Until Sunday
While he isn’t interested in strolling with McCain, Obama does have an interest in going to Iraq:
Barack Obama’s campaign said Wednesday that the Illinois senator is considering a trip to Iraq before the November election, CNN’s Candy Crowley reports.Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain had strongly criticized Obama earlier in the day for not visiting Iraq in more than two years, and for turning down the Arizona senator’s suggestion that the two should make a joint trip to the country.
“Senator Obama has been to Iraq once — a little over 2 years ago he went and he has never seized the opportunity except in a hearing to meet with Gen Petraeus,” McCain said at a campaign event in Reno, Nevada. “My friends this is about leadership and learning.”
Again raising the issue of Obama’s willingness to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, McCain also said of the Illinois senator, “he wants to sit down with the president of Iran but hasn’t yet sat down with Gen. Petraeus, the leader of our troops in Iraq?”
Responding to McCain, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, “It seems odd that Senator McCain, who bought the flawed rationale for war so readily, would be lecturing others on their depth of understanding about Iraq.”
Obama last visited Iraq in January, 2006 for a two-day tour of the country.
McCain’s comments come the same day the Republican National Committee launched a clock on its Web site noting how many days it has been since Obama traveled to Iraq, and three days after his supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested both the presumptive Republican nominee and Obama tour the country together. McCain later said he agreed that the Democratic presidential contender should accompany him on an upcoming trip, adding that he would “seize that opportunity to educate Senator Obama along the way.”
Burton declined the invitation and called the move a “political stunt.”
“The American people don’t want any more false promises of progress, they deserve a real debate about a war that has overstretched our military, and cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer,” he added.
Speaking Wednesday, McCain called those comments a “profound misunderstanding” of the situation in Iraq.
“That is a profound misunderstanding, a profound misunderstanding of what’s happened in Iraq and what’s at stake in Iraq,” he said. “Because if we set a date of withdrawal as Senator Obama wants to do, there will be chaos, there will be genocide, there will be increased Iranian influence there, and we will have to go back with further sacrifice of American blood and treasure.”
Bush ‘plans Iran air strike by August’
By Muhammad Cohen
NEW YORK – The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that that the US plans an
air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC’s elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds’ stated mission is to spread Iran’s revolution of 1979 throughout the region.
Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq. US officials have repeatedly claimed Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. In January 2007, US forces raided the Iranian consulate general in Erbil, Iraq, arresting five staff members, including two Iranian diplomats it held until November. Last September, the US Senate approved a resolution by a vote of 76-22 urging President George W Bush to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. Following this non-binding “sense of the senate” resolution, the White House declared sanctions against the Quds Force as a terrorist group in October. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, though most intelligence analysts say the program has been abandoned.
An attack on Iraq would fit the Bush administration’s declared policy on Iraq. Administration officials questioned directly about military action against Iran routinely assert that “all options remain on the table”.
Rockin’ and a-reelin’
Senators and the Bush administration denied the resolution and terrorist declaration were preludes to an attack on Iran. However, attacking Iran rarely seems far from some American leaders’ minds. Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain recast the classic Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann as “Bomb Iran”. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton promised “total obliteration” for Iran if it attacked Israel.
The US and Iran have a long and troubled history, even without the proposed air strike. US and British intelligence were behind attempts to unseat prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who nationalized Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company, and returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power in 1953. President Jimmy Carter’s pressure on the Shah to improve his dismal human-rights record and loosen political control helped the 1979 Islamic revolution unseat the Shah.
But the new government under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned the US as “the Great Satan” for its decades of support for the Shah and its reluctant admission into the US of the fallen monarch for cancer treatment. Students occupied the US Embassy in Teheran, holding 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. Eight American commandos died in a failed rescue mission in 1980. The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran during the hostage holding and has yet to restore them. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric often sounds lifted from the Khomeini era.
The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.
Sense in the senate
Details provided by the administration raised alarm bells on Capitol Hill, the source said. After receiving secret briefings on the planned air strike, Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said they would write a New York Times op-ed piece “within days”, the source said last week, to express their opposition. Feinstein is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Senate offices were closed for the US Memorial Day holiday, so Feinstein and Lugar were not available for comment.
Given their obligations to uphold the secrecy of classified information, it is unlikely the senators would reveal the Bush administration’s plan or their knowledge of it. However, going public on the issue, even without specifics, would likely create a public groundswell of criticism that could induce the Bush administration reconsider its plan.
The proposed air strike on Iran would have huge implications for geopolitics and for the ongoing US presidential campaign. The biggest question, of course, is how would Iran respond?
Iran’s options
Iran could flex its muscles in any number of ways. It could step up support for insurgents in Iraq and for its allies throughout the Middle East. Iran aids both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Israel’s Occupied Territories. It is also widely suspected of assisting Taliban rebels in Afghanistan.
Iran could also choose direct confrontation with the US in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, with which Iran shares a long, porous border. Iran has a fighting force of more than 500,000. Iran is also believed to have missiles capable of reaching US allies in the Gulf region.
Iran could also declare a complete or selective oil embargo on US allies. Iran is the second-largest oil exporter in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and fourth-largest overall. About 70% of its oil exports go to Asia. The US has barred oil imports from Iran since 1995 and restricts US companies from investing there.
China is Iran’s biggest customer for oil, and Iran buys weapons from China. Trade between the two countries hit US$20 billion last year and continues to expand. China’s reaction to an attack on Iran is also a troubling unknown for the US.
Three for the money
The Islamic world could also react strongly against a US attack against a third predominantly Muslim nation. Pakistan, which also shares a border with Iran, could face additional pressure from Islamic parties to end its cooperation with the US to fight al-Qaeda and hunt for Osama bin Laden. Turkey, another key ally, could be pushed further off its secular base. American companies, diplomatic installations and other US interests could face retaliation from governments or mobs in Muslim-majority states from Indonesia to Morocco.
A US air strike on Iran would have seismic impact on the presidential race at home, but it’s difficult to determine where the pieces would fall.
At first glance, a military attack against Iran would seem to favor McCain. The Arizona senator says the US is locked in battle across the globe with radical Islamic extremists, and he believes Iran is one of biggest instigators and supporters of the extremist tide. A strike on Iran could rally American voters to back the war effort and vote for McCain.
On the other hand, an air strike on Iran could heighten public disenchantment with Bush administration policy in the Middle East, leading to support for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is.
But an air strike will provoke reactions far beyond US voting booths. That would explain why two veteran senators, one Republican and one Democrat, were reportedly so horrified at the prospect.
McCain Breaks with Bush Over North Korea
By Glenn Kessler
Sen. John McCain broke today with President Bush’s new policy on North Korea, co-authoring an opinion article with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in which he called for a return to Bush’s original demand of a complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament of North Korea’s nuclear programs.
With the prodding of secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush — who once labeled North Korea part of an “axis of evil” — has greatly softened his position on North Korea in the past year in an effort to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. But the shifts have greatly angered conservatives in the Republican Party. McCain’s new stance, which is outlined in an opinion article in Tuesday’s editions of the Asian Wall Street Journal, calls for a return to sanctions and other levers to prod North Korea.
The administration has argued that the diplomatic engagement — led by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill — has convinced North Korea to begin dismantling its facilities and turn over 18,000 documents on its reactor at Yongbyon. But conservatives say those achievements have come only after large concessions by Bush, including returning millions of dollars tainted by illicit activities, and that a tougher approach is still needed.
The Bush administration has also relented in its demand for a full accounting of North Korea’s assistance to a reactor in Syria and its suspected experimentation of uranium enrichment, keeping the focus on seeking the return of weapons-grade plutonium.
“We must use the leverage available from the U.N. Security Council resolution passed after Pyongyang’s 2006 nuclear test to ensure the full and complete declaration, disablement and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear facilities, in a verifiable manner, which we agreed to with the other members of the six-party talks.” McCain and Lieberman write. The Bush administration essentially abandoned enforcement of the U.N. Resolution when early in 2007 it decided to negotiate an end to the impasse.
The article also suggests that the Bush administration has abandoned the traditional alliance with Japan in pursuit of a deal. “We must never squander the trust of our allies and the respect for our highest office by promising that the president will embark on an open-ended, unconditional personal negotiation with a dictator responsible for running an international criminal enterprise, a cover nuclear weapons program and a massive system of gulags,” the two senators said.
The language concerning North Korea in the article — which overall sketches out a vision for engagement with Asia — is remarkably similar to President Bush’s first-term rhetoric, which the White House has largely dropped in recent months.
The Obama campaign is hitting back at McCain’s speech today attacking Republicans and Democrats for failing on nuke proliferation.
Camp Obama’s response is kind of fun: They’re basically thanking McCain for, in effect, highlighting Obama’s record on nukes by speaking out on the issue. From Obama spokesperson Bill Burton’s statement…
“By embracing many aspects of Barack Obama’s non-proliferation agenda today, John McCain highlighted Obama’s leadership on nuclear weapons throughout this campaign, and his bipartisan work with Richard Lugar in the Senate. No speech by John McCain can change the fact that he has not led on non-proliferation issues when he had the chance in the Senate, and that his support for a war against Iraq — which had no active nuclear program — diverted us from our efforts to secure loose nuclear materials, hampered our ability to pressure countries like North Korea and Iran, and sets back our ability to lead the world against the threat of nuclear weapons.”
The Obama camp has compiled a bunch of past quotes from him on the topic that it claims show McCain’s more a follower than a leader here. View them after the jump.
The McCain camp responds:
The Obama campaign insists that their candidate has ‘led the fight in the U.S. Senate for arms control.’ But the record should be clear: Sen. Obama, after he entered the Senate in 2005, joined Sen. Lugar and the many other members who have supported the Nunn-Lugar program and other nonproliferation programs for years. His campaign points as evidence of his leadership to a bill so non-controversial that it passed the Senate by unanimous consent. There was no ‘fight’ for Sen. Obama to lead.
NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD
McCain: “A quarter of a century ago, President Ronald Reagan declared, “our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth.” That is my dream, too. It is a distant and difficult goal. And we must proceed toward it prudently and pragmatically, and with a focused concern for our security and the security of allies who depend on us. But the Cold War ended almost twenty years ago, and the time has come to take further measures to reduce dramatically the number of nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals.”
Obama on 10/2/07: “But we need to do much more. We need to change our nuclear policy and our posture, which is still focused on deterring the Soviet Union – a country that doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan and North Korea have joined the club of nuclear-armed nations, and Iran is knocking on the door. More nuclear weapons and more nuclear-armed nations mean more danger to us all. Here’s what I’ll say as President: America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons.”
Non-Proliferation Treaty
McCain: “In 2010, an international conference will meet to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty. If I am President, I will seize that opportunity to strengthen and enhance all aspects of the non-proliferation regime.”
Obama on 10/2/07: “As we do this, we’ll be in a better position to lead the world in enforcing the rules of the road if we firmly abide by those rules. It’s time to stop giving countries like Iran and North Korea an excuse. It’s time for America to lead. When I’m President, we’ll strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that nations that don’t comply will automatically face strong international sanctions.”
REDUCING ARSENALS
McCain: “While working closely with allies who rely on our nuclear umbrella for their security, I would ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to engage in a comprehensive review of all aspects of our nuclear strategy and policy. I would keep an open mind on all responsible proposals. At the same time, we must continue to deploy a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent, robust missile defenses and superior conventional forces that are capable of defending the United States and our allies. But I will seek to reduce the size of our nuclear arsenal to the lowest number possible consistent with our security requirements and global commitments.”
Obama on 10/2/07: “We will not pursue unilateral disarmament. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong nuclear deterrent. But we’ll keep our commitment under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty on the long road towards eliminating nuclear weapons. We’ll work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert, and to dramatically reduce the stockpiles of our nuclear weapons and material. We’ll start by seeking a global ban on the production of fissile material for weapons. And we’ll set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global.”
NUCLEAR FUEL SUPPLY
McCain: “To persuade countries to forego enrichment and reprocessing, I would support international guarantees of nuclear fuel supply to countries that renounce enrichment and reprocessing, as well as the establishment of multinational nuclear enrichment centers in which they can participate. Nations that seek nuclear fuel for legitimate civilian purposes will be able to acquire what they need under international supervision. This is one suggestion Russia and others have made to Iran. Unfortunately, the Iranian government has so far rejected this idea. Perhaps with enough outside pressure and encouragement, they can be persuaded to change their minds before it is too late.”
Obama on 4/23/07: “Countries should not be able to build a weapons program under the auspices of developing peaceful nuclear power. That’s why we should create an international fuel bank to back up commercial fuel supplies so there’s an assured supply and no more excuses for nations like Iran to build their own enrichment plants. It’s encouraging that the Nuclear Threat Initiative, backed by Warren Buffett, has already offered funding for this fuel bank, if matched two to one. But on an issue of this importance, the United States should not leave the solution to private philanthropies. It should be a central component of our national security, and that’s why we should provide $50 million to get this fuel bank started and urge other nations, starting with Russia, to join us.
LOOSE NUKES
McCain: “And we need to increase funding for our own non-proliferation efforts, including the Cooperative Threat Reduction programs established by the landmark Nunn-Lugar legislation, and ensure the highest possible standards of security for existing nuclear materials.”
Obama on 8/01/07: “That is why I worked in the Senate with Dick Lugar to pass a law that would help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. That is why I am introducing a bill with Chuck Hagel that seeks to prevent nuclear terrorism, reduce global nuclear arsenals, and stop the spread of nuclear weapons. And that is why, as President, I will lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years. While we work to secure existing stockpiles, we should also negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material.”
The right-wing blogs have been abuzz over Obama’s comments yesterday, at a town hall in New Mexico, that his uncle had helped liberate concentration camps, and was among the “first American troops” at Auschwitz. The blogs and the Republican National Committee have hit Obama hard, criticizing him for not knowing his history — that the Soviets, not the Americans, liberated Auschwitz.
The Obama camp admits the mistake, saying Obama meant Buchenwald, not Auschwitz. “Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II — especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said. “Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically.”
Here is what Obama said, while talking about post-traumatic stress disorder afflicting veterans, per NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy and Lauren Appelbaum: “I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps, and the story in our family was is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months, right. Now obviously something had really affected him deeply but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain. That’s why you know the, this idea of making sure that every single veteran when they are discharged are screened for post traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need, that’s why its so important.”
And here’s video.
The RNC wrote this in response: “Barack Obama’s dubious claim is inconsistent with world history and demands an explanation. It was Soviet troops that liberated Auschwitz, so unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there’s no way Obama’s statement yesterday can be true. Obama’s frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief.”
The RNC also provides a link to the Holocaust Museum to show the Soviets liberated Auschwitz.
But in its statement today, the Obama campaign said the candidate’s great uncle, who the campaign says was his grandmother’s brother, was a member of the 89th Infantry Division, which liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald. The campaign also provides a link to the U.S. Holocaust Museum, but this a description of the 89th Infantry’s part. It also provided a separate link to the 89th’s role here.
Barry Nolan who was fired for calling out Bill O’Reilly, has an editorail at ThinkProgress
Barry Nolan: The Story Behind My O’Reilly Protest
Our guest blogger is Barry Nolan, a veteran TV journalist who was recently fired by Comcast Cable’s CN8 channel in Boston for protesting an award honoring Bill O’Reilly.
So, I’m that TV guy who got fired by Comcast over Bill O’Reilly. I protested the fact that O’Reilly was chosen to receive the Governors Award at this year’s Emmy Awards ceremony. That’s the highest honor that they hand out. The important word here is: honor.
Now granted – you won’t find a lot of Albert Schweitzers or Mother Teresas working in television, but at least the people who had been honored in the past had pretty much followed the part of the Hippocratic oath that says, “First, do no harm.”
O’Reilly was an appalling choice, not because of his political views, but because he simply gets the facts wrong, abuses his guests and the powerless in general, is delusional, and, well, you might want to Google: Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Plus there was that whole sexual harassment thing – the lawsuit he settled for an estimated $10 million. Not the kind of guy you normally think of when it comes time to pass out honors.
I found that most of my colleagues felt the same way. So, on May 10th at the Emmy Awards dinner, I quietly passed out a document that contained – not my opinion – but O’Reilly’s own words and quotes from his sexual harassment lawsuit. And that is what got me fired. I got fired from my job on a news and information network for reporting demonstrably true things in a room full of news people.
Normally, in the great scheme of things – this should be a total non-story. “Overpaid White Guy Gets Fired from Cushy Job for Shooting Mouth Off.” Yawn. But these are not normal times. After the word got out that I was fired – I started hearing from people from all over the country who were outraged. A guy in Texas who had once worked with O’Reilly and had seen a meltdown like the one on Youtube – a weather anchor in Arizona – a woman in China no less.
And it all got me to thinking about the myth of free speech. In today’s America, speech is only “free” when you are talking down to someone less powerful that you. Speak “up” – and look out.
In your work life, they can fire you, as I found out, for quietly saying something that is widely known to be true. Put a lid on it.
And in our role as citizens, we have been told by O’Reilly to shut up, or Fox Security may pay you a visit. We are called traitors if we simply speak the truth about the absence of WMD’s – the way the war is going – the disgraces of Abu Ghraib, of Gitmo, of waterboarding. Shut up.
So, when exactly do they think we have the right to speak up? To speak the quiet simple truth, to people who have more power than us?
Well, I think now would be a good time. The fog of fear is lifting. The balance of power is shifting. People are beginning to talk to each other again instead of shouting. I think it’s time to reclaim the right to free speech – even if it comes at a price.
Meanwhile, if anyone needs any lawn work done or his or her car detailed – give me a call.
First there was the attack on NBC
Now this attack on a NYT editorial
Here is the original editorial:
Mr. Bush and the G.I. Bill
President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it.
He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.
So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home.
Thankfully, the new G.I. Bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress. The House passed it by a veto-proof margin this month, and last week the Senate followed suit, approving it as part of a military financing bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Senate version was drafted by two Vietnam veterans, Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska. They argue that benefits paid under the existing G.I. Bill have fallen far behind the rising costs of college.
Their bill would pay full tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for veterans who served in the military for at least three years since 9/11.
At that level, the new G.I. Bill would be as generous as the one enacted for the veterans of World War II, which soon became known as one of the most successful benefits programs — one of the soundest investments in human potential — in the nation’s history.
Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.
They have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying — as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are — to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.
Their reasoning is flawed since the C.B.O. has also predicted that the bill would offset the re-enlistment decline by increasing new recruits — by 16 percent. The chance of a real shot at a college education turns out to be as strong a lure as ever. This is good news for our punishingly overburdened volunteer army, which needs all the smart, ambitious strivers it can get.
This page strongly supports a larger, sturdier military. It opposes throwing ever more money at the Pentagon for defense programs that are wasteful and poorly conceived. But as a long-term investment in human capital, in education and job training, there is no good argument against an expanded, generous G.I. Bill.
By threatening to veto it, Mr. Bush is showing great consistency of misjudgment. Congress should forcefully show how wrong he is by overriding his opposition and spending the money — an estimated $52 billion over 10 years, a tiniest fraction of the ongoing cost of Mr. Bush’s Iraq misadventure.
As partial repayment for the sacrifice of soldiers in a time of war, a new, improved G.I. Bill is as wise now as it was in 1944.
Seems a lot of people are making comments about Obama being killed, from Huckabee to Clinton, and now Fox
Seems to me this is the last thing that should be a joking matter.
ADAM SMITH’S modern disciples are far more enthusiastic about his celebrated invisible-hand idea than he ever was. In their account, Smith’s assertion was that purely selfish individuals are led by an invisible hand to produce the greatest good for all. Yet Smith himself was under no such illusion.
On the contrary, the relevant quotation from his “Wealth of Nations,” which describes a profit-seeking business owner, is far more circumspect. It says that this owner “is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” It continues: “Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”
In short, Smith understood that the invisible hand is often benign, but not always.
This understanding has important implications for economic policy in general, and for the recent presidential campaign dust-up about gasoline taxes in particular.
If you believe, with Smith’s modern disciples, that unfettered pursuit of self-interest always promotes society’s interests, you probably view all taxes as a regrettable evil — necessary to pay for roads and national security, but also an unwelcome drag on economic efficiency. The problem, according to this view, is that taxes distort the price signals through which the invisible hand guides resources to their best destinations.
Smith’s more nuanced position supports a different view of taxes. When market prices convey accurate signals of cost and value, the invisible hand promotes the common good. But prices often diverge from cost and value and, in those cases, taxes can actually help steer resources toward more highly valued uses.
It’s helpful to look more closely at why the invisible hand works so well in many ordinary markets. Consider the market for potatoes: in it, production and consumption are determined by millions of separate cost-benefit calculations. Profit-seeking sellers are willing to offer an additional pound of potatoes for sale whenever the benefit of doing so — as measured by what buyers are willing to pay — is enough to cover the cost of production.
The market reaches equilibrium when the cost of producing the last pound is exactly equal to its value. If the costs incurred directly by sellers are the only relevant costs of expanding potato production, and if the benefits to potato buyers are the only relevant benefits, the invisible hand gets things just right.
The production and consumption of many other goods, however, generate costs or benefits that fall on people besides buyers and sellers. Producing an extra gallon of gasoline, for example, generates not just additional costs to producers, but also pollution costs that fall on others. As before, market forces cause production to expand until the seller’s direct cost for the last unit sold is exactly the value of that unit to the buyer. But because each gallon of gasoline also generates external pollution costs, the total cost of that last gallon produced is higher than its value to consumers.
The upshot is that gasoline consumption is inefficiently high. Suppose that pollution costs are $2 for the last gallon consumed, but that its $4 price at the pump is just enough to cover its direct production costs. Reducing production and consumption by a gallon would then cause consumers to lose fuel that they value at $4, which would be exactly offset by the $4 in reduced production costs. The $2 in reduced pollution costs would thus be a net gain for society.
That simple example captures the classic breakdown in the invisible hand when a product’s market price doesn’t reflect all its relevant social costs and benefits. In such cases, the simplest solution is to discourage consumption by taxing it.
Doing so would not only raise revenue to pay for public services; it would also make the allocation of society’s resources more efficient — hence economists’ almost universal dismay when Senators John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton recently proposed eliminating the federal tax on gasoline for the summer.
The stated aim of their proposal was to ease the financial burden of sharply higher gasoline prices. But adopting inefficient policies is never the best way to help people in financial distress.
Efficiency is important because any policy that enlarges the economic pie necessarily lets everyone have a bigger slice than before. Economists opposed suspending the gas tax because doing so would make the economic pie smaller.
Of course, when millions of voters feel the pinch of rapidly rising prices, politicians find it hard to stand idly by. But as the late economist Abba Lerner once remarked, the main problem confronting the poor is that they have too little money. The best solution is not to reduce the prices they pay, but rather to bolster their incomes — for example, by selectively reducing the payroll tax for low-income workers or increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Suspending the gas tax would encourage rich and poor alike to do more summer driving. It would also promote sales of fuel-intensive vehicles. Because the gas tax reduces waste, it actually makes more resources available to help low-income families.
Gasoline is one of a host of goods whose production or consumption generates costs that fall on outsiders. Noisy goods, like leaf blowers, for example, can jolt whole neighborhoods from calm. And goods that don’t biodegrade readily, like many plastic bags, can generate costly waste streams. The list goes on.
THAT the invisible hand often breaks down is actually good news. After all, we need to tax something to pay for public services. By taxing forms of consumption that generate negative side effects, we could not only generate enough revenue to eliminate budget deficits, but also help steer resources toward their most highly valued uses.
Because such taxes make the economy more efficient, it makes no sense to object that they impose hardships on low-income families. Again, an efficient policy is one that maximizes the size of the economic pie. And with a bigger pie, it’s always possible for everyone to get a bigger slice.
Seems McCain’s new policy may cause problems with his surrogates
Two of Sen. John McCain’s top campaign chairmen are serving on the board of an independent organization that is behind a new attack ad against Sen. Barack Obama, an apparent violation of the Arizona Republican’s new conflict of interest policy.
Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham both hold chairs for the McCain camp as well as positions on the board of advisers of Vets for Freedom, an advocacy group that supports the Iraq war.
A week ago these titles may not have been a political issue. But under McCain’s newly-implemented ethics policy, Lieberman and Graham’s role with Vets for Freedom is now proving problematic.
According to the policy: “No person with a McCain Campaign title or position may participate in a 527 or other independent entity that makes public communications that support or oppose any presidential candidate.”
On Friday, Vets for Freedom, an independent group, did just that. In a commercial released on its website, the organization directly took on Obama over his willingness to negotiate with Iranian leadership.
Seems that McCain’s problems with Lobbyists and Pastors may be causing the GOP to sweat
Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign is in a troubled stretch, hindered by resignations of staff members, a lagging effort to build a national campaign organization and questions over whether he has taken full advantage of Democratic turmoil to present a case for his candidacy, Republicans said.
In interviews, some party leaders said they were worried about signs of disorder in his campaign, and whether the focus in the last several weeks on the prominent role of lobbyists in Mr. McCain’s inner circle might undercut the heart of his general election message: presenting himself as a reformer taking on special interests in Washington.
“The core image of John McCain is as a reformer in Washington — and the more dominant the story is about the lobbying teams around him, the more you put that into question,” said Terry Nelson, who was Mr. McCain’s campaign manager until he was forced out last year. “If the Obama campaign can truly change him from being seen as a reformer to just being another Washington politician, it could be very damaging over the course of the campaign.”
The ousters of some of the staff members came after Mr. McCain imposed a new policy that active lobbyists would not be allowed to hold paying jobs in the campaign.
Some state party leaders said they were apprehensive about the unusual organization Mr. McCain had set up: the campaign has been broken into 10 semi-autonomous regions, with each having power over things like television advertising and the candidate’s schedule, decisions normally left to headquarters.
More than that, they said, Mr. McCain organizationally still seems far behind where President Bush was in 2004. Several Republican Party leaders said they were worried the campaign was losing an opportunity as they waited for approval to open offices and set up telephone banks.
“They finally assigned someone to West Virginia three weeks ago,” said Doug McKinney, the state Republican chairman there. “I had a couple of contacts with him and I e-mailed him twice and I never heard back. I finally called and they said that the guy had resigned.”
Mr. McCain’s campaign has transmitted conflicting messages in recent days about how he would present himself, as he has tried to reassure conservatives nervous about his ideological consistency even as he has tried to expand his appeal to moderates and liberals.
He recently spent three days talking about global warming, a subject he used to emphasize his differences with Mr. Bush. But he ended that week with a high-profile speech to the National Rifle Association, a group suspicious of his views on gun control.
Mr. McCain’s advisers, some of whom gathered with the candidate for the holiday weekend at his Arizona ranch along with three Republicans assumed to be under consideration as his running mate — said the concern within the party reflected, in part, exaggerated concern about Senator Barack Obama’s strengths as a general election candidate. Mr. McCain, they said, was in a strong position entering into this next phase of the race.
Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser, said Mr. McCain had used the time since effectively winning the nomination to methodically raise his standing by traveling the country, delivering speeches on issues including national security and the environment, and raising money, to make sure he could at least hold his own with Mr. Obama going through the summer.
Although Mr. Obama has continued to raise far more money than Mr. McCain, Mr. Bush’s fund-raising machinery has helped keep the Republican Party competitive. The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee, between them, have $11 million more on hand — about $62 million — than the combined cash-on-hand of Mr. Obama and the Democratic National Committee.
“How do you measure success over the course of the spring campaign?” Mr. Schmidt said. “This is how: The reality of this race is the Republican Party brand is very, very badly damaged, in some places broken. We’ve lost Congressional seats in districts that have elected only Republican for a generation. And Senator McCain is running even or ahead of Senator Obama in most national polls.”
Mr. McCain has taken steps to inject new thinking into his campaign. He recently expanded his extremely tight circle of advisers by bringing on Nicolle Wallace, who was communications director for Mr. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, which many Republicans view as the model for political management.
Last Sunday, he invited Mike Murphy, his longtime friend and political adviser, who is not involved in this campaign, to his home in Virginia. There, Mr. Murphy reportedly gave him a detailed and at times tough assessment of what Mr. McCain had done wrong.
Mr. Murphy urged him to tone down his attacks on Mr. Obama and stop coming across as so angry. He recommended that Mr. McCain concentrate on running as a reform candidate to strip that issue from Mr. Obama, and to make greater efforts to distance himself from Mr. Bush, according to Republicans familiar with the conversation.
Some of Mr. McCain’s associates said that Mr. McCain might be interested in bringing Mr. Murphy back on board, but that his current circle of advisers was resisting that.
As soon as Mr. Obama secures the Democratic nomination, Mr. Schmidt said, Mr. McCain will begin a series of speeches intended to contrast their positions on issues like national security and taxes. Mr. McCain’s advisers said they did not think it made sense to do that until Mr. Obama wrapped up his battle against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, given how the two Democrats are dominating the news.
“The race changes the moment she drops out and he emerges as the official nominee,” said Charlie Black, a senior McCain adviser. “Then the focus becomes on a two-person race and that leads to us getting more equal treatment in terms of getting airtime. We’ve had to fight with one hand tied behind our back.”
Republicans said Mr. McCain certainly had time to get his campaign back on track, and they remained confident that he would be a strong general election candidate against Mr. Obama. Some said the level of concern was overstated, or reflected the general Republican apprehension about this electoral environment, rather than anything Mr. McCain had done wrong.
“I think any Republican who doesn’t say panic is in the wind is lying through their shirt,” said Ron Kaufman, a former senior adviser who had worked for Mitt Romney. “The question is, is that panic caused by McCain’s campaign — or lack thereof in some respects — or is it the climate.”
The string of departures from the campaign was prompted by questions about lobbying activities by aides and advisers to Mr. McCain and a new policy, dictated by Mr. McCain, that active lobbyists not be allowed to hold paying jobs in the campaign. Mr. Schmidt said that policy was an example of how Mr. McCain would take tough action, part of a contrast he said they would draw with Mr. Obama for “giving great speeches” but having no record of accomplishment.
But Mr. McCain’s associates said the campaign had failed to anticipate the extent to which the news media would use the policy to examine Mr. McCain’s staff. The result was a run of damaging stories and resignations that highlighted not the policy itself but the backgrounds of top campaign officials, including Rick Davis, the campaign manager, and Mr. Black, both of whom have long lobbying backgrounds.
Some Republicans said they were concerned that the Democrats would soon unify around Mr. Obama, and that it was only a matter of weeks before Mr. Obama began unloading a huge round of advertising intended to define Mr. McCain. If that happens, they said, Mr. McCain may look back at this period as a time of missed opportunity.
Discussing what Mr. McCain needed to do, Mr. Nelson, another veteran of the Bush 2004 team, said: “Step No. 1 would be finding a compelling message that excited Republicans, and Step No. 2 would be having the ability to turn your voters out. From what I see, in both respects, they have a long way to go, but they have time.”
Mr. McCain has made some gains in reassuring conservatives nervous about his views on issues like immigration, polls suggest. But if he is going to rely on turnout within the Republican base more than on winning over independents and disaffected Democrats, there is evidence that he has not gone as far as needs to — particularly given how energized Democrats appear to be.
“He is going to need extraordinary participation of Republicans if Democrats continue to flock to the polls the way they have,” said Kris Kobach, the Republican Party leader from Kansas. “It’s critical that he use this period to generate enthusiasm from his base.”
Mr. McKinney, the Republican chairman in West Virginia, said Mr. McCain’s identification with immigration legislation that would eventually permit some illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship continued to be highly problematic for him..
“But it doesn’t matter what we think — Senator McCain goes his own way,” Mr. McKinney said. “Always has and always will.”
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Sources familiar with the situation said the Bush-McCain event was not selling enough tickets to fill the Convention Center space, and that there were concerns about more anti-war protesters showing up outside the venue than attending the fundraiser inside.
Another source said there were concerns about the media covering the event.
Bush’s Arizona fundraising effort for McCain is being moved to private residences in the Phoenix area. A White House official said the event was being moved because the McCain campaign prefers private fundraisers and it is Bush administration policy to have events in public venues open to the media. The White House official said to reconcile that the Tuesday event will be held at a private venue and not the Convention Center.
Convention Center personnel confirmed the event has been canceled at their venue.
Tickets to the event were to range from $1,000 to $25,000 for VIP treatment. Money was to go toward McCain’s presidential bid and a number of Republican Party organs.
Anti-war protesters were planning to be out in force. President Bush’s job approval rating stands at 31 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.com.
The McCain campaign referred questions on the fundraiser change to the White House press office.
In addition Bush plans to be at other McCain fundraisers:
The White House announced today that President George W. Bush will do three fundraisers for John McCain and the Republican Party next week – all of them closed to press coverage.
CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller reports the first fundraiser will be in Phoenix on May 27th, followed by stops in Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah the following day. McCain is also expected to attend all three events, which will be held in private homes.*
As Knoller has previously noted in Horserace, Mr. Bush is an extremely adept and active fundraiser: The president has attended more than 300 fundraisers since taking office, raising three quarters of a billion dollars for the GOP and its candidates.
McCain and his advisers are believed to be grappling with how to deploy Mr. Bush, who remains unpopular despite his fundraising prowess, on the campaign trail. The Associated Press points out that the fundraisers will mark the first time Bush and McCain have been together since March 5th, when the President endorsed the presumptive GOP nominee at the White House.
*UPDATE: The White House is now putting out word that McCain will only attend the Phoenix fundraiser.
McCain’s talk about eliminating $100 billion a year in earmarks is largely fantasy. His advisers are now promoting a more realistic plan of eliminating $100 billion in overall spending. But it is difficult to take even that promise very seriously given the fact that the senator refuses to identify exactly which projects he will be cut. To use a phrase coined by George H.W. Bush, this is “voodoo economics,” based more on wishful thinking than on hard data or carefully considered policy proposals.
According to SurveyUSA polling the Obama/Edwards ticket appears unstoppable
As much as an 18 point lead in Ohio and Virginia, 15 in California, 17 in Pennsylvania and 9 in New Mexico over the McCain tickets
McCain say’s he’s an A student with vets but is in fact flunking out
The recognition McCain has received from veterans groups is not “high awards” but failing grades:
— Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a grade of D for his record of voting against veterans. (By contrast, Obama got a B+.)
– Disabled Veterans of America noted McCain’s dismal 20 percent voting record on veterans’ issues. (Obama had an 80 percent.)
– In a list of “Key Votes,” Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) notes McCain “Voted Against Us” 15 times and “Voted For Us” only 8. (Obama voted for VVA 12 times, and against only once.)
appears cancer is under control
Three-time melanoma survivor John McCain appears cancer-free, has a strong heart and is in otherwise general good health, according to eight years of medical records reviewed by The Associated Press.
The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting remains at risk for developing new skin cancers, and gets a thorough check by a Mayo Clinic dermatologist every few months.
“I do not see any worrisome lesions,” Dr. Suzanne Connolly concluded after McCain’s most recent exam, on May 12.
The details of McCain’s health are contained in 1,173 pages of medical documents spanning 2000 to 2008 that his campaign made available to the AP to make the case that he’s healthy enough to serve as president, as well as to counter the notion that he’s too old. The Arizona senator will turn 72 in August and would be the oldest elected first-term president.
Like many aging Americans, McCain takes medicine to keep his cholesterol in check.
But Mayo internist Dr. John Eckstein, his longtime personal physician, lauded McCain’s performance on a heart stress test — sweating it out for 10 minutes when Eckstein routinely sees patients decades younger quit at five or seven minutes.
“I think physiologically he is considerably younger than his chronologic age based on his cardiovascular fitness,” Eckstein said in an interview Thursday. “I got a call from the cardiologist who said that he had not seen anyone that age exercise for that long in a long time.”
McCain’s most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He frequently has precancerous skin lesions removed, and in February had an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, an easily cured skin cancer, removed. He had benign colon growths called polyps taken out during a routine colonoscopy in March.
The Vietnam veteran has degenerative arthritis from war injuries that might mean a future joint replacement. His blood pressure and weight were healthy, and his cholesterol good but not optimal — and he switched medication from the controversial Vytorin that made headlines this past winter to a proven standby, simvastatin.
His likely Democratic rival, Barack Obama, will be 47 in August. Obama, lean and agile and a frequent basketball player, says he has quit smoking. Neither he nor Democratic opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton has released health records.
It is McCain’s three bouts of melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, that raise the biggest health concerns. He has had four separate spots of melanoma removed from his head and arm on three occasions — in 1993, 2000 and 2002. Three spots were very early stage, when they were in the uppermost skin surface and easily cut out.
But one, on his left temple in 2000, was invasive melanoma, what doctors call an “intermediate risk” melanoma because of its thickness — 2.2 millimeters. McCain required delicate surgery to remove and examine lymph nodes that showed no sign of spread.
“We don’t have a crystal ball, but we have no way to say anything at the present time would preclude him from running for office,” said dermatologist Connolly.
The 10-year survival rate for that intermediate melanoma is 65 percent, said Dr. Stuart Lessin, director of the melanoma risk-assessment program at Philadelphia’s Fox Chase Cancer Center, who was not involved in McCain’s care.
“He’s not cured,” Lessin said. Still, the biggest risk of recurrence is in the first few years, so at eight years out, the chances of melanoma returning at that spot and killing him is “in the single digits,” he added. “He’s pretty much out of the woods.”
But every bout of cancer increases the risk of another new cancer. Given McCain’s fair skin and history of sunburns, mostly from the 5 1/2 years he was held outdoors while in Vietnamese prison camps, he has a 5 percent to 8 percent chance of developing a fifth melanoma, Lessin calculated. Good checkups, however, mean any future melanoma should be caught in time to treat successfully, he said.
Early on in the primaries, a number of voters said McCain’s age was a problem, but recent surveys suggest it may not be as big an issue. An ABC News-Washington Post poll conducted in April found 70 percent saying McCain’s age would not make any difference to their vote. Other recent polls found similar results, with two-thirds or more saying his age doesn’t matter.
McCain has shrugged off the issue by highlighting his stamina and strong genes. He has recalled his “rim-to-rim” Grand Canyon hike in 2006; he has campaigned with his energetic mother, age 96.
During his first presidential run, eight years ago, McCain disclosed hundreds of pages of records to reporters as he sought then to counter what aides called a “whisper campaign” questioning his mental fitness. In those records, medical personnel concluded that his years in prison, including solitary confinement, left him with no psychological wounds. Aides said McCain has had no mental evaluations in the past eight years and none was included in the documents.
This time, the AP examined the documents over several hours Thursday in a conference room of a resort just outside of Phoenix and a few miles from the posh Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, where McCain receives most of his medical care under a pseudonym — which the AP was asked not to disclose. Coincidentally, the release came the same week that McCain’s close friend, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, revealed that he had a cancerous brain tumor.
The documents include very personal details, such as the fact that he had earwax removed earlier this year and the dermatologist showed McCain’s wife, Cindy, how to monitor possibly suspicious skin spots hidden by his waistband. Though he’s known as temperamental, the doctors made a point of repeatedly writing in the documents that McCain was “pleasant.”
Also revealed: He has occasional momentary episodes of dizziness, when he gets up suddenly. McCain first told a doctor about them in 2000 — a visit that also uncovered the melanoma — and intense testing concluded they were harmless vertigo. He didn’t report any episodes at his most recent exam.
Republican John McCain on Thursday rejected endorsements from two influential but controversial televangelists, saying there is no place for their incendiary criticisms of other faiths.
McCain rejected the months-old endorsement of Texas preacher John Hagee after an audio recording surfaced in which the preacher said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land. McCain called the comment “crazy and unacceptable.”
He later repudiated the support of Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher who has sharply criticized Islam and called the religion inherently violent.
McCain issued a statement Thursday afternoon announcing his decision about Hagee.
“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well,” he said.
Later, in Stockton, he told reporters: “I just think that the statement is crazy and unacceptable.”
Then in an interview with The Associated Press, McCain said he rejected Parsley’s support, too.
“I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn’t endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement,” McCain told the AP.
Hagee had sparked controversy since the San Antonio pastor endorsed McCain on Feb. 27 shortly before the Texas presidential primary. Parsley’s views were aired Thursday in an ABC News report.
McCain actively courted Hagee, who leads a megachurch with a congregation in the tens of thousands and has an even wider television audience. Former GOP presidential rivals also sought Hagee’s backing.
Hagee has referred to the Roman Catholic Church as “the great whore” and called it a “false cult system.” He also has linked Hitler to the Catholic church, suggesting it helped shape his anti-Semitism. And Hagee said Hurricane Katrina was God’s retribution for homosexual sin.
McCain has faced a barrage of criticism over Hagee, with some comparing the situation to the controversy Democrat Barack Obama faced over the views of his longtime and now former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
McCain tried Thursday to draw a distinction between the Obama-Wright connection and his own relationships with Parsley and Hagee, saying Hagee was not his pastor.
“My church I attend is North Phoenix Baptist Church; my pastor and spiritual guide is Pastor Dan Yeary,” McCain said. “I’ve never been to Pastor Hagee’s church or Pastor Parsley’s church. I didn’t attend their church for 20 years. I’m not a member of their church.”
Parsley did not return a message for comment left after business hours at World Harvest Church in suburban Columbus.
Obama, who was campaigning in Florida, said that in national politics it’s easy to find people who have said or done offensive things.
“John McCain has to deal with Hagee, who said something that is mind-boggling. I don’t attribute those statements to John McCain. Nobody thinks McCain believes that stuff,” Obama said.
Until now, McCain had tried to distance himself from Hagee’s views but had not rejected the endorsement.
“I’m glad to have his endorsement,” he said on ABC’s “This Week” in April. “I condemn remarks that are, in any way, viewed as anti-anything.”
The Arizona senator has said he sought Hagee’s support because the pastor, like himself, is a strong supporter of Israel.
The formation of Israel was at the heart of the remarks that prompted McCain to reject Hagee’s support. The comments came in a sermon Hagee gave in the late 1990s, an audio recording of which was posted last week on the liberal blog Talk to Action and reported by The Huffington Post, another liberal blog.
In the sermon, Hagee said, “Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun, and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. … How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, ‘My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.’”
Hagee tried to repair the damage by apologizing to Catholics in a letter released just last week. Saying he had emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholic and Protestant relationships with Jews, Hagee wrote, “I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.”
On Thursday, Hagee issued a new statement saying he was weary of the controversy and was withdrawing his endorsement.
Hagee said critics are “grossly misrepresenting my position on issues most near and dear to my heart.”
“I am tired of these baseless attacks and fear that they have become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues,” Hagee said. “I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Senator McCain for president effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign.”
The other pastor, Parsley, has described Islam as an “anti-Christ religion” and the Muslim prophet Muhammad as “the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil,” according to ABC News.
Seems Hagee is not the end of the road for McCain, Rod Parsley, whom McCain has called a “Moral Compass” and a “Spiritual Guide” is in the news, with some hate speech
Petraeus speaks to Webb in hearings, reitereates support of diplomacy:
Obama responded to McCain’s absence:
I respect sen. John McCain’s service to our country. He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can’t understand why he would line up behind the President in his opposition to this GI bill.
I can’t believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans. I could not disagree with him and the President more on this issue. There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them.
And McCain hammered back in a particularly harsh response:
“Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election.”…
“It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. Let me say first in response to Senator Obama, running for President is different than serving as President. The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can’t always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend. Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America’s veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.”
Obama has responds to McCain, calling him out for making ’schoolyard taunts’:
I am proud to stand with Senator Webb and a bipartisan coalition to give our veterans the support and opportunity they deserve. It’s disappointing that Senator McCain and his campaign used this issue to launch yet another lengthy personal, political attack instead of debating an honest policy difference. He should know that this is not about John McCain or Barack Obama – it’s about giving our veterans a real chance to afford four years of college without harming retention. Senator Webb’s bipartisan bill will do this, and the bill that John McCain supports would not. These endless diatribes and schoolyard taunts from the McCain campaign do nothing to advance the debate about what matters to the American people.
In written answers to questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he will testify today, Petraeus said the possibility of military action against Iran should be retained as a “last resort.” But he said the United States “should make every effort to engage by use of the whole of government, developing further leverage rather than simply targeting discrete threats.”
Energy watchdog says Supplies May Plateau Below Expected Demand:
The world’s premier energy monitor is preparing a sharp downward revision of its oil-supply forecast, a shift that reflects deepening pessimism over whether oil companies can keep abreast of booming demand.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency is in the middle of its first attempt to comprehensively assess the condition of the world’s top 400 oil fields. Its findings won’t be released until November, but the bottom line is already clear: Future crude supplies could be far tighter than previously thought.
A pessimistic supply outlook from the IEA could further rattle an oil market that already has seen crude prices rocket over $130 a barrel, double what they were a year ago. U.S. benchmark crude broke a record for the fourth day in a row, rising 3.3% Wednesday to close at $133.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
For several years, the IEA has predicted that supplies of crude and other liquid fuels will arc gently upward to keep pace with rising demand, topping 116 million barrels a day by 2030, up from around 87 million barrels a day currently. Now, the agency is worried that aging oil fields and diminished investment mean that companies could struggle to surpass 100 million barrels a day over the next two decades.
On the Friday before the 2004 presidential election, Osama bin Laden released a videotape slamming George W. Bush, which more than a few people took as a tacit endorsement of John Kerry. The CIA saw it differently, though. According to Ron Suskind’s fine book, The One Percent Doctrine, Deputy Director John McLaughlin said, “Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President.” It seemed obvious to the top CIA analysts that bin Laden wanted to keep Bush — who had let the terrorists off the hook in Afghanistan and launched the war in Iraq, a great recruiting tool for al-Qaeda — in power.
Which raises the question: Who are the bad guys rooting for in 2008? John McCain would have you believe the answer is clear. Barack Obama wants to meet with the leaders of enemy states, especially Iran, “which would increase their prestige,” McCain says, and convey the impression of American weakness. To punctuate the point, McCain persistently barks that Obama wants to meet with the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a flagrant anti-Semite but a relatively powerless figurehead. Obama did say during a debate last summer that he would meet with foreign leaders without preconditions. “He shorthanded the answer,” Senator Joe Biden recently said. Ever since, Obama has been creatively fuzzy when asked directly if he would meet with Ahmadinejad — and he has begun to point out that the real leaders of Iran are the clerics led by the Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, who controls Iran’s foreign policy and its nuclear program. Obama has also been explicit about the need to start with lower-level talks, a presidential summit coming only if there were progress in those negotiations. In his previous, straight-talking incarnation, McCain would have allowed Obama the modifications to his shorthand answer and debated the issue on the merits. Not this year.
When I asked McCain on May 19 why he kept linking Obama to Ahmadinejad, he said that Ahmadinejad represents Iran at the U.N., which is a fair point, and that the “average American” thinks he’s the leader of Iran, which he isn’t. Indeed, it could be argued that McCain’s Ahmadinejad obsession “increases the prestige” of a relatively powerless loudmouth for domestic political gain. Linking Obama to the world’s most famous anti-Semite certainly doesn’t hurt McCain among Jewish retirees in Florida, a swing state. In any case, don’t be surprised if Ahmadinejad pulls a bin Laden and “denounces” McCain just before the election this year.
Why? Because the last thing Iran’s leaders want is an American President who doesn’t play the role of the Great Satan. They need the mirage of an implacable, saber-rattling foe to distract their population from the utter incompetence of their government. An American President who said, “Let’s talk,” would lead an awful lot of Iranians to ask their leaders, “Why aren’t you talking?” That was certainly the case after the reformer Mohammed Khatami won a surprise landslide election to become the Iranian President in 1997. The Clinton Administration began making quiet diplomatic overtures toward Khatami, and a handshake between Clinton and him was choreographed for the 2000 U.N. General Assembly meeting — but Khatami backed out at the last minute, under pressure from his clerical superiors. In recent Iranian elections, the mullahs have made sure that reformers like Khatami were ineligible to run for the presidency and the Iranian parliament — although there are indications that Khamenei considers Ahmadinejad to be an unnecessarily bellicose embarrassment as well.
This recent history provides sobering lessons for both Obama and McCain. For Obama, it demonstrates just how difficult any attempt to engage Iran’s leaders will be. A more prudent course would probably be to ignore Iran at first and try to engage Syria, which has been dropping all sorts of hints that it is ready to talk to both the U.S. and Israel. For McCain, the lesson is the opposite: Why on earth does he want to keep making the same mistake Bush did and play the caricature Great Satan? A more prudent course would be to stow the tough-guy rhetoric, appear more reasonable, while aggressively — militarily — going after the violent jihadis in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.
That doesn’t seem to be McCain’s way, however. He is all bluster and impatience. If nothing else, his assault on Obama has renewed questions about whether McCain has the temperament to be President. A few years ago, in friendlier times, the Senator and I talked about the Cuban missile crisis. At a crucial moment, John F. Kennedy received two messages from the Soviets — one bellicose, one accommodating. He chose to ignore the bellicose message and very likely saved the world. “You probably would’ve chosen the wrong message,” I teased McCain. “I probably would have,” he laughed. He was joking, but given his behavior of late, you’ve got to wonder.
