CLINTON-OTHER. Let me clarify from my earlier post that I wasn’t suggesting that Evan Bayh would be a good pick to run with Hillary Clinton. In fact, he doesn’t balance the ticket ideologically, as numerous commenters and blogger Bart Acocella have noted. And I understand why Joe Klein may find that particular pairing attractive; he’s ideologically more centrist than am I. But my purpose in that post was to make the case for the strategic advantages of running as a tandem during the primary -- by any candidate, in either party, and at either the presidential or gubernatorial levels.

Reflecting further on specific Hillary veep candidates, however, Bayh does meet the obvious criterion for any Hillary choice, now or later: He’s a white guy. (I’m not sure if the conventional wisdom is that she can pick neither a racial minority nor another woman, but that seems -- even if unfair -- correct to me.) Beyond that, I already suggested that Tom Vilsack would be better than Bayh. He’s a governor, not a fellow senator; he led the Democratic Leadership Council, but tried to move it closer to the labor-left of the party; and his personal story as a former orphan (rather than political legacy-prodigy, like Bayh) is far more powerful. Both are midwesterners, which is the key region in presidential politics (five of the nine closest states) and balances Chicago-raised but New York-associated Hillary.Yet even on regional balancing, Vilsack offers the most obvious of advantages: He’s from Iowa, which is not only a swing state, but home to the one early state where she’s struggling most right now. It would be quite a coup for her to lure him out of the race.

As for Barack Obama, he also has to pick a white guy. If John Edwards were smart he’d swallow hard on his own ego and presidential ambitions, pair up with Obama, and the race would take a decided turn in their direction. And he’d find himself in Vilsack’s hypothetical situation in 2016, should Obama-Edwards run the table. (I just don’t see Edwards accepting second banana again.)

Final thought: A candidate who might work well for either Obama or Clinton is Mark Warner. He’s smart, has money, isn’t bogged down by incumbency, is liked by the business and blog wings of the party, and offers a record of achievement from a state that’s trending blue in its demographics. Sadly, he was also smart enough to get out of this race when the gettin’ was good.

--Tom Schaller

AJC. The furor over an American Jewish Committee publication accusing liberal leaning Jews like Richard Cohen of being anti-Semitic should come as little surprise. Despite its anodyne sounding name, the AJC supports a number of anti-progressive causes. The neoconservative Commentary Magazine which until this January was published by the AJC, is one such outfit. Another, perhaps less well known, organization is the Geneva-based UN Watch. Though UN Watch purports to judge the UN’s performance by the “yardstick of the UN charter,” most of its work is dedicated to criticizing UN human rights machinery (which it accuses of anti-Israel bias), pushing confrontation with Iran, and scandal mongering.

UPDATE: As for this new AJC report, I'm tempted to say that the real anti-Semites are those Jews who water-down the definition of anti-Semitism by accusing other Jews of being anti-Semites, but I believe that would make me an anti-Semite too ... so never mind.

--Mark Leon Goldberg

THE JACKSON YEARS. All this talk about how seriously people took Jesse Jackson's candidacy back in the day made me think we should revisit the dynamics of the 1988 race, his second bid for the presidency. Here's a great Time magazine article from April 1988, which, in addition to providing the pleasure of reading historic Walter Shapiro, gives a taste of how people were looking at Jackson's candidacy at the time, and whether or not he was seen as "mainstream." It's called "Taking Jesse Seriously" and includes such insights as:

Until Michigan, few white Democratic leaders actually took Jackson seriously as a possible nominee. They purported to publicly, but privately consigned him to the subordinate role of campaigning energetically for the Democratic ticket in the fall. There was always a patronizing undertone to these backstairs debates over the price of Jackson's support. Even the great white question "What does Jesse want?" had a condescending ring. It was almost as if the Democrats planned to offer Jackson pomp and hoped he would not look too closely at the circumstances behind it ...

But even as Jackson arouses Democratic passions, this blossoming love affair cannot forever mask the reality that if he is nominated the party will lose -- and probably lose big. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, one of the nation's most articulate left-wing populists, insists that if Jackson is the nominee, the "increase in voters would more than offset defections." There is a glimmer of merit to the contention, since voter turnout was just 53% in 1984. But partisans made the same arguments for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George McGovern in 1972. The results were two of the biggest landslides in modern history....

For 15 years the Democrats have caucused, conferenced and connived to find ways to erase the stigma of McGovernism from the party. But now, as the party is forced to contemplate the nomination of a candidate far more divisive than a professorish two-term Senator from South Dakota, there are almost no voices publicly raised in opposition...

Foreign policy remains the arena where Jackson's radical agenda most explosively collides with conventional political norms. Jackson's world view all but depicts South Africa as a greater threat than the Soviet Union. The candidate's formal briefing paper on "promoting real security" does not even mention in passing the need to counter Soviet mischief in the Third World. In Central America, Jackson would go far beyond cutting off funds to the contras; he would cease military assistance to the guerrilla-plagued governments of El Salvador and Guatemala because they are "waging war . . . against their own people." Not only does Jackson argue that "Western Europe should be responsible for its own conventional defense," he also appears sympathetic to unilateral cuts in the American nuclear arsenal in the frail hope that the Soviets would cut theirs.

With views and vulnerabilities like these, any other presidential candidate, white or black, would have been driven to the sidelines long ago. That is why it still appears improbable that the Democrats will take the bold -- and probably foolhardy -- step of nominating Jackson.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

LIEBERMAN SHOWS I.D. I'm gonna weigh in on the great controversy surrounding Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT). No, not his lonely support for escalation of the Iraq war. I mean what should the abbreviation after his name be in news articles? Over at Raw Story Brian Beutler has provided a full dissection, and gotten an official answer. "His office confirmed to RAW STORY today that he prefers the rendering 'ID' for 'Independent Democrat.'" That's also what it says on Lieberman's website.

I'm going to say this makes perfect sense. Though good liberals may find his attachment to the Iraq quagmire infuriating, the truth is that, by caucusing with the Democrats, Lieberman has in fact remained one. Before Lieberman there was Jim Jeffords, an Independent in name but a Dem in practice, and Jeffords's successor in the Senate, Bernie Sanders, had the same situation in the House. Sanders isn't designated ID, but he should be. It seems logical to categorize independents who caucus with one party or the other accordingly.

--Ben Adler

AMERICAN MISHIGAS. Joe Biden's ridiculous comment about how "clean" and "articulate" Senator Obama is reminded me of this recent statement from Hillary Clinton, which was not about Obama, but which is also the kind of thing she'd never be able to say about herself with him in the same room:

"I am cursed with the responsibility gene,'' Ms. Clinton told the New York Times in an interview upon returning from Iraq last week.

The issue isn't just Biden being an insensitive boob, but rather that commonly used words and phrases activate different frames -- remember that whole discussion? -- in different contexts, and that women and African-Americans live in a verbally constraining soup of negative frames. This is an issue we've repeatedly grappled with internally when, for example, trying to write headlines about female story subjects and politicians, because so many of the most basic ways of describing people have been ruined in the female context by the laddie mags and porn industry (i.e., an article about the women who were held in Abu Ghraib couldn't very well be called "The Women of Abu Ghraib," because that formulation was claimed years ago by Playboy magazine). In any event, I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of this kind of American mishigas in the months ahead as people stumble into a whole set of frames they are not used to thinking about. This is going to seriously damage some public figures, such as Biden. But, overall, I think that it will be a healthy process for American society to undergo, and that we are going to learn an unusual amount about ourselves, as well as about the candidates seeking to lead us.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

COACH LIBBY, COACH MATALIN. Patrick Fitzgerald has given his strongest indication to date that he believes that Libby was trying to coach Judith Miller's testimony before the grand jury when he sent her the famous "aspens" letter (PDF) -- the letter that helped open the way to her release from jail to testify before the grand jury -- back in October 2005. Fitzgerald wanted to enter some of the letter into evidence, and the judge questioned its relevance since there's no indication the letter in fact got Miller to change her testimony. In response, Fitzgerald suggested he did not believe the letter worked -- that is, it failed in its intention to collude with Miller or to coach her testimony. The judge did not let Fitzgerald enter the letter into evidence at this point, but left open the possibility of doing so at a later point.

The other bit of news is that after the jury broke for lunch, the lawyers in the case tussled over some potential evidence, in the course of which Mary Matalin made her first substantive appearance in the case. The prosecution wants to introduce Libby's notes of a call he made to Matalin on July 10 2003, in which Matalin offered him strategic advice on responding to Wilson, whom she called a snake.

Among other things, it appears Matalin told Libby that they needed to address Wilson's motivation; that they needed to get out the CIA cable summarizing Wilson's trip; that the president should wave his wand -- perhaps a suggestion that Bush should insta-declassify the trip report; and that Libby should call Tim Russert, who hates Chris Matthews, who had been pushing assertively the notion that the vice president had been directly involved and directly apprised of Wilson's mission to Niger. The prosecution will evidently try to show that Libby took up Matalin's suggestion and called Russert on that very day to complain about Matthews -- and did not learn from Russert that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, as Libby claimed in his testimony under oath in the investigation.

But it looks like the prosecution will have to show that without this note - the judge was very skeptical about allowing it in, on account of its prejudice to Libby, since it reflected Matalin's and not necessarily Libby's personal animosity toward Wilson.

--Jeff Lomonaco

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: APOCALYPSE HOW? Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren have a dramatic new piece in TNR about the threat to Israel posed by a nuclear Iran. Rob offers a response today -- suggesting that those hyping Iran's nuke threat ought to engage more with the actual history of nuclear diplomacy.

--The Editors

OBAMA'S CHICAGO YEARS. It went live a bit late, so if you missed Mark's post from yesterday on Barack Obama's history as a community organizer, give it a read. This is a part of the guy's career and life that I've never thought has gotten sufficient attention.

--Sam Rosenfeld

THE EXCEPTION TRAP. The South Dakota legislature is planning to reintroduce an abortion ban that (unlike the law overturned by initiative last year) includes exemptions for rape and incest. Jessica Valenti notes that "this is going to mean a change of fighting words on our part. After all, a lot of what pro-choicers talked about when trying to defeat the last ban was the lack of exceptions."

Although I can understand that sometimes you have to take advantage of what opportunities you have in the short-term, I've always thought that from a pro-choice perspective focusing on the lack of a rape or incest exemption is a disastrous long-term strategy. First of all, in practice rape/incest exemptions are unlikely to afford much protection to women, so women don't really gain anything. Given the compressed time frame, states determined to prevent abortions can make the procedural hurdles to proving that a pregnancy was the result of non-consensual sex so difficult and humiliating that most women who could clear them could probably obtain abortions under any legal regime anyway. And second, to imply that forcing women to carry pregnancies to term is uniquely bad in cases of rape or incest is to essentially accept the reactionary sexual mores that underly the criminalization of abortion in the first place. Implicit in such exceptions is the assumption that if a women gets pregnant through voluntary sexual relations she can be punished by being forced to carry her pregnancy to term by the coercive authority of the state; rape victims get a pass because they didn't "choose" to become pregnant. To pro-choicers, this should be viewed as nonsensical. A woman's reproductive freedom should not depend on whether or not she is a victim of rape or incest. As the South Dakota case demonstrates, pushing pro-life positions toward their logical conclusion is the much better strategy.

UPDATE: As commenter Vanya points out, the rape/incest exemption is also one of the countless inconsistencies that fatally undermine the "pro-life" position. Essentially, the only way they make sense is if regulating a woman's sexuality is the only justification for abortion laws.

--Scott Lemieux

THE PLAN. Obama's plan seems reasonable enough to me. As Matt points out, there's little reason to get tied up on symbolic differences. Jason Sigger writes:

Obama is creating a carefully crafted congressional bill that could actually succeed because 1) it doesn't screw with the president's commander-in-chief responsibilities, 2) exercises Congress's actual responsibilities to participate in foreign policy and national security matters, and 3) counters the president's (and Republican party's) claims that there is no reasonable alternative to "staying the course." It just might work. It at least showcases Obama's leadership abilities in the Senate. I like it.

--Robert Farley

ARTICULATE! AND SUCH A GOOD DANCER! It would not be strictly accurate to say that Joe Biden (Sen-MBNA) killed his presidential campaign today; you can't kill something that was stillborn to begin with. (In addition to racist condescension, his comments inadvertently remind us that the staunch Iraq hawk who advocated a perpetual cycle of Friedmans was running on his foreign policy judgment. Yeah, good luck with that...) But one would hope that he would spare himself and the Democratic Party further indignity and make it formal as soon as possible.

--Scott Lemieux

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: FAIR TRADE. Thomas Geoghegan has a swap in mind. He thinks the only hope for reviving the labor movement is to pass card check legislation. But what if you need to offer business something in return, so they don't go to the mat to block passage of a card check bill?

Yet it turns out that, by wild good luck, there is now something that every CEO, every CFO, every global high-flyer in every one of the fifty states -- everyone who has ever done a deal on Wall Street -- really, really wants.

It's to call off Sarbanes Oxley.

Not necessarily repeal the whole thing; just the part of it that might throw these guys in jail.

So when I say they want it, I mean they want it in a way they don't "want" free trade, or even a spiking of the death tax. They want it in the way they don't want to be Ken Lay.

They want to live. And that's what labor has to offer.

--The Editors

CLINTON-BAYH. A few weeks ago, poor Michelle Cottle of The New Republic published a great piece on Indiana Senator Evan Bayh’s presidential prospects the very week Bayh dropped out of the presidential race. Shortly thereafter, Bayh traveled to Iraq with fellow Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, who is most assuredly not going to drop from the race just two weeks after announcing her exploratory committee, as Bayh did. That prompted Cottle to wonder in this week’s TNR about something I was also pondering: Are Clinton and Bayh thinking about, well, Clinton-Bayh? Cottle:

With his eternally polite, scrupulously attentive manner, Bayh couldn't help but look a bit like Hillary's courtier. Which started me wondering if Bayh's recent, unexpected announcement that he would not be running for president himself (less than two weeks after forming an exploratory committee, mind you) had anything to do with hints from Team Hillary regarding her future plans for a running mate…To avoid starting any rumors, let me stress that I've heard no such rumblings. Still, the two Senate centrists do make a lovely political couple.

If Hillary wants to knock Barack Obama on his heels, she could put Bayh (or better yet, Iowa’s Tom Vilsack?) on the ticket by, say, July 1. Having a running mate during the primary allows her to balance the ticket from the start; doubles the principles (and spouses) who can raise money and campaign; would take some of the spotlight off her; and reduces her risks of burnout or becoming overexposed. Of course, if Obama beats her to the punch …

--Tom Schaller

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: HEALTH CARE-APALOOZA! We've had a wave of health care coverage and commentary on the site recently (see all three TAP founders weigh in on Bush's health care proposal if you haven't already). The wave continues today: Merrill Goozner and Jon Cohn add their two cents to the exchange, kicked off last week by Ezra, concerning progressives' core demands for a just health care system. The discussion will be continuously updated as more people weigh in; be sure to take a look.

Meanwhile, in his column this week, Matt argues that, so long as a single-payer system remains unachievable in the short term, liberals should jettison efforts to pass Big Bang-style comprehensive universal health care legislation, and opt instead for continued, gradual, slice-by-slice expansions of government coverage for various populations.

--The Editors

"WHAT MAKES OBAMA RUN?" That's the title of an article I was e-mailed yesterday. But it didn't refer to Obama's presidential hopes. The dateline on the article was December 8, 1995. It appeared in the Chicago Reader. at the time Barack Obama was first running for state senate in Illinois.

Obama, the article reminds us, began as a community organizer. And a community organizer in Chicago, the birthplace of community organizing. Traditionally, organizing has had, at best, a tense, and often a completely arms-length relationship to electoral politics. The Alinsky tradition treats electoral politics not as a vehicle for change, but as an external fact, with elected officials responsive only to pressure and organized power, such as the "accountability sessions" at which organizers put officials on the hot seat. This is a broad statement, as there are various schools of thought about organizing, and some believe that the constituencies they organize need to work within the electoral process as well as push it from the outside. Over time, I think the gap between community organizing and electoral politics has narrowed, but in 1995, it was still wide.

And not only was Obama a community organizer in Chicago, he began this work in the shadow of Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago whose four years in office and tragic death shortly after his reelection were one of the most important but incomplete moments of black empowerment. Anyone who argues that Obama is somehow not "really" black or properly connected to traditional black politics should try to think of him in the context of post-Washington Chicago.

With those two thoughts in mind, read this passage:

"[Washington] was a classic charismatic leader," Obama said, "and when he died all of that dissipated. This potentially powerful collective spirit that went into supporting him was never translated into clear principles, or into an articulable agenda for community change.

"The only principle that came through was 'getting our fair share,' and this runs itself out rather quickly if you don't make it concrete. How do we rebuild our schools? How do we rebuild our communities? How do we create safer streets? What concretely can we do together to achieve these goals? When Harold died, everyone claimed the mantle of his vision and went off in different directions. All that power dissipated.

"Now an agenda for getting our fair share is vital. But to work, it can't see voters or communities as consumers, as mere recipients or beneficiaries of this change. It's time for politicians and other leaders to take the next step and to see voters, residents, or citizens as producers of this change. The thrust of our organizing must be on how to make them productive, how to make them employable, how to build our human capital, how to create businesses, institutions, banks, safe public spaces--the whole agenda of creating productive communities. That is where our future lies.

"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger.

"The political debate is now so skewed, so limited, so distorted," said Obama. "People are hungry for community; they miss it. They are hungry for change.

"What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer," he wondered, "as part teacher and part advocate, one who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them? As an elected public official, for instance, I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer. We would come together to form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community. We must form grass-root structures that would hold me and other elected officials more accountable for their actions.

"The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility.

"Now we have to take this same language--these same values that are encouraged within our families--of looking out for one another, of sharing, of sacrificing for each other--and apply them to a larger society. Let's talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."

Also recommended: This 1990 article by Obama, Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City

-- Mark Schmitt

MCCAIN DRAIN. John McCain's transformation from straight-talking bipartisan swoonee to unpopular far-right Republican warrior proceeds apace. The latest evidence of his dwindling bipartisan appeal: Former Howard Dean webmaster and EchoDitto founder Nicco Mele, who last August got untold amounts of guff from his liberal netroots cohort after he signed on to help McCain build his internet operation, has walked away from the increasingly divisive senator's campaign operation. Turns out the McCain Mele knew and admired from his pre-Dean Common Cause days wasn't the one running this go-around. No word yet on if he'll sign on with one of the Democrats.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

HORTON'S "NO COMMENT." Being a lawyer is the best job in the world because you get paid to read -- at least that’s what a lawyer friend once told me. Of course, most of the reading would put ordinary people to sleep. The good news is that being a lawyer can turn you into a strong reader. Human rights attorney Scott Horton is an excellent example: He teaches at Columbia University and has worked at the swanky Avenue of the Americas firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, and, in his spare time, is the author of a daily email, “No Comment,” in which he reads a prodigious amount of material, ranging from the Guardian to Der Spiegel to le Monde, and summarizes the news in an intelligent, engaging, and passionate manner. You can study the articles he encloses, but if you were to read only his summaries and mini-analyses, you would still have a enlightened perspective on U.S. intelligence agencies, Iraqi military units, extraordinary rendition, and so on. You can sign up by writing to shorton99 - at - aol - dot - com.

Horton has just headed off for a visit to Central Asia, where he will continue working on his emails as long as he can log on to the Internet. The Polish aphorist Stanislaw Lec once said, “The window to the world can be covered by a newspaper.” Horton’s “No Comment” does the opposite: It opens up a new vista -- in less than 900 words.

--Tara McKelvey

BANKING ON WAL-MART. Yesterday, Reps Barney Frank and Paul Gillmor introduced legislation that would ban Wal-Mart from setting up a bank-type entity known as an industrial loan company. Atrios is skeptical. Last May, Robert Reich argued in TAP Online that "Bank Wal-Mart" is nothing to fear.

--Mark Leon Goldberg

UNDER THE RADAR. To follow up on Rob and Ezra's posts, it's important to emphasize the extent to which regulatory and judicial activity have become crucial to Republican undermining of various New Deal and Great Society programs. A couple years ago, Brad DeLong and Matt Yglesias pointed out that conservatives achieved power only by largely abjuring the rollback of social welfare, civil rights, and environmental legislation they had been their central goals. This is true, but also somewhat misleading. As Mike Tomasky, while discussing the (to put it charitably) historic misjudgment of Nader supporters, put it:

In every agency of government, at every level, there are political appointees who are interpreting federal rules and regulations and deciding how much effort will really be put into pursuing federal discrimination cases, for instance, or illegal toxic dumping. These are the people who are, in fact, the federal government. The kinds of people who fill those slots in a Democratic administration are of a very different stripe than the kinds who fill them during a Republican term, and the appointments of these people have a bigger effect on real life than whether Al Gore sighs too heavily or speaks too slowly.

--Scott Lemieux

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: WHAT EVANGELICAL PROBLEM? We've all heard about how evangelicals will never be able to support the Mormon Mitt Romney as a GOP presidential candidate. But as Sarah Posner reports today, Romney actually already has some top-dog supporters from the American Christian right.

--The Editors

ECONOMIC INEQUALITY BEGETS POLITICAL INEQUALITY. Brad Plumer has a good, straightforward piece on the subject over at TNR today.

--Sam Rosenfeld

OVP. Ari Fleischer's testimony in the prosecution of Scooter Libby rightly grabbed the headlines, but for my money the most intriguing moment in yesterday's proceedings came during the prosecution's questioning of Cathie Martin, Vice President Cheney's press flack, on redirect. The prosecution elicited testimony that Martin was not made aware by Cheney and Libby of three key conversations Libby had with the New York Times's Judith Miller, at least one of which was conducted at the directive of Cheney. Martin also was not told of the highly unusual, secret declassification of parts of the October 2002 NIE on Iraq that Libby and Cheney testified was carried out by President Bush and conveyed to Libby by Vice President Cheney so that Libby could leak the NIE to Miller on July 8.

The specific point of this line of questioning was to rebut the defense suggestion that the fact that the information about Plame nowhere figured in the talking points the OVP used to push back against Joe Wilson, and the fact that Martin didn't consider Plame part of the story, meant that for Libby the information was trivial and therefore eminently the sort of thing Libby might innocently forget or become confused about when questioned under oath.

The unmistakable implication, however, is of larger significance: the alternative explanation the prosecution is providing is that while OVP overall did not use the Plame information, the vice president of the United States and his right hand man were carrying out a separate, compartmentalized effort using sensitive information about Plame and targeting neoconservatives' favorite MSM reporter with it.

This raises a question emerging about the trial: Is it possible to read the testimony and documentary evidence introduced by the prosecution as something like the closest equivalent we will get to a final report, at least with regard to the conduct of the OVP, of the sort we used to get from independent counsels -- which Fitzgerald has expressly declared himself unauthorized to produce?

As for why, if I am giving an accurate summary of the prosecution's theory of Libby's conduct, Fitzgerald did not bring charges on Cheney and Libby's underlying conduct, we are likely to see one of the several reasons in action today as Judith Miller takes the stand. She was at best a minimally cooperative witness, essentially offering the grand jury only what she had to while remaining consistent with the notes of her three conversations with Libby in June-July 2003 that she was compelled to turn over to the investigation.

--Jeff Lomonaco

FYI. For those in the area, Tom will be at Olsson's in Alexandria at 7:30 tonight, discussing Whistling Past Dixie.

--The Editors

THE CORPORATE STATE CONTINUES. In a just remarkable move, the Bush administration has issued an executive order declaring that every federal agency must create a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee that supervises the creation of rules and documents guiding regulated industries, a job traditionally done by apolitical bureaucrats and scientific experts.

Unsurprisingly, business is just giddy over the idea; labor, environmental, and consumer groups somewhat less so. It's a fine reminder, though, that we still have two years of the Bush presidency to go, and even while curtailed by the Democratic Congress, they'll do much to entrench their corporatist vision and ensure the plants disgorging pollutants and and employers fostering potentially lethal work conditions need fear only their consciences, not the tangible aggregation of citizen power that's supposed to govern their actions.

--Ezra Klein

FINAL SACRIFICE. For all the talk in the '90s about how Bill Clinton epitomized the self-absorption of the Baby Boomers, the current White House occupant has magnified Clinton's failures by several orders of magnitude. All must be sacrificed to George W. Bush's whim, his need to be right, his desire to find now the affirmation and self-regard that so painfully eluded him before his 40th birthday.

All of which is preview to this prediction: Dick Cheney will be sacrificed. The Libby trial currently underway is certainly part of his whacking (to use Eugene Robinson's Sopranos metaphor from today's Washington Post column). But the story seems to me larger than trooping various White House officials into court to narrow the culprits in the Plame leak episode to Cheney and his close confederates.

Cheney is the final sacrifice -- the last layer between Bush and the disapproving public, the skeptical media, and the angry Democrats. In one sense, having him there has always provided Bush a human (and humanizing-by-contrast) buffer against the hordes who oppose him and his policies. To sacrifice Cheney is therefore to have sunk to but one level above the very bottom, the core of the presidency itself. When Cheney goes on television, as he did last week with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, proclaiming the Iraq war a success, he demonstrates that he is either (a) unhinged from reality; or (b) playing a willing role in his own, inevitable discrediting and marginalization.

Under either scenario, his neck is moving slowly but inevitably toward the noose. Somebody, after all, has to pay for the complete collapse of the Republican majority and the conservative agenda. And since Bush himself has never paid the price of his own failures in life, it is Cheney who will pay for them next.

--Tom Schaller

ARI FLEISCHER. Ari Fleischer was certainly the most damaging prosecution witness against Scooter Libby so far in Libby's trial. Fleischer testified that on July 7, 2003 Libby told him that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA and that the information was "hush-hush." Libby's story under oath is that, having completely forgotten that he had been told of Plame by Vice President Cheney in early- to mid-June 2003, he only learned about Plame, as though for the first time, from Tim Russert, around July 11, and subsequently only spread the information to other reporters as journalistic hearsay for whose truth he could not vouch.)

We knew that this would be Fleischer's testimony. But there were two further pieces of it we did not know until Fleischer actually testified that are worth underlining. The Washington Post, which is doing fine reporting on the trial, caught this:

Fleischer, testifying under an immunity agreement with the prosecution, also made it clear that Libby had told him Wilson's wife held a position in the CIA's counterproliferation division, where most employees work in a covert capacity.

Fleischer said he believes Libby mentioned Plame's name, although he told the jury he could not be sure.

The other significant new information from Fleischer was that Libby specified that Plame worked in the CIA's Counterproliferation Division (CPD). Libby certainly knew that CPD was part of the Agency's Directorate of Operations, as distinct from the Directorate of Intelligence, which made it much more likely that Plame might be an
undercover officer. This bolsters Fitzgerald's claim that, as he put it in a pretrial filing, Libby knew or should have known that Plame's employment was classified information. Even if Fitzgerald does not seek to prove Libby knew when he blew Plame's cover that her employment was classified, he will argue that by the time Libby testified under oath, Libby knew that he could lose his security clearances, his position, and his job altogether for not taking appropriate steps to determine whether Plame's CIA work was classified before disclosing it.

The CPD information was precisely what Cheney had told Libby back in June. Thus, the fact that Libby was passing on that more specific information about Plame's CIA employment makes it more probable that he had not in fact forgotten that Cheney had told him this information. This is yet another reminder of how central Cheney was to Libby's conduct both in July 2003 and in the context of the investigation. Cheney too would have known that the fact that Plame worked in CPD specifically made it more likely she was undercover.

--Jeff Lomonaco

PLAYING TO THE BASE. The Bush administration is stretching its legs:

President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights, and privacy. In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

The most important element of the Republican base has no complaints:

Business groups hailed the initiative. “This is the most serious attempt by any chief executive to get control over the regulatory process, which spews out thousands of regulations a year,” said William L. Kovacs, a vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce. “Because of the executive order, regulations will be less onerous and more reasonable. Federal officials will have to pay more attention to the costs imposed on business, state and local governments, and society.”

--Robert Farley

THE SPECTER OF JOE AND EILEEN. It wasn't until I saw Chuck Schumer repeat, at the end of a Meet the Press appearance yesterday, his bizarre assertion that Iraq won't be a central issue in the 2008 election that I realized a possible motive for saying such a thing (beyond the generic and still-pervasive wishful thinking common to Dem officials who are more comfortable discussing domestic issues): the guy's got this new and pretty bad-sounding book coming out, he needs to plug it, and by his own descriptions of it the book is much more concerned with making warmed-over critiques about cultural lib interest groups and issues than with discussing issues like Iraq.

I hesitate to bash the book preemptively, as I haven't yet read it, a certified smart person who has read it says it's better than he'd thought it would be, and Schumer is, at the end of the day, a force for good in the world. But his discussion of the book's themes at his Prospect breakfast event over the summer raised some serious red flags. Meanwhile, the second, programmatic part of his book, laid out today on TPMCafe, seems more harmless than anything else, though the 50% gimmick seems inordinately goofy.

But the bottom line remains: His insistence that Iraq will recede as an issue -- that, as he put it yesterday, "the president will have no choice but to begin a withdrawal come this summer or fall of 2007. And that's why I think the 2008 election, Tim, is going to turn on a positive platform … [n]ot Iraq" -- is dangerously wrong, and worth calling out every time it surfaces.

--Sam Rosenfeld

HEALTH CARE AND PAYGO. I'm not totally sure I understand Garance's concerns below. Under a PAYGO regime, a health plan that required new funds would...require new funds. PAYGO doesn't bar all spending increases, they just need to be offset by revenue increases. You may need a VAT, or an employer tax, or a rollback of certain tax cuts, or a hike in marginal rates, or a variety of new funding sources cobbled together into a sufficient whole. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it's long been understood in the health policy community that their plans will have to be funded.

Meanwhile, I'd suggest as well that the Democratic Congress is going to see the next opportunity to pass universal health care as a preeminent priority and, if the type of PAYGO enacted is too committee-specific to allow a favored plan, that form of PAYGO will fall right quick. It's certainly true, as Garance's source told her, that this largely eliminates the chances of sweeping universal health reform in the next two years, but the dynamic there has everything to do with the President. Blaming that on PAYGO is like blaming the lack of turquoise trees on the Anti-Turquoise Tree Legislation of 47. The question is 2008 and beyond, and I'd bet money on a Democratic President and Congress making health care, not budgetary rules, the priority.

--Ezra Klein

THE FEMINIST CANDIDATE. What does it mean that Kate Michelman, former head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, has signed onto John Edwards campaign? Combined with the hesitancy of black leaders to automatically throw their support to Barack Obama, does it mean that we are entering a post-identity politics era? Or simply that professional feminists care more about the issues than symbolism? In an interview with Salon, Michelman lists national security and economy/poverty/health care among the issues women most care about. Edwards, of course, has made the latter his turf, and if by national security you mean a desire to stop violence, as Michelman does, then Edwards pro-withdrawal from Iraq position puts him closer to her on this issue than Sen. Clinton.

Michelman has some kind words for Clinton and admits being conflicted about not supporting her, so I don't think this in itself will be much of a blow to Clinton, though it may be a coup for Edwards. But I do think that if feminist leaders generally prioritize more left-leaning stances on a spectrum of issues over supporting the female candidate, that will become a major problem for Clinton.

--Ben Adler

ON THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF QUICK MAJOR REFORM. Since we're having a big debate about health care reform -- with one side (Ezra and Bob) calling for bold sweeping proposals, and another side (Paul), suggesting that any change, even if small (and actually counterproductive in the short term), is better than nothing, I feel compelled to throw a dose of cold water on the proceedings in the form of a reminder that this Democratic Congress adopted strict pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules on January 5th:

Under the new provisions, the House will for the first time in years be required to pay for any proposal to cut taxes or increase spending on the most expensive federal programs by raising taxes or cutting spending elsewhere. And lawmakers will be required to disclose the sponsors of earmarks, which are attached in virtual secrecy to legislation to direct money to favored interests or home-district projects.

Further, she said, presidential candidates who are in Congress all know this, and this should be taken into account when evaluating their health care proposals, both for this Congress and for future ones.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

"DEMOCRAT." The right's grasping, stubborn use of "Democrat" rather than "Democratic" is, without doubt, childish, stupid and demeaning to our civic discourse. But does it matter? I realize that everyone knows that "Democrat Party" is a vicious slur, but is there any polling on the term, or focus groups quantifying its lethality? I'm genuinely curious about this. After all, Americans hear the term "Democrats" constantly, and the party seems to be doing fine. And given the absurd doggedness with which the Republican Party seeks to publicize the label, it'd be rather rich if the slur had no actual effect, but was merely a way for conservats to tweak their opponents.

Update: Ankush answers my question:

this is from a comment written last summer in The New Yorker by Hendrik Hertzberg:

[Frank] Luntz, who road-tested the adjectival use of “Democrat” with a focus group in 2001, has concluded that the only people who really dislike it are highly partisan adherents of the—how you say?—Democratic Party. “Those two letters actually do matter,” Luntz said the other day.

So the results from one focus group by Frank Luntz (I know, I know) from six years ago suggest that the label "Democrat Party" doesn't do anything but annoy Democrats. I highly doubt things are much different today.

--Ezra Klein

A MCCAIN TRUE COLORS WATCH UPDATE: Some people are not content to let John McCain get away with his deceptive "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" act now that his next presidential campaign is gearing up. Brave New Films, the company run by liberal documentarian Robert Greenwald, has pulled together a damning video of McCain's flip-flops, and posted it on the site, www.therealmccain.com. It starts out with McCain repeatedly asserting, in so many words, that the Iraq invasion will be easy. Cut to January, 2007 and McCain claims, "The American people were led to believe that this would be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very difficult undertaking." But there is no mention of who led the American people to believe such a foolish thing -- much less taking responsibility for it -- from the Captain of the Straight Talk Express. It's good to see liberals won't fall behind on exposing the hypocrisy of at least one major conservative in this election cycle. Will they do their homework on dark horses like Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee as well, before they craft their own deceptively positive public images?

--Ben Adler

FUN WITH STATISTICS. Sometimes the approving links one finds in John Podhoretz posts on the Corner shouldn't go unacknoweldged.

Historian (and Open University contributor) David Bell wrote an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times yesterday pointing out that, by most standards, both the destructiveness of the 9/11 attack and the general threat posed by Islamist terrorism -- while tragic and real -- are also modest; he cautions against further indulgence in the historical tendency to exaggerate all foreign policy threats as existential. J-Pod then helpfully alerts us to this stinging retort. From the latter:

While “only” 2,973 people died on 9/11, they died at the rate of 29 people per minute. Taking Mr. Bell’s opening scenario one step further, had Islamofascists murdered 29 people here during every minute of the year following 8:46 a.m. EST on 9/11, more than 11 million would have been slaughtered. Is that a few more than the United States loses in traffic accidents each year, Mr. Bell?

--Sam Rosenfeld

MORE ON THE MOMMY CANDIDATES: The Times, a bit late to the party, has a trend piece on the mommy positioning of female politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Unlike Dana Goldstein, who wrote on this site that Democratic women would be foolish to play into the "mommy party" stereotype, during wartime no less, Robin Toner of the Times says, "motherhood and a focus on children can become one more political asset to be showcased -- a way of humanizing a candidate and connecting with voters, especially other women."

I find this pretty unconvincing. Democrats hold a strong advantage among female voters; strengthening it is not their primary challenge. The deterioration in Dems' support among women in 2004 was among so-called "security moms." These are moderate, suburban, middle-aged voters who are pro-choice and concerned with health care and education. They will tend to vote Democratic if they feel safe enough to choose on those issues. But protecting their families from terrorism comes first, and softening your image is not the way to assuage their concerns. Finally, I think the reason Senator Clinton needs humanizing is not because she hasn't touted her concern for raising children adequately (see her association with Marian Wright Edelman and her book It Takes a Village.) The reason Clinton is widely viewed as robotic is the same reason Al Gore and John Kerry were: She is stiff in her public demeanor and her policy positions stink of careful poll-following. If anything, it seems to me that ham-handed image framing, regardless of what exact kind, is precisely what politicians with that rap (however unfair it may be in some cases) should avoid.

--Ben Adler

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: THE CASE FOR BOLDNESS. Prospect founders mix it up, as Bob Kuttner today responds to Paul Starr's progressive case for supporting Bush's health plan:

I've teased Paul, who is ordinarily a rather prudent and moderate liberal, that he is sounding a little like the Italian communists who used to say, Tanto peggio, tanto meglio -- the worse things get, the better for us. Health insurance is such a complex mess, and the insurance industry so politically influential, that giving it more economic (and hence political) power via more individual policies is no strategy for achieving universal public insurance. Bush may be something of a dope, but his industry allies who helped craft this idea are not.

A shift to tax-subsidized individual insurance would leave the best off and most politically influential Americans with adequate insurance, and leave the worst off Americans even further behind. Politically, it would set back the process of creating a real coalition for reform.

--The Editors

SET YOUR PHASERS TO "CLINTON." I don't understand why a Clinton's every action triggers mass episodes of idiocy among our press corps., but it's become depressingly clear that the last few years haven't in any way blunted the effect. The other day, in Iowa, Hillary had this exchange with reporters:

Mrs. Clinton’s comment about “bad men,” meanwhile, was one of the more memorable moments of her trip to Iowa, her first time since 2003.

She delivered the remark with touches of humor. She first summed up a question from John Wood, a man at the town hall forum here, putting it this way: “What in my background equips me to deal with evil and bad men?” Then she paused a few beats, setting the audience atwitter with laughter, and appeared to be blushing, her face down. Then, after deciding where to go with her answer, she said: “On a slightly more serious note, I believe a lot in my background and a lot in my public life shows the character and toughness to be president.”

At a news conference later this afternoon, where she was asked several times which bad men had been on her mind, Mrs. Clinton indicated at first that she was thinking about the need to capture Osama bin Laden, but a few moments later she said she was just being playful with her delivery.

“You guys!” she chuckled after the third question from a reporter on the topic. “I thought I was funny. You guys keep telling me, lighten up, be fun. Now I get a little funny, and I’m being psychoanalyzed.”

One reporter then asked her if she might have been thinking in some way about her husband.

“Oh, c’mon,” she said in a low voice, and then moved on.

[Hillary's joke] wasn't revealing because she was suggesting her husband is "evil and bad."

It was revealing because -- asked about dealing with evil men like Osama bin Laden -- her mind seemed to go to her domestic enemies. It's absurd to suggest that she thinks Bill is evil like Osama. But Kenneth Starr? Rick Santorum? Her joke suggests that she buys into the notion that American and Middle Eastern "zealots" are cut from the same cloth, an idea that dovetails with her belief that there was (and is) a right-wing conspiracy to destroy the Clintons.[...]

And so her joke doesn't tell you how she'll govern. But it does tell you how deeply inimical she still feels to elements of the American right, how little she has forgiven.

--Ezra Klein

ONGOING REPORTS FROM THE DEATH OF SATIRE. Tapped's own J. Goodrich: "Of course [Joe] Klein is not alone with these feelings. Joan Walsh at Salon points out that other commentators were also relieved to finally find someone that matched their idea of a manly Democrat ... Cooties are scary. And girls have them."

Andrew Sullivan and Howard Fineman, this week on the Chris Matthews Show ("Millionaire Pundit Values on a Cable Access Budget!"):

SULLIVAN (1/28/07): I think she’s been a very sensible senator. I think -- find it hard to disagree with her on the war. But when I see her again, all me -- all the cootie-vibes resurrect themselves. I’m sorry --

PANEL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

HOWARD FINEMAN: That’s a technical term!

SULLIVAN: I must represent a lot of people. I actually find her positions appealing in many ways. I just can’t stand her.

--Scott Lemieux

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: EVERYBODY GET TOGETHER. In her new book, Barbara Ehrenreich examines the power of collective gatherings. According to Jeanine Plant, Ehrenreich's view may explain why the atmosphere was so jubilant at Saturday's antiwar rallies, even though Bush & Co. seem unlikely to withdraw from Iraq any time soon.

--The Editors

THE CEO PRESIDENT. Matt is, I fear, too kind to Sebastian Mallaby's sleight-of-hand:

Mallaby ends with a kicker. "American business succeeds in the world because it morphs, shape-shifts, learns from its mistakes; it is too paranoid, too anxious to please its customers, to stick with formulas that aren't working," he writes, "The question posed by last week's BBC poll is whether American government can mimic that agility." Well, what a nice center-right I-used-to-work-for-the-Economist way of putting things. Business good and nimble, government clumsy and inept. But of course the problem here isn't that "American government" has proved reckless and stubborn and trashed America's global image. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, etc. have done these things...There's not an abstract government problem here, there's a concrete Bush administration problem.

The CEO President, of course, ran his company, his company's reputation, and his own reputation into the ground. And so those committed to conservatism's Manichean view of the private and public sectors (private good, public bad) are back to blaming government. But when government was run by Clinton, a longtime political executive who sought to run it as a good government, it worked quite well. It was only once we elected a self-described CEO and instinctual privatizer that everything came off the rails. And we elected him largely on the strength of business-glorifying bromides like the one Mallaby offers above.

John Dickerson, by the way, has a bit more on the CEO President's many failures, and he even includes a case study.

--Ezra Klein

THE 'WOMEN'S VOTE.' Linda Hirshman's column in the Post yesterday was yet another commentary that focuses on Clinton-as-the-first-female-presidential-candidate angle. Hirshman concludes what seems obvious to me: women will never overwhelmingly support one candidate just because they are women. She says historically, women have never made a decisive difference in an election, with perhaps the exception of 1996.

Hirshman even conducts a self-admitted unscientific survey of women in Washington, vis-a-vis her December 2005 article (adapted into a book) for TAP. The conclusion is overwhelmingly that these educated stay-at-home moms just don't follow the news or policy issues that closely. They rely on their husbands to keep them informed on events. I found this disturbing to say the least. Why should women rely on the men in their lives to make decisions about candidates? This makes going after the female vote a "popularity contest" and less about issues.
It seems like Senator Clinton runs the risk of doing this since she's pinned by party leaders to win the female vote.

It's hard to say if the women Hirshman surveyed are a representative sample, but it makes me wish that they could become more entrenched in reading about good policies instead of Good Housekeeping.

--Kay Steiger

WHY 4K? You may remember that we reached one of what Donald Rumsfeld once called "arbitrary" milestones in Iraq -- the 3,000th American fatality -- on the last day of 2006. Another month
later, and for just a slightly different milestone figure, we're now over 4,000.

How's the math on that work when more than 80 coalition personnel (so far) have fallen in January? Remember, the 3,000 figure counted only American service personnel. There are, as of today, another 253 non-American coalition fatalities. But the real jump comes from contractor deaths. As the Houston Chronicle reports, a new survey shows that over 770 contractors have been killed as well in Iraq. (It's not clear what share of them are American contractors.)

That puts the Iraq total, irrespective of nationality or whether the person is serving in a military or private uniform, well over 4,000. "I think people have lost patience with this war without calculating in the other 770 people who have died," says Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in the Chronicle. Just think of what the public reaction would be if the reported figures "were now closer to 4,000 people who have died." Maybe they would just think it arbitrary.

--Tom Schaller

TWO SMEARS IN ONE. Brothers Yglesiasand Klein say most of what needs to be said in re: Jonah Goldberg's ridiculous Charles Lindbergh smear. Evidently, this is similar to what happened after the release of the Mearsheimer/Walt paper. As it happens, I don't actually think M/W made their case; granting that assessing the impact of interest groups is one of the thorniest questions in political science (untangling the cause/effect relationships is almost impossible), I think much of their anaylsis was tendentious and unpersuasive. But the point of calling otherwise distinguished scholars anti-Semites with no independent evidence (or comparing them to David Duke) is not to debate the very open question about the role of the pro-Israel lobby on American foreign policy but to prevent the important questions from even being asked.

The beauty of using Lindbergh is that it gives you two smears for the price of one. Another routine we've been seeing recently is attempts by various Bush dead-enders to divide foreign policy positions into two camps: people who uncritically support every harebrained scheme that crackpot hawks send down the pike, and "isolationists." Going to war with Iran is a really, really terrible idea, so tarring people who support a rational policy as "anti-Semites" isn't enough; they need to be called "isolationists " as well. We'll be seeing plenty more of this kind of thing.

--Scott Lemieux

THE CLINTON RULES: A CASE STUDY. Atrios details the case of Wayne Dumond--a convicted rapist who was released under heavy pressure from governor and likely Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and subsequently raped and murdered at least one and probably two women. As Atrios says, this wouldn't necessarily be a massive black stain on Huckabee's record -- as long as we don't keep everyone in jail forever, such tragedies are inevitable -- except that the pressure in this case came from paranoid fantasizing about Bill Clinton. I was particularly amazed to see this article in the Voice, which is very representative of writing about Clinton "scandals":

DuMond had been accused of raping a Clinton cousin in 1984 and was hog-tied and castrated before he even went to trial.

He used to be enraged about it, especially when the cracker sheriff, who was a pal of the rape victim's father, scooped up DuMond's balls, put them in a jar, and showed them off.

"They were mine. Those were my testicles," DuMond told a sickened courtroom in 1988. "He didn't have no right to take them and he didn't have no right to show them around and he didn't have no right to flush them down the toilet."

This is yet another Clinton saga of genitalia that fell into the wrong hands.

Ha-ha! See, Bill Clinton got a blow job, so clearly he was somehow responsible for reprehensible vigilante tactics (spruced up with an unsubstantiated story from a convicted violent felon taken at face value) used against a rapist. This kind of idiocy, though, is basically how most stories about phony Clinton pseudo-scandals from Whitewater on down proceeded: find some distant (or imagined) Clinton relationship to someone who knew someone who did something bad in Arkansas, find some lurid details, and suggest that one or both Clintons were behind everything without any actual evidence or causal logic. (See, for example, the stories about Mena discussed in the country's most prominent conservative op-ed pages.) And while many of these stories had their origin with GOP operatives and wingnut hacks, they also spread throughout the media, including ostensibly lefty alt-weeklies and the mainstream press. The Whitewater non-scandal was pushed obsessively by the New York Times, and MSNBC would happily invite you on to discuss your unsubstantiated claims that Bill Clinton personally killed several people. About the Clintons, you can say anything based on nothing in the most prestigious media forums.

--Scott Lemieux

EDUCATION AND LIBERALISM. Over at the Corner, Jonah Goldberg cites uncritically a letter writer who says, "I have been hoping for a long time that black Americans would stop voting monolithically Democratic as they became more educated and successful." Now why doesn't Goldberg contradict this assumption that being more educated would lead a group to be more conservative? Voters with post-graduate education were the only educational demographic to favor John Kerry by a considerable margin, to take one example. And, as discussed in Goldberg's post, Jews are both a highly educated and highly liberal ethnic group in the United States. Perhaps Goldberg doesn't want to acknowledge that educated people may be turned off by the anti-intellectualism of movement conservatism.

--Ben Adler

BECAUSE INEQUALITY IS EXCITING, AND YOU WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT IT. Today's posts by the mysterious J. Goodrich and "magnificent Mark Schmitt" aptly illustrate why I'm so happy to have them on the site. Mark's effort to refocus the inequality conversation on proper compensation for the work of individuals is a crucial one. I genuinely can't imagine the world view that makes anyone think that, say, an academic making $120,000 a year works 400% harder than a hotel maid flipping 100+ pound Sealy Posturpedic mattresses all day for $30,000 (and no health benefits). It's certainly true society values the work of the academic more, but that's neither here nor there so far as its difficulty.

Indeed, that's the issue here: How we, as a society, value certain kinds of work, and how willing we are to override the Magic Market's judgment. It's a pernicious fallacy that a maid's salary is somehow related to the virtue or necessity of the position, rather than its skill level and the supply of labor willing and capable of filling it. As such, there's every reason for a society to rise up and decide that, indeed, the floor for such workers should be higher than the market dictates, or the government should provide dignified and robust benefits the market won't, or we need to in some other way modify compensation to better accord with our beliefs about the dignity of the work and the just desserts of the individual.

Meanwhile, I agree with J. that the issue of happiness is neither here nor there so far as inequality is concerned. Folks who want to blunt concern over inequality tend to digress onto unrelated ground, like how much better a low income worker does than his paleolithic forebears, or whether they're "happy." You may think inequality is a problem or you may not. But arguing that the poor aren't much happier than the rich is not particularly relevant to whether liberals should tax all their money away to fund gay marriages among low-income workers.

--Ezra Klein

PICK UP YOUR MONEY AND PACK UP YOUR TENT, YOU AIN"T GON' NOWHERE. As another piece of evidence for the Schmitt/Plumer/Marshall thesis that John McCain's presidential campaign is stillborn, I see that in a poll of major right-wing bloggers McCain has a remarkably high "least desirable" ranking, barely less than Republican Lieberman Chuck Hagel and considerably higher than the widely-disliked no-hoper George Pataki. Obviously, this means less than his rejection by James Dobson, but it's suggestive of the basic underlying dynamic: Saint McCain's relentless pandering to cultural reactionaries and shilling for a catastrophic and unpopular war has destroyed his standing among independents without helping his standing with the base. (And although I'm much less convinced by Mark's prediction that Gingrich will be the nominee, I should note that he did actually garner first place in the "most desirable" survey.)

I wonder what a similar poll of liberal bloggers would show?

--Scott Lemieux

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: THE FIGHT WE'RE IN. It's become increasingly clear that Bush isn't going to concede it's time to get out of Iraq. So Terence Samuel tackles the question of how the Democrats should go about forcing a troop withdrawal.

--The Editors

THEY WORK HARD FOR THE MONEY, SO YOU BETTER TREAT 'EM RIGHT. I didn't have any luck getting anyone to join my last crusade, and I've given up on it myself, so here's another, inspired by the Tyler Cowen Times op-ed on inequality that J. flagged this morning:

I'm willing to accept a considerable level of income inequality as a price we pay for a dynamic economy. But can we please, please banish from discourse the idea that people who earn much more money do so because they work so much harder?

Cowen says that "the high earners are working hard for their money and perhaps they are having less fun," and attributes inequality to "highly motivated breadwinners."

He then argues that "inequality of happiness is usually less marked than inequality of income," and that "a man earning $500,000 a year is not usually 10 times as happy as a man earning $50,000 a year."

Which may or may not be true. But isn't it even more true, and demonstrably true, that inequality of work effort is less marked than inequality of income? Isn't it unarguably true that a man making $500,000 a year is not usually working 10 times as hard as a man earning $50,000 a year?

There are people who work very, very hard, 80 hours a week or more. Some, not all, of them are rewarded for it. Fine. But do they work five times, ten, twenty times harder than someone who works only forty hours a week? They may "work smarter," they may work more efficiently, if, for example, they have a support staff that takes care of all the crap. But they don't work harder. And there are only so many hours in the week.

And no one works harder than the poorest people in America. No one works harder than someone who gets on a bus at 5:30 in the morning and an hour later gets to a hotel where she cleans rooms for $5.15/hour, then takes another bus home, picks up her children, makes dinner and gets ready to start all over again. It is, frankly, disgraceful to pretend that the difference between that person and Jack Welch is somehow related to Jack Welch "working harder."

(Robert Nozick used the "Wilt Chamberlain example" to justify inequality -- if in a free exchange, people are willing to pay money to see Wilt Chamberlain play, why shouldn't he be entitled to whatever they're willing to pay him? And I don't disagree with that. But even Nozick didn't pretend that Wilt Chamberlain earned whatever he earned -- which was probably paltry compared to what the backup center for the Knicks makes today -- by virtue of working harder.)

And higher-income people, even those who work 80 hours, often have far greater control over their time and the nature of their work. They are more likely, for example, to be able to decide for themselves that they want to go to their kid's soccer game, then work from home in the evening.

Cowen cites this study showing "that from 1965 to 2003, less-educated groups experienced a bigger boost in free time than more-educated groups" to support the point that "the high earners are working hard for their money." What the study showed is that everyone's leisure time went up from 1965 to 2003, which is good, but that men with less than a high-school education now work an average of 38 hours a week while men with more than a high school education work 43 hours a week. The education difference for women is similar, but hours of market work for women in both education groups has gone up, and "non-market work" -- e.g. housework -- has gone down.

Does this bit of data really prove that "high earners are working hard for their money"? First, high school completion is at best a poor proxy for earnings inequality, especially on a 40-year time series during which the returns to education increased dramatically and the composition of high-school dropouts and graduates changed. In other words, perhaps this proves that being a high-school dropout is now more likely than in the past to lead to being unemployed. Or, more likely, the cohort that did not finish high school skews much older -- since many more men in the 40s and 50s didn't finish school -- and therefore they are now more likely to be retired. I see no indication that this data is adjusted for age. Finally, the authors of the study themselves describe this finding as a "discrepancy between the time-series and cross-sectional evidence on income and leisure." (This is a very methodologically complex paper, and anyone who likes that sort of thing is encouraged to dig more deeply into it.)

If we're going to have an honest debate about inequality -- how much we're willing to accept, how much we care about absolute vs. relative levels of income and wealth -- it must begin by stripping the debate of the idea that those very high earners are somehow that much more virtuous and harder working. They are not.

--Mark Schmitt

NO, THIS IS THE BEST ONE. Without doubt, Kapuscinski’s greatest book is Shah of Shahs. I read it long ago. I remember I was over at my friend David’s house, and he was out doing something, so I just picked up this thin book off his shelf that looked sort of interesting. I was spellbound. Everything he wrote was at least very good, good enough that I was troubled briefly when suspicions began to arise that he kinda sorta embellished stuff, but I decided quickly that I wouldn’t be troubled, because his writing was so full of capital-T Truth that it didn’t matter to me that much. His descriptions of the way the Savak worked, invigilating itself into every aspect of daily life, are incredible.

It’s only 160 pages, and I can guarantee that you won’t be able to put it down. So just get it now.

--Michael Tomasky

FEIGNING OUTRAGE. Apropos of the recent discussion of Marty Peretz's unsuitability for inclusion in polite society, I'm reminded of this little gem that Matt Duss caught before someone apparently decided to take it off the main page of the Spine. It's still available, though, through the permalink.

I actually believe that Arabs are feigning outrage when they protest what they call American (or Israeli) "atrocities." They are not shocked at all by what in truth must seem to them not atrocious at all. It is routine in their cultures. That comparison shouldn't comfort us as Americans. We have higher standards of civilization than they do. But the mutilation of bodies and beheadings of people picked up at random in Iraq does not scandalize the people of Iraq unless victims are believers in their own sect or members of their own clan. And the truth is that we are less and less shocked by the mass death-happenings in the world of Islam. Yes, that's the bitter truth. Frankly, even I--cynic that I am--was shocked in the beginning by the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq. But I am no longer surprised. And neither are you.

Ah, those Arabs. They just don't feel like you and I do.

--Robert Farley

THE RICH AREN'T THAT MUCH HAPPIER. So says Tyler Cowen in a New York Times opinion piece which argues that income inequality in the United States isn't such a bad thing, really. Cowen presents many arguments but the one I want to highlight here is the idea that inequality in happiness is not as great as inequality in income, and, my friends, it is happiness that really counts! Cowen states:

A man earning $500,000 a year is not usually 10 times as happy as a man earning $50,000 a year."

Funnily enough, Cowen's argument also works in the opposite direction: If increasing income produces smaller and smaller increases in happiness overall happiness might be maximized by reducing income inequality. Think of it this way: Suppose that we make the man earning $500,000 a year give $10,000 of this to the man who makes only $50,000 a year. Given Cowen's happiness thesis, the loss of this amount to the richer man won't make him much unhappier, but the gain of the amount to the poorer man might make him dance on the table with joyful singing heard in the background. A net increase in happiness!

This is all fairly silly. There are better ways of judging the consequences of increasing income inequality, and these include its impact on equality of opportunity, social cohesion and democracy.

--J. Goodrich

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: TRAPPED IN THE IRON CAGE. Jo-Ann Mort talks to Rashid Khalidi about his new book, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.

--The Editors

KAPUSCINSKI ADDENDUM. To briefly add to Tara's note: the only Kapuscinski book I've read is Another Day of Life, about the Angolan civil war, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Riveting, funny, very sad.

--Sam Rosenfeld

WELL-TIMED. It is peculiarly appropriate that the inner workings of the Vice President's Office in the midst of the crisis over the justification of the war in Iraq should be laid bare in the Scooter Libby trial on the same day that news is spreading of Cheney's alarming interview with Wolf Blitzer. This is Bush's war, but from beginning to end (whenever that may be), Cheney will have been the motivating ideological force behind it.

Cheney's seemingly and distressingly sincere denial yesterday that Iraq is in a terrible situation shows that the end is not as near as it should be. Cathie Martin, formerly Cheney's press person and one of the prosecution's key witnesses, has been testifying for much of the day to the details of how the Vice President's Office, and chiefly Libby and Cheney, responded to Joe Wilson's criticism of the administration's handling of the prewar intelligence, capturing the moment in the middle of the Iraq war story when things went awry for the OVP. (I will have more later on the substance of what she has disclosed, particularly about the relationship between the administration and members of the press.) And we got a stark reminder of the beginning of the war, and why the Wilson controversy particularly mattered to Libby, in one of the exhibits the defense entered into evidence yesterday. In an email detailing what he told the FBI, Craig Schmall, Libby's (then Libby and Cheney's) CIA morning briefer, noted:

I mentioned also to the agents that Libby was in charge within the administration (or at least the White House side) for producing papers arguing the case for Iraqi WMD and ties between Iraq and al-Qa'ida, which explains Libby's and the Vice President's interest in the Iraq/Niger/Uranium case.

--Jeff Lomonaco

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: HORN OF PLENTY. Western Africa is the latest frontier in Bush's "war on terror," and the Defense Department is looking to set up an African Command. The conflict in Somalia isn't helping matters. Writes Jason Motlagh:

Pentagon architects are already providing arms and expertise to a host of African "partners" to shore up porous national borders, with grander designs in the works for a new Africa Command to anchor counter-terror operations and protect at-risk oil interests. Critics warn that strengthening authoritarian regimes to consolidate power and crushing legitimate opposition on the pretext of fighting terror is a strategy that could backfire: Radicalism might surge and make enemies where they scarcely exist. Early symptoms are visible. And in no place will long-term U.S. plans encounter fiercer resistance than Somalia, where clan-based tensions -- now doused with an Islamist guerrilla war -- again threaten to plunge the country into anarchy.

For more on how authoritarian regimes are benefiting from the "war on terror," check out Josh Kurlantzick's recent piece, The China Syndrome.

--The Editors

RIP. Ryszard Kapuscinski died on January 23 in Warsaw, Poland. He has been called the world’s greatest foreign correspondent -- and for good reason. He started traveling in Africa in the early 1960s and later reported on events in Latin America, the Middle East, and other regions, first filing stories for PAP, the Polish news agency (he says that’s how he learned his laconic style), and then working on books like the acclaimed volume The Soccer War, which covers conflicts in Congo, Nigeria, Guatemala and other countries in the developing world from 1958 to 1976. He wrote about politics, scandals, war, and revolution from the perspective not of the wealthy and powerful but of those who exist on the margins of society.

I met Kapuscinski in 2001. I’d admired his work for years and was excited to have a chance to interview him for a newspaper article. He was a short, thin man, and sat slouched across from me in a booth in a hotel restaurant in Washington. During the interview, a bus boy wheeled a cart filled with ice next to our table. The cart rattled and heaved, and we had to stop talking because it was so noisy. Kapuscinski glanced over at the cart and then couldn’t take his eyes off it. He looked as though he’d never seen ice cubes in his life -- and I thought, Well, that’s his gift. He sees ordinary things as if he has come upon them for the first time -- and then has the patience, and the right sensibility, to think about what they mean. That afternoon, he noticed the ice cubes. In years past, he had seen a squalid street in Lagos, for example, and described it in a way that would have an impact on readers around the world. Kapuscinski is dead. But his view of the world as a perplexing, fascinating, and magical place will -- luckily -- live on his books for a long time to come.

--Tara McKelvey

IN WHICH I PLAY TO TYPE. To quickly engage the political question raised by my last post, Atrios (and many of the commenters) argue that presidential elections aren't won on wonkery, and so what matters isn't the existence of plans, but the reach of rhetoric. That's certainly true as a political question. But then, I don't want distinct health proposals because they'll help the candidate win, I want them because they tell me what he'll do.

Put another way, I'm sure, in their hearts, most all the Democratic nominees want universal health care of a type I'd basically find unobjectionable. What I'm not sure of is which ones will make it a priority, which will take on the insurance companies, which will come through. Campaign white papers aren't perfect predictors, of course, but they do offer a rough look at what the candidate is willing to commit to, as the very act of being specific carries political downsides. And that's what I'm looking for: Evidence of commitment, of conviction, of determination, on the issues most important to me. I wouldn't suggest, of course, that being my perfect candidate is the quickest way to the White House. But then, I let the political strategists worry about how to get their candidates elected. As a voter, and a writer, and someone who cares about a certain core set of issues, I tend to think my job is much more to look out for those priorities than any particular candidate's prospects.

--Ezra Klein

THE CONSENSUS CANDIDATE. A month or so ago, I talked about the odd dissonance of watching Barack Obama speak. "In possibly the most telling section," I wrote, "he gives a great riff on health care, which manages to totally inspire while not actually saying anything sweeping or controversial. Watching it, you'd swear he just promised the stars, the sky, and universal insurance, when he really just committed to electronic records." Today, Kevin notices the same thing.

After declaring in no uncertain terms that "affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how," we get a few lines about better use of technology, some tsk-tsking about insurance industry profits, and a bit of musing about whether employer-based healthcare is still the best idea out there. That's....not very bold.

Viewed more cynically, this is consensus-driven rhetoric. As folks involved in health policy well know, universal health care as an abstraction polls through the roof. Actual plans, policies, and specifics tend to meet with more resistance. Mirroring that relationship, Obama is advocating universal health care the idea while mentioning nothing but high-polling, broadly-agreed miscellanea. That's not to say that he couldn't step forward tomorrow morning with a brilliant, bold idea for moving this debate forward. But he's not there yet, and he is, contrary to what some protest, offering policy ideas. His specifics are electronic records, health care for kids, and more discussion. No one will disagree with those policies, but then, there's a reason for that.

--Ezra Klein

"WORTHWHILE CANADIAN INITIATIVE." Just before I saw Ezra's post about The Politico, I was thinking about posting something sarcastic about the fact that the lead story on this much-hyped newspaper's second day was basically, "Many Senators Are Quite Old."

But leave it to Ezra to find news anywhere. And there was news buried behind the dreariest headline since the famous "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative." That twenty senators consulted Bill Frist for their health problems. So they're old -- and also stupid. What did they do, go up to Frist and say, "Doc, if I send you a video, can you tell me what's wrong?"

The article doesn't mention that there is someone known as the Capitol Attending Physician -- an actual doctor who practices medicine full time, not a former heart surgeon turned politician. Is there some reason they can't go to an actual, working doctor? And they all have, as we know, good health insurance -- is there any reason that by age 60, they don't have their own regular doctor?

There may be an answer in this sentence: "Among them were Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who flew on Frist's jet for private consultation and treatment at the Frist Clinic in Nashville, according to Senate sources."

For several years there have been various rumors about Domenici being in rapidly declining health. Further down, the article notes that he "suffers from a variety of ailments -- and not quietly," adding that he"can appear disheveled at times. Domenici wore a suit with a with large tear in the coat one day recently, and in early December, after being seen ambling through the halls of the Hart Senate Office Building in a pair of hunting pants that resembled pajamas, Domenici aides scrambled to quash a rumor that the lawmaker was not as mentally acute as he had been." It also notes that Republicans are desperate for quash any rumors that Domenici won't run for reelection in 2008.

So, perhaps a better headline for this story might have been, "Frist Ran Top-Secret Clinic for Senile GOP Colleagues."

That would sell some papers.

--Mark Schmitt.

YOU KEEP USING THIS PHRASE "NATIONAL SECURITY." I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS. Jonah Goldberg stays true to the Twelfth Commandment of the Republican Party ("Thou shalt smear Democrats as undermining the national interest"):

The 11th Commandment for liberals seems to be, "Thou shalt not intervene out of self-interest." Intervening in civil wars for humanitarian reasons is OK, but meddling for national security reasons is not. This would explain why liberals supported interventions in civil wars in Yugoslavia and Somalia but think being in one in Iraq is the height of folly. If only someone had thought of labeling the Korean conflict a humanitarian intervention back then, we might not face the horror and the danger from North Korea today.

Admittedly, Goldberg is certainly right that the sectarian near-anarchy predictably created by the policy he advocated so vociferously is contrary to the American national interest. But in terms of defending an open-ended commitment to Iraq, this is neither here nor there unless there's some reason to believe that an ongoing presence in Iraq with a minor increase in troop levels can actually produce a strong, stable state. Goldberg doesn't actually have an argument about why we should believe this, which is not surprising since there is in fact no reason to believe that this is viable. It's true that the situation in Iraq is bad for the Iraqi people and bad for the interests of the United States, but this was a reason not to start the war, not a reason to continue it indefinitely when it shows no signs of producing a good outcome.

--Scott Lemieux

THE OLD BOYS CLUB. The Politico (which is performing well above expectations) has a fascinating article today on the advancing age on Congress. Apparently, this is the oldest the institution has ever been, with the average Senator clocking in above six decades. I was struck by this on the Hill the other day, when I started hearing a "tap, tap -- tap, tap -- tap, tap" and a staffer leaned over to me and explained that was Sen. Robert Byrd, who's 88 and walks with two canes. Ted Kennedy, too, surprised me, looking older, smaller, and more hunched than expected, though once he began talking, he inflated back to his traditional size. He's 74. According to the article, the Senate rather liked having a doctor in the leadership, and Bill Frist was, by the end, giving health advice to fully 1/5th of his colleagues.

For many of these leaders, age isn't a problem. Kennedy, for instance, is as effective and capable as ever, and Byrd certainly hasn't given up the ghost. But infirmity and health issues increasingly plague the institution, and in some Senators, pose more of a problem. The ravages of age were more hidden in previous generations, but C-SPAN and YouTube have ended such wisps of privacy. As the article explains, however, there's very little to encourage over-the-hill Senators to retire: "The senator usually wants to stay because he or she enjoys and derives purpose out of public service; aides want to keep their jobs and the influence that comes with working for a senior legislator (especially one who is increasingly dependent on aides); the party wants to keep a safe seat that will cost less money to retain; and constituents want the senator to run again because that means continued influence and dollars for a state." Doesn't exactly seem optimal.

--Ezra Klein

AT LEAST SOMEONE'S BENEFITTING FROM IT. I'm glad Dick Cheney thinks the Bush administration's inability to find Osama bin-Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri is funny.

--Ezra Klein

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: HEDGEHOG FOLLIES. Harold riffs on the president's stunning indifference both to the will of the American public and to the wild incoherence of his own foreign policy.

--The Editors

THE LAST THROES. It's truly the End Times when George W. Bush appears a paragon of truth and candor, but Dick Cheney rides a pale horse. In Cheney's interview with Wolf Blitzer last night, we learned:

Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes and we will continue to have enormous successes.

--Spencer Ackerman

A GUY THING? Joe Klein's take on Jim Webb's SOTU response is on the surface all about class, about who sips chablis and who gulps down a beer or two. Webb is a more genuine voice for the Democrats because he is not (how does Klein know this?) a chablis connoisseur.

But I started feeling itchy with some of the things Klein says. Take these comments:

No way Webb could ever pass for effete; he's a guy who always looks as if he's five minutes from his next altercation.

Kerry, whom I've known for many years, was always a different, more awkward guy in public than he was with his Vietnam pals -- and, according to one of his closest Vietnam pals, he'd even stopped being loose with them in private in recent years: "We lost him when he married Teresa."

Of course Klein is not alone with these feelings. Joan Walsh at Salon points out that other commentators were also relieved to finally find someone that matched their idea of a manly Democrat :

Then, after the speech, on various news shows, Democratic presidential front-runners Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards represented the party admirably, each of them striking a balance between respecting the bipartisan ritual of the evening -- yes, we want to get some work done and we'll act like the president does too -- while making clear they would continue to fight Bush hard on Iraq. Webb was the night's standout, but his performance was also a tribute to the new and frankly unfamiliar P.R. savvy of Democratic leaders, who were smart enough to choose the military veteran to rebut the president.

Or so I thought. It turned out that on television, there was a zero-sum game of political credit for Democrats, so Webb's win meant that others lost -- and mainly that seemed to mean liberals and women, especially liberal women like Nancy Pelosi. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews and Mike Barnicle were tripping over themselves to laud the manly Webb, and thank their lucky stars that the Dems hadn't picked somebody who'd have used his or her time to fulminate over gay marriage or other effete concerns. "He didn't mention a woman's right to choose. He didn't talk about civil unions," Matthews gushed. Barnicle called Webb "a member of the Democratic Party of my youth, of your youth, Chris," and went on to mention a list of men, men, men.

--J. Goodrich

LOVE AND MARRIAGE...See? Even when it's about love, it's really about class:

The emerging gulf is instead one of class — what demographers, sociologists and those who study the often depressing statistics about the wedded state call a “marriage gap” between the well-off and the less so.

Statistics show that college educated women are more likely to marry than non-college educated women — although they marry, on average, two years later...Now, marriage has become more one of equals; when more highly educated men marry, it tends to be more highly educated women...Women with more education also are becoming less likely to divorce, or inclined to divorce, than those with less education. They are even less likely to be widowed all in all, less likely to end up alone.[...]

The difference extends across race lines: black women are significantly less likely to marry than white women, but among blacks, women with a college education are more likely to marry than those who do not.

Among women ages 25-34, 59 percent of college graduates are married, compared with 51 percent of non-college graduates, according to an analysis of the Census Bureau’s June 2006 Current Population Survey by Steven P. Martin, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. The same is true at older age groups: the difference is 75 percent to 62 percent for those ages 35-44, and 50 percent to 41 percent among those 65 and older.

The difference is smaller between men and women. According to the census, 55 percent of men are married, down from 69.3 percent in 1960, and 51.5 percent of women are, down from 65.9 percent in 1960.

Meanwhile, these marriage trends will be a powerful magnifier of economic inequality, as I've explained in more detail here.

UPDATE: I ask and, internets, you answer. There are more women than men, because men die younger, so even though a roughly equal number are married, married women make up a smaller percentage of the female population than do men. Thanks to all you know-it-alls who e-mailed, IM'd, or commented.

--Ezra Klein

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: TWO HEALTH CARE DEBATES. We've got two health care-related pieces up, both meant to provoke responses. Our own Paul Starr, bucking the early liberal take regarding the president's State of the Union health care proposals, makes the long-term progressive case for supporting Bush's plan. Be sure to take a look.

Meanwhile, Ezra kicks off an ongoing exchange among progressive health care thinkers concerning what, exactly, their bottom-line, non-negotiable requirements for a comprehensive health care plan ought to be. What can be compromised, and what are the lines that can't be crossed?

--The Editors

FRC ON SOTU. Family Research Council head Tony Perkins sounds some sour notes regarding Bush's speech.

--Sam Rosenfeld

PRIORITIES. In a display of savage corporatism, Senate Republicans are filibustering the minimum wage increase until Democrats lard the bill with tax cuts for businesses. Over the last six years, of course, businesses have gotten, literally, hundreds of billions in tax breaks. Congress hasn't raised the minimum wage in a decade.

--Ezra Klein

SCHALLER ON COLBERT. We'd be remiss in not plugging Tom's appearance on The Colbert Report this week to discuss Whistling Past Dixie. Take a look.

--The Editors

NORM COLEMAN: BOLDLY FALLING IN LINE. When Norm Coleman returned from Iraq two weeks ago he had some fairly harsh words for President Bush’s troop surge:

I oppose the proposal for a troop surge in Baghdad, where the violence can only be defined as sectarian. A troop surge proposal basically ignores the conditions on the ground, both as I saw on my most recent trip, and in reports I've been receiving regularly since my return … A troop surge in Baghdad would put more American troops at risk to address a problem that is not a military problem. It will put more American soldiers in the cross hairs of sectarian violence, create more targets. I just don't believe that makes sense, Mr. President.

--Mark Leon Goldberg

AGAINST WEBB. To go against the tide of Webb promotion here, let me come out, early and strongly, against his worth as a vice-presidential pick. The reasons we like Webb -- his evident sense of conviction, damn-the-torpedoes plain-spokenness, clear beliefs about the state of the world, willingness to state unpopular political truths, etc -- make him almost uniquely unsuitable for the second-banana slot. The guy is not an empty-vessel to be filled with the policy preferences of Clinton, or Obama, or Richardson. He has decidedly deep ideas about economic fairness that veer far more towards protectionism than any major Democrat is comfortable with, and that includes Edwards, who occasionally flirts with the rhetoric without substantively embracing the policy platform. His foreign policy vision, similarly, is coherent and whole, and while many Democrats agree with the conclusions he's reached on Iraq, it's not necessarily clear that they'd find such deep accord on all other issues. To force Webb to knuckle beneath a nominee's ideological agenda would be a disaster.

One can argue that Webb himself may want to mount a presidential run someday. I'm not terribly confident in that, but it's a perfectly reasonable claim. What you wouldn't want -- either for Webb or the nominee -- is to put him in the secondary slot, erasing all his virtues while enabling damage from his prickly, contrarian vices. He gave a great response to the President's speech and will prove a powerful and unique voice for Democrats in the future, but folks have to stop defaulting to VP boosterism whenever they see someone they like. It would be good for the country if both parties rediscovered the virtue in having prominent, nationally respected Senators and Congressmen, who were loved and lauded for their worth to the institutions they served, rather than merely as prospects for the next presidential. Not every star needs to be pushed into the executive branch.

--Ezra Klein

ROVE, LIBBY, AND THE PARDON QUESTION. The headline from the Libby trial yesterday was, of course, the surprising news that Libby's defense will be arguing that in the fall of 2003, Libby's concern to make sure that the White House got the word out that he was not involved in leaking was prompted by his and VP Cheney's perception that the White House was sacrificing him to save Karl Rove -- that is, letting the press believe that Libby might have been involved as a way to distract attention from the boy genius. The public significance of the move is huge, guaranteeing a lot of attention to the trial. But its legal significance was either missed or overblown by most commenters. It is not the centerpiece of Libby's defense; it is a limited tactic designed to deprive Fitzgerald of the motive he has attributed to Libby for lying to investigators: to save his job. Libby's defense is contending that Libby's actions to save his job in fall 2003 were not part of a cover-up of his role in leaking -- and hence not evidence of a motive for lying to the FBI -- but instead the understandable reaction to an unfair White House effort to sacrifice Libby for Rove's sake.

Likewise, I believe, the implication of this development for Libby's prospects for a pardon has been misunderstood. Both Josh Marshall and Michael Isikoff (in an otherwise excellent article) think Libby's blame-Rove tactic means Libby is giving up on a presidential pardon. It strikes me that the opposite may be the case: putting distance between himself and the White House provides a little more political cover for Bush to issue a pardon should Libby be convicted.

--Jeff Lomonaco

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SURGIN' GENERAL. It's true -- Lieutenant General David Petraeus really is great. But he won't be able to make a difference in Iraq. Spencer reports from yesterday's Senate confirmation hearing.

--The Editors

BENNY MORRIS. He's got quite a piece in The New York Sun. Rob's response is worth a look.

--Sam Rosenfeld

EVERYTHING KEEPING US TOGETHER IS FALLING APART. One more thing about the SOTU. Bush relied on the familiar case that you and your family will die if we withdraw from Iraq: "[O]ut of chaos in Iraq would emerge an emboldened enemy with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to harm America." One of the bravest journalists there is, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, recently spent some time among the Sunni insurgents and found an encouraging pocket of Sunni discontent with al-Qaeda:

This man who had spent the last three years fighting the Americans was now willing to talk to them, not because he wanted to make peace but because he saw the Americans as the lesser of two evils. He was wrestling with the same dilemma as many Sunni insurgent leaders, beginning to doubt the wisdom of their alliance with al-Qaida extremists.

Another insurgent commander told me: "At the beginning al-Qaida had the money and the organisation, and we had nothing." But this alliance soon dragged the insurgents and then the whole Sunni community into confrontation with the Shia militias as al-Qaida and other extremists massacred thousands of Shia civilians. Insurgent commanders such as Abu Omar soon found themselves outnumbered and outgunned, fighting organised militias backed by the Shia-dominated security forces.

--Spencer Ackerman

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SWING AND A MISS. In his column this week, Mike assesses Nancy Pelosi's recent tussle with the most senior member of the House, John Dingell, regarding committee jurisdiction over global warming policy. Mike says that Pelosi's right on the merits, but likely picked a fight she's not going to be able to win.

--The Editors

WHAT IF THEY HELD AN OCCUPIER-SUSTAINED SECTARIAN DEMOCRACY AND NO ONE SHOWED UP? Did you notice how President Bush snuck back in a reference to a "democratic Iraq" in the SOTU? During his latest iteration of the not-the-fight-we-entered mission, Bush had scaled back his goal to that of a "free nation that can sustain itself and defend itself." Bush may be mired in confusion, but Iraqi parliamentarians aren't: according to the New York Times, there hasn't been a parliamentary quorum since November:

Some of Iraq’s more seasoned leaders say attendance has been undermined by a widening sense of disillusionment about Parliament’s ability to improve Iraqis’ daily life. The country’s dominant issue, security, is almost exclusively the policy realm of the American military and the office of the prime minister.

Every bombing like the one on Monday, which killed 88 people at a downtown market, suggests to some that Parliament’s laws are irrelevant in the face of sprawling chaos and the government’s inability to stop it.

“People are totally disenchanted,” (Adnan) Pachachi said in a telephone interview from Abu Dhabi. “There has been no improvement in the security situation. The government seems to be incapable of doing anything despite all the promises.”

--Spencer Ackerman

VPOTUS? It’s pretty clear that Jim Webb tore it up last night. Aside from that odd reference to the “seventh” time Bush has spoken on energy independence in a SOTU (he’s given six), he was on fire, as my pal BB from Albany put it. I don’t think there was one cliché in the whole thing. The segue from father to himself to brother to son was engrossing without being maudlin, and the final phrase -- “if he does not, we will be showing him the way” -- was pitch perfect.

I say he put himself in the veepstakes with his response. A hasty judgment, yes. And there are the downsides of a.) he will have been in the Senate for a year and change, and b.) all those old comments about women in combat would be dredged up again (the comments are from 1979). But being that effective on television, and being from Virginia…

--Michael Tomasky

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SNOOZE OF THE UNION. Harold weighs in on Bush's lame speech and Webb's righteous response.

--The Editors

SOTU IMPRESSIONS. The speech, technically, struck me as fairly unobjectionable. Bush didn't much stumble or shock, the rhetoric never soared but rarely fell (with one major exception). The few policy ideas outlined were uniformly awful, of course, ranging from the wreck of a health policy proposal I tore apart earlier to the surge. I'm a bit more concerned about Bush's promise to "submit a budget that eliminates the Federal deficit within the next 5 years." That's a savvy move that will be hard, politically, to reject. If Democrats accept it, however, their freedom for new spending and affirmative policies will be near nonexistent. The punditocracy does love balanced budgets, and I somehow doubt we'll hear much about Bush's suspiciously recent discovery of the deficit hawk within.

All that said, I found myself curiously detached from the whole affair. The Democratic Majority robbed the threat of action from Bush's rhetoric. His cruel health plan and Social Security fear mongering are evanescent annoyances, not upcoming agenda items. He's weak, and you sense he knows it. The speech hit the notes it needed to and no more. It was, this time, a formality, a book report bound and delivered to Congress, just as the assignment called for. He sought checkmarks for attendance and completion, and went home.

Webb's response, in contrast, was strong, clear and just. His voice vibrated with outrage and urgency, and his speech laid out Democratic principles with a confident, spare, eloquence. By far the best SOTU response I've seen. I should note, as an interesting aside, that I spent a few minutes chatting with Webb earlier in the day, and he seemed perfectly at ease. Not a hint of anxiety in the freshman senator about to give a nationally televised response on behalf of his entire party. It struck me as vaguely odd at the time, but perfectly appropriate given the quality of his performance. Webb's appeal, I think, comes from his obvious and genuine conviction. He does have an ideology, and it makes him a far more compelling messenger than the technocrats and establishmentarians Democrats tend to rely on.

--Ezra Klein

WEBB. Better than poor Tim Kaine.

--Sam Rosenfeld

THANK YOU TO THE BLACK WOMEN OF VIRGINIA. The junior senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia, James Webb, is hardly my favorite freshman. (Feminists of my generation find it tough to forget his attack on the women attacked at the Tailhook convention in 1991.) However, there's no denying the effectiveness of his rebuttal to the State of the Union. He kept his message simple and strong, bringing the weight of his family's continuing military history to his reasoned denouncement of the war in Iraq. And his clearly articulated explanation of the economic injustices now endured on some level by most Americans was dead-on. Sticking to these two issues was smart stuff; let the Democratic presidential candidates take note.

We would be remiss, however, to go on lauding Webb's response without expressing heartfelt thanks to the African-American women of Virginia, for it was they who made the difference in Webb's tight contest against the former Senator George Allen (known in some parts as Senator Macacawitz). Normally not a betting woman, I would nonetheless be willing to put money on the assertion that not a few of those African-American female Webb voters pulled the lever for the misogynist former Reagan staffer while holding their noses, and they did so for the good of the nation. For their good deed, the Democrats won control of the Senate.

--Adele M. Stan

DROP IN THE BUCKET. More on the noblesse oblige theme. Did the president just applaud himself for getting AIDS drugs to 50,000 people on the continent of Africa? According to the U.N., of the 900 million people on the continent, "an estimated 24.5 million people [in sub-Saharan Africa] were living with HIV at the end of 2005 and approximately 2.7 million new infections occurred during that year." Thank goodness that Africa's devastation at least gets some notice in a presidential address but, really, I think we could do a bit better at getting AIDS drugs to a continent deep in crisis.

--Adele M. Stan

THE ENEMY. Lots of Iran references in the speech, of course, and a newly precise articulation of how, exactly, it can be that Sunni al-Qaeda and Shiite Iranians can comprise some kind of common "terrorist" enemy to the U.S. "The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat," the president said. The enemy, in other words, is extremism in the Middle East. It's banal, obvious, but still important to point out that defining an enemy in these kind of broad and hazy terms does not make for an operational strategy, either for carrying out an ongoing hot war or for shaping a regional foreign policy posture. It is, instead, a recipe for open-ended catastrophe and overreach.

Glad to see the prez salute Dikembe Mutombo and the New York subway hero guy, though.

--Sam Rosenfeld

GOODNESS GRACIOUS. Ah, the whir of helicopters overhead, the scent of freshly baked cookies wafting through the room in which I sit tonight, a mere three blocks from the chamber from which the president is delivering his sixth State of the Union address.

The helicopters circle as a means of protection for the dignitaries there assembled; the cookies I've made as my own private celebration of the sight of the first woman Speaker of the House as she graces the big chair behind the presidential podium. They have a bittersweet character -- the cookies, that is -- appropriate to the moment.

Here is where I suppose I should remark upon the gracious manner in which President George W. Bush greeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but I daresay the president's fawning, whether feigned or merely finessed, rang in my ears with the soft bigotry of noblesse oblige. When the current President Bush ascended to the leadership of the free world, I don't believe he was introduced in his official capacity as somebody's son, even though he had little more to recommend him to the job. Pelosi's introduction by this president, this scion of a dynasty of mediocrity, reduced her to status of somebody's daughter.

I think I'll have another cookie.

--Adele M. Stan

IMPORTANT. FOX News's Brian Wilson just informed us that the major color tonight among the lady's outfits this SOTU is purple ("I'm seeing a lot of purple"). He then stated that Nancy Pelosi will be wearing a "sea foam green" outfit. Brit Hume then chimed in to say that Pelosi had intended to wear a different jacket (he asked her about this earlier today), but then spilled chocolate on it, hence the sea-foam green jacket. No news on the fellas' outfits. I'm seeing a lot of black and some blue tonight. Some dark grays, too.

--Sam Rosenfeld

LIBBY V. ROVE; GREGORY AND RUSSERT. News out of the opening statements in Scooter Libby's trial: The defense is going to argue that in the fall of 2003, with the White House under pressure to come clean on its role in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity the past summer, Libby was scapegoated in an effort to save Karl Rove, who, Libby's lawyer said, had pushed the story with reporters that summer. This is a very smart move on the part of Libby's defense, if for no other reason that it make Libby the victim of the one man who may be more intensely reviled than Libby's boss, Dick Cheney. It also complements the Libby defense's apparent intention to suggest that Libby was acting merely as a loyal subordinate to Cheney in taking on the job of responding to Joe Wilson's allegations in the press in July 2003 -- which in turn, they seem to be arguing, explains why Cheney and Libby together sought to get the White House in fall 2003 to put out the word that Libby was not involved in blowing Plame's cover. (These actions are going to be portrayed by Patrick Fitzgerald as part of an effort by Libby to save his job.)

The other big news is that former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer apparently told NBC News' David Gregory on July 11, 2003 that Plame worked at the CIA. Libby's defense will argue that the fact that Gregory knew -- a fact not previously publicly known -- makes it more likely that Gregory's colleague Tim Russert did indeed know about Plame and could have conveyed that information to Libby, as Libby originally testified. There are a couple of challenges this aspect of the defense might face. First, Fitzgerald has suggested the discussion between Libby and Russert took place on July 10, and if he can pin down that date, then it will not help Libby to show what Gregory learned on July 11. Second, Fitzgerald has framed the charges in such a way that even if Russert did tell Libby about Plame, Libby is still liable for testifying falsely when he said that he was surprised by the information, since he had been discussing Plame throughout the June-July period with numerous government officials and one reporter, including a couple of discussions days before Libby's conversation with Russert.

The second reason this news is significant: Fleischer is in fact a prosecution witness who has been immunized. It turns out he initially took the Fifth Amendment before agreeing to testify in exchange for immunity. That obviously provides an opening for the defense to impeach Fleischer's expected testimony that he learned of Plame from Libby on July 7, 2003, when Libby told him the information was "hush hush," and "on the q.t."

UPDATE:Apparently, Fitzgerald is putting on his first witness this afternoon, former Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who is set to testify that in early June 2003 he told Libby that Joe Wilson's wife was at the CIA and had been involved in Wilson's 2002 mission to Niger. Grossman will be the first of a succession of government officials -- at State, CIA, Office of the Vice President, and the White House -- who will testify that they either told Libby or were told by him about Plame's CIA employment in the month before Libby purportedly learned the information from Tim Russert (having forgotten, according to Libby, that Vice President Cheney had already told him that Plame worked in the Counterproliferation Division on the clandestine side of the Agency. Libby was compelled to tell the FBI about his June 2003 conversation with Cheney after finding that he had taken notes on what Cheney had told him).

--Jeff Lomonaco

MARIA LEAVEY MEMORIAL SERVICE. One more reminder for those in the D.C. area about the memorial service for Maria Leavey tomorrow:

Maria Leavey Memorial Service
Wednesday, Jan. 24, 6 pm
Democratic National Committee Building
Wasserman Room
430 S. Capitol St.
Reception to follow at the Democratic Club next door; hors d’oeuvres and cash bar.

--Sam Rosenfeld

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: PAUSE FOR CONCERN. Margaret Morganroth Gullette attacks the media's menopause scaremongering and downplaying of the health risks associated with Hormone Replacement Therapy.

--The Editors

THE PROJECTION OF THE LEGAL SCHOLAR. Benjamin Wittes asks:

Imagine, if you can, all nine justices issuing a single opinion of more than 120 pages -- with no concurrences or dissents -- in a matter as factually dense, politically charged, and legally difficult as the Microsoft antitrust case. Imagine dissents, when necessary, written respectfully and without nasty personal barbs or insinuations of bad faith. Imagine nakedly ideological splits becoming vanishingly rare -- with at least one liberal almost always joining the conservatives or vice versa. How quickly would the public acquire a different image of the high Court? And how much more respect would it then command?

It should also be noted that a similarly naive solipsism is behind Wittes' infamous claim that Roe has been bad for the cause of reproductive rights. His argument, while increasingly common, is so wrong (if not for Roe would abortion be legal in 63 states? Would states and Congress be less likely to pass regulations if given unlimited leeway? Would the pro-choice movement be so powerful that Clinton would have vetoed popular "partial birth" legislation with a nicer pen? Bush would make his long-distance phone call to pro-lifers in Latin? Help me out here...) one wonders how anyone could believe it. As this recent piece also suggests, the answer seems to be that many proponents of the "contrarian" anti-Roe thesis seem to, without a shred of evidence, project the view of the courts held by 1950s-era legal process scholars onto the public. In other words, such arguments are exceptionally implausible not only in specific cases but in their underlying theoretical assumptions.

--Scott Lemieux

THE BIGGER PICTURE. A general note before delving into the actual Libby trial, which got underway in earnest this morning:

The conduct that Scooter Libby is accused of lying about is far from the most consequential of Libby's many damaging acts in the context of the Iraq war. Libby is not on trial for serving up the "Chinese menu" of almost entirely false and misleading claims about the Iraqi threat for Colin Powell to use at his disgraceful February 2003 presentation at the United Nations; for hammering CIA people like Jami Miscik to sign off on the public use of bogus claims about the connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda; or for his almost comic efforts with Vice President Cheney to micromanage the search for WMD in Iraq, sending David Kay's team the purported coordinates of the WMD -- in Lebanon.

Libby is charged with obstructing an investigation by lying repeatedly under oath about how he learned about Valerie Plame's CIA affiliation and how he disclosed that information to journalists. And he is entirely innocent of those charges unless Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is able to convince a jury otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. Criminal investigations like Fitzgerald's are only one, and often the least preferable, form of oversight of government conduct. For a while, however, it was all we had. That is changed now, especially thanks to the Democrats' control of Congress. Yet there may still be little appetite for looking back at the events of 2002-3, and in that regard the prosecution of Libby will offer some useful insight into what remains a crisis for us: the public justification of the war on dishonest grounds and the fallout from it.

Obviously, it is worth examining that crisis again so that we may avoid the same mistakes in the future -- and in this regard, it is particularly appropriate that opening statements in a trial whose context is set by an account of Bush's infamous sixteen words in his 2003 State of the Union are happening on the same day as this year's State of the Union, with the Bush administration again apparently pushing for a confrontation, this time with Iran. There is no sign that any senior policymakers in the Bush administration have learned anything from the Iraq experience, so someone has to learn from it.

But it is also worthwhile revisiting the crisis that unfolded in 2002-3 for another reason: simply to get as accurate an account of what happened as possible. Truths remain powerful weapons in politics, and we are sure to find some important ones in the testimony of witnesses at Libby's trial and in the documentary evidence that each side will be making available to the public at the end of each day that it is introduced.

--Jeff Lomonaco

I WAS WRONG. Alright, unpleasant post to write, but I was wrong: The Bush administration's health plan is a trap. I'd counsel Democrats to oppose it, but that'll hardly be necessary. The surprising outcome would be if they even notice it. And this comes, I hasten to underscore, from someone who was willing, eager even, to give the Bush administration a chance, to believe the Democratic majority had spurred them towards more pragmatic, constructive policy-making. Fool me once...

What the early reports either didn't make clear or didn't know was that the plan's changes to health care deductibility don't set limits, they're creating, instead, a standard deduction of $7,500 for individuals and $15,000 for families. My initial understanding was that those were caps: Above them, you couldn't deduct anything further. Below them, you simply deducted what you spent. That was incorrect. Instead, everyone will get precisely those deductions no matter what they spend. If you're 23 and your health care costs $2,000 a year, you still deduct $7,500, pocketing the difference. It would, in that situation, be economically foolish of you to purchase high quality, comprehensive coverage. And that goes all the way up the line. The intent here is clear: To incentivize the purchase of low-quality, high-deductible care, particularly among the healthy, young, and/or rich. To degrade the risk pool, and encourage HSAs. To reduce coverage, costs, and health security.

It's almost laughably wrongheaded, and won't survive an instant in Congress. Pete Stark, chair of the House Health Subcommittee, has already dismissed the idea of hearings. Other Democrats, I expect, will react much the same. Bush is responding to America's fears of high health costs, inadequate coverage, and increased risks with a proposal that promises to further weaken their coverage, heighten their risk and, when they get sick, increase their costs. It's a wonder he's even bothering. As for me, I made the mistake of extending good-faith to an administration that, time and again, has proven it deserves none. The optimist in me has been grounded for a week, and won't get dessert for two.

--Ezra Klein

THE NAME GAME, CONT’D. OK, here’s my two cents on the subject: How about HRC?

I'm with Ezra on brevity and specificity. And you can’t really get any more brief and specific than three initials that are pretty much as instantly process-able as LBJ and JFK. But I disagree with Ezra on another point. He says that as long as she calls herself Hillary, he’ll call her Hillary. But why should what politicians call themselves dictate what we call them? Ezra, if you’d been blogging in 1973, would you never have employed Tricky Dick?

Mark wants her shown respect. Fine. But his solution doesn’t work, because if we’re going to call her Senator Clinton all the time, then don’t we also have to say Senator Obama all the time? And what about Edwards, who is now just Mr. Edwards? (This thread is getting to be a copy editor’s dream.) I would argue that HRC is respectful in a slightly cheeky sort of way and tonally consistent with the values of the blogosphere.

Incidentally, the use of “Hillary” was a mini-controversy during her first Senate race. She unveiled it, as I recall, at her formal announcement at the gym at SUNY-Purchase in front of thousands. A huge “Hillary” banner provided the backdrop. At the time, Monica still being a fresh memory, some pundits knocked her for not using “Clinton," suggesting that she was so mad at Bill that she wouldn’t even deploy his name. Of course, if she’d chosen Clinton instead of Hillary, some of these same people would have written about how appalling it was that she was trading on her husband’s name and why couldn’t she be her own person, etc. She was a figure of sympathy back then, so insane were her critics about every little thing.

--Michael Tomasky

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SMEARS FOR FEARS. Hey, did you hear about Wesley Clark's recent anti-Semitic remark about support from Jewish organizations for a military confrontation with Iran? Matt did, too, and finds himself worried less about Clark's alleged bigotry than about "the stunning hypocrisy of the anti-anti-Semitism brigades."

James Taranto, who writes the hack "Best of the Web" column for the online version of The Wall Street Journal's hack editorial page, likened Clark's views on this to the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Scott Johnson of the influential and moronic right-wing Power Line blog argued that "Clark's comments are not simply 'anti-Israel,'" and asked "[i]s it a only a matter only of parochial concern to American Jews that they are now to be stigmatized without consequence in the traditional disgusting terms -- terms that used to result in eviction from the precincts of polite society -- by a major figure in the Democratic Party?"

Needless to say, Clark did not stigmatize American Jews. Indeed, he went out of his way to note that the American Jewish community is divided on the issue. Michael Barone's sneering attack on Clark also managed, almost incidentally, to reveal Barone's own understanding that Clark's remarks are substantially correct. Barone observed that it's "interesting to see a Democratic presidential hopeful denounce 'the New York money people,' people whom Clark spent some time with in 2003-04."

And, indeed, it is interesting, for demonstrating the bizarre rules of the road in discussing America's Israel policy. If you're offering commentary that's supportive of America's soi-disant "pro-Israel" forces, as Barone was, it's considered perfectly acceptable to note, albeit elliptically, that said forces are influential in the Democratic Party in part because they contribute large sums of money to Democratic politicians who are willing to toe the line. If, by contrast, one observes this fact by way of criticizing the influence of "pro-Israel" forces, you're denounced as an anti-Semite.

--The Editors

YOU GO, MOM! Having just learned that Senator Clinton (that's Hillary to you, bub) will join Keith Olbermann during MSNBC's coverage of tonight's state of the union address, I humbly ask readers to revisit Dana Goldstein's insightful piece on the political mommy-hacking recently exhibited by Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

These two steely politicians have of course been making maternal noises in public in an effort to soften their images and appeal to the vaunted center. Hill-- I mean, Senator Clinton apparently came away from her husband's 1992 presidential campaign with the shameful memory of her disparagement of cookie-bakers seared into her brain, and remains determined not to repeat the error, alas, long past the point where anybody cares. Meanwhile, Pelosi's crack about exerting her "mother of five" voice over her unruly charges in the House struck me as a condescending. (As one who grew up with four siblings, it also struck me with fear. I know that voice, which often accompanied the rattling of the drawer wherein resided the pancake turner/spanking implement. The somatic memory doth linger.)

Before she flings herself into the arms of Jim Wallis's purportedly liberal antichoice evangelicals or once again prints up reams of her favorite cookie recipe, one would hope that the junior senator from New York, of whom I have been a fan on so many other fronts, would take a lesson from her most obvious attempt to go the mom-and-apple-pie route: her flubbing of the war vote, a flub that could cost her the party's presidential nomination.

--Adele M. Stan

MORE WITH THE SKEPTICISM. An LA Times article today backs up what I wrote yesterday about the Iranian contribution to insurgent weaponry. Actual evidence of Iranian weaponry is rare, and the military has been remarkably reticent about turning over any incriminating examples. Analysts working on the problem have expressed strong doubts about allegations that Iran would be supporting the Sunni insurgency, and have noted that the weapons in question could come from domestic Iraqi or other Middle Eastern sources. U.S. officials have made lots of confident assertions, but have provided little compelling to back those allegations up.

Given the credibility disaster that U.S. intelligence has suffered over Iraq in the past four years, you have to wonder why, if they haven't yet presented any clear, incriminating evidence. I'm brought back to the conclusion, of course, that the Iran link explanation is popular not because of any evidentiary support, but because it's politically convenient.

More from Greenwald.

--Robert Farley

THE NAME GAME. Let me dissent from Mark and J, and agree with Atrios: I'm sticking with "Hillary", at least so long as Hillary sticks with Hillary. After all, I don't actually call Barack Obama "Senator Obama." I refer to him as Barack. I also drop the "Senator" from Edwards, the "President" from Bush, and the "Undead Vampire Feeding Off Our Country" from Cheney.

I decide what to call politicans based on the twin considerations of brevity and specificity. It has to be short (hence no "Senator"s) and it has to be clear. "Governor Schwarzenegger," for instance, is a mouthful, and so Arnold also gets the first name treatment -- no way I'm wasting precious seconds sounding out his four-syllable monster of a last name. Same with Newt. Clinton's problem, conversely, isn't brevity, it's specificity. Another prominent politician shares her surname. Indeed, that's how we know her first name, and why we have to use it. It's not about gender or lack of respect. As you can see from my rigorous methodology, it's about science.

--Ezra Klein

ON THE HEALTH INSURANCE DEBATE: Ezra's post here on Tapped, Paul Krugman's column (behind the firewall at the New York Times) and Joe Klein's contribution on the same issue make a good beginning for another round of debates on how to cure the health insurance crisis in this country. But I'm wondering why it is that Americans must reinvent the wheel every time.

Are there not many, many countries which already have various forms of public and private and mixed health insurance systems? Are there not even countries with fairly similar ethnic and economic profiles? Would it be so very odd to have a look at what they are doing ? Could it be (gasp!) that we could actually learn something from those countries?

Nah.

--J. Goodrich

I AGREE WITH J.! I'd like to see liberal bloggers everywhere, whoever they support for the Democratic presidential nomination, take up one of my crusades, which J. Goodrich alluded to earlier: that the senator from New York who recently announced her presidential candidacy should always be referred to, without exception, as "Senator Clinton."

I've been diligently trying to follow this rule for about a year, in conversation as well as in writing, even in conversation with people who know the senator well enough to refer to her by her first name. It's about as easy as trying to never split an infinitive. Sure, her campaigns encourage it, but to me the first-naming reeks of the over-familiarity that was part of the casual denigration of her and President Clinton. I'm not a formal person, but I don't refer to Senator Biden as Joe or Senator Dodd as Chris and I don't think Hillla -- I mean, Senator Clinton should be any different. It's about respect, not just for her stature, but for her accomplishments.

Perhaps someone should set up an online equivalent of the jar that people sometimes have where they have to put in a quarter every time they swear -- put some money in every time you refer to the senator by her first name, and then put all the money to a good netroots cause. (Of course, we'd probably make even more money off the swearing thing, being "foul-mouthed bloggers" after all.)

And perhaps in exchange we can get an ironclad promise from Senator Clinton and her people that, if elected, she will never, ever let herself be called "44." Let's retire that business along with the Bushes.

--Mark Schmitt

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: 34 YEARS AFTER ROE. Two pieces are up on the occasion of Roe v. Wade's anniversary. Scott issues a forthright defense of the decision on the substantive, legal merits, while also pointing out that the case had more to do with class than is usually understood. Meanwhile, Alina Hoffman and Ann offer a point-by-point comparison between a newly proposed Georgia abortion ban bill and South Dakota's infamous (and now reversed) state ban. Both texts help to reveal the future direction of anti-choice legislation.

--The Editors

BUSH'S COMPANY. Sometimes I forget how unpopular Bush really is:

President Bush faces the nation this week more unpopular than any president on the eve of a State of the Union address since Richard Nixon in 1974.

Nixon was beleaguered by the Watergate scandal; for Bush, three decades later, it's the war in Iraq. With his unpopular troop surge on the table, his job rating matches the worst of his presidency: Thirty-three percent of Americans approve of his work in office while 65 percent disapprove, 2-1 negative, matching his career low last May.

--Ezra Klein

NPR ON ABORTION: Astute media critics often note that the problem with the tone of mainstream media isn't that they favor liberals or conservatives, but that they put an irrational premium on slippery values like moderation, compromise, or reasonableness. The most despicable example would be the way coverage of the 2000 election controversy presumed that ending the divisive court battle was more important than ensuring an accurate outcome. But it crops up all the time, and not just in every David Broder column.

This morning, I heard a report on NPR about abortion. I came in just at the end, as the reporter noted that abortion does not lend itself to finding a middle ground because abortion moderates are much less invested in the issue than partisans of either side -- the implication being that this is a bad thing, because strong political disagreements are always a bad thing in MSM world. The kicker was a sad note that "abortion remains mostly legal, even though many Americans are uncomfortable with it."

Well, this strikes me as a lot of silliness. Why should compromise be so prized on an issue like this one? The two sides are so intensely at odds because it is a question, literally, of life and death. If opponents of reproductive freedom are right that abortion is murder, should the media really encourage them to find a broadly acceptable middle ground? Or, if they're wrong, and what's at stake are women's control over their own bodies and lives, why should reproductive freedom advocates compromise the liberty and safety of women to mollify others' queasiness?

The conclusion, though, certainly skewed anti-choice. One could just as easily conclude the same story by saying that access to abortion grows more restricted each year, despite solid majorities of Americans continuing to support reproductive freedom and the fact that its status as a fundamental constitutional right remains unchanged. The important thing to note here is that the media ought not to report every story with the presupposition that the healthiest democracy is one with no intense political debates, where moderates are always happy. Strong (but peaceful) arguments about competing values are a sign of a healthy democracy, not an endangered one.

--Ben Adler

"PRO-WOMAN," ANTI-CHOICE. If you read the October issue of the Prospect, then much of this week's New York Times Magazine cover story wasn't news to you. Like Sarah Blustain and Reva Siegel did months ago, writer Emily Bazelon explores the anti-abortion movement's move toward an "abortion hurts women" rather than an "abortion kills babies" argument. The piece is still worth a read, as Bazelon goes into greater detail about the invention of "post-abortion syndrome," (which, by the way, research shows does not exist), and has some fascinating details about the anti-abortion activists who "minister" to women.

Plus, on TAP Online today, we've got a breakdown of recently introduced "pro-woman" abortion-ban legislation in Georgia.

--Ann Friedman

STARR ON OBAMA, D'SOUZA ON STARR. Riffing on this New York Times Week in Review piece, our own Paul Starr offers some thoughts on Barack Obama, generation-baiting, and polarization over at his Freedom's Power blog.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Sunday Times, Alan Wolfe wrote a very very shrill review of Dinesh D'Souza's new tome The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, and mentions that Paul is included on D'Souza's hundred-strong enemies list. (In D'Souza's description, it's a "roster of people and groups that deserve the label of domestic insurgents. Here is the litmus test that confirms their eligibility. If you presume that these individuals want Bush to win and bin Laden to lose the war on terror, their rhetoric and actions are utterly baffling. By contrast, if you presume that they want bin Laden to win and Bush to lose the war, then their statements and actions make perfect sense.") Looking at the book's list right now, I see that fellow Prospect co-founder Robert Reich also made the cut, but that Bob Kuttner, Mike Tomasky, and Harold Meyerson got snubbed. Others who made the list include Paul Begala, Senator Jack Reed, and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

As Wolfe mentions, Thomas Frank is indeed, for some reason, listed twice.

--Sam Rosenfeld

CELEBRATING ROE, ANTI-CHOICE STYLE. I marked the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade by attending the Blogs4Life conference this morning at the Family Research Council HQ. A couple observations:

• The majority of anti-choice bloggers, judging by the attendance, are 50-year-old men, several of whom brought their young sons along. Nearly every younger woman I noticed there was attending as a reporter.
• They love to equate the anti-abortion movement with the civil rights struggle. There were a lot of power-point slides featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes and fuzzy photos of smiling black people. See, if you ask Sam Brownback, one of the problems with America is that we treat fetuses as second-class citizens, much like African-Americans were treated in the pre-civil rights era. Does this seem more than a little insulting to anyone else? Saying that black people and fetuses (and really, embryos) should be considered "equally human"? Wow.
• Peter Samuelson, of Americans United for Life (which pushes incremental, state-level anti-choice legislation like parental consent laws and waiting periods), said he is confident that Roe will not be overturned -- it will be made irrelevant by the type of laws his organization promotes. The group only focuses on legislation that polls with public approval of 50-60% or more. "It's incremental. It's step-by-step. It's very effective."
• Did you know that abortion providers EAT FETUSES?! No, really! Jill Stanek told me so today.
• Tony Perkins: "There is something innately in us that tells us as one generation we should give birth to the next." So if you don't want children, you're only lying to yourself.
• There was also much talk about how the annual March for Life never receives any coverage from the "secular media." Quick Nexis and Google News searches reveal this is total bullshit.

And speaking of anti-choicers, Bush called marchers to wish them well and issued an official proclamation naming today "National Sanctity of Life Day." Bush has issued a similar proclamation every January 22 during his presidency.

--Ann Friedman

CLEARING THE FOG. With jury selection just about complete and opening statements in the trial of Scooter Libby set for tomorrow, it is worth briefly correcting a few central misconceptions about the case against Libby that have been seized on by some conservatives, including the editors of the Wall Street Journal (practically the official organ of the Office of the Vice President) to try to discredit the prosecution.

The main misconception is a very simple one: that Scooter Libby was not a real leaker of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA officer, and that therefore Libby had nothing to lie about when questioned in the investigation.

Libby is charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements, not blowing Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA cover by leaking to the press. But the lies he is accused of were precisely intended to cover up his leaking of Plame's identity. If the allegations against Libby are true, Libby disclosed classified information about Plame's CIA employment to the New York Times's Judith Miller -- on three separate occasions -- and to TIME's Matt Cooper once before Robert Novak published his column publicly revealing Plame as a CIA officer on July 14, 2003.

Novak's two sources for his claim that "Wilson's wife" (whom Novak identified as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction") "suggested sending him to Niger" to investigate possible Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium were Richard Armitage and Karl Rove, not Libby. And the mischaracterizations of the case from the Journal and others play to public puzzlement at the fact that neither of Novak's sources was charged. Now, we still know very little about why neither Armitage nor Rove was charged. But it is a mistake to infer from that fact that Libby himself did not participate in any leaking for which he was potentially criminally liable.

Indeed, Fitzgerald has already revealed considerable evidence that at the same time that Armitage was leaking to Novak, Libby was acting at the behest of Vice President Cheney to discredit Joe Wilson, and as part of that effort (whether on his own or at Cheney's direction) leaked Plame's identity to reporters in the hopes of getting Wilson's wife's CIA affiliation out in public.

Novak scooped Miller, who has said that her editor turned down her request to write a story on the Wilsons -- probably at least in part because Miller was being kept on a short leash at the Times as a result of her infamous WMD coverage. In other words: Libby's leaking efforts were indeed a failure, as incompetent as just about everything else that has come out of the Office of the Vice President. But an incompetent leak is still a leak.

According to the charges against him, Scooter Libby constructed an elaborate, highly coherent, and deliberately false story about how he learned about Plame's CIA employment and about how and when he disclosed that information to reporters. Libby's lawyers will argue that Libby in fact had no fear of criminal charges, and no motive to lie, and they may well succeed. But it does a disservice to the public to mischaracterize the case against Libby simply in order to discredit it.

--Jeff Lomonaco

WHY I AM PRO-CHOICE. This year's Blogging For Choice topic is to write about why you're pro-choice. On the merits of being pro-choice, I have an extensive body of work, and I will have a piece coming out here on TAP Online later today about abortion as a class issue. So today perhaps I'll take a slightly more personal tack.

My direct interest in the abortion issue is easily traced. The first court decision I remember hearing about and discussing was R. v. Morgentaler, the 1988 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that ruled Canada's federal abortion legislation unconstitutional. I gave a speech defending it at my high school, and my interest in the subject has never really waned. (One can probably also trace my eventual decision to become a scholar of law and courts back to that decision too, although I would have never dreamed it at the time.) Morgentaler is worthy of examination by American supporters of reproductive freedom, because it addresses some issues that its American counterpart (with the partial exception of William O. Douglas's short, brilliant concurrence in Doe v. Bolton) doesn't. While I strongly believe that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided (1, 2, 3), like almost everybody I find Blackmun's opinion for the Court deficient in many respects. Morgentaler is not the perfect opinion, but is does a much better job with similar legal materials.

The Court in Morgenlater was divided and produced two broad rationales, both of them compelling. The first -- based on procedural due process -- I've already discussed. Canada's abortion law required that a woman obtain a certificate from a "Therapeutic Abortion Committee." (This is very relevant to the American case, because similar legislation was the preferred "reform" legislation in American states as well. Being more concerned with the rights of doctors than the rights of women, it's sort of the holiest of holies for abortion "centrists.") The opinions of Chief Justice Dickson and Justice Beetz meticulously detailed the irrational construction and arbitrary operation of these committees, and correctly argued that a women's fundamental rights could not be violated in such a manner. As I've said before, I like this opinions because 1.) they focus on how abortion statutes work in practice and their tenuous-at-best relationship to protecting fetal life, and 2.) because they call the bluff of the "pro-lifers." The other (and most famous) concurrence was by the first woman to serve on Canada's highest court, Justice Bertha Wilson. I wish that she had linked her analysis to the gender equality provisions of The Charter of Rights and Freedoms rather than making a more straightforward substantive due process argument (although it's embarrassing to Harry Blackmun that her opinion shows much greater command of the relevant American precedents than its American counterpart.) Wilson does, however, explain very eloquently why reproductive freedom is critical to the dignity of women, and her explanation is a good way to conclude a post on Roe's anniversary:

I agree with my colleague and I think that his comments are very germane to the instant case because, as the Chief Justice and Beetz J. point out, the present legislative scheme for the obtaining of an abortion clearly subjects pregnant women to considerable emotional stress as well as to unnecessary physical risk. I believe, however, that the flaw in the present legislative scheme goes much deeper than that. In essence, what it does is assert that the woman's capacity to reproduce is not to be subject to her own control. It is to be subject to the control of the state. She may not choose whether to exercise her existing capacity or not to exercise it. This is not, in my view, just a matter of interfering with her right to liberty in the sense (already discussed) of her right to personal autonomy in decision-making, it is a direct interference with her physical "person" as well. She is truly being treated as a means -- a means to an end which she does not desire but over which she has no control. She is the passive recipient of a decision made by others as to whether her body is to be used to nurture a new life. Can there be anything that comports less with human dignity and self-respect? How can a woman in this position have any sense of security with respect to her person? I believe that s. 251 of the Criminal Code deprives the pregnant woman of her right to security of the person as well as her right to liberty.

--Scott Lemieux

RICHARDSON. Our benevolent web dictator Sam Rosenfeld wants to know if Bill Richardson, "on the substantive merits, [is] worthy of serious consideration by liberals." I think that's setting the bar rather low: Any popular Southwestern governor with a resume like Richardson's is worth considering, the question is what liberals should, or will, conclude.

My experience with Richardson is limited to a breakfast he held last summer. Speaking to a roomfull of progressives, Richardson touted his tax cuts, and his success in convincing more movie studios to film in New Mexico, and averred that he was excited by Bush's Mars proposal and believed Democrats should be "the party of space." It was an odd performance, rather devoid of moral vision or sweeping accomplishments. Richardson's legendarily kinetic bonhomie was on short supply; instead, we got an understated technocrat muttering about growth. His governance of New Mexico has been capable, though not particularly distinguished in any one area, and his record as Energy Secretary would make for some nasty negative ads. he has some notable diplomatic achievements, but that's about it.

All that said, it may indeed be that Richardson has hidden depths, or deep strengths, and liberals should take notice. But there is not some conspiracy to ignore him. On some level, what's interesting is his unexpected notoriety, which has left lots of folks wondering why they don't hear more about this guy they think they should be hearing more about, though no one seems to have a clear idea of exactly what's not being publicized. Reminds me a bit of this cartoon...

--Ezra Klein

THE CASE AGAINST RICHARDSON: A REQUEST. For quite a while now, my go-to Dem presidential candidate pick, when conversations move to that subject, has been Bill Richardson; I've usually said it half in jest, but frankly I've never quite figured out exactly what's supposed to be so unserious and obviously funny about the candidacy of "a popular [Hispanic] governor of a Southwestern state who also has foreign policy experience." At the same time, I don't actually know a great deal of specifics about the guy, particularly about his tenure as governor; I'm curious to hear in comments what people who do think about him.

A few things, of course, I do know and are serious: a history, for example, not only of womanizing but of weirdo, inappropriate public touching. (Not only of females: "He hugs, pokes, jabs and tickles. If he sees a man with a bald pate, he rubs it. Looking to start a conversation, he might lean forward and head-butt someone -- male or female. Bored on an airplane flight? He'll lick his finger and smudge an aide's glasses." The full article conveys the sense of a pol whose old-school style of back-slapping bonhomie turned sociopathic long ago.) But say, Bill Clinton-style, Richardson could make the case that he's put all that behind him, or at least that such personal issues shouldn't rule out his candidacy. Is he, on the substantive merits, worthy of serious consideration by liberals?

--Sam Rosenfeld

IED SKEPTICISM. It's taken as an article of faith in some parts that a large number of IEDs in Iraq are coming from Iran, and that this phenomenon is indicative of clear Iranian hostility to the creation of a stable Iraq. To begin with, there are a couple of logical flaws; even if we accept that many IEDs do come from Iran, it's by no means clear that they cross the border as part of Iranian state policy. There are many, many examples of insurgencies operating across borders (and receiving supplies from foreign actors) without the blessing of either state. The Viet Cong used Cambodia as a shelter and supply depot without permission, for example, and the Irish Republican Army drew heavily on the money of U.S. sympathizers without the direct support of the U.S. government. Similarly, I've yet to see a compelling argument for why Iranian IEDs would end up, as an act of Iranian state policy, in the hands of the Sunni guerrillas who continue to conduct the bulk of attacks against US forces.

Alex at Yorkshire Ranter wonders whether, in fact, there's much evidence to suggest that Iranian IEDs are making it to Iraq in any numbers at all. Noting how easy it is to make even relatively advanced IEDs (there's a reason for the word "improvised" in the title), he points out that British forces don't seem to think there's compelling reason to believe that the weapons are coming from Iran. Given that the British operate in the part of the country (the Shiite south) most likely to see heavy use of Iranian weapons, the skepticism is relevant. It's also important to note how politically convenient it is for the U.S. government to blame instability on Iran. If Iranians are causing the mischief, then it's easier to a) manufacture a reason for hostile action, and b) explain away the utter failure of the United States to quell the insurgency or win the support of the populace.

Via AFP.

--Robert Farley

A FIRST STEP. Let me do the unpopular thing today and tentatively suggest that George Bush's rumored health legislation will be a good thing. If early reports are to be believed, tomorrow night's State of the Union will see Bush set a limit on the deductibility of employer-based health care, capping it at $7,500 for individuals and $15,000 for families. That's not a stingy limit. The average employer-provided health plan, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2006 Employer Benefit Survey, costs $4,242 for individuals and $11,480 for families. And it's not as if plans costing more will be declared illegal. They will simple be taxed, like they should have been all along, with the new tax revenues creating deductibility in the individual market, where the lack of such favorable tax treatment amounts to a 30+% penalty on those unlucky enough to purchase coverage outside of an employer's umbrella. The self-employed will now have the same deductibility -- and limits -- as everyone else.

Early response from many on the left is lukewarm, at best. And, to be sure, dismissing this as useless incrementalism is a fair attack. Bush's plan will do nothing to salve the deeper dysfunctions of the health care system. It will not keep insurers from discriminating on grounds of health and history, it will not subsidize low income workers, it will not create universality, or widen the risk pool, or aggregate buying power, or end the employer tie, or do most anything else that needs to be done.

But so far as incrementalism goes, this is supportable. The full deductibility of employer-based benefits has had nothing but pernicious consequences for the health system, creating and strengthening a structure that traps Americans in jobs, giving employers absurd control over their workforce's health security, and penalizing the entrepreneurial and unemployed alike. And every taxpayer, whether they have insurance or not, is forced to subsidize this unjust, inefficient structure. It's crazy. Progressives should indeed support efforts to sever the Gordian knot tying insurance to employment and, now, with Democrats in control of Congress, should see this proposal as a starting point atop which a yet-more progressive tax change can be constructed.

Taxing high-end health plans may be unpleasant, but a flipside to our health system's many, many losers is that there are quite a few winners, and affordable reforms will, on some level, make them a bit worse off. Were Republicans still in control of Congress, such a risk would be unwise. But they are not. Bush is taking a tentative first step towards a traditionally progressive end: Making the health care system more equal, and untethering it from employers. And this militates towards the ultimate goal as well: If employer benefits cease being so subsidized, and their true cost and inefficiency comes clearer, the case for reform will strengthen. In reality, Bush's proposal may be but a minor tweak that exposes little save the paucity of his vision, but it's an opening through which more comprehensive solutions can stride.

If you want to learn more about this stuff, by the way, the best article is Jason Furman's "Our Unhealthy Tax Code" from the inaugural issue of Democracy.

--Ezra Klein

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY. Surveying state-level health care plans in places like Massachusetts and California, Robert Kuttner warns against teaming up with the private insurance industry -- which should be seen as "less a credible partner than the prime obstacle."

--The Editors

"RE-ELECT HILLARY!" This bumper sticker I saw is an apt summary of both the strengths and vulnerabilities of Hillary Clinton in her newly announced run for the presidency in 2008. Take her strengths first: The little quip reminds us how very experienced and smart a politician she is, how well she has represented her state in the Senate, how fat and peaceful and ... innocent! (yes, innocent, in hindsight) ... those eight Clinton years truly were. And we are also reminded that here is a candidate who served eight years as a close observer of how to run a country. No other candidate can say the same.

But that is also Hillary Clinton's major vulnerability: Her specific work experience is only possible because she is the spouse of a previous president. All this gets to smack of dynasties and hereditary power though perhaps not as strongly as in the case of the Bush presidents. Still, we all think we know the Clintons and that is why the bumper sticker says "Hillary". We are all on first name terms with her. Good friends, you know. Or are we? Perhaps some of us are, but others (especially on the right side of the political aisle) might call her "Hillary" rather than "Senator Clinton" to keep her from growing too large an image. A wife usurping the husband's place! Now there is something for the Promise Keepers to have nightmares over.

Of course no woman has ever been the president of this country, and so Senator Clinton is running both as "Hillary", the woman we all think we know and a representative of a whole gender. Oh, and also as a politician with actual political stances and policy agendas, though that might get lost under all that other delicious speculation.

--J. Goodrich

HILLARY'S MOMMY PROBLEM: Now that Hillary's announced, the media will surely start wondering how her gender will affect her electoral prospects. I think some interesting clues are in my Campus Progress colleague Dana Goldstein's Prospect web piece from Friday. Dana argues that female politicians like Hillary and Nancy Pelosi may actually pay a price for presenting themselves as mothers, as on the cover of Hillary's recently re-released book It Takes a Village.

As Dana points out, voters currently rate terrorism, Iraq and the economy as primary concerns. Would they entrust a person who claims caring for children is one of their primary acheivements, as opposed to, say, winning a war, with the presidency at a time like that? I think Dana is right to argue that the Democrats' "mommy party" image may continue to be a liablitiy in '08 and it is not one that their candidates, especially female one should play into. But I think Dana is wrong to assume that the mommy party stereotype is always a negative one. When Chris Matthews invented the mommy and daddy party dichotomy in the 1980's it was simply descriptive, not a normative judgment. During wartime the mommy party is clearly at a disadvantage. But in 1992, Bill "I feel your pain" Clinton, won on a classic mommy party platform. Of course, women in politics may have an extra incentive to avoid the label. In any case, it certainly seems like a bad strategy for Hillary in '08.

Another interesting question is how much sexism Hillary will face regardless of her campaign style. Dana cites "According to a December Newsweek poll, 86 percent of Americans say they would vote for a female presidential candidate, but only 55 percent believe the nation as a whole is 'ready' for a woman president, suggesting some ambivalence." I think those numbers suggest more than ambivalence, maybe even outright hostility. 86 percent is lower than the proportion of Americans who typically claim that they'd vote for a black or a Jew. And more people claim they would vote for a member of a disadvantaged group than actually will. I think the 55 percent saying the country is ready is more telling--and it's very striking. All the more reason Hillary should not try to further feminize herself as a candidate.

--Ben Adler

WALDMAN WEIGHS IN. Being Right Is Not Enough author Paul Waldman wrote in with the following on the Sciallaba discussion:

I’m heartened that George Sciallaba’s disagreement with me on the question of Democrats relying on what I called “the political broccoli of position papers and policy proposals” sparked some comment (and kudos to Mark for tossing in a Habermas reference!). Unfortunately, Sciallaba seems to suffer from the same belief that has sent so many Democratic candidates to electoral doom: if we just lay all the facts before the public, they’ll see we’re right.

As I argued in the book, what Aristotle understood and every smart politician since understands is that the most powerful political persuasion comes not through logos (facts and reason) but through ethos (the character of the speaker), with a healthy portion of pathos (emotion) mixed in. But that doesn't mean the three are incompatible with each other by any means. I used the following example in the book of an argument that contains all three. It's an ad against "tort reform" that was aired by the trial lawyers. What you see on screen is the young father talking, intercut with still photos of his son in the hospital:

My son Ian was left severely brain damaged by medical errors. He died before his fifth birthday. The insurance company didn’t even want to pay for his care. Now President Bush is siding with the insurance, HMO, and drug companies, trying to end what they call "frivolous lawsuits," while 100,000 Americans like Ian die each year because of medical errors. Mr. President, let’s fix the health care mess, but please stop blaming the victims. My son's life was not frivolous.

This ad contains factual information, but it also has ethos (a speaker with credibility) and a devastating dose of pathos. Maybe it’s because I’m a parent, but I’ve watched this ad a dozen times and read the script a hundred more, and every single time, when he says, “My son’s life was not frivolous,” it gives me chills.

Liberals tend to think it’s somehow illegitimate to appeal to emotion or make elections a contest of character. But there are lots of things people should feel emotional about, and we need to judge the character of our leaders, particularly those who would be president. The problem with press coverage that obsesses over whether John Kerry is an effete elitist or Al Gore is a congenital liar isn’t that it focuses too much on character per se, it’s that it focuses on the wrong things (and that there isn’t enough coverage of issues, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive).

Similarly, the problem with Republican campaigns isn’t that they appeal to emotion and focus on character per se, it’s the way they do it -- and the way Democrats have played right into their hands. To exaggerate a little, the 2004 campaign was Kerry saying, “My ten-point plan is superior to the president’s ten-point plan,” and Bush saying, “If you vote for that chardonnay-sipping elitist, Osama Bin Laden is going to kill you and your family.” The idea that with the proper public-education campaign we can convince Americans to pore over position papers and carefully compare resumés before coming to a well-thought-out decision is not just wrong, it’s utter madness. People who are interested in politics would be appalled by how little the public actually knows about issues. High-minded liberals have been complaining about it since the beginning of the Republic, and though it might get a little better or a little worse, the fundamental fact that we’re not all what Walter Lippman called “omnicompetent citizens” is simply never going to change.

That doesn’t mean you can’t run a campaign that understands this basic fact and is still honest -- and even one that plays to our best instincts instead of our worst. Let’s remember that in the case of civil rights, it was not carefully reasoned legal arguments but dramatic television images of marchers being set upon by dogs and fire hoses and club-wielding cops -- a stirring of the emotions -- that truly turned the tide of white opinion.

And on a bright note, it does seem that the contending candidates for the Democratic nomination understand this. John Edwards's campaign in 2000 was all about ethos -- he is, you may recall, the son of a mill worker (and I still contend that had the Iowa caucus taken place a week later, he’d be preparing his re-election campaign right now). Barack Obama is offering himself as the embodiment of the America we all want to see -- as I’ve argued elsewhere, his we-can-all-get-along-if-you-elect-me message holds out the possibility of a national blue-red reconciliation that is far enough away from any particular policy disagreement that it frees him to hold to an extremely progressive agenda. But his campaign will be about his character, not about a series of ten-point plans. As for Hillary Clinton, well, we’ll see. It’s still unclear just what her message is going to be, what sort of story she’ll tell that provides the justification for her candidacy. Whatever it is, though, I’m guessing it’ll be well-crafted and incorporate the lessons of prior candidates -- which means it will be built on ethos.

--The Editors

A HISTORIC COMPROMISE. There's little I loathe more than a useless compromise that grabs headlines while undercutting serious attempts at reform. So excuse me if this "historic" compromise between everyone from insurers to AARP to Families USA to the American Medical Association leaves me with little but an arched eyebrow and a sense of annoyance.

What're Families USA doing? They're good guys!

This supergroup combining legendarily malicious actors with a couple genuine do-gooders appears to think their latest pact for covering the uninsured ranks somewhere between the Yalta conference and the Treaty of Paris. I must disagree. The plan, as composed, offers three phases for coverage expansion. Phase I insures the kids, gives states some money to experiment, and offers some new tax credits. Phase II we "give the states the option to expand Medicaid eligibility to all adults...below the poverty line." Ohreallycanweplease!? Then it offers subsidies to buy private care.

This is what I'll call an unacceptable plan. It uses the cover of universality -- and I'm not even sure it achieves that -- to sacrifice the necessary, more fundamental reforms needed to make our health system better, fairer, more affordable, more efficient, more humane, and less damaging to personal freedom and autonomy. It is the industry's way of pretending to be part of the reform conversation, and it signals their fear of more substantive changes. That AARP and Families USA jumped on board to offer cover is incomprehensible -- those organizations know better, and they should act better.

In coming weeks, I'll talk more about what a decent health system will look like, and hopefully start a conversation over what progressives will accept, given that most already know what they want. Having those boundaries (the ideal as well as the merely worthy) clearly defined is crucial as we move forward, as this moment progresses, and as self-interested stakeholders try to preserve the status quo by calling minor tweaks "change" and labeling their nonexistent concessions "historic." Those interested in a better system need to be clear on what elements cannot be compromised. This plan, for its part, doesn't compromise a single element of the current mess. All it does is accelerate profits to those already making plenty.

Dr Steve, by the way, has more.

--Ezra Klein

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: THE MOMMY MANTRA. Dana Goldstein explains why the "I am mother, hear me roar" image is one that Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi shouldn't be trying to cultivate.

--The Editors

NPR LIBERALISM. Right on, Sam! Very well put. I read George Sciallaba's multi-book review last night on the bus, and the section Sam noted made me want to call The Nation and demand that they Cancel My Subscription, except the operator in Sioux Falls would probably point out sweetly that according to their records, my subscription seems to have expired in 1993.

Here's the paragraph following the one Sam quotes:

How to accomplish it? ["It" being a diminishment of the influence of "Limbaugh, Falwell, Rove."] I don't know. Perhaps population exchanges or year-abroad programs between blue and red states. Perhaps The Nation should offer free subscriptions to registered Republicans. Perhaps Katha Pollitt and Ann Coulter (or Thomas Frank and David Brooks, or Greg Palast and Matt Drudge) should barnstorm the country, the way Stanley Fish and Dinesh D'Souza did in the 1990s. Perhaps all secular liberals should sign a pledge: Every time one evangelical reads a nonreligious book, one of us will go to church. Somehow or other, someone must sow a healthy appetite for informed, discriminating political argument across large swaths of the electorate where it now appears lacking. Otherwise, public life will become wholly (what it now is largely) a marketing competition, and nothing more.

You don't have reach Rosenfeldian levels of cynicism to be turned off by that. Isn't it enough to say that the first step toward more enlightened discourse is to take people's views seriously and treat them as held in good faith? Would enlightened discourse suggest that instead of offering some sort of deal under which "Every time one evangelical reads a nonreligious book, one of us will go to church," why not just make an effort to learn something about American evangelical protestantism, regardless of whether evangelicals hold up their end of the deal?

(And, by the way, unless you've taken Pascal's Wager, you probably shouldn't go to church as part of a political bargain. You should go to church or temple if the exercise of religion in that form is meaningful to you. And, another thing, incidentally: there are quite a lot of people who are "secular" in a political sense who also do go to church because it is important to them personally. In fact, that's probably the majority of Americans, perhaps even of Nation readers, and one should at least be aware of that.)

Obviously, there are some things that people believe that tend to be pretty unshakable -- views on abortion and gun regulation, for example -- and other things that are much more malleable and subject to debate, and require some knowledge, such as whether single-payer health care, the Schwarzenegger plan, or Health Savings Accounts are the best way to solve problems. It would be good to have better forums for those discussions -- for example, media that might give much more time to them. But it's always going to feel like "a marketing competition" in some ways (Justice Holmes didn't call it "the marketplace of ideas" for nothing) and if you're side doesn't win, it's a lot more effective to think about how you marketed your ideas than to pout about how you would have won but for the lousy discussion.

One of the unappreciated strengths of the "netroots" crowd, by the way, is that they are incredibly realistic and respectful of this element of politics, and nearly immune from the NPR fallacy, even as their outrage at "Limbaugh, Falwell and Rove" is no less than Sciallaba's.

--Mark Schmitt

RETURN OF NEWT. Mark's post below on Newt Gingrich gives me an opportunity to link to this piece I wrote on him last year.

Since publishing his book, Gingrich has been barnstorming the country, particularly the early primary states, warning of worrying portents for a misguided Republican Party. “Tom DeLay’s problem isn’t with the Democrats,” he growled, “it’s with the country.” When The New York Times asked him about Bush’s fiscal policy and the growth of government, he bluntly replied that “Republicans have lost their way.” He’s swinging to Bush’s right on immigration, God, and education, all the topics that excite the conservative base. He’s running, basically, as a radical conservative, just as he did in 1994. Meanwhile, conservatism has become weak, soft, blurry, and undefined. Bush has ignored its principles, DeLay has betrayed its ethics, and the Republican Party has confined itself to radicalism abroad, letting the domestic front drift towards ever-larger government and more expansive entitlements. The moment is ripe for, well, a revolutionary.[...]

[That's why] his new book is as much James Dobson as Ronald Reagan, as much Bob Dornan as Barry Goldwater. It’s classic divide-and-conquer. Grab the disenchanted, dissatisfied portions of the conservative movement, promise them the revolution that they’ve always wanted, and then swarm the primaries. And nobody in modern politics can promise a revolution like Newt Gingrich, the only contemporary political figure to have led a successful one. The question is, can he pull off a second?

BELIEFS MATTER. Sam's certainly right that George Scialabba's multi-book review has some hilarious bad passages, not to mention my nominee for oddest extended metaphor of 2007 (you see, Republicans are like factory-produced meat, and Democrats are like tofu in tamari, and The Weekly Standard is like a slaughter farm, and cliches are like growth hormone, and civic culture is polluted groundwater, and -- oh, sod it!). That said, I'm a little less convinced by Sam's dismissal of the idea that the "New Deal reforms, or those brought by the Civil Rights Movement or during the Great Society came about because Americans of those periods happened to be better informed than today."

If by "better informed" we mean whether they were more capable of carrying out multivariate regressions or reading The Partisan Review for pleasure, then no. But in some fundamental ways, progressives should believe that Americans were somewhat better informed at those points, before the right wing's decades-long demonization of unions, and government action, and risk-pooling, and all the rest took effect. Progressives have an underlying belief system that looks favorably on the capacity of government regulation and communal action and countervailing powers to positively influence the nation. They should indeed believe that a public better informed on, say, the efficacy of many government programs would be more amenable to their solutions. As it is, a public misinformed to believe tax cuts can occur without consequences and Social Security is going to dry up and blow away in 2012 isn't particularly ready to construct a classless socialist utopia a decent social safety net.

"[E]ffecting beneficial political change," Sam writes, "has a good deal more to do with manning and strengthening particular institutions and engaging directly in raw political struggle than it does with sprinkling enlightenment across the land." But that's not either/or, it's both/and. When unions are strengthened, they educate their members about the need for more worker power and economic protection. And when Americans cease imagining the government as the underfunded DMV, and begin seeing it as Medicare and Social Security, they'll become tougher targets for the propaganda campaigns of insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

To enact the progressive agenda, progressives will have to convince Americans of its worth. We will, indeed, have to spread a little Galbraithian enlightenment throughout the land, even as we strengthen our political institutions and engage in bare-knuckle brawls for political power.

--Ezra Klein

THE GINGRICH INEVITABILITY. According to Josh Marshall, John McCain "is going nowhere" as a presidential candidate. (I agree. His high-wire pandering act just got old; it cost him his already long-outdated appeal to New Hampshire independents without gaining him the real trust of social conservatives, and his support for escalation in Iraq is probably the end of the independent McCain candidacy, which was my fear a couple months ago.)

And according to Stu Rothenberg, Rudy Giuliani is going nowhere as a presidential candidate.

And there's every reason to expect that Mitt Romney is going to have some trouble, based on his past "multiple choice" position on abortion, the various other natural entailments of being governor of Massachusetts, and what I'm told is a widespread belief among Protestants that Mormons aren't real Christians. (I've got nothing to say on this; all I know about Mormonism is based on a single late-night skim through The Book in a Marriott 15 years ago. It did seem somewhat less reality-based than the Judeo-Christian tradition.)

But these three candidates, each in some way compromised in his appeal to the Republican base, are nonetheless the front-runners. They're the only candidates who have real campaigns up and running. And they're not going away without a fight.

The most important fact about this is not the particular problems that each of these candidacies have with the party's base, but the fact that there are three of them. Imagine an alternative scenario in which three hard-core conservatives (for example, Rick Santorum, George Allen, and Bill Frist, the three whose careers were destroyed in the last Congress) were splitting the support of the social-conservative base, and there might be room for one slightly more moderate figure -- probably McCain -- to emerge as the alternative.

Instead, there are three of these unreliable characters, which makes it almost mathematically inevitable that if all three stay in the race, and divide up the votes of whoever the non-social conservative Republican primary voters are, and if the conservatives have a single candidate, that candidate will win. Brownback? Huckabee? Duncan Hunter? Newt Gingrich?

My money's still on Gingrich. I know many think that his personal behavior should make him just as unacceptable to the right as Romney or Giuliani, but the right has never seemed to care who you sleep with as long as you say the right things about who other people should sleep with. And he is a figure of stature and name recognition.

Totally unelectable, of course, although having the "definer of civilization" in a debate will surely make for some good television.

By comparison, the Democratic field is a nice, healthy range of old and new faces and approaches, no candidate who is totally unacceptable to the party's base and no candidate who, if he or she could win the nomination, is obviously going to have a hard time winning the general. What an unusual position for the party to find itself in!

--Mark Schmitt

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SAVING GRACE. The New America Foundation's Reid Cramer proposes a new program mandating flexible national savings.

--The Editors

SATELLITE DESTRUCTION. China has destroyed a satellite, joining Russia and the United States as the only countries capable of both putting objects in space and blowing them up. Some angles:

Deterrence: First and foremost, this looks like a deterrent move aimed at the United States. The U.S. military isn't completely dependent on spy satellites (in case of war, the Taiwan Straits would be overflown by enough spy and communications aircraft to make the satellites redundant), but destroying them is a way of chipping away at U.S. capabilitiy, and thus indicating that China can inflict real costs in case of a U.S. intervention in a militarized China-Taiwan dispute. The public way in which the Chinese have carried out this test, as well as earlier "blinding" tests, and the recent submarine-stalks-carrier debacle indicates to me that they're as serious as possible about showing the U.S. their capabilities, which is key to a deterrent strategy. Also, Chinese anti-satellite capabilities don't have to be targeted against U.S. military satellites; the Chinese may threaten commercial satellites as well, which would help to metastasize the costs of any US intervention.

Arms Control: The NYT article suggests that this may be an effort to prod the Bush administration towards a treaty banning anti-satellite weapons. These weapons are bad because they create enormous debris fields that make space dangerous for both satellites and manned vehicles for a long time. Good luck pushing the Bush administration towards arms control, but then again that administration will only be in power for two more years...

Warfighting: As I suggested above, part of any Chinese strategy in an actual conflict will be to reduce the digital and communications advantage of U.S. military forces. Because of the existence of redundancy systems, destroying satellites will only go so far towards accomplishing that goal, but anything that disrupts the complex system that is network centric warfare will be good for the Chinese. We forget that even great powers can choose asymetrical strategies; the German U-boat campaign was clearly an effort to deny the sea to the Allies, even though the Germans couldn't control it themselves. Anti-satellite weapons are a way of denying space to the U.S.

The risk the Chinese run in conducting tests like this is empowering hawks inside Congress and the Pentagon. The Chinese may have decided that the U.S. is too distracted with Iraq to respond, or that the U.S. taste for intervention will wane in Iraq's aftermath. Much more from Defense Tech.

--Robert Farley

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES. In last week's Nation, George Scialabba reviewed a bajillion new liberal books in an essay tackling the state of American democracy and the prospects for progressive reform. Towards the end of the piece, in discussing Paul Waldman's Being Right Is Not Enough, Scialabba writes, "as a mostly logos kind of guy, I was a tad ambivalent about having my nose rubbed so persistently in ethos and pathos" by Waldman. Then we get this passage:

To put it nonmetaphorically: If we want a durably decent society, we have to improve the quality of political discussion. Yes, we will always need to address people's hearts and imaginations. But in the long run, their ability to think, to see through right-wing (and left-wing) bullshit, is even more important. After all, Rush Limbaugh is most dangerous not because he's a right-wing moron but because he's a moron. Karl Rove is most dangerous not because he's a right-wing liar but because he's a liar. Jerry Falwell is most dangerous not because he's a right-wing demagogue but because he's a demagogue. If voters had even a slightly enhanced tolerance for position papers and policy proposals, the influence of Limbaugh, Rove, Falwell et al. would evaporate, or at least be vastly diminished. Isn't that a worthwhile goal?

Second, and more importantly, the modern liberal emphasis on making the public somehow smarter and better informed about politics as the central means of bringing about progressive change has amounted to a catastrophic misallocation of energy. I'm not sure what empirical basis anyone has in mind for such a notion: Do people really think that, say, New Deal reforms, or those brought by the Civil Rights Movement or during the Great Society came about because Americans of those periods happened to be better informed than today -- because, that is, the political discourse was more elevated and sophisticated, and demagogues and morons had a harder time finding an audience? Isn't it a bit more likely -- and, indeed, something of a constant of human societies -- that the "quality" of mass political discussion and the political sophistication of the average citizen have always been pretty tawdry, and that effecting beneficial political change has a good deal more to do with manning and strengthening particular institutions and engaging directly in raw political struggle than it does with sprinkling enlightenment across the land?

I sometimes get accused of unsavory cynicism for harboring such an outlook, particularly since I'm a professional journalist and presumably in the business of seeking to get sound views and information out to people. But I swear, it's an uncynical interest in improving things that makes me hope liberals of all stripes can finally shake off the vestiges of the kind of thinking Scialabba typifies in that passage.

--Sam Rosenfeld

MARIA LEAVEY MEMORIAL SERVICE. For readers in the D.C. area who may be interested, here's information on the memorial service for Maria Leavey next week:

Maria Leavey Memorial Service
Wednesday, Jan. 24, 6 pm
Democratic National Committee Building
Wasserman Room
430 S. Capitol St.
Reception to follow at the Democratic Club next door; hors d’oeuvres and cash bar.

--Sam Rosenfeld

"LOOMING INSOLVENCY." Ben Bernanke urges Congress to skirt disaster by "revamping" entitlement programs, including Social Security. Dean brings the snark.

--Sam Rosenfeld

THE IRAN QUESTION. It's unclear if this will go anywhere, but it's still worth noting: Ari Berman tells us about new legislation introduced today that would require President Bush to gain congressional approval for any military action against Iran. Good for Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones, who's pushing the bill.

--Sam Rosenfeld

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: DISASTER BY DESIGN. Inspired in part by Rajiv Chandrasekaran's new book about the American occupation of Iraq, Rob ruminates today on the connections between conservative ideology and governing practices on the one hand and the fiasco that is the U.S. occupation on the other.

--The Editors

WINDFALL AT THE POST. For fogies like me who read the newsprint version of newspapers, today’s Washington Post -- more particularly, the ads in today’s Washington Post -- was a revelation. In the paper’s A Section, three separate full-page ads appeared from right-wing groups threatened by the advance of Democratic legislation through the new Congress. On page A5, the so-called Center for Union Facts re-ran its ad equating American labor leaders with Kim Jong Il and Fidel Castro, obviously fearing that the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it possible for workers to join unions without fear of management retaliation, will pass the House and command a (not necessarily filibuster-proof) majority in the Senate.

On page A15, Phrma, the drug company lobby, ran an ad against the legislation, already passed by the House, that would end the prohibition on the government’s negotiating prices with drug companies under Medicare Part D. (The very existence of the ad completely undercuts Phrma’s own arguments that the legislation wouldn’t really reduce drug prices. If that’s so, why is it spending money trying to kill it?) Lastly, just when you thought you’ve almost made it to the sometime-safe-haven of the op-ed page, there appears, on A20, an ad from the Employment Policies Institute against raising the minimum wage. That’s three full-page ads -- as many pages as Macy’s purchased (pages A7-9) announcing either its post-Christmas or pre-Ground Hog’s Day sale.

Plainly, the Democratic Congress is already having a measurably positive effect on Post revenues. It is producing legislation that is prompting business lobbies to drop a small fortune on our hometown paper in particular (those ads are nowhere to be seen in today’s New York Times).

What the Post will do with this sudden windfall raises an interesting consideration. Among all its writers, only its op-ed columnists were free to recommend a particular course of action to voters last November, and among all its op-ed columnists, only a relative handful actually opined that a Democratic Congress would, considering the alternative, be the better option for civilization as we know it. The overwhelming question of the moment, then, is whether those columnists will share in the Post’s new bounty. The world awaits with baited breath.

--Harold Meyerson

THE INEVITABLE EXCEPTION: As a quick follow-up to Ann's post, I note one case where fashion trivia about a male candidate was an issue: the endless clown show surrounding Al Gore and "earth tones." (There were some additional rings in the circus, such as Chris Matthews babbling about Gore's deeply significant choice to wear three-button suits: "Is there some hidden Freudian deal here or what? I don’t know, I mean, Navy guys used to have buttons on their pants. I don’t know what it means.") Since this idiocy allowed for plenty of misogynist attacks on Naomi Wolf, however, it's truly the exception that proves Ann's rule.

--Scott Lemieux

THE DEAN OF (GREATER) PRESCIENCE. I concede Matt's point that alleged crazy moonbat Howard Dean foresaw the consequences of the Iraq War and -- more importantly -- the exceptionally weak case for the war with considerable (and consistent) accuracy and detail, more so than Gore. (And, like Gore, was relentlessly smeared and vilified for being on the right side.) For those who missed the update to my last post, see also Jim Webb and Brent Scowcroft.

--Scott Lemieux

SEXISM: SADLY, ALWAYS IN STYLE. Apparently it's time once again to over-analyze the fashion choices made by female members of Congress. At least this story appears, appropriately, in the Style section. (It's particularly maddening when the Times chooses to put basic coverage of women politicians in this section, as if they were still the "Women's Pages." Or when the paper chooses to cover women's fashion in the politics section.) But this is exasperating. We're STILL talking about what female politicians wear just as often as we talk about what they accomplish in the political arena?

Women in politics are still operating in a male world and don’t want to appear as lacking gravitas.

That's true. Men will get called out if they wear something totally inappropriate (see: Cheney's parka at the Holocaust remembrance ceremony), not really for simple fashion choices. It's easy for them (if they want) to avoid calling attention to their clothing. Women, on the other hand, are "marked" no matter what they choose to wear:

[Deborah] Tannen points that women are marked in other ways, too. Most notably by our appearance. We're marked if we wear a short skirt (floozy!), or if we wear a power suit (ballbuster!), if we wear our hair cropped short (dyke!) or if we get a giant perm (stupid secretary!). She notes that men can be marked by their clothing choices or titles, too. The difference is they have the option of going unmarked. That's a choice women never have.

So Nancy Pelosi wears a fashionable nipped-waist jacket, and she's marked as an effective political leader. Condoleezza Rice wears boots; she's marked as a dominatrix. Harriet Miers wears eyeliner; she's marked as begging for Bush's attention. And on and on. Men simply have to choose between a black, navy or gray suits and pick out a tie. And the color of their cravat rarely marks them as anything.

I realize that politicians are public figures, and so people are going to talk about every little choice they make. Including their clothes. But these stories are never about male politicians' physical appearance. So I give Pelosi and her staff props for refusing to talk to the Times for this sexist article.

--Ann Friedman

CONTINUITY. I tend to disagree with Jason Zengerle about various things (today, he finds this John Kerry quote funny and pathetic, but it seems kinda sorta correct to me), but I think his new and fairly positive profile of John Edwards is a good piece, and worth a look. One gets the impression from Zengerle's account that Edwards's latter-day labor-populist outlook has been honestly come by and reflects sincere conviction and interest. If I have a quibble, it's with this early passage, which works in part to set up Zengerle's thesis that Edwards's gloves-off combativeness (in both substance and style) came about largely as a response to the 2004 loss:

...Edwards's persona for the 2008 campaign--that of a combative champion of the working class--seems a strange fit. Although Edwards ran for president in 2004 as a populist, he did so as a sunny one--a disposition that appeared a natural extension of his congenitally cheerful personality. He dubbed his political organization the "New American Optimists" and presented himself as the "son of a millworker" whose later success as a lawyer and a senator was a hopeful story about American possibility. His stump speech, which called attention to the "Two Americas," was less an airing of grievances than a buoyant pledge to bridge the divide between rich and poor. And his policy proposals -- including incremental reform of health care and micro-initiatives to help the poor -- were fiscally friendly as well, showing that his populist heart was governed by a New Democrat brain. [emphasis added]

--Sam Rosenfeld

WHINING BECOMES THEM. I didn't have the presence of mind to take any notes, but was just watching some C-SPAN and was struck by how much the Republicans sounded like, well, Democrats. They complained about procedure ("Democrats didn't even have a committee mark-up! And not one public hearing!" The scoundrels!) and offered long, emotional sermons on the horrors of outsourcing, the decline in manufacturing jobs, and the struggles of ordinary Americans. It's remarkable: In the minority, they sounded exactly like Democrats. At least until it came clear that they were arguing to retain tax breaks for the oil industry.

--Ezra Klein

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: LIKE A ROCK. New Hampshire is holding firm in defying the DNC's new 2008 presidential primary calendar. Could we be seeing a renegade Granite State primary in ... December 2007? Jon Margolis reports.

--The Editors

STRATEGIC LEVEL FAILURES. After some time in the wilderness, I'm coming around to Matt's way of thinking about the U.S. intervention in Somalia. Armchair Generalist puts it well when he writes:

I'm all for a good military operation, but I'd like to know that it was a logical plan with a strategic objective. And merely pointing to the "National Strategy to Combat Terrorism" doesn't count.

I'm not in principle opposed to the idea of proxy wars; regional security depends either on the creation of multilateral regional security institutions or on cooperation with powerful local states, and the former isn't always possible. But, as Matt points, out, there's no discussion about this in Washington, in the media, or really anywhere else. Without any discussion, it's hard to understand the strategic motivations, and extremely hard to believe that the implications of the operation in Somalia and of our alliance with Ethiopia have been fully worked out.

--Robert Farley

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: A FIGHTING RETREAT? As Harold puts it today, "For the Republicans, there are two ways out of Iraq. They can either go out like Eisenhower or like Nixon." He then explains.

--The Editors

THE RUGGED RAGGED INDIVIDUAL Tapped's newest contributor to my obsolescence, Janna Goodrich, makes a terrific point in her post on college affordability:

The "rugged individual" would naturally just saddle the horse, ride off to college, and work full-time through his or her college (most likely a very long and often interrupted) career but such rugged individuals are few, jobs paying enough for this are even fewer, and the whole setup would cause a lot of these individuals to become rather ragged. Not exactly the best case to guarantee upward mobility.

--Ezra Klein

COLLAPSE OF THE FRONTRUNNERS. Bad news for the 800 pound gorillas of 2008 this week. Hillary Clinton, who was still attracting 34 percent of the Democratic electorate as late as last month, has fallen to 22 percent -- only one percent above Obama. That's ominous news for someone of her name recognition and reputation. And perceptions of her weakness may cement if she doesn't improve her current standing in Iowa, where she's tied with Vilsack for 3rd/4th place.

Across the aisle, early news out of an American Research Group poll is that McCain's standing has collapsed among New Hampshire's independents. According to ARG's Dick Bennett, "John McCain is tanking. That’s the big thing [we’re finding]. In New Hampshire a year ago he got 49 percent among independent voters. That number’s way down, to 29 percent now.”

For the overexposed such tumbles might be useful -- get them out of the limelight for awhile, as happened to Kerry in 2004. But the cameras won't abandon McCain or Hillary. Their weaknesses will be broadcast, talked about, trumpeted, amplified. They could be in third place and would still receive the coverage of frontrunners. And that's a dangerous thing.

--Ezra Klein

HOW TO PAY FOR UPWARD MOBILITY? A question that occurred to me when I read about the halving of student loan interest on some types of loans:

With fanfare and substantial bipartisan support, the House delivered Wednesday on the fifth of six bills Democrats had vowed to quickly pass, voting overwhelmingly to cut the interest rate on some college student loans.

The bill, however, was much scaled back from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's campaign promise to cut all student loans in half.

Instead, the House measure, passed 356-71, applies to the 5.5 million subsidized Stafford loans for students whose families earn between $26,000 and $68,000 a year, but would not increase Pell Grants or student tax credits, as originally considered. The bill sets a five-year phase-in of the interest rate reduction from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent, but then, after six months at 3.4 percent, returns the rate to the original percentage.

House Democrats called it a "first step" on delivering some relief to students and their parents as college costs have skyrocketed 41 percent in public universities and 17 percent in private ones, and after college debt doubled between 1993 and 2004, according to the independent U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

"This is only the beginning," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. "This is a down payment."

The bill faces an uncertain future.

Yet education is one of the best engines for upward mobility and poor students cannot afford to pay for higher education on their own. Their families don't have the physical collateral to borrow money in the private financial markets nor the savings to pay for the tuition outright. Financial markets are incomplete in the sense that a student cannot acquire a loan against the collateral of future earning power (except with the help of the government and the rules and regulations to ensure such help). Hence, poor students need either loans guaranteed and/or subsidized by someone or grants and scholarships.

The "rugged individual" would naturally just saddle the horse, ride off to college, and work full-time through his or her college (most likely a very long and often interrupted) career but such rugged individuals are few, jobs paying enough for this are even fewer, and the whole setup would cause a lot of these individuals to become rather ragged. Not exactly the best case to guarantee upward mobility.

But assuming that upward mobility is desirable in a society, who should pay for it? People with degrees earn more, on average, than those without them. It would seem sensible to have the students themselves pay back most of their financial aid as happens in a loan-based system.

On the other hand, the wealthier students often get their educational expenses completely funded by their families. It is as if we gave the wealthier students grants and the poorer students loans. But if we gave poorer students mostly grant-based aid we'd be asking for the rest of the society to subsidize those who are one day going to be wealthier than the average citizen. Two different concepts of fairness or equality are at play here and I'm not sure if both of them could be achieved at the same time.

--J. Goodrich

AL THE PRESCIENT. In comments to my previous post, a commenter brings up an obvious example of a critic of the Iraq War who made many clearly correct arguments: Al Gore. Read his September 2002 speech, and you'll immediately see that claims that the war's critics were inevitably as wrong as its supporters are beyond ludicrous (particularly since the parts of Gore's speech that hold up least well are those where he gives too much credit to the administration and its apologists.) And as Bob Somerby tirelessly reminds us, it's also worth remembering the reaction to Gore's speech. An even more clownish than usual Michael Kelly, for example, opined that it was "very nearly [bereft] of facts -- bereft of anything other than taunts and jibes and embarrassingly obvious lies ... It was wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible. But I understate." John Podhoretz -- whose analysis of Iraq was about as convincing as his claim that the Ron Howard mediocrity (but I repeat myself) Cinderella Man is one of the greatest movies ever made -- sneered that "[i]t is now clear that Al Gore is insane." The idea that Gore and his critics were equally wrong couldn't be sillier.

UPDATE: As Bob notes in comments, James Webb also got it right in 2002.

--Scott Lemieux

LEADING LIGHTS. Some of the most well-known DC journalists are going to be central to Scooter Libby's trial. We know that Tim Russert, Judith Miller, and Matt Cooper will be testifying for the prosecution. The defense has indicated it intended to call a number of journalists, but has not publicly identified them. MSNBC indicated that Andrea Mitchell was one of them, and now The Washington Post has now reported that two of its legendary reporters, Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward, will also be witnesses for the defense.

Pincus will most likely be called in order to testify that when he interviewed Libby about the WMD controversy and Joe Wilson's mission to Niger in the relevant period (June-July 2003), Libby never mentioned anything about Wilson's wife. But Pincus may also testify about one of the enduring mysteries in the case: the identity of the source who disclosed Plame's CIA employment and involvement in her husband's mission to him on July 12, 2003. Pincus has identified his source as a White House official, and leading candidates are former press secretary Ari Fleischer and OVP press person Catherine Martin. (Other possibilities are Stephen Hadley and even Karl Rove.) Both Fleischer and Martin have testimony that is damaging for Libby -- both told the grand jury that they discussed Plame with Libby only days before Libby's conversation with Russert, from whom Libby testified he effectively learned of Plame in the first place. (Russert denies it.) Martin was also present for a key media strategy session with Cheney and Libby on July 12, 2003, after which Libby is alleged to have disclosed facts about Plame to two reporters. It is possible that whoever is Pincus's source is also the prosecution witness who has been granted immunity, which Libby's defense would obviously use to their advantage.

The Post calls Woodward "a key defense witness" and that is probably because he spoke twice with Libby in June 2003 after having learned from Richard Armitage that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Woodward, who withheld the fact that Armitage had leaked to him until after Libby's indictment, even had notes with a question about "Joe Wilson's wife" with him when he spoke with Libby. Woodward has no recollection or indication in his notes that either of them said anything about Plame, but Woodward testified that he could not rule out the possibility, and Libby's defense may use that as an opening to suggest that Woodward told Libby about Plame, which would bolster Libby's grand jury testimony that the information he had on Plame came from journalists.

The only hitch is that Libby also disclosed small portions of the classified October 2002 NIE on Iraqi WMD to Woodward, and that could prove problematic for Libby when Woodward is cross-examined. Libby's defense had filed a motion to keep out of the trial all mention of Libby's selective leaks of the NIE before his leak, with highly irregular presidential and vice-presidential authorization, on July 8 to Judith Miller. If Woodward is going to be a witness for the defense, that may mean that Judge Walton has ruled in Libby's favor.

--Jeff Lamonoco

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: (MOSTLY) WRONG AGAIN. In his column this week, Mike lashes out at liberal hawks who are still -- even now -- taking shots at morally benighted isolationist-pacifist-lefty-peaceniks over the Iraq war, even while conceding that said war is a catastrophe. Mike's unimpressed -- but he does also note that some intellectual challenges remain for anti-war candidates like John Edwards to address. Take a look.

Meanwhile, we'd be remiss in failing to note a few new Tappeders -- Jeff Lamonoco will be offering some posts from the Scooter Libby trial for its duration, while J. Goodrich -- better known to most folks as Echidne of the Snakes -- has also joined the mix, and will be posting regularly.

--The Editors

THE SLIPPERY EEL SHOWS HIS SLIDE. During his career as South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon earned a reputation among the Korean press corps for masterfully evading hard-hitting questions. For this, he gained the nickname “slippery eel,” which I’m told is more affectionate than critical.

During Ban’s speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies yesterday, those present saw precisely how he earned that diminutive.

From his perch in the front row, ABC’s Sam Donaldson asked a genuinely tough question about the circumstances under which Ban could sanction pre-emptive military strikes. But rather than answering the question head-on, Ban appeared to be star-struck and brought the room to full-bellied laughter. “Though I have seen quite many times of you,” Ban said with an ear-to-ear grin in almost perfect English. “This is first time for me to engage in direct dialogue. It’s my great pleasure to meet you in person like this.” And with that, Ban skirted the question.

In all seriousness though, since Ban became Secretary General of the United Nations 16 days ago many on the right -- namely AEI Senior Fellow John Bolton and Brett Schaffer of the Heritage Foundation -- have argued that Ban should be “more Secretary than General.” That is, more of a company CEO than a leader who motivates people to confront humanitarian crises around the world. But for Bolton, Schaffer, and others who would prefer a supine United Nations organization, this is just wishful thinking. Kofi Annan forever changed how people perceive of the role of the Secretary General. The fact that Sam Donaldson bothered to ask Ban about the doctrine of preemption (or that Ban’s first minor dust-up came when the press corps asked for his views on capital punishment) shows that, like it or not, people around the world simply expect Ban to be a global champion for human rights and rule of law.

--Mark Leon Goldberg

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, SO YOU'D BETTER LET ME KEEP DOING IT. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that part of George W. Bush's plan to sell escalation would be to admit failure. Yet in an interview with Jim Lehrer yesterday, that's exactly what Bush did:

Look, I had a choice to make, Jim, and that is - one - do what we're doing. And one could define that maybe a slow failure.

I hope I can FOIA the meeting between Bush, Dan Bartlett , Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove in which they tell the boss, "Look, you've got a credibility problem, so here's what we do: you confess that you bollixed everything up. You're a total failure, a boob, a clown, a jackass. Credibility problem solved! Now people are sure to follow you back into war! And if anyone asks why, just say you've been doing everything right!"

--Spencer Ackerman

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE VANISHING PROSECUTORS. Senator Dianne Feinstein was one of the first to make a public note of the odd disappearance of so many U.S. attorneys, replaced by interim appointments by the Bush administration -- appointments which are not subject to Senate confirmation and which can last for the remainder of the Bush era. Feinstein states:

While the administration has confirmed that 5 to 10 U.S. Attorneys have been asked to leave, I have not been given specific details about why these individuals were asked to leave. Around the country, though, U.S. Attorneys are bringing many of the most important and complex cases being prosecuted. They are responsible for taking the lead on public corruption cases and many of the antiterrorist efforts in the country. As a matter of fact, we just had the head of the FBI, Bob Mueller, come before the Judiciary Committee at our oversight hearing and tell us how they have dropped the priority of violent crime prosecution and, instead, are taking up public corruption cases; ergo, it only follows that the U.S. Attorneys would be prosecuting public corruption cases.

--J. Goodrich

LET'S TALK ABOUT SEX. I think Courtney Martin makes a great argument that the number of drunken acquaintance rapes might be reduced if everyone was more experienced talking about sex, boundaries, and needs. While I think it's at some risk for being interpreted as, "Date rape is women's fault if they can't say 'no' loudly enough" -- which is definitely NOT what she's saying -- the inability to have a mature dialogue about sex and power is a largely unexplored consequence of abstinence-only education. And an under-explored contributing factor to drunken acquaintance rapes.

Abstinence-only indoctrination could also make it more difficult for women to come to terms with the fact that they've been raped. Most curricula drill home the idea that all sex should feel dirty and shameful. So when young people have an experience like (Courtney's friend) Jen's and feel regret afterward, it can be hard to tell whether they feel that way simply because they've had sex -- because they've been taught that all sex should feel bad -- or they feel that way because they were involved in a rape.

But I've gotta say, a standard of healthy, open discussion with teens about sex and power seems like a total pipe dream at a time when we can't even get many school districts to discuss more straightforward topics like contraception.

--Ann Friedman

ARGUMENTS THAT WERE MADE. Ezra points us to Julian Sanchez's excellent rebuttal to Megan McArdle's claim that critics of the war were just a wrong as the supporters. For my part, it's somewhat difficult to respond to McArdle's post, since not only does she argue strictly from anecdote but she also declines to specify most of the allegedly erroneous anti-war arguments. Adding on to Sanchez, it's worth identifying some arguments that were, in fact, in circulation at the time:

• The war would be enormously costly, and the administration's claims that the war could be funded primarily by Iraqi oil revenues were transparently farcical. (As Matt says today, a candid assessment of the costs would have made it impossible to justify the war, and it's obviously false to say that everyone took them at face value.)
  
• The fact that Iraq was riven by ethnic divisions and lacked a strong civil society made it a particularly implausible candidate for forced democratization.
  
• Whether or not Iraq had some weapons that could fall under the essentially useless "WMD" rubric, it did not pose any significant security threat to the United States. (Obviously, possessing chemical weapons that are significantly less dangerous to American civilians than bombs you can build with materials at any Home Depot do not constitute a meaningful security threat, especially since Iraq had no means of delivering such weapons.) There was never good evidence that Iraq had any nuclear weapons capacity, or was anywhere near acquiring it.
  
• Iraq had no substantial connection to al-Qaeda, and was a diversion from pursuing Islamist terrorism in the wake of 9/11.
• The Bush administration was dishonest and incompetent, and even if the war might be a good idea in the abstract in particular the war was unlikely to come out well. Some people (although not me) were smart enough to use this principle to discount any WMD claims made by the American government entirely. As Daniel Davies says, "[g]ood ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance."

--Scott Lemieux

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: WILLFUL IGNORANCE. Improving the sex education our high schoolers receive would do more than reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates, says Courtney E. Martin. It could actually help reduce the number of acquaintance rapes on college campuses.

--The Editors

FROM THE TINFOIL HAT FILES. For those of you not in the know, a tinfoil hat or helmet protects you from the thought waves of evil governments. The tinfoil hat brigade was the name given to those who worried about the lack of transparency in U.S. elections in 2004. Drawing any attention to oddities in the election results got one transferred into this brigade which largely marched outside the field of vision of the mainstream press carrying large placards screaming "Stolen Elections!"

Now a tinfoil chapeau is all the fashion rage, at least in the field of elections reform, and I am pleased with the change. Never mind if past elections have been stolen or not; voting systems which are not verifiable are begging for someone smart enough to steal future elections. At the minimum, it is not good for democracy that so many voters feel cynical about their votes being properly counted.

This should be one movement with real bipartisan support.

--J. Goodrich

SURGE OF NONSENSE. Donald Stoker is correct insofar as he notes that the success record of insurgencies isn't great. Yglesias and Drum note that the successful counterinsurgency campaigns that Stoker points out were fought by local governments rather than occupying powers, which is more or less correct, although there are some definitional problems. The Greeks, for example, relied on direct U.S. support to fight the communist insurgency in the 1940s and 1950s, and several of the other counterinsurgency campaigns that Stoker promotes included both local and foreign forces.

The problem with Stoker's piece is here:

But the strategy of “surging” troops could offer a rare chance for success—if the Pentagon and the White House learn from their past mistakes. Previously, the U.S. military cleared areas such as Baghdad’s notorious Haifa Street, but then failed to follow up with security. So the insurgents simply returned to create havoc. As for the White House, it has so far failed to convince the Iraqi government to remove elements that undermine its authority, such as the Mahdi Army. Bush’s recent speech on Iraq included admissions of these failures, providing some hope that they might not be repeated.

--Robert Farley

POLITICAL REALITY SHOWS. Glenn Beck being hired by ABC's Good Morning America and now the rumors that Michael Smerconish is being considered for a talk show of his very own on CNN made me think about how close these political talk shows have grown to reality television. The more outrageous the better, especially if the host is from the radical right wing of the political spectrum. It's as if we decided to create an opinion show on peas, with some people liking them and others not caring for them very much, and the obvious choice for a host would be someone who routinely sticks peas in his nostrils.

--J. Goodrich

TRADE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. An interesting remembrance from Nobel prize winning economist and former chief economist of the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz:

[T]he agenda got seized. In the book I talk about how in the last round, patents and intellectual property rights got shoved into the WTO. The result was that access to generic medicines was reduced, forcing poor countries to pay very high prices that they cannot afford. That agreement, signed in Marrakesh in 1994, was in effect a death warrant for thousands and thousands of people in sub-Saharan Africa.[...]

One of the most amusing ones I talk about is the patent on basmati rice, or on the medicinal use of turmeric. In the latter case it was actually an Indian doctor working in America that took out the patent. These are examples of what I call an unbalanced intellectual property regime. Interestingly, I was on the Council of Economic Advisers at the time, and in the office of science and technology policy, we thought these intellectual property provisions were not good for even the United States. They weren't good for science in America or for global science, and we opposed them. But in the end the drug companies and the entertainment industry prevailed.

--Ezra Klein

BUT A DREAM. Look, I'm going to assume that this is just a false awakening, and I'm still asleep, and even though it sure feels like I woke up, and came to the office, and read the Wall Street Journal, this story suggesting Bush will push a progressive and smart change in the tax code is the sort of cognitive disruption that's going to jolt me back to consciousness any second. In which case, I better write this post quick.

According to the WSJ, Bush is going to make another go at health reforms. The centerpiece of his coming proposal -- which'll include all the normal HSA and electronic records shenanigans -- would be a change to the way employer-based care gets deducted. As the law stands, there's no limit. The gold-plated, diamond-encrusted plan is fully deductible. The Bushies would cap that, exposing some of that high-end compensation to taxation, raising billions of dollars.

As I said, this is clearly a product of my fevered nighttime imagination: The hundreds of billions the employer health care exemption costs in lost tax revenue (which, of course, is made up elsewhere) amounts to a massive, regressive wealth transfer from the un-, under-, and self-insured to the well-off. But does that really sound like the sort of giveaway Bush has made his career fighting against? And the article suggests the new revenues will go to subsidize low income Americans? I think I hear my alarm clock...

Bonus Poll Number!: According to the article, 34% of Americans think health care should be the government's top priority, making it #2 behind Iraq, and ahead of both terrorism and job creation.

--Ezra Klein

GUEST STAR OF THE LIBBY TRIAL: CHENEY. Jury selection began today in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney, on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements. Opening statements are expected early next week. (I'll be doing a few posts from the trial here on Tapped.) This trial is the first and, for all we know, the only fruit of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's three-year-long inquiry into how the cover of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was blown and whether anyone violated the law in doing so.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton has been emphatic in keeping the trial focused on Libby's alleged lying about his conversations with reporters Tim Russert, Judith Miller and Matt Cooper in July 2003, which Fitzgerald has charged was part of Libby's effort to obstruct the investigation. Despite this narrow framing of the issues at trial, however, it will be