Thanks

I hope everyone enjoyed reading Paul Parker's blog entries while I was on vacation. They were great and I really appreciated him substituting for me while I was mostly inactive.

I was also very grateful to Avery on the 4th of July weekend, though I think I forgot to say so publicly.

Again, great work guys -- and thanks.

Sensitive Men

Out on the campaign trail, Vice President Dick Cheney is making fun of John Kerry for wanting to conduct the "war on terror" in a more "sensitive" fashion. I won't bother to skewer this at length since Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" did a fantastic job on that front last night. If you missed it, catch the replay tonight at 7 pm ET.

Bottom line: Kerry's use of the word "sensitive" was in a string of adjectives describing how he would better conduct the "war on terror." Stewart twice showed film of President Bush describing the sensitivity of America's mission and also went "live" to Rob Corddry in Najaf...where American forces did not attack al-Sadr forces at a mosque. Stewart noted this reflected American cultural sensitivity (and some might add the laws of war).

I think this was the Bush quote:

Now in terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is -- we need to be very sensitive on that.

That's from August 6, 2004, so the flip-flopping of this administration can be quite speedy.

Poking some more around the White House website, I found this quote from former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar:

PRESIDENT AZNAR: I'd like to underscore the extreme sensitivity of President Bush with regard to Ibero-American issues, as was evidenced by the various initiatives he has implemented since becoming President of the United States, and which I, myself, have been able to see during our discussions today.

...And obviously, his sensitivity is demonstrated in a very intense way.

Aznar said this at a joint press conference with Bush in Madrid.

This is the Vice President himself, earlier this year:

We are currently involved in thinking about what our force posture ought to be on a worldwide basis, not just with respect to the Pacific and Japan, but forces in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. And it's conceivable as part of that some adjustments will be made in the posture of U.S. forces in the years ahead. And certainly, as we go through that process, we'll want to take into account the need to be sensitive to the concerns of local folks.

Who's the sensitive man now?

Or the Veep on "60 Minutes II" in November 2001:

A lot of things are changing. We're going to be more sensitive, I think, with respect to what goes on around us. The American people have to be.

Wait, there's more than one way to be "sensitive"?


Footnote: Bush repeatedly says the debate about gay marriage is sensitive and he also often uses the word when describing the resolution of Israeli-Palestinian relations.

French Kiss of Death?

Do you recognize the tall fellow in the center of the picture? The one with the long face and pointy chin posing with his family in front of the Capitol?

While he looks like he could be Senator John Kerry's younger brother, he's actually a Republican Senator from Oregon, Gordon Smith.

Compare their faces...were they separated at birth?



According to the Los Angeles Times, Smith attacked Kerry yesterday for looking and acting French:

"It's not John Kerry's fault that he looks French," Smith told reporters on the conference call arranged by the Bush campaign.

"But it is his fault that he wants to pursue policies that have us act like the French."

Smith then said some something silly about Kerry's policies promoting "additional socialism at home" and "appeasement abroad." These guys sure learned their Nixonian/John Birch Society lessons well, eh?

Does anyone really think that Americans are going to reject Kerry on the grounds of "creeping socialism" even as the Bush administration runs around bragging about its giant Medicare plan?

In any case, I got to looking around for information about Smith and naturally thought, what could be more French than traveling to France and working with the French (or Francophiles)?

For the record, in Oregon, Smith's former staffer Goli Ameri is trying to get elected to the House of Representatives. Her campaign bio brags that she "studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France" and "is fluent in French."

I wonder if Smith taunts Ameri about her French-ness?

Smith himself traveled to France as recently as June.

On May 8, 2001, Smith participated in a policy roundtable on "U.S.-France Global Dialogue" at the Center on the United States and France. It was cosponsored by the French American Foundation.

On December 3, 2003, Smith introduced Jean-David Levitte, Ambassador of France to the US, when the latter spoke in Maryland at the 26th Festival of Lights. Since this latter event is associated with the Mormon Church, which is Smith's faith, I presume the Senator helped arrange the French Ambassador's appearance. After all, ambassadors or spouses from 55 countries were represented and the French ambassador was chosen to deliver the keynote address for the occasion.

According to news reports of the event, Smith declared "France was this country"s first ally." He also noted the importance of France to the President of the Church of Latter Day Saints. The ceremony serves as a "diplomatic bridge-builder for the church."

Smith is a former Chair of the Senate European Affairs Subcommittee and undoubtedly formed close bonds with all sorts of European appeasers and socialists.

Proliferation

I'm back.

I'd like to say that I'm "tanned, rested and ready" but that would be too many lies even for Dick Nixon. My skin burns, so I avoid and/or block the sun, I stayed up too late virtually every night on vacation and, frankly, I wouldn't have minded another week or two off with my family.

Sigh.

Still, upon my return, I couldn't help but notice that the part of the blogosphere that I follow is carefully re-examining the problem of nuclear proliferation.

More than a month ago, Matt Yglesias asked: "Iranian Nukes: So What?". Yglesias acknowledged that he'd prefer a non-nuclear Iran, but didn't think the goal was worth a war:

Perhaps a case can be made that a nuclear Iran is such a bad thing that's it's worth preventing by any means necessary. But it's not a case I've heard.

This week, Dan Drezner's guest blogger Siddharth responded:

we don’t want a radical anti-American regime with links to terrorist organizations to have nuclear weapons. It’s another version of the Pakistan problem

Yglesias has now attempted to debunk this argument too:

the "madmen give nuclear weapons to Hezbollah" scenario strikes me as a bit, well, far-fetched. It's similar to the Pakistan problem except (a) less realistic, and (b) less threatening to the USA.

Chris Young at Explananda has also joined the fray, seemingly on Siddharth's side of the argument:

A world in which a whole lot of unstable, undemocratic countries have nuclear weapons is a world in which there is a much greater chance of fatal miscalculation.

I'm not a dove on this issue....We are running out of time. The spread of fissile material and nuclear technology is unstoppable, but it is slowable. For the short and the medium term we need to slow it as much as possible.

This is an issue I've long followed. My 1983 undergrad honor's thesis was entitled, "Pondering the Perils of Nuclear Proliferation: American Foreign Policy Choices" and my intercollegiate academic debate career was based in large part on my secondary research on the topic.

So, where do I stand?

First, I'm with Yglesias and the academic realists on the inappropriateness of the Bush Doctrine as a tool of nonproliferation. I wouldn't go to war with either Iran or North Korea.

Second, Young makes a point that I've made before, but that is too often overlooked. Western countries, including the US, are often completely hypocritical on this issue.

I won't reproduce Article VI of the NPT, but it's easy enough to find.

The US is pursuing new, more usable nuclear bombs, reversed sanctions on India and Pakistan after 9/11, and refuses to ratify various arms control agreements, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

I'm not saying that the US should "Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," but I do think that deterrence means something real to states. More importantly, the US and other states need to get their own houses in order and stop pursuing hawkish measures that promote proliferation.

Fred Kaplan's piece on how the Bush team botched North Korea is a very good read on this topic.

Symbolic Politics

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Last week I wrote about George Lakoff and the importance of framing for purposes of political persuasion. How a choice or policy is presented affects how people respond.

A cousin to framing is the concept of symbolic politics. Murray Edelman articulated this in his 1964 book, The Symbolic Uses of Politics; among the more important follow-ups is his 1988 book Constructing the Political Spectacle . Another great book in this genre – sadly out of print -- is Charles Elder and Roger Cobb’s 1983 work, The Political Uses of Symbols

A core assumption of this literature is that in a representative democracy, political elites use symbols and myths to secure and maintain the support of the (largely disinterested and politically unaware) masses.

• Symbols: “An object becomes a symbol when people endow it with meaning, value, or significance.” (Elder and Cobb, 1983: 29). Think of the flag, “security,” and “marriage.”.
• Myths are stories or narratives, “that simply, highlight, and dramatize basic cultural premises and conclusions. They offer socially constructed accounts of exemplary behavior and significant events in the life of the polity.” (54)

The low level of political knowledge of most Americans makes myths and symbols central to governing: symbols and myths connect the polity and the political leaders. Since by definition symbols have no inherent meaning, significant political conflict is over appropriating particular symbols or in establishing the superiority of one symbol over a competing symbol.

Thus, as Lakoff noted in his American Prospect article, Republicans have succeeded in framing taxes as inherently bad, an affliction from which we need “relief.”

“Taxes look very different when framed from a progressive point of view. As Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, taxes are the price of civilization. They are what you pay to live in America -- your dues -- to have democracy, opportunity and access to all the infrastructure that previous taxpayers have built up and made available to you …”

Among the symbols and myths we will hear more about in the coming election season (and beyond, should Bush be elected) are those associated with lawyers and our civil justice system.

You know the refrain: John Edwards is a trial lawyer.

Sometimes that is the extent of the speaker’s statement; you are left to draw the conclusion. Sometimes the speaker provides a little more context, making sure you draw the correct conclusion. Such was the case last week in Davenport, IA when Mr. Bush argued for the need to stop frivolous lawsuits that allegedly are harming the economy and driving up medial costs: ‘You know what side my opponent is on. He picked a trial lawyer for his running mate.’

Ah, so John Kerry is for needlessly higher medical costs? Or, John Kerry supports special interests (the trial lawyers, who indeed are a main source of funding for the Democratic Party) over you and me and common sense?

What follows is not a defense of the civil justice system as it exists; I would prefer a "no-fault" system of compensation, akin to worker's comp. The present system tends to overcompensate small claims and undercompensate large claims, and again, most people do not file a claim in the first instance.

However, we must take the world as we find it. As Thomas Burke nicely discusses in his recent book Lawyers, Lawsuits and Legal Rights, the US forgoes the greater government regulation and bureacuracy known by other western democracies for a system of private compensation and deterrence through trial lawyers. So the effort to limit lawsuits is an effort to limit compensation and whatever deterrence threat of being sued provides.

In the political battle over our civil justice system, the Republicans have the symbols and myths on their side. We all know the symbol of Stella Liebeck, the McDonald’s Coffee Lady. Ms. Liebeck is commonly used as an symbol of the decline in personal responsibility in American society: spill coffee on yourself, get rich

Last week Kos blogger DHinMi had a reasonably good treatment of some of the distortion of this case. But even the best popular media story about the case, the Wall Street Journal article that Dien relies upon, is incomplete. In addition to the Journal’s treatment, add in the facts that a) Liebeck was a passenger, not driving, b) in a car that was parked at the time. How she became a symbol is the subject of this forthcoming book, Distorting the Law.

The myth or narrative of individual responsibility helps tort feasors and medical malpractitioners by making people reluctant to make a claim when they are harmed.

Consider some evidence of harms and claims.

• In 1999, the Institute of Medicine reported that as many as 48,000-96,000 people die prematurely each year due to “adverse medical events.”
• A November 2003 study stated, “It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States.”
• In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation Report , 42% of respondents acknowledged they had “personally been involved in a situation where a preventable medical error was made in their own medical care or in that of a family member” (report 3373).
  
• And yet consistently researchers find that Americans are quite unwilling to sue someone: only between two and three percent of subjects of “adverse medical events” bring a malpractice lawsuits in the first instance. Briefs of some studies on this topic are found on this page.

Excellent sociological work has demonstrated the importance of myths about community and harmony that help to construct some plaintiffs as worthy, and others as not. In Law and Community in Three American Towns the three coauthors found personal injury plaintiffs were routinely characterized as outsiders who threatened the community, while elites’ use of law to enforce rental or business contracts was accepted under the personal responsibility narrative noted above.

Maybe people who sue are troublemakers. Certainly those defending the school districts in Brown v. Board thought so (note the use of positive symbol to justify litigation). As Laokff noted during his July 23 2004 appearance on NOW, why do we call them plaintiff attorneys?

That is a frame that has been constructed by conservatives to attack trial lawyers, because trial lawyers, you know, support the Democratic Party in many parts of the country. So they're trying to de-fund the Democrats by attacking trial lawyers.

Now instead of trial lawyers, you should say what folks really are doing. These are public protection attorneys. They're doing public protection law. These are…

BRANCACCIO: Protecting the public.

LAKOFF: Protecting the public from corporations and professionals who are either negligent or unscrupulous. And they're the last line of defense we have.

But it is the doctors who are highly regarded by Americans, so we have the “good vs. evil” / you- and-me (and my personal physician, and affordable medical care), against the greedy trial lawyers. And as he has done in Texas, Bush wants to limit lawsuits in the federal courts.

The facts are not on Mr. Bush’s side: this study by the Congressional Budget Office indicated that lawsuits and malpractice rates are a neglible cost of American medical bills (although insurance rates may affect your individual physician).

Of course in the world of symbolic politics, facts are secondary – it’s the symbols that matter. That’s why Bush uses anecdotes and prop-people. But those can be inconvenient, too: as Bob Herbert noted in a June 18 NewYork Times column (intro para only), the physician Mr. Bush chose to appear with in Youngstown is a serial medical malpractitioner:

To bolster his argument Mr. Bush introduced a local doctor, Compton Girdharry, to an audience at Youngstown State University. Dr. Girdharry, an obstetrician/gynecologist, said he had been driven from a practice of 21 years by the high cost of malpractice insurance.

The president praised Dr. Girdharry and thanked him for his ''compassion.''

If Mr. Bush was looking for an example of a doctor who was victimized by frivolous lawsuits, Dr. Girdharry was not a great choice. Since the early 1990's, he has settled lawsuits and agreed to the payment of damages in a number of malpractice cases in which patients suffered horrible injuries.

Ultimately, this is a political battle: limiting lawsuits will harm some people and help others. The abstract groups include insurance companies,and potentially some physicians (most studies have found little to no relationship between malpractice protection legislation and lower rates). Specific beneficiaries include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, whose family owns HCA, as well as the second largest malpractice insurer, Health Care Indemnity.

For more on this topic, consider this November 2003 Washington Monthly article, Malpractice makes perfect

The academic paper on which this is blog entry is based should be archived here by the Midwest Political Science Association.

Transparency the B Teams

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

My political world view was heavily affected by Nixon's resignation, 30 years ago. And then 10 years later, I learned a lot from a graduate school classmate, our host Dr. Payne. Memorably, Rodger taught me about the Richard Pipes and his influence on government decisionmaking. Following the link leads to "Right Wing Web" entry that includes this historical tidbit:

Richard Pipes, a Russian historian at Harvard University, was a key anti-Soviet crusader in the 1970s and 1980s... [who] chaired the Team B Strategic Objectives Panel, a controversial effort in the mid-1970s to reinterpret CIA intelligence on the Soviet threat

I was reminded of Pipes when reading Digby this evening, who points to a Lawrence Kolb op-ed in the LA Times, "Its Time to Bench 'Team B'". Kolb nicely talks about the inaccuracy of Pipes and company (including Paul Wolfowitz) and then toward he discusses briefly the Office of Special Plans. If you haven't read Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece from 5/03 on the OSP, I'd recommend it. From the first paragraph:

In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. By last fall, the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda. As of last week, no such weapons had been found.

As Rodger has blogged,

A great deal of [Rodger's] academic work concerns transparency, which one colleague calls simply "the opposite of secrecy." The logic of transparency resonates widely, whether applied to governments, markets, or businesses. Citizens, investors and consumers ought to be able to make informed decisions about the large and powerful institutions that have a great impact on their lives.

Advocates of Transparency welcome honest and open discussion, which challenge their assumptions and thinking -- their commitment is to good decision making, and not to a particular outcome. Before Rodger schooled me on Richard Pipes and company, I naively assumed that bureaucratic decisionmaking was done with the best available evidence, by people with the best intentions (even after a poor experience at the DMV).

The problem with the B Teams goes beyond their amazing ability to be wrong, into their amazing ability to be wrong but influential. And out of sight and not accountable.

Obstructionist Republicans?

Thirty Years Ago today, Richard Nixon announced he would resign the presidency.

Three months later, the Democrats picked up 49 seats in the 1974 midterm elections, among the largest gains ever, and two years later President Gerald Ford was unseated by Jimmy Carter.

But since then, the Republicans have done just fine, thank you, controlling the White House after four of the last six 1974 elections, and breaking through for majority status in the House and the Senate in 1994. It has been since 1960 that the Democrats have won a presidential election with a nonsouthern candidate.

Political scientists such as Ric Uslaner have been writing about The Decline of Comity in Congress for a decade. The House is an institution where the majority controls the day, period. They write and interpret the rules to favor themselves. Comity, What Comity? Republicans complained about the Democrats steamrolling them for 40 years, and for the past 10 the Democrats have complained of similar treatment. Being in the majority in the House means never having to say you are sorry, as evidenced by the leadership leaving the voting open for nearly three hours than the customary 15 minute grace period last November so they could twist arms and win on the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. (see Timothy Noah’s coverage of this, and potential bribery, in Slate.com).

The Senate is an altogether different animal. Historically, norms of equality and reciprocity have meant cooperation and compromise. The threat of the filibuster gives to the minority party a resource that means the majority party has to consider the minority’s point of view. So good leaders are still needed to guide the ship of state through the shoals of failed metaphors.

And apparently Bill Frist is not such a good leader, at least yet. Today’s Washington Post notes the trouble Frist has had finding his sea legs in the Senate. Among the mitigating factors noted is that Frist was thrust into this position without much warning – surely Trent Lott wishes Strom Thurmond had lived to be, say, 99 (or that no mikes were on, or that Lott had had a flat tire, or just plain didn’t say offensive things). And yes, it’s a closely divided Senate, at 52-48. But the article hints at some other difficulties, as well, including pressures within his own party:

Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), the third-ranking GOP leader, is the most conservative of the three [Frist, Mitch McConnell, from KY] and is a relentless advocate of his causes -- sometimes heeded by Frist, sometimes not. He was the driving force behind the GOP's marathon session on judges last year and this year's losing vote on the same-sex marriage constitutional amendment.

For the first half or better of the 20^th century, their were cleavages within the political parties that moderate them – the Democrats were kept conservative by the strong contingent of southerners, and the Republicans had many moderates from New England (Bush’s grandfather, Prescott, a Senator from Connecticut from 1953-63, for instance, and more recently, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine) Over the past forty years – essentially since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – these cleavages within the parties have lessened, and the cleavages between the parties have increased. The largest factor is that South has increasingly trended Republican. Democrats switched parties (like Thurmond in 1964 or Rodney Alexander of Louisiana on Friday) or were defeated for reelection (like Al Gore Sr. in 1970), or now represent essentially safe seats in “majority-minority” districts. There are still a number of Northeast Republicans, although this group is shrinking in size, and most definitely shrinking in influence. Recall the switch of Vermont Senator James Jeffords from Republican to Independent in 2001. The House members especially are able to be more extreme in their leanings, as they have more homogeneous districts than senators.

A real challenge for Frist is that he in charge of an institution that has to pass legislation in exactly the same form as the much more conservative House. This has been an endless source of problems, especially given the behavior of the House, and the problems are revealed further in an article I saw read last Fall. In October, the Washington Post ran an article, “House GOP Practices the Art of One-Vote Victory” (by Juliet Eilperin , Oct 14, 2003 A1), which included these paragraphs:

Bringing legislation to the floor with only the narrowest prospect for victory has become a hallmark of the leadership of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Time and again, on high-profile bills involving Medicare, education and other programs, Hastert and his lieutenants have calibrated the likely yeas and nays to the thinnest margin possible, enabling them to push legislation as much to their liking as they can in a narrowly divided and bitterly partisan House.

More often than not, that direction is to the political right, and generally in line with President Bush's priorities.

The goal, insiders say, is to start negotiations with the narrowly divided Senate -- which is considerably more moderate than the House -- with a House position that yields as little ground as possible. That makes it more likely that the eventual compromise language will be more to House leaders' liking.

So what has Frist's response to the more conservative House been? Again, from today's Post:

Frist stood by when House Republicans handpicked two Senate Democrats who shared their views to participate in the House-Senate conference committee on the high-profile Medicare legislation, excluding Daschle and other officially appointed Democrats. They barred all Democrats from the conference on energy legislation. On other bills, Frist kept Democrats from forcing votes on their initiatives, such as raising the minimum wage and renewing the expiring curbs on some military-style assault weapons.

In order for this strategy to work, however, the Democrats' cooperation is still needed, if not in the House, then in the Senate. Back to October's "One Vote Victory:"

If the House strategy is good for suspenseful votes and animated arm-twisting, it offers nothing but cold shoulders for the House's 205 Democrats. "For my purposes, they're irrelevant," said Amy Steinmann, [Republican Whip Roy] Blunt's director of floor operations.

This, unsurprisingly, enrages Democrats, including those in the narrowly divided Senate, where Democrats play a much larger role. "The bitter partisanship we've seen in so many battles in the House has undermined the productivity of Congress overall," said Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).

That productivity could not have been aided by Frist’s decision to campaign in South Dakota for Jim Thune, who is hoping to unseat Daschle this Fall.

As Newt Gingrich found out, it is a lot easier to be a back-bench bomb thrower than to actually have to govern. And there still remains a cleavage in the Republican party, between the social and the economic conservatives. Note that the fiscally profligate House did not meet their own budget bill deadline because they did not want to have to take a direct vote on raising the debt ceiling. The LA Times reported on June 25 this year,

An effort by House Republican leaders to shield party members from having to cast a politically risky election-year vote to raise the government's borrowing limit was foiled Thursday by an unlikely group: Republicans in the Senate.

The House had voted Tuesday to make room for a debt-limit increase in its version of a $417-billion defense spending bill. Critics said that action was designed to provide political cover for fiscal conservatives, who could say they had to vote for the increase because they could not vote against defense.

But the Senate refused to include an increase in the government's $7.4-trillion debt ceiling as part of its $416-billion bill approved Thursday on a 98-0 vote.

The debt-limit provision underscored the sometimes chilly relations between the two Republican-controlled chambers.

(In Blow to House GOP, Senate OKs Defense Bill Without Debt Increase, by Richard Simon, A26)

History Lesson

Earlier today, my family visited Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition to the greenery, the Gardens feature numerous works of sculpture and I think this one is my favorite:



The piece by artist Bill Woodrow is called "Listening to History." I liked it a great deal.

As I remarked to my family, it reminded me of graduate school.

The Gardens are best known for "Leonardo Da Vinci's Horse: The American Horse" by sculptor Nina Akamu.



Basically, Da Vinci intended to make this horse, but a war forced him to abandon the project because of the scarcity of metal. Over the past few decades, a number of people have worked to bring Da Vinci's work to fruition based on the surviving notebooks and drawings. The horse stands 24 feet tall and the same castings were used for the horse in Milan, Italy as well. It's an interesting bit of history...

But the history lesson I really learned in Grand Rapids came from my visit earlier this week to the Gerald R. Ford Museum.

And no, I'm not talking about the cultural milieu of the mid-1970s, which is the subject of one of the better rooms in the museum, or even Watergate (the museum has the original burglar tools).

So what did I learn?

Well, remember, Ford was the only US President who was neither elected to be President nor Vice President. He is a true oddity, selected to be Vice President once Spiro Agnew resigned the position and elevated to the top job when Richard Nixon resigned (the anniversary is August 9).

But this post isn't a history lesson about "selected" rather than "elected" presidents.

Towards the end of the pathway through the museum, one finds a display featuring a hodge-podge of photos and artifacts from the Ford era. On the wall just before the exit, one finds a 1970s vintage ATM, or automatic teller machine.

So what?

Well, it was manufactured by Diebold, a company still in the ATM business.

Yes, this is the same Diebold that now manufactures electronic voting machines.

The same Diebold with all kinds of connections to the Republican party and right wing political causes. The same Diebold subject to somewhat reasonable paranoid suspicion.

The same Diebold that says it would cost too much money to add printers to their voting machines so as to provide a hard copy of each vote.

When ATMs were first introduced, many people refused to use them because they didn't really trust the machines. Indeed, my parents have never used ATMs. I don't think my mother-in-law does either.

To reassure their customers of the safety of the transaction, banks had to issue paper receipts for all transactions.

So here's the bottom line history lesson: Diebold has been making machines for decades that allow individual users to walk away from their transaction with a hard copy receipt.

If it was necessary for bank customers, it is essential for voters.

Dog Days of August?

Isn't August supposed to be vacation time in politics? Politicos evacuate DC because it's a hot and humid swamp, and thus media (even bloggers) get a break because of the lack of news.

Fat chance.

Bruce Springsteen has helped launch Vote for Change in order to dump Bush. He penned an op-ed for the NY Times and was interviewed for "Nightline" by Ted Koppel.

Halliburton, big surprise, manipulated perceptions about its profits during Dick Cheney's tenure as CEO. The firm committed securities fraud, essentially.

John McCain is once again defending fellow veteran John Kerry against right-wing smears of his record in Vietnam. So why was CNN still covering the campaign ad tonight on Lou Dobbs? Why give it more attention than it deserves? It is a slime ad.

And Colin Powell has been interviewed in the Valerie Plame case -- apparently about a conversation he had with George W. Bush in July 2003.

Meanwhile, I'm still swimming, eating lots of ice cream and hanging out with my wife and kids.

More later.

assorted tidbits

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Its been nearly a year since Rodger started this blog. In that time, he has developed a loyal following with his insights and writings on international affairs. As a guest blogger, I run the risk of blogging about stuff that is not relevant to why you are here. Or, interferring with his excellent posts, like this one on Democratization. What’s a guest blogger to do? How about mixing and matching? I’ll be back in the next couple days with more on framing and the 2004 election and beyond.

1. Newsweek is reporting that in the immediate shadow of 9/11, aides to Douglas Feith suggested Secret Proposals: Fighting Terror by Attacking ... South America?. And I still have failed to see the Iraq/AQ connection.. the idea was to catch Al Qaeda off guard, and not tip the hand that we would go into Afghanistan, while also attacking terrorists thought to be funded in part by Hezbollah. But apparently sounder heads prevailed.

Other proposals got greater traction. The 9/11 Commission says the idea of attacking Iraq also was pushed in a Sept. 17 memo by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz argued that the odds were "far more" than one in 10 that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, citing in part theories by controversial academic Laurie Mylroie that Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was an Iraqi intelligence agent. (The commission's report found "no credible evidence" that Iraq was behind the 1993 attack—and no Iraqi involvement in 9/11….)

Loyal readers will recall Rodger’s preeminent work on the trouble with Myrolie.

2. From Wednesday’s LA Times (registration required) : Democrats Claim Mantle of Fiscally Responsible Ticket. The article notes how both Kerry and Edwards are campaigning on this issue:

"This affects people's lives," [Edwards] said in Alexandria, a small town on the Red River. "And the deeper and deeper we go into deficit, the more and more Social Security is at risk. We are leaving our children with a debt and a responsibility that's not theirs."

Like Kerry has sought to do, Edwards framed the matter as one of "values."

"Talk about values, and our moral responsibility to our children and grandchildren?" Edwards asked. "How would you feel … if you were leaving your child with $20,000 in debt, instead of leaving them better off?"

Still, this has the Republicans on the defensive, and it should. Political scientists talk about "issue ownership" by political parties -- think military for the Republicans over the past 30 years, and social programs for the Democrats, and the dramatic efforts to wrestle thoseissues away by Lt Kerry and the prescription drug bill, respectively. The economy has generally favored the Republicans in peoples' minds. But Reagan, Bush and Bush have priovided the Dems with an opening. Clinton infuriated many liberals early on by a tax increase instead of the middle class tax cut, but most Dems are happy for the economic performance his adminstration caused (coincided with? pick a word. Ah yes, that framing stuff) And last week on PBS’s Wall Street Week, most panel members (but not the guy from AEI) made the point that the Democrats have a nice track record of managing the economy. Here is some previous discussion of evidence showing the economy has performed better under Democrats than Republicans. And on Thursday, the Washington Post ran an article about "Political Fissure in the Corporate World."

Its not clear just how Kerry would do reduce the deficit, of course (maybe he has a secret 2,500 page study, like Arnold?) – the proposals to resurrect the line item veto and to trim pork are laughable to anyone familiar with the driving forces of our 2.3 trillion dollar budget: social security and medicare take over one-third (and that will soon rise more with the full implementation of prescription drug benefits), the military about 20% and debt service about 15% (and rising quickly as deficits are forecast into the future). I want more fiscal responsibility, and if I were an undecided voter, "fiscal discipline" stuff of pork barrel and line item veto would irritate me more; as it is, I’ll chalk it up to the difference between campaigning and governing, and give Kerry a pass (especially after that whole compassionate conservative thing). Not all will, but Kerry is prepared. Again, from Wed LATimes:

By Bush campaign estimates, Kerry's proposals would leave a $1.3-trillion budget hole over the next 10 years.

Sarah Bianchi, Kerry's national policy director, said Kerry "doesn't need a lesson on fiscal discipline from the most fiscally reckless administration in American history."

3. Sadly, the Vote for Change Tour will not bring Springsteen to Missouri – St. Paul, at seven hours away, is the closest bet. And that’s a school nite. Some of the other big name acts include Pearl Jam, the Dave Mathews Band, John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, REM, Bonnie Raitt, and the Dixie Chicks. From the LA Times,

"Do I think we are going to get bashed?" said Springsteen. "Sure, in this political season, that's coming. But I have written about very basic American principles for 25 years. I wasn't kidding when we're on that stage. And there are particular moments when you have to [say], 'This is the moment when you take your place on the playing field and the chips are going to fall where they may.' "

Springsteen also had an op-ed in Thursday's NYT which includes the following:

Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?

I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.

4. Tuesday, Missouri became the first state to amend its Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Wednesday, a King County [WA] Judge rules in favor of same-sex marriage. Now, more states will probably be motivated to jump on the constitutional amendment bandwagon. King County Superior Court Judge William Downing ruled Washington state's Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and then stayed the ruling until the case is reviewed by the state supreme court. (Superior Court is the major trial court in Washington.)

Downing characterized the reasons for banning same-sex marriage and then refuted them as follows:

• "Morality requires it." Downing countered: "... Americans have differing views as to what morality requires in the definition of marriage. It is not for our secular government to choose between religions and take moral or religious sides in such a debate.

• "Tradition compels it." Downing cited the Massachusetts Supreme Court's opinion that "it is circular reasoning, not analysis, to maintain that marriage must remain a heterosexual institution because that is what it historically has been."

• "The institution of marriage is threatened." The judge said threats to marriage — notably a shortage of commitment and an excess of selfishness — come from inside the institution, not outside it.

5. Don't overlook the little things that might matter in an election. From Thursday's Washington Post: Kerry Detour to Visit Town Skipped by Bush

Reg Weber, one of three brothers who run a sausage factory on the edge of town, was waiting for Bush that day in May when he breezed past and was there waiting again this time when Kerry bounded out of his bus to work the rope line, a gesture that seemed to make all the difference. "By God, he's my man now," Weber said of Kerry. "All he had to do was stop and he got my vote. He recognizes the little people."

After losing the Reg Weber vote in Wisconsin, the GOP is Courting the Amish Vote in PA and OH.


6. The Thursday New York Times' web obit of Henri Cartier-Bresson runs five pages. Cartier-Bresson made the 35mm roll film camera famous soon after its invention in the late 1920s. As the most famous street photographer, he popularized the notion of photographers making great photographs by capturing the"decisive moment" . The photo accompanying the Times' obit exemplifies this idea, with the sutter snapped just before the man's foot hits the water. You can see more of his pix at the webpage of Magnum Photo.

Democratization

Months ago, I asked these questions:

Can a nation like Iraq be democratized by toppling a despotic regime and "building" a new nation from the rubble?

Was military force the best way to do this?

Today, on the beach, I read a piece that addresses these points pretty directly.

Former General Wesley Clark, in the May 2004 Washington Monthly:

[In the Foreign Affairs X article, George] Kennan argued that the Soviet system contained within it "the seeds of its own decay." During the 1950s and 1960s, containment translated that observation into policy, holding the line against Soviet expansion with U.S. military buildups while quietly advancing a simultaneous program of cultural engagement with citizens and dissidents in countries under the Soviet thumb.

These subtler efforts mattered a great deal. The 1975 Helsinki Accords proved to be the crucial step in opening the way for the subsequent peaceful democratization of the Soviet bloc. The accords, signed by the Communist governments of the East, guaranteed individual human and political rights to all peoples and limited the authority of governments to act against their own citizens. However flimsy the human rights provisions seemed at the time, they provided a crucial platform for dissidents such as Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov. These dissidents, though often jailed and exiled, built organizations that publicized their governments' many violations of the accords, garnering Western attention and support and inspiring their countrymen with the knowledge that it was possible to stand up to the political powers that be.

With the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, it became clear once more that it would be the demands of native peoples, not military intervention from the West, that would extend democracy's reach eastward. Step by step, the totalitarian governments and structures of the East lost legitimacy in the eyes of their own citizens and elites. The United States and Western Europe were engaged, of course, in assisting these indigenous political movements, both directly and indirectly. Western labor unions, encouraged by their governments, aided the emergence of a democratic trade union movement, especially in Poland. Western organizations provided training for a generation of human-rights workers. Western broadcast media pumped in culture and political thought, raising popular expectations and undercutting Communist state propaganda. And Western businesses and financial institutions entered the scene, too, ensnaring command economies in Western market pricing and credit practices. The Polish-born Pope John Paul II directed Catholic churches in Eastern Europe and around the world to encourage their congregants to lobby for democracy and liberal freedoms.

Such outreach had profound effects, but only over time. In his new book, Soft Power, the defense strategist Joseph Nye tells the story of the first batch of 50 elite exchange students the Soviet Union allowed to the United States in the 1950s. One was Aleksandr Yakovlev, who became a key advocate of glasnost under Gorbachev. Another, Oleg Kalugin, wound up as a top KGB official. Kalugin later said: "Exchanges were a Trojan horse for the Soviet Union. They played a tremendous role in the erosion of the Soviet system...they kept infecting more and more people over the years."

The entire piece is good.

Here's another strong excerpt:

Of course, military pressure played a vital role in making containment work. But we applied that pressure in concert with allies in Europe....

It was popular discontent with economic, social, and political progress, and people's recognition of an appealing alternative system, that finished off the repressive regimes of Eastern Europe, and eventually the whole Soviet Union. No Western threat of force or military occupation forced their collapse.

The Bush administration's approach, even outside Iraq, is quite heavy-handed and unlikely to work.

WAPO: Pre-9/11 Acts Led To Alerts

From the Post article, a quote from the Presidnt:

"It's serious business," Bush said. "I mean, we wouldn't be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real."

And since we did nothing after the August 6 PDB, is wasn't real, but merely historical information, as Dr. Rice is fond of saying.

Elections in the Heartland, II

Guest Blogger Paul Parker
Yesterday I wrote about Kansas, and the rift between the right and the far right of the Republican Party. That division has managed to help the Democrats win a couple offices. Party watchers are looking at the Republican primary for the Third Congressional District to see which faction can win; no major statewide races are being held.

As a result, the Kansas secretary of state is predicting a turnout of about 27%, as opposed to the expected 37% or higher in neighboring Missouri. Several statewide issues will draw Missourians to the polls today.

1. Kit Bond is going for fourth term; the likely Democratic nominee is Treasurer Nancy Farmer
2. Incumbent Governor Bob Holden is facing a stiff primary challenger from state auditor Claire McCaskill. This has been a divisive battle among the Democrats. Holden’s main claim to fame is that he has played reasonable defense against the Republican General Assembly for four years – although a year ago, the legislature overrode vetoes for the first time in fifty or better years (and the eighth and ninth times in the history of the state). One was to allow concealed weapons, and another was to impose a 24 hour waiting period for abortions. Attempts to override vetoes giving medical malpractitioners and their insurers more legal immunity failed last August and this June. While Holden has done okay given the relatively poor economic environment and the hostile Republican General Assembly, many Democrats think its time for someone new. That is the gist of Sunday’s KC Star editorial (may require registration), which along with the other major paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, endorsed McCaskill. The Springfield paper also endorsed McCaskill.
3. A race to replace Dick Gephardt in Missouri’s third district (South of St. Louis), and a race to replace Karen McCarthy in Missouri’s Fifth District (KC). The Dems have a decent chance of keeping both; presently the nine house seats are split 5-4, Republican.

Two big constitutional ballot issues will bring out many voters.

1. Amendment One would allow Riverboat Gambling near Branson, in Southwest Missouri. This amendment comes to us with a long history of mistrust by voters of the gaming industry. Put aside the betrayal felt regarding 'the lottery money will go to the schools'; that deception was a piker compared to the riverboat gambling.
   

Missouri first adopted “riverboat” gambling in 1992. Its been a tangled web, with a few absurdities:

Including the November 1992 balloting in which 62 percent of voters first endorsed legalizing riverboat gambling, Missourians conducted four statewide votes about the legal status of floating casinos during a six-year span. There also have been local votes on hosting casino boats

One was a court case over whether slots were “games of skill” (ok under the constitution) versus “games of chance” (not okay without an amendment). The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that slots are games of chance, and since slots are the moneymakers, we had to amend the constitution. After the voters rejected an amendment in March, the casinos opened with cards, the games of skill. With that foot in the door, the amendment passed it second time on the ballot. But the casinos wanted changes, and the legislature obliged. Back to court: can the legislature replace a voter-adopted constitutional amendment with a new statute? Nope.

There were other things that miffed many. Initially, this “gaming” was going to be aimed at tourists – think Mark Twain and cruising on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. But the Coast Guard thought river boats that actually cruised on rivers would be a navigation hazard for the barge traffic that dominates those rivers, and the gambling companies were happy not to have the added costs of fuel and a crew, and, well, boats with engines. So the companies built casinos near rivers. After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a river boat had to be on the river, moats were dug, and river water pumped in to surround the casinos on barges. Again, quoting the Columbia Daily Tribune, 2002:

The latest statewide vote was in 1998, when the constitution’s wording was changed by citizens - through an amendment written by casino companies - to retroactively legalize half a dozen operations that had dug moats near the rivers. The casinos had cited safety concerns, echoed by the Coast Guard, about actually cruising on the major shipping channels.

So against this backdrop, we are asked to vote on expanding the locales for riverboat gambling in Missouri. Those arguing for adoption claim this is an economic development action, allowing a small struggling town to revitalize itself, along with bringing construction jobs to many Missourians. Supporters also include many of the citizens in the Southwest corner of the state who envision better jobs – higher wages and better benefits, including child care are promised.

Con arguments are offered by those morally and economically threatened. The Southern Baptists have run commercials against gambling. They got my vote. The economically threatened include the owner of Silver Dollar City, a theme park near Branson, whose owner would face more competition for labor. Some are also concerned the wholesome Branson image would be tarnished by gambling 12 miles away (or, people might not make it to as many shows).

2. Amendment Two is about marriage: “That to be valid and recognized in this state, a marriage shall exist only between a man and a woman.”
   

In Missouri, an amendment needs a simple majority first from both houses of the legislature, and then from the voters. Its unclear why this issue was popular this year, although most speculate that the Republicans were aiming to increase turnout for the November election to help their party, including Bush and the Republican nominee for governor, Matt Blunt.

Once again, the Missouri Supreme Court had to get involved in political maneuvering. The Constitution states that the proposed amendment will appear on the ballot for the next general election “or at a special election called by the governor prior thereto, at which he may submit any of the amendments.” Countering the Republican effort to generate turnout for November, Holden called for the Amendment to be placed on the August primary ballot. But according to statute, the proposed amendment needed to be certified by the secretary of state by Tuesday, May 25. The Republican leaders in the house and senate stalled in signing the amendment and thus the secretary of state – Matt Blunt – argued that he could not put the amendment on the August ballot. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Constitution over the statute, and thus Holden over Blunt. Its likely amendment will pass either month, as its has been polling 2-1 in favor.

Results for races and issues will be available from the secretary of state's election night reporting web page.

Elections in the Heartland

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Missouri and Kansas hold primary elections on Tuesday, August 3rd.

Kansas – or the rural America it represents in Thomas Frank’s archetype -- has been the subject of much political discussion recently. Frank argues that rural Americahas essentially been duped into voting for conservatives on issues of values, thereby helping to elect the Republicans who run an economy that is against their interests. An interesting front page story in Sunday’s KC Star, “Those who work the land resist idea of playing on it,” by Scott Canon (there is no link, as the article is in “pay for access to archive” form) detailed the problems of an aging and shrinking population in western Kansas, as well as its bleak future as the remaining farmers drain the Ogallala Aquifer.

The news story follows a former Kansas governor, who is exploring an idea he used to think crazy: having the federal government buy farmers’ land and let it go back to natural. This was first seriously suggested in the later 1980s as part of a return to a “buffalo commons” throughout the plains states. Short of that, the article suggests making much of western Kansas essentially a large game reserve, with a new economy based on hunting and “ecotourism.”

“Decades of irrigation have forced farmers to drill ever deeper, and to take on steeper pumping costs to coax up enough water for their parched soil. Today parts of Kansas are within 25 years of using up water below.”

But the title of the article is reflected in the comments of the president of Southwest Kansas (natural gas) royalty Owners Association; about the aquifer, he asks,

”What are we saving it for? For future generations so they can’t use it either?”

The obvious question is, what future generations? A graphic with the article noted that “57 western counties combined for 450,995 persons, compared with 451,086 in Johnson County.” (suburban KC). Today western Kansas has such sparse population that there are 69 counties in the first congressional district, while three counties comprise the 4th District.

What growth has occurred in the west is largely due to the meat packing plants in Liberal, Garden City and Dodge City. And the locals are not universally fond of that growth, either: “Hispanics and other minority groups have gone from 36% of Garden City’s school population in 1990 to 68% today. All the school district’s signs appear in English, Spanish, Laotian and Vietnamese.”

In Fast Food Nation, (buy / review summaries) Eric Schlosser discussed the loss of good working class jobs in major cities, as meatpackers moved to rural areas, many on the high plains. Schlosser traced a movement from Chicago to Greeley, Colorado, but the story is much the same thoughout the Midwest. In Missouri, Kansas City and St. Joseph suffered fates similar to Chicago’s; meanwhile, smaller operations have been sprinkled thoughout rural areas, including Milan, Missouri (45 miles from here), Marshall, Minnesota, and Fremont, Nebraska. This move has been good for business in the form of lower wages, a more docile and transient workforce, and relatively lax environmental standards. It has made communities struggle with their identity. As Garden City Deputy School Superintendent Julie Ford noted, “The older people struggle with (the cultural influx). But its made Garden City a much more interesting city.”

Meanwhile, Johnson County continues its expansive growth, much of which has been driven by technology (e.g., Sprint), and suburban flight from Kansas City. If you ran a political party, how would you mobilize these disparate communities? On Tuesday, the battle for the soul of the Kansas Republican party continues; the conservatives just cannot get along with the moderates, and consequently the Governor is Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, and Dennis Moore is the Democratic incumbent in the third District (KC metro and Lawrence). Adam Taff is expected to be the favorite in the Republican primary to face Moore again, but the bigger battle will be among the Republicans in November. If they keep up their infighting, perhaps the Democrats can continue to appeal to the moderate Republicans, and begin to prove Thomas Frank wrong.

Ground Zero

Just so readers don't think I'm ignoring the gorilla in the room...

That CNN Election Express bus was in the parking lot of my hotel in Michigan about noon today. No, I didn't spot Judy Woodruff.

Since John Kerry is scheduled to appear in Grand Rapids about noon Monday, I guess this isn't big news.

But it was interesting. I resisted the temptation to run back inside the hotel and blog (from the free wireless high speed connection).

We took the kids to the Dutch Village instead.



Alas, we have other plans Monday and won't catch Kerry in person.

Framing and Rhetoric

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

In a previous post, I commented favorably on Kerry’s acceptance speech. Some others I have talked with, or listened to, were not nearly as impressed. One of the reasons is that they would still like more specifics from Kerry. How will he involve other countries in Iraq? How will he implement programs that he desires, and still be budget conscious?

The specifics trouble me less in the short run; as the post made clear, my enthusiasm was with the rhetoric of the speech. I focus on rhetoric – the art of persuasion – because I believe that the persuadable voters will be persuaded by the candidate who makes them feel good. That is a belief that has been percolating for a while, and it has had to push aside the belief that rational argument and evidence matters. It can, but often it will not. Language matters.

That humans (and by implication, voters) are not always logical, consistent, or rational in their decision making was well established by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky a generation ago. As one example, this site quotes Kahneman saying, “people may drive across town to save $5 on a $15 calculator but not drive across town to save $5 on a $125 coat.” They argued people often make decisions using mental shortcuts, or heuristics, and their research also demonstrated that how a problem or choice was framed, or stated, affected the decisions that people make. It was this latter work that was acknowledged with the Nobel Prize in 2002 – and the 2003 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Psychology (note that blogger Rodger directs the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order).

Relevant to this discussion of rhetoric is their work in framing: their results show that framing mattered for people's choices, even though the alternatives were mathematically equivalent. Quoting the American Psychology Association press release on the Nobel Prize,

When Kahneman and Tversky asked people to hypothetically decide what procedure to take to cure a disease, most preferred a procedure that saved 80 percent of people to one that killed 20 percent.

So the result is the same, but are you saving 80% or killing 20%?

Newt Gingrich has long understood the importance of framing, and he worked hard to develop phrases that the right could employ to effectively win an argument before it started. Why would sensible people want to vote for those “anti-family,” “anti-flag,” “tax and spend liberals?” I first ran across this GOPAC memo, Language, a Key Mechanism of Control, in Harpers in the early 1990s, but not through the beauty of the internet, you can find it many places.

This is the background for being pleased with Kerry's speech -- it might be short on specifics, and it might be more centrist than I would care for, but it was well-aimed, I felt. And the Democrats’ use of Republican phrases and themes pleased me. (this William Saletan article from Slate.com gives some more specific examples).

Among those who have made a career of arguing about the importance of framing for politics is Berkeley Linguistics Professor George Lakoff. Lakoff is associated with the Rockridge Institute, a think tank for helping the left think about how best to present their arguments. Or, in their own words, their program of Strategic Framing is“an effort to revitalize progressive discourse by reframing progressive policies in ways that speak to shared American values.”

Lakoff argues that conservatives have done quite nicely weaving an ideology through their policy positions – “The have successfully reframed issue after issue to make their language the language of everyday America.” Meanwhile, progressives have failed to do this, instead “hampered by a focus on specific policy issues, rather than the overall moral and ethical perspective that justifies specific policy choices.”

In this six page article from The American Prospect Lakoff proposes that conservative are essentially use the language of the “Strict Father Family: In this view, the world is a dangerous and difficult place, there is tangible evidence of evil in the world and children have to be made good. To stand up to evil, one must be morally strong disciplined.” Lakoff gives a few examples how this plays out, some more compelling than others, and then argues that progressives do indeed have a framework, too – but “many liberals are still largely unaware of their own moral system.” The framework Lakoff lays out for the left is The Nurturant Parent family, a view that justifies a greater role for government in assisting people, and social cooperation and community over competition.

Again, I am unsure that the consistency that Lakoff discusses is real, but his framework does seem fruitful for the left to think more about, and to develop. And it seems fruitful for the left to speak on their terms, as opposed to the terms defined by the right.

For further reading / listening:

Lakoff

• U Chicago Press, the publisher of his Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (2e) added the essay Metaphors of Terror to its webpage shortly after 9/11. The essay is 14 pages.
  
• NPR Interview: 2/9/04. overlaps heavily with the American Prospect article.
• NPR Interview: 11/20/03: “The success of the conservative argument.”
• Talk of the Nation: 5/7/96: more of same, eight years ago.
• He was NOW with Bill Moyers 7/23/04, and that web page notes he has a forthcoming book, “Don’t think of an Elephant: What every American should know about values and the framing wars.”

More on strategic framing from the Frameworks Institute at UCLA

Multilateralism in Iraq

I might be on vacation, but Juan Cole is doing some serious thinking. Check out his blog post called "The Kerry Plan on Iraq: How it Could Work if the UN were Brought In."

As he sees it, US troops could be replaced by forces from regional states -- funded by the US, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Perhaps European states and Japan could contribute as well.

If 10 countries could be convinced to come in, all but two US divisions could leave. If the effort were seen as one of ending the US occupation by supplanting the US with a UN/Arab League force, many governments that now fear to buck their own public opinion by collaborating with the US might be in a much better position to send troops. Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Yemen and Morocco could all easily spare 10,000 troops each, and more such partners could be found. Perhaps under these conditions even the French and the Russians would be willing to come in, as well.

It's concrete and I kind of like it.

Cole also talks about other tasks ahead: negotiating a solution to the Kurdish problem, creation of a new multiethnic Iraqi army, etc.

Key to the entire plan is US willingness to hand over the question of Iraqi security to multilateral command. If the US continues to assert operational control, then few other states will come on board.

Thus, don't put too much stock into media reports that the Bush administration is pursuing this possibility (or something similar).

There's also that pesky problem of reorganizing bureaucracies

Guest Blogger Paul Parker

Tom Ridge will likely join Powell and Rice among Those Who Won't Be Back. According to MSNBC,

Ridge, 58, has explained to colleagues that he needs to earn money to comfortably put his two children, Tommy Jr. and Lesley, through college, officials said. Both are now teenagers. Ridge earns $175,700 a year as a Cabinet secretary.

What's it take to send a child to college? That may be an odd question from a college prof, but how do other families do it? Extrapolating from 1998 census data, the income places Ridge in the top 5% of Americans, at nearly three times the 2002 median income for a family of four. Is this an issue of the difference between income and wealth? Or do more common families rely on financial aid (which, with work, helped me to attend a private a couple decades ago)?

Here are a couple other suggestions for the Ridges: consider a public university well recognized for providing educational value. Might I suggest Truman State University? A number of our students are grateful for our quality / affordability combination. And for others, the parents struck a bargain to pay for a public undergraduate education, with a promise of some more help for graduate or professional school.

Alternatively, many schools have ROTC programs that Tommy and Lesley might check into. My kid went to dental school on the Navy's dime (he tells us San Diegohas nice weather, but lots of traffic).