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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/10/2009 11:30:46 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Friends discuss Caroline Kennedy usatoday.com NEW YORK (AP) — When community groups and the Board of Education were caught in an acrimonious dispute over an arts program, education officials brought in a fixer: Caroline Kennedy. The daughter of a president and niece of two senators listened attentively, asked probing questions and proposed various scenarios to resolve the dispute. Under her prompting, a compromise was reached. "People were pushing themselves back from the table and folding their arms," recalled Stephanie Dua, chief executive officer of the Fund for Public Schools. "She was very good at defusing the situation. ... She has a very easy style about her but she's very sharp." The episode is an intriguing glimpse into how Kennedy might fill the role of U.S. senator if she is appointed to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton. In a series of interviews with The Associated Press, friends and colleagues of Kennedy painted a picture of a reserved but intelligent and tenacious woman who writes her own speeches and who, despite her vast wealth, still takes the subway. Those interviewed did not provide an impartial view — but, with several speaking publicly for the first time about their relationship, they offered a rare look inside the private world of a woman America fell in love with decades ago as she rode her pony over the White House lawn. Much was made of Kennedy's decision last January to support Barack Obama's presidential campaign, but she is no stranger to politics. Paul G. Kirk Jr. remembers meeting her at the age of 16 or so, soaking in as much as she could while on the campaign trail with her uncle Teddy. She was "lively, engaged, inquisitive," said the family friend and former head of the Democratic Party. "She might hear two or three people ask the senator the same question if he was in a forum. They'd get back in the car, and she'd follow up." By the time she was in Columbia University Law School more than a decade later, her intellectual curiosity, and her studiousness, still made an impression. "She's the A-plus student who does 110%," said classmate, friend and eventual co-author Ellen Alderman. "We were nerds ... the two Type A personalities who had worked very hard in school." Inspired by some of their law school case studies, Kennedy and Alderman had a book proposal completed before they graduated. Soon they were traveling the country, interviewing people who had been caught up in civil rights cases for "In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action." Kennedy was very good at putting their interviewees at ease, Alderman said. There was never any talk then of a political career, she said, but looking back she's unsurprised. "For me now it seems very natural," she said. "The most important part of the research we did was talking to people and listening to them. And she's terrific on the legal end, on the analysis and the issues, and she's terrific on the people end, on understanding how the law and government affects people every day." Kennedy had her first daughter, Rose, around the same time she graduated from Columbia in 1988, and her professional life took shape around her children. When Alderman became pregnant, she recalls, Kennedy became her "mommy mentor," showing her what she needed to pack in a diaper bag, and giving her advice on work: "You can still do it, you're just not going to have eight, 10, 12 hours at a time," Alderman recalls her saying. Kennedy had help around the house, but she never delegated parenting — picking her three kids up from school and knowing who their friends were and where they were, said Esther Newberg, her friend and literary agent. Kennedy joined the board at her children's school, and colleagues said she'd never attend a meeting if it meant missing a recital or another such event. Kennedy's friends and colleagues talk about what a remarkably "normal" life she lives, but one could argue they're not the best judges. After all, her circle includes famous authors, a co-president of HBO, a former head of the Democratic National Committee, senators and the president-elect. Kennedy's finances — estimated by some at more than $400 million — never came up, Alderman said. The co-authors swapped who paid for dinner, and they flew coach. Kennedy has an assistant but does not use a driver, takes the subway around New York and books her own flights, friends said. Her six-room apartment is at an exclusive address on Park Avenue where a larger unit was recently listed for $13 million. Friends describe it as a low-key place covered with books and decorated with slip-covered sofas. Kennedy and her husband, museum designer Edwin Schlossberg, enjoy entertaining, frequently hosting buffet-style gatherings, Newberg said. Sometimes, he cooks. Like thousands of New Yorkers, the couple hosted a debate-watching party the night of the face-off between vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. Talkative guests were shuffled into a separate room with a television so the true political junkies could hunker down in the den and hear every word. When she wasn't playing hostess, Caroline Kennedy chose the den. Compared to the sharp-elbowed style common among New York politicians, Kennedy's personality in a series of recent media interviews has seemed quiet, soft-spoken. But those who have worked with Kennedy said her sometimes reserved demeanor could be misleading. More than one spoke of an instance where they had watched her listen carefully to each person's point of view, then argue her point calmly but tenaciously until she achieved her goal. "If you aren't as loud as I am, often people mistake that for not being effective and that's just wrong," said Elaine Jones, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where Kennedy served on the board. "I know how able, substantive and tough-minded Caroline is. Now others have got to see that in her. And she may have to project it." While she never practiced law, Kennedy did heavy-duty research before board meetings and contributed to detailed legal debates over which cases would be selected by the NAACP fund, Jones said. Kennedy also has been instrumental in selecting at least some of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award winners, who are honored for risking their careers to take a stand for their principles. For the 2000 honor, she persuaded the award committee to select a relative unknown, Hilda Solis, now the likely incoming secretary of labor, said Kirk, a committee member. Kennedy won the panel over with her argument that it was important to acknowledge lesser-known public servants so as to inspire others at every level of government. Kennedy writes all her own speeches, says another longtime friend and colleague, Heather Campion. Preparing for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, speech writer and strategist Bob Shrum recounted handing her a draft of her speech, only to see her rewrite it from top to bottom. Kirk said she seems to have taken to heart an oft-repeated family quote that she has included in her speeches again and again over the years: "Each of us can make a difference and all of us must try." After years of focusing on her young children, Kennedy began to look for an alternative to the books on which she had been working. "I'd like to work with people. Being a writer is a solitary job," she told Campion shortly before she went to work for the New York City Board of Education in 2002. In her 22 months working three days a week at the agency, she was credited with raising tens of millions of dollars and revamping fundraising operations. Friends argue those fundraising skills would serve her well if she's chosen as senator. Whoever is selected by Gov. David Paterson to fill Clinton's seat would have to run for election to the seat in 2010, and — if successful — again in 2012. Kennedy's endorsement of Obama for the Democratic nomination came at a vital moment in his campaign, and friends said she loved campaigning and seemed invigorated by it. "Presumably she could have had an appointment," said Campion, who at Kennedy's request broke decades of public silence about their friendship. "There are a lot of great ambassadorships," Campion said she told Kennedy earlier. There seemed easier ways to contribute without thrusting herself into the intensive public scrutiny that would come with a Senate bid. However, Campion recounted, Kennedy was unconvinced by the warning. She said: "But I want to make a difference ... and I love New York."

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/11/2009 1:56:52 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Eight Years of Madoffs _____________________________________________________________ By FRANK RICH Op-Ed Columnist The New York Times January 11, 2009 Three days after the world learned that $50 billion may have disappeared in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, The Times led its front page of Dec. 14 with the revelation of another $50 billion rip-off. This time the vanished loot belonged to American taxpayers. That was our collective contribution to the $117 billion spent (as of mid-2008) on Iraq reconstruction — a sinkhole of corruption, cronyism, incompetence and outright theft that epitomized Bush management at home and abroad. The source for this news was a near-final draft of an as-yet-unpublished 513-page federal history of this nation-building fiasco. The document was assembled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction — led by a Bush appointee, no less. It pinpoints, among other transgressions, a governmental Ponzi scheme concocted to bamboozle Americans into believing they were accruing steady dividends on their investment in a “new” Iraq. The report quotes no less an authority than Colin Powell on how the scam worked. Back in 2003, Powell said, the Defense Department just “kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week! ‘We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.’ ” Those of us who questioned these astonishing numbers were dismissed as fools, much like those who begged in vain to get the Securities and Exchange Commission to challenge Madoff’s math. What’s most remarkable about the Times article, however, is how little stir it caused. When, in 1971, The Times got its hands on the Pentagon Papers, the internal federal history of the Vietnam disaster, the revelations caused a national uproar. But after eight years of battering by Bush, the nation has been rendered half-catatonic. The Iraq Pentagon Papers sank with barely a trace. After all, next to big-ticket administration horrors like Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the politicized hiring and firing at Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department, the wreckage of Iraq reconstruction is what Ralph Kramden of “The Honeymooners” would dismiss as “a mere bag of shells.” The $50 billion also pales next to other sums that remain unaccounted for in the Bush era, from the $345 billion in lost tax revenue due to unpoliced offshore corporate tax havens to the far-from-transparent disposition of some $350 billion in Wall Street bailout money. In the old Pat Moynihan phrase, the Bush years have “defined deviancy down” in terms of how low a standard of ethical behavior we now tolerate as the norm from public officials. Not even a good old-fashioned sex scandal could get our outrage going again. Indeed, a juicy one erupted last year in the Interior Department, where the inspector general found that officials “had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.” Two officials tasked with marketing oil on behalf of American taxpayers got so blotto at a daytime golf event sponsored by Shell that they became too incapacitated to drive and had to be put up by the oil company. Back in the day, an oil-fueled scandal in that one department alone could mesmerize a nation and earn Warren Harding a permanent ranking among our all-time worst presidents. But while the scandals at Bush’s Interior resemble Teapot Dome — and also encompass millions of dollars in lost federal oil and gas royalties — they barely registered beyond the Beltway. Even late-night comics yawned when The Washington Post administered a coup de grâce last week, reporting that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne spent $235,000 from taxpayers to redo his office bathroom (monogrammed towels included). It took 110 pages for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan research organization, to compile the CliffsNotes inventory of the Bush wreckage last month. It found “125 systematic failures across the breadth of the federal government.” That accounting is conservative. There are still too many unanswered questions. Just a short list is staggering. Who put that bogus “uranium from Africa” into the crucial prewar State of the Union address after the C.I.A. removed it from previous Bush speeches? How high up were the authorities who ordered and condoned torture and then let the “rotten apples” at the bottom of the military heap take the fall? Who orchestrated the Pentagon’s elaborate P.R. efforts to cover up Pat Tillman’s death by “friendly fire” in Afghanistan? And, for extra credit, whatever did happen to Bush’s records from the Texas Air National Guard? The biggest question hovering over all this history, however, concerns the future more than the past. If we get bogged down in adjudicating every Bush White House wrong, how will we have the energy, time or focus to deal with the all-hands-on-deck crises that this administration’s malfeasance and ineptitude have bequeathed us? The president-elect himself struck this note last spring. “If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,” Barack Obama said. “I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.” Henry Waxman, the California congressman who has been our most tireless inquisitor into Bush scandals, essentially agreed when I spoke to him last week. Though he remains outraged about both the chicanery used to sell the Iraq war and the administration’s overall abuse of power, he adds: “I don’t see Congress pursuing it. We’ve got to move on to other issues.” He would rather see any prosecutions augmented by an independent investigation that fills in the historical record. “We need to depoliticize it,” he says. “If a Democratic Congress or administration pursues it, it will be seen as partisan.” We could certainly do worse than another 9/11 Commission. Among those Americans still enraged about the Bush years, there are also calls for truth and reconciliation commissions, war crimes trials and, in a petition movement on Obama’s transition Web site, a special prosecutor in the Patrick Fitzgerald mode. One of the sharpest appointments yet made by the incoming president may support decisive action: Dawn Johnsen, a law professor and former Clinton administration official who last week was chosen to run the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice. This is the same office where the Bush apparatchik John Yoo produced his infamous memos justifying torture. Johnsen is a fierce critic of such constitutional abuses. In articles for Slate last year, she wondered “where is the outrage, the public outcry” over a government that has acted lawlessly and that “does not respect the legal and moral bounds of human decency.” She asked, “How do we save our country’s honor, and our own?” The last is not a rhetorical question. While our new president indeed must move on and address the urgent crises that cannot wait, Bush administration malfeasance can’t be merely forgotten or finessed. A new Justice Department must enforce the law; Congress must press outstanding subpoenas to smoke out potential criminal activity; every legal effort must be made to stop what seems like a wholesale effort by the outgoing White House to withhold, hide and possibly destroy huge chunks of its electronic and paper trail. As Johnsen wrote last March, we must also “resist Bush administration efforts to hide evidence of its wrongdoing through demands for retroactive immunity, assertions of state privilege, and implausible claims that openness will empower terrorists.” As if to anticipate the current debate, she added that “we must avoid any temptation simply to move on,” because the national honor cannot be restored “without full disclosure.” She was talking about America regaining its international reputation in the aftermath of our government’s descent into the dark side of torture and “extraordinary rendition.” But I would add that we need full disclosure of the more prosaic governmental corruption of the Bush years, too, for pragmatic domestic reasons. To make the policy decisions ahead of us in the economic meltdown, we must know what went wrong along the way in the executive and legislative branches alike. As the financial historian Ron Chernow wrote in the Times last week, we could desperately use a Ferdinand Pecora, the investigator who illuminated the history of the 1929 meltdown in Senate hearings on the eve of the New Deal. The terrain to be mined would include not just the usual Wall Street suspects and their Congressional and regulatory enablers but also the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a strangely neglected ground zero in the foreclosure meltdown. The department’s secretary, Alphonso Jackson, resigned in March amid still-unresolved investigations over whether he enriched himself and friends with government contracts. The tentative and amorphous $800 billion stimulus proposed by Obama last week sounds like a lot, but it’s a drop in the bucket when set against the damage it must help counteract: more than $10 trillion in new debt and new obligations piled up by the Bush administration in eight years, as calculated by the economists Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz in the current Harper’s Magazine. If Bernie Madoff, at least, can still revive what remains of our deadened capacity for outrage, so can those who pulled off Washington’s Ponzi schemes. The more we learn about where all the bodies and billions were buried on our path to ruin, the easier it may be for our new president to make the case for a bold, whatever-it-takes New Deal. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/11/2009 2:06:46 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

An Extremist Makeover? _______________________________________________________________ By MAUREEN DOWD Op-Ed Columnist The New York Times January 11, 2009 In the past week, I’ve twice been close enough to Dick Cheney to kick him in the shins. I didn’t. It’s probably a federal crime of some sort. But a girl can fantasize. I did, however, assume the Stay-away-from-me-you’ve-got-cooties stance that Jimmy Carter used when posing with Bill Clinton at the presidents’ powwow in the Oval. The first time was Tuesday, when Cheney left the ceremony where he gave the oath of office to senators. The senators seemed thrilled, especially Joe Biden, who was getting sworn in for just two weeks and was excitedly showing off a family Bible the size of a Buick. But I thought it gave the ceremony a satirical edge to have the lawless Vice presiding over lawmakers swearing to support and defend the Constitution that he soiled and defiled — right in the heart of the legislative branch he worked to diminish. The second time I crossed paths was Thursday night, at a glitzy party at Cafe Milano for Brit Hume, stepping down as a Fox anchor. It required extreme defensive maneuvers — much zigging and zagging — to avoid Cheney, Wolfie and Rummy, all three holding court and blissfully unrepentant about the chaos they’ve unleashed on the world. “My conscience is clear,” Rummy volunteered to Bob Woodward, talking about how he’s interviewing people for his memoir. Woodward was stunned. “I was as speechless as I was in July 2006 when I interviewed him and he said he was not a military commander, that he could make the case that he was ‘by indirection, two or three steps removed,’ ” Woodward told me afterward. At least Ernst Stavro Blofeld would have the decency just to leave the scene. From Gaza to the unemployment figures to the $10.6 trillion debt, things keep spiraling while W. keeps fiddling. Just as when he was in the National Guard and didn’t bother to show up, now, as the scabrous consequences of his missteps shake the economy and the world, he doesn’t bother to show up. He’s checked out — spending his time on more than a dozen exit interviews that do nothing to change his image as a president who was over his head and under Cheney’s spell. Asked by People magazine what moments from the last eight years he revisited most often, W. talked passionately about the pitch he threw out at the World Series in 2001: “I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough.” Asked by Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard if he had made progress in some areas for which he hasn’t gotten credit, the president put trying to privatize Social Security at the top of his list. It’s frightening to think where a lot of people would be now if that effort had succeeded. After he leaves office, W. wants to go on more bike rides, because biking through Katrina was not enough. He wants to write a memoir, even though the offers are not pouring in as they did for Laura. And he wants to encourage debate at his presidential library on “big ideas.” The vamoosing Vice has no apologies about turning America into a country that tortured; indeed, he denies it ever happened. “Torture,” he told Barnes, “that word gets thrown around with great abandon.” He’s going back to Casper, Wyo., and said he’s giving “serious thought” to writing a book, so he can continue his extremist makeover. The only thing he can do now is shoot a big lie across the bow and see if it lands. Cheney’s theory of executive “unitary” power and pre-emptive war and frightening the world was a theory of Constitutional thuggishness. Asked last week by Mark Knoller of CBS Radio in one of his exit interviews to name the “biggest mis-impression” people had about him, Cheney replied with a laugh, “That I’m actually a warm, lovable sort.” He went on to seriously assert that his image as “a private, Darth Vader-type personality” has been “pretty dramatically overdone.” “I think we made good decisions,” he told Knoller, adding with even grander delusion, “I think we knew what we were doing.” He protested “the notion that somehow I was pulling strings or making presidential-level decisions. I was not. There was never any question about who was in charge. It was George Bush. And that’s the way we operated. This whole notion that somehow I exceeded my authority here, was usurping his authority, is simply not true. It’s an urban legend, never happened.” The fact that Cheney is now putting all the blame for all the messes squarely on W. shows once more how the bureaucratic master outmaneuvers his younger partner. Even on his way out, Vice is still on top. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/11/2009 2:29:18 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

With only 10 days left before George W. Bush leaves office, the Washington Establishment – and its chief mouthpiece the Washington Post – are trying to stymie any meaningful accountability for the outgoing administration and thus cover up for their own complicity in Bush’s crimes and incompetence... consortiumnews.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/14/2009 12:27:07 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Why You Should Be Screaming for Higher Taxes _______________________________________________________________ By Larry Beinhart AlterNet Posted January 12, 2009. alternet.org US economic growth has been strongest when our taxes have been high. During World War II, then under Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, our upper marginal tax rates were between 88-92%. Read those numbers again. They are astonishingly high. Those were our strongest growth years. I never expected to say this. Pelosi's right, Obama's wrong. Do keep in mind that we are talking about higher taxes on the richest members of society, the very richest. So, unless you're among that elite group, don't panic for personal reasons. Keep in mind, also, that we are speaking only of income taxes. You have certainly heard, several thousand times, that tax cuts lead to economic growth. That's not true. Moderate tax cuts lead to a flat economy. (The Johnson tax cuts, usually misnamed the Kennedy tax cuts, lead to 16 years of virtually no growth.) Large tax cuts are followed by a boom in the financial sector, a bubble, and a crash. Then a recession or depression with massive bank failures. This has happened three times, in the 1920s, under Reagan, and under George W. Bush. During a depression or recession, the point where taxes are increased marks the point when the economy begins its recovery: 1932 under Hoover, Roosevelt's second round of tax hikes in 1940, the first president Bush's tax hike, followed by the Clinton tax hike. (There's one exception. Roosevelt's tax hike of 1936, which was accompanied by cuts in government spending.) US economic growth has been strongest when our taxes have been high. During World War II, then under Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, our upper marginal tax rates were between 88-92%. Read those numbers again. They are astonishingly high. Those were our strongest growth years. The next time we experienced strong growth -- not just in the fiscal sector, across the entire economy -- was after the Clinton tax hikes. Why do tax hikes lead to strong economic growth? Tax hikes usually correspond to higher government spending. Government spends money on things that the private sector does not spend money on: physical infrastructure, social infrastructure, market infrastructure, and defense. These are the things that create a world in which doing business is possible. The worse those things are, the worse business is. The better they are, the better business is. Rich people can't be trusted with too much money. If they have too much easy cash around, they get conned into Ponzi schemes, they go for quick money deals, they get suckered into bubbles, and then the whole economy crashes. Can we have increased government spending without tax hikes? No. We can spend more than the government takes in -- if, and only if -- the following is true. If the government is spending more than it takes in order to create an environment where more productive business is possible, then, at some point, the investment will begin to pay off and revenues will rise. If, at the same time, government spending declines (as a percentage of GDP), increased revenue will catch up with spending and the debt will be paid off. Or -- since this is the real world, in which there are always new needs and new problems, and therefore new things to pay for -- the old debts will be caught up with and paid down, while new ones are taken on, hopefully to build new things that will pay off in turn. In order for that to work, the tax rate has to be high enough so that the first set of deficits could actually be paid off (if life, government and business suddenly stopped there). If the tax rate is not high enough to do that -- even if only in theory -- then debt piles upon debt and the country's currency becomes worthless. Debts at some point must be paid. Even if new debts are being taken on. The fact that government goes on and on, and there are constant new debts, disguises that. It makes us think of the debt as a condition, something special to government, that is actually different from regular economics. But it's not. So the set-up has to be like that of a real business. We take on debt to get things done. We need a revenue stream that will pay for that debt. In this case, it's called taxes. If the set-up is such that the revenue stream will never pay for that debt, we must go bankrupt. Or mortgage and then sell off our assets, and then go bankrupt. Which is what we tried under George Bush. There is a theory that tax cuts -- even without spending cuts -- will pay for themselves out of increased revenues. This has the laughable name, The Laffer Curve. It apparently works very well in Republican minds but has never worked in reality. It produces huge deficits that eventually require tax hikes to pay down the debt. We are now taking on two huge new sets of debts. The first is to pay for the Laffer Curve idiocy of the Bush years. The second is to rebuild the economy from the devastation of those policies and the ones like them in preceding administrations. Somehow, those debts will have to paid for. The question is how? We know that even if the economy is relatively active, as it was during the fiscal bubble of the Bush years, that it cannot pay the cost of government with the tax rates that we currently have. There was lots of taxable money being generated, yet it never came close to catching up with spending. That's not even counting those costs -- like the wars -- that were kept off the books. Even if we were not going to invest in rebuilding the economy, we would have to raise taxes just to get even. Then raise them again to pay down the debt. But unless we rebuild the economy it will not generate enough money to create the revenue stream (taxes) to pay the debts. So that has to be done too. Why are we so resistant to raising taxes? It's our nature. Nobody likes to give up their personal money for the common good. People with a lot of money have, over the past fifty years, spent a fortune on exploiting that instinct and pandering to that feeling. Eventually, with nobody willing to say publicly that taxes are good, they took over the dialogue. It is now routine to hear tax cuts refereed to as "pro-growth" policies, even though, in fact, that's not true. It is routine to hear tax hikes called "anti-growth" policies, when that's not true. The rich, the Republicans, and the Right, have lost this last election, but they still own the mythology. High taxes make for a sound economy. High taxes make us all better off. High taxes will make you richer. Even after taxes. *Larry Beinhart is the author of "Wag the Dog," "The Librarian," and "Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin." His latest book is Salvation Boulevard. Responses can be sent to beinhart@earthlink.net.

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/20/2009 4:05:37 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Won’t Anyone Give Bush a Job? newsweek.com Book publishers and speaking agents express little interest in what Bush has to say—and not just for political reasons. By Daniel Gross NEWSWEEK From the magazine issue dated Jan 26, 2009 For many of President Bush's critics, the fact that he is now seeking work in the worst job market in a generation is poetic justice. As 43 noted in his farewell press conference, he is too much of a Type A for "sitting with a big straw hat and a Hawaiian shirt, sitting on some beach." (He might want to reconsider. Thanks to the economic malaise, tropical resorts are running great promotions.) Given recent history, Bush has reason to think he might be able to monetize his presidency. Bill Clinton reported income of more than $90 million between 2000 and 2007. But Bush probably shouldn't expect to post Clintonian numbers. Ex-presidents peddle image, presence and experience; in Bush's case, each is tarnished. To aggravate matters, many of the industries in which ex-presidents make easy money are (a) doing poorly, and (b) based in the Axis of Acela, the Washington-Boston corridor in which Bush hostility runs deep. An ex-president's first move is usually a book deal—Bill Clinton got an estimated $10 million to $12 million for his memoirs. But with sales down, and Borders and Barnes & Noble contracting, "there's likely to be a buyer's strike in the book business for up to six months," says one former head of a well-known imprint. Moreover, the industry just isn't that interested in what the Bush inner circle is peddling. Agents are dining out—mostly at Subway—on tales of turning down meetings with Condi Rice. Laura Bush is believed to have received an advance of about $2 million for her memoirs, about one quarter Hillary Clinton's haul. Several publishers I spoke to believe a Bush memoir wouldn't command much in the way of foreign-rights payments. And given Bush's professed lack of interest in reflection, what could he offer to American audiences? "Right now, his presidency is seen as such a cascade of mistakes that it's hard to know what he could say that would be compelling," says Geoff Shandler, executive editor at Little, Brown. Bush's best option may be to cut a deal with a Christian publisher like Thomas Nelson, which pays smaller advances than the New York houses. "Somebody out there will be willing to make a bet that he can reach his political constituency," says Peter Osnos, founder of the politico-friendly publisher PublicAffairs. The consensus for a Bush advance: $1.5–$2.5 million. Bush has been mum about book plans, but he's been more forthright about his desire to joint the lucrative yakkers' circuit. "I'll give some speeches, to replenish the ol' coffers," he said in September 2007. Ronald Reagan flew off to Japan to make $2 million for a few speeches soon after leaving office. Clinton, to no one's surprise, has been a prolific speaker. But speaking agents I talked with expressed little interest in Bush—and not, they say, just for political reasons. "I'm in business to make money, and I don't think I'd make money doing it," says Bill Leigh, chairman of the Leigh Bureau speaking agency. The biggest spenders for the high-profile speakers have traditionally been investment banks and asset-management companies, like Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. But many firms have disappeared, and those that remain are wards of the state. Bush could, however, count on a few trade associations and friendly defense and energy companies to generate a handful of gigs at $125,000 a pop (plus private plane travel). While corporate boards used to be a reliable, well-paying sinecure for former politicians, "I'd be surprised to see him on one," says Wendy Pangburn, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles. Besides, board slots have really morphed from a few meetings per year at resorts to several meetings and lots of conference calls. "You have to work at it," she says. In the age of Sarbanes-Oxley, board seats entail a heightened amount of fiduciary responsibility—which, even the dwindling core of Bush partisans will concede, hasn't been one of the president's strong suits. That leaves the time-honored and highly lucrative field of crony capitalism, or, as it's known more genteelly today: private equity. Out of public view, magnates routinely provide nice incomes to pols who can open doors and help raise funds. Former vice president Dan Quayle and former Bush Treasury secretary John Snow hang their hats at Cerberus Capital Management. Bill Clinton was dealt into a fund run by ally Ron Burkle. The Carlyle Group has been a bipartisan haven for Washington A-listers, including former president George H.W. Bush. Bush the Younger has friends in this world, including Tom Hicks, the private-equity baron who helped W make his fortune with the Texas Rangers. We may be too quick to write off Bush's prospects. Twenty-eight years ago, another onetime Southern governor, possessed of a deep Christian faith, left office unpopular, thanks to a shambolic economy and a foreign-policy disaster in a Muslim country whose first three letters are I, R and A. He, too, was largely written off by the Axis of Acela. It was a great embarrassment when Jimmy Carter's memoir failed to garner a seven-figure advance. But Carter has since become the Stephen King of politicians—a prolific, highly paid bestselling author of volumes on any number of topics, including fly-fishing. He probably has a lot to teach Bush about how to rebuild a reputation and build a fortune. At the recent gathering of ex-presidents in the Oval Office, 43 couldn't stand far away enough from 39. That may have been his final strategic mistake.

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/20/2009 4:29:37 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Obama brings new voice of hope, Nelson Mandela says guardian.co.uk In a letter to new US president, former South African leader describes Obama's election as 'something truly historic' By Chris McGreal in Johannesburg guardian.co.uk Tuesday 20 January 2009 19.47 GMT Fifteen years after the world celebrated the election of a black president that many doubted would ever happen, Nelson Mandela has written to Barack Obama comparing his inauguration to the inspiration provided by South Africa's embrace of democracy. In a letter delivered to Obama before the ceremony, the former South African president described the election of America's first black president as "something truly historic not only in the political annals of your great nation, the United States of America, but of the world". "We are in some ways reminded today of the excitement and enthusiasm in our own country at the time of our transition to democracy," Mandela said in the letter. "People, not only in our country but around the world, were inspired to believe that through common human effort injustice can be overcome and that together a better life for all can be achieved." Mandela told Obama he represents a "new voice of hope" in a world still beset by inequality and division. "Your election to this high office has inspired people as few other events in recent times have done. Amidst all of the human progress made over the last century the world in which we live remains one of great divisions, conflict, inequality, poverty and injustice," said Mandela. "You, Mister President, have brought a new voice of hope that these problems can be addressed and that we can in fact change the world and make of it a better place." Mandela also reminded Obama of his Kenyan origins, although even today in South Africa the new US president would commonly be regarded as "coloured" or mixed race, and not black. "There is a special excitement on our continent today, Mister President, in the knowledge that you have such strong personal ties with Africa. We share in that excitement and pride," he said.

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/20/2009 5:23:45 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

With Bush and Cheney nearby, Obama turns away from their policies _______________________________________________________________ By David E. Sanger The New York Times Tuesday, January 20, 2009 WASHINGTON -- Though couched in indirect terms, Barack Obama's inaugural address was a stark repudiation of the era of George W. Bush and a vow to drive the United States into "a new age" by reclaiming the values of an older one. It was a delicate task, with Bush and the former vice president, Dick Cheney, sitting feet from him as he described the false turns and the roads not taken. In his words, Obama blamed no one other than the country itself - "our collective failure to make hard choices" and a willingness to suspend national ideals "for expedience's sake." Yet every time Obama urged Americans to "choose our better history," to make decisions according to science instead of ideology, to reject a "false choice" between safety and American ideals, to recognize that American military power does not "entitle us to do as we please," he signaled a commitment to pragmatism not just as a governing strategy but as a basic value. It was, in many ways, exactly what one might have expected from a man who propelled himself to the highest office in the land by denouncing where an excess of ideological zeal has taken the nation. But what was surprising about the speech was how much Obama dwelled on America's choices at this moment in history, rather than the momentousness of his ascension to the presidency. Much as he did during his campaign, he barely mentioned his race in his first moments as the 44th president of the United States. He did not need to. The surroundings said it all as he stood on the steps of a Capitol built by the hands of slaves, and as he placed his own hand on the Bible last used by the Great Liberator. He talked instead, with echoes of Churchill, of the challenges of taking command of a nation beset by what he called "gathering clouds and raging storms." And as a student of past inaugural addresses, he knew what he needed to accomplish. He had to evoke the clarion call for national unity that Lincoln made the centerpiece of his second inaugural in 1865. He had to instill the sense of optimism and patience that resounded in Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural in 1933, as the nation confronted the worst moments of the Great Depression. And finally, he needed to recall the combination of national inspiration and resoluteness that John F. Kennedy delivered from the same spot, six months before Obama was born. As his voice and image tripped down the Mall, Obama spoke across many generations stretched to the Washington Monument and beyond. Mixed in the crowd were the last remnants of a World War II generation, the Tuskeegee Airmen among them, for whom Jim Crow was such a daily presence that this day seemed unimaginable. There were middle-aged and elderly veterans of the civil rights movement for whom this seemed the crowning achievement of a lifetime of struggles. There were young Americans - and an overwhelming number of young African-Americans - with no memory of the civil rights movement or of the Cold War, for whom Obama was a symbol of a new age of instant messaging, instant communication and integration in every new sense of the word. For those three generations, for the veterans who arrived in wheelchairs and the teenagers wearing earphones and tapping on their iPhones, Obama's speech was far less important than the moment. Many of those who braved the 17 degree chill to swarm onto the mall at daybreak had said they would not believe America would install a black president until they saw and heard him take the oath, even if on a Jumbotron a mile from the event. His appearance on the Capitol steps was so historic that the address became larger than its own language, more imbued with meaning than anything he could say. Yet what he did say must have come as a bit of a shock to Bush, who knew his policies had been widely criticized, yet rarely over the past eight year had to sit in silence listening to a speech about how America had taken a tragic detour. It was Bush, in 2004, who vowed repeatedly that it was his job "to confront problems, not to pass them on to future presidents and future generations." Yet there was Obama, blaming America's economic peril to an era "of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age." He talked of how "the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet," an implicit critique of an administration that went to war but did little to change America's habits. When Obama turned to foreign policy, he had more implicit criticisms, noting that the Cold War was won "not just with missiles and tanks," but by leaders who understood "that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please." It grows instead, he said, "through its prudent use." It was a message much of the world was waiting to hear. But it was matched with a warning to America's enemies, especially terrorists and terror-sponsoring nations, that "you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." It is that balance - the promise of an America that hews to its ideals, but achieves victory through silent strength - that will be the true test of Obama's administration. It is a test yet to come, but one that begins today.

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/24/2009 8:23:39 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

For bruised Caroline Kennedy, what's next? google.com By SAMANTHA GROSS – 5 hours ago NEW YORK (AP) — Following a brief, torturous foray into the public spotlight, Caroline Kennedy has retreated back into privacy. And if there's one thing on which political spectators agree, it's that she is unlikely to rush to repeat the experience. "After the beating that she took, a sane person would not want to subject themselves to that," said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College. Her campaign for an appointment to the senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton started with a halting rollout and ended this past week in a spectacular implosion — marred at the end by accusations leveled by someone close to the governor. Kennedy is telling friends she won't be stepping away from the public sphere entirely, although it remains unclear what path she might take. Rumors abound that, given her early endorsement of now-President Barack Obama, she could land a federal appointment. In a matter of months, America's dominant image of the daughter of slain President John F. Kennedy was transformed from that of the adorable little girl riding a pony on the White House lawn to that of someone more complicated — a woman who remained connected to her father's Camelot legend but who was now forging a bumpy public path of her own. She drew fire throughout her campaign. Critics questioned her experience and accused her of profiting off her family name. She was attacked for declining to answer questions, then was lampooned for giving interviews replete with conversational fillers such as "um" and "you know." Some accused her of not explaining clearly enough why she wanted the job, while others worried she seemed ill at ease under the spotlight and questioned if she could win election to the seat in 2010. Friends and supporters maintained that the 51-year-old Kennedy was driven by a passion for public service. They argued that the unconventional path she had followed allowed her to build a resume as a fundraiser, mediator and legal thinker — all skills they said would help her excel on Capitol Hill. Kennedy herself cited her "relationships" in Washington, and supporters believed her friendship with Obama and her closeness with her uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy, would smooth her way. Associates said her verbal glitches had never gotten in the way of her reputation as a brilliant mind and gifted writer. But early Thursday, she confirmed she had dropped out of contention, and on Friday Gov. David Paterson announced he was appointing Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand — a little-known Democrat from a rural upstate district — as Clinton's successor. Kennedy's decision to withdraw played out messily Wednesday over hours of conflicting accounts in which she apparently wavered in her determination to win the seat, ending with a terse, one-sentence e-mail to reporters after midnight in which she cited "personal reasons" for her withdrawal. On Thursday, a person close to the governor claimed she was facing possible tax and "nanny" problems, and there were media rumors that her marriage was on the rocks. A Kennedy spokesman complained that the mudslinging demeaned what had been a fair process. The governor eventually said in a statement that no candidate had been disqualified by vetting. The bitter back-and-forth caused at least short-term damage to Kennedy's image — and may have reflected even more poorly on Paterson. One Kennedy friend involved with the process said later that Kennedy had a "minor issue with a nanny" that the governor's staff reviewed and found to be irrelevant. The friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, also said Kennedy had a minor, $615 city tax lien that she settled in 1994 and no other tax problems. The friend, who's been speaking with her nearly daily in recent weeks, said Kennedy had expressed a desire to continue looking "for ways to serve." "She would like to serve in some capacity, but it's a little too fresh to know what that capacity might be," the friend said. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Friday he had spoken to Kennedy and was sorry she wouldn't be taking the New York seat, which once was held by another Kennedy uncle, Robert F. Kennedy. "I think she really was put in a very difficult position, almost impossible one, but she'll go on to do terrific things," he said. "She just made a personal decision for a number of reasons this is not the right way to do it and it's not the moment to do it, and I can understand that." Kerry even speculated that she might still one day run for office. That would shock Muzzio, after what he called "the trashing that she's suffering from the Paterson folks." But Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College poll, said Kennedy could still have a shot. "She would have to regroup, but people have come back from worse," he said. The longer she waits, the more the power of the Kennedy mystique will fade, argued Rutgers University politics professor Ross Baker, who noted that few younger voters feel the Camelot-era pull toward her family. "The Kennedy appeal has become kind of quaint," he said. If Kennedy returns permanently to private life, she could continue her fundraising work on behalf of New York City's public schools or move into an under-the-radar advisory role, akin to the job she had as a member of Obama's vice presidential search team. But Kennedy has long acted as one of the primary tenders of her family legacy — writing and editing books that have helped to keep alive the Kennedy mystique and working to guide family efforts such as the selection of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award winners. With that history and her professed passion for contributing to political and social change, she may not be willing to fade into the background. Writers for The Washington Post and at least one British newspaper wondered whether she might follow in the footsteps of her grandfather, Joseph Kennedy, as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. Many have suggested Obama might offer such a post or another appointment in part out of gratitude for her endorsement during the Democratic primary contest, which came at a key moment in his showdown with Clinton. -Associated Press Writer Glen Johnson contributed to this report from Boston.

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/25/2009 8:11:30 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Gov. David A. Paterson in hot seat. buffalonews.com Paterson may feel backlash from angry Democrats By Tom Precious BUFFALO NEWS ALBANY BUREAU Updated: 01/25/09 07:17 AM ALBANY — She started out as the genteel daughter of a slain president, an icon of the Democratic Party’s most famous family, a devoted mother and champion of public schools. But by the time Caroline Kennedy unceremoniously ended her quest to be a U. S. senator from New York, she had come to be portrayed as flighty, snobby, aloof, uninformed on issues and a member of the privileged set out of touch with regular people. She even found herself likened to singer/actress Jennifer Lopez. For good measure, Gov. David A. Paterson’s advisers piled on a few more salacious tidbits: She has embarrassing skeletons in her closet related to taxes, a nanny and her marriage. That Paterson would sanction such a frontal assault on Kennedy after she already had ended her quest to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton stunned even the most grizzled political insiders. What was to be gained when advisers close to Paterson decided to dump on Kennedy in interviews with The Buffalo News and a handful of other news outlets Thursday, less than 12 hours after she already dropped out of the running? What was the benefit the governor saw in attacking Kennedy, whose political connections — including straight to the Oval Office with President Obama — go far beyond anything the governor enjoys? The strange, two-month process ended Friday with Paterson picking Hudson Valley Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Clinton. But the payback period for the governor by angry Democrats may just be starting. And the lineup of players not likely to forget how the governor handled things goes beyond just forces loyal to Kennedy. There is a long line of people Paterson upset with his pick, from members of Congress with far more years in the political trenches than Gillibrand to state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who led in popular polls but was passed over. And the governor did himself no favors with loyalists to Clinton by considering Kennedy in the first place; to Clinton backers, Kennedy “embarrassed” Clinton last year with her well-timed endorsement of Obama. Several Democrats were already publicly sniping at Paterson and were openly talking of primary challenges for next year against the governor’s selection — the kind of challenge to authority usually avoided for a governor who is the titular head of the state’s Democratic Party. One leading Hispanic Democrat, Assemblyman Peter Rivera of the Bronx, said Paterson’s selection “creates a split among New York Democrats that will only serve to damage our party.” People involved complained that Paterson dithered over his decision, as he alternated between teasing the public about his selection to shutting out even the most basic of information, such as refusing to release even blank questionnaires that he asked candidates to fill out. But it was the surprise attack on Kennedy that resonated loudest. “No class. You don’t do stuff like that. He sort of accidentally fell into the job as governor and then they behave like amateur hour,” said Robert Shrum, a former adviser to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who has been involved in dozens of major Democratic contests over the years. Damaged reputation While Paterson seemed to relish the national media attention his ruminations brought, by the end he was skewered for what even many Democrats say was a fumbled process that made him look indecisive and pliable. The damage to his reputation comes at a time when he is already trying to convince lawmakers to go along with his plan to cut spending and raise taxes to deal with New York’s rising deficit. “I guess they thought they were hurting her. In the long term, they’re hurting Paterson’s credibility and effectiveness,” said Shrum, now a senior fellow at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Shrum said Paterson molded a new image for himself within Democratic circles in New York and beyond. “You wouldn’t see David Paterson as someone you can rely on — people won’t trust him,” he said. Democrats questioned why Paterson showed so little discipline during the process. “He just looks bad. The process made him look bumbling,” said Joseph Mercurio, a veteran New York political consultant. Mercurio said it is not surprising many Democrats are angered with his selection of Gillibrand, a member of the conservative Blue Dog coalition in the House who has a 100 percent rating from the National Rifle Association. He noted she also voted against the $700 million bailout of the financial industry; New York’s economy relies heavily on the banking sector. “It’s pretty astonishing that a seat once held by Bobby Kennedy, Pat Moynihan and Hillary Clinton is now going to a Blue Dog. It’s incredible,” Mercurio added. A price to pay? Will there be a price to pay for Paterson’s attack on Kennedy? Some have theorized, considering Kennedy’s ties to Obama, that it could affect New York’s relations with the new White House. “When it comes to the national scene, Kennedy’s entree to the Oval Office remains strong. Paterson certainly hasn’t made any lasting friends in the White House with this,” said Lee Miringoff, who heads the Marist College polling center. “It doesn’t mean Obama is going to freeze New York out. But my guess is a few phone calls don’t get returned down the road.” But Shrum said, “The president is not going to punish the people of New York because of this.” For Paterson, it all comes at a bad time. His numbers are slipping in the polls. Last fall, lawmakers ignored his demands to cut the budget. A deal he brokered to end a feud among Democrats in the Senate fell apart and then came together only after he stayed out of the fight. And no one in the State Legislature took seriously his insistence that the current year’s deficit be closed by Feb. 1. Now some are wondering if Cuomo, long with his eyes on being governor, may consider a primary challenge against Paterson next year. That Paterson appears politically weakened for his handling of the Senate process does not bode well for him, Democrats said. “I think the entire thing made him look indecisive and weak,” said one party insider who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He played it too cute and too coy and angered too many people in the end.” To be sure, Kennedy had her many stumbles, from at first avoiding answering questions to then being vague on issues to snubbing key Democrats to giving short shrift to upstate. But by the end, Paterson, with Thursday’s verbal assaults on her, managed to make Kennedy into a sympathetic character. Kennedy declined an interview request. “She’ll go on. She’ll live her life and this will fade away for her. But it will leave a lasting sense about how he [Paterson] operates,” Shrum said. Transparency backfires For his part, Paterson suggested maybe he had been too public in his on-again, off-again pronouncements on his thinking. “In retrospect, I wish I had not showed all of you the wrestling match,” he said Friday after introducing Gillibrand. “I think that I may have just, in an attempt to be as transparent as possible, publicly gone through the back and forth of my decision,” he added. “If that in any way confused anyone, I was not trying to mislead anyone.” Some Democrats say Paterson’s choice of Gillibrand could have selfish political motives. One lawmaker theorized that he took a lesser-known Democrat as a way of making the 2010 Senate race more attractive for a big-name Republican — say Rudolph Giuliani — to take on instead of running against Paterson next year. While Paterson aides insisted he was not going to appoint Kennedy, many Democrats said the governor informed a number of people last week that Kennedy was his first choice. Some theorized that when she surprised him by pulling out for “personal reasons,” he was angered following weeks of feeling boxed in by Kennedy and her supporters and a feeling that he almost had to appoint the Democratic icon to the job. And, for added ammunition to back up claims he wasn’t going to pick her anyway, sources close to him let flow with vague accusations about tax, nanny and marriage skeletons she had in her background. “She turned down the job, so their feelings are hurt,” Richard Donohue, a longtime Kennedy family confidant who worked for President John F. Kennedy, said of Paterson. “I think it’s not fair, but it’s the game.” Paterson began the Senate selection process with many possible political chits he could store for the future. In the end, though, it all backfired. “I think he’s getting advice from people who are serving other people,” Mercurio said. “This can’t be a smart move for the governor.”

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/27/2009 7:58:12 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

The Anti-Stimulus Crowd Blows a Gasket ______________________________________________________________ by Dean Baker Published on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 by CommonDreams.org The anti-stimulus crowd is getting desperate. The possibility that a young charismatic new president will push through an ambitious package that begins to set the economy right is truly terrifying to this crew. After all, if the economy begins to turn around and has largely recovered in three or four years, the Republican leadership can look forward to spending most of their careers in the political wilderness. President Obama will cakewalk to re-election, and even his designated successor will be able to benefit from the glow of his success. If the New Deal serves as precedent, Congress will stay in Democratic hands long past the time that the current leaders of the Republican Party start collecting their pensions. This explains the need that many Republicans feel to block the stimulus package. This desperation led them to fabricate a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which purportedly showed that most of the stimulus would not be spent in 2009, or even in 2010. Based on this report, they argued that President Obama's stimulus would do little to boost the economy out of recession. The Republicans managed to get a story to this effect in The Washington Post, in addition to extensive coverage in other major news outlets. The only problem is that there was no CBO report. The CBO had done some very preliminary analysis of a package that was loosely modeled on a portion of President Obama's program. This preliminary analysis was done at the request of members of Congress to give them what was available at the time. It was not a full analysis that had gone through the CBO's normal review process, and was not posted on its web site where it could be assessed by budget analysts and the general public. In short, this analysis was clearly not ready for prime time. But, when you're as desperate as the Republican leadership, you take what you can get. Unfortunately, many in the media got taken by this ploy and now have egg on their face as well. The CBO will produce an analysis this week that examines the most recent version of the full stimulus bill. This analysis will provide a much more serious basis for assessing the proposals than the CBO "report" invented by the Republican leadership. It will provide a full analysis of the proposal, including an explanation of the methodology that the CBO used in its calculations. In this respect, it is important to caution against one possible limitation of the CBO methodology. The CBO typically relies on rules of thumb in calculating spendout rates for types of projects. For example, as a rule of thumb, the spending for highways in the first year after an appropriation may be just a small percentage of the total cost of the highway, with spending in the second year being a little bit higher. It takes time to plan a highway and to bid out contracts. Based on analysis of the time between the passage of appropriations and the actual spending, the CBO can project the time period over which a wide range of appropriations will actually be spent. However, these rules of thumbs are likely to understate the spendout rate for the projects chosen as part of the stimulus package. These projects are being selected specifically because they are ready to go, with plans already in hand and contracts ready to be submitted for bids. Furthermore, because of the severity of the economic downturn, contractors are likely to be able to move much more quickly than would usually be the case. Typically, contractors will have to find time to fit a government project in their queue of other work. With the sharp downturn in the construction sector, there are likely to be plenty of contractors who are ready to move almost immediately after a contract is signed. Finally, the bill threatens state and local governments with the loss of funding if they do not move quickly to spend any money appropriated. For these reasons, the CBO's rules of thumb on spendout rates may substantially understate the amount of spending that will be carried through in the next two years. The Republicans have raised a serious issue in questioning the rate at which the stimulus will be spent. The plan should be scrutinized to determine if there are not ways to get money into the economy more quickly. But this effort requires looking at evidence and data, not invented CBO reports.

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	1/27/2009 8:01:01 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

The Same Old Song _______________________________________________________________ by Bob Herbert Published on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 by the New York Times What's up with the Republicans? Have they no sense that their policies have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to this deplorable state? The G.O.P.'s latest campaign is aimed at undermining President Obama's effort to cope with the national economic emergency by attacking the spending in his stimulus package and repeating ad nauseam the Republican mantra for ever more tax cuts. "Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of this package and all the spending in this package, we don't think it's going to work," said Representative John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who is House minority leader. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Boehner said of the plan: "Put me down in the ‘no' column." If anything, the stimulus package is not large enough. Less than 24 hours after Mr. Boehner's televised exercise in obstructionism, the heavy-equipment company Caterpillar announced that it was cutting 20,000 jobs, Sprint Nextel said it was eliminating 8,000, and Home Depot 7,000. Maybe the Republicans don't think there is an emergency. After all, it was Phil Gramm, John McCain's economic guru, who told us last summer that the pain was all in our heads, that this was a "mental recession." The truth, of course, is that the country is hemorrhaging jobs and Americans are heading to the poorhouse by the millions. The stock markets and the value of the family home have collapsed, and there is virtual across-the-board agreement that the country is caught up in the worst economic disaster since at least World War II. The Republican answer to this turmoil? Tax cuts. They need to go into rehab. The question that I would like answered is why anyone listens to this crowd anymore. G.O.P. policies have been an absolute backbreaker for the middle class. (Forget the poor. Nobody talks about them anymore, not even the Democrats.) The G.O.P. has successfully engineered a wholesale redistribution of wealth to those already at the top of the income ladder and then, in a remarkable display of chutzpah, dared anyone to talk about class warfare. A stark example of this unholy collaboration between the G.O.P. and the very wealthy was on display in the pages of this newspaper on Jan. 18. The Times's Mike McIntire wrote an article about the first wave of federal bailout money for the financial industry, which was handed over by the Bush administration with hardly any strings attached. (Congress, under the control of the Democrats, should never have allowed this to happen, but the Democrats are as committed to fecklessness as the Republicans are to tax cuts.) The public was told that the money would be used to loosen the frozen credit markets and thus help revive the economy. But as the article pointed out, there were bankers with other ideas. John C. Hope III, the chairman of the Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, in an address to Wall Street fat cats gathered at the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton, said: "Make more loans? We're not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans." How's that for arrogance and contempt for the public interest? Mr. Hope's bank received $300 million in taxpayer bailout money. The same article quoted Walter M. Pressey, president of Boston Private Wealth Management, which Mr. McIntire described as a healthy bank with a mostly affluent clientele. It received $154 million in taxpayer money. "With that capital in hand," said Mr. Pressey, "not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession, but we also feel that we'll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out." Take advantage, indeed. That, in a nutshell, is what the plutocracy is all about: taking unfair advantage. When the G.O.P. talks, nobody should listen. Republicans have argued, with the collaboration of much of the media, that they could radically cut taxes while simultaneously balancing the federal budget, when, in fact, big income-tax cuts inevitably lead to big budget deficits. We listened to the G.O.P. and what do we have now? A trillion-dollar-plus deficit and an economy in shambles. This is the party that preached fiscal discipline and then cut taxes in time of war. This is the party that still wants to put the torch to Social Security and Medicare. This is a party that, given a choice between Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, would choose Ronald Reagan in a heartbeat. Why is anyone still listening?

To: American Spirit who wrote (78805)	2/19/2009 2:54:28 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Shoot First, Ask Questions Later? Say It Ain't So, Mr. President. by Tom Andrews Published on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 by the Huffington Post Yesterday's announcement by the White House that the president was ordering 17,000 more US troops into Afghanistan was particularly troubling to many of us who - unlike Mr. Limbaugh and his followers on Capitol Hill - actually want President Obama to succeed. As a candidate, President Obama offered - and American's overwhelming chose - "new thinking" on foreign policy and national security. We had all seen the devastating results of a "Bring 'em on" foreign policy where the hole dug by "shock and awe" militarism got progressively deeper and the incessant demand from Pentagon officials for yet more troops to deal with the consequences became increasingly greater. President Bush was always ready to meet these demands. The result was a weakened America, a broken military and more than a trillion dollars - and counting - added to the national debt. We were relieved when the new president announced during his first week in office that he was ordering a comprehensive review of an obviously failed US policy in Afghanistan. Things had steadily gone from bad to worse there. What was desperately needed was a fundamental course correction guided by a healthy dose of "new thinking". New thinking was not in evidence yesterday when the White House announced that it was ordering 17,000 more US troops into harms way in Afghanistan even though it's comprehensive review would not be completed for several more weeks. Military commanders apparently warned that it would be too risky not to deploy troops now out of fear that they would not be in place by the anticipated spike in fighting this spring. Nothing surprising here - when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Military commanders have a point of view born out of their training and orientation. But, new thinking requires a broader view than what can be seen from a military lens. It begins with considering the risk that a military escalation will actually make things worse, not better. First off, where does military escalation end? According to the Army and Marine Corps field manual, counterinsurgency operations require, at a minimum, twenty counterinsurgents per 1,000 residents. In Afghanistan, this would mean combined forces of 640,000 troops. No, I did not incorrectly add an extra zero - that is 640,000 troops. In short, even if we wanted to go down this road, we can't. Several independent analysts have publicly warned that the presence of foreign soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan is probably the single most important driving force in the resurgence of the Taliban. New thinking would at least consider the option of reducing, not increasing our military imprint as a means of dividing and weakening the armed opposition. At the very least, it would withhold final judgment and action until all of all options are subject to a truly comprehensive review. The risks are too high to do anything else. As Katrina vanden Heuvel writes in The Nation: Escalating the occupation of Afghanistan will bleed us of the resources needed for economic recovery, further destabilize Pakistan, open a rift with our European allies, and negate the positive consequences of withdrawing from Iraq on our image in the Muslim world. We hope that this early display of shoot first, ask questions later will be an anomaly for the new administration. What the nation needs is a truly comprehensive plan for Afghanistan and the region that is fundamentally different from the approach that led us to where we now find ourselves. What we don't need is another military quagmire and an albatross around the neck of a nation and an administration that we all need to succeed. *Tom Andrews, a former Member of Congress from the first Congressional District of Maine, is the National Director of Win Without War, a coalition of forty-two national membership organizations including the National Council of Churches, the NAACP, the National Organization of Women, the Sierra Club, and MoveOn.