June 2002 Archives

Is the near unanimous support for President Bush's conduct of the war waning? David Broder is seeing signs that it is.

Steve Chapman explains how two seemingly contradictory court rulings of the past week -- the 9th Circuit's ruling that the pledge of allegiance is unconstitutional because of the phrase "under God" and the Supreme Court's upholding of a Cleveland school voucher plan -- are actually quite consistent. Writes Chapman:

"It may be maddening to see courts reach such contradictory conclusions, seemingly going to war against religion in one case and coming to its assistance in the other. But consider another possibility: that the two courts were not only both right but were acting on behalf of the same sound constitutional principle.

The principle can be summed up in two words: official neutrality. It stipulates that in dealing with religion, the government should be neither ally nor adversary."

Professor David H. Feldman makes an important observation: a functioning market system depends on trust.

The visible economy is connected to a hidden economy of trust, a common asset on which everyone relies but for which no one is singularly responsible. The longer we take to restore the trust economy, the more the markets -- and other parts of the visible economy that depend on it -- will deteriorate.

NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday last week included an interesting segment on global climate change news.

Dr. Michael Oppenheimer did a good job explaining the problem. They took a caller, "Tom," who was interested only in making a speech and not engaging the conversation. "Tom" provides an example of one of the thoughtless arguments made against taking action to combat global climate change.

TOM: Hi. I take issue a little bit with your guests here about this global warming issue. I saw on television here a week or so ago, I think it was "Dateline," where they talked about global warming. And it was my understanding, as they said it, 10,000 years ago our Earth was actually warmer than what it is today by several degrees.

OPPENHEIMER: Yeah. Let me respond to that. Earth was perhaps as warm, perhaps a little warmer six to 8,000 years ago, not 10,000 years ago, than it is now. That was due to a natural cycle where the Earth moves around the sun and the Northern Hemisphere was positioned more favorably to receive sunlight in the summer. It made it a little warmer. But those natural cycles, those natural changes occur over the course of hundreds, thousands -- actually thousands and tens of thousands of years. We're talking about telescoping a much larger change than the, say, one- or two-degree Fahrenheit warming of 6,000 years ago. We're talking about a much larger warming telescope not into a couple of thousand years, but one century.

TOM: Well, then if it's a natural cycle, no matter what you do, there isn't going to be much you can do about it. If you recall, since I live here in Wisconsin, it was some thousands of years ago that we were actually sitting under a mile-deep-think glacier of ice.

OPPENHEIMER: Yes. And where I am here, too, and the very point we're making is that--and it's not me, it's

TOM: The humans back then were generating so much heat or was it the dinosaurs?

OPPENHEIMER: No, of course not. There are natural climate changes. They occur because of changes in Earth's orbit, which, by the way, increased the amount of carb dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But they occur over thousands and even millions of years. What we're saying is that same scale of change, which can remake the face of the Earth, is being caused now not by natural changes, but by the emissions from industry, emissions from burning coal, burning oil, burning gasoline, burning natural gas, which are causing a buildup of the levels of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."

There are policies, market-based polices like auctioning emission permits through the establishment of a "cap-and-trade" system, that can allow the United States to meet its Kyoto obligations without harming, and perhaps even helping, our economy.

I believe the United States -- the nation that built the atomic bomb in four years and put humans on the moon in eight -- has the ability to undertake another major program to transform our economy, this time away from its reliance on fossil fuels.

Is the United States a great nation? Are our citizens resourceful? Can we meet challenges presented to us? Yes. It is time we started acting like it.

Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, makes the following observation about efforts to combat climate change: "But if the president won't lead the world, then the business community, the American people and their elected representatives in Congress must lead the president."

The president argues that taking action on climate change will hurt the economy. Actually, our national failure to take climate change action exposes our businesses to insurance and fudiciary risks, inconsistent regulations, and competitive disadvantages caused when international competitors get a head start adjusting to a carbon-constrained environment. The United States should lead on climate change mitigation efforts. Our present, "oh well, we'll find a way to get by" policy is unworthy of a great nation.

Thomas Friedman's latest analysis of the Middle East conflict is extraordinarily depressing. He makes a strong case that both sides have moved beyond the possibility of peace, leaving only the hope of a managed limited conflict. As Friedman notes, "...George Bush may be on Israel's side, but history, technology and demographics are all against it."

At nearly the last minute, and by only a one-vote margin, the House of Representatives voted to raise the national debt ceiling. But, not before Democratic legislators had their chance to expose their own hypocrisy on the measure.

Four factors conspired to require the increase in the national debt ceiling, three of which Congress and the White House share responsibility. No one can pin the economic slowdown on Washington, although they'll take credit for any recovery. Both sides have supported tax cuts and spending increases. Finally, the debt piling up in the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds kept the national debt rising from year to year even when there were surpluses.

Remember, despite all of the talk about budget surpluses, the national debt never fell from one fiscal year to the next. Review the numbers for yourself:

          June 26, 2002:  6,018,489,051,398.77

          Sept. 30, 2001: 5,807,463,412,200.06

          Sept. 30, 2000: 5,674,178,209,886.86 

          Sept. 30, 1999: 5,656,270,901,633.43 

          Sept. 30, 1998: 5,526,193,008,897.62 

          Sept. 30, 1997: 5,413,146,011,397.34

Timothy Noah explains why most kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance likely don't really understand it.

Even if out of self-interest, President Bush's angry words about the WorldCom accounting scandal are appropriate and welcome. The real question, for him and our Congressional leaders: will deeds match the rhetoric?

More bad financial news from Salon. I hope they find a way to turn their fortunes around. I paid the subscription fee because web journalism needs more voices. (I paid Slate's fee several years ago on similar principle.)

Al Qaeda may soon have the ability to use the internet to kill people.

This is good news: the Russian Duma has approved a bill allowing the sale of farmland for the first time since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei writes:

"In what is becoming an all-too-familiar story line, WorldCom, like so many other corporations under investigation for duping investors, enjoyed considerable access to politicians of both parties and gladly spread its money around to keep the doors of power wide open."

This deserves for attention, study, and monitoring: Moten Elementary School (Washington, D.C.) Principal George Smitherman decided this year to make all of Moten's classes single-sex. The results?

"The percentage of students scoring in the two highest categories -- "advanced" and "proficient" -- on the math portion of the Stanford 9 test had jumped in one year from 49 percent to 88 percent. On the reading portion of the exam, the percentage of students in the top two categories had shot up from 50 percent to 91.5 percent.

The increases have put Moten, a Southeast Washington school where more than 98 percent of the students qualify for subsidized lunches, in the same academic league as schools in the wealthy neighborhoods of upper Northwest."

House Republicans won't bring a bill to raise the national debt ceiling to the floor, but they will pander to senior citizens by bringing up a Medicare prescription drug measure. Medicare is already unsustainable in its present form. Must we add a hugely expensive new entitlement to it before we fixing its present problems? (Well, duh. It's an election year.)

Federal budget expert Stan Collender's latest column about the national debt limit crisis provides an excellent analysis of the situation.

Collender asks some obvious but pointed questions to members of the House of Representatives:

"Have they thought about the tremendous uncertainty that will be created as government employees, beneficiaries and contractors begin to wonder if their banks will honor their federal payments?

Have members of Congress from states or districts with high concentrations of federal employees, beneficiaries and government contractors considered what will happen to local economies as consumer spending in their areas slows down to a trickle over the July Fourth holiday because of the uncertainty? Auto dealers, who typically have big Independence Day sales, could be especially hard hit.

Has anyone thought about the impact on an already very nervous Wall Street if the lack of action on the debt ceiling causes auctions of federal securities to be postponed?"

Morton Kondracke urges our political leaders to take heed of all of the recommendations made by former Senators Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) and Gary Hart (D-Colo.) in their prescient but ignored terrorism report. (Well, ignored until Sept. 11.) It is hard to believe that people continue to ignore many of their conclusions.

Providing better security to materials terrorists could use to make dirty bombs seems like a good idea.

The political fight over raising the national debt ceiling continues. The House Republicans continue to refuse to do their job. They want the cover of another bill (in this case the terrorism supplemental spending bill) so they won't have to go on record having raised the debt ceiling in this election year. They want to avoid the consequences of their tax cutting and spending binges.

This week's Frontline program examining the corruption of the financial auditing industry was excellent. It also, I think, explains why Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) will never be elected president.

For example, his leadership of the effort against the proposal to close "an accounting loophole that allowed companies to avoid recording stock options on their balance sheets" does not look good on his resume. Any Democratic consultant who cannot figure out a way to finger Lieberman with a share of the accounting scandal debacle -- which seems likely to grow even worse with time -- does not deserve to cash the checks coming his or her way.

Harley Sorensen writes an excellent indictment of the Bush Administration's refusal to take global climate change seriously. He notes, "Global warming is serious business, folks. It may already be too late to deal with it, but we should at least try. If we don't, we're in for far more trouble than Osama bin Laden and all the terrorists in the world could bring us."

Stephen Bryen, who was deputy undersecretary of defense for trade security policy under President Reagan, makes several excellent points about our poor Domestic (no longer Homeland in this space) Security preparations.

Why has nothing been done to prepare Americans to respond to an attack? Why are people in New York City, Washington, D.C., and everywhere else still defenseless?

Bryen writes about all of the plans being made and drugs being stockpiled:

"All of this won't mean much if there is no distribution system and if people are not prepared to use the antidotes and vaccines. And hardly anyone has a proper gas mask to protect against airborne pathogens, chemical gases like the nerve gas sarin or airborne particles from a radiological bomb.

Why do Americans, particularly those in high-risk areas such as Washington and New York, lack gas masks, atropine to fight nerve gas and other vital supplies? Or training and information on what we should do if there is an attack?"

Jules Witcover relates an interesting take on retiring Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's legacy in his column today. Witcover quotes Steve Dasbach, the executive director of the Libertarian Party: "Jesse Ventura is a case study in what third parties must avoid if they want to succeed in the long term."

The Bush Administration would like the new cabinet Homeland Security department to be exempt from the federal whistleblower statute and the Freedom of Information Act.

Just what is behind this secrecy fetish? The public, and especially our Congressional representatives, have an obligation to exercise oversight over the executive branch. The United States remains a Democratic Republic, and we the people have the right to know about our government's activities.

David Broder writes about an political science analysis that explains why Governors do better than Senators in presidential races.

Richard Reeves persuasively argues that journalists are trivializing Watergate by, among other things, playing the Deep Throat guessing game and adding the suffix -gate to every other minor political scandal that comes along.

Could someone explain to me how to use a rubber Scooby-Doo fork as a serious weapon? Please explain to me why security "experts" (hah!) believe they must seize this type of item. We can't scan checked luggage for explosives, but we can be certain a young baby won't have his favorite fork for feeding?

Is it the position of the United States government that a rubber fork safe for an infant can be used to take down an airplane? Especially in a world where passengers have been deputized to take security into their own hands if necessary?

This is idiocy.

The next time your favorite conservative preaches about the virtues of the free market, ask them about what Kevin Phillips explains is the government's socialization of credit risk.

"Beginning in the early 1980s, the Federal Reserve Board, the U.S. Treasury and allies like the International Monetary Fund embarked on a two-decade march of bailing out failing or shaky portions of the U.S. and international financial sectors. Among those rescued: Latin American bond issuers; the stock market after the 1987 crash; S&L creditors and depositors; the Mexican peso and its U.S. bondholders; Asian currencies; the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management; and banks menaced by the Y2K scare."

Cragg Hines writes about how anti-Semitism is again a growth industry in Europe.

For the first half of Steve Chapman's column today, it seems that he is signing off on the Bush Administration's refusal to allow any judicial review of the detainment of "enemy combatants."

Fortunately, Chapman does not go that far. He rightly suggests that in wartime the standards change. But, the unlimited powers for which the Justice Department argues simply go too far. Chapman writes:

"In an unconventional war being fought partly at home and under conditions that may make it hard to separate terrorists from mere crooks--or even non-criminals with unpopular views--some check on the executive branch is needed. Before it can hold an American as an enemy combatant, the government should be willing to go to court and present at least minimal evidence to support its classification."

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill once again asked Congress to raise the national debt ceiling. The Senate has approved an increase, but Republicans in the House refuse to take responsibility for the inevitable result of massive tax cuts and increases in spending. Actions have consequences. This is just one of the consequences of the past three years worth of fiscal irresponsibility.

Efforts to provide universal health care to children are an early sign of this issue's growing importance. Our nation's employer-based health insurance system is failing. It is only a matter of time before health insurance becomes a major political issue.

As Ted Halstead and Michael Lind ask in their excellent book "The Radical Center":

"Why should we maintain our employer-based social contract when it so obviously fails such a large portion of American workers, when it unnecessarily burdens American companies, when it diminishes the quality of health care, and when it retards new waves of creative [business] destruction?"

Federal Election Commission rulings this week have magnified the imperfections of the recently passed McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform plan. Soft money will continue to flow into national politics.

Public campaign financing remains the revolutionary tactic needed to reduce the influence of money in our political system. Among its positive traits: More people would have the opportunity to run, it would reduce the influence of special interests, and it would provide a disincentive toward soliciting large amounts of private money.

David Broder reports on how a recent wave of scandals is changing Wisconsin politics.

The anthrax used in the mail attacks last fall was new. This worries investigators, David Johnston and William J. Broad write, because:

"The dating of the anthrax as recent suggests that the person who mailed it prepared the germs on his own and has the ability to make more without relying on old material, possibly taken from the small supplies of anthrax that the government keeps for testing new kinds of defenses against dangerous microbes."

I've just returned from a taping of PBS's Washington Week. The show is "on the road" this week in San Francisco. I ask the fourth question from the audience, focusing on a subject -- the American tradition, and continued need for, strenuous debate in wartime -- that I often mention here. Watch the show, appearing on PBS stations nationally. Many stations air it on Fridays at 8:00 p.m. with rebroadcasts throughout the weekend.

People interested in how redistricting games have made virtually all Congressional districts uncompetitive, and therefore safe for the incumbent, should read Fred Barnes' latest story in the Weekly Standard (available on-line only to subscribers). Barnes writes:

"Political professionals argue not over how many House seats are toss-ups in 2002 but how few. Charlie Cook, a highly respected analyst, says 18. Mark Gersh of the National Committee for an Effective Congress thinks it's 15. Steve Schmidt of the National Republican Congressional Committee says 10 to 12. Stuart Rothenberg of Roll Call says he can find only 9. Howard Wolfson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says there are 40 competitive House races. But he sets the bar pretty low, accepting as competitive any race in which both the Democratic party and the Republican party spend money."

Speaking of the budget, Stanley Collender explains why the White House's contention that the new Homeland Security cabinet department can be created without cost is unrealistic. He also outlines a possible cost of this delusion:

"The ultimate irony is that the costs involved in creating the new Department of Homeland Security could actually come at the expense of homeland security efforts. The $2 billion or more the transition could cost in 2003 would have to come from reducing the $37 billion the agencies would otherwise have to spend and which the administration boasted about when it submitted its budget."

John McKinnon outlines in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) an example of outrageous Congressional irresponsibility.

"With action stymied in the House, Congress may have a tough time meeting the Treasury Department's June 28 deadline to raise the $5.95 trillion federal debt ceiling to avoid a default on its obligations. Congressional leaders and budget analysts believe the Treasury can buy time beyond that date -- a few days, at least -- by swapping more securities for IOUs in federal retirement trust funds. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said only that "we project that we can continue to avoid breaching the debt ceiling until the end of June."

By next week, though, Congress's lack of action could roil the bond markets, and a longer delay could even prompt a selloff of Treasury securities."

An asteroid nearly missed the Earth last week, but it was only found three days after the near-miss. The asteroid, 2002MN, is large enough to cause major damage to a city if it hit the planet. The asteroid passed well within the moon's orbit. It is not good to find out about objects like these three days too late.

More excitement for California politics? Stockton Record Sacramento Bureau Chief Will Shuck writes:

"Politicians and their aides are convinced the state Capitol is crawling with FBI agents in the aftermath of the Oracle debacle and amid insinuations of policy for sale in the governor's office.

Assembly Democrats were warned in a closed-door meeting last week to avoid any appearance of a link between fund raising and lawmaking, because "someone is sniffing around the building," one lawmaker said, speaking on condition of anonymity."

Former Democratic Congressman Tim Penny is considering running for Minnesota governor -- the office Gov. Jesse Ventura is vacating -- on the Independence Party ticket. I really hope Rep. Penny decides to run for office. He is one of the nation's finest public servants (disclosure: he was active with the Concord Coalition when I worked there).

He might also succeed in building a larger legacy for the Independence Party in Minnesota, and perhaps beyond. The combination of fiscal responsibility, social liberalism, and overall moderation Penny represents needs a voice.

(Thanks to Taegan Goddard's Political Wire for the link.)

Comptroller General David Walker (the head of the General Accounting Office) testified before the House Budget Committee today about Social Security reform. [Click here for a pdf version of his testimony.]

Walker is one of the most reasonable and articulate experts on the need to reform Social Security. In his testimony, he outlined several important points about the Social Security reform debate.

• Social Security reform is part of a larger and significant fiscal and economic challenge.
  
• Focusing on trust fund solvency alone is not sufficient. We need to put the program on a path toward sustainable solvency.
  
• Solving Social Security’s long-term financing problem is more important and complex than simply making the numbers add up.
  
• Given the current financial shortfall of the program, it is important to compare proposals to both current promised and funded benefits.
  
• Reform proposals should be evaluated as packages.
  
• Acting sooner rather than later helps to ease the difficulty of change.
  
• We believe it is possible to structure a Social Security reform proposal that will exceed the expectations of all generations of Americans.
  

Robert Kuttner writes about a new Social Security study by MIT economist Peter Diamond and the Brookings Institution's Peter Orszag. Diamond and Orszag find "For starters, they conclude, the partial privatization proposed by the commission would cost trillions of dollars in general government revenues as the price of keeping the Social Security System intact."

That is true, as far as it goes. Proponents of Social Security privatization made a crucial error when they discounted this "transition cost."

But Diamond and Orszag mislead people by comparing a privatized Social Security system to the benefits currently promised to Americans. What Diamond, Orszag, Kuttner, and other opponents of Social Security privatization often fail to point out is that the present Social Security system also is going to need trillions of dollars in general government revenues to stay intact.

Ah, those inconvenient facts run both ways.

Kuttner and his crew will point to the Social Security Trust Fund, arguing that the funds there will help bridge the baby boom retirement gap. Their argument is just as misleading as those made by privatizers seeking to overlook the transition costs.

The General Accounting Office, Congressional Budget Office, Congressional Research Service, and even President Clinton's Office of Management and Budget have issued reports in recent years stating that neither the size of the Social Security Trust Fund, nor its projected solvency date, provide any guarantee about the government's ability to afford the burden of paying future benefits.

That's because the Social Security Trust Fund actually contains liabilities (it is the largest component of the government-owned debt and one of the reasons the national debt kept increasing even when the government was supposedly running "surpluses") instead of assets. The IOUs in the Trust Fund will need to be repaid. This payback, by future taxpayers, will happen at the same time they are footing the bill for the cost of the baby boomers' retirement. When the Social Security program begins running cash deficits in 10-15 years, the government will have to find new cash to pay promised benefits by raising taxes, cutting other spending, or issuing new debt. Which is exactly what the government would have to do if the Social Security Trust Fund did not exist.

The Social Security Trust Fund simply pushes bills off into the future. Taxpayers in the future will have to pay today's bills -- on top of the ever-increasing cost of these entitlement programs then.

No magic or painless solution exists for the significant problems Social Security -- and Medicare -- face. Tough choices need to be made, the sooner the better. Given the importance of the issue, our political leaders should engage us with straight talk about what needs to be done. Young people, the taxpayers of the future, are the ones who will pay the consequences for their failure thus far to do so.

The Arizona Court of Appeals struck a blow against public financing this week with a "surprise decision" that the major funding mechanism of Arizona's Clean Elections Law is unconstitutional.

The reasoning behind the decision is, at best, tortured. Immediate appeals are underway. Meanwhile, seven of 10 Arizona gubernatorial candidates (and dozens of candidates for other offices) are unsure of their election funding.

Public financing is a necessary step to improve government and ensure that we are not ruled by a plutocracy. Wealth must not be a prerequisite for seeking political office. People object to public financing because of the cost. But, once campaign contributions and their influence are removed, the needed paybacks will subside. Ultimately, public financing will save us money and make our electoral process stronger.

Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura announced today that he would not seek reelection. I agree with TAPPED's analysis:

"His victory demonstrated the shakiness of the two party system, how powerful grassroots politics can be, and how clueless the media is when it comes to what every day people want in their politicians. But sadly, Ventura never went beyond the politics of personality to build a lasting political legacy in Minnesota."

Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit points out a gross example of media arrogance and idiocy. National Public Radio is sending out letters demanding people get permission before linking to its web site saying that links without consent are "prohibited."

I don't think so.

I urge you to go to Patrick Nielsen Hayden's site, read the story, and then give the NPR ombudsman a polite but firm piece of your mind.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, apparently not busy enough fighting the war on terrorism or reforming the FBI, is out to keep the Bush Administration from endorsing a treaty banning discrimination against women.

This treaty is not about the United States. "Instead", as Nicholas Kristof writes, "it has everything to do with the half of the globe where to be female is to be persecuted until, often, death."

Read the story Kristof tells of Zainab Noor. Then explain why the United States was not one of the first countries to ratify this treaty.

Judea Pearl, the father of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, writes about the decision made by some newspapers and web sites to link to the video of his son's death at terrorists' hands.

"To preserve the dignity of our champions, we should remove all terrorist-produced murder scenes from our Web sites and agree to suppress such scenes in the future."

Memo to the Palestinians: Killing schoolchidren will not make me more sympathetic to your cause. A suicide/homicide bomber blew up a bus today in Jerusalem, killing 19 others and wounding dozens.

The Democrats are playing a cynical political game by forcing a prescription drug benefit for Medicare onto the political agenda. As the Democrats properly point out when discussing President Bush's irresponsible tax cut, fiscal irresponsibility is on the rise.

Now the Dems are pushing for an expensive (Senate Democrats: $450-500 billion, House Democrats: $800 billion over the first ten years assuming they have not, per usual, underestimated the cost) entitlement program. Republicans have countered with a $350 billion plan. Of course, these 10-year projections are convenient because they mask these programs' true cost by including only the first few years of the baby boomers retirement.

Of course, both parties know that senior citizens vote at a much higher rate than younger people. So, the message from Washington is clear.

The heck with you young people, we've got to pander for votes regardless of the long-term damage. You young people can pick up the fiscal pieces later, once we've left office.

One must hope that White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card misspoke when he suggested privatizing the nation's Air Traffic Control system. As the Boston Globe notes:

"At a time when the new Traffic Safety Administration, the airports, and the airlines should focus on protecting fliers from hijacking passengers, bombs in checked luggage and commercial cargo, and suicidal terrorists in small private planes, the last thing anyone needs is a distracting battle over air traffic control privatization.

Democracy 21 explains how the Federal Election Commission (aptly described as the "so-called enforcement agency") could gut the already imperfect campaign finance reform effort recently passed into law.

Joshua Micah Marshall makes a good case that those of us who think Mark Felt is Deep Throat are wrong. Marshall is convinced that Patrick J. Buchanan is the guy, and has the non-denial denials to buttress the claim.

The Catholic Church lost more of its ever-dwindling credibility yesterday when Chicago Cardinal Francis George compared reporters to communist spies in Poland. That charge is beyond ridiculous and will not help end scandal coverage. There is obviously a huge difference between reporters taking notes for a free and independent media and spies taking notes so the government can know whom to punish. Church officials should also learn that there is a huge difference between smart crisis management and idiotic crisis management.

A U.S. Forest Service technician started the Colorado wildfire when she burned a letter from her estranged husband...while on patrol to enforce a fire ban. The Denver Post reports that the fire has "destroyed nearly 103,000 acres and 22 homes." The cost of fighting the fire presently exceeds $9 million dollars.

While most people are focusing on the huge hole the federal estate tax repeal will rip into the federal budget, the plan will also have devestating effects on many state budgets. This is an outrageous gift to a few that keeps on taking from the many.

Scott Shuger, the original writer of Slate's "Today's Papers" feature, died in a diving accident on Saturday. Shuger was a gifted writer who had been focusing on the war on terrorism for Slate since September. You should read founding Slate editor Michael Kinsley's memorial tribute to Shuger.

Larry Kestenbaum comments on my redistricting post from earlier today. He wonders where Democrats and Republicans work together to protect incumbents and create safe seats instead of seeking to maximize their potential advantage.

The prime example of such deal cutting is my new home state of California. This Carl Cannon story gets into many of the gory details.

Kestenbaum ends his post with a suggestion that should be taken to heart by all people interested in good government and a stronger electoral system.

"What I'd really like to see, and soon, would be the development of a national set of nonpartisan standards for fair districting, and a huge movement by reformers of all stripes to get them enacted in every state."

Is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg preparing to remake public education the way he remade the dissemination of financial market information?

Demographics, it is often said, is destiny. This is Thomas Friedman's point about the future of Iran. More than a third (18 million) of Iran's population falls between the ages of 16-30. The next generation is even larger. "Iran is a country getting younger, poorer, less Islamic and less anti-American — as young Iranians react against an anti-American theocracy, isolating them from the world."

The games played during federal and state legislative redistricting are poisoning the nation's electoral process. Michael Hill quotes University of Maryland, College Park Professor James Gimpel, who makes a great suggestion:

"The courts ought to enforce a competitive criteria, to draw district lines that maximize the political heterogeneity rather than the homogeneity of districts."

O. Ricardo Pimentel predicts that "global warming will one day spur the mother of all finger-pointing exercises." We are leaving future generations many reasons to second-guess.

The average temperature in Alaska has risen seven degrees in the last 30 years. Timothy Egan's article explains the major negative effects this temperature rise is having on the state's landscape and population.

This year's federal budget deficit will top $100 billion and could reach $150 billion. (What happened to those surpluses, Mr. President?) Congressional Budget Office Director Dan Crippen, forced to state the obvious, "blamed the worsening budget picture on an equal mix of rising spending, declining revenue and the added interest the government would have to pay to cover the resulting extra borrowing."

Some of the higher spending is justified for the war on terror, but far too much of this new spending is simply pork with a national security face. The declining revenue is a combination of a weak economy and massive and unjustifiable tax cuts. Finally, the increase in interest payments is the hidden nugget in any budget projection. Since the government is not paying down the portion of the national debt held by the public, it has larger interest payments. Oops.

It is a budget trainwreck that was obvious to everyone who was not cooking the books. Future generations of Americans will not thank us for our poor fiscal stewardship.

A 1971 smallpox biological weapons test in the Soviet Union led to three deaths and required the vaccination of 43,000 people in the immediate region. The world needs to learn more about this incident, because some of the evidence leads experts to the alarming conclusion that the Soviets created a smallpox weapon that used airborne delivery of the virus.

It is not surprising that conservatives would seek to overreach, demanding that President Bush spend some of his "political capital" to push his domestic agenda. Bush, if wise, will continue to largely ignore the conservative wing's demands. Bush's popularity has little or nothing to do with his domestic agenda. It is all about the nation's support of the war on terrorism. Attempts to use that popularity to repeal the estate tax or ban human cloning will only backfire. After what happened to the Gingrich revolution, you wonder why the conservatives have not learned this lesson.

Peter Finn's report explains why many intelligence people believe Osama bin Laden is alive today. Three Saudis arrested in Morocco are providing information about what happened as the United States started dropping bombs on the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan last November.

The failure to seal off Tora Bora and keep Al Qaeda from escaping the area shall have long-lasting consequences. It allowed bin Laden and many of his Al Qaeda followers to escape. It also allowed Al Qaeda leadership to order those who escaped "to flee Afghanistan to whatever areas of the world they had previously operated from, including Asia, the Persian Gulf, Africa, Turkey and Europe. Bin Laden's decree directed them to launch terrorist attacks once they had become established in familiar areas."

Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) had an embarrassing incident on Thursday during his flight from Reagan Washington National Airport to Atlanta. He needed to use the restroom, but could not wait for the long line after the "30-minute rule" (which requires all passengers to remain seated within 30 minutes of Reagan National) passed. He ended up using a cup to relieve himself.

Now, why am I writing about this? It is not to embarrass the Congressman. Frankly, I feel horribly for him. But, this incident raises a larger question about airline security. Read this paragraph from the Associated Press report closely:

"Bishop wasn't charged or detained after the Thursday night flight, but he agreed to explain the situation to security officials when the flight touched down at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, McCash said."

I am sure a hijacker is going to call attention to his or herself by asking for a cup to urinate on a flight. Security screening is a joke, the deadline to screen all checked luggage for explosives will be missed, and even if the deadline is made no one is sure that the detectors will actually work. But do you feel safer knowing that security officials asked a Congressman about his need to urinate?

Students in an Investigative Reporting class at the University of Illinois Department of Journalism researched the Watergate break-in for three years in an attempt to figure out Deep Throat's identity. Their conclusion may surprise you: Patrick J. Buchanan.

Their research is interesting to consider. Personally, I think the students make a mistake discounting the likelihood that Deep Throat was in the FBI. For now, I still find the argument that Deep Throat was Mark Felt, then the number three man at the FBI, more compelling.

I have a letter to the editor in today's Newsday responding to a column by James Pinkerton and focusing on the economics of climate change.

The Cost of Climate Change

James Pinkerton writes that by not disavowing the recent Environmental Protection Agency climate change report, the Bush administration continues "the drift into a costly emissions-control program" ["Bush Is Stumbling on Three of His Key Goals," Viewpoints, June 11]. These economic fears are misplaced.

Inaction has significant costs. The environmental costs alone - health effects, increased storm damage, land loss from rising ocean levels and crop failures - must not be overlooked. The United Nations Environment Programme's financial services initiative estimates those costs could reach $300 billion annually by mid-century.

U.S. businesses also face increased pressures from shareholders, insurers concerned with carbon exposure and international companies adapting to carbon-reduction constraints.

The United States can join the global effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions without jeopardizing the long-term health of the economy. Economic research has shown that market-based policies to combat climate change (such as a "cap-and-trade" system based on emissions fees or auctions) would strengthen our economy, ease the transition to alternative energy sources and promote social justice.

Matt Moore at the National Center for Policy Analysis asks an excellent question: where is the Social Security reform debate? Social Security remains just as unsustainable as it was last year and the year before that when the topic was on the national agenda. Writes Moore, quoting the Social Security Trustees report:

"By the time the last of the Boomers retire, Social Security will be awash in red ink: $277 billion in 2030; $357 billion in 2040 and by 2050, the deficit will be $420 billion. All told, between now and 2075, when today's newborns will have retired, Social Security's debts will total more than $25 trillion. That money has to come from somewhere. To maintain current benefits, future workers will face a 50 percent tax increase. Either that or we will have to cut benefits by a third to make ends meet."

Paul Krugman writes about Kevin Phillips' excellent new book "Wealth and Democracy":

"Stealing (and modifying) a line from Slate's Mickey Kaus, I'd say that an influential body of opinion has reacted to global warming and the emergence of an American plutocracy the same way: "It's not true, it's not true, it's not true, nothing can be done about it."

A suicide/homicide bomber this morning attacked a United States consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. The explosion reportedly killed 10 people outside the consulate. How much will the Pakistani authorities hinder the investigation into determining those responsible for this outrage?

This didn't take long: the Federal Election Commission could--as soon as next week--create loopholes that would allow big political donors to get around the recently passed campaign finance reform law by rerouting their money through the state parties. Good lawyers will always find or create loopholes. The latest FEC farce makes it clear that enacting public campaign financing is the only real solution to this problem.

More people within the government are coming to the conclusion that it will not meet Congressionally mandated airline security screening deadlines.

Presidential Senior Advisor Karl Rove yesterday described the estate tax debate with a "war." Hopefully it was only a moment of rhetorical excess.

A story that will likely grow in importance over time: astronomers have for the first time confirmed the existence of another solar system that has a Jupiter-type planet as far away from its star as Jupiter is from the Sun.

Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, who made the announcement yesterday with Berkeley Professor Geoffrey Marcy, said: "We hope to be in a position in about 10 years or so where we can, for the first time, with hard numbers, be able to say with some confidence just how common or how rare solar system-like planetary systems are. Are we 1-in-100, 1-in-1,000? We have no idea right now." Humanity needs to know the answer to that question.

Here's an EPA announcement that, unlike its recent climate change report, the Bush Administration will embrace. The Washington Post's Eric Pianin writes: "The Bush administration announced yesterday a major relaxation of clean air enforcement rules governing older coal-fired power plants and refineries that would effectively preclude future government legal action in all but the most flagrant cases of pollution." The Bush Administration has chosen "smog, acid rain, and soot" (and its friends in the oil and utility industries) over the public health.

Thank you South Korea. Their 1-0 victory over Portugal allows the United States to back into the second round of the World Cup despite a horrific and inexplicable 3-1 loss to Poland this morning. Hopefully the US can regroup for its match with Mexico.

William Safire explains why Eleanor Hill is one of the most important people in Washington. (Hint: She's the staff director of the joint Congressional committee investigating Sept. 11.)

Former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart, who led a homeland security commission before most people had heard of the term, write: "Creating a Department of Homeland Security, as President Bush proposes, is not only a necessary step, but one that should have been taken well before Sept. 11." The shame of it is that their commission (among others) were ignored prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. That the United States was vulnerable was well known. The tragedy is that little was done about the warnings.

Jim Hoagland makes several excellent points in his column today. Among them: "As a candidate, Bush spoke eloquently about returning "the people's money," which at the time was piling up in federal budget surpluses. But as a wartime president, Bush does not speak of paying "the people's bills," which exist, mount in times of crisis and produce prolonged national deficits that drag the economy downward."

The House Intelligence Committee has joined the chorus wondering if Attorney General John Ashcroft was too alarmist in his initial description about the "dirty bomb" plot.

The Bush Administration is going to miss an August deadline to prepare "a detailed assessment of vulnerabilities in the operation of chemical plants and the transportation of hazardous chemicals." This is a major security and public safety problem.

This Wall Street Journal editorial is a must-read and absolutely correct (you can read it for free, but you will have to register to their OpinionJournal.com site). Our "allies" in Saudi Arabia are holding Americans against their will. Our State Department, disgracefully, does not seem to care.

As the editorial explains: "Unfortunately, the State Department has not yet recognized that when an American child is kidnapped, or when an American woman charged with no crime is held against her will, it's not just an affront to the individual. It's an affront to America." That this fact is not obvious is pathetic. That our government (going back as far as the Reagan Administration, the sin is bipartisan) sides with a foreign government against its own citizens is utterly unacceptable.

The U.S. Senate, thankfully, did its job yesterday and passed a $450 billion increase in the national debt limit. Let us hope that some conservatives in the House grow up and pass the measure instead of whining about extra borrowing. I am not pleased that a debt increase is required, but they become necessary when our political leaders insist on massive tax cuts and pork-spending binges. Those irresponsible actions have consequences. The new target date for a possible federal debt default is June 28.

Does anyone still care about the reported White House vandalism that the Bush Administration charged outgoing Clinton staffers with during the transition? The General Accounting Office released a 217-page report yesterday of its investigation, finding that the damage was minor and likely similar to what happens during each transition.

Now, remember, this story was overblown in the first place. Then, nine months and one day ago, this nation underwent a large terrorist attack. We are fighting a war on terror. We are trying to protect ourselves, including an initiative to reorganize a sizable portion of the federal government.

So, this insignificant story should not matter, right? Well, it appears that someone in the White House made this investigation a priority. Mike Allen and Dana Milbank write: "The bulk of the report, 130 pages, is an extraordinary exchange between the White House and the GAO: 77 pages of responses from the Bush White House rebutting the GAO's findings and 53 pages in which the GAO responds to the White House complaints. Though Bush officials have said repeatedly they had no interest in furthering the controversy, they responded to the GAO report paragraph by paragraph."

In other words, the White House's claim that "...we have considered this matter closed for over a year and our focus is on moving forward" is a lie. Credibility is so important in wartime. Why spend it on something this trivial?

Maryland's Court of Appeals (its highest court) threw out as unconstitutional the state legislative redistricting map drawn up by Gov. Parris Glendening. The Washington Post's Matthew Mosk and Lori Montgomery write: "The Maryland Court of Appeals ruling said 'significant portions' of the map violated the state Constitution because the circuitous boundaries of several districts cut across county lines or leapt over natural barriers and split long-standing communities." The nation needs a new, nonpartisan way to conduct Congressional and state legislative redistricting. Creating safe seats for incumbents or ensuring long-term control by the party in power, should not be the focus of redistricting efforts.

The White House is reportedly annoyed with Attorney General John Ashcroft for his overstating the threat posed by alleged "dirty bomber" Abdullah Al Muhajir.

Writes USA Today's Kevin Johnson:

"Ashcroft's ominous tone surprised the White House and law enforcement officials here and abroad, including some who had tracked Al Muhajir to al-Qaeda meetings in Pakistan. The law enforcement officials say the evidence against Al Muhajir, 31, indicates he was interested in many scenarios involving explosives, and radioactive materials was one possibility. They say that the former Chicago gang member once known as Jose Padilla was up to no good, but that any plans involving radiation were not as mature as Ashcroft suggested."

Did Ashcroft overstate the case in order to justify the extraconstitutional holding of Al Muhajir outside the civilian criminal justice system? More Americans, after all, would accept such extreme measures against someone who was close to using a "dirty" bomb on some U.S. city.

If Ashcroft did such a poor job explaining this capture, President Bush should fire him. If this were Ashcroft's first error, he perhaps could survive it. But the Attorney General has a longer record of bullying those who disagree with him. The government must have the people's trust if it is going to restrict civil rights in emergency cases. The Attorney General at this moment has little credibility. He must go.

No, President Bush did not read the entire 260-plus page Climate Action Report 2002. Timothy Noah notes the truly amazing thing: this obvious, um, presidential exaggeration was clarified by Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who admitted that the president had merely been briefed. You see? Sometimes the truth is easier.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick examines the extraconstitutional holding of dirty bomber Abdullah al-Muhajir outside the civilian criminal justice system. "Most of us can agree that releasing people with knowledge of, or connections to, acts of terror against the United States is a national security disaster. But can we also agree that holding them in military prisons, without any means of testing the evidence against them, based on the bare assertion that they are or know terrorists is equally troubling?" It certainly is.

Yes, I hate baseball's designated hitter rule. Of course, when Major League Baseball destroys itself later this year with its strike/walkout/work-stoppage, it just won't matter.

California Governor Gray Davis says that Californians "vehemently" oppose new off-shore oil drilling so the federal government should purchase the leases just like it did for Florida (headed by Governor, and presidential brother, Jeb Bush). As someone who lives in northern California, I must relectantly agree with one part of Debra Saunders' take on the situation. "'Vehemently' is accurate to the extent that you can vehemently oppose drilling while driving alone in an SUV with an enviro bumper sticker."

I oppose drilling (Saunders supports the idea), but that drilling would not be necessary if Americans purchased efficient or alternative energy vehicles. (Something that would be much more likely with the elimination of the implicit massive subsidy drivers receive by not having to pay at the pump for the environmental damage, congestion costs, or defense costs their driving causes.)

The federal government is running a deficit, it is near the debt limit, and the long-term fiscal picture with Social Security and Medicare remains bleak. So, how are many Republicans reacting? By trying to eliminate the cyncial sunsets to last year's tax cut that were included to make it appear affordable. This policy myopia is stunning. Someone get House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (D-Texas) a fiddle.

National Review Senior Editor Ramesh Ponnuru writes a must-read column in today's New York Times about debate, partisanship, and the war on terror. Ponnuru writes:

"Previous wars have been the subject of heated political debate. Dissatisfaction with Lincoln's strategies in the Civil War was a key issue in the presidential election of 1864. And the Korean and Vietnam Wars were dominant issues in presidential campaigns.

Rather than have a robust debate, however, the Bush administration would rather pretend that criticism undermines American resolve and is always politically motivated. But wartime criticism, much of it politically motivated, is an American tradition. Our system is designed so that the interplay of politicians' ambitions might lead to the public good even in moments of stress."

At a time when the United States needs to move away from fossil fuels, one must marvel at the stupidity of the $40 billion subsidy for natural gas suppliers included in the Senate energy bill.

Thomas Oliphant has an excellent column today about pork, homeland security, and the coming federal budget train wreck.

Dave McIntyre of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security offers a few constructive suggestions for improving terror alert communications.

Today's Arizona Republic editorial explores a hideous example of bad parenting and even worse school administrating. A senior at the Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria, Arizona, failed a required English class that would have kept her from graduating. The parents reaction? Threaten to sue the school and the teacher unless the student was allowed to retake a test, even though "...in addition to failing her English final exam, the girl reportedly failed to take advantage of an extra-credit opportunity and even received partial credit for a plagiarized assignment."

Remember this story the next time you are wondering why talented people shy away from the teaching profession.

Everyone should welcome the recent drop in the tensions between India and Pakistan. The Bush Administration deserves credit for engaging publicly both sides the past week.

I wish I were surprised that Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) overreacted to yesterday's story about GOP allies creating a dossier on lobbyists' political affiliations and campaign donations.

Reid said: "The president should pick up the phone, call his friend and denounce him...Tell him that George W. Bush won't tolerate what amounts to McCarthyism."

No, Senator, it does not amount to anything close to it.

This is not "McCarthyism" (which, like fascism is overused to the point where the word means nothing). Grover Norquist is not the United States government, this is not a government investigation. Instead of the outrage, the Democrats should belittle the entire idea. Save the outrage for times when it is more appropriate. The Democrats need to learn that on comparatively minor subjects, humor or cynicism would work better than feigned outrage.

The only problem with this lede is that something that should be obvious instead must be considered news. Michael Fletcher writes in the Washington Post: "States across the country should revamp their teacher certification requirements by deemphasizing traditional education courses and requiring prospective teachers to pass rigorous exams in the subjects they plan to teach, according to a new federal report."

About so-called "dirty bombs," the Washington Post's Bill Miller and Guy Gugliotta quote Mohammad Akhter, executive director of the American Public Health Association. "'Medically, professionally speaking we are ready,' he said. 'It's the terror part, the fear part you really need to prepare for.'" Then, perhaps, we should have started preparing the public months ago? Based on the reaction to yesterday's story about a dirty bomb plot stopped in the early stages, the American people (and news media) are not even close to ready.

A sensible idea about tax-avoiding companies from Alex Storozynski: "If Washington refuses to stop the exodus of American businesses to the greener pastures of Bermuda, Barbados, etc., it must at least ban these companies from doing business with Uncle Sam until they pay their taxes like the rest of us."

Given the amount of pork and unrelated spending that was included by the Senate in the terrorism emergency supplemental funding bill passed last week, I hope President Bush follows through on his threat to veto it. The appropriators are staring down the White House, hoping that Bush will refrain from using any of his political capital. It is time for Bush to run a play from Ronald Reagan's book. He should veto the bill and ask the American people to pressure Congress to pass a bill that funds activities only related to the war on terror. The alternative, as Robert Novak explains, is "a yearlong spending orgy, unencumbered by any budget resolution with spending caps."

This Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial makes an excellent point: we should investigate what went wrong to allow the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks before we reorganize the government with a new Homeland Security Department. As the editorial notes: "Yet before we know what the problems were, we're announcing solutions."

Are Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) working on a nominations confirmation truce? Hopefully. No one deserves confirmation, but every nominee deserves at least a speedy committee vote on his or her nomination. These year-long delays (which date back to the Republicans holding up former President Clinton's nominees) are simply unacceptable.

From the Transportation Security Agency: Cargo plane security "is easily circumvented" and "Cargo is likely to become -- and may already be -- the primary threat vector in the short term."

Thomas E. Ricks and Vernon Loeb report in the Washington Post: "The Bush administration is developing a new strategic doctrine that moves away from the Cold War pillars of containment and deterrence toward a policy that supports preemptive attacks against terrorists and hostile states with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons." Assuming our intelligence is solid, I would have little problem with such a shift. That assumption, of course, is rather significant. Preemptive strikes that miss the target, or end up being against the wrong targets, would prove highly detrimental to our well-being.

Making a list, checking it twice...Grover Norquist is leading a group of GOP activists that is researching lobbyists' political affiliation and campaign contributions. The group will create a dossier of the results for distribution among Republicans. The idea is to punish Democrats and restrict their access. (The GOP leadership is not known for its subtlety.) The dossier may allow for that, but it certainly emphasizes how important money remains in Washington.

President Bush told an audience on Friday that "It's hard for me to explain why" elements of last year's huge tax cut, including the estate tax elimination, will expire in 2011. Since I often argue that President Bush is not stupid (and he is not), it is clear that he is, ahem, misstating the facts.

The sunsets and other gimmicks included in the tax cut last year were a deliberate strategy to make the tax cut appear affordable at a time when the "surpluses as far as the eye can see" mirage was still visible. Now, in a time when deficits have returned and the nation is uncomfortably close to exceeding the statutory national debt limit, Bush wants to remove the gimmicks.

Just do not ask the president how he plans to pay for their removal...or how the nation will pay for the baby boomers impending retirement.

Chris Matthews cynically suggests that President Bush and the attack-Iraq faction of his Administration be honest and change the Department of Defense's name back into the War Department.

Why should Congress carefully review all increases in domestic surveillance power it gives to the FBI? History.

Seth Rosenfeld writes in today's San Francisco Chronicle: "According to thousands of pages of FBI records obtained by The Chronicle after a 17-year legal fight, the FBI unlawfully schemed with the head of the CIA to harass students, faculty and members of the Board of Regents, and mounted a concerted campaign to destroy the career of UC President Clark Kerr, which included sending the White House derogatory allegations about him that the bureau knew were false."

Congress should ensure that all increases in FBI power are tied directly to the war on terrorism and not rely on the assurances of people like Attorney General John Ashcroft.

There is an excellent question about the FBI's outdated computer infrastructure in Maureen Dowd's column today. "If we're really in a national emergency, couldn't the president call America's software geniuses and tell them to wire up the F.B.I. this week?" Or, perhaps, some other time in the past nine months?

Thomas Friedman on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "This is Mr. Bush's Truman moment. He has a chance not only to give birth to the Palestinian state, but to do it in a way that wins Israel the recognition it really needs — not from the U.S., but from all its neighbors." There is an opportunity here, but for it to come to fruition, no one can doubt the willingness of the United States to remain diplomatically engaged for the long-term. The Bush Administration has not shown any such desire so far.

Steve Chapman makes an excellent point about the India-Pakistan conflict. While tensions are high between the two countries, their behavior is not necessarily much different than the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War. Writes Chapman: "The assumption that it's lunacy for nuclear-armed powers to threaten each other is groundless. During the Cold War, American presidents often found it useful to convey to the Soviets our willingness to go to war. Sometimes that meant taking the risk of a Soviet nuclear strike (as in the Cuban missile crisis) and sometimes it meant threatening to launch a nuclear strike (an option we held out in case of a Soviet attack in Europe)."

The New York Times's David E. Sanger and the Washington Post's David Von Drehle and Mike Allen report on the creation of President Bush's Homeland Security government reorganization plan. Two things strike me about these stories. First, despite appearances, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge still has some power within the Administration. Second, Bush promised the conservative ideal of a decentralized government with strong cabinet members. The creation of this plan utilized procedures that are the opposite of that ideal. If you hear any small-government conservative complain about that, please let me know through the comments link below.

A Catholic cardinal says that the U.S. media has used tactics reminiscent of "Stalin, Hitler and two brutal Roman emperors" in its coverage of the recent pedophilia scandals. Who dare reporters try to find out the truth about a child sexual abuse epidemic. The Catholic Church continues its relentless campaign to lose the rest of what little moral authority it still has.

The Seattle Times writes about yet another of the growing water supply problems around the nation.

"[But] there are times when the first and most important reply to evil is to stop it. There are times when waging war is not only morally permitted, but morally necessary, as a response to calamitous acts of violence, hatred and injustice. This is one of those times." -- Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) in a commencement address given at Harvard University Thursday.

The headline over Matthew Wald's story in today's New York Times says it all: "Baggage Bomb Detector Is Unreliable, Experts Say".

I am, like Jules Witcover, more than a little tired of presidents condemning Washington, D.C. Our capitol has its problems (I often write about them), but government is not evil. It is often bloated and inefficient, but it is also necessary to ensure the successful functioning of our market economy and our protection. I will not support any candidate who claims vaguely that "Washington is the problem."

Paul Krugman writes provocatively about President Bush: "Whatever he imagines, Osama bin Laden can't destroy Western civilization. Carbon dioxide can." Even if we continue to ignore the latter problem.

You'll need a subscription to read this National Journal story on-line (the magazine is available in some libraries). Many senior Democrats in the House of Representatives seem to think that House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) will step down from leadership even if the D's retake control of the House this November. Will Gephardt really pass up his chance to hold the Speakership in order to run for president?

Okay, I only moved to the San Francisco Bay area a little more than a year ago. I've only been in one small earthquake, one felt while attending a Colorado-San Jose NHL playoff game. Earthquakes, frankly, scare me. So, I just cannot understand why the people living here fail to retrofit their homes in preparation for the next earthquake.

I've tried to stay away from the Chandra Levy saga. But one element of it deserves mention. Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.) is still on the House Intelligence Committee. Still receiving breifings about the nation's sensitive intelligence data. (As this Modesto Bee story by Michael Doyle begins: "Behind one set of closed doors Thursday, Ceres Rep. Gary Condit learned sensitive secrets about the nation's war on terrorism.")

Condit is an obvious security risk. This is not even close. The House Democratic leadership showed/shows poor judgement in not removing Condit from the intelligence committee.

Our strategic partners in China are holding a prominent defense lawyer secretly and without explanation. Which Administration official will be sent on the next Beijing rear-kissing tour?

There is much to like in President Bush's proposal to create a new Homeland Security cabinet department. If the past nine months has made anything clear, it is that the present structure, with Tom Ridge acting merely as a presidential advisor, was unworkable.

But, because the White House insisted on developing this plan with high secrecy, things are likely now to get messy. Congress, or at least a few high-ranking Congressional leaders, should have been consulted about this plan before it was announced.

Congress has a role in developing this reorganization. Since it was not consulted before, it has to act now. When Congress inevitably makes changes to the reorganization plan, we better not hear Vice President Cheney (or any other Administration leader) admonish anyone for "unpatriotism in a time of war."

No matter how late, Bush deserves credit for seeing the need to reorganize the government to make it more effective. That does not mean that the plan is wise in every detail.

Jonah Goldberg has the "Hmmm...interesting" idea of the day. He wonders if today's Homeland Security reorganization announcement is the reason the Bush Administration refused to let Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge testify before Congress earlier this year. I still think that refusal had more to do with the White House's penchant for unnecessary secrecy...but now you have a "benefit of the doubt" explanation to consider.

It's about time. President Bush is going to propose a national security cabinet position in a speech tonight. Now that Bush has made the right decision to reorganize the government, oversight is needed to make sure the reorganization works and actually moves us closer to a solution.

Is Egypt a major problem for the United States? Thomas Friedman thinks so. He writes: "What I mean is that we need Egypt to play the role that it played in Arab politics in the 19th and early 20th centuries — the role that history assigned it and for which it has no replacement: to lead the Arab-Muslim world into modernity with an ideological message that is rooted in Arab and Muslim tradition but is progressive, pluralistic and democratic." Needless to say, this is not presently the case.

Do you still think our political leaders are taking the fight against terrorism seriously? Take a look at some of the gems Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) office has culled from the so-called 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response To Terrorist Attacks on the United States.

From McCain's media release: "For example, this bill provides:

• $2 million in emergency funding for the planning and design of an alcohol collections storage facility for the Smithsonian;

• $10 million in emergency assistance for the state of Texas to provide assistance to agricultural producers with farming or ranching operations along the Rio Grande River for economic losses; and

• $6.5 million in emergency assistance for Flood Control, Mississippi River and Tributaries, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee.

• $2.5 million provided in one of last year's appropriations bills is dedicated to conduct coral mapping in the waters of the Hawaiian Islands and the surrounding Exclusive Economic Zone;

• $10 million for flood recovery efforts due to flooding in Southern West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia;

• Of the $100 million for watershed and flood prevention operations, $73 million is for recovery activities related to disasters occurring during fiscal year 2002, up to and including flooding in Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Virginia, and West Virginia; and

• $50 million for building and facilities construction of the National Animal Disease Laboratory at Ames, Iowa."

Remember this fact on election day.

Jonah Goldberg's take on the "Flying While Arab" lawsuits is an interesting one. It would be nice if people (including, more often than he cares to admit, this writer) would drop some of their sense of entitlement and gain a bit of perspective.

If saving the planet for future generations is not a good enough reason for President Bush to propose real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, Slate's Timothy Noah offers a rationale that he calls "infinitely more satisfying" for the White House: "It would make Clinton—and the Democrats—look stupid."

The Concord Coalition (full disclosure: I used to work for them) has brought back an old favorite, albeit in a slightly different form. The Report on Fiscal Responsibility "grades Congress and the Administration on the choices that they make – or fail to make – in promoting fiscal responsibility and paving a long-term sustainable path for entitlement spending."

The overall grade given by Concord is a D. That may be generous. Appropriators are using Sept. 11 as an excuse to spend, spend, spend regardless of the long-term consequences. Add to that the irresponsible Bush tax cut and calls for a Medicare prescription drug benefit (yes, add a huge expense to a long-term fiscally insolvent program) and one sees a long-term fiscal picture that is quite distressing.

It is quite a shame that The Concord Coalition felt the need to revive this publication. The surplus era was short and its potential benefits squandered.

Bush-Giuliani in 2004? The former New York City mayor's supporters are talking up the prospects, and Rudy is clearly positioning himself. It won't happen, though. Rudy may have a post-Sept. 11 glow, but he is too far toward the center for the GOP on social issues.

(Aside: A supporter of Gov. George Pataki, who sees himself as the New Yorker who should join Bush on the 2004 ticket, says that Guiliani is not viable nationally because, "...with his marriages and his girlfriend, the Republican right would never buy into him. I actually think Rudy Giuliani would be offensive to them." Two words: Newt Gingrich. I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.)

United States 3, Portugal 2. An excellent World Cup soccer result.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes that the White House invokes the phrase "the American people" frequently for an administration that (falsely) claims not to use polling,

The Bush Administration's latest reversal on climate change (it turns out humans are having an impact) is a major story, especially in the wake of the Kyoto Protocol's ratification by the European Union and Japan.

The story was originally broken by the New York Times yesterday. The Associated Press and Washington Times (among others) follow up today.

Climate change is a problem, humanity is contributing to it, but the United States still refuses to take action to fight it while our allies move ahead?

And just why did the White House make this change without any press announcement? (The Guardian of London calls it a "extraordinarily secretive manoeuvre".)

Follow this link to read the United States' Climate Action Report 2002.

The battle of the rear-covering Sept. 11 leaks between the FBI and CIA continues. Today the CIA says it did tell the FBI about its suspicions about two people who ended up taking over the plane that hit the Pentagon. This has not been, and will not be, a useful process. It does highlight (again) the need for an independent investigation, a far superior alternative to selective leaking from blame-deflecting senior FBI/intelligence officials.

My family and I are back home after a nice east coast visit. So, regular commenting shall begin again.