Mis-Speaking

The divergences (shall we say) between Hillary Clinton's descriptions of her trip to Bosnia and what actually happened are now well documented. See, for example, the video compilation at http://blip.tv/file/778770. And there is talk now that the incident has "blown over."

But has it?

There are also problems with her claims of having been "instrumental" in the peace process in Northern Ireland, a claim that has been refuted by just about everyone who was actually involved in the peace talks.

As a result of these and other statements by Clinton, the non-partisan Annenberg Public Policy Center's "FactCheck.org" has described her claims of foreign policy experience as "exaggerated."

What might that mean for the general election?

During the 2000 election, Al Gore was repeatedly held up to ridicule because he had claimed to have "invented the Internet," and had claimed that he and his wife were the models for the central characters in Erich Segal's Love Story, even though Al Gore did not make those claims.

During the 2004 election, John Kerry came under attack by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" for allegedly lying on the military reports that resulted in military citations and medals during his service in Vietnam 40 years before. The stories told by the "Swift Boat Veterans" were politically motivated and were eventually found to be not credible, but not before political damage was done.

That's what Republicans and conservatives have done when they have had to fabricate in order to create the appearance of dishonesty in a Democratic candidate. What is going to happen when they have recent and well-documented evidence of what appears to be dishonesty?

It's going to a long campaign for Hillary Clinton in the fall if she is forced to spend most of her time explaining that she "mis-spoke" repeatedly during her primary campaign.

Panaceas

There are an increasing number of "solutions" that Republicans and conservatives seem to want to apply regardless of the problem.

Tax cuts are one. If the economy is going well, tax cuts are needed to sustain economic growth. If the economy falters, tax cuts are needed to stimulate the economy. If the federal deficit gets too big, then tax cuts are needed to stimulate the economy in order to produce higher tax revenues. Tax cuts are the remedy to every economic problem.

Keeping our troops in Iraq is also the conclusion no matter what happens. If things are going badly, then we need to maintain troop levels in order to avoid losing. If things improve, we still need to maintain troop levels because we're winning. No matter what happens in Iraq, the solution is military.

Imprisonment is also a "solution" that seems to have gotten out of control. We now have 1% of our population in prison, which is the highest incarceration rate in our history and the highest incarceration rate in the world. Imprisonment is applied not just to violent crimes but to social crimes such as drug addiction, gambling, and prostitution. And if people who are released from prison commit another crime, make the prison sentences longer. It doesn't make any difference what the crime was, or whether crime rates are going up even as prison terms are getting longer, the solution is still to make the prison sentences longer still.

The Establishment Candidate

The "establishment candidate" usually has a number of advantages over candidates without the same political connections. With political experience usually comes better political connections, and that means better fund-raising, better organizations in local vote-getting efforts, and better campaign management. So why is Barack Obama looking like the establishment candidate while Hillary Clinton is looking like the clumsy newbie?

Obama has been better at fund-raising and better at grass-roots organizing, with more campaign operatives in more states producing more votes. And there is growing evidence that Obama has run a more cost-effective campaign, getting more bang for its campaign buck.

The one area in which Clinton still seems to have an edge is in the votes of the "super delegates," but let's hope it doesn't come to that. It's not going to be good for the Democratic Party if Obama comes into the convention with more delegates, more votes, and more energy, but then loses because of the votes of non-elected delegates.

Getting Tough

Following some of Hillary Clinton's recent primary losses, there were reports (and observations) that she would be "taking off the gloves" to drive home her message that she is better qualified than Barack Obama to be President.

This is more likely to be annoying than effective.

In this and other recent events I am reminded of something "Miss Manners" (Judith Martin) wrote many years ago about the etiquette of participating in public political discourse:

If people do not agree with you, it is not necessarily because they do not understand your position. The reason that the same few people use most of the time at any given meeting is that they entertain this erroneous assumption. Stating your position louder after each statement of opposition occasionally wears down a few of the weaker souls, who drift off down the block, but it does not win the hearts and votes of the majority.

Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior (Warner Books 1982), page 252.

The fact that people are not voting for Hillary Clinton does not mean that they have not heard her, or do not understand her position, but that they do not agree with her. For her to restate her position more loudly, more emphatically, and perhaps more shrilly, is not going to win the hearts and votes of the majority.

Change and Experience

The polls are saying that Americans want "change," and Hillary Clinton is responding to those polls with two messages: that she will work for change, and that she has the advantage of experience and will "know what to do" on the first day in office. Ignoring for the moment the issues of whether Clinton really has any experience comparable to being President, whether her experiences in the past are likely to be applicable to future circumstances, and whether she has actually learned anything from her experiences, there are at least two things wrong with those two messages of her campaign.

The first problem is that the two messages are contradictory. A call for "change" is not a call for a particular solution, because if the voters knew exactly what solution they wanted they would vote for the candidate advocating that solution. A call for "change" is instead a call for a new and different perspective, a creative search for a "third way" that is not apparent at the moment. To a voter looking for that kind of new direction, the claim that Clinton already knows what to do the first day in office is not appealing.

The other problem is that the messages of the Clinton campaign are all about the ends and not about the means, about substance and not style, and the desire for change seems to be a desire not just for different results but for a different way of getting those results. Specifically, many voters seem to be tired of partisan animosity and the bickering and acrimony that goes along with it. They don't want to beat Republicans so much as they want to convince them to help advance the common goals shared by most Americans. Barack Obama's message of unity is therefore going to be more appealing to voters looking for change than Clinton's message that her experience in fighting Republicans will make her more effective in fighting them in the future. In touting her credentials of divisiveness, and conducting a campaign of divisiveness, Clinton has completely overlooked what might be the most important kind of change, which is a change in the way we think about politics.

Voting is usually more intuitive than intellectual, and I think that the majority of Democratic voters feel uneasy about the messages about Clinton campaign even if they don't (or can't) explain exactly why they are uneasy. Which is why I expect Obama to win a majority of the delegates elected to the Democratic convention.

Whether that majority will be enough to win the nomination is, unfortunately, a different story.

"Winning" Florida

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton's campaign website blared that she had "won" in Florida, and she has publicly claimed victory, and also stated that she will work to seat the Florida (and Michigan) delegates at the Democratic national convention.

All of which turns my stomach.

When the Democratic National Committee decided to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates to the convention, because they has scheduled their primaries earlier than allowed by DNC rules, all of the candidates (including Hillary) pledged not to campaign in those states. But Clinton's pledge came when she was leading in the polls.

Then she lost the Iowa caucuses to Barack Obama. Still, she insisted while campaigning in New Hampshire that Michigan and Florida were "meaningless."

Then Clinton "won" Michigan, with 55.4% of the vote. That sounds good, except that neither Obama nor John Edwards were on the ballot. In fact, the only other name on the ballot was Dennis Kucinich, who got 4% of the vote. Where did the other 40% of the votes go? To "Uncommitted," meaning "anyone but Hillary.

Then Clinton lost South Carolina. Badly. Obama out-polled her by two-to-one. Then, all of a sudden, Florida starts to look better to Clinton, and she starts talking about "listening" to Florida and using her delegates to seat delegates from Michigan (which she had already won) and Florida (where she was leading in the polls).

And then, just two days before the "meaningless" Florida primary, and nine days before "Super Tuesday," when hundreds of delegates will be at stake, Clinton takes the time to go to Florida, making stops in Sarasota and Miami. The events are "private," so she hasn't broken her pledge, but it gave her a chance to maintain her support among local political leaders, and put her name in the Florida newspapers.

Florida voters go to the polls, and Clinton gets a plurality of the vote, 49.7% to Obama's 33%. What does that mean? It means that a majority of Florida Democrats voted against Clinton. It also means that, in states in which Obama does not campaign, Clinton may be able to get more votes, if for no other reason than simple name recognition.

And then Clinton claimed victory, and stated again that she wanted Michigan and Florida delegates seated at the convention.

To call this "opportunistic" is perhaps an understatement. I think it is dishonorable. Clinton may have adhered to the letter of her pledge, but not it's spirit, and she seems to have no compunctions against using Obama's adherence to the pledge against him.

Fed Rates Redux

Fearing recession, the Federal Reserve Board has dramatically lowered interest rates in order to make it easier to borrow (and spend) money.

One of the causes of the feared recession is the bursting of the housing bubble, which was caused by low interest rates leading to excessive borrowing (and spending) on housing.

So the current problem is caused by too much borrowing, and the "solution" offered by the Fed is to encourage more borrowing?

Does anyone else see a possible problem here?

Squandered

The real Bush legacy (not the one he imagines) can be summed up in one word: Squandered.

At the beginning of Bush's first term, the United States had a balanced budget, moderate debt, healthy and well-equipped armed forces, and a dominant leadership position in the world community. And, after the 9/11 attacks, there was unity within the United States and sympathy from abroad.

What did Bush do with all those assets? He squandered them.

Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy has driven up our national debt to record levels.

The invasion of Iraq and the resulting pressure on our armed forces (while also trying to fight a ground war in Afghanistan) has stretched our military to the breaking point and has depleted so much equipment and morale that it would take years to recover even if the war ended tomorrow.

Our continuing use of violence and threats of violence as a solution to all problems, both on an individual level (Guantanamo Bay, secret prisons, "extraordinary rendition," and the use of what the world considers torture) and a national level (Bush now talks openly of using military power against Iran) has completely negated whatever international goodwill that existed after 9/11, and has undermined our role as a moral and diplomatic world leader.

And, the unity that arose after 9/11 was effectively killed by the realization that we'd been manipulated at best (lied to at worst) in Bush's rush to invade Iraq.

Now we're facing real threats, both in a looming recession and continuing fall in the value of the dollar, and in the rise of the power of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we've got nothing to fall back on. Bush squandered the economic and military resources we should have kept for emergencies.

Gouging the Uninsured

Every time I get a medical bill, I am shocked at the difference between the price of medical services and the cost of medical services.

I paid a bill this morning for a medical procedure and, according to the bill, the price of the procedure was $1,300. However, because I am insured, there was a $862 "adjustment," reducing the cost of the procedure to only $438.

This "adjustment" was not a payment by the insurance company, but reflected a price agreement negotiated between the insurance company and the doctors. The insurance company has said to the doctors, "You can quote whatever price you want, but we're only going to pay $438 for that procedure." And the doctors agreed.

What is most shocking is not just that doctors routinely bill prices that are 66% more than what they are really willing to accept as payment, but the implications of what this means for the 40% of our population that are uninsured. If you're uninsured, no one has negotiated a lower price for you, and no one will, and you're probably in no position to bargain, being in an emergency room with a serious medical problem and a poor credit history.

So if you're uninsured, you get gouged.

Remember that the next time you hear about some astronomically large medical bill that was run up by an uninsured person, or when you hear about the high cost of medical care, because what you may be hearing about is inflated prices.

The "Moment"

Several times on the news tonight, I saw "the moment," when Hillary Clinton talked about her deep-felt concerns for America, and appeared to choke up, and come close to tears.

I thought it was quite good. Viewed in the context of the question that was asked, it showed that she was capable of passion, and cared deeply about the issues in the campaign.

But viewed in the context of the campaign as a whole, it raises some awkward questions. For example, if Hillary was capable of passion, where was it up until now?

Initially, her campaign was about "inevitability," meaning that she had pulled the sword from the stone and was destined to be the Democratic candidate so the voters should stop worrying about it.

Then, she was the candidate of "experience."

Now, suddenly, the day before the New Hampshire primary, she discovers that she believes passionately about the welfare of Americans.

It's all too neat, and too convenient.

She has shown that she is capable of laughing on cue. Is she also capable of choking up with emotion on cue, when her advisers have told her that its a wining strategy? My guess is: yes.

The Social Security "Crisis"

We've heard for years about a "crisis" in Social Security, as benefits are predicted to exceed FICA tax revenues at some time in the future, most recently in 2005 as President Bush tried to undermine the Social Security system by allowing workers to opt out of the system and create private accounts (which even the White House eventually agreed would not solve the financial problems of the system). But the assumptions made by the Social Security Administration are conservative and new projections often push the predicted shortfall further into the future. (The latest estimates, in the 2007 reports of the Social Security Administration, say that projected tax income will begin to fall short of outlays in 2017, and the trust fund will be exhausted in 2041.) Now, there are new reasons to believe that the predicted shortfall might never occur.

According to the book "Microtrends" by Mark Penn, a growing number of people are working past the traditional retirement age of 65, either by necessity or choice. For example, the number of workers 65 and older has almost doubled in the last 25 years, and a 2005 survey by Merrill Lynch found that three fourths of baby boomers were not planning a traditional retirement.

Of course, if people work longer, they continue to contribute taxes while delaying receipts of benefits. According to an economist at the Urban Institute, Eugene Steuerle, if everyone worked just one year longer than the SSA has been assuming, and so received one year less in benefits and contributed one more year of FICA taxes, the projected shortfall would disappear.

There is also recent news that the fertility rate for American women has reversed a long-term downward trend, and is now something like 2.1 children per woman, which exceeds the "replacement rate" and is one of the highest of any industrialized nation. That means that in 20 years we may have more workers than previously expected, and more tax revenue than previously predicted.

All of which means that the so-called "crisis" in Social Security might no longer exist (assuming it ever really did exist).

But funding Medicaid and Medicare is going to be a problem.

The Bandwagon Effect

It is often said that everyone loves a winner, and people like to root for a winner. The crowds at sporting events are larger when the home team is a winning team because people would rather be fans of a winning team and not a losing team.

Unfortunately, we have taken the same attitude to politics. Many people are so desirous of voting for a winner that they vote for the candidate they think will win, rather than the candidate they want to win. And so some voters will describe their own votes as "wasted" merely because their candidate failed to win.

Pundits sometimes describe this as "momentum," because popularity can be a self-fulfilling prophesy. Candidates that are perceived as successful, popular, and potential winners, become more popular and more successful simply as people hop onto what they think is a winning bandwagon.

In fact, it is arguable that Hillary Clinton's entire campaign to date has been based on this phenomenon. With an early lead in public opinion polls (which was due mainly to name recognition), her campaign has sought to present her success as inevitable, so that any vote for any other candidate is futile (and wasted).

This phenomenon also explains the importance of the early primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire. Candidates that do well in those two small states may be able to coast to national victories simply because they are perceived as winners, which causes more people to vote for them in later primaries.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media (and most pundits) actually encourage this kind of thinking by covering political campaigns as though they were sporting events. They rely on polls (and often just guesswork) to talk about who's behind and who's ahead, what are their tactics and strategies, and what are their chances, while hardly mentioning at all the real policy differences among the candidates. So most voters will go to the polls with all sorts of ideas about who's likely to win, but very little idea about which candidate stands for policies that are favored by the voter.

The bandwagon effect is also fueled (or perhaps magnified) by our "winner take all" political system, in which only the candidates with the largest plurality of votes (a majority is not needed in most elections) is elected. This discourages votes for third-party candidates, and also denies any political representation to voters representing sizable minorities of the population. (More about this another day.)

The Iranian Nuclear "Threat"

In the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, the Bush administration reluctantly (and embarrassingly) admitted that the Iranian nuclear weapons program, which has been the focus of its policy towards Iraq, doesn't actually exist.

In the past, when asked about the possibility of military action against Iran, Bush has repeatedly said that "all options are on the table," and that the United States would use force against Iran if diplomacy failed.

And yet yesterday (12/4), facing questions about his own administration's assessment that Iran actually halted its nuclear weapons program in 2005, Bush repeated and confirmed his policy that "all options are on the table."

That's right, the President of the United States still holds out the possibility that we might bomb or invade a country that, according to our own intelligence agencies, (a) has no nuclear weapons, (b) is not building any nuclear weapons, and (c) has (as far as we can tell) no present intention of building any nuclear weapons, simply because that country might change its mind and start to build nuclear weapons in the future.

Is that crazy? Yes, but it is also consistent with a President who does not know how to govern or negotiate except through fear. Bush does not know how to negotiate with Iran except with threats, and Bush does not know how to lead this country without first trying to scare its citizens.

A "Hail Mary" Legacy

George W. Bush is obsessed with his "legacy." Wildly unpopular in the present, he hopes for some respect in the future, despite the many obvious failures of his administration.

Now, with less than 14 months to go in his second term as President, Bush has a new goal: Peace in the Mideast.

No, not Iraq. He's already given up on that one. The Israeli-Palestinian part of the Mideast.

What else are we to make of the Arab-Israeli conference in Annapolis?

Down a lot of points, and deep in his own territory, Bush is going to throw a long one and hope it gets caught by someone.

Rating the Republican Candidates

In a previous post, I explained which Democratic candidates for President I liked, and why. Today, I'm going to provide the same kinds of thoughts about the major Republican candidates.

Once again, this is not intended to be any kind of prediction about who will be nominated. Just my thoughts about who I would prefer to see as President if a Republican had to be elected for some reason (e.g., another strange Supreme Court ruling).

Mike Huckabee - Huckabee is admittedly conservative, but he has some experience running a government (as governor of Arkansas) and in the interviews I have seen, he comes off as honest and likable. So I would like to think he's not going to continue torturing people or invading other countries for ego reasons. And I'd like to think he won't lie to us more than what is absolutely necessary.

Mitt Romney - Like Huckabee, Romney also has administrative experience as a governor (Massachusetts). Probably more liberal than Huckabee, but that is canceled out (perhaps overwhelmed) by his current pandering to the religious right. Bottom line is that he's intelligent and competent, but not very honest, and I'd actually rather have an honest conservative in the White House than a dishonest moderate.

John McCain - Too old, too conservative, and no administrative experience. Comes across as likeable in interviews, but that only gives him an edge over Giuliani.

Rudolph Giuliani - Giuliani's sole claim to fame is that, after the attacks on 9/11, he didn't hop onto an airplane and head for Nebraska but actually tried to do his job. He has little experience with national issues, no judgment on personnel matters (e.g., Bernard Kerik), and his views on foreign policy are frightening. He was not well-regarded as a mayor before 9/11 and, given the opportunity, he could be the second-worst President in American history. (Second only to George W. Bush, of course.)

Fred Thompson - I don't know much about him, but everything I know I don't like. He is inexperienced, inarticulate, and hoping for the support of the religious right. Add that up and it sounds to me like trouble.

Ron Paul - An honest and likable man with views that are absolutely opposed to mine (except perhaps on the issue of Iraq) and absolutely no visible aptitude for the job of President.

Mukasey Confirmed

Michael B. Mukasey has not yet been confirmed as Attorney General, but his most recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee (on 10/18/2007) have confirmed that he is indeed the "moral idiot" that I described earlier.

Asked whether "waterboarding" (the controlled drowning of detainees to obtain information) might be constitutional, Mukasey answered (evasively) that, "“If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.” Mukasey either does not know, or does not care, that a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, was tried and convicted of war crimes in 1947, and sentenced to 15 years hard labor, because he waterboarded a U.S. civilian during the second world war.

Just as troubling (or perhaps more troubling) is that Mukasey adheres to the view that the President as commander-in-chief under Article II of the Constitution can ignore the laws enacted by Congress under Article I of the Constitution. So electronic surveillance carried out on the orders of the President might be legal even if prohibited (and made a criminal act) by the laws enacted by Congress. According to Mukasey, “The president is not putting somebody above the law; the president is putting somebody within the law.”

Or, as Richard Nixon put it, ""When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."

Rating the Democratic Candidates

Everyone else has opinions about the candidates, so why shouldn't I?

What follows is not a prediction of who will win the Democratic presidential primaries, but just my summary of who I like, and why.

John Edwards - I liked John Edwards in 2004, and I still like him. In his interviews, he comes across as intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate. He has been among the leaders in formulating and proposing a specific health care policy and in advocating our disengagement from Iraq. His major weakness is that he's never had an administrative position, and served only one term in the Senate. On the plus side, he's been already through a presidential race and knows how to campaign. I also think that he's more "electible" because he's from the south. (See my comments on Hillary Clinton, below.)

Barack Obama - I like Obama for much the same reasons I like Edwards. I give the edge to Edwards because Obama has yet to serve a full term in the Senate and has never been involved in a national campaign.

Bill Richardson - On paper, Bill Richardson is the most qualified candidate running, with 14 years in Congress, administrative experience (as the federal Secretary of Energy and as governor of New Mexico) and foreign policy experience (as Ambassador to the United Nations). I'd like to like him, but in every interview I have seen, he comes off as flat and uninspiring. I don't hear any new ideas from him, or any leadership, only credentials, and that doesn't interest me.

Hillary Clinton - I used to like Hillary Clinton. In fact, I cast a write-in vote for her for President in the 2000 primary. But she has been less than inspiring in the Senate (such as her vote to authorize the war in Iraq), and the coldness and ruthlessness of her campaign have been somewhat frightening. I no longer see much humanity in her, and I no longer have much confidence in her judgment.

I also have real doubts about Clinton's "electibility." Like her husband, she seems to bring out the bitterness in Republicans and right-leaning independent voters. And no sitting Senator from either party has been elected President since 1964 (Sen. John F. Kennedy), and no northern Democrat has been elected President in the same time, so the demographics and historical trends are all against her.

So I have a lot of misgivings about Clinton as a presidential candidate.

Those are my preferences. But, like most Democrats, I think that this is a highly qualified field, and I would be satisfied to be able to vote for any of them for President.

Next: Republicans

Fort Massacre: Iraq

The movie Fort Massacre (1958), starring Joel McCrea, is usually described as a run-of-the-mill western, but there is a psychological subplot that impressed me when I saw the movie many years ago, and that haunts me still.

Briefly, the movie is about a small group of calvary troops who are caught in hostile Indian territory and are trying to get back to safety. But everything they do, and every move they make, seems to make the situation worse, and instead of avoiding the hostiles and moving closer to safety, they keep having to fight and move further from safety.

The soldiers believe that the problem is with the commanding officer, Sargent Vinson (Joel McCrea), whose wife and child were killed by Indians and who (they believe) is crazy to kill Indians and is deliberately leading them into repeated conflicts with the Indians. In a very memorable scene, Vinson (McCrea) explains that everything he has done was for the right reasons, that he has had rational reasons for everything he did, and that it was just bad luck that things did not go as he planned. And if you have ever seen how charming and sincere Joel McCrea could be, then you'll understand that, watching that scene, I believed him.

The climax to the movie comes when you suddenly realize that Vinson really is crazy and all he ever wanted to do was kill Indians even if it meant the lives of both him and his men.

Now, when I say "crazy," I'm not saying that Vinson was irrational, because he at least appeared to be very rational. What I'm saying is that Vinson did not know his own mind and had not admitted his own feelings to himself and so, when it came to judgment calls that required subjective assessments of risks, Vinson allowed himself to be led into bad choices by feelings and attitudes that he himself might not have been aware of. In other words, Vinson made what might be called a series of "Freudian" mistakes, in which his subconscious was able to affect his conscious decisions, leading to results that his subconscious wanted but his conscious mind rejected.

I don't really consider myself a Freudian, but I have come to believe that there really are very few accidents in life. Most of what happens to us is not the result of chance or luck, but is what at least a part of our mind wants to happen.

The clearest example of this would be an addiction such as alcohol or gambling. As the addiction begins to impose physical, emotional, and financial pain, causing illness, loss of family and friends, and loss of employment, many people think that the addict continues in the addiction despite the pain. A better explanation is that the addict continues because of the pain. Living with the pain of the addiction is in some way more comfortable to the addict than living without the pain, and so the addiction continues until (sometimes) the addict hits "rock bottom" and decides that maybe life without the addiction is not so bad after all.

The misbehavior or risky behavior of many children (and adults) can also be understood more clearly if you understand that the risk-taker might not view the consequences of failure as such a bad thing. A child who shoots a spitball at a teacher is not necessarily discouraged by the possibility of punishment, and in fact might be encouraged to misbehave, because the punishment itself (or the attention the punishment brings) may be part of what the child desires. Similarly, other kinds of unnaturally risky behavior can be the result of a mindset that feels some possible emotional benefit in what what the rest of us would call failure.

Okay, here's today's scary thought. What if everything that has gone wrong in Iraq was not really the result of bad intelligence, poor planning, or unexpected events. What if what we are seeing in Iraq is what George W. Bush really wants, subconsciously but not consciously.

Why would President Bush want such a thing, even subconsciously? We can't answer that question without first knowing why he was an alcoholic (which is pretty much conceded even by his supporters) or why he used cocaine (which is pretty much denied by his supporters, most of whom are in denial about a lot of things). But if you assume that many of Bush's decisions may be affected by some self-destructive desire to fail, then many events during his administration begin to make more sense. The failure to deal with Hurricane Katrina, the lack of attention to (and subsequent reversal of) what had been a successful invasion of Afghanistan, and even Bush's inattention to the famous August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S."), which lead to the 9/11 attacks themselves, are all part of a pattern.

It is also telling that, as Bush's post-invasion strategy for Iraq has clearly failed, his response has been to take more risks, ignoring the advice of the Iraq Study Group, committing more troops to Iraq, and pushing for a confrontation with Iran. Bush is like an addicted gambler on a losing streak who is nonetheless sure that his luck will change at any moment and then everything will be okay. And, just as an addicted gambler will not stop until the house refuses to extend him any additional credit, Bush will not stop until the House (and Senate) refuse to fund his military gambles.

At the end of Fort Massacre, Sgt. Vinson dies but most of his troops live. That is not the way Fort Massacre: Iraq will end. Tens of thousands of our troops (and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis) will have been killed or maimed, but the commanding officer will walk away unscathed, physically and (so far) politically.

Clarence Thomas: Complex or Conflicted?

In a news report last week, following a lengthy interview with Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg described him as one of "the most complex, compelling, maligned, and misunderstood figures in modern history."

I'm sure she meant that as a compliment, even though the same things could be said of the steamship Titanic or O. J. Simpson, but the word that really sprang out at me was "complex," because to me, "complex" is pretty much synonymous with "conflicted."

I have a cat that's conflicted. She will come over and rub up against your legs, and you can reach down and pet her for a few seconds, but then it's suddenly too much and she will whirl and hiss and swipe at you with her claws. Clarence Thomas seems to be the same way.

Thomas seems to have been the beneficiary of some liberal policies and liberal institutions, allowing him to get a prestigious law school education at Yale and eventually get a place on the U.S. Supreme Court. But it's "too much" and instead of purring, he lashes out with his claws.

He also seems to be angry (and conflicted) about his employment after law school. In his new book, he says that he put a 15 cent price sticker on his diploma after several employers turned him down. During his interview on "60 Minutes," Thomas said that he couldn't get a job, and that he eventually "swallowed hard" and took a job that didn't pay much money. The interviewer, Steve Kroft, described the job as "a $10,000-a-year job in Jefferson City, Mo., working for the state’s attorney general, John Danforth." But, as Frank Rich pointed out in his column in the New York Times, the position Thomas got was as an assistant attorney general, and John Danforth told a very different story in 1991, when he was a Senator supporting Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court. Danforth testified during the confirmation hearings that he had gone to New Haven to recruit Thomas before he graduated. So Thomas had a job before he graduated, and he went from law school to one of the top law enforcement positions in state government. Furthermore, working for Danforth (also a Yale graduate) led to employment in Washington once Danforth was elected to the Senate, which led to Thomas's positions in the Reagan administration, which lead to his appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which led to his Supreme Court appointment, in which he had the support of his first employer, Senator John Danforth. That sounds like a lot of good fortune, beginning with his first job out of law school, but all Thomas can do is complain about how few other job offers he had and how little his first job paid. (Incidentally, the top law firms paid starting salaries of only $14,000 to $16,000 back in 1974, and government service always pays less than private practice, so his starting salary was probably either average or not much below average for a beginning lawyer, even a Yale graduate.)

And Thomas's continuing obsession with Anita Hill is also puzzling. In his book, he describes her as a "mediocre lawyer." And yet, as Hill herself points out, she was also a graduate of Yale University, he recruited her to come work for him not once but twice, and he wrote a letter of recommendation that helped her get her first teaching job. And she has continued to enjoy what appears to be a successful academic career (she is now a professor at Brandeis) so she is hardly an intellectual light-weight.

And, speaking of Anita Hill, did Clarence Thomas commit perjury during his confirmation hearings in 1991? One of them must have been lying, because she made very specific allegations and he denied all of them. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, it is increasingly clear that he was the liar and not her.

One new reason to believe that Thomas lied in 1991 is that he has not told the entire truth about other things since then. As shown above, both his book and the interviews following the publication of his book contain numerous misrepresentations about both Anita Hill and his own career.

Another reason to believe that Thomas lied is his continuing anger. My experience has been that people are more likely to be angered by accusations that contain some truth than by accusations that are completely untrue. In continuing to try to negate Professor Hill, Thomas doth protest too much.

Which exposes another conflict. Thomas was married in 1971 and divorced (despite being raised as a Roman Catholic) in 1984. So when Hill was working for him, from 1981 through 1983, Thomas was undoubtedly going through a great deal of personal pain and might have "acted out." He considers himself a moral person and a good Catholic, and yet he also tried to impose his sexuality onto a female employee and he can't be comfortable with those memories.

And so we have an angry, conflicted, perjuror on the Supreme Court.

Professor Hill has written that, "The question of whether Clarence Thomas belongs on the Supreme Court is no longer on the table — it was settled by the Senate back in 1991." If Clarence Thomas lied during his Senate confirmation hearings, then the issue of whether he belongs on the Supreme Court is not settled, and should be raised again, this time in impeachment hearings.

Torture Lite

Recent stories in the New York Times (see Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations (October 4, 2007) and Debate Erupts on Techniques Used by C.I.A. (October 5, 2007)) make it clear that the Bush administration does not want to allow any meaningful public debate on the proper treatment of detainees.

In August of 2002, the Department of Justice produced what has come to be known as the "torture memo," which concluded that deliberately inflicting pain on a detainee was not "torture" unless the pain was equivalent to "organ failure" or “even death.” According to the NY Times, there was also a separate memorandum that described specific approved techniques.

The "torture memo" was officially withdrawn by the Department of Justice in 2004, after the original author (John Yoo) had left the Department, and after news of the content of the memo had become public. The Department of Justice then put on its website a very sanctimonious opinion titled "Legal Standards Applicable under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A" that declared torture to be "abhorrent" and explained the meaning of terms such as "severe pain," but only in the most general way and without ever referring to any specific way of inflicting pain.

That much has been public knowledge for some time. What is news is that in 2005, after Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General, the Department issued a new, secret memorandum, again approving the infliction of physical and psychological pain. According to the NY Times, this new memorandum specifically approved not only the use of slapping, cold temperatures, sleep deprivation, loud music, and waterboarding, but allowed these techniques to be used in combinations. So it might be possible to slap around a detainee, put him in a 50 degree cell for a few hours with "music" so loud he couldn't sleep even if he could stop shivering, and then, if he does fall asleep, wake him up for some waterboarding, followed by more slapping.

(Incidentally, the NY Times and other sources continue to refer to waterboarding as "simulated drowning" or "making the subject think he is drowning." Let's be clear. Someone subject to waterboarding really is drowning. They cannot breathe, and will suffocate unless the waterboarding stops. The only difference between waterboarding and the cruel, crude, medieval practice of "dunking" is that, during waterboarding, no water can get into the victim's mouth or nose. Big deal.)

Okay, so combinations of slapping, cold temperatures, and waterboarding might not be "torture." But then Congress upped the ante, enacting the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and making it a crime for detainees to be subject to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Well, guess what? Then the Department of Justice declared (secretly) that the same things that they had decided weren't torture weren't even "cruel, inhuman or degrading." According to the NY Times, another secret memorandum was issued by the Department of Justice in late 2005 that reached that very conclusion.

And now, many members of Congress are upset to learn that the Department of Justice has a practice of issuing memos saying that the laws Congress has enacted don't mean what Congress thought they meant and without telling Congress that. (Which Congress should have expected, given that Bush had attached a "signing statement" to the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 saying that he would ignore the act if he thought he had the constitutional authority to do so. See "Clarification" in this blog.)

And the response by the White House? White House press secretary Dana Perino refused to identify or discuss any specific techniques but declared that "any procedures that they use" are "tough, safe, necessary and lawful." (The "tough" I believe.)

So there you have it. Congress can pass any law it wants regarding "torture" or "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," and those laws don't really mean anything because the lawyers in the Department of Justice (who are appointed by the President, remember) get to define what is meant by "torture" and "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" and the President doesn't need to tell us (or Congress) what these definitions are.