Bahasa Indonesia "WADU!"—which is, being interpreted, "WOW!"—as my granddaughter Micaela did last week in Bandung. Look at this, Micaela!

That's a dynamic map, you know, so by the time you see this post, Senator Obama may well have picked up another state or two. Hope, you know, and change, that's the mantra, the magic map responding to our every fervent wish.

The next state to move from yellow to blue may be the Old Dominion, two polls today showing startling Democratic leads of 12 and 10 points. I attribute it all to Ralph Stanley, the great Virginia banjo picker and singer—best known to us urban types by his contributions to the Coen brothers' movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?—who has endorsed Obama in a radio ad for the folks in Roanoke and Bristol and points in between, delivered with all the weight and grace of his 81 years.

So if Ralph isn't worried any more, I won't be either. We've got a long road ahead, those 29 interminable days, but (thanks to Kathy G.) here's a much younger Ralph and his brother Carter showing us the way (that's Tao to you).

Keep the faith, as we were taught. Finish the course. I'm off to Reno this weekend, knocking on doors for the party of hope. I won't be worried long. WADU!

McCain's legacy: mooseburgers for all!

John McCain learned his cynical irresponsibility from George Bush, who once said, "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead." And when we're dead, we can't be held responsible. Anyone who's still hanging around after that is on his own, here in the Ownership Society.

McCain's choice of Sarah Palin exposes the real engine that drives his campaign of honor and glory: it's nothing more than a narcissistic lust for power, underlined by his astonishing unconcern for the country after he dies. McCain wants only to reign, and he does not care what happens to the rest of us when his strutting hour upon the stage is done. Let them eat mooseburgers!

Minette Marrin is a conservative American, long resident in England, whose heroine is the British bulldog Margaret Thatcher. She is appalled at McCain's hypocrisy (via Juan Cole):

Would you give power of attorney over your entire life to someone you had only met once, or possibly twice? Of course not. You would give the matter and the person very serious consideration. Yet McCain in effect is offering power of attorney over all the affairs of the United States and over all Americans, including me, to a woman he had barely met. I myself wouldn’t hire a house-sitter on such scant acquaintance.

Palin herself may not know what a vice-president is for, but McCain surely must.…

I had thought that McCain was, for a politician, an honourable man. Certainly honour is one of his top selling points. But who can think so now? In choosing a woman he doesn’t know or understand, purely for electoral advantage, he reveals a dishonourable lust for office, a disrespect for women generally and a dishonourable indifference to the future of his country. After all, if this known unknown woman does become president, it will almost certainly be because he himself is dead - quite possible given his age and health - and past caring.

Though he didn’t know Palin personally, he must have known a few facts about her. He must have known that she compares feebly with previous vice-presidential candidates. Her education is minimal, her real political and managerial experience very slight.… Being a vice-president is not just a matter of PR and homespun rhetoric, or used not to be.…

In short Palin is an ill-educated, inexperienced hypocrite. The Republicans are trying to sell her to the voters as something she isn’t, and McCain hardly cares what she is. It’s a bad day for my native land.

And mine. John McCain may think he's immortal and therefore that he is not placing us in danger. Alternatively, he may wish ill on the country he thinks has not sufficiently honored him and consider Sarah Palin an appropriate punishment.

Or he may already be past caring.

These are the times that tax men's souls

Under the feckless reign of George Bush, the US has fallen deeper and deeper into debt. We fight expensive wars, subsidize Exxon, and spend vastly more every year than we take in. We pay for our profligacy by borrowing money from the Chinese instead of taxing the rich. John McCain, George Bush, and all their well-connected friends pay less than their fair share, despite the enhanced opportunities they enjoy. The United States government cannot continue down that path.

The government of California cannot, either. Five years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger juked his way into office, pretending to be a realist while slashing $4 billion a year in vehicle registration taxes, taxes that are required to provide the services Californians need. He has continued to play games with the state's finances every year since, selling bonds to pay operating expenses and avoid any tax increases. After his latest ploy, mortgaging the state lottery, was rejected by the legislature, he did finally propose a tax increase, but it's a one-percent rise in the sales tax that would fall disproportionately on poor and middle-class citizens.

Brad DeLong points out that we cannot continue forever to live beyond our means, expecting the services of government while dunning our grandchildren for the costs. After eight years of Republican no-tax fundamentalism, we have few choices now, and they do not include the option of reducing taxes even further on those who receive the most from society. As DeLong writes, we must "raise taxes to cover … the long-run fiscal gap …, and so bring the federal budget back into balance over the long run." All realists agree, even the most conservative:

As the late Milton Friedman liked to put it: to spend is to tax. If the government buys things, it must get the money to buy them from somewhere. It can get the money from three places. It can tax. It can borrow--but then the borrowing has to be repaid with interest, and the more is borrowed the higher the interest and the worse the value the taxpayers ultimately get for their money when they are taxed to repay the borrowing. Or it can print the money and so inflate the currency--but that too is a tax, and an especially unfair, painful, and destructive one, as lots and lots of people victimized by inflation find their wealth doesn't buy what it used to and what they expected.

[Raising taxes] is not optional--not, that is, if we want to continue to have a rich country in the long run. And the politicians who have told you that [it] is optional from Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush to Robert Dole to George W. Bush and now John McCain are not your friends, or America's friends.

DeLong has much more to say. Read it all here.

Calculated happiness

Who knew that math could be so much fun?

It's true that the humor is sophomoric and, yes, derivative. But hey, that's my kind of humor, an inspired combination of Bollywood and Cambridgeshire. Ramanujan would be proud. (Ht to Ezra Klein.)

Michael Searle and the cottage

Michael Searle died last month, at the age of 59. He was a therapist, a musician, and a cyclist. He was also my beloved neighbor, and this is the eulogy I delivered at his memorial service yesterday in the Finnish Brotherhood Hall of Berkeley:

This is a story about neighborhoods and neighbors, a therapeutic narrative about the people you live close to.

Twenty-three years ago Mike and Julie Searle moved into the house next door to us on Virginia street, and Debby and I have been fortunate to share this corner of the world with them ever since. Their daughters Kyla and Nora and Gemma were born here, and we have enjoyed watching them grow from Totland toddlers into the strong, beautiful young women they are today. The Searles, the whole family, have been the best neighbors one could ever hope for, unfailingly warm and friendly, full of light and life.

But Mike and I got to know each other well only twelve years ago, when we built a cottage together. There's nothing like a shared construction project to get to know someone. Mike needed an extra room for an office, and I needed more storage space, so we decided to build a little two-room structure together in our back yard. A six-week project, we thought, nights and weekends, perhaps including one week of full-time work.

But we didn't want to just throw up a drafty, utilitarian shed. We wanted it to be a beautiful piece of work, a building we would enjoy living with. So we started with a craftsman-style design, cedar-shingled and long-eaved, that complemented our houses and fit in with the neighborhood. We removed the fence between our properties, and set to work, often helped by Julie and Debby and Jim and other friends.

We took care with every step, digging and pouring the foundation, building the walls, roofing, sheetrocking, painting, shingling. And every time we had a choice to make—between the easy and the complicated, between the quick and the long-lasting, between the utilitarian and the beautiful—we made the more difficult choice. Which was also, of course, finally the more satisfying choice.

But it was also the more time-consuming choice. The first six weeks went by, and—surprise—we weren't finished. Then the next six weeks, then the first six months. Weekend after weekend, we continued to put in many hours with our hammers and paintbrushes, sharing the pleasure and the pain of our joint perfectionism. And finally, fifteen months after we began, the office-cum-storage shed was finished. Well, while building it we had called it a shed, but Kyla pointed out that any structure requiring fifteen months of effort should have a more dignified name, and she suggested that we call it a cottage.

So a cottage it became. Finally we were able to start spending our weekends doing other things. That fence separating our properties? We decided not to replace it. Sharing a back yard is easier after you've shared a construction project.

Michael Searle was a builder and a sharer. He built a cottage, but he also built a community here, a circle of friends and neighbors who loved him. He shared fifteen months of work with me, but he also, over the years, generously shared his time and his life with all of us, and we will always remember with affection his generosity and strength, his building and his sharing.

Frater, ave atque vale.

Death in Iraq: Day 1,838

Let us call things by their right names, especially in Iraq. The surge was an escalation. The drawdown is a chimera. The embassy is a fortress. Iraq is a charnel house.

And every day, many more people die, young and old, innocent and guilty, soldiers and civilians, Americans and Iraqis. Five years after the invasion, with mortar shells falling in the Green Zone, chaos and danger are unabated, and the total number of dead can only be estimated:

• more than 1,000,000 Iraqis, who continue to perish by the thousands every week
• 4,011 American military personnel, including 145 who died of self-inflicted wounds
• 309 other coalition military personnel
• more than 1,000 coalition contractors
• at least 157 journalists

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, perhaps egged on by his recent visitor Dick Cheney, last week attacked the Mahdi Army in Basra, the country's second-largest city. But his fellow Shiites refused to lay down their arms. So George Bush, proclaiming "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," sent in American warplanes to help his puppet ruler. It was in vain, and Maliki had to send envoys to Iran, seeking out Muqtada al-Sadr to plead for peace. After he acceded to al-Sadr's terms (supported by the Iranian government), fighting died down. A defining moment indeed: another success for Iran, another defeat for Bush.

The occupation of death continues.

The moral low ground

Matt Frei of BBC News interviewed George Bush this week, and he found the resident of the White House oddly ebullient for someone whose approval ratings continue to hover around 30 percent. Frei wrote:

Mr Bush seems blissfully undaunted by his abysmal opinion poll ratings at home and abroad.

He feels uncowed by the oceanic gulf between his rhetoric about unity and such and the rather vexing reality on the ground.

So Mr Bush soldiers on, trying to secure a legacy for himself - although some might call it mere damage limitation.

The questioner and the questioned seemed hardly on the same planet, Frei serious and probing, Bush casual and dismissive. Particularly when they talked about torture:

Frei: The Senate yesterday passed a bill outlawing water-boarding. You, I believe, have said that you will veto that bill.

Mr Bush: That's not -

Frei: Does that not send the wrong signal...

Mr Bush: No, look... that's not the reason I'm vetoing the bill. The reason I'm vetoing the bill - first of all, we have said that whatever we do... will be legal.

Bush's confusion is total. Though he avoids answering whether his veto sends the wrong signal, he says that he's vetoing a bill outlawing waterboarding because whatever he does (including, implicitly, waterboarding) will be legal. In fact, if water torture—as the Spanish Inquisition called it—is legal, it can only be legal insofar as Bush has rejected a bill making it illegal. Of course, it remains illegal as the result of other laws that remain in force, but Bush prefers to ignore them.

Frei: But, given Guantanamo Bay, given also Abu Ghraib, given renditions, does this not send the wrong signal to the world?

Mr Bush: It should send a signal that America is going to respect law.… And I'm comfortable with the decisions we've made.  And I'm comfortable with recognising this is still a dangerous world.

Frei: Can you honestly say, Mr President, that today America still occupies the moral high ground?

Mr Bush: Absolutely - absolutely. We believe in human rights and human dignity. We believe in the human condition. We believe in freedom. And we're willing to take the lead.

Tellingly, as the BBC video makes clear, during this last speech Bush is shaking his head vigorously from side to side. That is, he is sending a strong signal that commonly indicates negation, that no one should believe a word he is saying. "The moral high ground? Absolutely (not). We believe in human rights and human dignity (not). We believe in the human condition (not). We believe in freedom (not). And we're willing to take the lead (not)."

Some of George Bush's signals are unmistakable.

Hillarious!

This tone-deaf video is proof positive that the Hillary Clinton campaign has lost its way. Who among you sings like that, dances like that, thinks like that? Montana wheat farmers who yearn for the days of disco? The inner-city gangbangers of Bangor, Maine? Santa Fe seniors nostalgic for the Beatles? All would be disappointed.

It is as though Senator Clinton saw the will.i.am/yes.we.can video and said, "Make me one like that. But nicer. And whiter. And with better music.… Oh, yeah, and shoot it in color!" And lo, they rocked.

Careful reading

I glanced at Juan Cole's blog today, as I do almost every day, to catch up with the latest horrors and atrocities of George Bush's wars, and I saw the usual shocking headlines:

Twin Massive Bombings Target Awakening Leaders;
Thousands Protest Police Chief in Baquba;
Pipeline Bombing Causes Outages

And then, just as I clicked over to see what fresh hell Brad DeLong was explicating, out of the corner of my eye I saw: "Juan Cole is President."

Oops, what's that? Aren't we in the midst of a long national nightmare featuring a person with a different four-letter surname? And my razor-sharp mind doesn't seem to recall Professor Cole on that recent California ballot alongside Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich.

Click back. Look again. "Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute."

Yes, the careful carpenter is right. Measure twice; cut once.

Grab the nearest book

I'm trying to wrap my mind around resuscitating Rubicon from its long hibernation, and I want to start with something easy. So the blog meme I ran across today at Crooked Timber looks like fun, and I'll give that a whirl. Now I know you're not supposed to pick a meme randomly out of the digital ether, and Eszter Hargittai did not actually tag me, but I'm going to carry on anyway, as though all the webby proprieties had been observed.

Instructions:

1. Grab the nearest book (that is at least 123 pages long).
2. Open to p. 123.
3. Go down to the 5th sentence.
4. Type in the following 3 sentences.
5. Tag five people.

The nearest book to my chaotic desk is Ilan Pappé's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Page 123 is toward the end of chapter 5, "The Blueprint for Ethnic Cleansing: Plan Dalet." Here are the three sentences:

US representatives on the ground were by now fully aware of the expulsions that were going on and had suggested to their chiefs back home to halt the implementation of the partition plan and try to work towards an alternative solution.

Already by 12 March 1948, the State Department had drafted a new proposal to the UN, which suggested an international trusteeship over Palestine for five years, during which the two sides would negotiate an agreed solution. It has been suggested that this was the most sensible American proposal ever put forward in the history of Palestine, the like of which, alas, was never repeated.

Well, that cries out for some amplification, don't you think? A complete book review, perhaps, in light of George Bush's long record of nonproposals and half-hearted mummeries. Some thoughts about related books might be in order: Jimmy Carter's Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, or Mearshimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, or the essay collection Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory.

Another day, perhaps. It's not an easy subject any time for Americans, but particularly today, the day of Tom Lantos's death. Lantos was the only survivor of the Nazi Holocaust to serve in the US Congress, and he was unbending—understandably so—in his attachment to the founding myth of an innocent Israel. Over the years he was an obstacle to reexamining US policy in the Middle East, though, as Steve Clemons writes at TPMCafe, he had recently become more amenable to real negotiations in the region, more open to alternative approaches to Israeli security. As, we hope, the next president will be.

Well, back to the meme. Like Eszter, I wasn't tagged, so it's not my place to tag five more bloggers. But I will just pass this idea along through the tubes of the Internets to anyone else who might find it an amusing pastime. Grab the nearest book and see what you find.

Peace with Iran?

Excellent news: Iran stopped working on nuclear weapons four years ago! More excellent news: This report comes not from the UN, the IAEA, or some other organization that Bushites might suspect of Iranophilic bias, but from the US government's National Intelligence Estimate!

The NIE, of course, is the very vehicle used by the Bush-Cheney warmongers to ratchet up fear of Saddam Hussein's nonexistent WMD five years ago. And in May 2005, another NIE made similar baseless charges about nuclear weapons programs in Iran—an obvious preparation for military attacks on Tehran. The new NIE directly contradicts the 2005 estimate:

We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high confidence that the halt, and Tehran’s announcement of its decision to suspend its declared uranium enrichment program and sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement, was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.

The report goes on to state (with "moderate-to-high confidence") that:

• Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.
• "[T]he earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU [highly enriched uranium] for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely."
• "Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015."

We can all take a deep breath, since war with Iran seems much less likely today than it did yesterday. Those who have been beating the drums for war no longer have a factual stick to beat them with. While that has not stopped Dick Cheney and his fellow drummers in the past, it will now be much more difficult for them to gain enough public or congressional support to realize their dreams. One wonders what bureaucratic battles occurred behind the scenes. Perhaps Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, both known as more fact-based strategists than their predecessors, have finally gained the ear of George Bush.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad and other Iranian officials have objected repeatedly over the last two years that their uranium-enrichment program was intended solely for nuclear energy. And the International Atomic Energy Agency, while expressing concern about Iran's secrecy, has reported more than once that the Iranians' protestations were apparently correct. But now it is the American empire's official intelligence report confirming that any potential nuclear danger from Iran is minimal and distant.

Rationality may be returning to Washington. Let us hope.

Bush again says his whim is law

Another bill, another signing statement. In his usual underhanded way, George Bush quietly issued a signing statement last month in which he reserved the right to ignore eleven provisions in a military appropriations bill.

Congress clearly set forth certain legal requirements on the executive branch as the price for receiving this money, but Bush said he will fulfill those requirements only if he wants to. His statements are blatantly unconstitutional and they carry no force of law, since Congress passed the law and he signed it, as written. But Bush has taken no apparent action on the basis of this claimed arrogation of power, and therefore he has (in this case, at least) apparently broken no laws.

As usual, the excellent Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe is all over the story:

Bush challenged several requirements to provide information to Congress.

For example, one law Bush targeted requires him to give oversight committees notice before transferring US military equipment to United Nations peacekeepers.

Bush also challenged a new law that limits his ability to transfer funds lawmakers approved for one purpose to start a different program, as well as a law requiring him to keep in place an existing command structure for the Navy's Pacific fleet.

"The Act contains certain provisions identical to those found in prior bills passed by the Congress that might be construed to be inconsistent with my Constitutional responsibilities," Bush's statement says.

"To avoid such potential infirmities, I will interpret and construe such provisions in the same manner as I have previously stated in regard to those provisions."

Bush has struck a less combative tone in this signing statement, the first since Democrat took control of Congress. Rather than restating his earlier claims that he is free to decide which laws he will obey, he instead referred obliquely and imprecisely to previous statements attached to "prior bills." He also, as Savage points out, failed to challenge two provisions of the bill that directly limit presidential power:

One law prohibits the military from using foreign intelligence information that was collected illegally, and the other forbids expending funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq.

It's hard to say what this apparent acceptance of congressional limitations may mean. White House spokesbot Tony Fratto claims that nothing has changed, that in fact shorter signing statements are "just easier."

In an online chat last September, Savage explained that some previous signing statements led the Bush administration to disobey portions of the laws:

The Government Accountability Office this year did a study of what had happened to a small sampling of bill-sections that Bush challenged in his signing statements attached to appropriations bills that Congress passed in 2005. It found that of 16 section, the executive branch went on to disobey six of them while enforcing the other 10 as written. The GAO did not look at what happened to any of the most interesting signing statements, such as those involving torture and the Patriot Act, as they involved classified matters.

In the imperial palace, disobeying inconvenient laws is "just easier"—easier than challenging them in congressional debate or in the courts.

Congress should simply outlaw presidential signing statements. If Bush disagrees with a bill, he would then have to veto it and defend his tyrannical ideas in the open. That might be difficult for a naked emperor.

---

Charlie Savage won the Pulitzer Prize last year. Read his thorough, well-written book Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy for background on the Unitary Executive Theory and more details on signing statements.

Pelosi wins 35-mpg fuel standard

Nancy Pelosi is a smart, patient lawmaker. Against all odds, she has achieved a 35 mile-per-gallon fuel standard for cars and light trucks. The speaker today gathered enough support to pass a meaningful energy bill, one that Bush is unlikely to veto. It's about time!

John M. Broder and Micheline Maynard report in the New York Times:

The compromise should ensure passage in the House, although the Senate may insist on changes. It does not appear to include provisions, like $16 billion in new taxes on the oil industry, that drew a veto threat from President Bush.

The latest version of the measure, if it becomes law, will force wrenching changes on the American car companies, from design studios to new-car showrooms to executive suites. Automakers now have to achieve 27.5 miles per gallon on cars, a figure that has not changed since 1984, and 22.2 miles per gallon for light trucks, including minivans, sport utility vehicles and pickups. Under the compromise, the companies will retain the distinction between the classes of vehicles, but must still meet a combined 35 m.p.g. fleetwide standard.

Ms. Pelosi called the compromise on mileage “an historic advancement in our efforts in the Congress to address our energy security and laying strong groundwork for climate legislation next year.” She said that she was confident it would win the backing of environmentalists, auto makers and labor and would clear Congress by the end of this year.

Pelosi did it by beating back the Big Three automakers, who continued to complain that the standards were onerous if not impossible. She also did it by compromising with fellow Democrat John Dingell, the Michigan protector of the Big Three, by providing assistance for producing small ethanol-burning cars in the US.

Most important for the environment, the proposed bill leaves the Environmental Protection Agency with sole authority for enforcing mileage standards, and it reiterates the right of California and other states to set more stringent standards.

This week oil has dropped below $90 a barrel again, but it will rise well above $100 soon. This bill is one large step in the right direction.

Next, the plugin hybrid.

Nobody wants to join the Army

Along with all the other things George Bush is destroying—Iraq, the Justice Department, the Constitution—he's also destroying the US Army. For some odd reason, recruiting has become much more difficult lately, even with the promise of $20,000 signing bonuses up front and free college if you survive. Robert Burns of the Associated Press has the details:

The Army began its recruiting year Oct. 1 with fewer signed up for basic training than in any year since it became an all-volunteer service in 1973.…

[T]he historic dip will make it harder to achieve the full-year recruiting goal — after just barely reaching it in the year ended Sept. 30.

Achieving the Army's recruiting goals — a challenge in the best of times — is not only more difficult now but also of more consequence. That is because the Army has decided that it must grow its active-duty force by several thousand soldiers a year in order to relieve strain on war-weary troops.…

Making it even tougher is the decline in what the Army calls its delayed entry pool, which is the group of enlistees who have signed contracts to join the Army but want to wait before shipping off to basic training. Normally the Army tries to start its recruiting year with a delayed entry pool equal to about 25 percent of its full-year goal, which in this case would equate to 20,000 recruits.

Instead, the Army began with 7,392 recruits, or about 9 percent of its full-year goal.

Last year at this time the Army was beginning its recruiting year with 12,062, or about 15 percent.…

[T]he Army's [decided] last summer to begin offering a "quick ship" bonus of $20,000 to recruits willing to leave for basic training by the end of September. For some recruits that bonus is the equivalent of a year's pay.

The bonus program, which began July 25, was part of a last-minute push by the Army to meet its year-end recruiting goal, after having fallen short on recruiting numbers in May and June.

Falling short. Again. Bush and his tribunes should have figured out by now that you can't run a full-bore empire with hired guns—Blackwater is expensive and uncontrollable, and the "volunteer" Army is so unpleasant and dangerous that few people who have another option are interested these days.

Time to reinstitute the draft. Then perhaps we'd see a full-bore peace movement again. And we might even be able to rebuild an Army tasked with the job of defending this country instead of invading others.