ThinkProgress Logo

Yglesias

Way Back When

By ThinkProgress on Nov 10, 2007 at 10:36 am

I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be voting for Joe Biden for President, but I think Transplanted Texan at MYDD will be and his post yesterday drew my attention to this fairly prescient Joe Biden speech from September 10, 2001 on foreign policy in which it was clear that the combination of hubris and fanaticism that have made the Bush administration so dangerous on so many fronts was already evident in some ways.

Also interesting here is the context. Basically, Biden was laying the groundwork for an upcoming series of congressional hearings that were aimed at debunking the administration’s case for a national missile defense system. The basic argument Democrats were making was that rogue state ballistic missiles were a very hypothetical threat and a missile defense system was a very expensive hypothetical defense against it. The top priority, in Democrats’ view, was to maintain good relations with Russia and China to maximize diplomatic leverage against North Korea (and to a lesser extent, the less acute problems of Iran and Iraq) and to focus on counterterrorism threats.

Condi Rice, meanwhile, was set to give a speech on 9/11 that was all about the need to meet the threats of “tomorrow” and accusing her blinkered, terrorism-and-nonproliferation-centric adversaries of living in the past. Naturally, Rice wasn’t planning on mentioning terrorism at all and when subsequent events revealed the wrongheadedness of the basic worldview, instead of revising the worldview they responded to the terrorist attacks in crazy ways (invading Iraq, e.g.) that met their preconceptions about what was important rather than with policies that addressed the issue at hand in effective ways.

Yglesias

Cato: Back to 1912

By ThinkProgress on Nov 10, 2007 at 10:35 am

Cato’s Daniel Mitchell outlines his plan to return the United States to the levels of prosperity seen before the first world war:

The real issue is whether America would be a stronger and more prosperous nation if government was reduced to the levels envisioned by the Founding Fathers. America climbed from agricultural poverty to middle-class prosperity before the income tax was adopted, and federal government spending (with the exception of times of war) was a small percentage of GDP.

This seems like a bizarre way to argue. It’s true, obviously, that the country was much more prosperous in 1912 than it had been in 1790, but it’s grown far more prosperous still in the dread income tax era. Were the horse-and-buggy days really good enough for Mitchell? After all, without the need for paved roads we were able to keep the tax burden low, low, low. The near-total absence of useful medical technologies helped keep health care expenses low. And with the population ill-educated by contemporary standards and wage rates much lower than they are today, it was easy to run a school system on the cheap.

Climate Progress

The Oil Trap and Developing Countries

By Climate Guest Blogger on Nov 10, 2007 at 9:57 am

Earlier this week the New York Times took on the latest (sky-rocketing) oil prices and their geopolitical impacts in High-Priced Oil Adds Volatility to Power Scramble, but they missed the perspective of a key, equally vulnerable demographic – developing countries that import oil.

The article’s analysis centers on how oil prices are shaking up power dynamics, and the emphasis within the developing world is given to the instability and hostility of some of the most oil-rich locales (such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Angola). Other actors factored into the piece are wealthier countries that import oil or the big guys, like Russia.

This is the line that made me think twice about who was covered:

In many poor nations with oil, the proceeds are being lost to corruption, depriving these countries of their best hope for development.

What about the poor nations without oil – what of the $100 per barrel (which we’re nearing) for their development aspirations?

As I’ve blogged before, the Center for American Progress has done some insightful original research on this front. To a handful of the countries for whom debt has been recently relieved, the value has been negated by the cost of importing oil. A barrel of expensive crude oil translates into a few cents at our pumps, but a few blows to the economy of the most impoverished developing countries.

Together, developing countries are expected to account for two-thirds of the projected growth in emissions by 2030. And the longer their development relies on oil, the dirtier it is, the more vulnerable their economies are, and the steeper their uphill battle will become (to cleanse and develop).

High-oil prices are most certainly adding volatility to progress, but for many, the scramble is quite literally for power (electricity, cooking fuel, transportation), and their circumstances must be taken into account as the post-2012, post-Kyoto negotiations begin in December (in Bali) – and in our own domestic legislation.

Politics

When Republicans Attack

By ThinkProgress on Nov 10, 2007 at 9:50 am

kerik.jpg

Good times as John McCain and Mitt Romney attack Rudy Giuliani for his Bernard Kerik associations, only to prompt Randy Mastro to strike back for Team Rudy by calling Saint McCain’s sainthood into question while pretending not to: “It’s no more fair to judge Rudy Giuliani on the basis of one issue than it is to judge John McCain on the Keating scandal.” But Rich Lowry has the really rough stuff from Katie Levinson on Giuliani’s behalf:

Let me get this straight – first, campaign finance crusader John McCain oversees a campaign that spiraled completely out of control and went bankrupt and now he wants a questionable $3 million loan? Doesn’t quite pass the smell test, does it?

Americans need someone in the White House who knows how to balance their own checkbook before they try to balance the federal government’s. They don’t need John McCain, they need Rudy Giuliani – who has actually balanced a budget and made a payroll.

Of course it was a payroll that included his good friend and former driver, the corrupt guy who kept getting promoted to head more-and-more important agencies until Rudy vouched for the guy and got him nominated, almost vetting-free, to be homeland security secretary. Levinson concludes:

Is this what desperation looks like? Bernie Kerik’s issues have been known since 2004 and John McCain still had glowing things to say about Rudy Giuliani and his leadership. What, exactly, changed today? Best as I can tell, it’s just John McCain’s pure desperation in the face of a failing and flailing campaign trumping his so-called straight talk. It is truly a shame that John McCain has chosen to stoop this low.”

I think when you start attacking the other campaigns for showing “desperation” — like when Hillary Clinton gets mad that John Edwards has the temerity to point out that they disagree on the merits of some issues — it mostly shows that you don’t have a good answer. Rick Davis for John McCain counter-counter attacks:

Rudy Giuliani’s history with Bernie Kerik is a story of poor judgment. After being briefed on Kerik’s ties to organized crime, Giuliani named him chief of the New York Police Department. Without any further vetting, Giuliani asked him to join his security consulting firm. Despite obvious ethical problems, Giuliani went so far as to personally recommend Kerik for the top job at the Department of Homeland Security.

A president’s judgment matters and Rudy Giuliani has repeatedly placed personal loyalty over regard for the facts.

Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, and liberals everywhere are smiling.

UPDATE: Ambinder has more on the food-fight, including John McCain’s mom lashing out against Mormons:

As far as the Salt Lake City thing, he’s a Mormon and the Mormons of Salt Lake City had caused that scandal. And to clean that up, again, it’s not a subject,” Roberta McCain said. JohnMcCain quickly stepped in: ”The views of my mothers are not necessarily the views of mine.’ ”Well, that’s my view and you asked me,” Roberta answered.

I’d actually been waiting quite some time to see an unambiguously bigoted bit of Mormom-bashing, I think we have a winner here. The idea seems to be that because Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and because the people who created the problems with the SLC Olypmpic bid are also Mormons, that Romney doesn’t deserve credit for fixing things because in the Cosmic Balance of Mormonism it’s all a wash. Or something.

Media

O’Reilly Tells Ombudsman To Ignore His ‘Haters,’ Focus On ‘Regular Folks Who Enjoy This Program’

By Amanda Terkel on Nov 10, 2007 at 9:37 am

In September, Bill O’Reilly announced that Fox News anchor Laurie Dhue would be the new O’Reilly Factor ombudsman. He claimed that he wanted her to be “tough” on him.

But on Thursday’s show, O’Reilly complained that Dhue was getting too much mail from his “haters” and encouraged more “regular folks who really enjoy this program” to write in:

O’REILLY: First of all, there’s a couple of things going on with “The Dhue Point” everybody should know, because we depend on your questions to Laurie. No. 1, there are pinheads who want you to try to embarrass me. Those people come from the far-left precincts. Ignore them.

DHUE: Yeah. I’m getting an awful lot of email saying I’m too easy on you.

O’REILLY: It’s all coming — it’s all coming from the haters on the far left. Just throw it in the garbage. But the regular folks who really enjoy this program, what we want you to ask Laurie is why we do things, why we do them. All right? Or “we didn’t really like that.”

The mission of PBS ombudsman Michael Getler is to review “commentary and criticism from viewers” and “ensure that PBS upholds its own standards of editorial integrity.”

Dhue’s job, on the other hand, seems to be to defend O’Reilly and make him look good. During one segment she calls a viewer criticism of the show “off the mark” and says O’Reilly is a “victim of misinformation.” The letters Dhue has read on-air have mostly been from viewers who want O’Reilly to be more conservative, wondering why he’s given a “pass” to liberal guests such as Bill Maher and Jesse Jackson. Watch some of Dhue’s softball reports here:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/11/dhuereport.320.240.flv]

For all you “regular folks” out there, start writing to Dhue HERE.

Transcript: Read more

Culture

Powdery Blue Fiasco

By ThinkProgress on Nov 10, 2007 at 2:29 am

Can’t say that sitting in the stands for this disaster is making me super-optimistic about the nineteen home games left on my ticket package. Over the offseason I found myself becoming semi-convinced by the Dave Berri analysis that Gilbert Arenas was less central to the Wizards than was often assumed — that he was being overrated and the non-”big three” teammates underestimated — but now that we see Gilbert with a knee injury and the whole team looking awful, I’m provisionally back to the conventional wisdom.

Newer

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up