Mankind has never been healthier, wealthier or freer. Surprised?

Indur M. Goklany is the author of The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet. Here, from an excerpt of his findings:

the 20th century saw the United States’ population multiply by four, income by seven, carbon dioxide emissions by nine, use of materials by 27, and use of chemicals by more than 100. Yet life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. . . and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today. . .

Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled, from 31 years in 1900 to 67 years today. India’s and China’s infant mortalities exceeded 190 per 1,000 births in the early 1950s; today they are 62 and 26, respectively. In the developing world, the proportion of the population suffering from chronic hunger declined from 37 percent to 17 percent between 1970 and 2001 despite a 83 percent increase in population. Globally average annual incomes in real dollars have tripled since 1950. Consequently, the proportion of the planet's developing-world population living in absolute poverty has halved since 1981, from 40 percent to 20 percent. . .

Why have improvements in well-being stalled in areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world? The . . . “cycle of progress” [includes] property rights, free markets, and rule of law. . . science- and technology-based problem-solving . . . Isolation, intolerance, and hostility to the free exchange of knowledge, technology, people, and goods breed stagnation or regression.

The Truth about Africa

Did you think Africa is backwards because it started behind? World Bank veteran William Easterly, writing in the Wall Street Journal, chides the West for pushing in Africa “state direction by the states least able to direct.”

Look at modern Africa’s history, Easterly says:

Sub-Saharan Africa. . . this month marks the 50th anniversary of its first nation to gain independence, Ghana (Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s father, pictured). . . There has been progress in many areas over the last 50 years. . . yet the same poor economics on sale to Ghana in 1957 are still there today. Economists involved in Africa then and now undervalued free markets, instead coming up with one of the worst ideas ever. . .African governments are not the only ones that are bad, but they have ranked low for decades on most international comparisons of corruption, state failure, red tape, lawlessness and dictatorship. . . the results of statist economics by bad states was a near-zero rise in GDP per capita for Ghana, and the same for the average African nation, over the last 50 years.

Why was state intervention considered crucial in 1957? Africa was thought to be in a "poverty trap," since the poor could not save enough to finance investment necessary to growth. Free markets could not get you out of poverty. The response was state-led, aid-financed investment. . .The U.S. in 1776 was at the same level as Africa today, yet it escaped the poverty trap. . . [Also] Western Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Latin America [left] poverty . . . without a state-led, aid-financed "Big Push." In the ensuing 50 years, there have been plenty more examples of poor countries which grew rapidly without much aid -- China and India (who each receive around half a percent of income in foreign aid) being the most famous recent examples. Meanwhile, aid amounted to 14% of total income year in and year out in the average African country since independence.

Something to Watch?

The Madrid Auto da fe of 1680. An auto da fe is literally a “judicial sentence or act of faith,” usually ending with the public burning of heretics.

In the auto da fes of 2007, people lose their jobs, not their lives. But some modern version of the Salem witch trials is underway in the world of political correctness.

Time columnist Michael Kinsley notes that Los Angeles Times editorial page editor Andres Martinez was driven to resign over the discovery that his girlfriend works for a PR firm used by Hollywood producer Brian Grazer. Martinez had invited Grazer to be a guest editor for the paper’s opinion supplement called “Current.” Kinsey says part of what’s wrong here is that the LA Times, not Grazer, benefits from Grazer’s free services. Kinsey is also alarmed that the paper’s star political reporter, Ron Brownstein, was removed from reporting duties and exiled to the opinion pages merely because his wife works for John McCain.

The Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick has a more sinister story of censorship:

two students at Cambridge University's Clare College . . .dedicated an edition of their satire magazine to the one-year anniversary of the global Muslim riots which followed the publication of caricatures of Muhammad in the Danish Jyllands Posten newspaper. As the students recalled, those riots led to the deaths of more than a hundred people. . .

In their magazine, the students published some of the caricatures and mocked the Muslims for their hypocrisy in accusing British society of racial prejudice while calling for its violent destruction. The Muslim reaction was apparently swift. Fearing for their lives, the students were forced into hiding.

But the Muslims were not alone in their anger. Clare College set up a special disciplinary court to consider action against the students. And the Cambridgeshire police opened a criminal investigation against them in late February.

Meanwhile, from State College where I’m visiting my grand-daughter, comes this story about Penn State’s women’s basketball coach:

Rene Portland resigned Wednesday night, ending a successful, yet sometimes controversial 27-year tenure . . .Portland, who amassed 606 wins and built a perennial Top 25 program at Penn State, also faced allegations that she may have discriminated against lesbian players. She leaves just one month after settling a lawsuit by former player Jennifer Harris, who alleged Portland had a "no-lesbian policy."

Portland, 54, was hired . . . by Penn State football coach Joe Paterno during his short stint as the school's athletic director. Paterno has said on numerous occasions that hiring Portland was the "best decision" he ever made as athletic director. . . Portland also is an outspoken proponent for women's athletics and has championed Title IX, the law which promotes gender equity in sports. She also has donated two scholarships to the university and has raised money for numerous charitable causes.

Islam Takes on the West

Bernard Lewis, “the West’s greatest scholar of Islam”, recently delivered an important lecture on “Europe and Islam”. It would be worthwhile for you to read the entire lecture. In it, Lewis notes that:

two [religions] have claimed that their truths are not only universal--all religions claim that--but also exclusive; that they . . . are the fortunate recipients of God's final message to humanity, which it is their duty . . . to bring to the rest of humanity, removing whatever obstacles there may be on the way. This self-perception, shared between Christendom and Islam, led to the long struggle that has been going on for more than fourteen centuries . . .

Lewis maintains the struggle continues today, because Islam remains determined to prevail. The Muslims, Lewis posits:

have certain clear advantages. They have fervor and conviction, which in most Western countries are either weak or lacking. They are self-assured of the rightness of their cause, whereas we spend most of our time in self-denigration and self-abasement. They have loyalty and discipline, and perhaps most important of all, they have demography, the combination of natural increase and migration producing major population changes, which could lead within the foreseeable future to significant majorities in at least some European cities or even countries.

But we also have some advantages, the most important of which are knowledge and freedom. The appeal of genuine modern knowledge in a society which, in the more distant past, had a long record of scientific and scholarly achievement is obvious. They are keenly and painfully aware of their relative backwardness and welcome the opportunity to rectify it. Less obvious but also powerful is the appeal of freedom. In the . . . Islamic world . . .the idea of freedom in its Western interpretation is making headway. It is becoming more and more understood, more and more appreciated and more and more desired. It is perhaps in the long run our best hope, perhaps even our only hope, of surviving this developing struggle.

Media Leans Left—Just Ask America

The latest Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet/ Zogby Poll reports that the “vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well – 83% of likely voters said the media is biased.” And of those who saw bias, nearly two-thirds (64%) said the media leans left. According to Zogby:

While 97% of Republicans surveyed said the media are liberal, two-thirds of political independents feel the same, but fewer than one in four independents (23%) said they saw a conservative bias. Democrats, while much more likely to perceive a conservative bias than other groups, were not nearly as sure the media was against them as were the Republicans. While Republicans were unified in their perception of a left-wing media, just two-thirds of Democrats were certain the media skewed right – and 17% said the bias favored the left.

Am I impressed with the 17% of Democrats who owned up to the media’s liberal bias? You bet.

“It Takes a Village”—Another Look

Passionate, well-informed people differ because we are human. We deal with differing interpretations of history, we emphasize different facts, we have differing needs we use public dialog to support and re-enforce. One hesitates, as one should, to swing around absolutes like “truth” and “evil” as clubs against those who think differently. As humans, we can guarantee ourselves to be mistaken, ill-informed, and blindingly biased some of the time. Humility is in order.

My way of looking at the world is the way of Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958):

Pluralism, with the measure of “negative” liberty that it entails, seems to me a truer and more humane ideal than the goals of those who seek in the great disciplined, authoritarian structures the ideal of “positive” self-mastery by classes, or peoples, or the whole of mankind.

“Negative” liberty doesn’t say people are equal. They are different. They should be free to realize their full potential, insofar as one can without taking away from someone else’s full potential. In politics, recognizing “negative” liberty means one person, one vote. In economics, it’s the capitalism that frees each to build one’s own business. Billions with the power to act freely makes the world prosperous and peaceful.

“Positive” liberty begins with wrongs the collective must right on behalf of classes of sufferers. It’s what kings and popes did then. It’s what ruling elites do now. Parents don’t raise children. Villages do. Recognizing the right of outsiders to play a role in raising the next generation—a role possibly outside that which the parents themselves want—is the key first step to collective rule, to elite rule on behalf of us. “Villages” may seem benign. They aren’t always so.

“It Takes a Village”--Not

Different commentators share concerns about political correctness, about hypocrisy, about unrestricted abortion, and about attacks on Christianity. These all relate to the elite's telling us what to do. If “it takes a village” to properly raise a child, then the family has turned over to the state its primary duty. Censorship, hypocrisy, devaluation of human life, and attacks on religious faith may follow.

Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says that Bill Maher’s wishing for Dick Chaney’s death and Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a faggot are “Tourette's-like” reactions to the pressure people are under to speak politically correctly. Political correctness censorship holds sway not only for public speech, but extends its pressure to everyday, private conversation. Noonan notes, “We are very good at letting people know that if they say something we don't like, we'll shame them and shun them, even ruin them.”

The Hoover Institution’s Victor Davis Hanson takes on the hypocrisy of both liberals and conservatives who live the high life while calling for public sacrifice (Gore’s megawatt-eating Nashville mansion comes in for additional attention). To Hanson, “Debt, drink, drugs, gambling, lotteries and sex all happen without much restraint or rebuke - and our most prominent are often the most susceptible to these new appetites. In modern American life, ‘do you own thing’ on a charge card is the new national gospel.” The ruling class, in tune with the national zeitgeist, asks us to watch what we say, not what we do.

Ann Hulbert, in the New York Times, finds “Generation Next” (the ones after Gen X) slightly blurring the sharp cultural divide their Baby Boomer parents drew through American politics. While the younger generation is less religious and more tolerant of homosexuality—views one might expect from today’s youth—the Pew Research Center poll also showed 18-25 year olds slightly less supportive of abortion than their elders. Hulbert suggests that tolerance plus concern for life may mean a generation giving “priority to children’s interests.”

Steven Warshawsky is a Jewish agnostic who writes in defense of Christianity. Warshawsky takes on critics of the religious conservatives who dominate today’s Republican Party. Warshawsky states:

As a Jew, I am deeply grateful for this nation's Christian heritage. No nation on earth treats Jews better. . . Most, if not all, of the values and principles that we hold dear -- the dignity of the individual, freedom of conscience, political and economic liberty, representative government, and so on -- are inextricably intertwined with the Christian culture that produced, developed, and/or sustained them.

Reagan said, “Our country was built [on] belief in God, love of family, neighborhood, and good, hard work.” In defending Christian America, Warshawsky adds:

One of the hallmarks of American conservatism is that we reject . . . elitist, top-down interference in the daily lives of our citizens. Unlike liberals -- who claim to know how the rest of us should live -- conservatives respect the rights of individuals and communities to govern themselves.

A Good Week for the Post

The Washington Post has written an editorial about the Plame affair that is so on-target, it reminds all conservatives just how great newspapers can be. Much like Victoria Toensing mentioned here earlier,whose commentaries the Post published, the Post distributed criticism to all parties involved. Regarding Joseph Wilson, the Post said:

A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of [Wilson’s] claims were false -- and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife. When this fact, along with Ms. Plame's name, was disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak, Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson. . . The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity -- and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert.

More importantly, the Post reminded us what outstanding investigative journalism looks like. The Post’s exposure of conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital’s outpatient treatment center was so thorough and damning that Bush had no choice but to fire almost everyone involved, right up to Army Secretary (his Defense Secretary had already departed).

Journalism should not be about going left, it should be about getting it right.

Early Stage Iraq Surge Brings Little Change

Here’s our latest monthly, highly abbreviated version of the Iraq Index, published and updated twice a week by Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution:



Americans Killed in Action, Iraq (monthly average)
2003: 32
2004: 59
2005: 56
2006: 58
2007: 70
February: 66

Americans Killed in Action, Vietnam (monthly average)
1965: 128*
1966: 420
1967: 767
1968: 1140
1969: 785
____
* = First U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam, 5.3.65
Vietnam table compiled by Galen Fox using Defense Department sources.

Crude Oil Production (m. bbls./day)

Prewar Peak: 2.50
Goal: 2.10 (Revised downward, 1/07)
actual: 2.08 (2/07)

Electricity (megawatts)

Prewar: 3,958
Goal: 6,000
actual: 3,600 (2/07)

Since our last monthly report, the American KIA total dropped from January's 73. Please note: the number of KIA is almost always lower than the media-reported total of American deaths, which includes deaths from all causes, hostile and non-hostile. Our figures for Iraq and Vietnam are KIA only.

Oil production in February nearly reached the recently-lowered target of 2.1 million barrels a day. More important, the Iraqi cabinet in February approved an oil revenue sharing agreement that may provide Sunnis a reason to support a unified Iraq.

Electricity output remains low, having risen slightly from January's 3,560 megawatts.

Libby Lied, Clinton Lied, Media is Consistent

Victoria Toensing, who blasted media treatment of the Valerie Plame affair, post-Libby verdict has updated her comments. Since Toensing helped write the law that determined Plame wasn’t “outable”, her continued criticism of Fitzgerald’s prosecution is worth reading.

Why does the media that protected Clinton when Kenneth Starr was attempting to impeach him for perjury and obstruction of justice now glory in a guilty verdict for Scooter Libby on the same charges? Do they have no shame? Aren’t they just monuments to hypocricy?

I say no. The media is being perfectly consistent. Lying doesn’t matter. Obstruction of justice doesn’t matter. What matters are the underlying motivations. In Clinton’s case, the motivation was benign. The sex he had with Monica Lewinsky was consensual, and his lying to protect the parties involved was understandable.

Libby, on the other hand, was part of a White House smear operation designed to exploit the media’s desire for leak-fueled inside information, one that put a leading reporter in jail, disrupted the lives, and raised the legal costs of, several others. Libby along with his bosses deserved to be punished. Fitzgerald is as good as Starr was bad. Justice prevails.

I too am consistent. Perjury and obstruction of justice do matter. They matter in and of themselves. Both Starr and Fitzgerald did the jobs they were paid to do, and both Clinton and Libby, who lied under oath, should have paid for their crimes.

What Would JFK Have Done?

Harvard’s Graham Allison is telling us what President Kennedy would say to “his successor” (I guess we don’t say Bush, because nobody takes Bush seriously any more, so he would really be talking to Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton) about how to handle Iran:

Lesson One: . . .the use of military muscle should be a last resort. . .For JFK, force was the hand inside the glove of diplomacy. . . Kennedy . . . orchestrated . . . options short of war. . .

Lesson Two: President Kennedy famously said, "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."

Lesson Three: The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. . . small steps that avoided confrontations that could lead to a nuclear war neither country would survive. . .

Kennedy did a great job with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But we were fortunate to escape without a nuclear exchange that would have been civilization’s greatest disaster. Khrushchev lost his job within a year because of the humiliation the USSR suffered at Kennedy’s hands. For most Democrats, Kennedy’s muscular liberalism is best remembered for defending, then overturning the Roman Catholic Diem regime in non-Catholic South Vietnam. The experience taught liberals to avoid most foreign wars.

Allison’s analysis currently seems a bit outdated as a critique of Bush administration foreign policy. Bush may have achieved a major success in Korea through multilateral negotiations and an agreement based upon “small steps.” Iran may be next.

Persecuting Christians for Sport

So now comes James Cameron, the Titanic guy, to claim Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had children, and was buried in an upper-class family tomb in Jeruselem, making the New Testament a pack of lies. How does this get any attention at all? Because millions of intelligent, secular liberal Americans have had it with Christianity, especially the Christianity that bonds together to elect George Bush president. If Christians are responsible for Bush and Iraq, then damn them. You go Cameron! You go Dan Brown and Tom Hanks! Down with Mel Gibson and other neo-Nazi Jew haters! The culture wars continue in full scream.

Cameron gets serious attention for a related reason. Its just lots of fun to watch Christians get so worked up over the latest assault on their faith. And the irony of piling on the Christian faith at a time when the entire Western World, without exception, is super-sensitive about saying anything negative about Islam’s greatest prophet—oh, such rich and lovely irony! Isn’t the stiff-necked world of 1957, the world of Hillary’s parents, so wonderfully, joyfully upside-down!

Seriously, seriously, it is impossible for a calm, thinking person to treat Cameron seriously. One understands how relics helped the Catholic hierarchy provide something concrete for illiterate peasants to hold onto, but Christianity isn’t about relics. It’s about the New Testament-- important documents written within two generations of Jesus’ death. Jesus lived, and non-Christain, near-contemporary Romans wrote about his crucifixion. Jesus may not have bodily risen to sit at God’s right hand. But everybody around him thought he did, and it’s the most important single belief in Christianity. So the people who hid his body must have wanted that site kept very secret.

Cameron’s tomb relics are for ignorant non-believers who are the 21st Century’s mirror image of the Church’s peasant-worshippers of Jesus’ prepuce.

Fox Beats FOX

Brit Hume's "Political Grapevine" yesterday reported the very item on Al Gore's energy consumption that this blog featured a day earlier. While this blog's jump is due to the normal news cycle's timing, it's great to beat the pros. Gore's office told FOX News that Gore "is signed up for a program to consume 100 percent green power — has installed solar panels and uses compact fluorescent bulbs."

How’s This for an “Inconvenient Truth”?

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a nonprofit research organization committed to free market solutions, reported that Al Gore’s Nashville mansion (20 rooms, 8 bathrooms) consumes more electricity monthly than the average American household uses in a year. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, and Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—over 20 times the national average.

Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month to 18,400 kWh per month.

“No Child Left Behind”: Modest Success

The Economist takes a look at Bush’s effort to improve public schools. Tests, especially the nationally-administered “Assessment of Educational Progress,” have brought increased accountability to public education. And scores have risen slightly (see chart). But systemic rewards tied to passing scores mean superior students and those farthest behind get less attention than those on the cusp.

Like Steve Jobs, The Economist has little respect for teachers unions:

The toughest obstacle to improving the worst is the strident opposition of the teachers' unions to meritocracy. . . [B]ad teachers are nearly impossible to sack. . .So the worst teachers linger for ever, while many talented people who might otherwise become teachers shun a profession where their talents will be neither recognised nor rewarded.

All this would be technically simple to fix. Tenure could be abolished, principals could be allowed to hire and fire freely and teachers could be paid by results. School funding could also be made dependent on how many parents choose to send their children to a particular school, so that good schools would expand and bad ones would close or be taken over. But all this is politically impossible—especially with the Democrats, who grovel to the teachers' unions, in charge of Congress.

Throw $$$ at Public Education? Really?

Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby finds an unknown scholar at U.C. Davis, Peter Lindert, whom he says has published a “magisterial” work (apparently, the word “excellent” no longer suffices) justifying “quality” tax and spend programs. Mallaby notes that while Democrats are returning to power, they are collectively reluctant—“with the notable exception of John Edwards“—to endorse tax increases.

Unfortunately, education is the first example Mallaby gives of a “quality” spending program justifying a tax hike. If you believe that throwing more money at public education is a “quality” investment, than you are a Democrat, and John Edwards will help you.

More useful to public education’s future: the outspoken opinions of Apple’s Steve Jobs. According to the New York Sun, Jobs told an education reform conference audience:

“I believe that what's wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way.” . .unionization, Mr. Jobs argued, [constrains] schools from attracting and retaining the best teachers and from dismissing the less effective ones. This, in turn, deters quality people from seeking to become principals and superintendents. "What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good? Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, ‘I can't win.'" Mr. Jobs. . . concluded by saying, "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

Put Steve Jobs in charge, and millions would support hiking taxes to help schools.

More Media Miscues

Victor Davis Hanson takes apart Newsweek’s cover story comparing Bush to Ahmadinejhad in their mutual lust for war. Newsweek is using the logic of those who equate Bush with Hitler.


Hanson blasts the story’s authors for heavy reliance on anonymous sources, including:


• a senior Coalition adviser
• a U.S. official involved in the talks
• a participant who asked to remain anonymous
• Asking not to be named
• a diplomat who asked not to be identified
• a White House official
• A senior British official
• an Iranian intelligence official

Writers who quote anonymous sources can literally put any words they want into sources’ mouths.

There’s much more, and one should read the Hanson critique in its entirety. Hanson reminds us that Newsweek falsely claimed U.S. soldiers had toileted the Koran, a story that resulted in several unnecessary deaths.

Victoria Toensing is a Washington lawyer who helped write the law that would punish anyone who “outed” a CIA covert agent. Toensing knew from Day One that Valerie Plame wasn’t “covert” under the law. Toensing rips into a host of people and institutions for mishandling the Plame leak investigation, beginning with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and also including The Washington Post, which published her commentary. Like Hanson’s, Tonesing’s article should be read in full. Toensing specifically:

CHARGES THE MEDIA with hypocrisy in asserting that criminal law was applicable to this "leak" and with misreporting facts to wage a political attack on an increasingly unpopular White House. To wit:

Notwithstanding the fact that major newspapers have highfalutin', well-paid in-house and outside counsel who [should have known Plame wasn’t a covert agent], the following publications called for a criminal investigation:

· The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

· The Boston Globe

· The New York Times

Toensing said The Washington Post, which reported that "two White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife . . . to undercut Wilson's credibility," inspired the other papers’ actions.

Republicans Need Interest Groups

Democrats aren’t alone in viewing the electorate as a collection of interest groups. Mike Allen and John Harris, in Politico, report that Republican political guru Karl Rove feels the GOP needs to score gains in four areas:

Suburbanites: "The heart of our party is married couples with children, but they are also those that are most prone to be mobile in our society and hence less linked into politics."

Younger voters: "That's where you set in motion things that come to pass not in a matter of an election or two, but a matter of a decade or two."

African-Americans: "You can't claim to be a great political party if you're getting 9 or 10 or 11 percent. One of the interesting things about the 2006 election is that we appeared to make gains in the African-American community even while we were losing a national election."

Latinos: "This group is rapidly growing. We do well among them in some elections and not well in others."

Allen and Harris add that Rove has a special interest in those who, like him, attended college but did not graduate. Rove’s current passion is the link between education and income.

Comment: While going after the African-American vote is symbolic—designed to show Republicans aren’t the racists they once were, Rove’s other three groups are key for Republicans to have a future in an increasingly suburbanized, multi-ethnic America.

Not only is the connection between education and income important, but also Republicans are America’s best hope for progress on improving schools. Democrats are wedded to the teachers’ union-dictated status quo.

A Democrat's Market Approach to Universal Health Care

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) follows healthcare closely. According to Micheal Barone, Wyden wants a bi-partisan path to universal health care. Wyden:

notes that government single-payer health insurance -- the goal of some senior liberal Democrats in Congress -- was rejected by the voters of his liberal state by a four-to-one margin. He also notes that we don't have employer-provided auto insurance -- we buy that out of after-tax earnings. He argues that people should be able to buy health insurance as members of Congress and federal employees do, from an array of choices offered by private insurers.

He's looking [for] a political deal. . .Bush's standard deduction and a private insurance market in which consumers would have incentives to hold down costs. . . [and] universal coverage, with subsidies for low earners to pay for coverage. . . [A]dditional revenues from those with policies worth more than $15,000 [would] subsidize low-earners.

. . . Democrats. . .who seek more government provision of healthcare will probably be uninterested. But [there’s] the apparent success of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. Many Democrats believed that seniors would have a hard time choosing policies from an array of choices and that they would end up being gouged by private insurers. But polls indicate that the vast majority of seniors are pleased with the results. . .

Stakeholders

What a remarkable chart! Chris Shays is the only Republican representing any of America’s five wealthiest congressional districts, and Shays barely held his seat last November. Shays won by just 6,600 votes, squeaking back only by publicly crawling away from Bush and toward the “get out of Iraq” voters who dominate his district. Wealthy people support liberal Democrats.

The American elite is liberal, because “liberal” doesn’t mean what it used to. Our elite, as with all elites, wants to hold on to what it has, and fights hard to do so. As economist Robert Frank wrote, "Animals will fight viciously to protect territory that they hold, but they won't fight nearly as hard to extend their territory."

America’s establishment turned liberal in the 1960’s, and secular liberalism is now the establishment’s religion. As we have said, liberals dominate the permanent government, the media, entertainment and the arts, academia, and philanthropy/non-profits. Liberals and conservatives divide big business and religion. Of the elite groups, conservatives dominate only small business and the military. The media is especially fierce in defending its current power position. No wonder conservatives want to change the status quo.

Liberals have a word that helps nail down their continued control: “stakeholders.” Democracy is about people, voters, and capitalism empowers people, consumers. But when we legitimize “stakeholders’” as a special category, we further entrench the status quo. “Stakeholders” are mostly parts of the Democratic coalition—the recognized leaders of labor, Hispanics, African-Americans, women’s causes, and other defined pressure groups.

This big, gummy mass makes it harder for America to turn the wheels of change.

Common Myths about Iraq

1. Iraq is too immature to be a democracy.

India proved sixty years ago that a multicultural, poor country can become democratic.

2. Iraq is entirely separate from the war on Islamic Extremism.

The Islamic extremist war against the West has two major camps—Shia Iran and al-Qaeda. Both gain from a U.S. defeat in Iraq.

3. We’ve been in Iraq too long—World War II lasted less than 4 years.

More Americans died in the first month of World War II than have died in Iraq so far. It’s ethnocentric to say World War II began in December 1941. Japan invaded China in 1937.

4. We can’t afford the cost of Iraq.

Military spending during Vietnam was 9.2% of GDP, and was 6.2% during the Reagan era military build-up. It’s currently at 4% of GDP.

5. Too many Americans have died in Iraq.

American combat deaths in Iraq have averaged 2 a day each year of the war. In Vietnam’s fourth year, American combat deaths averaged 38 a day.

6. The American people voted to get out of Iraq.

American failures in Iraq and Republican corruption, symbolized by the Mark Foley scandal which Democrats knew about in advance but held for the election, accounted for the Democrats’ victory in November. Given a choice between staying to win in Iraq or leaving without winning, the American people remain divided.

7. Bush lied about WMD.

Saddam’s own people, even Saddam himself, thought Iraq had WMD. Saddam had WMD before, had used them, and was obstructing UN inspectors at every turn.

8. Bush lied about Iraq seeking yellowcake from Niger.

Ex-Ambassador Joe Wilson reported that Iraq was trying to get yellowcake from Niger, then lied about his findings in an effort to damage Bush politically. Wilson worked for Kerry during the 2004 election.

9. Bush lied about al-Qaeda in Iraq.

As Christ said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Because Saddam so hated the U.S., al-Qaeda’s 9.11 success threatened to bring these two U.S. enemies together. Saddam’s wealth and pursuit of WMD made Iraq a particularly dangerous base for al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S.

10. Bush won’t listen to his military advisors.

The U.S. military is no monolith. Some criticize Bush for putting too much faith in military advice. Presidents have to fire generals who fail.

11. Our record in Iraq is one of continuous failure.

The initial war succeeded. Iraq held three successful elections and formed a unity government. Most provinces are free of the insurgency. Al-Qaeda insurgents succeeded in generating a vicious cycle of sectarian violence in Baghdad by destroying a year ago the Shiites’ most holy Golden Mosque of Samarra.

12. We should negotiate with Syria and Iran, because they share our interest in avoiding an Iraqi civil war.

Syria and Iran share an interest in seeing the U.S. out of Iraq. Negotiating with them would be like negotiating with North Vietnam to end our involvement in that conflict. It’s called surrender.

13. We needn’t worry about Iran annexing Iraq. Ahmadinejhad has such a weak hold on power that Western economic pressure will bring him down.

The ayatollahs who are Iran’s true rulers seem quite pleased with Ahmadinejhad’s aggressive, anti-Western actions.

The Poor Get Richer

According to the Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal 2007 Index of Economic Freedom, economic freedom is increasing worldwide, and so are incomes. The index’s average freedom score is the second highest in its 13 years of existence, only slightly behind last year’s, and every global region has expanded freedom in the last decade. The report finds that the higher GDP rates that come with economic freedom "seem to create a virtuous cycle, triggering further improvements in economic freedom. . .[C]ountries that increase their levels of freedom experience faster growth rates."

Two reports accompanying the findings make the case for expanded freedoms. Columbia University professor of economics Xavier Sala-i-Martin destroys the myth that the income gap is widening:

when population weights are factored into the equation, the evidence shows that "individual income inequality declined substantially during the past two decades. The main reason is that incomes of some of the world's poorest and most populated countries (most notably China and India. . .) converged rapidly with the incomes of OECD citizens."

And Swedish economist Johnny Munkhammar notes that while Europe’s more advanced economies restrict labor freedom at the cost of low growth and high unemployment,

"many Eastern and Middle European countries experiment successfully with freedom." Contrary to socialist views, labor freedom and improving social conditions actually go together. . . "If the world wants to achieve both more jobs and better living standards, [labor] freedom is essential."

Not Edwards

Here is how John Edwards proposes to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons:

we ought to put an offer of both sticks and carrots on the table. We ought to make it clear that there are things that America and the Europeans are willing to do [including] making the nuclear fuel available to them, . . . combining that with a set of economic incentives that will be very attractive to the people in, in Iran who’re already feeling an isolation from [Ahmadinejhad]. And then on the stick side say, “But there will be consequences if you don’t give up your nuclear program. And the consequences are the economic decline that you’re seeing within your own country will be accelerated, . . . because the bank—the banks in Europe and the European governments will not continue to do economic business with Iran.”

Edwards cannot be taken seriously as a possible president.

During his Sunday “Meet the Press” apppearance, Edwards also came out strongly for raising taxes to finance universal health coverage—in effect, socialized medicine. Edwards is the same person who ran in 2004 as the senator from North Carolina, the only moderate in that year’s field of liberals. Since he couldn’t even carry North Carolina (or South Carolina, the state of his birth) for Kerry-Edwards, he has now gone completely to the far left, trying to outflank Obama, a genuine, committed progressive, and Hillary, who has always been a progressive at her core. Edwards’ trial lawyer background makes him suspect to begin with. So his open pandering to the Democrats’ leftist primary base on Iran and national health insurance raises even deeper questions about Edwards’ core beliefs.

Hillary will win if she can run ahead of Giuliani and McCain in the polls; that takes care of the only strike against her. That’s how it was with Nixon in 1968. Once polls showed Nixon could be elected president, party faithful were only too happy to nominate him.

Obama? He’s running successfully for Vice President.

Iraq: Oil Production Target Lowered

Here’s our latest monthly, highly abbreviated version of the Iraq Index, published and updated twice a week by Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution:



Americans Killed in Action, Iraq (monthly average)
2003: 32
2004: 59
2005: 56
2006: 58
Jan. 2007: 73

Americans Killed in Action, Vietnam (monthly average)
1965: 128*
1966: 420
1967: 767
1968: 1140
1969: 785
____
* = First U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam, 5.3.65
Vietnam table compiled by Galen Fox using Defense Department sources.

Crude Oil Production (m. bbls./day)

Prewar Peak: 2.50
Goal: 2.10 (Revised downward, 1/07)
actual: 1.66 (1/07)

Electricity (megawatts)

Prewar: 3,958
Goal: 6,000
actual: 3,590 (12/06)

Since our last monthly report, American KIA's dropped from December's 91. But 73 KIAs is well above the average for last year, or any year. The mainstream media closely covered the sharp rise in KIA's in December, but has unsurprisingly made little reference to the monthly total for January.

Authorities dropped the oil production target substantially in January, from 2.5 million barrels a day, the prewar peak, to just 2.1 million barrels a day. December's output was above that target, but January production dropped to only 1.66 million barrels a day.

Electricity output remains low during the winter, though it rose slightly in January from December's level of 3,500 megawatts.

Games People Play

As I’ve suggested, it’s alarming how little the West notices the serious threat to our way of life.

Some person named Barry Casselman thinks the way I do:

the West is in denial of what is truly happening in the world. This self-delusion is the most dangerous response possible to the intense and rapid change all over the planet. This self-denial takes many forms, including obsessions with abstract issues of little real consequence, e.g., animal rights, capital punishment, celebrity gossip, political correctness, etc. It is accompanied by the rise of secular mandates and the suppression of spiritual values. It exhibits excesses of greed that threaten both capitalism and representative government. The malign forces that conspire against the West, however, are not paralyzed. They are moving and growing at great speed.

Global Warming: The Tyranny of "No Debate"

Clive Crook, writing in the National Journal, wants a rational look at global warming solutions, which he views as impossible in the current “poisoned atmosphere (forgive the expression).” To even begin the discussion, Crook goes through a ritual denunciation of Bush, saying his “ill-founded and appallingly executed war has discredited all of the administration's foreign-policy,” and “by skewing his [tax] reforms so outlandishly in favor of the rich -- when the incomes of the highest earners were leaping ahead in any case, and when middle-income households were doing much less well -- Bush has discredited that whole line of thinking.”

But most of all, Bush has made calm discussion of global warming impossible. Crook writes:

there is no such clarity on the costs of climate change -- not even on the costs of the warming experienced so far (that question, in fact, get surprisingly little attention). As for future warming, it seems close to certain that it will happen, but determining how much is very difficult. . .My point is this. The awesome obtuseness of the administration on the issue has created a falsely confident and passionate opposing consensus. . .

Focused on opposing Bush, the global-warming consensus has no appetite for complications and doubts of any sort, about how big a problem this is going to be, or about the best ways of addressing it, even though some of those ways might be immensely expensive. . .For instance, some experts have credibly criticized the economic forecasts underlying the IPCC's simulations on technical grounds. That is apparently impermissible: The critics were immediately dismissed as climate-change deniers.

Another example: In thinking intelligently about how to respond to climate change, policies aimed at adaptation should be weighed alongside steps to slow the rate of warming. Some mixture of the two is sure to make the best sense. Again, however, to talk of adaptation -- to talk of weighing costs against benefits in any methodical way -- is to be regarded as an ally of the White House.

Relax. We're a Superpower.

although Islamist extremists can certainly do huge amounts of harm around the world, it is quite different to suggest that they can threaten the existence of the United States.

Prof. David A. Bell, John Hopkins University
Los Angeles Times 1.28.07

Here are some reasons liberals oppose the Iraq war:

• “Pre-emptive” wars are wrong, making us the bad guys.

• War undermines efforts to redistribute resources at home.

• War is a Republican tool for retaining power.

• War is unnecessary, since Islamic extremists don’t threaten our way of life.

While pre-emptive war is suspect, we learned with World War II that it’s better to go after aggressors sooner rather than later. While war takes resources from worthy programs at home, war’s worth it if we face a genuine threat. On the other hand, while Republicans are serious about protecting America, if the threat isn’t real, Republican warriors do look suspiciously political.

So it comes down to “How real is the Islamic extremist threat, anyway?” It seems that millions of Americans, and most of the rest of the world, believe America is a superpower fully capable of defending itself against any small band of terrorists. They believe this, even though the combination of 9/11’s success and the portability of weapons of mass destruction suggests otherwise. Their belief sets aside what we know about terrorism’s asymmetry. Small groups of people willing to lose their lives are able to inflict incredible damage on a society.

Can Islamic terrorists threaten the existence of the world’s superpower, to put the danger in its most extreme form? A few nuclear weapons, or a coordinated chemical or biological attack on our major cities, could cripple the world’s leading democracy, and yes, it could transform America as we know it. Are we right to organize against this threat, and carry our defense to Islamic extremism’s homeland?

Here’s an easy way to answer the question. Do you feel America is run by rational people who have our nation’s and the world’s best interests at heart? Or do you feel irrational people have captured America who will do anything, especially exaggerating a foreign threat, to hang on to power?

If you don’t trust our leaders, then I guess the right battle to fight is the one for political control at home. Forget going overseas.

Trouble is, the leaders are rational. The threat is all too real.

The Answer Is More Democracy

Fouad Ajami, writing in the Wall Street Journal, offers yet another penetrating analysis of where things are going in the Middle East. All commentators are unequal in their insight, and Ajami on this subject has no rival.

For one thing, Ajami is right about how our Middle East allies help generate external conflict to stave off internal reform:

We should not be apologetic, in Arab lands seething with bigotry and rage, about our expedition into Iraq. We shouldn't fall for Arab rulers who tell us that they would have had the ability to call off the furies had we had in place a "process" for resolving the claims of the Palestinians, and had we been able to "deliver" Israel. Those furies have a life of their own: In truth, they are aided and abetted by these same rulers in the hope of tranquilizing their own domains and buying off the embittered in their midst.

So I listen to Ajami when he says success in Iraq rests significantly on one act—sharing oil revenue with the Sunnis—that may soon take place:

Against all dire expectations, the all-important question of the distribution of oil wealth appears close to a resolution.

Baker-Hamilton Support Iraq Troop Surge

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, writing in the Washington Post, stresses how important securing Baghdad is to our success in fighting Islamic extremism. In doing so, Hadley points out something of which I was unaware—the Baker-Hamilton report not only supported such a goal, it also supported a troop surge to reach that goal. Hadley writes:

The Baker-Hamilton report supports . . . “a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces [emphasis added] to stabilize Baghdad . . . if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective." Our military commanders, and the president, have determined just that.

“Can’t we all get along?”

Just as I pronounce Democrats stuck in a ‘60s time-warp, along comes Mort Kondracke to make the same point as he pleads for the “beyond partisanship” politics the people are demanding, and that Schwartzenegger and especially Obama are (thankfully) offering:

Obama had it exactly right in announcing his presidential exploratory committee last week. “America has faced big problems before,” he said. “But today, our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, common-sense way. . .Obama represents a new generational sensibility — a pragmatic post-boomer attitude trying to bypass the ideological hang-ups of boomer veterans of the Vietnam and cultural struggles of the 1960s [emphasis added]. . .[T]he new politics is coming because the public wants it. It will just take courage and vision to give it life.

Democrats’ State of the Union

Responding to Bush’s State of the Union address, James Webb said, “not one step back from the war against international terrorism, [but] allow our combat forces to leave Iraq." Huh? Steny Hoyer said we ought to get out of Iraq so we can battle terrorism in Afghanistan. What?

Here’s why I believe Democrats aren’t the party of hope. First, they don’t have a serious foreign policy. Second, their domestic policy is stuck in a ‘60s time warp.

An unserious foreign policy. Democrats admire Kissinger’s strategy for exiting Vietnam—hold peace talks with the opposition, and use some variation of the words “peace with honor” to substitute for surrender. Kissinger’s realpolitik, like that of Austria’s Metternich whom Kissinger admired, used diplomatic skills to cover a weak hand.

In 2007, the U.S. is hardly weak. Instead, the Democrats’ haste to retreat from the difficult struggle against Islamic extremism is more like our position at the end of World War I, when a party anxious for the White House played on isolationist sentiment to force a powerful U.S. off the world stage. The world paid a heavy price for that shortsighted American bout with isolationism.

If you are serious about foreign policy today, serious about organizing globally to combat Islamic extremism including its Shia Iranian variant, you belong with Bush, Rice, Gates, Hadley, Petraeus. If you are an aspiring foreign policy consigliere for Democrats, you must accommodate yourself to that party’s domestic-driven agenda, and preach peace talks. Democrats believe someone else will take care of Islamic extremists. . . or at least should.

An outdated domestic policy. History moves forward in surges. Years go by with no major changes, then major events change everything. The two searing events of the ‘60s were the civil rights revolution exactly 100 years after the Civil War, and the struggle to get us out of Vietnam. Democrats led both, won both, and can’t get past their victories, which combined to say America’s business is living equality at home, not dying to support capitalism abroad.

Democrats reordered American society, with the feminist revolution following the one that ended segregation. Democrats also gave us big government, inflation, unemployment, high taxes, affirmative action, and an unfinished campaign for single-payer national health insurance. As a result, Republicans under Reagan, Gingrich, and Bush captured power, reduced taxes, fired up the economy, and recharged a global drive for freedom that protects and enhances our way of life.

The choice. Business people are by nature optimistic. They must believe in the future to invest hard-earned money in hope. Our economy improves because people dare to risk. The genius of capitalism is leaving economic decisions to the people, millions, billions of them, enabling us all to reach our full potential.

Government people are pessimists who look for problems to justify government programs, including residual inequalities facing minorities and women. In the ‘70s, we learned government messes up the economy. In the ‘80s, we learned government messes up public education. Yet the Democrats’ policy agenda remains where it was in 1968: more government, higher taxes, smart people deciding what’s best for the rest.

Hope means hoping we don’t go back a generation. Hope means faith in the individual, in expanding opportunities for ordinary people to best handle their own future.

More freedom, more capitalism, peace at last.

Did Our Vietnam Intervention Save Southeast Asia?

Mark Moyar, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, argues that U.S. support for South Vietnam was far more successful than portrayed by journalist-historians such as Neil Sheehan. For one thing, says Moyar, U.S. involvement kept Indonesia from going Communist:

The military leaders of Indonesia, the most important Southeast Asian domino, informed the US in February 1965 that their future willingness to stand up to the pro-Communist President Sukarno and the massive Indonesian Communist Party would depend upon America's actions in Vietnam.

"President Johnson should learn to use his power and should hit North Vietnam hard," said General Marjadi in explaining why American inaction was discouraging the generals from taking a firm anticommunist position. "The prize for victory in Vietnam is all of Asia. Asia respects power, and has no respect for weakness or for strong people afraid to act." Indonesian generals later said that US intervention inspired them to oust Sukarno [pictured] and work to destroy the Indonesian Communist Party in late 1965.

Blog at One: Still Preaching Hope

This blog, one year later, still believes the combination of capitalism and democracy, leading to peace, will bring us a better world.

There’s nothing wrong with Tories--those who defend established institutions. We’ll always have Tories. But it helps to be clear just who the Tories are.

In 2007, the Democrats are defenders of the present, and the Republicans are the force for change. How can this be? Don’t Democrats stand for égalité, which we hardly have, and Republicans for liberté, a word used to justify capitalist oppression? Yes, but liberty, freedom, is about each person having their own ideas, making their own way in life, and for most of the world, this is our as yet unrealized dream.

The irony of “equality,” and the irony is rich indeed in the whole history of Marxism, is that somebody has to make life equal. Enter government, to “level the playing field.” The idea of someone else making our life better is as ancient as Plato's Republic. In the 20th Century, it's the Big Idea that failed.

In the Democrats’ ideal world, the “levelers” are the best and brightest. They graduate from the best schools. They win top jobs on merit. They gain power in the battle against capitalists by acting on behalf of the masses, i.e., they are “the vanguard of the proletariat.” They are academics, government servants, journalists, lawyers, NPO executives, Hollywood writers, actual mass leaders including union leaders, leaders of minority groups, women leaders of the Democratic Party. They rule on our behalf, a national elite, operating under the motto of the National Honor Society, noblesse oblige. They are Tories, protecting the status quo, threatened by independent-acting masses.

The Democrats are Tories not only in being our elite, but also in giving their affection to Europe. European elite education. European sophistication that has moved beyond Christianity. European socialism; European welfare statism. European love of small or non-existent families. European abhorrence of war and killing. European disgust with common Americans. Most of all, Europe’s sense that the elite has earned its leading role, and must either civilize or otherwise bend under those who threaten it. There is entitlement, and there are illegitimate pretenders to power.

So little of this description fits Republicans like Reagan, Bush, or Giuliani. But for Democrats, it works—Democrats like Kerry, Gore, Edward Kennedy, Howard Dean, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barbara Boxer.

Republicans were the dominant party in America when America was a string of small towns (Main Street, Sinclair Lewis, 1920). Towns had a hierarchy, but everybody went to the same church, the same school, the same socials. They talked to each other. They helped each other. Farmers were freemen, they weren’t tenant farmers like those who farmed for Tories. No, this was America, the land of the free!

Democrats are associated with cities, and the party grew with the importance of cities, the industrial revolution, immigration. Today, immigrants find it hard to relate to small-town, homogeneous Republicanism. They are more comfortable with cities. Cities are bigger, more impersonal, seemingly more in need of government and elite rule disconnected from the masses. Cities are European.

The suburbs are America’s political battleground. Suburbs’ link to central cities is obvious. But people move to suburbs because they yearn for the intimacy and caring of small town America.

The media and the entertainment industry are so city, so Tory, that to them, America’s Republican base is invisible. It's "fly-over country." I believe the Tories fear their loss of power, fight change, and feel despair where Republicans see hope.

Since Reagan’s election in 1980, Republicans have stood for hope, for the better life that comes from free economic competition, free choice in education, less government, increased individual responsibility. And Republicans support the hopeful world that comes from spreading democracy abroad. Since Reagan arrived in 1980, Republicans have had two bad elections—1992, when Bush 41 failed to make the economy work, and last year, when Bush 43 failed to win in Iraq. Otherwise, because Republicans offer hope to Tory cynicism and fear, and because Americans remain a hopeful people, Republicans have once again become America’s party.

Obama is right. The people want hope.

The China Century

TIME’s cover article on China treats the emerging giant as the dominant 21st Century power, a potential threat to a declining U.S. The article also notes that:

China is still a poor country whose leaders face so many problems that it is reasonable to wonder how they ever sleep. The country's urban labor market recently exceeded by 20% the number of new jobs created. Its pension system is nonexistent. China is an environmental dystopia, its cities' air foul beyond imagination and its clean water scarce. Corruption is endemic and growing. Protests and riots by rural workers are measured in the tens of thousands each year. The most immediate priority for China's leadership is less how to project itself internationally than how to maintain stability in a society that is going through the sort of social and economic change that, in the past, has led to chaos and violence.

To repeat myself, we can’t be certain about China’s future, but “China’s leadership” more easily manages the country’s “social and economic change” because of the rapid, yearly growth capitalism has brought to China.

More on Berger and the Media

Former Boston University Law School Dean Ronald Cass asks hard questions here about the media’s failure to ask why former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger destroyed classified documents relating to Al Qaeda. Is the media protecting Hillary’s future?

The definition of the end of civilization is when you can’t separate the police from the criminals. By that logic, the definition of the end of democracy is when you can’t separate the governing party from the media.

In Washington today, the media aren’t doing their job.

Media MIA

I said earlier we need to pounce on documented evidence the media aren’t doing their job. Here are two such examples.

1. Joel Mowbray indicts media for ignoring former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger's unbelievable record of document destruction:

While Berger's "punishment" was a pittance of a fine, former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin has been financially ruined and sentenced to 12 and a half years for passing along far less-classified information to unauthorized third parties. . .[W]hat excuse is there for the wildly different media coverage of the two cases, both of which came to public attention in the summer of 2004?

. . . One man verbally disclosed classified information devoid of sources or methods. The other snuck five different versions of a top-secret document out of a secure facility. One was a low-level career bureaucrat, while the other was just a few years removed from being the president's national security advisor. One man cooperated with authorities and didn't even retain a lawyer before being interrogated, while the other lied to investigators and then intentionally destroyed evidence. . .

Of all the articles about Berger's case . . . only one made it to the front page of either The Washington Post or the New York Times. Coverage of Franklin's case, however, earned that distinction more than a half-dozen times. . . The mainstream media's palpable disinterest in the Berger case is hardly justified. Many questions remain unanswered. Of the few explanations Berger and his defenders have actually provided, none passes the laugh test.

2. Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., writing in the National Journal about American war heroes in Iraq, discovered the media ignore the living:

3,463 Bronze Stars with V have been awarded since September 11, 2001. That's about the same figure as the total number of U.S. troops killed since then in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Every dead warrior leaves behind a story of tragedy and loss. Every medal winner leaves behind a story of dedication and courage. Sometimes the two are the same: A soldier is killed in action and is decorated posthumously. But the vast majority of these heroes, like Sgt. Stone, are still alive; many, like him, are still in uniform. It is much harder, however, to learn about the valorous living than about the valorous dead. Major media outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and PBS's NewsHour regularly display photos of those killed but rarely of those decorated.

Pelosi Power

Linda P. Campbell, writing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
underlines pretty heavily the point made here that Democrats aren’t red or blue, they are the party of Pink Power:

Nancy Pelosi has campaigned as "A Voice That Will Be Heard." And anyone who's had a strong mother—or been one—can attest to the true meaning of that slogan. . . Pelosi told CBS' 60 Minutes that being speaker would enable her to "show the American people that women know how to use power" . . . The new Congress will include 71 women in the House (50 Democrats, 21 Republicans) and 16 in the Senate (11 Democrats, five Republicans). . .

So Pelosi ranks third in the U.S. leadership structure, the highest a woman has ever ranked, and 22% of House and Senate Democrats are women—44% of the way in each house to 50:50 parity!

Then there’s the obvious. In a presidential election Democrats will be favored to win, the most likely winning ticket—Clinton/Obama—is headed by a woman.

Pink Power.