Category: Issues of the Day

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus begin their report in Saturday’s Washington Post:

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

But then, truth is just a technicality.

John Edwards in Sunday’s Washington Post:

I was wrong.

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told — and what many of us believed and argued — was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn’t make a mistake — the men and women of our armed forces and their families — have performed heroically and paid a dear price.

He concludes:

America’s leaders — all of us — need to accept the responsibility we each carry for how we got to this place. More than 2,000 Americans have lost their lives in this war, and more than 150,000 are fighting there today. They and their families deserve honesty from our country’s leaders. And they also deserve a clear plan for a way out.

At The Dilbert Blog Scott Adams discusses Darwinism and Intelligent Design with reason and intelligence.

Recommended reading.

Brad DeLong excerpts much of today’s Paul Krugman column on the Medicare drug plan including this, the ending.

It’s hard to believe that either the current Congressional leadership or the Mayberry Machiavellis in the White House would do any better on a second pass. We won’t have a drug benefit that works until we have politicians who want it to work.

All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy.

— The New York Times

Of course, the losers in this election can just move to Kansas.

One also wonders where the author of this story went to school — a 48 word sentence!

“President Bush insists his administration has not authorized torture but is nonetheless fighting against Senator John McCain’s anti-torture amendment.”

Please take the “highly scientific and entirely fair Functional Ambivalent poll!” on this important issue.

Paul Krugman takes Congressman Matt Santos’ side in the health-care debate:

Let’s start with the fact that America’s health care system spends more, for worse results, than that of any other advanced country.

In 2002 the United States spent $5,267 per person on health care. Canada spent $2,931; Germany spent $2,817; Britain spent only $2,160. Yet the United States has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than any of these countries.

But don’t people in other countries sometimes find it hard to get medical treatment? Yes, sometimes – but so do Americans. No, Virginia, many Americans can’t count on ready access to high-quality medical care.

…

The U.S. system is much more bureaucratic, with much higher administrative costs, than those of other countries, because private insurers and other players work hard at trying not to pay for medical care. And our fragmented system is unable to bargain with drug companies and other suppliers for lower prices.

…

One of these days we’ll realize that our semiprivatized system isn’t just unfair, it’s far less efficient than a straightforward system of guaranteed health insurance.

An intriguing article in the Rocky Mountain News tells briefly the history of marijuana and the law.

On Oct. 2, 1937, in the somewhat shady Lexington Apartments at 1200 California St. in Denver, Samuel R. Caldwell became the first person in the United States to be arrested on a marijuana charge. Caldwell, a 58-year-old unemployed laborer moonlighting as a dealer, was nailed by the FBI and Denver police for peddling two marijuana cigarettes to one Moses Baca, 26.

If you’re wondering why it took the U.S. government so long to bust a pot dealer, it’s because until the Marijuana Stamp Act was passed – on you guessed it, Oct. 2, 1937 – cannabis wasn’t illegal. Certainly, it had been vilified in newspapers with headlines such as “Murder Weed Found Up and Down Coast: Deadly Marijuana Plant Ready for Harvest That Means Enslavement of California Children.”

Harry J. Anslinger, for example, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was a vociferous foe of cannabis. In his book, Assassin of Youth, he labeled marijuana “dangerous as a coiled rattlesnake,” and anguished, “How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries, and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can be only conjectured.”

Indeed. Texas cops insisted that because it fueled a “lust for blood” and imbued its imbibers with “superhuman strength,” pot was the catalyst for unspeakably violent crimes.
…

Much more real was the racism that anchored some of the original hysteria surrounding cannabis. At least that’s a contention of John C. McWilliams, a professor of history at Penn State University specializing in 20th century social-political American history and drug policy, who has written a book on Anslinger.

“Marijuana was associated with black jazz musicians and Mexicans in border towns – clearly racist stuff,” said McWilliams, who says Anslinger’s files are chock full of letters linking marijuana and minorities.

In fact, he cites part of a 1936 correspondence from Floyd Baskett, editor of the Daily Courier in Alamosa.

“I wish I could show you what a small marijuana cigarette does to one of our degenerate, Spanish-speaking residents,” Baskett wrote to Anslinger.

The country simply replaced its first foolish prohibition with another that just as stupidly criminalized human behavior. This new “prohibition” — which originated out of much of the same small-minded, bigoted thinking as the prohibition of alcohol — has never been repealed like the one on alcohol was.

It took a Constitutional amendment (18th) to make alcohol illegal. No such amendment exists for cannabis.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Men are simply not biologically suited to hold higher office. The Bush administration has proved that once and for all.

These guys can’t be bothered to run the country. They are too obsessed with frivolous stuff, like fashion and whether they look fat. They are catty, sometimes even sabotaging their closest friends. They are deceitful minxes and malicious gossips.

And heaven knows they’re bad at math. Otherwise, W. would realize that a 60 percent disapproval rating, or worse, means that most Americans would like some fresh blood in the administration.
…

Women are affected by hormones only at times. Vice [President Cheney]’s hormones rage every day.

Maureen Dowd

“Denver residents Tuesday voted to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana…”

— Denver Post

The Colorado attorney general says the state law will still be enforced.

Functional Ambivalent says freedom of speech and not abortion is the real test for Alito. An interesting and different look.

NewMexiKen wonders if the fourth and fifth amendments won’t be on the line with this Court even more than the first amendment.

Colorado Luis meanwhile points out that his own Senator Allard critized the Miers nomination because she was from Texas and thus not enough of a westerner to be knowledgeable about water issues that might come before the Supremes. Allard has not made a similar comment about Alito, despite the fact that this nominee is from New Jersey.

“Apologists can shout all they like that no laws were broken, that hardball politics is nothing new, or whatever. The fact remains that officials close to both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush leaked the identity of an undercover operative for political reasons. Whether or not that act was illegal, it was clearly unpatriotic.”

— Paul Krugman in Monday’s Times

From Maureen Dowd:

This administration’s grand schemes always end up as the opposite. Officials say they’re promoting national security when they’re hurting it; they say they’re squelching terrorists when they’re breeding them; they say they’re bringing stability to Iraq when the country’s imploding. …

And the most dangerous opposite of all: W. was listening to a surrogate father he shouldn’t have been listening to [Cheney], and not listening to his real father, who deserved to be listened to.

It seems to NewMexiKen that they should have indicted I. Lewis Libby Jr. for being 55 years old and having the nickname “Scooter.”

From a story in The Washington Post on the need for the Red Cross to borrow money to cover its Katrina/Rita expenses:

The Red Cross holds near-mythic status as the premier U.S. disaster relief agency, a role reinforced by the federal government, which has incorporated the organization as a key part of its disaster response.

But the $3 billion charity spends two-thirds of its resources on blood collection, not disaster relief. And 90 percent of its disasters are small fires and local mishaps. During larger events — such as violent storms, wildfires and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — the Red Cross has stumbled repeatedly, misleading donors on how contributions are used and underserving victims, particularly in rural minority communities, according to other relief groups and experts on nonprofit agencies.

Click here.

“You can argue that the leakers should be fired for carelessness in revealing that Wilson’s wife worked for the C.I.A., but there’s been no evidence yet that they realized it was illegal because of her status as a covert agent. ”

— John Tierney in today’s Times.

Lying is a moral wrong. Perjury is a lie told under oath that is legally wrong. To be illegal, the lie must be willfully told, must be believed to be untrue, and must relate to a material matter. Title 18, Section 1621 and 1623, U.S. Code.

If President Washington, as a child, had cut down a cherry tree and lied about it, he would be guilty of ‘lying,’ but would not be guilty of ‘perjury.’

If, on the other hand, President Washington, as an adult, had been warned not to cut down a cherry tree, but he cut it down anyway, with the tree falling on a man and severely injuring or killing him, with President Washington stating later under oath that it was not he who cut down the tree, that would be ‘perjury.’ Because it was a material fact in determining the circumstances of the man’s injury or death.

Some would argue that the President in the second example should not be impeached because the whole thing is about a cherry tree, and lies about cherry trees, even under oath, though despicable, do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the Constitution. I disagree.

The perjury committed in the second example was an attempt to impede, frustrate, and obstruct the judicial system in determining how the man was injured or killed, when, and by whose hand, in order to escape personal responsibility under the law, either civil or criminal. Such would be an impeachable offense. To say otherwise would be to severely lower the moral and legal standards of accountability that are imposed on ordinary citizens every day. The same standard should be imposed on our leaders.

Nearly every child in America believes that President Washington, as a child himself, did in fact cut down the cherry tree and admitted to his father that he did it, saying simply: ‘I cannot tell a lie.’

I will not compromise this simple but high moral principle in order to avoid serious consequences to a successor President who may choose to ignore it.

— U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, February 12, 1999, regarding impeachment of President Clinton

SEN. HUTCHISON: Tim, you know, I think we have to remember something here. An indictment of any kind is not a guilty verdict, and I do think we have in this country the right to go to court and have due process and be innocent until proven guilty. And secondly, I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. So they go to something that trips someone up because they said something in the first grand jury and then maybe they found new information or they forgot something and they tried to correct that in a second grand jury.

— U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on Meet the Press, October 23, 2005, regarding possible legal action against Bush Administration officials

Dr. Frist: “My holdings are in a blind trust.”

Public: “We’d like a second opinion.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was given considerable information about his stake in his family’s hospital company, according to records that are at odds with his past statements that he did not know what was in his stock holdings. …

The letters seem to undermine one of the major arguments the senator has used throughout his political career to rebut criticism of his ownership in HCA: that the stock was held in blind trusts beyond his control and that he had little idea of the extent of those holdings.

— The Washington Post

Via Rox Populi

At one point, Miers described her service on the Dallas City Council in 1989. When the city was sued on allegations that it violated the Voting Rights Act, she said, “the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause.”

But the Supreme Court repeatedly has said the Constitution’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” does not mean that city councils or state legislatures must have the same proportion of blacks, Latinos and Asians as the voting population.

“That’s a terrible answer. There is no proportional representation requirement under the equal protection clause,” said New York University law professor Burt Neuborne, a voting rights expert. “If a first-year law student wrote that and submitted it in class, I would send it back and say it was unacceptable.”

Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, also an expert on voting rights, said she was surprised the White House did not check Miers’ questionnaire before sending it to the Senate.

“Are they trying to set her up? Any halfway competent junior lawyer could have checked the questionnaire and said it cannot go out like that. I find it shocking,” she said.

Los Angeles Times