TNI Publishers Split on Endorsement (Robert F. Ellsworth and Dimitri K. Simes, 10.31.2008, The National Interest)
With just a few days before the presidential election, the publishers of The National Interest stand divided on who is the best choice for America. One of us, Robert Ellsworth, has already voted for Senator Barack Obama. Another, Dimitri Simes, will vote for Senator John McCain. But each of us has serious concerns about both candidates.Before describing our reservations, however, let us state the obvious: the choice is between two truly remarkable men—one, the first African American nominated by a major party, has captivated not only Democrats but the nation with his charisma, eloquence and personification of change; the other, a genuine American hero, is a man of courage, independence and demonstrated ability to transcend party lines. The nation can be proud to have leaders of such caliber on the ballot.
In ordinary times, either would likely be a good president.
God gap: No gain for Obama with religious vote (DAVID PAUL KUHN | 11/1/08, Politico)
Barack Obama has courted white weekly churchgoers as avidly as any Republican-leaning bloc of voters, though it now appears his efforts may fall flat on Election Day.The Gallup Poll now shows Obama backed by 28 percent of white voters who attend church at least once a week — a group that makes up a roughly a third of all voters — which would be no improvement from the 29 percent of these voters who, according to exit polls, backed Democrats John Kerry and Al Gore in the previous two presidential election.
Any shot he had at those voters ended with the Palin pick, and he never had much of one. They're Stupid, not dumb.
Misfire at Palin: Associated Press story offers skewed picture of gas line work (Anchorage Daily News, 11/01/08)
Gov. Sarah Palin's signature accomplishment -- a contract to build (sic) a 1,715 mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 -- emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration."This report from The Associated Press is a remarkably skewed account with little new information to support the charge it implies. Presumably, readers are supposed to conclude that Palin tilted the gas line bidding toward a favored company, one that had previously employed one of her key staffers.
Here's the truth: The pipeline terms were not "Palin's." They were the terms requested by the sovereign state of Alaska, as provided in the Alaska Constitution.
While Palin did indeed start by proposing very similar bid terms, all of Alaska's key decisions about those terms and the contract award itself were made through an unusually open public process that culminated in formal and enthusiastic approval from the Alaska Legislature.
COMPLAINTS CONSIDERED, REJECTED
The basic complaints raised in the AP story were fully aired during the 59-day special session the Legislature held before voting to approve the final TransCanada deal. AP's investigative crew, imported from outside the state, drew heavily on Palin's Republican critics who lost this particular battle in the Legislature. Alaska's major oil companies spent huge sums on advertising and lobbying legislators to derail the TransCanada proposal.
SUPPORTERS' VOICES IGNORED
AP's version didn't include the voices of legislative Democrats, who overwhelmingly supported the Republican governor's recommendation to award a state license and state matching funds to the independent pipeline company.
Reacting to the AP story, House Democratic minority leader Beth Kerttula told the Juneau Empire, "I don't think this story was fair and accurate." [...]
BOTTOM LINE: Contrary to an Associated Press report, Alaska's bidding process for a gas line license was not flawed.
A Rate of Zero Percent From the Fed? Some Analysts Say It Could Be Coming (EDMUND L. ANDREWS, 11/01/08, NY Times)
With the Fed funds rate already down to 1 percent, and below one percent on many days, the central bank is fast approaching what economists call the “zero bound.”If the Fed funds rate did drop to zero, it would not mean free money for consumers or businesses. The zero rate would only apply to the reserves that banks are required to maintain and that they lend to one another. Customers would still have to pay some interest, but the rates could be extremely low for some business borrowers.
The real question for policy makers is what to do if they reach a zero rate and still want to rev up the economy. Fed officials have studied the question closely, and the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, gave a famous speech on the issue when he was a Fed governor in 2002.
In that speech, Mr. Bernanke described a series of options. The simplest option would be for the Fed to start buying Treasury securities with longer maturities. Buying up those longer-term securities would push up their prices and drive down longer-term interest rates. If that didn’t work, the Fed could start buying up privately-issued debt, like corporate bonds.
In effect, the Federal Reserve would be printing more money and injecting it into the economy — a strategy of “quantitative easing,” in Fed jargon.
Too much money would provoke a new round of inflation and perhaps yet another asset bubble. But Japanese inflation never took off. After five years, the Bank of Japan cautiously raised its benchmark rate to .5 percent. This week, published reports have suggested that it might cut the rate in half once again.
As I have mentioned, some observers have concluded that when the central bank's policy rate falls to zero--its practical minimum--monetary policy loses its ability to further stimulate aggregate demand and the economy. At a broad conceptual level, and in my view in practice as well, this conclusion is clearly mistaken. Indeed, under a fiat (that is, paper) money system, a government (in practice, the central bank in cooperation with other agencies) should always be able to generate increased nominal spending and inflation, even when the short-term nominal interest rate is at zero.The conclusion that deflation is always reversible under a fiat money system follows from basic economic reasoning. A little parable may prove useful: Today an ounce of gold sells for $300, more or less. Now suppose that a modern alchemist solves his subject's oldest problem by finding a way to produce unlimited amounts of new gold at essentially no cost. Moreover, his invention is widely publicized and scientifically verified, and he announces his intention to begin massive production of gold within days. What would happen to the price of gold? Presumably, the potentially unlimited supply of cheap gold would cause the market price of gold to plummet. Indeed, if the market for gold is to any degree efficient, the price of gold would collapse immediately after the announcement of the invention, before the alchemist had produced and marketed a single ounce of yellow metal.
What has this got to do with monetary policy? Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.
Of course, the U.S. government is not going to print money and distribute it willy-nilly (although as we will see later, there are practical policies that approximate this behavior).8 Normally, money is injected into the economy through asset purchases by the Federal Reserve. To stimulate aggregate spending when short-term interest rates have reached zero, the Fed must expand the scale of its asset purchases or, possibly, expand the menu of assets that it buys. Alternatively, the Fed could find other ways of injecting money into the system--for example, by making low-interest-rate loans to banks or cooperating with the fiscal authorities. Each method of adding money to the economy has advantages and drawbacks, both technical and economic. One important concern in practice is that calibrating the economic effects of nonstandard means of injecting money may be difficult, given our relative lack of experience with such policies. Thus, as I have stressed already, prevention of deflation remains preferable to having to cure it. If we do fall into deflation, however, we can take comfort that the logic of the printing press example must assert itself, and sufficient injections of money will ultimately always reverse a deflation.
So what then might the Fed do if its target interest rate, the overnight federal funds rate, fell to zero? One relatively straightforward extension of current procedures would be to try to stimulate spending by lowering rates further out along the Treasury term structure--that is, rates on government bonds of longer maturities.9 There are at least two ways of bringing down longer-term rates, which are complementary and could be employed separately or in combination. One approach, similar to an action taken in the past couple of years by the Bank of Japan, would be for the Fed to commit to holding the overnight rate at zero for some specified period. Because long-term interest rates represent averages of current and expected future short-term rates, plus a term premium, a commitment to keep short-term rates at zero for some time--if it were credible--would induce a decline in longer-term rates. A more direct method, which I personally prefer, would be for the Fed to begin announcing explicit ceilings for yields on longer-maturity Treasury debt (say, bonds maturing within the next two years). The Fed could enforce these interest-rate ceilings by committing to make unlimited purchases of securities up to two years from maturity at prices consistent with the targeted yields. If this program were successful, not only would yields on medium-term Treasury securities fall, but (because of links operating through expectations of future interest rates) yields on longer-term public and private debt (such as mortgages) would likely fall as well.
Lower rates over the maturity spectrum of public and private securities should strengthen aggregate demand in the usual ways and thus help to end deflation. Of course, if operating in relatively short-dated Treasury debt proved insufficient, the Fed could also attempt to cap yields of Treasury securities at still longer maturities, say three to six years. Yet another option would be for the Fed to use its existing authority to operate in the markets for agency debt (for example, mortgage-backed securities issued by Ginnie Mae, the Government National Mortgage Association).
Historical experience tends to support the proposition that a sufficiently determined Fed can peg or cap Treasury bond prices and yields at other than the shortest maturities. The most striking episode of bond-price pegging occurred during the years before the Federal Reserve-Treasury Accord of 1951.10 Prior to that agreement, which freed the Fed from its responsibility to fix yields on government debt, the Fed maintained a ceiling of 2-1/2 percent on long-term Treasury bonds for nearly a decade. Moreover, it simultaneously established a ceiling on the twelve-month Treasury certificate of between 7/8 percent to 1-1/4 percent and, during the first half of that period, a rate of 3/8 percent on the 90-day Treasury bill. The Fed was able to achieve these low interest rates despite a level of outstanding government debt (relative to GDP) significantly greater than we have today, as well as inflation rates substantially more variable. At times, in order to enforce these low rates, the Fed had actually to purchase the bulk of outstanding 90-day bills. Interestingly, though, the Fed enforced the 2-1/2 percent ceiling on long-term bond yields for nearly a decade without ever holding a substantial share of long-maturity bonds outstanding.11 For example, the Fed held 7.0 percent of outstanding Treasury securities in 1945 and 9.2 percent in 1951 (the year of the Accord), almost entirely in the form of 90-day bills. For comparison, in 2001 the Fed held 9.7 percent of the stock of outstanding Treasury debt.
To repeat, I suspect that operating on rates on longer-term Treasuries would provide sufficient leverage for the Fed to achieve its goals in most plausible scenarios. If lowering yields on longer-dated Treasury securities proved insufficient to restart spending, however, the Fed might next consider attempting to influence directly the yields on privately issued securities. Unlike some central banks, and barring changes to current law, the Fed is relatively restricted in its ability to buy private securities directly.12 However, the Fed does have broad powers to lend to the private sector indirectly via banks, through the discount window.13 Therefore a second policy option, complementary to operating in the markets for Treasury and agency debt, would be for the Fed to offer fixed-term loans to banks at low or zero interest, with a wide range of private assets (including, among others, corporate bonds, commercial paper, bank loans, and mortgages) deemed eligible as collateral.14 For example, the Fed might make 90-day or 180-day zero-interest loans to banks, taking corporate commercial paper of the same maturity as collateral. Pursued aggressively, such a program could significantly reduce liquidity and term premiums on the assets used as collateral. Reductions in these premiums would lower the cost of capital both to banks and the nonbank private sector, over and above the beneficial effect already conferred by lower interest rates on government securities.15
The Fed can inject money into the economy in still other ways. For example, the Fed has the authority to buy foreign government debt, as well as domestic government debt. Potentially, this class of assets offers huge scope for Fed operations, as the quantity of foreign assets eligible for purchase by the Fed is several times the stock of U.S. government debt.16
I need to tread carefully here. Because the economy is a complex and interconnected system, Fed purchases of the liabilities of foreign governments have the potential to affect a number of financial markets, including the market for foreign exchange. In the United States, the Department of the Treasury, not the Federal Reserve, is the lead agency for making international economic policy, including policy toward the dollar; and the Secretary of the Treasury has expressed the view that the determination of the value of the U.S. dollar should be left to free market forces. Moreover, since the United States is a large, relatively closed economy, manipulating the exchange value of the dollar would not be a particularly desirable way to fight domestic deflation, particularly given the range of other options available. Thus, I want to be absolutely clear that I am today neither forecasting nor recommending any attempt by U.S. policymakers to target the international value of the dollar.
Although a policy of intervening to affect the exchange value of the dollar is nowhere on the horizon today, it's worth noting that there have been times when exchange rate policy has been an effective weapon against deflation. A striking example from U.S. history is Franklin Roosevelt's 40 percent devaluation of the dollar against gold in 1933-34, enforced by a program of gold purchases and domestic money creation. The devaluation and the rapid increase in money supply it permitted ended the U.S. deflation remarkably quickly. Indeed, consumer price inflation in the United States, year on year, went from -10.3 percent in 1932 to -5.1 percent in 1933 to 3.4 percent in 1934.17 The economy grew strongly, and by the way, 1934 was one of the best years of the century for the stock market. If nothing else, the episode illustrates that monetary actions can have powerful effects on the economy, even when the nominal interest rate is at or near zero, as was the case at the time of Roosevelt's devaluation.
Each of the policy options I have discussed so far involves the Fed's acting on its own. In practice, the effectiveness of anti-deflation policy could be significantly enhanced by cooperation between the monetary and fiscal authorities. A broad-based tax cut, for example, accommodated by a program of open-market purchases to alleviate any tendency for interest rates to increase, would almost certainly be an effective stimulant to consumption and hence to prices. Even if households decided not to increase consumption but instead re-balanced their portfolios by using their extra cash to acquire real and financial assets, the resulting increase in asset values would lower the cost of capital and improve the balance sheet positions of potential borrowers. A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous "helicopter drop" of money.
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Oil reserve expert claims world faces ‘oversupply of energy’ problem (Chris Stanton, November 01. 2008, The National)
The world now faces an oversupply, not a shortage of energy, and a peak in oil production is out of sight, according to Nansen Saleri, an oil reserve expert who will bring the contentious peak oil debate to Abu Dhabi this week.“There’s plenty of energy sources,” he said. “We don’t have an energy shortage problem, we have an energy allocation problem.”
McCain's name nowhere to be seen at Palin rally (CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby, 11/01/08)
Members of the audience proudly waved “Country First” placards as Palin delivered her stump speech. Those signs were paid for by the Republican National Committee.The other sign handed out to supporters read “Florida is Palin Country,” but those signs were neither paid for by the Republican National Committee nor the McCain campaign. In small print, the signs were stamped with the line “Paid for and authorized by Putnam for Congress" — as in, the re-election campaign of Florida congressman Adam Putnam, whose district skirts Polk City.
In fact, Putnam’s name was considerably more prominent than was McCain’s — his campaign had placed a number of large “Putnam for Congress” banners around the event site.
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What If McCain Wins? (Denis MacShane, 11/10/08, NEWSWEEK)
If John McCain becomes the next U.S. president, it will send europe into a fit of despair not seen on the old continent in decades. After all, Barack Obama is Europe's candidate, so much so that French President Nicolas Sarkozy—so happy to spend a vacation day with George W. Bush—turned Obama's fleeting summer stopover in Paris into an orchestrated photo op, to milk maximum publicity from the Democratic candidate. In Britain, Conservative M.P.s seem to have forgotten that McCain had been the keynote foreign speaker at the Conservative Partyconference just last year and now openly wear Obama buttons as they gossip in the House of Commons corridors and tearoom. German Christian Democrats from Angela Merkel's party swelled the 200,000-strong crowd who listened to Obama in Berlin in July. For the European left, Obama is the savior, McCain irrelevant. The intelligentsia and the political weeklies in every European capital seem to have long ago agreed to write off McCain and splash Obama's face on every front cover. If he loses, narrowly or otherwise, there will be a sense that America has lost its senses.
Ever since McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, Europe has looked down its collective nose at the thought of a McCain presidency.
Arsenal lose to Stoke City as Robin van Persie is sent off and Theo Walcott injured (Simon Hart, 01 Nov 2008, Daily Telegraph)
Stoke manager Tony Pulis has claimed that the hype over throw-in specialist Rory Delap was beginning to strike fear into the hearts of the opposing teams after Arsenal were undone by two of the Irishman’s long-range missiles on Saturday afternoon.Delap’s throws, which led directly to goals from Ricardo Fuller and Seyi Olofinjana, caused panic in the Arsenal defence, exposing many of the fault-lines that were revealed in their 4-4 draw with Tottenham in midweek, and Pulis is convinced their problems were as much psychological as tactical.
“He throws it very flat and it is very difficult for defenders to pick the ball up but I think the media has helped by giving it so much publicity,” he said. “I think people are frightened to death about it.”
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The Downfall of Faux Conservatism (George Will, 10/30/08, Washington Post)
From the invasion of Iraq to the selection of Sarah Palin, carelessness has characterized recent episodes of faux conservatism. Tuesday's probable repudiation of the Republican Party will punish characteristics displayed in the campaign's closing days.Some polls show that Palin has become an even heavier weight in John McCain's saddle than his association with George W. Bush. Did McCain, who seems to think that Palin's never having attended a "Georgetown cocktail party" is sufficient qualification for the vice presidency, lift an eyebrow when she said that vice presidents "are in charge of the United States Senate"?
She may have been tailoring her narrative to her audience of third-graders, who do not know that vice presidents have no constitutional function in the Senate other than to cast tie-breaking votes. But does she know that when Lyndon Johnson, transformed by the 1960 election from Senate majority leader into vice president, ventured to the Capitol to attend the Democratic senators' weekly policy luncheon, the new majority leader, Montana's Mike Mansfield, supported by his caucus, barred him because his presence would be a derogation of the Senate's autonomy?
The Founders' Constitution: Article 1, Section 3, Clauses 4 and 5
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
Let's review: Mr. Will understands why she declined to mention Constitutional specifics to an audience of third-graders, but then follows up with some bit of political trivia and scolds her for not knowing it. And he thinks that opposition to Ms. Palin has nothing to do with intellectual snobbery?
Al-Qaeda propaganda chief killed in Pakistan strike: officials (AFP, 11/01/08)
An Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative described by the United States as the terror network's propaganda chief was killed in a missile strike in Pakistan, security officials said Saturday.Abu Jihad al-Masri was among several rebels killed when two missiles fired by a suspected US spy drone hit a truck in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan on Friday night, they said.
The United States has offered a one-million-dollar bounty for the death or capture of al-Masri, who has appeared in an anti-Western video introduced by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's number two.
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Poll: Is McCain Making a Move?
Obama 49.1%, McCain 44.1% (Zogby, 11-01-2008)
Pollster John Zogby: "Is McCain making a move? The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama today, 48% to 47%. He is beginning to cut into Obama's lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all. "Obama's lead among women declined, and it looks like it is occurring because McCain is solidifying the support of conservative women, which is something we saw last time McCain picked up in the polls. If McCain has a good day tomorrow, we will eliminate Obama's good day three days ago, and we could really see some tightening in this rolling average. But for now, hold on."
Obama Says He Didn't Know Aunt's Illegal Status (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11/01/08)
The Associated Press found that Obama's aunt had been instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya. The woman, Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUHN on-YANG-oh), is living in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama's late father.A statement given to the AP by Obama's campaign said, ''Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed.''
Nissan to offer no-frills Versa for less than $10,000: The vehicle, which is intended to compete with the used-car market, could serve as a bellwether of consumer choices in a tough economy. (Ken Bensinger, November 1, 2008, LA Times)
On Friday, the Japanese carmaker said it would begin selling a cut-rate version of its Versa sedan in the U.S. for $9,990 -- more than $1,000 less than the cheapest new car currently sold in America.The frills-free Versa -- which is made in Mexico and will be available starting Nov. 18 -- will come without power windows or air conditioning and will be the only new car available in the U.S. for less than $10,000.
The Battle of Agincourt: Once more unto the breach: The Battle of Agincourt took place almost 600 years ago – and historians have been fighting about it ever since. So was this our finest hour, or a source of national shame? (Jerome Taylor, 1 November 2008, The Independent)
Whether it is Kenneth Branagh's rousing rendition of Henry V's "St Crispin's" speech in his 1989 adaptation of Shakespeare, or the new historical novel on Agincourt by Sharpe author Bernard Cornwell, the Battle of Agincourt fascinates us like no other medieval campaign.Fought in knee-high mud on the morning of 25 October 1415, it is to this day regarded by many as one of the greatest battles in British military history. Agincourt was glorified by Shakespeare as the moment when a feckless Henry V became a true king as he led his exhausted army to victory, and evokes images ofstalwart English bravery against seemingly impossible odds.
English historical sources have long described the battle, fought in a narrow strip of land between the villages of Azincourt and Tramecourt, north west France, as a military masterstroke.
Exhausted by their month-long siege of Harfleur and ravaged by dysentery, Henry V's bedraggled army of English nobles and local mercenaries were forced to fight a much larger French army which had intercepted them on their way to Calais. Contemporary English sources describe the enemy as 10 times the size of Henry's forces – which had none of the heavy cavalry that the French nobles possessed.
Undeterred by the odds, Henry deployed on his flanks 5,000 longbow archers and waited for the French to attack. But squashed between the woods and unable to outflank the English, when the French finally did launch their assault they were undone by the long range of the archers' bows. It was the first time that cheaply trained archers, armed with little more than a single piece of flexible yew, were able to bring down knights on horseback in such great numbers.
Media's Presidential Bias and Decline (Michael Malone, Oct. 24, 2008, ABC News)
The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.
But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist. [...]
If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.
That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.
Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.
I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it's because we don't understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide -- especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50/50.
Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes & and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.
So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?
The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.
Bad Editors
Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power & only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.
In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.
And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.
With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.
And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country....
Review of TARGETING CIVILIANS IN WAR By Alexander B. Downes (Hew Strachan, Wilson Quarterly)
Downes, a political scientist at Duke, argues that the pressure to target civilians has arisen in two types of war: those of territorial annexation, in which enemy civilians are displaced or killed to make way for settlers, and wars of attrition, in which desperation drives even (or particularly) democracies to target civilians in order to coerce the enemy to surrender. In Downes’s view, the types of regime engaged in the war are not significant, nor is either military culture or the racial identity of the enemy. Downes is a reductionist, anxious to seek a single set of explanations for a complex phenomenon.He develops four principal case studies: the blockade of Germany in World War I, the strategic bombing of Japan (but not of Germany) in World War II, the conflict of 1947–49 associated with the founding of Israel, and the South African War of 1899–1902. [...]
Fortunately, most will read this book not for what it has to say about Germany, but for its argument that, at least until 1970, a democracy was as likely to target civilians as was any other type of regime (including the Nazis’), particularly in protracted wars. Downes is on surer ground when he examines the U.S. bombing of Japan during 1944–45 and the wars fought in 1947–49 during Israel’s founding, both of which buttress his conclusion that domestic norms against the killing of civilians are, at best, secondary considerations in explaining how democracies choose to fight.
But there is a case for saying that—at least in the two world wars—regime type was a more important factor than Downes allows. British propaganda in World War I drew a distinction between the German people and the Kaiser. The logic of the blockade was that starvation might provoke revolution, and so effect a change in government. Believing that this was what had happened in 1918, the Allies hoped for the same effects when they bombed Germany in 1944. Hitler proved them wrong. Nonetheless, similar arguments were voiced in advance of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Democracies have targeted civilians at least in part because they believe in the power of the people to overthrow tyrannical governments.
Finally, Downes needs to consider what makes a democracy fight a protracted war. As he rightly observes, no sensible democratic leader will knowingly undertake a long, bloody, and indecisive conflict. In the first half of the 20th century, democracies fought long wars because they saw themselves as defending core values, and so both military and moral imperatives justified breaching the principle of noncombatant immunity.
And here's a peculiar thought: isn't the refusal to punish a people for the regime they tolerated in some sense anti-democratic?
Hume tires of 'bitter' politics: 'This stuff exhausts me,' the Fox newsman says of all the rancor as he prepares for semi-retirement. (Matea Gold, October 28, 2008, LA Times)
But Hume is already thinking about how he'll be spending his time after Nov. 4. Before the end of the year, the television news veteran will step down from the anchor desk and his long-running show, “Special Report.”"Family is a big piece of it," he said of his retirement plans recently. "And Christ is a big piece of it. And golf is a big piece of it." [...]
As he prepares to anchor his last presidential campaign, Hume said he's eager to immerse himself in a more spiritual life after dwelling for so long in the secular. The anchor described himself as a "nominal Christian" until 10 years ago, when his son Sandy committed suicide at age 28.
"I feel like I was really kind of saved when my son died by faith and by the grace of God, and that's very much on my consciousness," said Hume, who plans to get more involved in his wife's Bible study group.
There's a chance he may miss anchoring the big political stories.
"But," he said, "I think the worst thing you can do is hang on when you've lost your fastball."
Palin, for Posterity: What’s Behind the Vicious Attacks? (Paul Kengor, National Catholic Register)
Much like has happened with George W. Bush, it will be impossible for future historians to fully convey the level of white-hot hatred toward this woman. [...][T]he heart of the problem many of these women have with Palin seems to be abortion. Gloria Feldt, former president of Planned Parenthood, openly decried Palin for allegedly forcing her unwed teenage daughter, Bristol, to not abort the baby in her womb. “She probably feels powerless right now,” lamented Feldt, in reference to Bristol. “Because of her family’s attitude, she probably doesn’t feel that she has a choice.”
Ah, yes. If only the Palin family had the proper attitude toward unborn human life. Keep in mind that the likes of Feldt angrily protest when they are called “pro-abortion” instead of “pro-choice.” Well, Feldt’s statement is pro-abortion.
I must say that I saw all of this coming from the moment that John McCain announced that Sarah Palin was his running mate. I had already known about Palin’s choice to bring to term a child with Down syndrome, of which she and her husband had been informed last December, prior to the little boy’s birth in April. Like other pro-lifers, I was ecstatic with the example.
Just as many more people from the “pro-choice” side were not pleased at all; quite the contrary, many of them were enraged, furious. We are hearing from those people now.
I’m losing track of all the sources, from pro-choice feminists to off-their-rocker libertarians, who are openly condemning Sarah Palin for not aborting that child.
The estimate of the number of children with Down syndrome aborted when prenatally diagnosed is astounding: 90%. There is something particularly vicious about that massive denial and destruction of innocent, harmless infants. In order to countenance it, you have to get meaner and darker than you otherwise would be.
Consider that in Palin’s biggest speech, delivered at the Republican National Convention, with tens of millions of Americans watching closely, Palin paused to say that she hoped that she could use her position to fight as an advocate for children like her newborn son, Trig: “Children with special needs inspire a special love. To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.”
There’s no question that Sarah Palin’s hope for those unwanted children, expressed in that speech, was a line in the sand — not just politically, but spiritually, against darker forces in an ancient battle between good and evil.
When Barack Obama voted against protecting babies accidentally born alive during abortions, it was after hearing testimony about a Down syndrome baby allowed to die after an abortion attempt at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Ill.
The Trouble With Obama (William Shawcross, 11/01/08, The Daily Beast)
Many of my American friends are delirious with joy at the prospect of an Obama victory. They have good reasons. Chief among them is that it will show the world the truth that America-haters have long denied—America is an extraordinarily open and free society. A black leader is unimaginable in any European state.Obama is an enormously attractive candidate. But there are troubling aspects to his almost effortless cruise to the presidency. First is the absurdly messianic belief in the man, at home and abroad. It’s a belief he promotes himself. In Florida on Wednesday, he declared that a vote for him could “save the world.”
It’s hard to believe that that claim is not cynical. Whether or not, after raising such unrealistic hope must come a great fall.
The Maldives: a democratic revolution : The people of the Indian Ocean island-state have written a fresh chapter in the history of their country and even of democracy itself (Judith Evans, 31 - 10 - 2008, Open Democracy)
The citizens of the tiny Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives witnessed an extraordinary moment on 29 October 2008. A live broadcast on state television depicted the autocratic president who had ruled the country since 1978 standing beside his greatest political rival - and acknowledging his defeat in the just-concluded two-round election.Judith Evans is editor of the Maldives-based national news website MinivanNews, which covers politics and general news in English for a local and international audienceThe scene in the opulent president's office was at once riveting and surreal. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, after all, had been prepared for many years to use state power to repress opposition and crush dissent; yet here was the 71-year-old leader telling the nation: "I accept the will of the people. I have conceded the elections." Alongside was the 41-year-old Mohamed Nasheed, who had spent a significant period of his adult life as a political prisoner only to emerge as the principal challenger to Gayoom - and ultimately the victor in the country's first-ever multi-candidate presidential election.
The spirit of reconciliation was almost as astonishing as the fact of the meeting itself. Here was Gayoom bowing out with more dignity than he had shown throughout much of his long reign; here was Nasheed, a compelling figure who had become the international face of the Maldives's reform movement, saying he would not take action against the man whose security forces have tortured him, fed him ground glass and kept him in solitary confinement for as long as eighteen months at a stretch. "He is going to be staying with us. I don't think we should be going for a witch-hunt and digging up the past", said the man known by his supporters as "Anni".
A democratic election in an authoritarian state, followed by a peaceful acceptance of the opposition's victory, is rare enough - and enough of a contrast with the experience of so many countries around the world, from Burma to Zimbabwe - as to be a cause for celebration. The always overplayed image of a Maldives paradise has for once acquired reality - and in politics rather in the tourist brochures.
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