Ducking in

Today, at the Duck of Minerva group international relations blog, I posted "Ire of Newt." Former Speaker of the House Gingrich is calling for the head of successor Nancy Pelosi because of her accusing the CIA of lying about what they told her about waterboarding in 2002. I reveal the frequent occasions when Newt himself has called out the CIA and State Department during wartime.

Yesterday, I posted "KSM: NIMBY?" which is about the hullabaloo surrounding the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. KSM is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. NIMBY = "not in my backyard."

Wednesday, April 29, I posted "Neorealists as Critial Theorists: Film Edition." I examined the favorite IR films of Harvard academic (and blogger) Stephen Walt in light of my film class (and work on "comedy of global politics").

Tuesday, April 28, I posted "The flu: context," which discussed the broad human security implications of the flu in an ordinary year (without swine flu).


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Partisanship and the financial rescue

About 60% of House Democrats voted for the economic rescue package earlier today, even as over 2/3 of House Republicans voted against it. Nonetheless, the McCain campaign is blaming Obama and Democratic partisanship for the failure. McCain said the following a bit after 5 pm ET:

"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to affix the blame. It’s time to fix the problem. "

Forget for a moment the illogic in those consecutive sentences. What, specifically, does the McCain campaign reference as partisan? The answer is Nancy Pelosi's speech introducing the debate. Here's senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin:

Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome. This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.

Read the speech and Speaker Pelosi blamed the Bush administration for the current crisis:

It [$700 billion] is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration’s failed economic policies—policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.

Democrats believe in the free market, which can and does create jobs, wealth, and capital, but left to its own devices it has created chaos.

That chaos is the dismal picture painted by Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke a week and a half ago in the Capitol.

As they pointed out, we confront a crisis of historic magnitude that has the ability to do serious injury not simply to our economy, but to the American people: not just to Wall Street, but to everyday Americans on Main Street.

It is our responsibility today, to help avert that catastrophic outcome.

Let us be clear: This is a crisis caused on Wall Street. But it is a crisis that reaches to Main Street in every city and town of the United States.

It is a crisis that freezes credit, causes families to lose their homes, cripples small businesses, and makes it harder to find jobs.

It is a crisis that never had to happen. It is now the duty of every Member of this body to recognize that the failure to act responsibly, with full protections for the American taxpayer, would compound the damage already done to the financial security of millions of American families.

Over the past several days, we have worked with our Republican colleagues to fashion an alternative to the original plan of the Bush Administration.

Now, compare that to what McCain said in Friday's debate:

we are seeing, for the first time in a long time, Republicans and Democrats together, sitting down, trying to work out a solution to this fiscal crisis that we're in.

And have no doubt about the magnitude of this crisis. And we're not talking about failure of institutions on Wall Street. We're talking about failures on Main Street, and people who will lose their jobs, and their credits, and their homes, if we don't fix the greatest fiscal crisis, probably in -- certainly in our time, and I've been around a little while.

But the point is -- the point is, we have finally seen Republicans and Democrats sitting down and negotiating together and coming up with a package.

This package has transparency in it. It has to have accountability and oversight. It has to have options for loans to failing businesses, rather than the government taking over those loans. We have to -- it has to have a package with a number of other essential elements to it.

And, yes, I went back to Washington, and I met with my Republicans in the House of Representatives. And they weren't part of the negotiations, and I understand that. And it was the House Republicans that decided that they would be part of the solution to this problem...

Somehow we've lost that accountability. I've been heavily criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We've got to start also holding people accountable, and we've got to reward people who succeed.

But somehow in Washington today -- and I'm afraid on Wall Street -- greed is rewarded, excess is rewarded, and corruption -- or certainly failure to carry out our responsibility is rewarded...

look, we've got to fix the system. We've got fundamental problems in the system. And Main Street is paying a penalty for the excesses and greed in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street.

So there's no doubt that we have a long way to go. And, obviously, stricter interpretation and consolidation of the various regulatory agencies that weren't doing their job, that has brought on this crisis.

If Pelosi repeats (and makes a bit more explicit) McCain's charges, then how is that overly partisan?

Who, exactly, presided over the failure of accountability? Who let greed call the shots on Wall Street and in Washington?

It was in the context of spending, but McCain offered the most scathing partisan attack issued over the past few days:

"We Republicans came to power to change government, and government changed us."

In this case, Republicans were supposed to deliver just 75 to 80 House votes and they failed.

The emergency rescue bill would have passed the House if 12 more Republicans (of 133 voting no) had joined their colleagues (plus 140 Democrats) and voted yes.


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218 micromanagers?

The House voted 218-212 today to set a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Needless to say, that is far from a veto-proof majority.

Nonetheless, 218 is a majority of the 435 seat House of Representatives.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi knows what this vote means symbolically:

“Today, this new Congress took a new step to end the war in Iraq,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. “The American people, their voices, have been heard.”

...Ms. Pelosi called the legislation, which took the form of an emergency spending bill, “a giant step to end the war and responsibly redeploy our troops out of Iraq” and concentrate on Afghanistan, “where the war on terrorism is.”

The President too understands the symbolism -- he even called it "an act of political theater."

Two Republicans voted with the majority, including long-time war foe Walter Jones of NC, while 14 Democrats voted no. Some of those who voted no didn't think the measure was sufficiently anti-war.

Here is the proposed timetable:

The withdrawal timetable provision, which calls for most American troops to be out of Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008, is part of a bill to provide about $100 billion to finance the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would also impose a series of performance benchmarks, for Baghdad and for Washington, to show progress in the new Iraq. Withdrawal would be required even sooner if progress on those benchmarks could not be demonstrated.

I guess today's vote explains why the Dems wanted to work on Fridays.


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Kerry-McCain ticket watch

A couple of bloggers have noticed a remark by Republican Senator John McCain Friday:

``I believe my party has gone astray,'' McCain said, criticizing GOP stands on environmental and minority issues.

``I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and their philosophy,'' he said.

Of course, he then said, "But I also feel the Republican Party can be brought back to the principles I articulated before.''

In short, McCain continues to fire away at the Bush Administration -- but he also continues to deny that he's willing to be John Kerry's Vice President:

The maverick senator made the remarks at a legislative seminar hosted by U.S. Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Lowell) as he again ruled out running on a ticket with Democrat John F. Kerry.

The Arizona Republican took on President Bush for failing to prepare Americans for a long involvement in Iraq, saying, ``You can't fly in on an aircraft carrier and declare victory and have the deaths continue. You can't do that.''

McCain said the U.S. should seek more U.N. involvement in Iraq. ``Many people in this room question, legitimately, whether we should have gone in or not,'' he said.

Still...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was quoted Friday saying that McCain might be a good choice for Kerry's Veep:

"It's very important to have another person on the field who is part of the presidential ticket," Pelosi told a round-table meeting of reporters Friday. "I don't want to see John Kerry debating with Dick Cheney in the press, I don't want to see him debating down. I want him to be debating the president of the United States."

"I think that it would be important to have a nominee by May 1," Pelosi said. Kerry's campaign has been vague about a timetable for the decision.

Pelosi also said that the selection of Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain would be "a gesture to bring the country together," but she said she had no reason to think that would happen.

It's quite unlikely to happen, but it would be damn interesting.

As I've blogged before, McCain has been fairly nice to Kerry at times and sometimes quite nasty towards Bush.