July 2002 Archives

I'm heading to Cincinnati for a wedding. I don't expect to have much time in front of the computer until I return to Moraga Sunday night.

Have a good weekend and see you next week.

David Broder writes about the tension, and lack of dialogue, between state governments and the federal government.

For example, Congressional Republicans insistence on last year's tax cut has caused problems for many GOP governors who must cut state spending programs and have little prospect for federal relief.

Broder sees this as a weakness in our Constitutional system:

"What is conspicuously missing from this picture is any forum where elected officials at all three levels of government can have a serious discussion about national goals and national resources. Nowhere are the law enforcement needs of Detroit or the education needs of Montana weighed in the balance against the elimination of the federal estate tax or the purchase of the latest generation of high-tech weaponry."

The Des Moines Register's Thomas Beaumont writes:

"Vice President Dick Cheney's trip to Iowa to raise money for Republican congressional candidates this week was a sign that Iowa is at the center of the fight for control of the House this fall."

Iowa uses a nonpartisan commission to handle its redistricting. This means that the state was innoculated from the orgy of incumbent-protection redistricting plans that many states implemented.

More states should follow Iowa's lead. The lack of competitive races hurts our electoral system. It also ultimately damages our Republic.

The Senate Ethics Committee blinked and only "severely admonished" Sen. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.) for taking illegal expensive gifts from a man who was convicted of illegally donating money to his campaign.

Will New Jersey's voters prove as forgiving?

I find myself needing to thank another politician with whom I often disagree. But Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) is right to slow down the consideration of a new Department of Homeland Security.

This is important legislation. That is exactly why Congress must take the time necessary to get it right. Trying to meet an arbitrary deadline is madness.

Speaking of madness, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has decided to pin the next terrorist attack on the Democrats. The New York Times' David Firestone writes:

"What if we leave town," Mr. Lott said in an interview, "and in August we have some terrorist attack, some disaster, that maybe could have been prevented if we had a way to move people and money and get a focus in an appropriate way? I just think that's unacceptable. This really to me is emergency legislation."

President Bush signed the corporate accountability bill into law yesterday. This was the minimum our political leaders should have done to fix this mess. Was it enough? (I fear not.)

California Governor Gray Davis (D) is not a lock for reelection because he remains vulnerable to stories like this one in today's San Jose Mercury News:

"State officials allowed one of California's largest polluters to increase toxic discharges into San Francisco Bay shortly after the company donated $70,500 to Gov. Gray Davis, a Mercury News investigation has found.

The decision by a key state water board in June 2000 came just four months after the board had refused to relax the pollution permit at Tosco's Avon refinery east of Martinez -- and after the company had tried unsuccessfully to get the rules eased for seven years."

It is never too early to start analyzing the 2004 presidential campaign. The Scrum is an excellent blog that will help you keep up with those presidential wannabes.

Today, for example, the person behind "The Scrum" makes an excellent case that former President Clinton and pals are not sending their money to former Vice President Al Gore...

Paul Krugman describes how the federal government and the states have utilized dishonest budget tactics that will come back to haunt us in the future.

David Yepsen writes about a commendable and necessary program seeking to get young people to vote this November.

Richard Cohen, in a column criticizing the Bush Administration's unilateralist preference, mentions a mistake that I believe shall come back to haunt us.

President Bush expressed his extreme displeasure with the idea of "nation building" during the 2000 campaign. The White House is trying to avoid it. As Cohen writes:

"The result has been a weird compromise in Afghanistan. That country and nearby regions of Pakistan remain unsecured. Nonetheless, the administration has limited nation-building to the capital, Kabul. It's only a matter of time until the rest of the country reverts to poppy growing and terrorism. We may have to return."

Here's a political odd couple with an extremely important message: we must stop Congress from passing the energy bill.

Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, and Ed Crane, the president of the Cato Institute, wrote a joint op-ed that exposes the major defects in the energy bill under debate.

"The legislation does nothing to improve the efficiency of energy markets or to remedy any market failures. In fact, it makes matters worse by further distorting these markets with billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies and other handouts to well-connected energy industries."

E.J. Dionne explains why the Democrats may have trouble effectively using the corporate scandals in the fall campaigns:

"In fact, the Democrats may have trouble getting full traction on the corporate issue not because it's unpopular but because Democrats themselves have, over the years, been so eager to grab corporate money themselves."

Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.) has added Connie Chung to his list of blame. A list that noticeably does not include himself.

Just when you thought Bud Selig and the folks at Major League Baseball could not be more unfriendly to its fans...they go and shut down a fan's web site.

The Trademark Blog has additional commentary about the situation.

I do not often feel like praising House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). But, as Nat Hentoff explains, Americans concerned about their liberties owe him their thanks.

"Mr. Armey, a conservative, merits the Liberty Medal for reminding Mr. Ashcroft and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge (a supporter of Operation TIPS) that, as the president has said all along and sometimes forgets, everything we do for national security must be within the bounds of the Constitution. "Citizens," Mr. Armey said recently on NBC's "Meet The Press," "should not be spying on one another."

Ronald Brownstein analyzes four important Senate races in the South. The Democrats have a chance to win some seats, and the results there could decide which party controls the Senate.

Also important, Brownstein notes that the south has a tradition of "venerating experience and incumbency". The Dems may not have a chance like this for some time.

The New York Times' James Dao reports the Council on Foreign Relations will release a report this week that:

"asserts that many countries, in particular predominantly Islamic ones, see the United States as 'arrogant, self-indulgent, hypocritical, inattentive and unwilling or unable to engage in cross-cultural dialogue.'"

I support those efforts. The United States needs to promote itself more successfully.

But, public relations efforts need to be based on a foundation of reality if they are to prove successful over the long-term.

Our national foreign policy has been arrogant and hypocritical. If a nation unilaterally tosses aside international agreements without providing a workable alternative (like Kyoto) or overlooks the human rights abuses and provocations of some nations (like China) while cracking down in others despite decades of failure (like Cuba), the problem is larger than a quick PR makeover can solve.

Robert Novak reports on a "smoking gun" e-mail that ties the Clinton White House to at least one payback IRS audit. He writes:

"According to the IRS documents, the Clinton fan's complaint was received by the IRS from the White House on Sept. 14, 1998, and dispatched to Commissioner Charles Rossotti's office. That same day, the file indicates, a telephone call in connection with this matter was made to a person whose name was blacked out. Just two weeks later, Judicial Watch received its first notice of an audit."

Now this is interesting.

Former Vice President Al Gore's 2000 campaign strategy faced new criticism tonight from a somewhat surprising source: his running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.).

Associated Press writer Will Lester reports:

"Lieberman said that he and Gore ran on a program that was faithful to New Democrat values, but said some of the campaign rhetoric about "the people vs. the powerful" may have sent the wrong message.

"It was not the pro-growth approach," Lieberman said. "It ultimately made it more difficult for us to gain the support of some'of the middle class, independent voters who don't see America as 'us vs. them,' but more in Kennedy's terms of a rising tide lifts all boats."

Lieberman said that message was inconsistent with Gore's previous record and "ultimately hurt."

Does Lieberman want out of his pledge not to run for president if Gore joins the race? (Lieberman says that pledge is "timeless.") Has Lieberman heard that Gore has decided that he needs a new running mate in 2004, so by taking this shot he retain some dignity if Gore drops him from the ticket?

How long will it take for Lieberman to backtrack? Stay tuned.

Stuart Taylor's excellent analysis of the Bush Administration's preventive detention plans from last week's National Journal has now been posted for the public via The Atlantic Monthly's web site.

Taylor writes:

"History shows that preventive detention is prone to abuse. We should be concerned that starting down that road could undermine the Bill of Rights and infect the entire criminal justice system. But these dangers can be controlled by wise legislation."

San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor explains what the introduction of the "Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention Act'' in Congress says about the difference between regular people and industries that make many campaign contributions.

"If you or I asked Congress for permission to legally hack other people's computers, we'd be laughed off Capitol Hill. Then we'd be investigated by the FBI and every other agency concerned with criminal violations of privacy and security.

Then again, you and I aren't part of the movie and music business. We aren't as powerful as an industry that knows no bounds in its paranoia and greed, a cartel that boasts enough money and public-relations talent to turn Congress into a marionette."

David Broder condemns the Bush Administration's decision to withhold our nation's $34 million United Nations Population Fund contribution. He argues:

"[W]hen our government allows special-interest pleading to cost lives, it shames us all."

Today's New York Daily News editorial aptly explains our political leaders' misplaced security priorities:

"While the bill to launch the Homeland Security Department rushes headlong through Congress to meet an artificial Sept. 11 deadline - marking the first year following the terrorist attacks - an undertaking that truly matters, upgrading airline security, is being left on the tarmac."

Please ask your Representative or Senator about these failures while they are back home campaigning this month.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe explains in the Los Angeles Times why California Governor Gray Davis (D) may be the luckiest politician in modern state history. She bases this analysis in one often overlooked political lesson:

"Never underestimate the importance of the opponent to a candidate's success or failure."

Kevin Phillips warns that our economic troubles may enter a troubling third stage.

If the first stage was the technology bubble collapse, and the second is the present concern over corporate scandals, the third:

"...could well conjoin a negative wealth effect--worried investors and consumers cocooning for a cold winter--with a further downward lurch in the stock markets as mutual funds and the U.S. economy contract later this year or early next. If so, it could bring the financial industry's own sectorial bloodbath, already beginning to be visible in bank stocks."

Thomas Oliphant wonders why the United States government refuses to go beyond "puny measures" to secure or destroy massive Soviet-era stockpiles of chemical weapons. Stockpiles that are, of course, obvious supply targets for terrorists.

Leonard Pitts explains why Israel was wrong to drop a bomb in a residential area to ensure the death of Hamas leader Salah Shehada.

Pitts is no knee-jerk Israel basher. He writes:

"My problem, though, is that even if I agree - and I do - that a war against near-daily suicide bombings requires extraordinary measures and a certain leeway from armchair quarterbacks, what Israel did here still strikes me as indefensibly outrageous.

I can accept the fact that war is an ugly and imprecise business. I can accept the fact that in war, innocents inadvertently die. But I cannot accept this.

You do not drop a bomb on a building full of sleeping civilians in order to kill one terrorist."

The Arizona Republic is now against the death penalty. Republic Columnist Keven Ann Willey explains why the paper changed its position.

Former President Clinton is back on his legacy watch.

He wants credit, naturally, for the strong economy the nation enjoyed while he was in office. (His decision to sign a deficit reduction agreement over unanimous GOP opposition in 1993 gives him a strong case.)

But Clinton also does not want any of the blame for the corporate accounting scandals that began while he was in the White House.

Too bad.

How did a corporate accountability bill pass Congress so quickly after months of delay? This story explains.

William Safire discusses the word "blog" in his "On Language" column.

He also dings Presidents Bush and Clinton for their, ahem, innovative use of the language.

Here we go again.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) uses the Democrats weekly radio address to call upon the government to clean up its finances after passing a corporate accountability bill. She states:

"The federal budget has been mismanaged -- and the numbers were misestimated and manipulated -- to justify a $2 trillion tax cut primarily for the wealthy. Largely because of that, we went from a $5.6 trillion budget surplus over the next ten years to a $165 billion deficit this year that will raid the Social Security trust fund."

Where were the Democrats? They weren't seriously questioning the numbers. Remember the lockbox? The entire fiscal stimulus debate? The Democrats had their own uses for the supposed surplus bounty.

As the National Journal reported on March 3, 2001 (subscription required) in an article titled "The Joy of Surplus Politics", the Democrats initial spending plan included:

The Democrats' Plan
Strengthen Social Security, Medicare	 $900 billion
Social Security trust fund repayment	 $2.5 trillion
New spending			 $900 billion
Tax cut*				 $900 billion
Medicare trust fund repayment	$400 billion
*includes $150 billion debt service

Trying to blame it all on the Republicans might work, but it is a misleading argument. The Democrats may not have wanted President Bush's tax cuts. They did, however, have their own tax cut and spending plans for the supposed surplus.

Now, let us take on the other problem with Rep. DeLauro's statement today, concerning the "raid"ing of the Social Security Trust Fund.

The Social Security program has run annual surpluses since its 1983 reforms. These annual surpluses were supposed to help the government save for the baby boomers impending retirement.

But the federal government cannot save this money. So, the government issues itself special Treasury bonds and then spends the money. In years when the government is running deficits, the Social Security surplus is spent and makes the overall federal deficit appear smaller than it actually is. In years of surplus, the Social Security surplus is spent paying down publicly held debt.

Either way, the money is spent. The government has spent the Social Security surplus every year since 1983. If the government is raiding Social Security today, then it has raided it every year since 1983. The Bush tax cut just means that the Social Security surplus is paying for other government spending rather than paying off some of the publicly held debt.

The Democrats should have the high ground on the budget issue. Unless they update their rhetoric, however, they will lose it.

The New York Daily News' David Bianculli notes the Emmy mistake of the year.

David Letterman is not nominated in the "Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program" category.

Letterman's performance on September 17th, his first show after the terrorist attacks, was one of the top television moments of the year. It was a show that meant a great deal to me, and I suspect any others.

As Bianculli explains:

"It was a highly personal, intensely individual moment, and so brave, honest and mesmerizing a performance that it should have been a lock. Failing to acknowledge Letterman's finest hour, regardless of the arcane nominating policies involved, is simply inexcusable."

Morton Kondracke writes:

"The clash between business, defended mainly by Republicans, and trial lawyers defended by Democrats is an ongoing drama little covered by the media."

The fiscal condition in many states continues to deteriorate. The Chicago Tribune's Judith Graham writes:

"Budget gaps are projected to reach $57.9 billion for the fiscal year that began July 1, up from the $35.9 billion deficit recorded during the previous 12-month period, according to a report by the National Conference of State Legislatures."

President Clinton, the man who pardoned Marc Rich, should shut up about the corporate accounting scandals.

Slate's Jack Shafer explains why.

Yesterday's New York Times had this week's installment of the Colin Powell chronicles. This is a continuing series where sympathetic members of the media wonder if the Secretary of State will resign.

Answer: not for some time. Do not underestimate the "loyal soldier" factor. He was trained to handle adversity. He owes a good deal to the Bush family. Powell is not the type to take his ball and go home over trifles.

I have argued that Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt is not nearly as bad as some of his detractors believe.

But he could hardly have picked a worse time to lobby for a promotion to cabinet rank.

I really enjoy how the Republican Party ignores its free market orthodoxy whenever its supporters start losing money.

Of course, try to use the government in its proper role to correct negative external costs (like pollution) and the GOP will yell and scream about the market.

Thanks to those who wrote yesterday wondering where I was. I was ill and unable to comment. I'll try to catch up today and over the weekend.

David Broder takes another look at the federal government's poor fiscal condition and the lack of candor about it. He writes:

"If you believe the Bush administration, that can be done easily and quickly. The midyear budget review that acknowledged the prospect of a $165 billion deficit this year forecast a return to balanced budgets as soon as fiscal 2005.

The economic and revenue assumptions behind that forecast are as fanciful as some of the accounting practices that have sent Wall Street into a spin."

Read Warren Buffett's op-ed today and then try to explain why corporations should not expense stock options.

Okay, look. President Bush deserves criticism.

But Maryland Governor Parris Glendening (D) takes a pathetic cheap shot when he goes after the President for taking a month-long "vacation" to his Texas ranch.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that Presidents may leave the White House, but they do not go on vacation. They take aides. They get briefings. They are in constant communication. The work does not go away.

As much as he may wish to, President Bush is not going to forget about the war on terror or the financial problems facing the nation. He will still face them daily. It should not surprise anyone if the president makes some strategic trips around the nation during his "vacation" as well.

There are so many real substantive issues out there to discuss. Gov. Glendening should buy a clue and talk about them instead.

Israel's government needs to understand that killing civilians with bombs is unacceptable. Yes, they took out their target, Hamas leader Salah Shehada. That may seem like a success.

The price paid, however, was far too high.

With the Senate's failure to pass a bill to add a prescription drug package to the Medicare program, leaders from both parties are saying they will campaign on the issue this fall.

As they do so, I hope voters are willing to ask a vital question.

How do you propose to pay for it?

Here's an example of the positive power of public campaign financing.

The Associated Press reports:

"Arizona's system of public campaign financing has added a twist of excitement to the governor's race, with lesser-known candidates seizing the opportunity to get on the November ballot."

Which is exactly the point.

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon finally gave in to the inevitable and allowed reporters to examine his tax returns.

Here is the problem. Simon continues to complain about having to release some of his financial information because it indirectly allows a peek at the finances of some of his family members. John Wildermuth of the San Francisco Chronicle quotes Simon as saying:

"It has troubled me that my decision to run for office has led to disclosure of much of their personal, private information," he said.

Decisions have consequences. If you are going to run for office in this nation, you are going to need to answer questions about your financial past. That is no secret. So deal with it.

Public Opinion Strategies has delivered to GOP Capitol Hill leaders a pessimistic message about the national mood and issue problems Republicans could face this election year.

Janet Yellen, former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton Administration, criticizes President Bush for jeopardizing Social Security's long-term fiscal stability for short-term political gains. She writes:

"President Bush has called for honest accounting in corporate America. The administration could set an example with an honest budget that ensures that retirees will have the nest egg they depend on most, their Social Security benefits. And to make that a reality, Congress should repeal the tax cuts that have not yet been phased in."

But, I am forced to point out that Yellen's justification for eliminating the tax cuts -- to protect Social Security -- is not supportable. As the Concord Coalition argued in June:

"A higher tax level today will in and of itself do nothing to help Social Security. To help, there must be some mechanism to ensure that the extra revenue is translated into tomorrow’s benefits."

Yellen wants the government to be honest in its accounting. Then she should avoid focusing as she does on the Social Security Trust Fund. Yellen writes, "On top of all this, we're told that it's possible to fix Social Security — which is expected to exhaust its trust fund in 2041 if no action is taken."

Using honest accounting requires not focusing on the Social Security Trust Fund. It is an accounting fiction. The Trust Fund does not contain assets that can be used in the future to pay benefits. It contains debt future taxpayers will need to repay.

As the Concord Coalition noted upon the release of the latest Social Security and Medicare projections this past March:

"The Concord Coalition has consistently warned that trust fund solvency is a false indicator of Social Security’s and Medicare’s fiscal outlook because it is unrelated to the cost of future benefits or to the manner in which sufficient resources will be found to afford this cost...

Fiscally and economically, what matters is not the trust fund balance but the operating balance - that is, the annual difference between outlays and dedicated tax revenues. For example, in 2040 the Social Security trust fund is projected to be fully "solvent." But in that year alone the program will need a general revenue infusion of about $360 billion in today’s dollars to redeem its dwindling supply of Treasury bonds. That amount is more than the entire 2001 budget for national defense. Closing the gap in 2041 upon trust fund bankruptcy will require a payroll tax hike of more than one-third or a benefit cut of 27 percent." (emphasis added)

I am all for using honest accounting. The government should embrace the idea. It would help if people who know better -- like Yellen -- followed their own advice.

Here's yet another moronic INS decision.

Our government is threatening to deport a Sept. 11 widow, the mother of two American citizens, because her husband's death in the World Trade Center removed her right to stay in this country."

According to the report, the "INS supervisor in Newark told [the widow] that if she was granted the green card, it would set a dangerous precedent."

A precedent? Is the INS really planning on allowing more terrorists into our nation so they can hijack planes and slam them into our buildings?

Someone -- no, make that several someones -- must be fired over this outrage.

(Thanks to Instapundit for the link.)

Vermont Governor Howard Dean (D), who is running for president, appeared on Meet the Press yesterday.

Dean called for the repeal of virtually all of President Bush's tax cut, arguing that every American could have health insurance through the use of just half of it.

Dean may be largely unknown on the national stage, but he appears to understand the need to run a bold campaign to get on the map.

The Boston Globe's Susan Milligan solicited reaction to Dean's performance. She reports:

"Dean's comments ''will play great in a Democratic primary. As a primary strategy, it is very shrewd,'' said Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant. But ''as a general election strategy, it will bury him,'' Ayres said."

Someone close to the Bush Administration might want to give the White House leadership a quick civics brush-up.

I have complained about this president's penchant for unneeded secrecy. His Administration has gone out of its way to alienate Congressional leaders. It does not seem to accept the legislative branch's proper role in our system of government.

The Washington Post's Dan Morgan today dedicates his column to the worsening relations between the White House's Office of Management and Budget and Congressional appropriators. He explains:

"But this year, relations have soured to the point where some lawmakers say privately that the Bush administration either does not understand Congress's role or has no respect for it."

Minnesota Republican Senate candidate Norm Coleman (R) is trying anything to get media coverage in his campaign against Sen. Paul Wellstone (D).

Coleman's campaign pitched a weekly newspaper opinion column to editors across the state. The Washington Post's Brian Faler describes the negative reaction to the idea:

""The whole idea was cockamamie at best," said Don Smith, editor and publisher of the Monticello Times. "It was just looking for free advertising in the veiled form of a newsworthy -- in their opinion -- column."

His sentiments were largely echoed by several colleagues in a recent issue of the Minnesota Newspaper Association Bulletin. And several papers, including the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, have published articles and editorials criticizing the plan."

Even better, the newspapers should have okayed the idea but forced Coleman and his opponents to focus their columns on issues chosen by the editors.

No one can force newspapers to give candidates free space. (Television and radio stations are different because they use the public airwaves to make their profits.) It is something newspapers should consider doing as a public service.

Gov. Gray Davis (D) today will sign the nation's first legislation to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles.

This is excellent news. Now, the bill itself is not all that radical -- the California Air Resources Board won't announce the new standards until 2005 and the regulations won't become effective until 2009 -- but it does represent an important initial effort to do something about climate change.

The federal government has largely ignored the issue. The state of California, like many businesses and individuals, has taken action to fill the policy void.

Some people wondered if Gov. Davis would sign the legislation. Not only will he do so today, he explains why in this Washington Post op-ed.

David Brooks writes in the Weekly Standard:

"REPUBLICANS have been pretty sanguine about their prospects in this fall's midterm elections. They shouldn't be. It's true that President Bush's popularity ratings remain high and that, asked which party they would like to see control Congress next year, the voters are still evenly divided. But these numbers may be misleading."

Okay, reviewing a law is rarely a bad idea. But this is one trial balloon from Tom Ridge and the Office of Homeland Security that should get shot down quickly.

The military is not designed for law enforcement. Nor should it be. Granting the military power to arrest civilians is a chilling prospect. Congress should not seriously consider granting that power.

(Thanks, Pam for the link.)

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe recently has been an outspoken critic of President Bush and Vice President Cheney's business histories.

So, it is worth the time to read Byron York's review of McAuliffe's not so pristine business past. The DNC does not care to admit it, but McAuliffe is an awful spokesperson on this issue (among others).

Neil Howe links to a Forbes article that examines whether the stock market really outperforms bonds over time.

David Broder takes a look at what outgoing Maine Gov. Angus King (I) and Minnesota Independence Party gubernatorial candidate (and former Democratic Representative) Tim Penny tell us about potential of centrist third party politics.

Building a strong political coalition from the center is possible. Broder quotes Penny as he explains why:

"There are maybe 60 percent of the people who stubbornly refuse to call themselves Republicans or Democrats. . . . It is not a mushy middle. It embraces fiscal responsibility, that we cannot demand more [from government] than we are willing to pay for. They want innovation, not just old programs taking more money. They are socially tolerant. They can't understand why every Democratic and Republican politician wants to make the election about abortion, when that issue was settled 25 years ago. . . . They are also for political reform -- a fair election process and a reduction of money in politics. And they are sickened by negative ads, the scorched-earth, mutually assured destruction approach they've seen too often from Democrats and Republicans."

Washington Times editorial writer Charles Rousseaux supports a NASA plan to send an unmanned probe to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

The Sacramento Bee's Daniel Weintraub looks past H. Ross Perot's telegenic defense on behalf of his company against charges it helped traders manipulate California's energy market.

Weintraub stayed for the whole hearing, and heard a different story. He writes:

"Perot finished his statement, deflected a few questions and packed up and left. When he did, most of the cameras and reporters left with him. But the hearing continued for another 10 hours. And the testimony, along with the letters, e-mails and sales presentations that are part of the record, tell a story far more sinister than the sweet whitewash offered by the folksy man from Dallas."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) makes a valiant effort in today's New York Times to justify his opposition to accounting for stock options as an expense. He writes:

"Options are a valuable tool for attracting talent and spreading wealth because they give employees a greater stake in their companies. And business leaders, particularly from the high-tech community, said they would have to issue fewer options if they had to subtract their estimated value from their profits."

"...changing the accounting rules won't change [greedy executives] behavior; it will only deny options to average workers who have done nothing wrong."

Specifically, Rosenbaum reported:

"But a survey by the National Center for Employee Ownership, a research institute that favors stock options, found that 70 percent of all stock options in publicly traded companies are given to managers, and that about 50 percent are given to the most senior executives.

The average value of stock options to a senior executive, the survey showed, is $512,000. The average value to hourly workers is $8,000."

California's gubernatorial campaign between Gov. Gray Davis (D) and challenger Bill Simon (R) has been notably uninspiring so far. The campaign is not about issues. It focuses on money and personalities.

As the Los Angeles Times editorial writers explain:

"Alas, this dreary campaign has more than three long, long months to run. Have we seen a healthy debate about energy policy? About the broken state budget process? About runaway growth and California's fragile, often threatened environment? No, no and no. It's all about money, Davis' behavior to get it and Simon's secrecy about how he handles it. We wish it were different but can't say it's likely to change."

The Columbus Dispatch's Jonathan Riskind writes about a recently published study arguing "that Americans already are pretty far down the path of paying for a publicly financed health-care system."

About 60 percent of U.S. health care costs are paid via taxes. Expect to hear this fact more as the health care insurance crisis continues to grow. It means, as Riskind explains, "that whatever the solution, coming up with the money might not be as hard as some people think."

When it comes to plans to attack Iraq in order to remove Saddam Hussein, the Bush Administration has made clear it does not want to discuss the issue publicly. Steve Chapman, however, makes note of a troubling fact concerning the White House's refusal to talk:

"While they're keeping mum at home, they've shown no reluctance to air the issue with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and King Abdullah of Jordan. Apparently these secrets are safe with foreign despots. It's only democratically elected American lawmakers who can't be trusted."

Congress should also insist on passing a resolution authorizing any Iraq action. The Bush Administration may not like it. Too bad. There's this thing called the Constitution that even the White House should respect.

Cynthia Tucker courageously grabs the third rail of American politics today. She dares to argue for limiting any new Medicare prescription drug benefit. Tucker writes:

"If conventional wisdom is to be believed, America's elderly struggle to get by on limited incomes, sometimes forced to choose between buying groceries or essential prescription drugs. As the U.S. Senate debates competing proposals to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, you will hear lots of sob stories about the stereotypical grandmother reduced to eating cat food.

Don't believe it. That impoverished grandmother forced to eat Whiskas tuna because of her high prescription drug bills may exist somewhere --- but she is a very rare case. The simple truth is that the nation has done a good job of providing for its senior citizens, so much so that many of them have the money not only for their medications but also for those geezer bus tours to Atlantic City or Dollywood."

Tucker makes the case for an affluence tested program. I wholeheartedly agree with this approach. The nation has limited financial resources, and an affluence test is an excellent way to allocate them.

The Economist reports on the escalating clashes between Iranians demanding reform and the theocratic leadership.

Vice President Cheney is becoming a growing 2002 campaign liability.

The Washington Post's Mike Allen and James V. Grimaldi write:

"As Cheney travels the country to raise money for Republican candidates, local news coverage has begun to focus on the SEC investigation and Democrats have begun making an issue of Cheney's lucrative stewardship of Halliburton."

If Bill Simon is serious about wanting to defeat California Gov. Gray Davis (D) this November, he needs to disclose his financial history.

The Los Angeles Times' Michael Finnegan and Mark Z. Barabak include the perfect quote in their story to sum up Simon's present circumstance:

"The days when you could say, 'It's none of your business' and 'My finances are my own private matter' are gone," said Mike Hellon, a Republican National Committee member from Arizona. "It clearly deflects attention from Gray Davis' tenure in office, which it seems to me is what the Simon people would want to be talking about."

Stacy Tabb relays investment advice you can use.

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds asks an important question:

"...why were we closer to colonizing space thirty-three years ago than we are today?"

Whenever I think about this subject, I am reminded of a scene Joe Straczynski wrote for the first season Babylon 5 episode Infection.

A reporter is meeting with the head of the Babylon 5 station, Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, after a difficult day:

"Reporter: "After all that you've just gone through, I have to ask you the same question a lot of people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back, forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems, at home?"

Sinclair: "No. We have to stay here, and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars."

This is a potential step in the right direction:

"Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) today released a letter signed by 39 members of Congress to the government of Saudi Arabia urging the release of an American citizen being held against her will."

"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."

Josh Green, guest posting on Joshua Marshall's Talking Points memo, writes about the poor job Democrats did yesterday while questioning Army Secretary Thomas White about his Enron past.

Nicholas D. Kristof's column today includes an extremely disturbing paragraph:

"Internal Army documents about the U.S. biodefense program describe missing Ebola and other pathogens, vicious feuds, lax security, cover-ups and a "cowboy culture" beyond anyone's scrutiny. Moreover, germ warriors in the C.I.A. and the Defense Department decided — without bothering to consult the White House — to produce anthrax secretly and tinker with it in ways that arguably put the U.S. in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention."

Most of the Democratic presidential preference numbers in this new ABC News/Washington Post poll are worth little more than a passing glance. Such polls reflect little more than how well the 2004 Democratic possibilities are known.

There is an intriguing nugget. It does not work in Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.)'s favor. The Washington Post's Richard Morin and Dan Balz write:

"Some Gore supporters have speculated about re-creating the 2000 ticket, which won the popular vote by 500,000 votes, but 54 percent of Democrats said they would prefer a new ticket, with 42 percent saying they would like Gore and Lieberman to run again together. Independents and Republicans are even less receptive to a Gore-Lieberman reunion, according to the survey, with 74 percent of all independents and 78 percent of all Republicans saying one Gore-Lieberman ticket was enough."

I think Keith Olbermann is one of the best broadcasting talents in the nation. Someone needs to figure out the best way to use him when his present contract expires in a few months.

The House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security yesterday released a report recommending changes in the intelligence community and noting some of the missed warnings and failures prior to Sept. 11.

Click here to download the committee report. It is in Word format. (Has the House Intelligence Committee really failed to hear about .pdf files?)

The report's Executive Summary notes:

"The terrorist attacks perpetrated on September 11, 2001 constituted a significant strategic surprise for the United States. The failure of the Intelligence Community (IC) to provide adequate forewarning was affected by resource contraints and a series of questionable management decisions related to funding priorities. Prophetically, IC leadership concluded at a high-level offsite on September 11, 1998 that "failure to improve operations management, resource allocation, and other key issues within the [IC], including making substantial and sweeping changes in the way the nation collects, analyzes, and produces intelligence, will likely result in catastrophic systemic intelligence failure."

Congressional Republicans, fearing negative constituent reaction this election year, are separating themselves from the president on several issues. It even looks like the House leadership is backing off its opposition to a strong corporate accountability bill.

Yes, a manned trip to Mars is likely beyond the reach of Russia's current resources, even with international help. But at least they are thinking big.

Amitai Etzioni makes a compelling case in this commentary that the United States should next focus on the Al Qaeda cells in northern Pakistan intead of Iraq.

It comes down, again, to our national credibility and whether we are serious about defeating terrorists. Etzioni writes:

"But since, it has begun to ask, "What did you say was your goal in Afghanistan? To defeat the Taliban? To engage in nation-building? Or to eradicate bin Laden and his gang? And if this last one was what you were after, did not the fact that you relied on local warlords to do most of the fighting result in most Al Qaeda leaders and foot soldiers changing their addresses, but not much more?"

Ah, it is time for the latest outrage from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Reuters' Jeremy Pelofsky explains:

"Telephone companies will be allowed to share, without consent, private customer data with affiliates that offer communications-related services, under rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday.

Consumers will have to opt out of having their information used for marketing purposes, including where, when and to whom they place calls, as well as the types of services subscribers use and how frequently they use them."

Thanks to TAPPED for the link.

Dailypundit William Quick links to an excellent David Tell column. Tell wonders why the FBI's anthrax attack investigators seem disinterested in investigating...

"...a Pakistani immigrant [from New Jersey] who'd recently completed a suspicious purchase of the expensive machinery necessary to weaponize toxic organisms."

I know it does not fit the "lone American scientist" theory, but still...

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, outlines sensible steps that could form the foundation to an agreement ending baseball's present labor troubles.

Unfortunately, I have no doubt that Commissioner Bud Selig and Players Association Executive Director Don Fehr are too myopic to embrace these ideas.

Kevin Phillips places the attitudes that made the latest round of corporate scandals possible in their larger political and historical context:

"Over the last two decades, the cost of winning a seat in Congress has more than quadrupled. Legislators casting votes on business or financial regulation cannot forget the richest 1 percent of Americans, who make 40 percent of the individual federal campaign donations over $200. Money is buying policy.

Speculative markets and growing wealth momentum also corrupt philosophy and ideology, reshaping them toward familiar justifications of greed and ruthlessness. The 1980's and 1990's have imitated the Gilded Age in intellectual excesses of market worship, laissez-faire and social Darwinism. Notions of commonwealth, civic purpose and fairness have been crowded out of the public debate."

Sandy Grossman, for 25 years a writer and producer for the NBC Nightly News, wonders why the Air Force has not gotten the criticism it deserves for failing to have a plan to defend Washington, D.C., from an airborne terrorist attack. Grossman writes:

"The Air Force's most damaging admission is that the Sept. 11 attacks were a complete surprise.

"You hate to admit it, but we hadn't thought about this," confessed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, in an Oct. 17 interview."

Here's the first story I've seen examining how teachers are preparing to handle the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in their classes.

The Washington Post's Juliet Elperin reports on some welcome signs that Members of Congress are willing to take their Domestic Security oversight role seriously.

Congress must not rush meet an arbitrary deadline to pass this legislation. It cannot give the White House the total control it wants over budget and key staffing decisions.

The legislative branch has a Constitutional role it must not ignore.

While the Senate spent time debating an unaffordable prescription drug benefit, other analysts are trying to figure out how to pay for President Bush's proposed Homeland Security strategy.

One might think that a priority.

The Senate continued its pandering to senior citizens yesterday by debating how to add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program.

None of the proposals under consideration presently has enough support to pass. No one, moreover, has any idea how to pay for this expensive new benefit -- especially after the baby boomers begin to retire.

Why let a little fiscal and generational irresponsibility get in the way of a chance to pander in an election year?

In their never-ceasing quest to trump common sense with ideology, the House Republican leadership has rejected the corporate accountability bill the Senate passed unanimously.

Why do I love Christopher Caldwell (and am so happy he's back on the pages of The New York Press)?

He's a great writer and analyst, even when I disagree with him. More important, even though he throws from the right side of the mound, he's willing to write this:

"What kills the President is that every time Harken comes up, Democrats get to retell the story of how he made his money. And this, basically, is the story of the spectacular unfairness with which moneymaking opportunities are lavished on the politically connected. It is the story of a man who has been rewarded for repeated failures by having money shot at him through a fire hose. It is the story of a man who talks with a straight face about having "earned" a fortune of tens of millions of dollars, without having ever done an honest day’s work in his life."

Thomas Oliphant correctly notes that the Office of Management and Budget is quickly losing all credibility when it comes to its federal budget projections.

The White House is projecting that the budget deficit will fall and "potentially" return to balance over the next three years.

That's laughable.

Oliphant describes some of the chicanery involved to reach that conclusion:

"Apart from the absurdity of a projection of a potential development, the road back to alleged black ink is paved with equal absurdities - restraint in congressional appropriations that Bush has yet to convince Republicans to adopt, let alone Democrats; specific predictions of job creation that have yet to materialize, a new stock market boom with accompanying capital gains tax revenue increases that hardly anyone anticipates in the short term, and a rebound in corporate profits (of some 70 percent) this year sharper than private economists dare even dream about. In all, receipts are supposed to rise by more than 25 percent over the next three years even as the most costly of the income tax cuts enacted last year begins to take effect."

Will anyone care? Does the mountain of debt we are bequeathing to our children and grandchildren matter? I am not optimistic.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes about an increasingly frustrated and hostile White House press corps.

Aside: Does anyone else think it odd to see Milbank use colleagues as anonymous sources ("a longtime White House reporter for a major outlet," "a White House correspondent for another large organization").

Is Ari really that scary?

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich thinks that the U.S. Senate should impeach and remove from office the two judges who ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it includes "under God."

Yes, we certainly have time for that political circus now. Not.

Howard Bashman on his How Appealing blog has the perfect reaction to it:

"This qualifies as the most idiotic reaction to that ruling that I have yet heard seriously proposed."

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick defies the conventional wisdom and writes that John Walker Lindh's plea agreement was not a victory for the system or something we should expect from future terror trials. She writes:

"Had Lindh indeed been the hardened al-Qaida member John Ashcroft once promised to convict, there would have been no deal yesterday. Had the government believed that Lindh committed the serious crimes listed in the indictment—including conspiracy to kill Americans abroad and consorting with al-Qaida—the case would never have been settled. The case was settled because the government knew Lindh was principally a misguided kid swept up by forces he didn't understand and not a determined suicide bomber spearheading attacks on innocent Americans."

Lindh proved the exception. We still do not have a good system to deal with the rule.

The Los Angeles Times reports on a Pentagon proposal that would allow it to operate with less Congressional oversight. This is merely the Bush Administration's latest attack against the Congress and its proper oversight role as a co-equal government branch.

Esther Schrader writes:

"Although previous Pentagon efforts have focused on cutting red tape and changing internal management practices, this initiative is part of a larger administration-wide effort to fundamentally alter the relationship between executive branch agencies and Congress, senior administration officials said."

Our State Department will do anything to cover its outrageous actions to kowtow to the Saudis: including detaining an American journalist without cause and attempting to intimidate him into revealing a source.

Here's a first step: Secretary of State Colin Powell should fire the person or persons who this action. Anything short of that is unacceptable. Congress must step in with a forceful oversight effort regardless.

I am forced to wonder: is "Let the Saudis do Anything, But to Hell with Americans" really the policy of the United States Department of State? It sure seems like it (see the previous post for more).

The real question is: how long will the American people tolerate it?

Mona Charen contributes a must-read column outlining just two of the recent evils our State Department has enabled the Saudis to carry out.

Former Democratic Representative Tim Penny won the Minnesota Independence Party gubernatorial nomination over the weekend.

Penny is seeking to succeed retiring Gov. Jesse Ventura. Hopefully Penny will win and he will establish the Independence Party as a solid long-term centrist alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.

Sebastian Mallaby attacks the idea that stock options tie an executive's pay to the health of the company. In recent years, this fiction has done nothing more than allow executives to get huge compensation awards at near-zero risk to themselves.

"This insight comes from an article by Lucian Bebchuk, Jesse Fried and David Walker that will appear in the Chicago Law Review. The authors point out that if options schemes aimed to reward performance, they would avoid several features that interfere with that goal. They would not reward stock price rises that reflect a general rally in the market rather than the boss's own performance. They would not allow bosses to undo options' incentive by selling an off-setting chunk of company stock. They certainly would not indulge bosses who preside over a falling stock price and then expect their options to be rejigged so that they can cash out.

In practice, however, stock-option plans do all of these things, so they clearly aren't aimed at spurring performance. Instead, their point is to make executive pay appear legitimate. They do this partly by encouraging the myth that the pay is linked to merit and partly by keeping the pay hidden."

The Bull Moose explains how today's emphasis on President Bush and Vice President Cheney's past financial dealings was made possible by conservatives' obsession with the Clinton's financial history.

The Coca-Cola company announced that it will treat stock options as an expense on its financial reports.

Perhaps the members of the United States Senate could follow their lead.

The Brookings Institution will issue a report saying that President Bush's Department of Homeland Security plan is flawed and "merges too many different activities into a single department, including many that have little day-to-day connection with one another."

Brookings will release the report, which was prepared by some of the best in the analysis business, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern on Monday, July 15. Click here for more information on the Brookings web cast.

Congress should slow down and create a department that can work, not try to meet an arbitrary deadline.

There are people in Iran fighting for their freedom and facing the consequences of that crackdown. Yet, when asked, our State Department refuses to comment, let alone show support for those seeking to be free.

And, needless to say, most of the U.S. media cannot be bothered to cover the events in Iran.

So, John Weidner on his Random Jottings blog, has called for an effort to make this a major issue.

I'm in. The open letter follows:

AN OPEN LETTER IN SUPPORT OF THE PEOPLE OF IRAN FROM THE WEBLOGGING COMMUNITY

We are not politicians, nor are we generals. We hold no power to dispatch diplomats to negotiate; we can send no troops to defend those who choose to risk their lives in the cause of freedom.

What power we have is in our words, and in our thoughts. And it is that strength which we offer to the people of Iran on this day.

Across the diverse and often contentious world of weblogs, each of us has chosen to put aside our differences and come together today to declare our unanimity on the following simple principles:

- That the people of Iran are allies of free men and women everywhere in the world, and deserve to live under a government of their own choosing, which respects their own personal liberties

- That the current Iranian regime has failed to create a free and prosperous society, and attempts to mask its own failures by repression and tyranny

We do not presume to know what is best for the people of Iran; but we are firm in our conviction that the policies of the current government stand in the way of the Iranians ability to make those choices for themselves.

And so we urge our own governments to turn their attention to Iran. The leaders and diplomats of the world's democracies must be clear in their opposition to the repressive actions of the current Iranian regime, but even more importantly, must be clear in their support for the aspirations of the Iranian people.

And to the people of Iran, we say: You are not alone. We see your demonstrations in the streets; we hear of your newspapers falling to censorship; and we watch with anticipation as you join the community of the Internet in greater and greater numbers. Our hopes are with you in your struggle for freedom. We cannot and will not presume to tell you the correct path to freedom; that is for you to choose. But we look forward to the day when we can welcome your nation into the community of free societies of the world, for we know with deepest certainty that such a day will come.

The poor economy has caused many state budget problems. Among the impacts of the deterorating state fiscal positions: there are more vulnerable gubernatorial incumbents than expected.

Matthew Miller writes about the corporate scandals' real story:

"This is not just about Harken -- this is about a system of opportunity in America that is structurally rigged for the lucky few -- and how public policy should respond to that reality.

The answer may not be what you'd expect. Yes, we should investigate and punish those who have broken the law. But the bigger scandals are legal -- the rigged systems by which CEO pay has skyrocketed, for example, via packages set by the CEO's pals on compensation committees, in cahoots with self-serving consultants and lawyers."

Christopher Matthews argues that President Bush's Wall Street speech last week missed an opportunity to take the lead on the corporate accountability scandals.

Matthews writes: "Instead he gave the kind of sermon clergymen give when they don't want to offend anyone present."

Perhaps President Bush needs to reread those books on Teddy Roosevelt.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, writes in today's New York Times:

"Up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, both political parties are sensing the public disquiet over the expanding list of business scandals — and sensing, too, that this fall's mid-term elections might not be only about how well Washington is dealing with terrorism.

They are right."

Cragg Hines wonders if President Bush really will consider replacing Vice President Cheney on the 2004 ticket.

Since September 11 Cheney's role has grown even more vital. Hines also notes that Cheney's Halliburton scandal problems may ironically make the notoriously loyal President more likely to keep him on the ticket.

Hines, though, misses the obvious choice to replace Cheney should the president so decide. It's not Powell, Guiliani, Ridge, Racicot, or any Senator.

It is National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.

Thomas Oliphant writes about how Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) managed to make both Republicans and Democrats nervous this week as he addressed the wave of corporate scandals.

"In one grand gesture last week, McCain put Democrats on the spot by exposing their complicity in the phony accounting that disguises the true cost of massive stock option grants to company insiders and said key parts of their corporate reform agenda do not go far enough.

McCain also went after the core of Bush's lead balloon speech in New York - arguing that the issue involves not simply wrongdoing and ethical lapses but deeper ills that are ''systemic and serious.'' He also laid out an agenda that displays a more principled conservatism than Bush's."

The latter is far worse.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) showed no shame this morning on ABC's This Week program.

Lieberman dared invoke the name of the late Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.) to justify his position on stock options. For shame.

Tsongas did want the Democratic Party to lose its anti-business image. Yet his record, especially from his trail-blazing 1992 presidential campaign, shows that he would not have condoned these anti-reform positions.

Sen. Lieberman's great efforts to ensure corporations do not have to count stock options as expenses helped fuel many of the financial excesses of recent years. Lieberman is one of those politicians who is talking a good game, but simply does not get the present situation's gravity.

UPDATE: The New York Times David Rosenbaum focuses on how Lieberman's views are coming back to haunt him.

Mr. President, when David Broder asks a question like this one, you have some serious problems.

Broder writes:

"The confidence crisis that has overtaken the Bush administration has many dimensions, but at bottom, it comes down to a single question: Can you take this president's words seriously?"

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon says that voters should select him because of his business success. When asked to outline his investment success, however, Simon suddenly clams up.

As the Los Angeles Times' Michael Finnegan notes, Simon's replies include:

"They're private," "I can't give them out," and "I'm not allowed to talk about it."

Hello? Anyone home? Gov. Gray Davis (D) thanks you for this mistake.

The Bush Adminstration has upped its federal budget deficit estimate for the fiscal year ending on September 30 to $165 billion.

It would surprise me if it ends up that low.

There's been too much spending. There's been too much tax cutting. The problem lies on both sides of that ledger.

Future generations of Americans are being left with the tab.

Last night my wife Kari, son Arik, and I went to see the Colorado Rockies play the San Francisco Giants.

We were in the bleachers. It was (mostly) a good time. The outing was with a group of alumni from Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, the school Kari attended. The action on the field was good and the people around us were great.

Here's the problem.

One of the between-innings contests was a trivia game. They asked one person in the crowd to answer a multiple choice question.

To paraphrase: "Who has recorded the highest batting average since Ted Williams' .406 in 1941?"

The possible answers were Tony Gwynn, George Brett, Rod Carew, and one other that I forget. Many of us felt that the answer was George Brett, for his magnificent .390 season in 1980.

That was not the answer the Giants wanted. They wanted Tony Gwynn, for his .394 in 1994.

1994. The year of the strike. The year of no World Series. Why in the hell is a major league baseball team trying to remind its fans of that?

The 1994 season ended on August 11. There were nearly two months left in the season. Lots of things can happen in that time. For example, George Brett's average stood at .401 in 1980 when September began. How is Gwynn's accomplishment more noteworthy than Brett's? Gwynn gets credit because baseball decided to destroy its season? Where's the logic in that?

If the 1994 records count, then baseball and the Atlanta Braves should retract the fiction that they've won an unprecedented 10-straight division titles. The Montreal Expos had a six-game lead over Atlanta when the strike started. Who won that division title?

The 1994 single-season records should not count for anything. That was not a season.

Major League Baseball, moreover, should stop trying to remind us about that horrific season. Idiots.

As our political leaders flee their previous "the market can fix itself, so it's none of our business" positions on corporate accountability, it is good to emphasize Congress's culpability in the present scandals.

For example, as the Washington Post's Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin write:

"Congress balked at imposing tougher regulations on chief executives and the auditing agencies watching over them. They made it harder for investors to sue corporations and accounting firms involved in fraud, and easier for CEOs to escape penalty. Even today, lawmakers are reluctant to cross the politically powerful high-tech industry by forcing companies to count high stock-option costs as an expense -- a move that would eliminate a practice that helps the firms inflate their earnings."

Worse, the priority of both parties appears to be ensuring the other side gets blamed for this mess rather than creating the solutions needed to restore trust in the financial system.

The Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate yesterday did the bidding of a bipartisan group of Senators by refusing to allow a vote on Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Carl Levin's (D-Mich.) sensible amendment to make companies report stock options as an expense.

Congress is not quite ready to take the serious action required to restore trust in the financial system.

Howard Bashman's How Appealing blog explains that the entire Pledge of Allegiance case is a fraud.

The Associated Press reports:

"The 8-year-old girl whose father successfully sued to have the Pledge of Allegiance declared unconstitutional has no problem with reciting the pledge at school, her mother said Thursday.

"I was concerned that the American public would be led to believe that my daughter is an atheist or that she has been harmed by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, including the words 'one nation under God,'" Sandra Banning said in a statement. "We are practicing Christians and are active in our church."

But if the girl in this case does not mind saying the Pledge, then it is wrong for her non-custodial father to push this issue.

As Bashman writes: "I simply don't see how a non-custodial father has the right to object to his daughter's having to say the pledge if neither the daughter nor the mother, who has full custody, has any objection."

Oh, I think I know. The Associated Press story gives the game away. Quoting the father: "The main thrust of this case is not my daughter, it's me."

Do they hand out good father awards to those who use their eight-year-old daughters as props?

(Thanks to Instapundit for linking to this story.)

The National Debt Clock near Times Square in New York City was turned back on yesterday.

Perhaps people will look at it, gasp, and realize that despite all of these years of so-called budget surpluses, the national debt continued to rise every fiscal year.

          July 10, 2002:  $6,114,053,599,385.23

          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

The national debt is still going up. Please ask your Congressional candidates about it when they come out to campaign for your vote.

TAPPED has great advice for political professionals: focus less on the tactics and more on the substance.

The Bush Administration claims that it has the right to hold suspects indefinitely based on its determination alone that the persons in question are "enemy combatants." It also seeks to hold these individuals without allowing access to lawyers, trials, or other Constitutional rights.

The White House won't even accept the principle that some kind of judicial review of these cases, if only to ensure the evidence supporting the war combatant charge is strong. Why? The war against terror. Times are dangerous, America itself is on the precipice.

The New York Observer's Nicholas von Hoffman dissents. The war on terror does not justify these actions.

I think von Hoffman is correct. He writes:

"We went through the entire Cold War without once resorting to lettres de cachet. The Soviets, you may recall, really did have weapons of mass destruction, thousands of them, in rockets that their space program proved would work if fired. They had thousands of warplanes, very good ones evidently, and the same for their tanks. They also had a large and successful espionage operation going in the United States—and with all that and more against us, practical wisdom did not demand skipping around the rights most of us believe are ours by birth and citizenship."

Speaking of Sen. McCain, here are the "Key Principles to Restore Public Trust and Confidence in Corporate America" that he proposed today during his National Press Club speech.

I love the use of the words "require," "establish," and "prohibit."

Why did (do) I prefer Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over President George W. Bush? One reason is their vastly different approaches to confronting problems. William Saletan contrasts Bush's corporate accountability speech earlier this week with McCain's appearance today at the National Press Club.

It should surprise no one at this point that McCain's speech was by far the better one.

"We trust that a people who are free to act in their self-interest will perceive their interest in an enlightened way, and use their wealth and power to create a civilization in which all people can share in the opportunities and responsibilities of freedom.

Threats to our greatness come not just from foreign enemies and alien ideologies that hold our ideals in contempt. They also come from those few among us who perceive their self-interest as separate from the interests of our society, who in their selfish pursuits abjure the values of honesty, fairness and patriotism, and threaten to damage the very trust that makes freedom work."

Essential centrist columnist Matt Miller explains how:

"Bush's muscular new piety on corporate ethics means the press has the hook it needs to reexamine his cozy Texas business history. And that means we may finally get beyond fawning accounts of Bush's first-president-with-an-MBA-management style to reminders that, among other remarkable facts, Bush is the first president to have been investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for insider trading, and that Bush seems to have received an unusual $12 million gift while governor of Texas that accounts for his fortune."

Moreover, as Miller notes:

"If Democrats who'd made fortunes from Bush-like patterns of crony capitalism were in the White House during a crisis of corporate integrity, does anyone doubt that Richard Scaife would have scrambled the jets months ago and bankrolled mountains of American Spectator exposes?"

There would be hints, allegations, and investigations.

Hypocrisy, however, is so much more fun.

Bob Herbert looks behind the rhetoric and examines how current federal budget policies leave children behind.

Herbert blames last year's tax cut, and implies that part of it is some patrician-fueled racism affecting the Bush family.

The tax cut certainly is a problem. The implied charge of racism does not work for me. The Bush Administration does have a bias. But it is against non-affluent people of all colors.

What Herbert does not mention is that the federal government has had an overwhelming bias against children for years. The last I checked, the federal government spent nine dollars on a senior citizen for every dollar it spends on a child.

9-to-1. Does anyone think the ratio would be that high if the entire budget were on the table for debate and discussion? That we would choose to subsidize vacations to Bermuda over ensuring children had good meals?

Yes, the tax cut does not help. Plans to add a prescription drug benefit to an already unsustainable Medicare program also won't help. Our continued national failure to reform a Social Security program that is also unsustainable over the long-term won't help.

Many of our federal budget priorities are irrational. It's time to take a look at all of them.

In what looks suspiciously like a posterior-covering change-the-subject announcement, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig told reporters that one major league team was in danger of missing its payroll on Monday and another team may not survive the season.

Bud, if this is true, then you should let that team fail. Really.

The players no longer believe the owners' claims of poverty after all of these years of listening to their cries about financial problems. Cries heard while owners still insisted on signing multimillion dollar contracts for scrub-level players.

So, it is time for drastic measures. Miss the payroll. Let the team fail.

That would be a bold statement. It would really put the players, who are more at fault for the current standoff anyway, on the defensive. It would change the entire frame of this debate.

Or was this just a way to get sports columnists to stop writing about the All-Star Game fiasco?

Slate's Kate Taylor quickly explains why President Bush's proposed corporate accountability efforts will not amount to real reform.

Let's see, what's the worst news of the day for Vice President Dick Cheney?

1. Judicial Watch files a law suit "accusing him of defrauding shareholders in a company [Halliburton] he used to run."
   
2. He turns up in a promotional video made in 1996 for (ouch) Arthur Andersen, praising the company's work.
   
3. In that video, he praises Andersen by saying, "I get good advice, if you will, from their people, based upon how we are doing business and how we are operating, over and above the normal, by-the-books auditing arrangement."
   

Yeah, that "above the normal, by-the-books advice" sure seems like a good idea now.

Is it just me, or is the Vice President looking more and more like a likely scapegoat for the corporate accountability scandals?

Stan Collender explains why passing a large new supplemental spending bill is foolish: there isn't enough time for federal agencies to spend the money before the current fiscal year ends on September 30.

"At this point wouldn't it be easier and smarter simply to limit the supplemental to the spending that can actually be done by the end of September or the middle of October? That would cut the overall size of the bill substantially and let everyone claim some type of political victory.

Washington Times Editorial Page Editor Tony Blankley correctly asks Congress to take a breath and stop trying to meet an unachievable deadline to create a new Department of Homeland Security.

Writes Blankley:

"Congress should slow down, be more deliberative and not rush in its legislative duties. Both the Democratic Senate and the Republican House leaderships have announced that hearings that begin this week on creating the Department of Homeland Security will lead to passage on the floors in each chamber within the next four weeks, and will be reconciled and ready for presidential signature by September 11. Perhaps some bill can be cobbled together at such breakneck speed, but not the bill this country needs.

Creating a large new federal government cabinet agency is tough work. It requires time, reflection, and strategic planning. Two months is simply not enough time to do the job well.

Someone please explain to me how jokingly asking whether the pilots of an airplane are drunk is a security risk.

Really. How?

America West airlines removed a woman from a flight Monday because she asked the flight attendents if the pilots were sober.

According to the Reuters report of the incident:

"[America West spokeswoman Patty] Nowack said the crew decided to take the woman off the aircraft after determining that her remarks constituted a potential security problem."

What? This is their excuse for what is obviously payback for an ugly reminder of America West's recent drug pilots incident?

"I'm going to blow up the plane." That's a security risk.

"Have the pilots been checked for sobriety?" That's not.

I wouldn't fly an airline that has employees who cannot tell the difference. The people who decided to pull that woman off the plane should be suspended or fired for a grotesque lack of judgement.

President Bush's corporate accountability speech yesterday contained some nice rhetoric. The substance, however, was not nearly good enough.

Why? This paragraph from Washington Post writer Mike Allen's report sheds some light:

"Several administration officials said the measures Bush outlined today were watered down as they were debated within the White House over the past few weeks. These officials said Bush and Vice President Cheney were adamant that they not hurt the economy by imposing too much regulation."

Guess what, Administration officials: the economy is going to be hurt precisely by President Bush's refusal to take tough action against corporate fraud.

When the American people turn on the markets, they remain sour on Wall Street for a generation or more. Bush and Cheney neglect reacting to these warning signs at their peril.

I'll keep in this post all of today's thoughts on last night's laughable and pathetic Major League Baseball All-Star Game tie.

Thomas Boswell explains what ultimately happened: "Baseball was faced with a classic choice. Put the fans and the game itself first, or make sure not to make any player, his team or his agent unhappy." Surprise. Baseball's powers did not choose the fans.

Marc Fisher writes: "Baseball's 73rd All-Star Game had dissolved into a pathetic joke, a phony tie ordained by the lords of a profit-possessed business, zillionaires so utterly detached from normal American life that they didn't even know that they had done something terribly wrong."

Scott Miller asks: "Since when did making sure everybody plays and no feelings get rustled become more important than actually winning? What is this, T-ball? Everybody gets an at-bat and nobody can play in for a bunt?"

Joshua Micah Marshall asks an excellent question: how has former FBI Director Louis Freeh escaped taking any responsibility for the September 11 intelligence and investigatory failures?

Marshall writes of the Congressional investigations and the people from whom they have heard testimony:

"But along the way, it somehow hasn't occurred to any of the committees doing post-9/11 investigations to call up Louis J. Freeh, the man who headed the FBI—the country's primary domestic intelligence and counterterrorism agency—from 1993 to June 2001, the most critical eight years in question."

There were more grandstanding calls for Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt to resign yesterday.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), for example, compared Pitt to Barney Fife, the inept deputy sheriff on television’s Andy Griffith Show.

Pitt is not inept. This is exactly the type of hyperbolic attack -- focused on scoring cheap debating points rather than focusing on substantive issues -- that could destroy any chance the Democrats have to take advantage of the corporate scandals.

The Harvey Pitt who was confirmed (unanimously by a voice vote) by the U.S. Senate for the job is not the best choice to oversee the nation’s market system today.

But, no one should lose sight of the fact that there were few objections to Pitt at the time of his confirmation last August. Christopher Faille, a reporter for Hedgeworld Daily News was able to write, “It is almost impossible to find anyone in the securities industry or on Capitol Hill with a critical word to say about Mr. Pitt.”

Pitt was an effective advocate for the deregulation and “the market will always fix itself” ethos that held sway in the nation until about three months ago.

That means that he probably should resign because we need an obvious reformer at the SEC's helm today. Democrats, however, should not try to scapegoat Pitt for these problems. They didn’t start in January 2001.

The fact of the matter is that many of these corporate shenanigans began under (gasp) the Clinton Administration’s watch while Arthur Leavitt was SEC Chairman. Remember the roaring 1990s? Bush was not president then.

Now, Leavitt is now trying desperately to obscure his legacy by deflecting blame and attention from his failures. He’s talking tough and arguing for significant changes. It is, however, quite easy to talk tough after leaving the job.

Has Inslee condemned Leavitt for his role in allowing all this to happen? Has he taken Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) to task for his efforts to assist the accounting industry that have exacerbated these problems?

Of course not.

Why let substance get in the way of a cheap partisan shot?

It is almost poetic justice that the All-Star game played in the home of baseball's commissioner -- perhaps only weeks before another strike marks the game's final destruction -- ends in a controversial tie.

It's now official: the Lutheran Church has suspended the Rev. David Benke for participating in a September 11 memorial service at Yankee Stadium.

Apparently the suspension only concerns activities related to his activities as president of the Atlantic District. He can continue as the pastor at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Brooklyn.

The Associated Press quotes from the suspension letter written by Rev. Wallace Schulz:

"To participate with pagans in an interfaith service and, additionally, to give the impression that there might be more than one God, is an extremely serious offense."

Pagans?

As I wrote on July 6, there's nothing like a little fundamentalism to get in the way of a nation's healing.

Update: My friend, GM, rightly points out that writing about "the Lutheran Church" is incredibly vague, if not misleading. I am writing about the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.

Health care costs continue their relentless rise. Ceci Connolly writes:

"Nationwide, insurance premiums rose 11 percent in 2001 and are projected to climb 13 percent this year, according to an analysis by the Center for Studying Health System Change. A survey by the Hewitt Associates consulting firm found that HMO rates increased an average of 15.3 percent this year and could increase 20 percent in 2003."

Workers need to know that they can move to another job without jeopardizing their family's health care. Our economy needs that flexibility in the 21st century. (Ted Halstead and Michael Lind cover this subject in some detail in their excellent book The Radical Center.)

Vermont Governor Howard Dean is running a long-shot presidential campaign, with health insurance as a foundation for his candidacy. I think he's picked the right issue. It is a good bet that the American people are going to demand action after two more years of price increases.

Mike Allen and Dana Milbank note that President Bush used the word confidence "nine times in his 36-minute appearance", before reporters yesterday.

Bush is rightly seeking to restore investor confidence. He should feel fortunate if any remains. I hope he realizes that strong measures are required.

Another point...Bush needs to control his emotions far better than he has in recent days. He, write Allen and Milbank, "appeared irritated by the questioning" and "glared at reporters in the White House briefing room when he heard titters after that answer."

This is the second time in a week that Bush has appeared visibly angry with reporters.

In a free and open society, Mr. President, reporters and citizens are not required to take every answer from government officials as the final word. Reporters are supposed to question you, especially when your answers are not good ones.

Get used to it.

A letter to the editor I wrote appears in today's Baltimore Sun. Unfortunately, one of the edits was to delete the phrase "common asset" from the first paragraph. So, I'm going to put it back. :)

Here's the letter:

"David H. Feldman makes an important observation: A functioning market system depends on trust. And trust is a [common asset, a] resource on which everyone relies but for which no one is singularly responsible ("Continuing scandal, loss of confidence," June 30).

To change our system, we must change the incentives. We could make auditors federal officials, as we do air traffic controllers, to guarantee their independence. A less controversial remedy could come from creating a business-financed fund from which all auditors would be paid. This would ensure examiners would receive no compensation from the companies they review.

These ideas sound radical only because Americans have increasingly abandoned the concept of protecting the social and economic commons. Even the mildest efforts to protect the common good are viewed with suspicion.

But the visible economy is connected to a hidden economy of trust. The longer we take to restore the trust economy, the more the markets - and the other parts of the visible economy that depend on them - will deteriorate."

Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) has a new book coming out, and Newsweek's Howard Fineman got a preview copy the day after Watts' recent retirement announcement.

Nat Hentoff's column today explains that the hysterical reaction to the recent Pledge of Alliegiance decision was caused, at least in part, by the general lack of knowledge Americans have about history in general and the Bill of Rights in particular.

Writes Hentoff:

"In visiting and writing about schools nationwide for many years, I have been greatly disturbed by how superficially and fragmentarily the history and contents of the Constitution are taught in far too many classrooms.

Now, seeing the majority of Congress — and a good many law professors and bellicose television commentators — acting as if the Ninth Circuit judges responsible for this decision are subversives, I am again aware of how much remedial education in the Bill of Rights, as well as in the rest of the Constitution, is sorely needed among many American adults."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) argues in today's New York Times for the federal government to enact policies to restore trust within the marketplace.

"The need for government action and oversight is clear. Corporations fabricated revenues, disguised expenses and established off-balance-sheet partnerships to mask liabilities and inflate profits. Executives maximized their compensation with stock option plans that burdened their companies with huge costs hidden from investors. Venerable accounting firms, having looked the other way as companies cooked the books, shredded documents to hide their misdeeds. Although American tax policy encouraged them to do so, corporations that move their legal headquarters offshore to avoid taxes appear conspicuously ungrateful to the country whose young men and women are risking their lives today to defend them."

The Committee for the Study for the American Electorate reports that just 16.2 percent of eligible voters actually voted in this past spring's primary elections.

The right to vote is sacred. Some people, I know, make not voting an active political protest. (I would suggest, however, that a better protest would include going to the polls and casting a blank ballot, or better yet, writing-in other candidates for each office.)

But 83.8 percent of Americans are not protesting. The vast majority of them take our rights for granted. Even after September 11.

A U.S. Census Bureau study predicts that AIDS will lead to a "decline in life expectancy in 51 countries in the next two decades." Some countries will see their life expectancies drop to levels not seen since the 19th Century.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank and Mike Allen report on President Bush's preparations for his Tuesday corporate accountability speech:

"While President Bush worked with aides on his upcoming speech addressing mushrooming corporate scandals, a question arose about whether the administration could look hypocritical because of the ongoing federal probe of Halliburton Co.'s aggressive accounting while Vice President Cheney was in charge of the firm." (emphasis added)

The free, and/or heavily subsidied, parking the federal government and other private employers provide is one of the primary reasons the Washington, D.C., area experiences some of the nation's worst traffic congestion.

Such policies also increase traffic congestion in cities across the nation.

This is an example of how society subsidies driving. Gasoline and insurance may seem expensive. Research (link to a pdf report) has shown that drivers pay less than half of the costs produced by their automobile use after accounting for the external costs like traffic congestion, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, noise pollution, and the sheer infrastructure devoted to vehicles.

Any serious effort to combat traffic congestion must aim to make drivers pay the full cost of getting behind the wheel. Ending the subsidies fossil fuels enjoy will also help make alternative fuels competitive.

Philip Heymann outlines a sensible and reasonable criticism of the Bush Administration's plan to use preventive detention in the war on terrorism.

"A detained person will not have access to a lawyer. The factual basis for calling a citizen a combatant on behalf of terrorism will generally be secret. There will be no judicial review of the grounds for finding that the citizen poses a danger of terrorism and often no trial on any criminal charges. Our most basic freedom now depends on the good faith of the administration in power -- the very situation the Founders meant most clearly to prevent."

Columnist Matthew Miller today revisits a sensible school voucher proposal he discussed in The Atlantic Monthly in 1999.

Miller writes:

"Here's how we might start. Take three or four big cities where everyone agrees the public schools aren't working (leave out dens of mismanagement like Newark, N.J., or Washington, where spending is high but ineffective). In these cities--many of which spend far less than nearby affluent suburbs--raise per pupil spending by 20% or 30%, giving the left the resources it rightly says these kids need. But implement this increase only via a voucher system that gives every poor kid--not just a handful--a choice. In a city that now spends $6,000 per pupil, for example, every poor child would get, say, a $7,500 voucher.

Depending on the cities, the federal government could fund this boost for $1 billion or so a year. The feds would guarantee to bankroll it for 10 or 15 years, to give entrepreneurs (both nonprofit and for-profit) the incentive to make investments in new schools, and thus get a true test of competition's impact. We'd also toss in sensible regulations, such as one requiring that any school that wants to take the voucher has to reserve a certain portion of seats (15%?) for which the voucher would suffice as full tuition (so it's not simply a way for schools to jack up prices, or shun poorer kids)."

This plan cuts across traditional tired liberal and conservative arguments. It would bring more resources into school districts that need them. Will anyone seize the opportunity?

Update: David Broder discusses another problem that needs solving for vouchers, and other government functions to work: the need to eliminate the artificial line between city and suburb on public policy issues like this one.

Chris Matthews urges us to get a grip and keep the terrorism threat in perspective.

"This is a country of 280 million people. Bad things happen. People die every day, sometimes they are way too young. Let's put this terrorism threat in perspective. Stop reading and jabbering about the end of the world. Let's drop the "Apocalypse Now" number.

Clarence Page wonders about George W. Bush's controversal 1990 sale of Harken Energy Corp. stock right before its price fell on bad financial news:

"Bush was cleared of insider trading charges in 1993 when the SEC determined he had access to no inside information, even though he sat on Harken's audit committee. Therefore, Bush's spokesmen shrug off the Harken disclosures as old news. But that glosses over something new and interesting: Why has the president changed his story?

Robert Novak writes that Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has opened the door for increased Democratic criticism of the war on terrorism.

Novak predicts "an onslaught on President Bush after Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess."

While President Bush and others against taking action on climate change say our economy is too fragile to handle greenhouse gas emission reductions, many business leaders realize it is precisely our inaction on climate change that will hurt the economy.

Explains an Environmental Media Services media release:

"A recent white paper by the Conference Board, a not-for-profit business research institution, asserts that businesses ignoring climate change risk negative economic impacts. The Conference Board report documents growing shareholder interest in public reporting of carbon emissions, as well as concern with the possibility of "disruptive technologies" (those that quickly alter the terms of competition in an industry) and a perceived lack of management familiarity with energy and global warming issues. The Conference Board also finds opportunity for businesses pursuing carbon management, including monetary credit for reductions, increasing corporate social responsibility in the eyes of the stockholders, and saving money through energy efficiency measures.

After reading the lede to this story, written by the Washington Post's Alan Cooperman, please remind me of the year in which we are living:

"A high-ranking Lutheran pastor has been suspended from his duties and ordered to apologize to all Christians for participating with Muslims, Jews, Sikhs and Hindus in an interfaith prayer service in New York's Yankee Stadium after Sept. 11."

Officials with the Russian space program are proposing a joint manned mission to Mars by 2015.

There are no details yet, the date seems optimistic, and neither NASA nor the Europeans have signed on. But we should thank the Russians for putting the idea on the international agenda.

The time has come for humanity to resume exploring the stars.

The July/August issue of The Atlantic Monthly is one of the best magazines I have ever read. There are several great articles in this remarkable issue. I'll share some of my favorites over the coming days.

Perhaps the best is the first part of William Langewiesche's three-part report of the unbuilding of the World Trade Center. Langewiesche was given near-total access to Ground Zero during the clean-up efforts.

He tells the story of the remarkable men and women who rose to a great physical and emotional challenge.

This article is well worth the time spent reading it.

Since it is a rare day when I fully agree with columnist Charles Krauthammer, I feel compelled to highlight his column today. Krauthammer writes:

"I gave baseball one last chance. And this is it. If the players strike this time -- ruin the season, cancel the World Series and, once again, devalue the game -- not only am I not going back. I am going to root for its total collapse, for Major League Baseball to disappear."

I'll go to minor league games, play catch with my son Arik when he's old enough, compete in Strat-o-Matic games with friends...but I will not forgive if there is no World Series this year.

The trouble surrounding California Gov. Gray Davis (D) continues to grow. The Wall Street Journal's John Fund looks at the latest problem to surface: the firing of Assemblyman Dean Florez as chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee just days after the committee held hearings into the state's Oracle contract scandal.

The Christian Science Monitor editorial writers examine the negative effects of the recent redistricting battles.

"An oddly drawn district in Illinois, for instance, is some 75 miles long, but in places only a block wide. That hardly fits the generally accepted definition of redistricting that calls for districts to be "compact in form."

H.D.S. Greenway notes that the media is slipping back into many of its poor pre-September 11 habits.

Nicholas D. Kristof takes time off from the war on terrorism to properly condemn our national farm subsidy policy.

Helen Dewar writes about how Republicans and Democrats are reacting to the war on terrorism on the campaign trail. As you might imagine, Republicans are seeking to press their perceived advantage and Democrats are trying to couch any criticisms within support for the war.

Ultimately, of course, most of these efforts are silly and demeaning. For example, Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.) opening his campaign with "Let's roll." Is this really the best way to celebrate Todd Beamer's heroism, Senator? Comparing what the heroes on Flight 93 did with a mundane political campaign?

Here's the paragraph of Dewar's story that bothers me the most:

"With the relatively few war-related votes since Sept. 11 that broke down on partisan or ideological grounds, many Republicans are scouring the records of their Democratic opponents to find votes against military expenditures, treaty restrictions or other initiatives that might be perceived differently now than they were then.

Here's a humble suggestion from me. Let's scour the records to see which Representatives and Senators ignored the proceedings and reports of the U.S. Commission on National Security, often called the Hart-Rudman Commission. The final report of the commission was released on April 19, 2000.

Any candidate who attempts to use the war on terror as a political issue should be asked to produce evidence that he or she at least read the Hart-Rudman Commission's reports prior to September 11, 2001. If a war politician ignored the Hart-Rudman Commission (as most of our political leaders did), then he or she is a pathetic hypocrite and should be voted out of office.

Potomac (Va.) High School basketball coach Kendall Hayes had his son repeat the eighth grade, but not for academic reasons. To give his son another year to develop physically before having to play high school basketball.

"I hit my growth spurt while I was in high school and continued to grow into college," said Kendall Hayes, who is 6-foot-6. "I wanted to give Eric another year of physical development. . . . I haven't heard any negative comments yet, but I know some people are going to have something to say about it. I'm his father and I know what's best for my son. So far, it's worked out exactly as we wanted it to. People who know basketball understand why we did this."

You haven't heard any negative comments yet? Here's one. I hope you set a better academic example for your players in other ways. Your heart is in the right place, but decisions like these are not good ones.

Have we reached the point where athletic's needs have diverged so completely from academic priorities that administrations should consider eliminating sports? Let parents create leagues that have nothing to do with schools, so the schools can regain their proper focus?

The shooting at LAX yesterday looks like a random event rather than a terrorist attack. That fact, of course, does not matter to the families of the people who were killed.

In addition to all of the normal speculation, I had these thoughts about the incident:

1. Airlines should add better security in the ticketing/check-in area. El Al did have an armed security guard in the area. Most airlines, to my knowledge, do not. The federal government and airlines should announce new measures to correct this weakness as soon as possible.
   
2. Reporters and anchors need to learn to use the phrase "I don't know". I am sick of media people speculating and trying to fill in the information blanks during a breaking news situation while claiming to "avoid speculating" or "hating to speculate." Try actually avoiding the speculation next time.
   
3. Crisis management officials need to find a way to let the people evacuated from a terminal know what is happening. Should airports buy portable speaker systems so they can tune them to a newsradio station? Keeping the evacuees in the dark only adds to the panic. Airlines, of course, are notoriously bad about giving their customers information. This must change.
   

I hope you had a happy and safe Fourth of July yesterday.

Arianna Huffington wonders how it is legal for:

"...corporate executives [to] legally use the balance sheet of a public company as their own personal piggy bank? How can they legally write their own checks for ridiculous amounts — often from companies that are troubled and can't afford it, and at the expense of shareholders who can't prevent it?"

Nicholas D. Kristof asks some uncomfortable questions about the FBI's investigation of last fall's anthrax letter attacks. Is the FBI not vigorously investigating the case? Are the CIA and/or Defense Department stonewalling? It is time for some straight talk.

Rod Dreher on The Corner on National Review Online links to a must-see web site about the war on terrorism. The Poynter Institute has placed several hundred pdfs of newspaper front pages, including extra editions printed on September 11 and regular editions on September 12, on its web site.

When the true subject of the war on terrorism seems lost in the political shuffle or has grown vague through the passage of time, check out these web pages to refresh your memory.

Joshua Micah Marshall wonders "How long till Bernie Ebbers' name comes down off Trent Lott's Mississippi Wall of Fame."

A good question. Let me add one more: how long until Lott ensures that Jimmy Buffett's name is spelled correctly on the Hall web page? (Hint: that's two T's, Senator.)

Read these excellent excerpts from a new anthology of Daniel Pearl's writings.

Mark Shields connects the war on terrorism with the outrageous decisions by American corporations to move their headquarters to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

"President Bush has been direct: The battle against terrorism will be long and costly in U.S. treasure and suffering. In response to Bush's blunt words, dozens of U.S. corporations have gone AWOL in their country's current war by buying a Bermuda corporate address -- while never moving so much as a filing cabinet -- just to avoid taxes on profits they earned here."

Douglas Pike wisely writes against last year's unaffordable tax cuts and argues for cancelling those cuts that have not yet gone into effect. "It will take leadership, marketing and grassroots organizing to halt the debt-financed tax cuts. One sign of the urgency: Tax-cut fanatics in the House are giddily passing new tax bills that would make the government's financial straits even worse."

Amitai Etzioni explains what should be obvious. Etzioni, writing about the recent corporate accounting and Catholic Church scandals, observes:

"In a free society, stonewalling does not work. And it exacts a high cost – not only of those who stonewall, but of all others in the same line of work, and ultimately of all of us."

Robert Novak explains how demands for Yasser Arafat's removal from office complicate the long-term Middle East peace process.

Jules Witcover puts the recent Pledge of Allegiance controversy in its proper perspective:

"With public sentiment overwhelmingly in support of keeping the Pledge of Allegiance as it is, Congress can better spend its time addressing all the more pressing matters it has been dodging all year, and leave it to the judiciary to put God back in the pledge, as it almost certainly will do if left to its own devices."

Blake Morrison's report in today's USA Today provides another glimpse into the absolutely unacceptable state of airline security.

"Forget the sophisticated bomb that a terrorist might conceal in the lining of a carry-on bag. [Transportation Security Administration] test results obtained by USA TODAY show checkpoint screeners at 32 of the largest airports missed almost a quarter of potential weapons -- and 30% of simulated bombs -- when the items were tossed into a suitcase like a passenger packs a pair of socks."