Daily Kos

If the price is right, you've got a friend in John McCain

Sun, 11 May 2008 23:09:28 GMT

I've never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special interest group — that's a clear, 24-year record. - John McCain

Along with his claims of being a straight talker and a maverick, it is nothing less than laughable for John McCain to say that he's never done favors for anybody, and there's a clear record that proves it. From the time he rode into politics on the back of his wife's family fortune, until he gathered a team of lobbyists to run his 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain has been in the pocket of special interest groups.

In recent weeks both the New York Times and the Washington Post have featured articles that explore how McCain, the self-described foe of lobbyists and special interest groups, has used his influence to help broker land deals that benefited big-money contributors.

From the New York Times we learned that Donald Diamond, known as the Arizona version of "The Donald," a McCain Innovator who has raised more than $250,000 for the campaign, made a $20 million profit on a land deal that was made with the help of McCain's senate staff. And McCain has done more than just open doors for Diamond. Over the years he has either sponsored or co-sponsored bills that authorized federal land swaps that were to the advantage of Diamond, one where the government paid him $23 million for land appraised at $5 million. And yet, according to a McCain spokeswoman, he "had done nothing for Mr. Diamond that he would not do for any other Arizona citizen.'' Yes, just another average Joe who happened to donate over $55,000 to McCain campaigns, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his presidential bid, vacationed with him in the Bahamas and attended World Series games together...just another Arizona citizen. And Mr. Diamond's take on the article?

I think that is what Congress people are supposed to do for constituents. When you have a big, significant businessman like myself, why wouldn't you want to help move things along? What else would they do? They waste so much time with legislation.

And from the Washington Post, another story of a McCain brokered land swap that will benefit one of his campaign fundraisers, helped along by the lobbying efforts of former McCain staffers and a major McCain donor. In 2005, McCain pushed through legislation that would allow Arizona rancher Fred Ruskin to "trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development," and once the legislation was passed, Ruskin turned over the development of the land to Steven Betts of SunCor Developments, a McCain Trailblazer. Naturally, "there is 'absolutely no' connection between his contributions to McCain's presidential bids and the deal involving" Ruskin. It's just another coincidence in a long line of coincidences where John McCain's actions happen to benefit the people who finance his campaigns.

In 1994, Del Webb Corportion, a company that had donated more than $56,000 to McCain campaigns, were attempting to arrange a trade for land in the Red Rock National Conservation Area. When a U.S. House bill was passed that would have expanded the area to include the land Del Webb wanted, a lobbyist for Del Webb contacted McCain and he placed a hold on the bill, tabling it indefinitely. And after the lobbyist cut a deal with a delegation of Nevada congressmen to approve the trade, McCain removed his hold and the bill was passed in the Senate. It should be noted that Del Webb eventually paid the government $10,900 per acre for 4,000 acres...it had been appraised at $36,000 an acre.

Of course they all haven't been winners. In 1998, under the guise of protecting the environment, McCain tried to put together a land deal to protect a wilderness area part-owned (70%) by Carl Lindner, that would have given him several thousand acres of the Tonto National Forest near Scottsdale, Arizona, in exchange for his land. The deal eventually fell through, but many thought it was an odd attempt by McCain to burnish his less than stellar environmental record by proposing a deal that was opposed by nearly every environmental group in Arizona, not to mention the U.S. Forest Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. But it certainly would have been a boon to Carl Lindner, a man who not only donated 300,000 dollars to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but who, as the chairman and chief executive of American Financial Group, at one time employed Charles Keating as corporate counsel and executive vice president. McCain's incestuous roots seem to be as connected as those of an aspen. And speaking of Charles Keating...

While the Keating Five scandal that earned John McCain a slap on the wrist from the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgement," brings to mind McCain's part in delaying the government's seizure of the Lincoln Savings and Loan at the behest campaign contributor and personal friend, Charles Keating, a delay that eventually cost U.S. taxpayers $2.6 billion, what's rarely mentioned is his wife and father-in-law's involvement with Keating in a...you guessed it...land deal. After McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal was revealed, McCain paid back $13,433 for flights he and his family had taken on Keating's private jet, and he eventually donated $112,000 (the amount he had received from Keating) to the U.S. treasury, but his wife and father-in-law, who had invested $359,000 in a Keating-owned strip mall held onto their investment, later selling it for $15 million.

The moral of this story seems to be, if you are interested in real estate, John McCain is the man to know. Or, for that matter, if you need an advocate for beer distributorships, telephone carriers, railroads or mining companies. If you are a patron, then you've got a friend in John McCain. Even as he insists that:

I have carefully avoided situations that might even tangentially be construed as a less than proper use of my office.

Not carefully enough.

Lebanon: Yet Another Foreign Policy Opportunity Screwed Up by the Bush Administration

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:47:32 GMT

In February 2005, shortly after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, the pro-Syrian Lebanese government resigned. The day it happened, I warned against any stupid pro-American triumphalism:

But whatever happens next in Lebanon, it would be a mistake to view it only through the lens of some kind of Middle Eastern "people power," a Cedar Revolution as soft and peaceful as the Velvet Revolutions of 1989 or the Orange Revolution of 2004.

Of course that's exactly what happened. Within hours, what happened in Lebanon was being called the Cedar Revolution, and the Bush administration was taking credit for the change. Over the next few days, bloviators like David Brooks were claiming that what happened in Lebanon was the result of the US invasion of Iraq. The problem was that Brooks, like most conservative champions of neocon foreign policy, is a simpleton when it comes to understanding the politics of a complicated place like Lebanon. One small piece of evidence is that he glowingly quoted Druze leader Walid Jumblat, who just a few months earlier had declared "we are all happy when U.S. soldiers are killed [in Iraq] week in and week out. The killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory."

Oops.

"Oops" can describe much of what's happened in Lebanon since early 2005. To be ever-so-slightly generous to nitwits like Brooks, in 2005-2006 there was some cause for optimism about reform movements in the Arab countries and the Middle East. As Economist Middle East editor Max Rodenbeck explains in a review of the new book by WaPo reporter Robin Wright, in those years there were signs of reform from Morocco and Egypt through Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

The Arab spring, [Wright] says frankly, did not endure...Wright is surely correct in ascribing some part of the blame to America's inept and counterproductive Iraq policy. As numerous interlocutors in the region tell her, not only did the debacle promote extremism and further isolate pro-Western liberals, it alerted people to the terrible risks of toppling tyrants. The Iraq adventure, in Wright's view, may have been the biggest American policy failure of all time. It could yet prove to mark the end of an imperial America's influence in the region, much as France and Britain's catastrophic invasion of Egypt in 1956 demolished the colonial powers' standing and dangerously boosted the fortunes of Egypt's reckless leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. That is surely a sound judgment.

Our debacle in Iraq has also strengthened and emboldened Iran, and there's little we can do about it. While many of the claims about Iran made by the Bush administration are B.S., it is true that Iran has become more bellicose, and whether or not they are are trying to weaponize their nuclear program, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently wants people to suspect they are. His standing in Iran has plummeted along with the economy, but he clings to power by stoking nationalism through the nuclear program.

Nobody knows the full extent of Iran's involvement in Iraq, but it clearly has strong ties to all of the Shia factions. Last month, when Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki unsuccessfully tried to subdue the Shiite militias that control Basra, in particular that of Muqtada al-Sadr, it took the intervention of Iran to work out a compromise, suggesting that Iran dictates the balance of power within Iraq.

Now we have Lebanon. Instead of shutting up and quietly working with the new Lebanese government in 2005, Bush and his lackeys chose to claim credit for what was mostly an internal reaction to the assassination of Hariri, almost certainly perpetrated by shady forces from Syria. (Whether the assassination was approved by, or even known by Syrian dictator Bashir Assad is less clear.) Syria withdrew from Lebanon, but doing so removed a check on the actions of the Lebanese Shiite militia/social movement/political party Hezbollah. Sure enough, with a year and a half Hezbollah was provoking Israel, with the result a several week war in southern Lebanon which seriously hurt both sides, but from which Hezbollah came out much better in terms of morale with its political base.

UN resolutions have called on Hezbollah, which fields one of the most formidable fighting forces in the Middle East, to disarm and cede military control in the south to the multi-sectarian Lebanese Army. The problem is that there isn't any power that can disarm Hezbollah, and it has no interest in forfeiting its military power. Far from some Cedar Revolution, Lebanon has seemingly intractable problems that are rooted in how power has been apportioned between the sectarian groups since the 1940's. It was highly unlikely that the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon was going to usher in a new dawn of Lebanese political harmony, regardless of how badly its population craves peace and a stable social and economic environment.

With 18 religious groups recognized by Lebanon's government, the situation is complex, but roughly speaking the main divide in the country is between the Sunni Muslims and Druze on one side and the Shiite Muslims on the other side, with the sizable Christian population split between the two camps. The Sunni/Druze faction controls the government by a narrow margin, but not by enough to really do much. All sides agree that army chief Michel Suleiman should be president, but the Shia faction is blocking his appointment.

Whether urged on by the US and France, or acting on its own initiative, last week the ruling coalition decided to crack down on Hezbollah by going after it's phone grid. Israel jammed cell phones in the zone where it fought Hezbollah in 2006, but Hezbollah coped by relying on a fiber-optic network it had constructed in the south that's independent of the national grid. Since 2006 Hezbollah has secretively expanded the fiber-optic network to other areas of the country, to allow it to maintain contact between the south, Beirut, the Mount Lebanon region and the Bekaa valley. In the event of a war with Israel, the government of Lebanon would not control the phone grid depended on by Hezbollah.

Syria's role in Lebanon has been hard to discern in the last few years. Iran is clearly closely tied to Hezbollah, but Jumblatt and others appear to have forged ties with Syria in recent years. Syria is overwhelmingly Sunni, but the Assad clan that rules the country is Alawite, which is viewed by many Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, as an apostasy. There are no religious affinities between Assad and Hezbollah, and some have speculated that Hezbollah's control of the airport would be required if it lost the patronage of Syria and had to fly in weapons and and people from Iran.

Upon discovering that the phone system had been installed at Beirut's airport—the only international airport in the country—the government sacked the pro-Hezbollah head of security at the airport on grounds of spying, and demanded that Hezbollah dismantle the phone grid.

Hezbollah's response:

Hezbollah and its allies decided on Wednesday and Thursday to make a show of force by quickly taking control of and closing Beirut's airport and seaport, and then shutting down all the Hariri-owned media (television, radio and newspaper). The message was clear: Hezbollah could take over all Beirut at any moment it desired. This was probably an inevitable moment, when Hezbollah felt it had to show the government the real balance of power between them.

Hezbollah also occupied neighborhoods across the city, demonstrating the impotence of the Army in controlling a sectarian dispute. Hezbollah was able to rally it's forces in part by declaring the government a bunch of stooges of the US and Israel, which its audience was inclined to believe, since the US has been touting the government over each of the Shiite groups for over three years.

Eventually the Army did intervene, by delaying implementation of the parliamentary decrees removing the head of the airport or dismantling the phone network. Thus, Hezbollah retains the balance of power in Lebanon, just as Iran appears to have attained the balance of power over the Shiite forces in Iraq.

Given Lebanon's vexed history since the 1940's, one can't honestly say that even if the US had handled the Lebanese situation more adroitly—by taking a smaller, quieter role instead of using internal Lebanese developments as evidence of the salubrious effects on Arab democracy supposedly brought about by our invasion of Iraq—that Lebanon would have avoided a power struggle between Hezbollah and the Sunni-Druze led government.

But yet again, the Bush administration bumbled in to a complex situation in the Middle East, and made pronouncements that demonstrated its ignorance and dangerous naivety. And once again, a situation arises where, because of our invasion and occupation of Iraq, we have no credibility to intervene diplomatically or help bring about a situation that would be both better for the local population and most likely less likely to empower declared adversaries of the United States.

Book Review: Larry Bartels' "Unequal Democracy"

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:18:34 GMT

Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age
By Larry M. Bartels
Princeton University Press
Princeton, NJ: 2008
328 pages
$29.95

... American beliefs about inequality are profoundly political in their origins and implications. Well-informed conservatives and liberals differ markedly, not only in their normative assessments of increasing inequality, as one might expect, but also in their perceptions of the causes, extent, and consequences of inequality. This is not simply a matter of people with different values drawing different conclusions from a set of agreed-upon facts. Analysts of public opinion in the realm of inequality--as in many other realms--would do well to recognize that the facts themselves are very much subject to ideological dispute. For their part, political actors in the realm of inequality--as in many other realms--would do well to recognize that careful logical arguments running from factual premises to policy conclusions are unlikely to persuade people who are ideologically motivated to distort or deny the facts. While it is certainly true, as Jennifer Hoschschild has argued, that "Where You Stand Depends on What You See," it is equally true that what you see depends in significant part on where you stand.

A challenge to conventional wisdom--including, specifically, many strains of liberal conventional wisdom--Unequal Democracy is a flat-out wonkfest of statistics, charts, tables and (thankfully) Larry Bartels' patient hand-holding and explanations of the mass of data that points to the undeniable realities of class in our society and how that affects our political system.

And as most readers at Daily Kos could probably guess, news is not good on the class front, in many cases in unanticipated ways. Just a few of the conventional wisdom-busters Bartels discusses in Unequal Democracy include:

Americans hate the estate tax, and they did long before the right wing changed it to the "death tax."

Politics matters. A lot. There is a huge difference between Republican and Democratic policies that affect the pocketbooks of middle-class and working-class Americans.

Contrary to popular belief, working-class whites (outside of the South) have not deserted the Democratic Party--affluent whites have.

Economic issues still vastly outweigh cultural/social issues when it comes time to cast a vote.

To the extent that social issues have increased in importance, it is only so for the affluent white voter, not the working class.

Gaps between the classes are at least equal to--and often exceeding--those found in Europe.

The more informed the voter, the more pessimistic he or she is.

Low-information conservatives and low-information liberals are virtually indistinguishable in their beliefs; high-information ideologues of both stripes differ greatly.

Self-identified Democrats and Republicans differ more in perception about America's economic opportunity than the actual rich and actual poor do.

Midday Open Thread

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:15:46 GMT

In case you missed it, Jenna Bush was married to Henry Chase Hager yesterday on the Crawford ranch. A lovely Texas ceremony by all accounts, and the NYT notes:

On Saturday afternoon, the Hager family hosted wedding guests at a barbecue in Salado. The wedding, which began at 7:30 p.m., took place on the Bush ranch, before a white limestone altar erected next to a man-made lake. The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston officiated at the ceremony. Mr. Caldwell, a longtime religious adviser to Mr. Bush, has endorsed Senator Barack Obama.

The battle between the IRS and churches may be heating up as churches with a political bent seek to challenge the tax exemption laws.

A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics.

Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.

The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate.

The US Military has court-martialled an Iraqi-Canadian working as a translator for the US in Iraq.

In 2006, Congress gave the military authority to prosecute crimes allegedly committed by civilians working for the armed forces.

Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, referred the case, the military said in a statement.

"This is the first time a civilian will be tried by court-martial" under the 2006 amendment, it said.

Cokie Roberts was on This Week with George Stephanopolous - as usual - but this week she was saying how unfair the media has been to Hillary, calling for her to drop-out and that it surely must be for sexist reasons. Then she muttered something to the effect of "and I don't even read the blogs, I can't even begin to imagine what they're saying." Link to the video. Oh--- how awful it must be to have to suffer through the voice of actual voters, Cokie. I've got news for you sweetheart -- it can't be any harder than listening to you and George Will bloviate on and on, all the while feeding each other's smug sense of entitlement on an otherwise pleasant Sunday morning.

It seems William Kristol will always have fierce competition for the title "Dumbest Conservative Pundit" (DUCPU), even at his own profoundly shallow magazine. Here is one of his stable of ignoramuses, Michael Goldfarb, parroting the Republican Party line:

“As to whether Bush is a recruiting tool for terrorists--who cares? Al Qaeda was recruiting before Bush was in office and they will continue to do so after he's gone. The important thing is that we keep killing those recruits. Eventually, one side will give up. And if Obama wins in November, we know which side that will be.”

- smintheus

Happy Mother's Day to all the Kossack mothers and grandmothers. Enjoy the day.

Disasters, Surge and Pandemics

Sun, 11 May 2008 15:53:32 GMT

So here are some cheery headlines to catch your eye:

US: Hospital ERs overwhelmed, one-day study finds (May 5)

A one-day snapshot of emergency room conditions at 34 U.S. hospitals shows they are all overwhelmed and none is prepared to handle a big event like a disaster or attack.

Bird flu pandemic risk just as real and probably growing (May 8)

Experts are warning that the risk of a human bird flu pandemic remains just as real and is in fact probably growing.

Doctors debate who would be allowed to die in pandemic (May 5)

Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die.

Together, they illustrate a dilemma. On the one hand, US hospitals are already strained, and can't really handle any more stress (see Medical Crisis: The Shape Of Things To Come). On the other hand, any kind of major disaster, be it a Katrina-size storm or a pandemic, will add more patients and more demands to a medical system already maxed out, particularly when it comes to emergency departments and intensive care units (see Pandemic Challenges For Hospitals.) From the WaPo back in February:

The federal government's voluminous plans for dealing with pandemic flu do not adequately account for the overwhelming strain an outbreak would place on hospitals and public health systems trying to cope with millions of seriously ill Americans, some public health experts and local health officials say.

It's a problem. After all, from wildfires to tornadoes, natural disasters happen. So what does one do? A relatively new approach to major disasters after Katrina is to realistically appraise the numbers and try and figure out how hospitals can cope... see Hospital Surge, Exercises and Pandemics. And when they can't, well, at that point, when patients outnumber the available beds and equipment to take care of them, tough decisions need to be made.

...an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia.

The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and U.S. government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way" when pandemic flu or another widespread health-care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report.

For anyone interested in the details, the medical journal CHEST has made the task force report available (in several parts) for free.

Now, whenever we talk about hospital surge and rationing, there's bound to be people that get upset. But in reality, it's much better to talk about these things in advance rather than avoiding the topic, having no plan and having a disaster hit. And limited beds, limited supplies and limited personnel (shortages of space, staff and stuff) will force these unpleasant rationing choices upon us, like it or not. That's why California and New York have both looked at versions of this. In addition, the nature of infectious disease outbreaks, with the possibility of quarantine and isolation, have raised civil liberties issues of a different sort (see The ACLU, Pandemic Preparedness, and You).

So, step back and look at the big picture. The sheer size and scope of disasters require a completely different approach than medical 'business as usual', yet that means bringing in ethical and legal issues (e.g., rationing) that our political candidates like to avoid (except when they are accusing the other guy of advocating it). But don't let the politicians fool you. As illustrated in today's post, looking at rationing is now a mainstream part of evaluating hospital disaster care, and an arguably appropriate response to shortages.

The California Department of Public Health recently released the first comprehensive surge guidelines for health care during a catastrophic emergency.

The new "surge capacity guidelines" - which authorities hope will serve as guidlines for hospitals nationwide, especially in the event of a pandemic - calls for letting older, sicker patients be allowed to die in order to save the lives of patients more likely to survive a catastrophic public health crisis.

By the way, this is a topic (health reform, disaster preparedness and the state of disrepair of public health infrastructure) the Presidential candidates need to address. At the same time, looking at "gut-wrenching dilemmas" needs to be done openly and with the input and participation of the public. You certainly don't want decisions like these to be made without you, do you?

The Past And Future Election

Sun, 11 May 2008 13:26:36 GMT

American Presidential elections are about the future, and not the past. It's for that reason that the contrast between the junior senator from Illinois and the senior senator from Arizona is so fascinating.

The Republican National Committee is planning a $19.5 million advertising campaign to portray Mr. Obama, 46, as out of touch with the country and too inexperienced to be commander in chief, seeking to put him on the defensive before he can use his financial advantage against Mr. McCain, 71, party officials said.

"In 1984, Ronald Reagan said, ‘I’m not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience,’ " said Frank Donatelli, the deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee. "Well, we are going to exploit Obama’s youth and inexperience."

On the Democratic side, Mr. Obama’s aides this week put finishing touches on advertisements intended to tether Mr. McCain to Mr. Bush and chip away at his image as a maverick, an identity that the aides said they found remained strong with voters.

"By November, every voter will know that McCain is offering a third Bush term," said Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe.

It isn't the age stuff (McCain at 72 would be the oldest President ever inaugurated, and as he put it himself, he's a man of "the twentieth century, my century"; Obama would be a year older than Bill Clinton was when Clinton took office.) It isn't character (McCain made it to the top the Republican way: he cheated on his first wife and married a Sugar Momma, who still finances his political ambitions; see McCain campaign violates own travel policy and the issue of Cindy McCain's tax returns.) No, it's none of that. It's the important stuff, issues in the real world that affect all of us. As David Gergen put it:

"The next president will inherit the most difficult agenda since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt," he warned.

Gergen stressed that a continuation of current policies would likely result in the decline of America while Japan, China and India may become superpowers within the next few decades. Whether the U.S. will remain one is questionable, he said, especially if our policies remain static.

According to Gergen, America not only needs to change its policies, but revolutionize them. In addition, problems including two extensive wars, the education system and job growth require solving, not "sugar-coating."

It is in this regard that the contrast is so striking. So, let's look at the three issues Americans have identified as "most important" to them.

Iraq (statements from Foreign Affairs):

Obama:
To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.

McCain:
Whether success grows closer or more distant over the coming months, it is clear that Iraq will be a central issue for the next U.S. president. Democratic candidates have promised to withdraw U.S. troops and "end the war" by fiat, regardless of the consequences. To make such decisions based on the political winds at home, rather than on the realities in the theater, is to court disaster. The war in Iraq cannot be wished away, and it is a miscalculation of historic magnitude to believe that the consequences of failure will be limited to one administration or one party. This is an American war, and its outcome will touch every one of our citizens for years to come.

That is why I support our continuing efforts to win in Iraq. It is also why I oppose a preemptive withdrawal strategy that has no Plan B for the aftermath of its inevitable failure and the greater problems that would ensue.

So who's right? Hint: not John McCain. Writing this month in Foreign Affairs, Steven Simon notes in The Price of the Surge (bolded mine):

Unfortunately, such claims misconstrue the causes of the recent fall in violence and, more important, ignore a fatal flaw in the strategy. The surge has changed the situation not by itself but only in conjunction with several other developments: the grim successes of ethnic cleansing, the tactical quiescence of the Shiite militias, and a series of deals between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes that constitute a new bottom-up approach to pacifying Iraq. The problem is that this strategy to reduce violence is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state. If anything, it has made such an outcome less likely, by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni Arab tribes and pitting them against the central government and against one another. In other words, the recent short-term gains have come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.

Despite the current lull in violence, Washington needs to shift from a unilateral bottom-up surge strategy to a policy that promotes, rather than undermines, Iraq's cohesion. That means establishing an effective multilateral process to spur top-down political reconciliation among the major Iraqi factions. And that, in turn, means stating firmly and clearly that most U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Iraq within two or three years. Otherwise, a strategy adopted for near-term advantage by a frustrated administration will only increase the likelihood of long-term debacle.

Of course, McCain (the so-called military expert) hasn't been pinned down for a response about this, which qualifies as an example of Gergen's "sugar coating":

"So the Pentagon would maintain a team of 'military analysts' who reliably 'carry their water' -- yet who were presented as independent analysts by the television and cable networks. By feeding only those pro-Government sources key information and giving them access -- even before responding to the press -- only those handpicked analysts would be valuable to the networks, and that, in turn, would ensure that only pro-Government sources were heard from.

Hmmm... well, let's turn to another topic of import: health reform.

Bush issues new secrecy directive

Sun, 11 May 2008 06:45:33 GMT

On Friday afternoon, with George Bush in Texas for his daughter's wedding, the White House finally released its new Executive Branch rules for designating and disseminating what used to be known as "sensitive" information. The most common term in the past for such material has been "Sensitive But Unclassified" (SBU), though there was an alphabet soup of competing classifications in various agencies. In part, the new rules create a uniform standard across the Executive by replacing SBU etc. with a new classification, "Controlled Unclassified Information" (CUI).

The Friday memo states that its purpose "is to standardize practices and thereby improve the sharing of information, not to classify or declassify new or additional information." The initial impetus for change came in a December 2005 memo in which Bush called for a new policy for information sharing between agencies. The alphabet soup of "sensitive" designations too often played into the hands of officials who sought to hoard information rather than to share it.

Furthermore, after passage of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 federal agencies had been encouraged to apply the SBU designation to just about anything they didn't feel like releasing to the public. Hyper-classification was out of control.

Initially, SBU was used to denote unclassified national security information that might nonetheless be “useful to an adversary.” Interestingly, when the National Security Agency expanded that usage to encompass “other government interests” back in 1986, Congress objected and the NSA backed off.

The Homeland Security Act authorized DHS to identify and safeguard “sensitive unclassified information” but didn’t define the term...DHS issued an internal directive on May 11, 2004 which it titled “Safeguarding Sensitive but Unclassified Information.” The directive said employees should mark as “For Official Use Only” any “sensitive but unclassified information” the department generated or that was received by DHS from other government and non-governmental sources. The directive was itself labeled For Official Use Only and became public only after the Federation of American Scientists filed an FOIA request.

It defines SBU as information whose “unauthorized disclosure could adversely impact a person's privacy or welfare, the conduct of Federal programs, or other programs or operations essential to the national interest.” The definition allows maximum individual discretion...

DHS provides for no internal or external oversight to its document-marking decisions. In contrast, the classification system provides for oversight by an Information Security Oversight Office, which is sometimes quite critical of the process.

There is no time limit on the withholding of this “sensitive” information. By contrast, classification laws provide for declassification, in most cases automatically after 10 years.

So in theory reform in the area of classifying "sensitive" information might be welcome. Indeed some reformers like Steve Aftergood initially held out some hope that in cutting through red tape the new rules, when eventually published, would also make more government information available to the public.

But this is the Bush administration. It excluded public input into the rule-making process and was bound to sacrifice transparency on the altar of secrecy, as POGO predicted in January.

We are even more concerned that the final word on this policy will come from a White House that has hitherto shown no aptitude or inclination for sharing public information with the public, that has rather than decreasing secrecy, steadily increased it throughout its term.

In fact, Friday's memo doesn't even pretend to rein in secrecy. Quite the opposite, it looks like the Bush administration used the crafting of new rules as an opportunity to expand the range of government secrecy.

As the semantic shift in the name change indicates (SBU to CUI), the new rules have policy implications that go beyond mere information-sharing. The new term ('controlled') indicates the intended outcome (i.e. secrecy), whereas the old term ('sensitive') had provided a justification for keeping 'Unclassified' material secret. That suggests immediately that the Bush administration wants the CUI classification to justify itself - to cut off by definition any appeal for publication of a document.

The timing of the rules' publication is the second clue that something more may be at issue than the mere tidying up of terminology. There was a long delay between the time the WH received the draft rules and when they were made public. Already in late December the DoD said it anticipated WH approval of the rules "shortly", and indeed it created a task force to implement the rules. A draft of the rules had been finalized in 2007 by "an interagency panel chaired by Ambassador Thomas McNamara, program manager of the Information Sharing Environment, an office under the Director of National Intelligence." McNamara has always emphasized in testimony to Congress that his goal was to simplify categories of "sensitive" classification so as to permit "the great majority of the information which is now controlled" to be left wholly unrestricted: "that is the system that we are trying to put together, a rational limited set of categories that…can be applied to controllable information, but leave most of it as fully unclassified.”

That may have been McNamara's goal, but it does not really describe the new rules as published on Friday. Instead, the memo rather strikingly creates open-ended grounds for classifying information as "Controlled". Here is its definition of the term CUI (all emphases are mine):

"Controlled Unclassified Information" is a categorical designation that refers to unclassified information that does not meet the standards for National Security Classification under Executive Order 12958, as amended, but is (i) pertinent to the national interests of the United States or to the important interests of entities outside the Federal Government, and (ii) under law or policy requires protection from unauthorized disclosure, special handling safeguards, or prescribed limits on exchange or dissemination. Henceforth, the designation CUI replaces "Sensitive But Unclassified" (SBU).

"Pertinent" is about as vague as a limitation can get. In any case, Bush declares here that the CUI designation is to be used when his policies "require protection from unauthorized disclosure". It's a big rubber stamp for anything the President wants to keep from anybody, including the public. I can think of any number of obnoxious "policies" that this administration would have reason to believe required protection from disclosure. Later on the memo adds the normal clause stating that classification cannot be used to conceal illegal acts and embarrassing information. Its effect however, as regards the Bush administration, is slight since so many top officials appear to have no sense of shame and anyhow they're quite determined that everything the President orders is legal ipso facto.

The same open-endedness is apparent in the memo's description of when to designate something "Controlled":

(25) Information shall be designated as CUI and carry an authorized CUI marking if:

a. a statute requires or authorizes such a designation; or

b. the head of the originating department or agency, through regulations, directives, or other specific guidance to the agency, determines that the information is CUI. Such determination should be based on mission requirements, business prudence, legal privilege, the protection of personal or commercial rights, safety, or security. Such department or agency directives, regulations, or guidance shall be provided to the Executive Agent [i.e. the National Archives] for review.

Again, "mission requirements", "safety" and "security" are sufficiently vague as to invite all manner of abuses in classifying information. The memo is open-ended not to restrict how much information can be kept secret - there are few limitations placed upon CUI classification, all of them pro forma - but instead to make it easier to keep more information secret. It looks to me as if one of the goals of the new rules is to encourage agencies to classify as CUI as much material as possible. Indeed, the memo appears to acknowledge that.

(28) The CUI Framework shall be used for such information to the maximum extent possible, but shall not affect or interfere with specific regulatory requirements for marking, safeguarding, and disseminating.

And as before with SBU classification, there is no external oversight of the classification process nor limits placed upon it - neither in quantity of documents that may be classified CUI, nor in the length of time they remain so designated. Agency heads are in charge of making the classification decisions, and it's far from clear whether those can be reversed or checked by any regular means. The National Archives is given vague powers to publish CUI standards and monitor their use, but the goal appears to be to reconcile agencies to each other rather than to restrain the use of CUI designations.

Though the material to be regulated is nominally "unclassified", this new system is in fact a much more sweeping program for keeping information secret than the ostensibly higher grades of secrecy for "classified" material. And at the same time, the system for designating "unclassified" information is in significant ways far less regulated than for "classified" information. This new memo represents the opposite of reform.

+++

See also this diary on the memo by philipmerrill

Eco-Diary Rescue 5.10

Sun, 11 May 2008 05:38:24 GMT

If you haven’t already, now is a good time to get ready for John McCain, Eco-Ranger. Because we’re going to hear a lot from the Arizona Senator about the environment. Some of what he says is going to sound pretty good. Beware.

As Kate Sheppard at Grist wrote Friday:

John McCain gave a campaign speech in New Jersey today in which he touched on environmental issues and talked up his record in that area. "There is no doubt our environment is globally challenged," McCain said in a stop at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J. "I'm proud of my environmental record."

But as some enviros in the state were quick to point out, that record is mixed at best (take, for example, his lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of 24 percent and his 2007 score of zero). "His words say one thing, his record puts him in lockstep with the Bush administration and its dismantling of environmental programs," New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel told Newsday.

The speech [Friday] was the first of several environmental addresses planned over the next week. On Monday, McCain is slated to give a big speech at Vestas Energy, which manufactures wind turbines, in Portland, Ore.

Take notes, everybody.

You can find the DailyKos Environmentalists here.

Click for the Rescue.

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

Sun, 11 May 2008 04:33:22 GMT

This evening's Rescue Rangers are shayera, vcmvo2, jlms qkw, Avila, srkp23, and joyful, with watercarrier4diogenes wearing the "Robes of Objectivity."

Tonight's diaries cover a variety of interesting issues not covered by the "traditional media" (™ kos) with the kind of research, perspective and analysis we see here every day.

jimstaro asks us to remember the upcoming testimony of Iraq War soldiers in Winter Soldiers - Congress - May 15th. (shayera)

SmileySam analyzes whether or not anyone in the Bush administration will be held accountable for violating international law against the use of torture in It's Not A Witch Hunt, But You Choose. (vcmvo2)

In Scary HealthCare Reform, JDWolverton illustrates that the plans of all three major candidates have issues. (jlms qkw)

Barth takes a look back at the NY Times from the time of FDR's campaign to analyze The Change Election. (srkp23)

iampunha endearingly dares us in I'll tell you about mine if you tell me about yours in a lovely tribute to moms. (jlms qkw)

Dominionist-group survivor dogemperor continues his discussion of journalist Matt Taibbi's expose on John Hagee. "God of Chunder": McCain's "spiritual advisor" will make you puke, literally. (joyful)

cactusflinthead brings welcome news that Jamie Leigh Jones may yet get the justice she has so bravely been fighting for, in Halliburton/KBR rape to go to trial. (srkp23)

Taking us across the country, ElizabethAM's Vote for Change Kickoff-Dallas Edition and LaAbogada's VOTE FOR CHANGE - LOS ANGELES demonstrate activism at its finest! (joyful)

Avenging Angel's well-linked piece links Mothers' Day, Global Warming and McCain's "Character Campaign". (srkp23)

markthshark tells us that Joe Lieberman is letting the Country down (yet again) in "The safety of the American people depends on it." (shayera)

DCLaw jumps off from Greenwald and further analyzes the media silence concerning the military propaganda machine, in Uncle Sam Has You. (srkp23)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - May 9, 2008.

carolita has Top Comments 5-10-08 -- Keeping Score Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread (even if you're the author! Here's where that's actually appreciated). And, of course, since it's an open thread, PLAY NICE, OK? 8^)

NC Senate: Dole in Deep Trouble

Sun, 11 May 2008 02:49:30 GMT

Few people in politics had a worse year in 2006 than Liddy Dole. The chair of the Republican's Senate campaign committee, by the end of the campaign she had pretty much been bypassed by the Bush team, who tried to save vulnerable Republicans by running the operation through the RNC. It didn't work. Other than current DLC Chair Harold Ford, who ran against the Democratic party but wouldn't run against the war, every Democrat in a close race beat their Republican opponent. Dole's tenure at the NRSC was an unmitigated disaster.

Well, 2008 may be an even worse year for her, as she could very well lose her Senate seat to Democrat Kay Hagan:

Rasmussen
May 8, 2008 500 Respondents +/-4.5%

Hagen 48
Dole 47
Other 2
Not Sure 3

"Shiites ruin McCain's Sunni disposition"

Sun, 11 May 2008 02:10:31 GMT

With most of the traditional media helpfully ignoring John McCain's confusion over Shiites, Sunnis and their respective relationship with Iran, we'll have to settle for a little humorous attention:

In a major speech on the war in Iraq today, presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain said that the Iraqis have split into two factions, Shiites and Sunnis, with a sinister goal in mind.

"My friends, the Iraqis have divided themselves into these two groups for one reason and one reason only," McCain told an audience in a retirement village in Scottsdale, Ariz. "They are trying to confuse me."

McCain said that while the two groups of Iraqis are "well-nigh impossible" to tell apart, he vowed to commit American troops to Iraq "for as long as it takes for me to figure out just what the difference between Sunnis and Shiites is."

"If it takes 100 years, 1,000 years, or a billion zillion years, we will stay there until I can tell Sunnis and Shiites apart," the Arizona senator said.

Of course it is said that all humor is based on the truth...

Joe Lieberman: "I Personally Checked John McCain's Bearings"

Sun, 11 May 2008 01:20:31 GMT

Dr. Lieberman:

‘I just want to report that this morning I personally checked John McCain’s bearings. He has not lost any of them. They are all in really great shape."

Little too much information, maybe, Joe?

Late Afternoon/Early Evening Open Thread

Sun, 11 May 2008 00:15:32 GMT

Coming Up on Sunday Kos ...

If your stereotypical image of a spy is a government agent, either slinking around the back country of Waziristan trying to find somebody who knows where Osama bin Laden is or sitting behind a computer evaluating cryptic cell-phone calls, think again. Spies are doing that all right. And a whole lot more. But they're more likely to be private contractors these days than government employees. As Tim Shorrock writes in Spies for Hire: Inside the Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, 70% of today's $60 billion intelligence budget goes to private contractors, many of whom have left government jobs at the CIA, NSA, DGIA, or one of the other 13 intelligence agencies and walked back in the door as a private contractor for three times the salary. It's all part of what people inside and outside government are calling the "Intelligence- Industrial Complex." Meteor Blades will take a close look at Shorrock's book and the implications of his findings.

SusanG will review Larry Bartels' Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age.

DemFromCT has two posts on deck. In one, he will review recent recommendations that will have profound impact on hospital plans for surge capacity in the event of disasters such as pandemics, wildfires and hurricanes (see Doctors debate who would be allowed to die in pandemic), and how that fits in with health reform. In his second post, he'll look ahead to November and preview Barack Obama and John McCain running in The Past And Future Election.

Plutonium Page will discuss the nuclear posture of the United States, paying particular attention to Hillary Clinton's recent remark about obliterating Iran and her repeated comparisons of today's foreign policy climate with the Cold War.

mcjoan will explore how deeply AT&T's tentacles have reached in their fight for telecom amnesty.

BarbinMD will examine John McCain's decades-long history of helping out land developers in his native Arizona--all of whom just happen to be big campaign contributors.

DHinMI will discuss how US miscalculations may be a factor in the possible eruption of a full-fledged civil war in Lebanon.

John McCain, the lobbyist and the GOP Convention

Sat, 10 May 2008 23:40:32 GMT

John McCain once said:

The fact is if you want to drain the swamp, take the money away from the bigtime ... lobbyists, they lose their power and influence.

But that was then and this is now, because John McCain has named Doug Goodyear, the CEO of a consulting firm that "earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients" to manage this summer's GOP convention. It gets better:

Potentially more problematic: the firm was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma's military junta, which had been strongly condemned by the State Department for its human-rights record and remains in power today. Justice Department lobbying records show DCI pushed to "begin a dialogue of political reconciliation" with the regime. It also led a PR campaign to burnish the junta's image, drafting releases praising Burma's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing "falsehoods" by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses.

Comedy. The man who will run the convention to name John McCain as the Republican nominee to carry out George Bush's third term, is a lobbyist who once defended an oppressive military regime by calling George Bush a liar.

It's at times like this that you realize how difficult it is to be a straight talking maverick.

Update: And now, Goodyear has resigned:

The public relations executive that Senator John McCain’s campaign tapped to run the Republican National Convention this summer resigned his post Saturday after a magazine reported that his firm had lobbied for the military junta that runs Myanmar. [...]

A McCain campaign official said that the campaign appreciated Mr. Goodyear’s timely resignation, and his work for the convention. The official said that there was no word yet on a successor.

"It’s obviously unfortunate,’’ the official said, "but we’ve just got to move on."

Maybe Jack Abramoff will get out of prison in time to take over...

[h/t to fhamme]

What "Helping Clinton Retire Her Debt" Means

Sat, 10 May 2008 22:55:32 GMT

A month ago I raised the issue of Hillary Clinton's campaign debt as a complicating factor is ending her futile quest for the Democratic nomination. Time had published speculation from a Clinton aide that mounting campaign debt could create problems for Clinton, because she would have to get additional donations before she could start raising for her next Senate campaign.

The issue of Clinton's campaign debt and what Obama might be able to do about it is causing confusion. The inherent difficulty for most people in making sense of the nuances of campaign finance issues has been exacerbated by some reportage and commentary on the matter. For instance, a few days ago Josh Marshall ruminated on how Obama donors would feel if their contributions went from Obama's campaign fund in to Clinton's campaign fund.

It's not a subject worth ruminating on, because it would be illegal for Obama's campaign fund to donate more than $2,000 to Clinton's campaign.

Unfortunately Steve Benen has quoted Marshall's piece without noting that it's not legally permissible for Obama to donate money to clear Clinton's debt. Others, including the NYT, are confusing the matter by not making it clear that Obama can not give more than ~~$2,300~~ $2,000* from his campaign fund to Clinton's campaign.

Let's make this absolutely clear:

Money given to Obama's campaign, either in the past or in the future, WILL NOT end up in Clinton's campaign fund.

What Obama can do is go to his donors and ask them to contribute to Clinton's campaign. He could have his campaign send out email appeals to small donors to help Clinton pay off her debt.

Helping Clinton pay off her debt would not be a simple act of altruism by Obama. It would be in Obama's self-interest to help take the debt issue off the table if it facilitated her exit from the race and helped avoid the distractions of delegate challenges and talk about "taking it to the convention."

There's still the question, however, of how much Obama could really raise for Clinton, and whether it would be enough to get her out of the race. I'm skeptical that the offer to help erase her campaign debt would amount to much. Her debt is over $10 million, and it's possible she's putting more money is now to keep her campaign going. These kinds of offers are usually made when the losing candidate had taken out a bank loan for campaign debt, or had done something like put their house up for collateral in order to secure a loan. Those are the acts of a candidate who doesn't have the means to put in her own money, or simply refuses to pay out of her own pocket.

Hillary Clinton didn't borrow money for her campaign. She essentially wrote a check from her personal account to her campaign account. With their new wealth since Bill Clinton left the White House, $10 million isn't really all that big a chunk of change for the Clintons. A candidate can't carry debt from one campaign to the next, unless the debt is to themselves. Thus, Hillary Clinton could easily write off the debt to herself.

Since the money would not be necessary to protect Clinton's viability for future campaigns, donations to retire Clinton's debt would really be contributions directly to the personal and private wealth of Hillary and Bill Clinton. I don't see many Obama donors taking money from their personal pocket and putting it in to Hillary Clinton's personal pocket, especially not after the campaign Clinton has run and continues to run against Obama.

So, people worried that money you donated in the past or might donate in the future to Barack Obama might go to Hillary Clinton, relax. Whether any of your money goes to Hillary Clinton will be your decision. Unless you want it to, none of your money will end up in Hill and Bill's piggy bank.

*[The personal contribution limit increased from $2,000 to $2,300 for this campaign cycle, but the contribution limit for a campaign committee to campaign committee contribution remained capped at $2,000.]