Mar 21
[In November, 2000, The Seattle Newspaper Guild went on strike against the two Seattle dailies, The Seattle Times and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I). The strike was settled in January, 2001. The majority interest in the Times is owned by the Blethen family, which has published the Times since 1896.]
In recent months, The Seattle Times has made itself ridiculous with some consistency. Its response to the strike, in addition to using its editorial page to plead its case, included the hysterical overreaction of throwing up chain link fencing around its property (apparently equating its employees to anarchists), hiring replacements, threatening not to allow the strikers to return, and generally behaving as if this were the nineteenth century. All of this is in contrast to the P-I, which took the strike more or less in stride and neither exhibited nor provoked the sort of hostility evident at the Times.
After the strike, the Times took another step toward making its editorial page an outlet for the Blethen family's economic views. The editorial page staff was cut in half and all but one of the survivors were removed from the editorial board, now consisting of three members of the family, one of their corporate employees, and the new editorial page editor. Today's house editorial argued that ergonomic regulations should be scrapped in favor of voluntary changes, which sounds like more self-interest at work. Possibly that is not so, but taking editorial policy out of the hands of the staff certainly destroys any appearance of objectivity.
However, the Times may have taken a step back toward journalistic respectability through a series of articles published last week on experimental procedures at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The articles accuse the Center, in two of its "protocols," of proceeding to human testing too soon; continuing experimental procedures after they were known to be dangerous, useless or both; diverting into the experimental procedures patients who would have had better chances with standard treatment; ignoring warnings, including those from its review
committee; and conflicts of interest. The picture is of treating patients more or less as laboratory animals.
Of course, the Times may be wrong, in which case it has been irresponsible and has done damage to an institution which it acknowledges to be a leader in cancer research. However, the articles were detailed and persuasive and the rebuttal from the Center and its supporters has been the opposite.
Mar 22
An article in the New York Times on the February 28 earthquake was headlined "Slightly Shaken, Briefly Shocked, Then Back to Mellow as Usual." The text referred to Seattle as "this waterfront capital of coffee and mellow." I'm not sure that "mellow," as an adjective or pseudo-noun, entirely fits my hometown.
The reporter acknowledged two seeming contradictions to the image, the WTO disturbances in 1999 and the rioting on Fat Tuesday this year that left one young man dead, in the light of which it is difficult to think of Seattle as peaceful, law-abiding or entirely civilized, let alone mellow.
The Seattle Police Department has been criticized bitterly for its handling of those two events and the WTO anniversary demonstration last fall. Some of the criticism is little more than an attempt to shift blame from where at least part of it belongs. However, it is difficult to find anything which the police have done right; they seem to have an almost perfect record of acting aggressively when they should show restraint and holding off when they should intervene. Fat Tuesday saw them in the latter mode: standing at the edge of a riot, doing nothing, refusing to act. They appear to have only one available action mode, full battle drill. The idea of a calming, controlling, restrained but intimidating presence seems to have been lost entirely, leaving them with no intermediate, measured response. The impression given is one of indecisiveness and timidity.
Perhaps Seattle simply hasn't had enough experience with large-scale disorder and violence. Although they haven't been entirely absent here, we have been relatively fortunate in that regard, and WTO was a shock to everyone. The familiar outside agitators were blamed and there was the ritual recital that only a small fraction of the demonstrators caused all of the trouble. The latter argument overlooks the role of some of the supposedly peaceful demonstrators in facilitating the more violent ones through irresponsible, obstructive behavior. Fortunately, at WTO this resulted primarily in property damage. Fat Tuesday escalated to beatings, one fatal, and made clear that we have enough home-grown thugs to produce a riot.
Mar 26
Bill Clinton, reportedly concerned about his place in history, nevertheless behaved on the way out as if he were determined to confirm the most exaggerated views of his character. As a result, he has been denounced in terms that, leaving aside the demented right, I don't recall seeing before; now Andrew Sullivan, in the March 12 issue of The New Republic, calls Clinton a sociopath.
Sullivan's focus is on the pardons, especially of Marc Rich, for which he can find no adequate xplanation. Sullivan's conclusion is that "we had for eight years a truly irrational person in the White House, someone who, I think, lived on the edge of serious mental illness." "Clinton's actions as president can be fully understood only if one understands him to be a deeply disturbed person - not fully in control of himself or his actions." "...Clinton was not psychologically healthy enough to have been president of the United States." "And truly gifted sociopaths have ways of inveigling those around them to participate actively in the sickness...." Maybe Mr. Sullivan will be shown to have seen the truth, but this seems a bit much, even to one
who diagnosed Richard Nixon at a distance of three thousand miles.
Sullivan's point that Clinton risked everything in the Rich pardon is true enough and the parallel to his self-destructive behavior in the Lewinski affair is tempting. However, the motivation for his behavior with Monica isn't any mystery and the only puzzle is how he could be so foolish. In the Rich pardon there is, contrary to Sullivan's diagnosis, a question as to motivation, and rushing to the conclusion that there cannot possibly be a rational explanation suggests that
personal dislike plays a large part. Sullivan admits as much, describing himself as one of those "who have long loathed" Clinton.
In opting for the psychological answer, Sullivan brushes aside the more important question, whether the Rich pardon was corrupt. He argues that Clinton could have made lots of money speaking, so he didn't need any from Denise Rich. If Clinton's supporters had tried that explanation, they'd have been laughed at; apparently the U.S. Attorney in New York doesn't find it compelling. The opposite possibility, that the pardon was granted on the merits, gets only a derisive "Please." Although Sullivan finds it to be too absurd to consider, it would explain why Clinton did something so dangerous to his reputation.
The answer may be the simple one that both principle and self-interest were at work. That wouldn't allow as much range to a commentator, but, since such conflicts are so common to politics, it might be a more likely explanation.
Mar 28
At some early point George W. Bush decided to act, or it was decided for him that he would act, as if he not only had been elected legitimately but had a mandate. For the first few weeks this seemed to work, aided by the usual deference and respect for the office on the part of the press and public. A friendly House passed the tax cut without bothering to read anything, let alone consider the consequences, which gave a sense of momentum if not inevitability. Alan Greenspan made qualified, obscure, but somewhat favorable comments regarding the tax cut, thus giving it the imprimatur of enlightened, nonpartisan fiscal policy. The Democrats stood around in a daze, unable to do more than suggest that the cut should be a little smaller. The Clintons cooperated by making daily headlines in ways not helpful to their reputations, validating Bush as the office-cleanser.
However, the past couple of weeks have not gone so well. Bush has abandoned ergonomic standards, curbs on carbon dioxide in the air and arsenic in the water and is challenging restrictions on logging roads. This could be seen as imaginary-mandate hubris, but looks more like capitulation to the business lobby. The impression of weakness is reinforced by the President's wandering among the people begging them to want a tax cut while back at the capital State and Defense are fighting over control of foreign policy.
Mar 29
The Supreme Court will consider a case involving application of the death penalty to a mentally retarded man. We may learn how disadvantaged one must be not to be put to death, an appropriate parody of morality for an amoral but legalistic age.1
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1. 2/25/03: Parody has given way to surrealism. The Supreme Court did rule that a mentally retarded defendant could not be executed. Now, however, the 8th Circuit has decided that an insane defendant may be given drugs to render him sane enough, long enough, to be executed.
Apr 1
An interesting contrast to Andrew Sullivan's bitter condemnation of Bill Clinton was offered a year ago by Ben Stein. In a column in USA Today, he predicted accurately that, after January 20, there would be "a flood of commentary about what Bill Clinton did and who he was."
Stein listed his Republican credentials and set out in harsh detail his reasons for not admiring Clinton as a president; Clinton was "one of the most dangerous enemies of the Constitution in this century." But Stein recognized that Clinton was human and, at times at least, admirably so.
Stein gave three examples of Clinton's decency.
Soon after he was inaugurated, I noticed that Clinton wore what looked to me like ugly neckties. I bought him a tie and sent it with a note that I would never vote for him but that I wanted him to look better. He did not have to reply, but he sent a funny handwritten note thanking me and hoping I would change my opinion about voting for him. His human gesture showed a real person behind the iron fences.
This was a trivial incident, as Stein notes, but revealing in the same way as the two more significant ones.
On the occasion of Richard Nixon's funeral, the President could have made the minimal gesture; "Instead, Clinton sent out three planeloads of Nixon officials and friends from Washington to Yorba Linda, Calif., came himself and spoke warmly and with obvious admiration of the deceased peacemaker."
The final example concerned the funeral of Stein's father, Herbert Stein.
...My father, a well-known Republican economist who often had written negatively about Clinton, died on Sept. 8.... The funeral was the next day, in accordance with Jewish law, and even many of his longtime friends could not organize themselves to be there. Not one high-ranking Republican, past or present, showed up....
Clinton sent Treasury Secretary Summers and his White House economics advisor with "a lovely letter to my sister and me about how much he respected my father and how much Washington would miss him.... Clinton did this despite my often severe criticism of him." Without pulling any punches on matters of policy or on character flaws, Stein was able to appreciate the generous side of Clinton's nature.
...Pundits will ponder why the man, with all of his moral baggage, was able to engage so much of the American public so positively for so long. I suggest that it might be simply because even though he has many flaws -- and I still would not vote for him -- he has a certain warmth, generosity of spirit, even a kindly quality of friendliness that shows through the mistakes and the lies.
***
Voters recognized it, and they liked it, just as I did -- even though for the third time, I wouldn't pull the lever. But I would invite him in for dinner, and he could stay as long as he liked.
Apr. 9
That President Bush's early success was not due to his personal skills is clear even to those relatively sympathetic to him. An article in Commentary by Daniel Casse, which goes rather far to find something significant in compassionate conservatism, offers the following assessment:
...As even his supporters would have to concede, Bush may have been the least-prepared candidate to assume the office of the presidency in the past century....
...[His shortcomings] included the fact that he was persistently and embarrassingly inarticulate, that he had rarely travelled outside the U.S., that he seemed to have no deeply held views about government or burning mission to become President, and that his adult life appeared unburdened by any concern for the great policy questions of our age.
Despite these limitations, Mr. Casse thinks that "there was...much more to Bush's strategy that the desire to project an image of amiable, bipartisan bonhomie. Out of the campaign flowed a whole series of thoughtful speeches and detailed policy proposals on the very topics on which the GOP was floundering." Unless I missed something, details were notably lacking, but Bush certainly did take a more centrist position than is typical for Republicans. However, if that explains the vote, large sections of the public must have been gullible, as it would have been necessary to accept that Bush believed in and would carry into action policies his party had firmly opposed. We have seen enough of the real George W. Bush (or, perhaps more accurately, real Republicanism) recently to show how naïve that would have been. I'm still more inclined to the view that, in addition to the deficiencies of Al Gore as a candidate, the votes Mr. Bush drew from outside the Republican core came from a response to that somewhat redundant amiable bonhomie.
Apr. 10
Boeing's decision to move its headquarters from Seattle was as baffling as it was surprising. The announcement has led to various types of civic soul-searching, including consideration of how much Seattle has changed in recent decades, one form of which has it that the Seattle into which Boeing comfortably fit no longer exists. I doubt that this explains Boeing's departure, any more than the claim by Phil Condit that Seattle is too remote from financial centers and Boeing's customers,1 or the somewhat facetious suggestion by Walt Crowley that Boeing was dismayed that its home town opposed free trade, as supposedly demonstrated by the WTO follies. Seattle certainly is less provincial and isolated than it was earlier, when Boeing apparently was content to be here.
However, leaving Boeing aside, the contention that the city has changed significantly and not necessarily for the better has merit. The older Seattle was the somewhat paradoxical one of strong unions and conservative politics, less surprisingly of strong unions and family values. In a sense that was the mellow Seattle; the current one might be described more accurately as self-absorbed.
Whether Seattle today lacks family values, it certainly lacks families. Census data show that Seattle's population in 2000 was virtually identical to that in 1960, but the percentage of children (those under 18) dropped from 30 to less than 15. Among major American cities, only San Francisco has a lower proportion.
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1. Some time later, he was quoted as stating that he needed to be more centrally located relative to Boeing's various operations. Take your pick.
Apr. 11
After the Puget Sound mass transit plan was defeated in 1995, it was scaled back, and the modified version passed in 1996. The scaling back was fiscally somewhat devious; the plan was advertised as having been cut from $6.7 billion to $3.9 billion. However, scaling back only reduced the total cost, not the annual levy; we would pay as much per year for less, but pay it for a shorter time. Apparently that was enough to gain passage, but the lesser version was of even more dubious merit than the original; among other changes, the entire east side branch of the rail system was eliminated.
Marketing labels are one of the major accomplishments of the project to date: the Regional Transit Authority now is styled Sound Transit; the overall plan now is Sound Move; the commuter train is The Sounder (which allows one to break the Sound barrier); express buses are ST Express; the projected light-rail component is Link.
On a more substantive level, Sound Transit has been less active: the accomplishments in four and a half years are several express bus routes beginning in 1999 and train service from Tacoma to Seattle beginning last year. The train service uses new equipment on existing tracks. The bus routes are superimposed on the existing service and are operated by existing carriers; the contribution by Sound Transit again is new equipment. These could have been accomplished in other ways; the only excuse for the 1996 proposal was the light-rail component.
However, the planning of that element has been a farce and the project is a fiasco; the schedule has slipped by years and cost estimates have increased by hundreds of millions. Nothing has been built and it not at all clear that anything ever will be. The project now has entered the vicious-circle stage: it needs federal funds to proceed, but it is in such disarray that federal contributions have been suspended.
Administrative ineptness probably accounts for part of the problem, but certainly it is due in part to the vagueness of the original proposal. A multi-billion dollar project based on a plan of the back-of-an-envelope variety doesn't have a significant chance of success.
The Seattle area is among the worst in the nation for traffic congestion; apart from the new train, the value of which is unclear at this early stage, buses are our only form of public transportation. It may be that it is too late to build a light rail system or that it is, for some reason, unsuited to this area. I still think that it has a place in a proper transportation plan, but there is no sense in building a rail line simply to have one. The regional plan should have given light rail intelligent, realistic consideration and should have proposed it, if at all, in a form which would do some good. Instead the RTA proposed a rail system which would have little impact on
auto traffic and now it has made a complete mess of that plan. Many, including former backers, are calling for "Link" to be abandoned. However, buses aren't solving the problem and we seem to be doomed to building still more freeway lanes, which won't solve it either.
Apr. 12
The New York Times reported yesterday that the evolution debate in Kansas, and more generally, has taken a new form. In place of creationism, critics now are advancing theories of design as an alternative to the orthodox, neo-Darwinian version of evolutionary theory. The new approach is being dismissed as creationism in another guise, but I don't think that it will be that easy to ignore. Design may or may not withstand examination, but it should focus attention on aspects of evolutionary theory which seem to be as much a matter of faith as any of the alternatives.
Apr. 24
Andrew Sullivan may be on to something. The April issue of Liberty features a series of articles mockingly labelled "Bill Clinton: a Celebration." The first, by R.W. Bradford, editor and publisher, carries the subtitle "Bill Clinton was a liar, thief and sociopath...."3 To make sure that we don't conclude that he was merely of the garden variety, Mr. Bradford tells us that Clinton
was "an absolutely amoral sociopath."
It is, however, less surprising to find such an appraisal here than in a serious magazine like The New Republic. Although Liberty sometimes contains sensible, realistic commentary, a large portion of its content is doctrinaire, smirkingly dismissive of government and, in tone, on the level of The American Spectator. A short piece in the "Reflections" section of this issue of
Liberty tells us that the author makes a hobby of "creating ugly scenes with public figures like William Bennett, Dick Cheney, James Carville, and Robert 'Bud' McFarlane." (Aren't we clever and important?) He says that trying to humiliate and embarrass is his "default mode when dealing with a suspected sociopath," so I assume that he places the above-mentioned individuals in that category.1 The Bradford article is graced by a cartoon implying that Clinton shot Vincent Foster, which might be too much even for the Spectator.
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1. 9/02/02: I opened a 1992 issue of Liberty today and discovered that, according to one of the contributors, described as "Senior Editor with the Cato Institute," the first President Bush also was a sociopath, because he agreed to a tax increase.
May 21
The Seattle Weekly has a new look. Jean Godden's column in The Seattle Times quoted the new editor of The Weekly on the subject: "It's playful. It looks a little arty and raw, which reflects what we like about Seattle and what we don't want to see changed." Ms. Godden was appropriately unimpressed: "Ah, that explains a lot: playful, arty and raw. Definitely the inner Seattle, probably best defined by newcomers to the city. Either that or they've confused Seattle with sushi."
The editor's blather is illustrative of an increasingly common phenomenon: the city and the region are defined for us by recent transplants, especially those in the media. Another contribution by outlanders has been the transformation of terminology. In the news, Washington now always is "Washington State," even when no one would suppose that the local reporter had the capital city in mind (salmon runs in Washington State are down in recent years; the snow pack in Washington State is low; Governor Locke of Washington State..., etc.). Clinkers like "the Puget Sound" are common. Events occur "in Puget Sound," which apparently is meant to
mean "in the Puget Sound region," not under water. Anyone standing on a runway now is on the tarmac, a term never used here until recently; pop now is soda.
I haven't read the new-look Weekly and hadn't paid much attention to it for some time prior to 1999, when I consulted it for reactions to the WTO riots. I don't know what the new editor has in mind as "raw," but in one respect it already qualified: I was startled at how grossly sexual it had become. The Weekly, even in its early days, was notorious for its personals: "men seeking women," "men seeking men," etc., complete with handy abbreviations. Those now appear in the once-staid Seattle Times (does it call itself a family paper these days?), so the Weekly moved
on, running pages of sex-related ads and a sex-advice column. The column in the WTO issue was so bizarre that I wondered if it was parody. Reference to a few subsequent issues indicated that it was not; some of the columns were weird, all were crude and, to my old-fashioned eye, degenerate.
The NY Times reported at about the same time that someone was planning a sex museum in Manhattan. Off the streets and into the galleries, apparently.
My point of view clearly is something less than contemporary,1 but its distance from the cultural front lines was emphasized recently. Fred Moody wrote an article for The Seattle Times on his career with The Weekly; he thinks that it has become too mainstream.
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1. 8/25/01: As Mr. Woodhouse put it, "...I live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear." 11/2/02: Or, "I have lived a good deal out of the world and am, therefore, perhaps, more astonished than I ought to be." Mr. Dale, in The Small House at Allington. Is this coincidence or did Trollope do Jane Austen the honor of plagiarizing Emma?
May 24
Over the past few weeks several editorial columns have asked why President Bush has been treated with such deference by the media. It is an interesting phenomenon: a president who lost the popular vote and won the electoral under less than pristine circumstances, who has advanced a bold and controversial agenda, who has given every indication of being as intellectually challenged as his detractors claimed during the campaign, who has abandoned any pretense of being the political healer and uniter he claimed to be, and whose fund-raising techniques are closer to the Clintons he reviled than to the principles he professed, has received a good press. The reason, however, is not difficult to discern: the media view politics as procedure, not as substance - as a contest to be scored, not as issues to be evaluated.1 President Bush has, until now, won most of his battles, so he's due a good press. Never mind that his major victory consists of pushing his tax plan through a compliant Republican Congress; wins are wins. If the plan is better for his friends and contributors than for the country, who cares?
Things may have changed: Senator Jeffords has defected. The response of the media has been predictable: there has been more coverage of this than of any of the Bush programs; PBS' News Hour devoted its entire program to it tonight. True, it's important; it has implications for the Bush agenda and is an historic event, but the appeal is that it's a goal scored against the Bush team.
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1. 4/5/03: Another suggested explanation is that the famous liberal media are, in fact, conservative. See Alterman, What Liberal Media?
June 24
I have, from time to time in these memoirs, had some harsh things to say about judges, utterances of mine which may, I'm afraid, have caused a degree of resentment among their assembled Lordships, who like nothing less than being judged.1
Rumpole has nothing on Allan Dershowitz, whose latest book, Supreme Injustice, contains the harshest criticism of an American court by a responsible, knowledgeable person that I have ever seen. His subject is Bush v. Gore, which he describes as a corrupt decision, proceeding from personal or political motives, unsupported by law or logic and contrary to decisions by the majority on related issues. The crux of his argument is that the decision fails the shoe-on-the-
other-foot test, that it would not have been rendered if Gore had been asking for an order terminating vote-counting. Therefore, the result was dictated by the identity of the parties, a violation of the oath to "administer justice without respect to persons...."
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1. John Mortimer, Rumpole and the Angel of Death.
July 3
I have just read The Betrayal of America, by Vincent Bugliosi, in comparison to which Supreme Injustice is restrained. Bugliosi refers to the Bush v. Gore majority as criminals and describes the decision as treasonous.
July 9
In his NY Times column a few days ago Paul Krugman noted the ongoing downward revisions to the government's economic forecasts and speculated that, had this information been available earlier, moderates would not have lined up behind the Bush tax cut. More recently, the Times house editorial, under the head "Mr. Bush's Fiscal Gaffe," reflected on the same news by stating that the President, in pushing for his tax cut, "forgot - or perhaps he did not know - that a slowing economy, with lower corporate profits and personal earnings, would automatically result in lower tax collections and would throw his knife-edged fiscal plan into imbalance."
Unless we assume an almost incredible level of ignorance on the part of Congressmen, the late arrival of worsening forecasts is not a likely explanation for their action. Anyone who has lived through the past twenty years who is not a supply-side cultist or is not blinded by loyalty to Ronald Reagan had to realize that the tax cut would reduce revenues, that spending cuts would not miraculously appear, that forecasts of endless surpluses were suspect from the outset, that the economy was heading down, and that the tax cut therefore was trouble. It would be interesting to know why those moderates voted so irresponsibly. Perhaps it was just tax-cut fever, although the tepid support by the public makes this a little difficult to understand. (One theory is that, although nationally the support for a tax cut was limited, it was popular in some states or districts, which would explain support by the Members representing those populations.)
As to the President and his economic advisors, ignorance also is not a persuasive theory. It may be that there still are a few who believe that cutting taxes really will not reduce revenues, but there probably are many more who think that the government can and should be starved into decline. Most importantly, they simply hate taxes as righteous people once hated sin, and are willing to take any risk in order to extirpate them.
Aug 14
However, I may be giving Congressmen credit for too much perception; perhaps they did need to see the house of cards fall in order to conclude that it was unstable. It is unfortunate that they did not have, in addition to a less rosy scenario (to borrow from David Stockman), Paul Krugman's Fuzzy Math to guide them. It would have reminded them that there are huge Social Security commitments to fund in the not-distant future.
The only positive aspect of all this is that the cut is back-loaded, which offers the opportunity to prevent part the damage by repealing some of the cuts before they take effect.
Aug 30
In a recent New York Times story about Seattle, the reporter described us as a city so polite that a driver would rather die than honk his horn. Even allowing for the hyperbole, that could describe only a past Seattle. Drivers in the Seattle area not only are not obsessively polite and self-controlled, they are wild, rude, arrogant and dangerous: speeding, jumping lanes, tailgating and running lights are the rule.
In this case, the change was recent and abrupt. A few years ago -1996? 1997?- drivers began running the light next to my office building. The change was so sudden and the violations so gross that I was about to call the city engineering department to report a mistimed light when I noticed the same thing happening at the next intersection. Before long it was all over downtown Bellevue, then everywhere; then drivers moved on to other forms of irresponsibility.
The latest indication of our decline came yesterday. During the morning rush hour, a woman, apparently after driving onto the I-5 Ship Canal Bridge, was perched at the edge, threatening to jump. As police attempted to talk her away, commuters, annoyed at being delayed, called "Jump, bitch, jump!" She did jump. Amazingly, she survived and now is listed in serious condition.
Apart from the obvious human defects in the individuals involved, what causes this? In simple, superficial terms, the immediate cause of these driving-related barbarisms is impatience: nothing, certainly not a stranger intent on killing herself, can be allowed to slow one down.
Sept. 5
On August 30, Hubert Locke wrote a column about Seattle's recent turmoil, including the riots. His point was that the widespread criticism of Mayor Schell overlooks the difficult transition Seattle is going through.
Seattle, which got a late start as an American city, was also late losing its innocence. While other metropolitan centers were trying to cope with strikes, riots, the flight of the middle class to the "burbs," crime and looming fiscal collapse, Seattle was cheerfully cleaning up its lake, hosting a world's fair, expanding its port and dutifully passing one set of bond measures after another to improve its parks, build affordable housing and a new art museum and accomplishing a good many other laudable urban projects.
However, now "urban reality" finally has caught up with the Emerald City. Professor Locke did not refer to the freeway bridge incident, but his urban-reality stage appears to include the uncivilized behavior of the motorists inconvenienced by a tragedy playing out before them.
There were numerous comments about the incident. A P-I article reported that
[Walt] Crowley pointed to popular culture as a possible culprit: "I don't know if it's peculiar to Seattle, but certainly our music, our TV, our films, our literature are saturated with selfishness and gratuitous violence and exploitation.... [W]e're not living in times that value empathy, or a sense of community."
People have been cruel to each other from the beginning, without the aid of television, so we shouldn't be too ready to lay all of the blame there; however, despite the reporter's interpretation, Mr. Crowley may have been using pop cultureas a measure rather than as a cause. Although Professor Locke's picture of premodern Seattle is idealized, there has been a major change which needs explanation, and the degeneration of the popular culture is one place to look for clues.
Sept 6
There are those who think that the Reagan deficits were run intentionally, to force reductions in spending and in the size of government. It seems to me that the financial chaos created by Reagonomics was born more of ignorance than cunning, but that President Reagan and his team were willing to make use of the unintended consequences.
This view is based in part on David Stockman's account of one of the many unhappy discoveries which characterized his service to Ronald Reagan, this one occurring during the 1980 campaign. He described the upside to the realization that his forecasts were billions of dollars off:
At the time, the prospect of needing well over $100 billion in domestic spending cuts to keep the Republican budget in equilibrium appeared more as an opportunity than as a roadblock. Once Governor Reagan got an electoral mandate for Kemp-Roth and 10-5-3, then we would have the Second Republic's craven politicians pinned to the wall. They would have to dismantle its bloated, wasteful, and unjust spending enterprises or risk national ruin. 1
Budgetary problems are political opportunities for President Bush as well, although in this case the epiphany is only rhetorical, as he and his advisors presumably haven't been misled by Laffer curves drawn on napkins. At a news conference on August 24, he called the vanishing surplus "incredibly positive news" because it will create a "fiscal straightjacket for Congress." Of course, he doesn't think that his spending plans, including the missile shield, need be forced into that straightjacket, nor will he reconsider the tax cut, an exercise in deluding one's self and the nation which also is borrowed from Reagan.
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1. Stockman, The Triumph of Politics, p. 68.
Oct 12
There were memorial services yesterday marking one month since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It still is difficult to understand that these atrocities took place: there is no frame of reference in which to place them. It is not only the fact that it happened here, shattering our illusion of security, and not only the craziness of suicide bombings. The devastation in New York was so awful as to seem unreal, the pictures like something from a science-fiction movie.
Oct 26
America was not ready for September 11. Individually we were isolated, self-centered and inward-looking, led by an administration whose attitude toward the world was isolated, self-centered and inward-looking. As Maureen Dowd put it, "We were optimists, a big, bold, S.U.V., Sex-and-the-City society, confident in the security that our geography afforded, flush from the 90s, happily absorbed in the secondary questions of existence."
It might not be likely that such a people would respond well, but the signs are encouraging. There has been heroism, especially by the New York firefighters, police and medical aid personnel and by the passengers on the Pennsylvania plane. There has been eloquence, again notably from the New York forces and from Mayor Giuliani. Even the interviews of victims' families, usually so pointless and exploitative, produced responses that were genuine and touching.
The first wave of unity has passed and criticism and debate have begun, as is both expected and necessary. Even most of this has struck me as responsible and reasonable.
There are exceptions. Perhaps the most bizarre was the Falwell-Robertson revelation that we brought it on ourselves through our sins, ironically echoing the militant Islamic line. Some pronouncements from our other wing have contained a similar opinion, here revealing the reflexive anti-Americanism so typical of the left.1 However, most of the comments I have seen, in news reports, editorials and letters to the papers, have been thoughtful, whether supportive of the attacks on Afghanistan, opposed or concerned about fallout.
Most early editorial opinion on the administration's response was favorable, more so than the facts would require. Some of this was the usual rallying around, in which support is translated into approval and admiration. Support is in order, but I have to confess that I cringed whenever the President went on camera. He invariably smirked; he usually does and it no doubt is a nervous habit, but it was unfortunate here, making it appear that he treated these problems lightly. His tendency to use casual, inane expressions made it difficult to take him seriously. The impression was of someone who is basically silly, not the image required under the circumstances.
Several reporters and columnists told us that the administration has abandoned its pre-9/11 agenda to concentrate on the threats. (One local writer announced that the "so-called Republican Revolution is ancient history"). That certainly was naïve; this is an administration which serves business and the wealthy backed by a doctrinaire and inflexible House majority. Drilling in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, which made no sense before and makes none now, has been revisited. The House has passed a tax cut, primarily aimed at business, including retroactive repeal of the alternate minimum tax. This will do little to avert or shorten the recession; its primary effect will be a corporate windfall, estimated at $1.4 billion in the case of IBM.
The worst example is the refusal of the House to agree to the federalizing of airport security, a measure included in a bill which passed the Senate 100-0. This reminds me of a description of opposition to a municipal police force for London in the nineteenth century. In 1811, two families living along the Ratcliff Highway were murdered. After the suspect hanged himself,
the turmoil subsided, and many would have agreed with John William Ward (a future Foreign Secretary) that a few killings in the poorest parts of London were a fair price to pay to avoid the costly and authoritarian system of state policing the French had to endure: "I had rather half a dozen people's throats should be cut in Ratcliff Highway every three or four years than be subject to domiciliary visits, spies, and all the rest of Fouché's contrivances." 2
Similarly, the House would rather that a few planes were flown into buildings than create a federal security force at airports. If the military did not exist, Republicans would not vote to create it.
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1. 7/6/02: Todd Gitlin described this as "soft anti-Americanism" in an excellent, pointed but balanced article in the January-February issue of Mother Jones.
2. Stephen Inwood, A History of London.
Nov. 1
In a column carried in today's P-I, Jack Kemp alleged that the federal tax code is "so anti-growth that, in Treasury Secretary O'Neill's words, it is 'unworthy of an advanced civilization.'"1 That's an apt phrase, but as a description of what the Internal Revenue Code will be if the present trend continues.
The tax code already was tilted toward the wealthy and powerful; the revisions made earlier this year have pushed it considerably further in that direction; the bill just passed by the House is incredible in its servitude to the moneyed interests; continual reductions in revenue will make it impossible to carry out proper functions of government. I would call that unworthy of an advanced civilization.
It is considered gauche to speak ill of tax breaks or other benefits for the wealthy. Such talk is, we are told, "class warfare." The very mention of class is, except apparently in some isolated academic circles, bad manners. However, E. J. Dionne was bold enough in today's column in the Washington Post to raise the question.
His comments were prompted by the inconsistent responses to anthrax infection exposure, notably more rapid in Congress and the Supreme Court than in post offices. Dionne thinks that "postal workers have good reason to wonder why they weren't at the top of anyone's priority list." This isn't the best example of class-based policy and, as he acknowledges, the principal causes of the tardy concern for postal workers were disorganization, uncertainty and general ineptness. However, it's a legitimate occasion to raise the issue, and Dionne notes its broader application, including the growing income gap in recent decades.
I have little sympathy for the anti-capitalist simpletons and their anarchic fellow travelers who seem to think that subsistence farming is the appropriate model. Our business economy is the engine which drives the welfare bus. However, if ordinary Americans are told often enough that they have to move to the back or, more to the point, that there isn't room, they will rebel. The Republicans seem determined to bring this about.
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1. 1/15/02: O'Neill's statement, made to Congress in January, 2001, was, apparently, "Our tax system is not worthy of an advanced society and I really think we need to do something about it."
Nov. 5
There was an article in the P-I today about the interruption of mail service to Washington D.C. because of the need to screen for contamination. However, when I saw the headline, "A Congress Disconnected," I thought that the House Republicans must have introduced a new bill.
Nov. 6
[The last part of this note refers to one of a series of initiatives to the voters sponsored by a local activist, Tim Eyman. His proposals have had two general themes, tax cuts and public votes on any tax increases.]
There have been a number of comments to the effect that the September 11 attacks and the administration's response have fundamentally changed attitudes toward government. In the Washington Post today, Michael Kelly quoted from an article by David Brooks in which Mr. Brooks "argues...that Sept. 11 reshaped our politics. The most important, and most salutary, of the ways in which this is true involves what Brooks calls the relegitimization of central institutions."
Kelly (and apparently Brooks) think that there is a significant change of attitude toward government, a retreat from anti-statism. I'm not convinced of that. Certainly no such renaissance has touched the House of Representatives or the administration. The government's need for revenue over at least several years will be significantly increased, at a time when the business downturn and more realistic forecasts have eliminated any thought of a surplus. The response is to cut taxes: more will be expected of the government, so it will be partially dismantled. The refusal to federalize airport security is another clear indication that attitudes have not changed among those people.
Another development, certainly on a small scale but perhaps revealing of public attitudes, is the vote today in Washington on Initiative 747. This, the latest brainchild of Tim Eyman, will cap increases in property taxes at 1% per annum unless a greater increase is approved by public vote. The present law allows increases of up to 6%. In early returns (it's now 11:30 p.m.), the measure is receiving a 60% "yes" vote.1 Maybe the voters don't think that services cost money or maybe they still believe that we only need to eliminate fraud and waste. Maybe they really want to vote oftener. I doubt that those are the reasons; there still is lots of antigovernment sentiment out there, which is revealed in the series of anti-tax votes over the past few years.2
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1. The final tally was 57.56% yes to 42.44% no.
2. 11/8/01: The letters to the P-I this morning included this (full text), reflecting hostility toward those who run government: "Tim Eyman is a hero to many people of this state. He will be to me as well if and when he gets an initiative on the ballot that would limit [increases in?] state legislators' (and other public officials') salaries to 1 percent without a vote of the people."
Nov 8
[Two earlier Eyman initiatives were invalidated by the courts because they violated a constitutional provision that legislation, whether a bill in the legislature or an initiative, may have only one subject.]
Eyman's initiatives have an impressive record at the polls, but not in the courts, in part because of inept draftsmanship. The present one may turn out to have a similar flaw. Certainly it is peculiar: the first and last sections are not substantive, but inanely argumentative, revealing Mr. Eyman's megalomania. For example, in the last section, we have this:
The people have clearly expressed their desire to limit taxes through the overwhelming passage of numerous initiatives and referendums. However, politicians throughout the state of Washington continue to ignore these measures.
Politicians are reminded:...
(3) Politicians are an employee [sic] of the people, not their boss.
(4) Any property tax increase which violates the clear intent of this measure undermines the trust of the people in their government and will increase the likelihood of future tax limitation measures.
Don't mess with Tim or he'll repeal another tax.
The prior two initiatives, I-695 and I-722, have been struck down by superior courts and the rejection of 695 has been upheld on appeal. The fate of I-722 is pending before the Supreme Court, which leads to an interesting ambiguity in the present initiative. The law prior to Initiative 722 allowed a 6% annual increase in property taxes without a vote. I-722 would have reduced that to 2%. I-722 has not gone into effect due to its rejection at the superior court level. If the Supreme Court overrules, 722 may take effect, but for now it is a nullity. I-747 recites that it amends the existing statute and I-722, which may be an accurate statement. However, the amendment set out in 747 shows only the change from the 722 level: "'Limit factor' means...one hundred ((two)) onepercent...." That suggests to anyone reading the initiative that the change is a reduction of only one per cent, and that the present limit is 102%, which it is not; that is merely Eyman's probably vain hope. The Supreme Court voided I-695 in part because it violated the rule that an initiative must deal with only one subject. I-722 also violates the rule, although Eyman has attempted to avoid it by heading each section "Limiting taxes by...."1
Also, in the first section of I-747 we find this: "The Washington state Constitution limits property taxes to 1% per year; this measure matches this principle by limiting property tax increases to 1% per year." The two provisions "match" only in the use of the figure 1%; otherwise they deal with entirely different concepts. The former limits the total tax burden on a parcel of property, in any year, by all taxing districts, to 1% of the value of the property; the latter would (subject to exceptions not set forth in or affected by the initiative) limit the total tax levy of a district to 101% of the highest levy in the three preceding years. However, a reader might be misled into thinking that the initiative somehow enforces the constitutional limit. This specious argument would have looked good on a campaign poster; putting it into the text of the initiative may come back to bite the author.
Not many voters read the text of initiatives, even the admirably short ones sponsored by Mr. Eyman, so the actual effect of these ambiguities may be small. However, I would not be surprised to see them turn up in a challenge to 747.
In addition to imposing the 2% per year limit on increases in the total tax levy of a district, I-722 would have exempted a property owner from paying "the portion of property taxes attributable to any increase in value of property...over its 1999 valuation level, plus the lesser of 2% per year or inflation." The former is a limit on total taxes; the latter is an individual right. As the value of expensive property increases faster than average, this is a gift to the affluent. Perhaps because
that was inconsistent with the supposedly populist character of these initiatives, it was dropped from 747.
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1. 11/29/01: I'm not keeping up; the Supreme Court voided I-722 on September 20 under the one-subject rule.
Nov 10
Public officials already are predicting reductions in services due to the passage of I-747. This irritated one reader of the P-I: "It seems every time there is a lack of money, it is due to one or the other initiative, never attributed to the inability of the bureaucracy to run a lean, mean operation." The writer's complaint that initiatives are handed more than their share of the blame has merit; in the present case, the economic downturn plays a part in the reductions in revenue. However, her point is the usual one that all we need to do is spend less, and her choice of cliché, "lean and mean," may reveal more that she intended. Wealth transfer, welfare, aid to the undeserving poor are not popular.
Nov 12
The WTO convened, so there was a protest Friday in Seattle, although little of it seemed to have anything to do with the WTO. About 200 gathered at Seattle Central Community College for speeches. According to the Seattle Times, one "black-clad man wearing a bandanna as a mask" told the crowd, "You know that some of us were here in 1999. We're part of your community. We're the anarchist community."
The main event was a protest at the U.S. Immigration Station of a raid November 7 on a wire transfer operation in Rainier Valley suspected of providing money to terrorists. About 100 Somalis joined the WTO group for this part of the demonstration; only about 50 of the total went on to Westlake Square to continue to protest the WTO.
The wire transfer is used by Somalis to send money home, but the government apparently suspects al Qaida of skimming or diverting the funds. The wire transfer was housed with a mini-mart. The protesters were upset not only at the suspension of an operation they believe to be honest and essential, but at agents' hauling off and later dumping the inventory of the mini-mart. We can't know who's right about the former, but the latter seemed to be gratuitous
destruction of property.
The government's actions in this raid are questionable, but at least they had something to do with the terrorist threat. It's difficult to see what, other than ideology, would prompt the Justice Department spend time threatening physicians who use drugs to assist suicide in Oregon, where it is legal, and the DEA to use scarce resources to raid a medical-marijuana facility in California, where medical use is legal. Whatever one may believe about these issues, they should not be the
current focus. The government's domestic response to September 11 has been disorganized at best; diverting attention to matters such as these can only make that worse.
Nov. 13
The administration has been careful not to declare war on Islam or to blame the faith for the terrorist attacks. There are good reasons for this, including preventing retaliation against Muslim Americans and preservation of a coalition which includes Muslim nations. However, as some including Salman Rushdie have pointed out, there is a religious element in the hatred of the United States.
Certainly we should not be blind to religious causes, among others. However, if we needed any reminder that terrorism, hatred of government and rejection of mainstream Americanism exist independent of Islam, and exist at home, it has been provided.
Sara Jane Olson appeared in court last week to answer for her part, as a member or dupe of the Symbionese Liberation Army, in an attempt to bomb two police cars. She tried to finesse by pleading guilty to two felony counts, then announcing to reporters that she had no regrets and that she was innocent and had been forced to accept a plea because the September 11 attacks created an atmosphere in which someone accused of engaging in violence against the government could not receive a fair trial.1 The judge was not amused; at the next hearing, he told her, "A guilty plea is not a way-station on the way to a press conference." She affirmed her plea and then kept quiet, but remorse is not likely to have taken hold. She did indeed have the bad fortune to be caught at an unpropitious time, and her hallway comments no doubt reflect her real and unrepentant feelings.2
Bill Ayers, another former bomber, burst into print just before September 11. Ayers helped to place a bomb at the Pentagon, among other places - or maybe he just fantasized that; in any case, if he did it, he's proud. His post-publication interviews seek to excuse terrorism by reference to the Vietnam war. His wife, Bernadette Dohrn, was part of the same Weather Underground mob. Although they were convicted of crimes, no stigma attached: he now teaches English at Illinois, she law at Northwestern. Such are the elevated standards of the academy.
At least these people are too old and sedentary (and, ironically, too respectable) to plant bombs; now they can do harm only indirectly. Their disciples are out there performing acts of violence in protest of world trade, the rape of the environment or whatever they are outraged about on any given day. One of the recent incidents was the firebombing of a corral at a facility housing wild horses. The "Earth Liberation Front" accepted blame, stating that the attack was in reaction to
the government's "continued war against the earth." It added: "In the name of all that is wild we will continue to target industries and organizations that seek to profit by destroying the earth."
This psychotic behavior exists on both sides of the political spectrum: Olson, Ayers, Dohrn and the eco-terrorists on the left, Timothy McVeigh and the abortion-clinic bombers on the right.
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1. The New York Times article on her appearance was aptly entitled "A Last Gasp of Radical Cheek."
2. 11/16/01: Yesterday she filed an application to withdraw her guilty plea. Stay tuned.
Nov 23
Addendum: we have a new inmate in the right wing of this asylum. Last week at a gun show, one Timothy W. Tobiason was peddling a how-to-do-it book on germ warfare. Enraged at the government for some slight, real or imagined, he is offering instruction on how to kill people. His book includes directions for making "mail delivered" anthrax. Mr. Ashcroft may be rounding up the wrong group.
Nov 24
George Will allowed his penchant for sweeping pronouncements to lead him into excess in his column Thursday. "A foolishness of recent decades - a fetishism of rights without parameters - has been partially purged by the heat of burning jet fuel."1 Following that repellant lead, he revealed the evidence of fetish-purging: "Sobriety is evident in the mostly temperate response to President Bush's revival of the traditional wartime option of trying unlawful foreign belligerents in military tribunals." His subject is the order issued by President Bush on November 13 providing that accused terrorists, if non-citizens, will be tried before "military commissions," military tribunals bound by fewer restrictions than courts martial and possibly operating in secret. In contrast to the mostly temperate response, "some professional hysterics, such as New York Times editorialists, have reacted with the theatricality of antebellum southern belles suffering the vapors over a breach of etiquette." More intemperate response is needed; herewith some theatricality.
Mr. Will asserted that "It was only in order to preserve the option that Bush insisted that the tribunals be able to try alien terrorists held in the United States. The real purpose of the tribunals is to cope with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unlawful belligerents or war criminals captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere." Perhaps, but his celebration was prompted by a supposed change in attitude toward domestic jurisprudence, and it is the domestic use of military commissions that should cause concern. Mr. Will's confidence in a government body operating in secret under rules designed to provide limited protection from abuse of power is
remarkable considering that he doesn't trust government. Of course, he's a citizen and why worry about aliens? They're the only ones at risk - for now.
The commissions have been characterized by Will's fellow conservative William Safire as kangaroo courts, which is fair comment as to their domestic use. The decision to employ them is born of concern about our security, which is appropriate, but also of the common tendency in such cases to fall back on drastic measures. The practices during and after both world wars offer parallels and, unfortunately, precedents and excuses. This order and the Attorney General's decision to listen in on attorney-client conversations reflect a degree of panic on the part of an administration which, at least in some of its parts, is not up to the present
challenge. One could argue with as much force that the hysteria lies in these policies.
This is the rationale set out in the body of the order:
[Section 1](d) The ability of the United States to protect the United States and its citizens, and to help its allies and other cooperating nations protect their nations and their citizens, from such further terrorist attacks depends in significant part upon using the United States Armed Forces to identify terrorists and those who support them, to disrupt their activities, and to eliminate their ability to conduct or support such attacks.
(e) To protect the United States and its citizens, and for the effective conduct of military operations and prevention of terrorist attacks, it is necessary for individuals subject to this order pursuant to section 2 hereof to be detained, and, when tried, to be tried for violations of the laws of war and other applicable laws by military tribunals.
Detention at the government's whim obviously raises serious questions in terms of civil liberties, but at least there is some relationship to preventing further attacks. The rest of this doesn't make much sense. Using the armed forces certainly will be necessary abroad. I hope that the President is not suggesting their use at home; if so, we have a more serious problem than the one posed by this order. Under either assumption, why is "the effective conduct of military operations" dependant upon subjecting residents accused of terrorism to a special tribunal? How will military trials "protect the United States and its citizens?"
The order doesn't offer an answer to either question, but "White House officials" said that the tribunals were "necessary to protect potential American jurors from the danger of passing judgment on terrorists."2 Presumably the concern is retribution against or intimidation of jurors by the terrorists the government leaves at large. I'd be interested to know how many potential jurors have expressed that fear; I suspect that when the occasion arose, there would be few asking to be excused. In any case, this is too obvious a makeweight to take seriously.
The sources "also said the tribunals would prevent the disclosure of government intelligence methods, which normally would be public in civilian courts." This one I can believe, but easy suppression of whatever the government wants to suppress is an argument against this scheme.
One possible reason for secret trials or the limitation of defendants' rights is the belief that a proper trial would give terrorists a platform. The administration has revealed this fear in the pressure put on networks not to broadcast statements by bin Laden. That decision was foolish and applying the same principle here would be equally so. Osama and his followers have convicted themselves every time they have opened their mouths; what have we to be afraid of?
There has been no clear statement of the legal basis for the order. It cites two provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. §§ 821 and 836. The latter empowers the President to prescribe the procedures to be followed by military tribunals, including military commissions; the order contains such provisions, so this is authority for the order to that extent. Section 836 also states that the procedures "shall, so far as [the president] considers practicable, apply the
principles of law and the rules of evidence generally recognized in the trial of criminal cases in the United States District Courts...." The order deals with that as follows:
[Section 1](f) Given the danger to the safety of the United States and the nature of international terrorism, and to the extent provided by and under this order, I find consistent with section 836 of title 10, United States Code, that it is not practicable to apply in military commissions under this order the principles of law and the rules of evidence generally recognized in the trial of criminal cases in the United States district courts.
Why is it not practicable? No reason is offered, but of course we can speculate that the idea is to speed things along and guarantee convictions. The image is of defendants hustled through trial and on to execution3 as the shells whistle by; there's no time for niceties in the midst of battle.
This is dramatic, but not persuasive.
Section 821 states that provisions in the Uniform Code of Military Justice referring to courts martial do not "deprive military commissions...of concurrent jurisdiction with respect to offenders or offenses that by statute or by the law of war may be tried by military commissions...." On its face this is irrelevant as no one is contending that the trials should be before courts martial. The intent presumably is to establish that military commissions are legitimate and Section 821 implies their continued viability. However it offers no guidance as to what military commissions are and what their jurisdiction is.
The order applies to any non-citizen whom the President determines that there is reason to believe
(i) is or was a member of the organization known as al Qaida;
(ii) has engaged in, aided or abetted, or conspired to commit, acts of international terrorism, or acts in preparation therefor, that have caused, threaten to cause, or have as their aim to cause, injury to or adverse effects on the United States, its citizens, national security, foreign policy, or economy; or
(iii) has knowingly harbored one or more individuals described in subparagraphs (i) or (ii)....
The order assumes that the President has the power to subject such persons to this order, but the Uniform Code of Military Justice doesn't provide it. Military commissions are a creature of "the law of war," a sort of military common law, and it is necessary to look to Supreme Court decisions to make sense of this.
Military commissions were employed during and after World War II, and administration spokesmen have been eager to cite President Roosevelt's decision to use them as support for the present order. (By a parity of reasoning, we should round up all Muslims and confine them in detention camps for the duration of the conflict). The case generally referred to is Ex parte Quirin, in which the Supreme Court upheld the convictions before a military commission of Germans who had been landed here by submarine to engage in sabotage. Whether that decision
could apply here might depend in part on a comparison of statutory law then and now. Within the then-existing statutory framework, the Court decided the issue by determining whether the defendants were charged with a violation of the laws of war. It found that they were, and in so doing drew a distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants, the latter including soldiers out of uniform, behind enemy lines, engaging in espionage or sabotage. None of the context of that determination is present here. The defendants took off their uniforms upon landing and thereafter wore civilian clothes; terrorists don't have uniforms. The defendants' activities were
unlawful because they were behind the lines; there aren't any here. The rationale assumes a declared war, conventional forces and a national enemy.
However, to the administration, the only issue is that a military commission was approved for the trial of people determined to do great, warlike damage. President Bush simply has said this is the way it's going to be, and has dared Congress and the country to say no.
We offer the American way as a model and the protection of it as a basis for our actions. That way includes adherence to reasonably modern concepts regarding the administration of justice. Important among them is the rejection of the notion that the magnitude of the crime and the identity of the accused dictate the rights to be recognized.
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1. All quotes from Mr. Will: Washington Post, 11/22/01.
2. New York Times 11/15/01; same source for all quotes except those by Mr. Will.
3. Vice President Cheney indicated that this is what he has in mind: A military tribunal, he said, 'guarantees that we'll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve.' He spoke favorably of World War II saboteurs being 'executed in relatively rapid order' under military tribunals set up by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Nov. 27
The Bush administration, in its early days, announced that we would go alone, heedless of world opinion, disdainful of treaties existing or proposed. When we were attacked, the President suddenly realized that we needed help and support, which have been provided with far less mention of our former position than we deserve. This administration learns slowly; the military-commission order now threatens an aspect of that support.
Spain has charged eight men with crimes related to terrorism, possibly including membership in al Qaida and participation in the September 11 attacks. Spain will not extradite them if they would face trial by military commission. Europe already considers us to be less than fully enlightened because of our use of the death penalty, so there might have been problems anyway. However, the prospect of military trials removes all doubt and serves not only to interfere with our interests but to align us with the sort of regimes we accuse of sponsoring terrorism.
Dec 3
A seductive argument, that we are at war with an enemy which is not only evil but somehow of a different order of being than any faced to date, is the basis for much of the support for the administration's policies. The force of this argument was illustrated in a column by Thomas Friedman in Sunday's New York Times. Mr. Friedman, an excellent political columnist, ought not to have been seduced, but he has. Although he offers some pro forma criticism of the policies, including military tribunals, he is ready to accept their basic premise.
...I am glad critics are in Mr. Ashcroft's face, challenging his every move. His draconian measures go against our fundamental notion that people have a right to be let alone by government when there is no evidence that they have committed a crime and, if there is evidence, to be charged and tried in public, with judicial oversight, not in some secret proceeding. When our officials deviate from those norms they should be grilled and grilled again.
But having said that, I find myself with some sympathy for Mr. Ashcroft's moves. Listening to the debate, it is almost as if people think we're safe now: the Taliban have fallen, we've won and we can act as if it were Sept. 10 - with no regard to the unique enemy we're up against.
He reaches this conclusion from the observation that bin Laden would not be convicted by a jury of his peers. What this has to do with the issue is a mystery to me.
Mr. Friedman's reference to the unique enemy is the key to his view. In contrast to the Soviets, who, for all their faults, shared "certain basic human norms" with us, bin Laden and al Qaeda are "radical evil - people who not only want to destroy us but are perfectly ready to destroy themselves as well. They are not just enemies of America; they are enemies of civilization." What has this to do with judicial procedure? "At some level our legal system depends on certain shared values and assumptions between accusers and accused. But those simply do not apply in this case." In his view, our judicial procedures are to be tailored to the degree of evil perceived in the accused.
It gets worse. All of his argument is based on the supposition that those subjected to the new procedures are guilty, that they are brothers to those who piloted the planes, that every defendant will be a surrogate for the dead terrorists: "...let's not debate all this in a vacuum. Let's not forget what was surely the smile on those hijackers' faces as they gunned the engines on our passenger planes to kill as many Americans as possible in the World Trade Center."
If someone as intelligent and perceptive as Thomas Friedman can forget that anyone accused is in principle, and most of those presently detained almost certainly are in fact, innocent of any such relationship, then the rule of law is in deep trouble.
One source of the administration's rationale for the military commissions is the White House Counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, who has given us his interpretation on television and in print. The latter, appearing in the New York Times a few days ago, demonstrates that loyalty is a more important attribute for the position than knowledge of or fidelity to the law.
Mr. Gonzales begins by informing us that "President Bush has invoked his power to establish military commissions to try enemy belligerents who commit war crimes." This sentence contains three assumptions, two of which are dubious interpretations of the law, and the third a blatant repudiation of it. Whether the President has the authority to establish military commissions to try resident civilians is, as far as I know, an open question; nothing in Mr. Gonzales' column and nothing I have seen elsewhere provides that foundation. Mr. Gonzales describes the potential defendants as enemy belligerants, which is doubly unfounded. This categorization, and more generally all of this rationale, is part of the obsolete tradition of declared wars; it cannot be carried over without modification into the present situation. The second problem with the use of that language, and with the third part of his statement, is that he assumes the guilt of those charged or even merely detained. This appears even more clearly in a later statement: "Enemy war criminals are not entitled to the same procedural protections as people who violate
our domestic laws."
Part of Mr. Gonzales' column consists of nonsense, such as reminding us that commission trials will be "full and fair" or arguing that we are saving our liberties by renouncing them. Part is more candid but no more convincing: we need military commissions in order to use secret information, to take advantage of looser rules of evidence and to "dispense justice swiftly, close to where our forces may be fighting, without years of pretrial proceedings or post-trial appeals." (How the parenthetical applies to domestic use of these tribunals is not explained). The truly appalling part of his lecture is the degree to which he misrepresents what the order says or what commissions are.
"The order covers only foreign enemy war criminals; it does not cover United States citizens or even enemy soldiers abiding by the laws of war." (Again, the accused are criminals before trial). The exception for enemy soldiers is contrary to the stated goal of dispensing justice swiftly close to the fighting, unless there is some way to distinguish between "enemy soldiers" and "war criminals." What is it? Which category do Taliban soldiers fall into? Taliban leaders? Al Qaeda members, however defined? The exception for those abiding by the laws of war is entirely illusory; there is no standard by which this could be measured and it is clear that the administration intends to define violations ad hoc. All of this is, however, largely beside the point. The controversy is over the domestic use of commissions; as to that, this front-line rhetoric is merely a smokescreen.
"Under the order, the president will refer to military commissions only noncitizens who are members or active supporters of Al Qaeda or other international terrorist organizations targeting the United States." This is not so. The order applies to anyone who has "knowingly harbored" someone suspected of terrorism. It does not require that the accused have "actively supported" terrorism. It isn't even clear that the accused must have known that the person in question was a terrorist. Moreover, this category and those more directly related to terrorism are defined by presidential discretion: they include anyone that the President "determine[s] from time to time... that there is reason to believe" is such a person, not exactly a rigorous
standard.
Mr. Gonzales says that, to be subject to the commissions, one "must be chargeable with offenses against the international laws of war, like targeting civilians or hiding in civilian populations and refusing to bear arms openly." There is no such requirement in the order. The only reference to the laws of war is in the statement of principles, which recites that it is necessary for those subject to the order to be tried for violations of "the laws of war and other applicable laws." A noncitizen is subject to the order if the president determines that there is reason to believe that he "(i) is or was a member of...al Qaida; (ii) has engaged in, aided or abetted, or conspired to
commit, acts of international terrorism, or acts in preparation therefor...or (iii) has knowingly harbored one or more individuals described in subparagraphs (i) or (ii)." Terrorism is not defined, which further extends the potential scope.
"Military commission trials are not secret. The president's order authorizes the secretary of defense to close proceedings to protect classified information. It does not require that any trial, or even portions of a trial, be conducted in secret." I assume that he grasps the point that they may be secret and may be so at the government's whim, so this is evasion, and not even skillful evasion.
"Everyone tried before a military commission will know the charges against him, be represented by qualified counsel and be allowed to present a defense." There is nothing in the order to support this. "The American military justice system is the finest in the world, with longstanding traditions of forbidding command influence on proceedings, of providing zealous advocacy by competent defense counsel, and of procedural fairness.... The suggestion that these commissions will afford only sham justice like that dispensed in dictatorial nations is an insult to our military justice system." No, it isn't. The traditions he refers to apply to courts martial; military commissions are different bodies not subject to the same rules.
"The order preserves judicial review in civilian courts. Under the order, anyone arrested, detained or tried in the United States by a military commission will be able to challenge the lawfulness of the commission's jurisdiction through a habeas corpus proceeding in a federal court." This is false. As to the first sentence, there is no provision for appeal or any other "judicial review;" to the contrary, "review and final decision" are reserved to the President or, if so delegated, to the Secretary of Defense. As to the second sentence, individuals subject to the order "shall not be privileged to seek any remedy or maintain any proceeding, directly or ndirectly, or to have any such remedy or proceeding sought on the individual's behalf, in (i) any
court of the United States, or any State thereof, (ii) any court of any foreign nation, or (iii) any international tribunal." Perhaps Mr. Gonzales is relying on the courts to reject this sham and save civil liberties from him and the rest of the administration.
Dec 6
After writing the foregoing note, I saw an article about the Senate hearings which seemed to say that persons better qualified that I had expressed some level of consent to the military commissions. I didn't read carefully, didn't save and can't find that article, so I'm not sure what their reasoning was. I'm prepared to be shown that I'm wrong, having had sufficient experience of being so, but until then I remain an unrepentant opponent of this policy.
Dec 7
Apart from promulgating or supporting bad policies and showing himself to be unsuited to his post, Mr. Ashcroft's statements and decisions have been revealing as to two elements of conservative doctrine. One has been shown to be flexible, the other rigid.
The former is the aversion to intrusive government. The fear of the knock on the door, the specter of rights trampled by the authorities apparently apply only to OSHA.
The latter is gun rights. Mr. Ashcroft has been a staunch supporter and the emergency which requires the suspension of various other rights is not going to change that. The Justice Department has prevented the FBI from checking gun-purchase records of suspected terrorists. Mr. Ashcroft stated that he is prevented by law from allowing access to the records, apparently referring to a policy adopted by the Clinton administration. I haven't seen any film of the hearings; I wonder whether the Senators laughed at the claim that fastidious adherence to the law (a Clinton policy!) is going to stand in Mr. Ashcroft's way.
Dec 8
I misjudged Mr. Ashcroft; he's worse that I thought. In his Senate testimony he descended to the level of that especially base form of pseudo-patriotism, the argument that any criticism of the administration gives aid to the enemy: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists."
Dec 10
I located the article about military commissions [see 12/6], in the NY Times of 12/5. The principal reference was to Lawrence Tribe. However, in a letter to the Times on 12/7, he said his comments had been misinterpreted:
You correctly report that I do not believe that military tribunals per se violate the Constitution, but I certainly don't support the president's sweeping order of Nov. 13.... The power that it asserts is too quintessentially legislative to stand without authorization from Congress, which the laws cited by the attorney general fail to provide. More fundamentally, not even Congress could empower a president to subject any resident alien to trial by tribunal whenever the president claims reason to believe that the accused ever aided or abetted what the president deems international terrorism....
Dec 19
Since the end of October, Jack Kemp has written three columns (to be more accurate, three which have found their way into the Seattle P-I) advancing his economic views. I know next to nothing about economics, so it's a good idea to hide my ignorance by avoiding the subject; Mr. Kemp has no such inhibitions. His columns set forth a theory part of which I find baffling. It's possible, of course, that I'm simply too ignorant to understand it, but I think that it's more likely that he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Kemp disagrees with the administration (and, it seems, nearly everyone else) that we need an economic stimulus package. To the extent that he is simply skeptical that any of the bills discussed will be of any help, he may be right; however, his disapproval is due more to his adherence to an opposing doctrine. According to him,
Our current economic problems are neither the result of the "normal operation of the business cycle" nor the aftermath of a "burst bubble." My best reading of the economic data is that we are in a deflationary recession inadvertently created by the Federal Reserve Board and exacerbated by a tax code so anti-growth that, in Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's words, it is "unworthy of an advanced civilization." (P-I 11/1/01)
Other more knowledgeable people have talked about the possibility or threat of deflation, but Mr. Kemp appeared to be referring to something already in being. On November 14, after reiterating that we are in a deflationary recession, he offered some context: "In late 2000, the Fed asphyxiated the economy, which was growing at more than 4 percent, by shrinking the monetary base by 3 percent and sucking the oxygen out of the marketplace." Assuming that he means M-1, that's about its decline for the entire year; I don't know of any contraction of that dimension in "late" 2000. One also could criticize the Fed for raising interest rates last year when better forecasting would have shown the beginnings of a downturn, but what does
any of this have to do with deflation?
Obviously I'm not the only one who's slow; Kemp continued:
Even now, however, most economists and government officials deny that deflationary monetary policy is the culprit. How, they ask, can we be experiencing deflation when prices continue to rise, when the Federal Reserve Board has cut short-term interest rates 10 times this year to their lowest level since 1961 and when the money supply continues to grow faster than the economy? Let me explain.
First of all, prices are falling and have been falling for some time. In a deflation, price decreases begin with commodities that are traded on spot markets, such as gold, industrial metals and agricultural goods, all of which have fallen substantially in price over the past several years.
That suggests that we're really talking about gold prices, which turns out to be the case. I discovered that Kemp and his guru Jude Wanniski have argued that we have been in a deflationary period since 1996. However, this doesn't mean deflation in any ordinary sense; it means, apparently, that the price of gold has fallen. According to Wanniski, the "current deflationary process began in late 1996 when the dollar price of gold and all other commodities began to fall."1
Both tend to dance around the subject of gold, perhaps recognizing how eccentric they sound in advocating a policy of tying money to gold. As in the preceding quotes, they sometimes talk about "commodity prices," rather than gold alone. In that elliptical mood, Kemp demanded that "the Fed replace discretionary monetary policy...with monetary policy based upon targeting market price signals." 2 When gold is mentioned, the references often are indirect, even mystical, as if, having admitted that gold must be the measure, they are reluctant to come right out and say what they mean: the money supply should be managed to maintain the price of gold at a set level. Thus Wanniski referred to "the deflation we see evidenced by the declining gold price,"
and criticized Allan Greenspan for deciding that the decline in the price of gold "was not a useful sign of monetary deflation." He offered this definition: "Deflation is not a statistic but a decline in the monetary standard." According to him (and his guru, Robert Mundell), inflation also is a decline in that standard. "The decline in a standard reflects not its rise or fall in value but its deteriorating stability, credibility and constancy. To all the titans of classical theory that standard was golden...."
However, eventually the discussion becomes specific. Wanniski rejected pegging money to composite commodity prices because they are too volatile and Kemp offered this formula:
There is nothing mysterious about how gold could be used as a reference point....With the dollar defined in terms of gold..., the Fed would stop guessing how much liquidity is good for the economy and allow the market to make that decision for it. With the dollar defined in terms of gold..., the Fed would forget about raising or lowering interest rates and simply add liquidity (buy bonds) when the price of gold tries to fall and subtract liquidity (sell bonds) when it tries to rise...."3
This suggests a desire for stability, and on November 14, Kemp seemed to confirm that: "We want the value of our money to remain constant rather than increase or decrease, and that is what we look to the Fed to do." However, in the same column, he argued that the Fed "should be buying bonds, which will inject liquidity into the economy...." In other words, he wanted the Fed to manipulate the money supply, to decrease the value of money. Wanniski had made the same argument: "the deflationary process...cannot be reversed unless someone the president respects picks up the phone and tells him there is no remedy except an inflation to readjust the
gold price."
Buried in all of this is a magic value for gold, at least for now. The inflation called for by Kemp on November 14 should continue "...until commodity prices and the price of gold rise off their lows and other prices stabilize." How far should gold rise? On June 28, he said,
The only way to end this deflation is to have the Fed stop targeting interest rates and begin targeting gold directly...by calibrating the level of liquidity in the economy...to keep the market price of gold stable within a narrow band closer to $325 than $275 [roughly its price in June and now].
What is the real-world advantage of increasing the price of gold? If we are entering a period of deflation, conventionally defined, increasing the money supply might be called for (a question far beyond my grasp), but if so, what has the price of gold to do with it? What is significant about $325? None of this makes much sense, so maybe this proposed burst of inflation is merely a goofy detail in a goofy theory. However, cynic that I am, I suspect a hidden agenda, one at which Wanniski may have hinted in references to a value for gold which would put "the interests of
debtors and creditors in balance," and to the burden on debtors of paying off debt "with more valuable dollars" created by deflation.
Whatever the Kemp-Wanniski definition of deflation might be, is there any evidence that it restricted business expansion and caused a recession? If it did, the effect was long delayed: GDP grew by 3.57% in 1996 and by 4% or more through 2000; the first negative month was March, 2001.
The other part of the Kemp theory is simplicity itself: tax cuts will cause economic expansion. This has been supply-side doctrine from the outset, validated in terms of motivation: we need tax cuts "to remove the huge disincentives to work, save and invest produced by taxing income four and five times at high rate [sic] as we do currently."4 I think that we might reasonably ask
how much has to be given to the affluent before they will consent to doing anything useful.
In his latest column, carried today in the P-I, Mr. Kemp urges the Senate Democrats to compromise on the stimulus bill, i.e., stop opposing tax cuts. He derides the "class warriors in Sen. Tom Daschle's wing of the Democratic Party" who "argue that higher tax rates on upper-income people are required to pay for increased government benefits to those suffering from the economic downturn." If Senator Daschle represents the radical wing of the party, it has become tame indeed. The class warfare here is resistance to such measures as a retroactive windfall for corporations. As to "higher tax rates," Kemp means that Democrats propose that Congress "actually raise taxes" by delaying the tax-rate reductions passed a few months ago. Kemp says that such a policy would not hurt the rich (good, that's out of the way; onward). But wait: it hurts the poor; it prevents them from "climbing the economic ladder." He doesn't say how, but I assume that it has to do with job-formation by the favored ones.
Jack Kemp is a man of good will blessed with a sense of responsibility, but he remains a true believer in the Laffer-Wanniski faith, which has made him a gold-standard crank and has given him a distorted view of the importance of tax rates in economic growth. Most Republicans have had the sense to ignore calls to return to gold, but they have been all too willing to subscribe to the tax-cutting half of the Kemp message. Even here, I doubt that they accept the ideology which accompanies it, the notion that tax cuts favoring the producer class automatically will result in growth. They just like lower taxes, but are quite willing to hide behind supply-side
rhetoric. Kemp deserves better than to be used by people who simply want to keep more, and whose social views are less enlightened than his.
__________
1. This and other quotes from Mr. Wanniski are from an article this year in The American Spectator,. exact date unknown. One of the minor mysteries is what Wanniski is looking at; gold prices did not begin to fall in late 1996 and composite commodity prices rose in 1996.
20. P-I 11/1/01.
21. Wall Street Journal 6/28/01.
22. P-I 11/1. Apparently the dreaded double taxation has mutated.
Dec 28
The administration appears to be backing away from the extreme position taken in the military-commission order. The only person charged thus far with complicity in the terrorist attacks will be tried in District Court. Today The Washington Post reported that guidelines for the commissions will civilize them to some degree. These are encouraging developments and I assume that they reflect second thoughts and more mature consideration of the issues. Certainly they cannot have resulted from any criticism from Democrats in Congress, most of whose reactions ranged from silence to enthusiastic acceptance of the original commission structure; Senator Lieberman was a surprising member of the latter group. Even Senator Leahy managed only to be upset that Congress wasn't consulted; apparently it is important to capitulate in advance.
