Month: January 2005

Max Boot on Seymour Hersh’s record:

According to Bart Gellman of the Washington Post (a real investigative ace), Rumsfeld has created a new spy unit to make up for the CIA’s deficiencies. Gellman’s Jan. 23 story has all sorts of specifics that the New Yorker piece lacks, including the unit’s name (the Strategic Support Branch). Hersh’s contribution is to spin this into something nefarious by including anonymous speculation that military operatives might sponsor foreign “execution squads” or even carry out “terrorist activities.” Umm, guess we’ll have to take your word for it, Sy.
But how good is Hersh’s word? His record doesn’t inspire confidence. In 1986 he published a book suggesting that the Soviets shot down a South Korean airliner because they mistook it for a U.S. spy plane — a claim debunked by the opening of Soviet archives. In 1997 he published a book full of nasty allegations about John F. Kennedy that was widely panned. As part of that project he tried to peddle a documentary based on forged documents.
Few facts in Hersh’s stories are checkable by an outsider, but, of those that are, a number turn out to be false. In November 2001, he claimed that 16 AC-130 gunships participated in a raid (a “near disaster”) on Mullah Mohammed Omar’s compound in Afghanistan. There were only nine AC-130s in the entire region, and they are never used more than one or two at a time. In a story in October 2001, he claimed that Predator drones cost $40 million; the actual price tag is $2.5 million. In the latest article, he says two Pentagon policy officials would be in the “chain of command” for covert operations; the actual chain of command runs from the secretary of Defense to military commanders in the field.
OK, anyone can make a mistake, but all of Hersh’s errors run in one direction: toward making the U.S. government look bad. His November 2001 article included a quote, hilarious in retrospect, from “one officer” who claimed, “This is no war for Special Operations.” That ran a month before special operators toppled the Taliban. The April 7, 2001, issue of the New Yorker contained his article quoting a “former intelligence official” who said of the invasion of Iraq, “It’s a stalemate now.” Two days later, Baghdad fell.

Hersh’s credibility may not be zero, but it’s pretty close.
And speaking of bad journalism, I had an exchange with a reader in the comments the other day that got me thinking. Whenever you cite anything from the Washington Times, you can be sure to get some lefty going on about the nuttiness of Rev. Moon, who owns the paper. Now, OK, Moon is nuts. But I really don’t see what that has to do with the day-to-day operations of the Washington Times. I’ve certainly never heard of Moon getting involved in daily editorial decisions. Instead, it seems more like an effort to just wish away everything unpleasant reported by the Times: “Moon, Moon, Moon, I’m not listening . . . ”
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think the Washington Times is the greatest of newspapers; if you ranked the major dailies of national visibility in terms of credibility, I probably wouldn’t rank it in the top half. But that record of credibility is based on the work of each paper’s reporters and editors, not ad hominem attacks on the ownership.
What’s funny about this is that the folks who rag on Moon never seem too interested in, say, the politics of the New York Times’ ownership. Or CNN, which was founded and long run by Ted Turner. You want nuts? Turner’s got an endless supply, witness his latest tirade as just the latest . . . Turner spoke at my law school graduation, and he was either drunk, off his meds or both, going on and on about how “we should never have split the atom. Those are dangerous little buggers” and similar rants. Certainly, Turner’s left-leaning politics are no secret. At the end of the day, though, CNN, like other news outlets – and like the likes of Seymour Hersh – should be judged by the news it produces and the people who produce it. Just give the Washington Times the same respect.

I had meant to write this up at more length, but Happy Third Birthday to The Corner at NRO, which Jonah Goldberg opened on January 24, 2002. Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus and Josh Marshall had already been in business for some time by then (as had Lileks), and people like Instapundit had already caught on after September 11; The Corner wasn’t even the first blog I read daily (that would be Best of the Web Today, which started July 28, 2000). (More thoughts here from Patrick Ruffini and commenters). But like a lot of people on the Right, it was NRO that really introduced me to the world of bloggers and got me in the habit of reading blogs. The Corner is, in fact, a much underrated milestone in the blogosphere’s history.

When Republicans took over Congress in 1995, there was much talk of abolishing Cabinet-level departments, particularly Education (an area of government that most conservatives feel shouldn’t be handled at the federal level) and Energy (a Cabinet-level agency created in the hated Carter years). These hopes failed terribly, and there has not since been any serious talk of removing a Cabinet-level agency.
Which seems too bad; one would like to see somebody, somewhere, send the message that government can shrink as well as grow sometimes. But, of course, government agencies are very shrewd about entangling essential functions with those that are less so, and eliminating a department without eliminating its underlying functions wouldn’t do much for the budget. Thus, the trick of finding agencies or departments that can be pulled up root and branch is harder than it sounds.
The department I’ve long thought should be abolished is the Commerce Department. Commerce would seem to fit perfectly the profile of a department the Right and Left could agree to do away with. Its publicly identified purpose – promotion of economic growth – is one that is quintessentially the province of the private sector. Its heads in the past (e.g., Don Evans, Ron Brown) have often been chosen primarily on the basis of their ability to raise money for the president. It caters to Big Business in ways that easily bring to mind the phrase “corporate welfare,” most notably by means of the Secretary of Commerce’s trade promotion trips with CEOs. And, of course, Commerce also rides the point for protectionism.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been saying for years, but I finally decided to take a closer look at the Commerce Department’s most recent budget, for Fiscal Year 2004, as detailed in a “Budget in Brief” summary on the Commerce Department’s website. Here’s what I found.
1. The first thing you notice about the Commerce Department’s budget, in the context of the budget at large, is how tiny it is: approximately $5.5 billion, a pittance compared to, say, the Defense Department or the Department of Health and Human Services. In fact, the incoming Secretary of Commerce, the former CEO of Kellogg’s, may find this a bit of a step down – Kellogg’s had sales of $8.8 billion in 2003. It wouldn’t save much in terms of money, but in terms of size alone you could easily justify merging a department this size into one of the bigger departments.
2. The Bush Administration has, for the past few years, at least tried to hold the line on the Commerce budget, with the department’s budget authority rising from $5.545 billion in FY 2002 to $5.519 billion (estimated) in FY 2004, with a dropoff in between in FY 2003. However, actual discretionary outlays have risen from $5.316 billion in FY 2002 to $5.791 billion in FY 2003 to $5.780 billion in FY 2004. The projected outlays only get worse, rising to $5.972 in FY 2007 and then leaping to $6.353 billion in FY 2008 due to a run-up in projected expenses at the Bureau of the Census in anticipation of the 2010 census.
3. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Commerce Department is the breakdown of where it spends its money, best seen on page 9 of the “Budget in Brief” document. Of a $5.78 billion budget in FY 2004, $3.323 billion – (57.9%) – goes to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, which whatever its virtues has little enough to do with Big Business, per se. Although the NOAA’s functions are varied, it seems to break down into two major types of functions: collecting weather, satellite and natuical data, and managing fisheries. Only the latter, which I suppose caters to Big Fish, is really business-promotion function. While I’m sure you could easily find examples of money not well spent in those areas (and there may well be good privatization arguments as to some of these functions), the “Budget in Brief” buries them fairly well in anodyne descriptions. Either way, I’d bet you didn’t know that more than half of the Commerce Department’s budget is dedicated to weather data and fishing.
The next largest area of Commerce’s budget ($673 million, 11.7%), and also one having nothing apparently to do with commerce, is the Bureau of the Census, whose core function is required by the Constitution.
Third on the list ($652 million, 11.4% and falling – we’ve now accounted for more than 80% of the department’s budget) is the National Institute of Standards & Technology. This one, at least, looks like a better target for budget-cutters (as it apparently has been), as its functions are described (at p. 112) in vague terms like “providing the measurements, standards, verified data, and test methods required for new technologies and competing in the global economy,” “assists industry to invest in and develop high-risk, innovative technologies,” “assists small manufacturing establishments in assimilating new technologies and manufacturing practices,” and, my favorite, “a highly visible quality management program focused on instilling the principles of continuous quality improvement in U.S. businesses and educational and healthcare organizations.” (emphasis added). All of which sounds like something that should be done by trade associations, not your (and my) tax dollars.
After that, you get better targets like the “Economic Development Admistration” ($440 million, 7.7%, down $19 million in FY 2004 after a sharp increase in FY 2003), which lists among its chief methods (at p. 36) “promoting a favorable business environment,” the mischief-making “International Trade Admistration” ($370 million, 6.4%), and a bunch of smaller programs, including the Patent and Trademark Office, which actually makes money for the government (by collecting fees), turning a $366 million profit in FY 2003, $87 million in FY 2004.
4. You also have to remember what isn’t there – the Small Business Administration. The SBA seems like the classic example of an agency that you would expect to find within a department devoted to the development of American commerce, but not so. It’s actually structured as a stand-alone quasi-government entity outisde the purview of any Cabinet-level department, like the Postal Service or the FDIC.
Conclusion: If you are looking to cut fat from the federal government, the Commerce Department certainly seems like a potential target – but it’s simply not where the big money gets spent, and wholesale elimination of its functions does not seem like a realistic goal given how much of its budget is dedicated to functions like the Census and the collection of weather data, although I would remain open to arguments on how much of the weather and fishery-management functions could be privatized.

This story about federal employees with diplomas from bogus colleges is just amazing – although in one sense the story about Laura Callahan does suggest that the Clinton White House’s claims of computer incompetence may have been genuine after all. (via CrimProfBlog by way of Instapundit)

Opinion Journal’s Political Diary, which is a daily must-read and worth the price, had some hilarious quotes from outgoing and often outrageous South Carolina Democrat Fritz Hollings:

In his farewell address last month, he mourned that the Senate was a duller place than when he first came in 1966. “There’s nobody drunk here today,” he drawled. He also complained that too many Senators were afraid to speak candidly now, and the country was the worse for it.
He also took on the media. An ardent trade protectionist, he bristled when ABC News Correspondent Sam Donaldson questioned him once on live television about what country’s tailors had made the suit he was wearing. The Senator snapped back: “Sam, if you want to personalize it, I got it right down the street from where you got your wig.” Mr. Donaldson later that nothing he’d heard from a politician before had left him quite so speechless.

A story that won’t die: Will Collier links to a Washington Times piece that points out yet another reason to regard as a fabrication the claim that Bush refused to take a National Guard physical when ordered to do so:

[F]or the weekend that 1st Lt. Bush was supposedly ordered to report for his physical, May 13-14, 1972, the Ellington Air Guard Base was closed. It was Mother’s Day. Except for emergencies, Air Guard units never drilled on Mother’s Day; the divorce lawyers would be waiting at the gate.
If George Bush showed up at the clinic that weekend, he would have had to get the key from the gate guard.
The drill weekend for May 1972 was the following weekend, May 20-21. A survey of the pay and flight records of several of the Texas Air Guard members of that period shows no activity for May 13-14, but drill pay vouchers and flights for May 20-21.

Good sleuthing there. Read the whole thing.

Patrick Hynes of CrushKerry.com and Daily Kos have been having an unsurprisingly bruising debate over whether the Democrats should abandon the privileged position of Iowa and New Hampshire on the primary schedule. Hynes, taking the parochial New Hampshirite view, opened with this op-ed piece in the Union-Leader, NH’s most influential newspaper, arguing that

[T]hese efforts to reform the nomination process will force candidates to compete in more states conterminously, thereby driving up the cost of running for President. And the fringe elements behind such plans know that they can dominate the entire nomination process by driving up the cost of running for the Democrat nomination.

Kos responded with his usual ad hominem attacks and venom, but also took on a few of the key arguments along the way:

Small states allow for ‘retail politics’
Wonderful. Retail politics. Too bad the general election has nothing to do with retail politics. Give me the guy or gal who can best use the media to communicate an effective message.
Small states allow ‘underdog’ candidates to be competitive
Dean was about as underdog a candidate as you could get not named “Dennis”, and he did mighty fine. Technology now allows good candidates to fire up partisans nationwide and fill the coffers with the necessary moolah necessary for a strong primary bid.
IA and NH voters take their job seriously
Other voters might take their jobs seriously as well, if they had the chance to voice their choice. Other voters, in states large and small, would take their voters as seriously.
And to be honest, I don’t see how NH took their votes any more seriously than any other state would’ve. As for IA, having 10 percent of Democrats make their choice without a secret ballot is inherently undemocratic.
The winners of Iowa and New Hampshire don’t always decide the nomination
Until 2004, we didn’t have a 24/7 political media on cable news and the Internet. Once upon a time, the IA election results were a one- or two-day story. NH would make its own choice, as would every subsequent state. Nowadays, the media circus around Iowa guarantees that the winner of the caucus will be far more influential than in years past.
Case in point — Wesley Clark led several polls in NH until Iowa. After Kerry’s win, Clark faded to obscurity.

Hynes fires back here, noting, among other things:

Kos is stuck in the 90’s. Retail politics is back. With micro-targeting, individual contact is more important now than perhaps at any time since 1948.

Kos isn’t necessarily wrong just because he’s Kos. The primary season is, in many ways, like reality television or the bar exam: it’s a series of sometimes pointless-seeming challenges we expect presidential contenders to overcome because, traditionally, we’ve learned something about them along the way that helps us pick the right guy. In that vein, I do think there’s something useful about kicking off the process with a round that forces the contestants to do some retail politics. The fact that the president will spend the next four to eight years in a bubble hiding behind spokesflacks and the instruments of mass communication is all the more reason to require him (or her) to first slog through the humbling task of kissing up to oridnary Americans one at a time. It’s a useful reminder that the president works for us.
Kos’ real gripe is the undue influence that the Iowa victory had on Kerry’s air of inevitability in 2004. But the problem wasn’t Iowa; the problem was that the compressed nature of the primary schedule didn’t give adequate time for anyone else to build anti-Kerry momentum after that first victory until Kerry all but had things sewn up. And, I should add, the mood of the Democratic primary voters was a desperate hunger to settle quickly on a candidate and start gearing up for the fall. The solution to that problem has little to do with who goes first.
I’m more sympathetic to some of the anti-Iowa points: that the Iowa caucuses are run in an undemocratic, unrepresentative fashion and that Iowa in particular tends to use its status to extort support from presidential contenders for parochial pork issues (ethanol, ahem). That’s the natural hazard of having the same small states at the top of the calendar every four years.
Kos doesn’t mention another common talking point on the Left: That Iowa and NH are unrepresentative of the Democratic electorate because they are nearly all-white states, and he doesn’t get to the core question of whether he thinks that other states would produce a more or less left-leaning electorate.
On the other hand, it’s sort of ironic that the effort to attack these two states would come now, at a time when IA and NH are two of the most closely divided swing states in the union, with IA one of just two Gore states to go for Bush in 2004, NH the only 2000 Bush state to go for Kerry, and both decided by razor-thin margins in 2000 and 2004. This is why I think changing IA and NH’s status would be a bad idea for the Democrats at this moment in time, regardless of the abstract merits of the idea. If the Democrats are serious about finding a candidate who can appeal to swing state rural voters, you could hardly pick two better places to campaign, especially with the added appeal that a candidate gets name recognition early in a state he’ll need to win later, a factor that clearly helped Kerry in both states (in fact, a rational party would simply look at whichever states were most hotly contested in the previous election and stick those at the top of the calendar). Turning with blind fury against the very states the Democrats need to win, in favor of an effort to rig the process to favor a left-wing insurgency with no base in any swing state, is not a prudent strategy.

I didn’t realize that Jon Corzine’s already signed up Bob Shrum for the NJ governor’s race. I guess Corzine will be “fighting for the people against the powerful.”

Now, as I’ve long argued, the fact that a thing is indefensible, illegal and wrong does not always make it a capital offense. But let us not lose sight of the fact that when a thing is indefensible, wrong and almost certainly illegal, we should denounce it.
In that vein, I can’t imagine what defense there is for the Bush Administration using $240,000 of taxpayer money to buy the support of a conservative radio host for the No Child Left Behind Act, and if I were Armstrong Williams, I’d get myself a good criminal lawyer real fast, because the federal criminal laws can be very broad when it comes to taking something the government should not have been giving out. Shame on him, shame on whoever authorized the payment, and – though this should not be a defense – shame on any prior administration that did the same thing. This is way beyond the usual esoteric question of, say, the president traveling to drum up support for his policies, or some such example of politicians using our money to promote the policies we elected them to enact. This is just graft, and should be treated accordingly.
UPDATE: Williams tells his side of the story, which he frames as accepting paid advertising:

In 2003 Ketchum Communications contacted a small PR firm that I own, Graham Williams Group, to buy ad space on a television show that I own and host. The ad was to promote The Department of Education’s “No Child Left Behind” plan.

I wonder how many ads the federal government airs to promote its policies – the most obvious would be the anti-drug ads.

David Rosen, Hillary Clinton’s campaign finance director and a fundraiser for Wesley Clark, indicted for filing false reports during Hillary’s 2000 Senate campaign.

I’m late linking to this one, but John Behan at Commonwealth Conservative has an exhaustive look at the 2005 Virginia governor’s race. My only quibble is with his suggestion that this year’s race in New Jersey will be uninteresting; to the contrary, a showdown that could potentially come down to Jon Corzine against Bret Schundler could be a fascinating race, and should be something of a referendum on the New Jersey Democrats’ manipulation of the election laws (Frank Lautenberg, ahem, and the timing of Jim McGreevey’s exit) and general corruption (the cause of Jim McGreevey’s exit).