Anti-Semitism?

If you are interested in this subject, the entire article (click on post title) is well-worth reading.

The New Anti-Anti-Semites.

Split Personality

by John B. Judis
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 02.08.07

s there a growing trend among American intellectuals (and former presidents) toward anti-Semitism? That is what a number of recent articles, essays, and speeches--the latest on "The Poisoning of America" from Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at the Herzilya conference--would suggest. Some of these statements stop short of saying that Tony Judt, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, Tony Kushner, and Jimmy Carter (to name some of the best-known targets) are anti-Semites. Instead, they say that what they have written is anti-Semitic or encourages anti-Semitism. In The Wall Street Journal last year, Bret Stephens, a member of the editorial board, suggested that Walt and Mearsheimer's essay on the Israel lobby "may not be anti-Semitic in intent [but] may yet be anti-Semitic in effect."

What these charges are meant to do is to raise the warning flag of anti-Semitism over certain opinions, placing them beyond argument--in a realm consigned to social pathologies. Who would argue, for instance, over the "history" contained within The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? In "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism," a paper published by the American Jewish Committee, Alvin H. Rosenfeld writes of the critics of Israel interviewed for Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel, "[They are] not driven by anything remotely like reasoned historical analysis, but rather by a complex range of psychological as well as political motives that subvert reason and replace it with something akin to hysteria."

My intention in broaching this controversy is not to argue on behalf of Walt, Mearsheimer, or Judt. I think Walt and Mearsheimer do exaggerate the influence of the Israel lobby and define the lobby in such an inclusive way as to beg the question of its influence. I also don't share Judt's hopes for a secular democratic state on what is now Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. But I think that, in characterizing these views as anti-Semitic, or as contributing to anti-Semitism, Rosenfeld and other critics are attempting to suppress an important debate on American foreign policy toward Israel and the Middle East. And they have also fallen prey to a contradiction within their own thinking.

....

These controversies over anti-Semitism come, too, at a predictable and particularly unfortunate time in the discussion of U.S. foreign policy. The last time a similar brouhaha arose was in the 1970s, when Jewish peace organizations in the United States challenged Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. At the urging of the Israeli government, organizations like Breira were run out of town by their traditional, and more subservient, brethren. Partly as a result, the United States acquiesced in Israeli policies that, in the long run, have benefited neither the United States nor Israel. The same thing could happen again. A debate has already begun over U.S. policy toward Iran in which AIPAC and the Israeli government have expressed interest in the United States stopping at nothing to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Fears of a new Holocaust--made more plausible by the very real anti-Semitism of Iran's president--have been sounded. What policies are in the interest of the United States? And of Israel? These are difficult questions, but they are not made easier to answer when critics of Israel and of the Israel lobby in the United States are charged with anti-Semitism.

John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Medicare Hot Air

Just in case you are interested (I am). For the rest of the statement, click on post title above.


Medicare Hot Air
Can the Democrats' bill bring lower drug prices? Don't count on it.

January 17, 2007 , FactCheck.org

Summary
Democrats are overselling their Medicare prescription drug bill. They claim it will bring about big price cuts for medication while Medicare experts say it won't. Republicans have been equally misleading, describing the bill as a system of severe price controls, which it isn't.

The fact is that the bill would do little more than require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to talk to drug companies about granting discounts. It specifically denies him the bargaining leverage of paying only for some drugs and not others.

Analysis
Ever since Congress passed President Bush's new prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients, Democrats have been attacking it as a giveaway to drug companies. In the 2006 House and Senate campaigns, several TV ads attacked GOP lawmakers for supporting a law that forbids the federal government from negotiating directly with drug companies for lower prices. Democrats promised they would repeal that ban.

Now Democrats are advancing such a bill, H.R. 4 , which passed the House last week by a vote of 255 to 170. Prospects in the Senate are unclear. Both sides are making vastly exaggerated claims about its likely effect, which independent experts describe as negligible.

During debate, its chief sponsor John Dingell of Michigan flatly predicted big savings:

Dingell: This legislation is simple and common sense. It will deliver lower premiums to the seniors, lower prices at the pharmacy and savings for all taxpayers . . . . I have confidence that Secretary [Mike] Leavitt can cut a good deal with the bargaining power of 43 million beneficiaries of Medicare behind him without restricting access to needed medicine.

And Republicans described the bill as giving the government power to set drug prices. Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas took the lead for Republicans:

Burgess: Under the guise of negotiation the Democrats propose to enact draconian price controls on pharmaceutical products.

Both sides are blowing hot air. A number of experts, including the Congressional Budget Office and the chief actuary of the Medicare system, say the bill won't bring the lower prices Democrats promise. And contrary to the Republican claim, the actual language of the bill grants no price-setting authority to federal officials.

...

Perfect for these Times

Low concept
The G.W. Bush Severance Package
His stock is falling. He has lost the confidence of shareholders. So how much would it take to make him go away?
By Henry Blodget
Posted Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007, at 1:43 PM ET, Slate Magazine

Dear Mr. Bush:

This memo sets forth the terms of the severance agreement reached this morning between your representatives and the Board of Directors regarding your contemplated departure as Chief Executive Officer of United States of America, Inc. (Hereafter: "USA, Inc.").

The Board acknowledges that you believe you are doing "a heck of a job" and that, if not for weak-willed defeatists in Congress, the White House, the news media, the Democratic Party, the military, Iraq, the G7, and the voting public, the rest of the world might agree. The Board acknowledges that your representatives have produced evidence that you believe supports your assessment of your job performance and challenges the expertise and motives of your detractors. Without passing judgment on such evidence, the Board will try to honor your request that it be made available to "patriotic" historians.

The Board agrees to accept any hypothetical resignation you may decide to offer. If you decide to resign, the Board understands that you will do so "for personal reasons" and "to spend more time with your family." The Board agrees that any such resignation would be voluntary.

Lastly, the Board agrees that, if you resign, Mr. Richard Cheney will immediately be sworn in as the company's 44^th President. Mr. Cheney will issue two executive orders—the first anointing you the "Freedom, Democracy, and Victory President," and the second pardoning you. Having ensured his presidential legacy, Mr. Cheney will then resign, citing health reasons.

About Your Severance Package:

Your representatives provided the Board with a recommended hypothetical severance package developed by your severance consultants. The Board acknowledges that your severance consultants have extraordinary experience and expertise in this arena, having advised on 185 CEO departures in the last three years. The Board agrees that, should you resign, your Hypothetical Severance Package will become your Severance Package.

Terms of Your Hypothetical Severance Package

In gratitude for your past six years of service as the War President and your future years of service as the Freedom, Democracy, and Victory President, you will receive:

• A lump-sum equivalent to a modest 0.02 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of USA, Inc. in your six years of leadership (calculated by annualizing the final year), as well as an additional bonus of 0.02 percent of projected GDP for the next two years. Your severance consultants note that this percentage is less than half of that recently received by another departing Chief Executive, Home Depot's Robert Nardelli. (The Board thanks you for your sacrifice.) The special additional bonus will compensate you for the inconvenience of having to relocate two years earlier than expected.
• The Board recognizes that the above lump-sum payment of $21 billion will create a substantial tax burden for you and your family. The Board regrets that it cannot decree that income taxes on Chief Executive Officer severance packages "be temporarily waived to stimulate the economy and create jobs." As a result, the Board will accept your alternate recommendation that the sum be structured as a Special Ex-CEO Trust, from which you will receive interest and dividends tax-free. Your consultants estimate that this will produce a lifetime income of $1 billion per year.
• Because the above income may not support the lifestyle to which you are accustomed, you will also receive the following nonmonetary compensation:

*Lifetime use of U.S. military transport aircraft, as well as complimentary joy rides in all new fighter planes, tanks, assault vehicles, and moon rockets.

*Right of first refusal on all future military contracts for any companies you work for, serve as a director of, or own shares in.

*Full military pension for your service as a member of the National Guard and Commander in Chief.

*Full Social Security and Medicare benefits, even if such programs are eliminated.

*Full government pension and benefits, including full health care, dental care, psychiatric care, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation coverage.

*Full memberships at any clubs you wish to belong to, including Augusta National and the Dick Cheney Memorial Quail Sanctuary and Wildlife Refuge Hunting Club.

*Four full-time assistants to handle your communications needs.

• If you predecease your wife, Laura, the above benefits will accrue to her (except, for obvious reasons, the membership at Augusta National). If you and Laura predecease your children, the above benefits will accrue to them. If your family predeceases your fellow patriot Mr. Karl Rove, the above benefits shall accrue to him.

The Board agrees that the terms of this hypothetical severance agreement are merely hypothetical, that you have not decided to resign, and that you may not decide to resign. The Board recognizes that you alone are the Decider, and it does not in any way wish to influence or rush your decision. The Board regrets, however, that given the rate at which USA, Inc. shareholder frustration is increasing, the terms of this hypothetical severance agreement will expire at sundown.

Sincerely,
The Board of Directors
USA, Inc.

Henry Blodget, a former securities analyst, is the author of The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual.

Vanity Fair: John McCain

To read this interesting (and long) article about a (the?) possible GOP nominee for 2008, click on the post title above.

Prisoner of Conscience

Given his popular status as a maverick war hero, John McCain has a good shot at winning the 2008 presidential election—if he can get his party to nominate him. But one minute he's toeing the conservative line (on gay marriage, say, or immigration) and the next he's telling someone what he really thinks.

by Todd S. Purdum February 2007, Vanity Fair

Obama on Senate Ethics

This would be a good start, if the practical modalities could be worked out. It seems to leave open the vital issue of campaign contributions. What can we do about that?

A Chance To Change The Game

By Barack Obama
Thursday, January 4, 2007; A17, Washington Post

This past Election Day, the American people sent a clear message to Washington: Clean up your act.

After a year in which too many scandals revealed the influence special interests wield over Washington, it's no surprise that so many incumbents were defeated and that polls said "corruption" was the grievance cited most frequently by the voters.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that this message was intended for only one party or politician. The votes hadn't even been counted in November before we heard reports that corporations were already recruiting lobbyists with Democratic connections to carry their water in the next Congress.

That's why it's not enough to just change the players. We have to change the game.

Americans put their faith in Democrats because they want us to restore their faith in government -- and that means more than window dressing when it comes to ethics reform.

Last year, I was hopeful that scandals would finally shame Congress into meaningful ethics legislation. But after the headlines faded, so did the enthusiasm for reform. In the end, I found myself voting against the final ethics bill because it was too weak and unresponsive to the obvious need for comprehensive reform.

This time around, we must do more.

We must stop any and all practices that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a public servant has become indebted to a lobbyist. That means a full ban on gifts and meals. It means no free travel or subsidized travel on private jets. And it means closing the revolving door to ensure that Capitol Hill service -- whether as a member of Congress or as a staffer -- isn't all about lining up a high-paying lobbying job. We should no longer tolerate a House committee chairman shepherding the Medicare prescription drug bill through Congress at the same time he's negotiating for a job as the pharmaceutical industry's top lobbyist.

But real reform also means real enforcement. We need to finally take the politics and the partisanship out of ethics investigations. Whether or not the House ethics committee has been covering for its colleagues, the secrecy with which its members have operated has led people to question why legislators who are serving jail time were not caught and stopped by the committee in the first place. It's led people to wonder why Congress cannot seem to police itself.

I have long proposed a nonpartisan, independent ethics commission that would act as the American people's public watchdog over Congress. The commission would be staffed with former judges and former members of Congress from both parties, and it would allow any citizen to report possible ethics violations by lawmakers, staff members or lobbyists. Once a potential violation is reported, the commission would have the authority to conduct investigations, issue subpoenas, gather records, call witnesses, and provide a report to the Justice Department or the House and Senate ethics committees that -- unlike current ethics committee reports -- is available for all citizens to read.

This would improve the current process in two ways. First, it would take politics out of the fact-finding phase of ethics investigations. Second, it would exert greater public pressure on Congress to punish wrongdoing quickly and severely. Others have proposed similar good ideas on enforcement, and I am open to all options. We must restore the American people's confidence in the ethics process by ensuring that political self-interest can no longer prevent politicians from enforcing ethics rules.

The truth is, we cannot change the way Washington works unless we first change the way Congress works. On Nov. 7, voters gave Democrats the chance to do this. But if we miss this opportunity to clean up our act and restore this country's faith in government, the American people might not give us another one.

The writer is a Democratic senator from Illinois.

Happy New Year

I wish one and all a healthy and happy new year. To see some of the best American editorial cartoons of 2006, click on the post title above.

Enjoy!

Read It and Weep

The Legal Year in Review

By Andrew Cohen
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, December 29, 2006; 12:00 AM

The good news from the world of the law in 2006 is that we did not for once in recent memory have to endure an avalanche of vapid news coverage about a solitary trashy tale of sex and fame and crime. There was no Michael Jackson molestation trial or Kobe Bryant rape trial or Laci Peterson saga to draw our attention away from trials and cases and legal issues of true merit.

The bad news from the world of the law in 2006 is that we didn't take that extra time given to us by divine providence and follow or absorb with any depth or sense of passion or outrage the truly monumental and generally ominous things that were done in the law, in our name, in this fifth-going-on-sixth year of the legal war on terrorism. Tens of millions of Americans know and care about the identity of the latest winner of American Idol. But only a tiny fraction of those know, too, of the manifold pressures currently pushing upon the rule of law. Hey, you didn't really think that Paris and Britney really were going to end up best-friends-forever, did you?

From our government's own documents, for example, we learned in 2006 that hundreds of the terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, being held now for about half a decade, never took up arms against the United States or were otherwise a part of Al Qaeda when they were captured by U.S. or Coalition forces shortly after we went to war. Our own military has told us this and we have done nothing with it. Those men languish there, in our self-made terror incubation camps, while our legislative- and executive-branch leaders conjure up ways to deprive them of their rights. Can you believe that hot and naughty Miss USA is now in rehab?

We lasted the entire year in 2006 knowing that our executive branch was able and eager to spy upon us, without any warrants or other legal checks or balances upon that invasive power, as part of a domestic surveillance program that many leading legal experts believe is, at best, constitutionally suspect and, at worst, blatantly illegal. We even learned this year that some of that surveillance fell upon anti-war protestors and others who were exercising their constitutionally-protected free speech rights. And we did virtually nothing about it. Do you really think Tom and Katie are married?

Meanwhile, almost all of our federal judges remained silent about the National Security Agency program (and its cousin, the Department of Defense's "Talon" program, whose administrators were caught with data on anti-war activities at churches) except for a brave few. For their part, our national legislators, whom one noted essayist aptly called "corrupt and indifferent," were unable or unwilling, day after day at the so-called "people's house" of Congress, to muster up the courage and force to assure either us or themselves that the White House wasn't permitting or even encouraging widespread constitutional violations. Seriously, what do you think really happened at that stripper party at Duke?

2006 was the year in which the Supreme Court, thanks to the newest Justice, Samuel A. Alito, Jr., declared admissible evidence seized from a home after the police entered via a "no-knock" raid. Writing for a 5-4 majority over a vigorous dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia ruled that the "societal cost" of suppressing evidence obtained as a result of these sorts of raids was greater than the corresponding privacy protections citizens would receive from a continuance of the longstanding "knock and announce" rule of police work. Only the civil libertarians among us cried foul when this case was announced this past June. Everyone else remained silent. Can you believe that Starr Jones took on Barbara Walters on television?

Just when we need strong, independent judges most to thwart the concerted effort by the White House to impose a "unitary" theory of governance, 2006 also happened to be the year in which hundreds of thousands of Americans expressed their scorn for the judiciary by voting for anti-judge initiatives in elections all across the country. The worst of these measures was soundly defeated in South Dakota. But in Colorado a similarly goofy scheme netted nearly 600,000 votes before it went down to defeat. These troublemakers were egged on by cynical politicians who successfully pander to their base by labeling judges as anti-American (or worse) when they issue unpopular rulings. I haven't yet been hit by a mobile phone thrown by supermodel Naomi Campbell, have you?

We've also just endured a year in which an over-the-top television host was accused in court of contributing (via a nasty, unfair interview) to the suicide of a mother whose child went missing and who thus became natural fodder for that host's popular but grim show that features daily doses of vengeance and prejudgment on its menu. We experienced a collective moment of Zen when we learned that the icon of corporate greed, Enron's Kenneth Lay, dropped dead in his bathroom in the middle of the night, a la Elvis, just months before he was to be sentenced for fleecing billions. And we discovered that the judge in the Terri Schiavo case, who bravely followed the law, still gets hate mail. Wait, please tell me once again why O.J. Simpson can't go to jail if he confesses to killing Nicole and Ron?

2006 was not a good year for the Constitution. It was not remotely a good year for the concept of separation of powers in government or for the idea that our system works best when there are sufficient checks on the excesses of one branch over another. It was not a good year for opponents of an imperial presidency or for supporters of a concerned and compassionate Congress. It was not a year that offers a lot of hope that things will get any better, or even stabilize, in 2007.

So we got out of the law this year what we deserved from it. And hopefully we will come to realize in 2007 and beyond that if we continue to ignore and neglect the most important and weighty issues that confront the Constitution, its power and authority will erode, slowly but surely, until one of the best ideas ever conceived by man is relegated to being just another dusty, historical document.

Andrew Cohen writes Bench Conference and this regular law column for washingtonpost.com. He is also CBS News Chief Legal Analyst. His columns for CBS can be found online here.

Liberaltarians

Here's an interesting take on US politics of the future. For non-American readers, Libertarians are what Brits call Liberals.



A Split in the GOP Tent
Could Libertarians Join With Liberals?

By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, December 4, 2006; A19, Washington Post

Republicans are good at reinvention. They have appealed to voters' dark side (Nixon's Southern strategy) as well as to their sunny side (Reagan's "Morning in America"). They have skipped from anti-government populism (Newt Gingrich and the leave-us-alone coalition) to big-government machine politics (the alliance with corporate lobbyists known as the K Street Project). Through all these transformations, the GOP has sustained its big-tent coalition. The question in the wake of its election thumpin' is whether the tent will split.

You can see this possibility in " Liberaltarians," an essay in the New Republic by Brink Lindsey, the director of research at the libertarian Cato Institute. Lindsey is not merely joining the large crowd of disenchanted conservatives who believe that the Republican Party has betrayed its principles -- spraying money at farmers, building bridges to nowhere and presiding over the fastest ramp-up in federal spending since Lyndon Johnson. Rather, Lindsey is taking a step further, arguing that libertarians should ditch the Republican Party in favor of the Democrats.

Why react to the temporary corruption of a party by abandoning it outright? Lindsey's answer is that Republicans are not merely failing to live up to their principles; the principles have altered. The party has been virtually cleaned out of the Northeast; it has suffered setbacks in the Mountain West; it increasingly reflects the values of its stronghold in the South. As a result, it has lost its libertarian tinge and grown more religious and traditionalist.

There has always been a tension between Republican libertarians, who believe that individual choices should be unconstrained by received wisdom, and Republican traditionalists, who believe pretty much the opposite. In their history of the conservative movement, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge recall that Barry Goldwater believed Jerry Falwell deserved "a swift kick in the ass;" and Goldwater's wife, Peggy, helped to found Planned Parenthood in Arizona. But for a long time the two wings of the party could paper over these differences. Christian conservatives and libertarians agreed that misconceived government programs were harming traditional values. Schools forced sex education on children. The tax system and the welfare system penalized marriage.

Conservatives have grown less able to bridge these divisions because of their success. Welfare has been reformed, and the tax system now supports families with the expanded child tax credit. Having ticked off the first things on their to-do list, Christian conservatives now press for affirmative state action on behalf of traditional values: amendments to the constitution to bar gay marriage, government efforts to teach abstinence, federal payments to faith-based groups. All these policies appall libertarians.

It's not just the values of the South that pose a problem. It is the region's appetite for government. The most solidly red states in the nation tend also to be the most reliant on federal handouts -- farm subsidies, water projects and sundry other earmarks. It's hard to be the party of small government when you represent the communities that benefit most from big government. George W. Bush tried to straddle this divide by pleasing libertarians with tax cuts and traditionalists with spending. The result is a huge deficit.

Would libertarians be more comfortable in the company of Democrats? On moral questions -- abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research -- clearly they would. But on economic issues, the answer is less obvious. For just as Republicans want government to restore traditional values, so Democrats want government to bring back the economic order that existed before globalization. As Lindsey puts it in his New Republic essay, Republicans want to go home to the United States of the 1950s while Democrats want to work there.

If Democrats can get over this nostalgia, there's a chance that liberaltarianism could work. For the time has passed when libertarians could seriously hope to cut government: Much of what could be deregulated has been, and the combination of demographics, defense costs and medical inflation leaves no scope for tax cuts. As Lindsey himself says, the ambition of realistic libertarians is not to shrink government but to contain it: to cut senseless spending such as the farm program and oil subsidies to make room for the inevitable expansion in areas such as health.

As it happens, this also describes a plausible agenda for the Democratic Party -- at least if it can shed the back-to-the-1950s yearnings of its reactionary left. Precisely because Democrats want government to provide social insurance against the volatility of globalization, the party has an interest in cutting unneeded federal spending. Precisely because entitlements are expanding so expensively, the party needs cost-saving ideas from anyone who has them -- including libertarians.

The era of big government is far from over, and liberals and libertarians gain nothing from fighting over its inevitable growth. But precisely because government is on a trajectory of unsustainable expansion, liberals and libertarians have a common interest in reinventing it.

Center for American Progress First 100 Days’ Policy Agenda

The Center for American Progress, led by John Podesta, has published an interesting agenda for the new (Democratic) congress' first 100 days (and beyond). You can access it by using the link above. In the meanwhile, what follows is a self-description of this group from their web site http://www.americanprogress.org/

About the Center for American Progress

Who We Are

The Center for American Progress is a progressive think-tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action.

We are creating a long-term, progressive vision for America—a vision that policy makers, thought-leaders and activists can use to shape the national debate and pass laws that make a difference.

The Center for American Progress is headed by John D. Podesta, former chief of staff to President William J. Clinton and a professor at Georgetown University Center of Law.

What We Believe

As progressives we believe that America should be a country of boundless opportunity—where all people can better themselves through education, hard work, and the freedom to pursue their dreams. We believe this will only be achieved with an open and effective government that champions the common good over narrow self-interest, harnesses the strength of our diversity, and secures the rights and safety of its people.

Real progress will be achieved only through innovative solutions borne of open collaboration.

To realize our vision we must:

Build an opportunity nation where every hard-working person, regardless of background, can realize their dreams through education, decent work and fair play.

Reawaken America's conscience, our sense of shared and personal responsibility, to build healthy, vibrant communities.

Reform government so that it is of, by and for the people: open, effective, and committed to the common good.

Use America's strength to bring the world together, not pull it apart.

How We Work

1) We explore the issues that matter most. We learn everything we can about the vital issues facing America and the world through dialogue with leaders, thinkers and citizens.

2) We develop bold new ideas. We debate. We develop a point of view. Then we take a stand.

3) We shape the national debate. We share our point of view—online, on campus, in the media, on the shop floor and in the boardroom, with Congress and in statehouses—with everyone who can put our ideas into practice and affect positive change.

Who is a progressive?

Founded on the ideals of the progressive movement at the turn of the century, today’s progressive movement believes that an open and effective government can improve the lives of everyday Americans by playing an active role in solving social and economic problems.

In other words, a progressive is someone who is idealistic enough to believe that things can be better and pragmatic enough to get it done.