Topic: Politics

It's widely understood that if you want to control a country, you need to control its media. The disastrous rise of Serbian nationalism wass aided and abetted by Yugoslav state television, while in Rwanda the call to genocide was put out over the radio.

The United States has a more diverse and complex media market than either Rwanda or Yugoslavia, of course. But in the New York Review of Books, Michael Massing reports on the conservative takeover of American radio, starting with the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987:

Introduced in 1949, [the Fairness Doctrine] required TV and radio stations to cover "controversial issues" of interest to their communities, and, when doing so, to provide "a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of contrasting viewpoints." Intended to encourage stations to avoid partisan programming, the Fairness Doctrine had the practical effect of keeping political commentary off the air altogether. In 1986, a federal court ruled that the doctrine did not have the force of law, and the following year the FCC abolished it.

At that point, stations were free to broadcast whatever they wanted. In 1988, several dozen AM stations began carrying a show hosted by a thirty-seven-year-old college dropout named Rush Limbaugh.

This leaves open the question of why conservatives have exploited the post-Fairness Doctrine media landscape so much more effectively than liberals. But if you've ever wondered why the tone seemed to change in Washington sometime around the first Bush administration, the abolition of the Doctrine is the reason. It has opened the door for people like Mark Levin, "a lawyer turned talk show host who specializes in right-wing name-calling (he called Joseph Wilson and his wife 'finks,' Judy Miller 'a rat,' Ted Kennedy 'a lifelong drunk,' The New York Times the 'New York Slimes,' and Senator Charles Schumer 'Chucky Schmucky')." That kind of invective has become painfully common in our political discourse (the left does it too, though usually with more wit and tact, and to much smaller audiences).

How can this trend be countered?

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Topic: Politics

The New York Times today calls it ugly. The lede:

George W. Bush has been in the White House for 248 weeks, through a terrorist attack, two wars and a bruising re-election. But it seems safe to say that he has never had a worse political week than this one — and it is not over yet.

And it gets worse from there.

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Topic: Politics

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a long manifesto on what the Democrats should do now that the Republican establishment appears to be imploding. I was pleased to see that in this week's New Yorker, the Talk of the Town gave its own answer to that question — one that sounds a lot like mine, although way more consise. Worth a look.

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Topic: Politics

The following is a rather lengthy manifesto I banged out in response to a request that I tell the inside-the-Beltway sister of a friend "how highways are a national security issue," by which I assumed he meant my ongoing rants about how the Democrats can seize this moment to bring back their program and ideals. Here it is:

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina shocked the nation by revealing that four years after 9/11 and a decade after the end of welfare as we knew it, there was no plan at all for handling a major and entirely predictable disaster in a significant American city, and that the Americans most severely affected by this disaster were suffering in large part because they are very, very poor. The subsequent revelations of cronyism have disgusted the American people (and the DeLay indictment will have a similar effect), and the shock over the mismanagement of New Orleans has rebounded to make people question anew the cronyism and chaos in Iraq. Republicans have responded by blaming local authorities and by turning the New Orleans reconstruction effort into a swamp of corruption that will make Iraq look like a dress-rehearsal.

This is a moment when the Democrats need to speak up about the things that are freaking the shit out of Americans. That does not include a fear that Chief Justice Roberts will roll back abortion rights. It does not include a worry that Social Security will be privatized. It does include a fear that if a terrorist sneaks a nuclear bomb through our unsecured ports and into Seattle or New York or anywhere else and blows the thing up, the survivors will not be evacuated until they've been exposed to so much radiation that their skin falls off. Americans are scared that gas shortages will mean we won't have the privilege of paying $5 a gallon to fill our tanks and flee from whatever disaster the government can't protect us from, and that when we die, our jobs will go to Bangladesh because our children can't do long division.

There are three main points that I think the Democrats need to emphasize coming out of Katrina and the revelations of Republican cronyism: that infrastructure, poverty and education are national security issues; that cronyism and corruption are national security issues; and that Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility, meaning jobs and a future.

Katrina made the first point obvious. In a major emergency, people died because infrastructure was neglected, and they died because they were poor. The war in Iraq is not something we should simply abandon, but we should recognize that if we want to be secure at home, we need to focus on the home front. This means not only beefing up airport security and police forces, but investing in stronger, smarter infrastructure.

A great example of this kind of thinking is the interstate highway system &mdash a Republican big-government project that was originally conceived by President Eisenhower when, as a WW II general, it took him over 60 days to bring a convoy from one coast to the other. In other words, the superhighways were a defense project, meant to ensure that military and logistical transport would be quick in the event of a national emergency. But they had a secondary effect of being an enormous economic boon, helping to maintain our status as the richest nation in the world. The Internet is another defense infrastructure project that brought enormous economic gain.
What we need now is innovative thinking about and substantial investment in infrastructure improvements that will make us safer and richer. Improved ports and container tracking systems is one project that could greatly reduce our chances of being hit with a smuggled nuclear weapon while also making our ports the most efficient in the world. Investment in alternative energy sources is another way to strengthen national security while putting America at the forefront of an emerging industry. Bush is telling us to conserve energy; Democrats should be arguing that if we put our minds to it, we won't have to conserve because we'll have plenty of clean, affordable energy. If we built the national highway system and went to the moon, we can develop a clean, affordable source of fuel.

Another focus should be poverty, and particularly the effects poverty has on mobility and health. Having 40 million uninsured Americans is not just a travesty but a national security risk. A greatly enhanced medical infrastructure, including accessible basic care for all, would substantially reduce our exposure to bioterrorism, as well as to emerging pandemics like bird flu. It would mean that unusual health problems would be caught early, before they spread into the population at large. It would also mean that in case of a serious bio, chemical, nuclear or conventional attack on a major city, we would have the doctors and facilities in place to cope. We also need to make sure that poor people are not simply abandoned to whatever comes: violence, crime, natural disasters, etc. When people are so poor that they lack transport and access to services, they are at terribly increased risk of dying or being hurt in a catastrophe. This must change.

Education is the third big area where national security thinking needs to be extended. We are worried about jobs going overseas. We are worried about our lack of Arabic and Pashto speakers to gather intelligence. We are worried about our economic future. If America is to remain strong and secure, then the gains we've seen in primary education need to be extended to secondary education. This means paying teachers more, and it means forcing teachers to accept accountability for their performance — in other words, making it possible to fire failing teachers. This will mean alienating the Teachers Union, but so be it. If we don't start producing our own engineers and intelligence operatives, that's a threat to national security.

So these are the things America needs to be secure — along with a strong military, of course, which we don't have any intention of dismantling. Now, who do you trust to undertake major infrastructure projects, look squarely at solutions to poverty and revamp American education? The Republicans are ideologically opposed to using the federal government to tackle big problems. They are ideologically opposed to public schooling. And they are frighteningly out of touch with the problems of America's poor and working classes. ("Isn't this fun?") The Democrats are the party that believes in working together for the common good, in sharing the promise of America with all our citizens, in using our national resources to build a greater America for the future. We are, in short, the party that believes in government.

Notice, however, that I didn't say "big government." That will be the first accusation thrown at the Democrats when they start proposing actual solutions to America's problems. We need to go on the offensive here, accusing Republicans of being the party of big, swollen government and casting Democrats as the party of smart, working government. The Republicans are the party of no-bid contracts, indictments for campaign finance abuse and government waste. They cut taxes for the super-rich and give money to their friends and appoint their unqualified cronies to important posts. The government now is bigger than ever, and the deficit is sky-high — just as it was under Reagan and Bush Sr., and in sharp contrast to the balanced budgets under Clinton. We're not a party of fat cats, and we know the value of a hard-earned dollar that we didn't inherit tax-free from our rich daddies. We don't think public money is an entitlement program for ourselves and our cronies. The Democrats should declare themselves the party of "working government" or "smart government."

So how will we pay for all these infrastructure investments and the rest? A three-pronged approach: we will win the war in Iraq so that we no longer bleed money there, we will ask America's wealthiest citizens to pay their fair share by rolling back the Bush tax cuts (but not the cuts for the middle class), and we will eliminate bloat and corruption so that resources can be focused on the things that really matter.

The war in Iraq costs billions, and we're not winning. Winning means defeating the insurgency to the point that it is no longer the dominant political reality in Iraq. To achieve this, we need a better strategy than trying to shoot insurgents until there aren't any left. That will mean following the oil-spot approach of securing areas and then expanding out from them. It will also mean training the Iraqi security forces — really training them by sending qualified people to do the job, not cronies — and providing the kind of reconstruction that gives Iraqis a reason to support their new government, again by dropping the cronies and sending in people who know how to help. I'm sure there are a zillion policy papers on how to do this, but the key point is that I don't think the Democrats should be shy about saying that we will win, or about linking the cronyism that made Katrina so bad with the failure of reconstruction in Iraq.

The other two aspects of the budget plan are more straightforward. Democrats should state frankly that we will raise taxes: we have a huge deficit, the war in Iraq is costly, and we need to rebuild after Katrina. That means that the wealthiest Americans will need to pay a larger share, comparable to what they paid under Clinton, in order to get us back to the growth and security that we need as a nation. It also means ending the free ride for corporate donors and cronies. It doesn't mean that middle-class people will have to pay more, though. And as for government bloat, I'm sure many examples can be found. For starters, take a look at how much Homeland Security money has gone to buying enormously expensive rescue equipment for tiny little towns that clearly don't need it. That turns budget bloat into a national security issue as well.

And finally, remind people that the last time we were in power, the Democrats, through fiscal responsibility and investment in the future, gave us the longest economic growth spurt in American history. Sure, the economy has been growing lately, but real wages for most workers have been flat. We plan to tighten budget discipline and make the long-term infrastructure and education investments that will mean jobs and growth well into the future. That growth will increase tax revenues over time.

So there we go. That's my little manifesto on how everything is a national security issue and how Katrina proves that Democrats can do everything better.

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Topic: Politics

Tommorow will be 1,365 days since September 11, 2001 — the same number of days that passed between the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) and the unconditional surrender of Japan (August 6, 1945).

So what have we been up to since the more recent attack — which, remember, killed 3,030, 627 more than died in the Pearl Harbor attack? Well, Slate today examines our progress on airport security, such as it is.

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Topic: Politics

I just wanted to point out a couple of good articles I've read recently. Unfortunately, neither is free, but in case you happen to subscribe to one of these magazines, or know someone who does, or feel like spending a few bucks for an article is worth your while, I wanted to mention them.

In The New York Review of Books, James McPherson reviews several books about John Brown (there's also a review in last week's New Yorker), the militant abolitionist whose botched assault on Harper's Ferry in 1859 and subsequent trial and hanging ? some would say martyrdom ? helped bring about the Civil War. His story raises difficult questions about our contemporary struggle with terrorism.

Here was a man driven by religious conviction to commit acts that fit the modern definition of terrorism: killing for the purpose of spreading terror and causing political change ? in this case, ending slavery. Immediately after the Harper's Ferry attack, the northern abolitionist response was essentially unanimous in condemning Brown. The Transcendentalists were the first to turn the tide, celebrating Brown as a man of conscience and action. Brown himself managed to win admiration through his dignified demeanor throughout his trial and especially in the period between his sentencing and execution. By the end, northerners were saying that John Brown's actions were wrong, but that he himself was a good man. Understandably, southerners were horrified and failed to appreciate the subtlety of this argument. (Imagine being told by a Muslim that Osama bin Laden's policies may be wrong, but that he himself is a good man whose motives are pure and just.)

John Brown is difficult because he was a terrorist fighting for a cause that we now see as unequivocally good and right: ending slavery. He raises the troubling question of when, if ever, it becomes legitimate for individuals to take up arms against evident evil. If never, then what do we say about the partisans in World War II, or the Iraqi rebels we supported (half-heartedly) after the Gulf War? But if we admit that yes, sometimes extralegal violence is legitimate, then how do we decide when? John Brown was a hero not just to the Union Army, whose Battle Hymn was an adaptation of a song about Brown, but to Timothy McVeigh and to the bombers of abortion clinics.

The second article is a piece in Foreign Affairs by Niall Ferguson that discusses the weaknesses of the current process of globalization, drawing parallels between our own time and the period that led up to World War I. Then, as now, new communication technology had drawn the world into a complex web of interdependent trade. The major empires were overstretched fiscally and militarily, there was an unstable balance of powers, and there was the constant threat of terrorism from rogue states (Serbia) and extragovernmental groups. One can go too far with these sorts of exercises ? one key factor that Ferguson doesn't discuss is how much difference it makes that this time around, we know how horrific a Great Powers war really is ? but the observations are striking. Among other things, Ferguson points out that after World War I, the period of globalization and free trade came to an end, followed by a period of nationalism, economic protectionism, and Soviet Communism, not to mention the Great Depression.

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Topic: Politics

Last night Jenny and I went to see former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speak at the 92nd Street Y. The evening's format was an interview, conducted by the editor of Foreign Affairs, James F. Hoge, Jr.

Overall, there was little that was particularly surprising in the discussion. Hoge described the Middle East as being at, if not a tipping point toward democracy, then in a "tipping zone," a phrase Albright picked up and amplified. She pointed to the recent revolutions in former Soviet states — her region of greatest expertise — as having had an influence in the Arab world. On the other hand, she put in a phrase of her own, "managed opposition," to describe what Mubarak seems to be trying to create in Egypt with his proposal for contested elections, and she made it clear that she didn't think managed opposition constituted real democracy. She later defined democracy as more than elections, pointing out that you have elections in dictatorships too. To Albright, democracy requires not just one election but the guarantee of future elections, with a realistic opposition party that has the possibility of assuming power. It also depends on some degree of rule of law.

When asked which was the greater threat, Iran or North Korea, Albright did not hesitate to say North Korea. She explained that Iran hasn't yet got nuclear weapon capabilities like North Korea (note that she didn't just say "weapons"), and that Iran is more amenable to outside pressures than North Korea. She described the Non-Proliferation Treaty as troubled, and she suggested that Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace speech of 1953, in which he outlined the principle of giving peaceful nuclear technologies to countries that promised not to acquire nuclear weapons, was misguided, as it overlooked the ease with which peaceful nuclear technologies can be weaponized. On North Korea, she carefully worded a suggestion that the six-party talks are not the best venue for solving the current problems.

The most surprising thing Albright said all evening was that she has no idea what's really happening in Iraq. This is a startling admission and an implicit accusation against the Bush administration, but fits with what I've read elsewhere. Journalists are severely limited in their ability to travel and conduct interviews, so the main source of information is the U.S. military, which is obviously a biased source. Albright's point was that without better information, it's hard to know what might happen in Iraq.

What got my attention most strongly, though, came not from Albright but from Hoge. On the subject of Security Council reform, Hoge said something about China having shot down Japan's bid for permanent membership — I can't remember the exact wording, but it was unequivocal. To date, of course, China has not made any official statement declaring their absolute opposition, and in a later question Hoge toned down his wording on China. Still, it seemed clear that Hoge considered China's opposition to Japan's bid to be a done deal, at least for the upcoming Millenium Plus Five summit later this year. He also repeatedly described the recent anti-Japan protests in China as "ginned up" by the government, and he suggested that when a government starts ginning up nationalism, as China's is doing with its managed anti-Japanese outbursts and its anti-secession law on Taiwan, it's often to cover up serious problems at home. Albright said that America has paid too little attention to what's going on in East Asia and needs to gain a deeper understanding of the current tensions.

The talk ended with a discussion of John Bolton, the nominee for U.S. ambassador to the UN. Albright didn't mask her dislike. She said that she had worked with him just once, when taking over from the outgoing administration. As under-secretary for international organizations, Bolton briefed the incoming Albright during the transition period, and she described his attitude as utter contempt for the United Nations and multilateralism. In her more charitable moments, Albright said, she sees the Bush administration's nomination of Bolton as an attempt to shake things up seriously at the UN in the cause of reform; when she's feeling less kindly, she thinks it's just an "in your face" from the administration.

On a more personal level, On a more personal level, I remember reading once the notion that some people decide to run for president when they meet the current president, shake his hand, and are struck by the fact that he's an ordinary human being. "What has he got that I haven't got?" they ask themselves, and if they're someone like Bill Clinton, the answer may be "Nothing."

Jenny and I were impressed by Albright's charm, intelligence and wit, and she remains a compelling role model for both of us. But we also came away feeling like there's nothing Albright or Hoge have that we couldn't acquire with the 30 or 40 years of additional experience they have. Albright's star power and charisma, not to mention a squeaky-clean enough background to become Secretary of State, may be out of reach, but we came away reassured that our dreams of careers in the State Department are realistic, and we could imagine ourselves in relatively influential positions down the road.

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Topic: Politics

So how do you say "Wojtyla" anyway?

For those of us who get most of our news from textual sources rather than TV and radio, pronunciation can be a problem. How to name-drop people like Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or Cardinal Francis Arinze at parties?

Okay, so maybe you don't go to the sorts of parties where this comes up. But in case you do, you'll be glad to know about the Voice of America Pronunciation Guide (click on the short list to get the latest newsy names). Here's a good example:

Karol Wojtyla (RealPlayer required)

The guide does tends toward the pedantic: the proper Russian pronunciation of "Mikhail Gorbachev" may be mihk-hah-EEL gahr-bah-CHAH-F (RealPlayer required), but unless you're actually Russian, you'll sound like a dork if you say it that way. Still, it's a handy little tool, and where else can you go to find out how to say Tadeusz Mazowiecki?

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Topic: Politics

On my way to lunch at the UN cafeteria, I happened to catch Senator Barbara Boxer, live on CNN, letting Condoleeza Rice have it during her confirmation hearing. Senator Boxer repeated Condie quotes from various times that contradicted each other, suggesting that Rice's loyalty to the president and to her duty to sell the war "overwhelmed [her] respect for the truth."

Rice responded by saying that she never lonst her respect for the truth. Then she declared that "I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity."

Now, this has been a recurring problem with criticism of the Bush administration: they lie openly, but it's considered impolitic to say so. So the exchange looks like one in which Senator Boxer makes the relatively weak charge that Rice's "respect for the truth" was "overwhelmed," while Rice makes the more pointed charge that Boxer is "impugning my integrity." It makes Boxer look less straightforward than Rice, which is exactly wrong.

At this point, we should take off the kid gloves and just say people are lying when we catch them at it. Enough.

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