Monday, June 28, 2004
Anniversary: 50 years ago, yesterday, the CIA ousted the government of Guatemala.
Fahrenheit 9/11:
Quite the success! As a movie, it was rather messy, but regardless, it drew huge crowds, and not just the choir. For example, the NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. advised his crew to see it, noting ‘it’s a good thing as an American to go see.’
Although it was on less than 1/3 of the screens of its competitors, it was the top grossing movie of the weekend.
We sold out in Fayetteville, home of Fort Bragg," in North Carolina, Mr. Moore said on Sunday. "We sold out in Army-base towns. We set house records in some of these places. We set single-day records in a number of theaters. We got standing ovations in Greensboro, N.C.
"The biggest news to me this morning is this is a red-state movie," he said, referring to the state whose residents voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. "Republican states are embracing the movie, and it's sold out in Republican strongholds all over the country."
Harvey Weinstein said: "It's beyond anybody's expectations. I'd have to say the sky's the limit on this movie. Who knows what territory we're in." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/movies/28BOX.html?hp
Arguably the most notable part of the movie is the film of Bush sitting inert and impassive after being told of the SECOND plane having hit the World Trade Tower. It just demolishes the Bush as Leader aura that so many have been invested in. Jack Beatty offers his take:
That moment exposes Bush's character. It reveals what his press conferences proclaim: his incapacity. If he were George W. Smith, what job would he be qualified for? Bush's presidency can be seen as one long cover-up of the most obvious thing about him. A life of upward failure, of being his father's son, left him without "sand," my nineteenth century-born father's word for the residue of strength acquired by "standing on your own two feet" and "taking your medicine." Bush never stood on his own feet, never took his medicine—and he has never been his own man. He's the only president to be related to the Queen of England, and his biography is that of a "royal." Prince Charles would make a sorry prime minister. Like Bush, though, he'd give good strut.
Leaders show what they are made of in a crisis. Bush hid in plain sight with those kids. Later, hiding twice over, he used them as an excuse, saying he did not want to frighten them by ending the reading before finishing the book. Later still, and repeatedly, he said he saw the first plane strike the tower that morning (in fact, no one saw that live; the film was not available until the evening) and that he remarked, "That's some bad pilot"—pure strut. As the Wall Street Journal reported, he also magnified his role in managing the crisis, claiming he gave orders others gave. Conflicting accounts of Bush's communications documented by the 9/11 Commission now raise doubts whether, as he and Cheney told the commissioners, he ordered Cheney to shoot down any hijacked planes still in the air, or whether Cheney, in the White House bunker, acted on his own. http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/polipro/pp2004-06-23.htm
Polls:
A slew of results from Fox that unsurprisingly have Bush ahead in key states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and a 10 point lead in Florida. CNN/USA Today/Gallup has the race essentially tied, and Quinipiac and American Research Group polls have Kerry even or slightly ahead in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.
But it’s only late June.
Bush in Ireland:
How pathetic: Questions put to Bush in the officially granted interview had to be submitted in advance. "The policy of the White House is that you submit your questions in advance, so they had my questions for about three days," said Carole Coleman who interviewed Bush. Still, when she tried to follow-up, Bush ignored her and was ticked. From the Irish press:
However, when RTE put Ms [Carole] Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be available.
The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.
She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone.
And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit. http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1205871&issue_id=11063
Bush in Turkey:
Next to no coverage beyond the content of the NATO meeting (see below). But if you look at the foreign press you find headlines like this one in Australia (ABC): Protests, explosions mark Bush visit to Turkey. Seems that 40,000 staged a protest.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Hostages, bombings. But, “limited sovereignty”! How limited? Al Jazeera reports that the Iraqi police and army is (understandably- see below) not trusted by the US and is being stripped of its fire power. "US occupation forces are taking measures to ensure that the emerging Iraqi Army remain a small defensive force with limited capabilities and no armor. For the first time in its 84-year history, the Iraqi Army has been reduced to a nearly impotent force deprived of heavy armaments, armor, and aircraft."
Iraqi Police/Army fight the U.S.
The Telegraph (GB) report that the newly trained army and police don’t always work with us.
An Iraqi journalist went into Fallujah on behalf of the Telegraph on Wednesday, a day on which an orchestrated wave of bloody rebel attacks across the country cost more than 100 lives.
Inside the Sunni-dominated town, he met police officers and units of the country's new army who have formed a united front with Muslim fundamentalists against the Americans, their resistance focused on al-Askeri district on the eastern outskirts of the town.
That morning, US marines had taken up "aggressive defence" positions on one side of Highway One. On the other side, militant fighters were dug in, ready for battle. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/27/wirq127.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/27/ixnewstop.html
Yellowcake, revisited:
More is a-stirring about the old story of alleged Iraqi purchases of yellowcake uranium from Niger. The forger of the documents in that case is allegedly a businessman who will surface to explain the particulars. But, according to Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo, there’s much more to the story, which will ultimately be revealed… but not yet, for strategic reasons. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_06_27.php#003106 http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373295039&p=1012571727088
Let My People Go!
The Brits remain unhappy as to their charges who are stuck at Guantanamo: From the Guardian (Vikram Dodd). The Administration, weakened and valuing appearances, may relent.
Tony Blair has personally asked President George Bush to send the four remaining Britons in Guantánamo Bay home, amid mounting calls for the government to increase its pressure on Washington to end alleged human rights abuses.
The Guardian has seen court papers revealing the prime minister's direct plea to Mr Bush. They form the government's formal defence to a legal action brought by lawyers for two of the remaining prisoners seeking a court order compelling Britain to formally demand their return.
The government's defence states: "The United Kingdom government is continuing to seek the return of the four remaining prisoners and the prime minister has made a di rect request to President Bush to that effect".
The four prisoners alleged by the US to be terrorists have been held without trial, charge or access to lawyers for up to two and a half years. Mr Blair has been condemned for doing too little to secure their release from conditions that have caused worldwide outrage. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4956955-111575,00.html
Rapprochement w/ Chirac? Not so simple.
The Guardian’s Ian Black and Michael White report that Chirac isn’t ready to play ball. Again, the Administration may need to bend.
President George Bush was facing stiff French-led resistance last night to his efforts to persuade his Nato allies to agree to train Iraqi security forces.
The French president, Jacques Chirac, is determined to thwart any deal that allows the US and Britain to claim that the alliance has a formal role in the disputed occupation.
Tony Blair flew into Istanbul last night intent on talking up the summit's chance of achieving even a modest success in respect of Iraq and in terms of a wider Nato role in "forgotten" Afghanistan, but was keen to say nothing that would further offend France. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4958107-103550,00.html
And, reports from the NATO meeting reinforce the impression that the U.S. has “lost its edge”.
"What we are seeing is other nations joining to resist U.S. unilateralism and exacting a higher price," said Cliff Kupchan, vice president of the Nixon Center, an institute in Washington created by former President Richard M. Nixon that specializes in foreign policy. "We've seen pounds of flesh being exacted before. Now it's an aggregate pound of flesh."
Mr. Kupchan said international skepticism and domestic pressure from Americans seeking a more collaborative role with the world had prompted the administration to adjust its tone. But it may be too late, he said. "I don't think you can turn around three years of U.S. foreign policy with some midnight initiatives," he said. "The image of this president in the public's and the world's eyes is pretty much established." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/politics/28DIPL.html
Anthony Lewis on Torture: ‘We need a criminal investigation.’
The issues raised by the Bush administration's legal assertions in its "war on terror" are so numerous and so troubling that one hardly knows where to begin discussing them. The torture and death of prisoners, the end result of cool legal abstractions, have a powerful claim on our national conscience. They are described in horrifying detail in a report published recently by Human Rights Watch, "The Road to Abu Ghraib." But equally disturbing, in its way, is the administration's constitutional argument that presidential power is unconstrained by law…
… we cannot look to the Supreme Court for answers to the torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The answer will have to come from the political system. It could, conceivably, be a congressional investigation, perhaps by a special joint committee; but so far, at least, members of Congress do not seem to have the appetite for that. Nor can we expect real results from various investigations being undertaken by the armed forces.
The situation calls for a criminal investigation by an independent prosecutor armed with subpoena power— and with the ethical commitment of such a person as Archibald Cox. It goes without saying that Attorney General Ashcroft cannot be in charge. Soon after September 11 he made his idea of constitutionalism plain when he said that those who expressed concern about the impact of administration measures on civil liberties were aiding the terrorists. In Senate testimony on the torture scandal this month he stonewalled attempts to find out who ordered what.
A committed prosecutor would do what investigators of official crimes have done since Nuremberg: apply the principle of command responsibility and work his way up the chain to the source of misconduct. That principle is why Slobodan Milosevic is in the dock in The Hague.
It will hardly be easy to get an independent prosecutor for this task. George W. Bush and Karl Rove will do all they can to prevent a real investigation. It will take great pressure from the public and Congress. But there is no other visible way for America to recover its good name—and its moral sense of itself. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17230
The Disaster of Failed PolicyThe LA Times editorial:
In its scale and intent, President Bush's war against Iraq was something new and radical: a premeditated decision to invade, occupy and topple the government of a country that was no imminent threat to the United States. This was not a handful of GIs sent to overthrow Panamanian thug Manuel Noriega or to oust a new Marxist government in tiny Grenada. It was the dispatch of more than 100,000 U.S. troops to implement Bush's post-Sept. 11 doctrine of preemption, one whose dangers President John Quincy Adams understood when he said the United States "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."
In the case of Vietnam, the U.S. began by assisting a friendly government resisting communist takeover in a civil war, though the conflict disintegrated into a failure that still haunts this country. The 1991 Persian Gulf War, under Bush's father, was a successful response to Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait — and Bush's father deliberately stopped short of toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq.
The current president outlined a far more aggressive policy in a speech to the West Point graduating class in 2002, declaring that in the war on terror "we must take the battle to the enemy" and confront threats before they emerge. The Iraq war was intended as a monument to his new Bush Doctrine, which also posited that the U.S. would take what help was available from allies but would not be held back by them. It now stands as a monument to folly. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-iraq27jun27,1,2763257,print.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
Health Care: Getting Worse
Meanwhile, “We don’t have any national health policy at all in this country.” Bob Herbert’s NY Times column:
Last week I talked with Dr. Starfield, an internationally respected physician, professor and researcher, and asked whether the situation had improved over the last four years.
"It's getting worse," she said, noting, "We've done a lot more studies in terms of the international comparisons. We've done them a million different ways. The findings are so robust that I think they're probably incontrovertible."
The U.S. has the most expensive health care system on the planet, but millions of Americans without access to care die from illnesses that could have been successfully treated if diagnosed in time. Poor people line up at emergency rooms for care that should be provided in a doctor's office or clinic. Each year tens of thousands of men, women and children die from medical errors and many more are maimed.
But when you look for leadership on these issues, you find yourself staring into the void. If you want to get physicians' representatives excited, ask them about tort reform, not patient care. Elected officials give lip service to health care issues, but at the end of the campaign day their allegiance goes to the highest bidders, and they are never the people who put patients first.
To get a sense of just how backward we're becoming on these matters, consider that in places like Texas, Florida and Mississippi the politicians are dreaming up new ways to remove the protective cloak of health coverage from children, the elderly and the poor. Texas and Florida have been pulling the plug on coverage for low-income kids. And Mississippi recently approved the deepest cut in Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled that has ever been approved anywhere in the U.S. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/opinion/28HERB.html
And, there are few quality jobs
After 20 months of looking for work and sending out hundreds of résumés, Jeffrey Schwab has given up trying to find another job as a draftsman. He's now taken early Social Security and is considering whether to sell his Bellingham, Wash., home to move to something smaller. "From what I can tell, there's not much to look for," says Mr. Schwab, who has 35 years of pipeline-design experience. "I am standing around with nothing to do."
Even though the economy has created 1.2 million jobs since January, some 265,000 people have dropped out of the job hunt during the same period. They would join some 19.1 million Americans in the same situation as Schwab, who are unemployed and not looking for work largely because they are convinced they won't find it. This figure, at a record level, is up 44 percent from 10 years ago. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0628/p02s01-usec.htm
Science and The Bush Administration:
Familiar theme. Tom Hamburger of the LA Times:
Administration Tries to Rein In Scientists
The Bush administration has ordered that government scientists must be approved by a senior political appointee before they can participate in meetings convened by the World Health Organization, the leading international health and science agency.
A top official from the Health and Human Services Department in April asked the WHO to begin routing requests for participation in its meetings to the department's secretary for review, rather than directly invite individual scientists, as has long been the case. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-science26jun26,1,7447273.story?coll=la-home-headlines
-R
Fahrenheit 9/11:
Quite the success! As a movie, it was rather messy, but regardless, it drew huge crowds, and not just the choir. For example, the NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. advised his crew to see it, noting ‘it’s a good thing as an American to go see.’
Although it was on less than 1/3 of the screens of its competitors, it was the top grossing movie of the weekend.
We sold out in Fayetteville, home of Fort Bragg," in North Carolina, Mr. Moore said on Sunday. "We sold out in Army-base towns. We set house records in some of these places. We set single-day records in a number of theaters. We got standing ovations in Greensboro, N.C.
"The biggest news to me this morning is this is a red-state movie," he said, referring to the state whose residents voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. "Republican states are embracing the movie, and it's sold out in Republican strongholds all over the country."
Harvey Weinstein said: "It's beyond anybody's expectations. I'd have to say the sky's the limit on this movie. Who knows what territory we're in." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/movies/28BOX.html?hp
Arguably the most notable part of the movie is the film of Bush sitting inert and impassive after being told of the SECOND plane having hit the World Trade Tower. It just demolishes the Bush as Leader aura that so many have been invested in. Jack Beatty offers his take:
That moment exposes Bush's character. It reveals what his press conferences proclaim: his incapacity. If he were George W. Smith, what job would he be qualified for? Bush's presidency can be seen as one long cover-up of the most obvious thing about him. A life of upward failure, of being his father's son, left him without "sand," my nineteenth century-born father's word for the residue of strength acquired by "standing on your own two feet" and "taking your medicine." Bush never stood on his own feet, never took his medicine—and he has never been his own man. He's the only president to be related to the Queen of England, and his biography is that of a "royal." Prince Charles would make a sorry prime minister. Like Bush, though, he'd give good strut.
Leaders show what they are made of in a crisis. Bush hid in plain sight with those kids. Later, hiding twice over, he used them as an excuse, saying he did not want to frighten them by ending the reading before finishing the book. Later still, and repeatedly, he said he saw the first plane strike the tower that morning (in fact, no one saw that live; the film was not available until the evening) and that he remarked, "That's some bad pilot"—pure strut. As the Wall Street Journal reported, he also magnified his role in managing the crisis, claiming he gave orders others gave. Conflicting accounts of Bush's communications documented by the 9/11 Commission now raise doubts whether, as he and Cheney told the commissioners, he ordered Cheney to shoot down any hijacked planes still in the air, or whether Cheney, in the White House bunker, acted on his own. http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/polipro/pp2004-06-23.htm
Polls:
A slew of results from Fox that unsurprisingly have Bush ahead in key states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and a 10 point lead in Florida. CNN/USA Today/Gallup has the race essentially tied, and Quinipiac and American Research Group polls have Kerry even or slightly ahead in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.
But it’s only late June.
Bush in Ireland:
How pathetic: Questions put to Bush in the officially granted interview had to be submitted in advance. "The policy of the White House is that you submit your questions in advance, so they had my questions for about three days," said Carole Coleman who interviewed Bush. Still, when she tried to follow-up, Bush ignored her and was ticked. From the Irish press:
However, when RTE put Ms [Carole] Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be available.
The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.
She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone.
And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit. http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1205871&issue_id=11063
Bush in Turkey:
Next to no coverage beyond the content of the NATO meeting (see below). But if you look at the foreign press you find headlines like this one in Australia (ABC): Protests, explosions mark Bush visit to Turkey. Seems that 40,000 staged a protest.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Hostages, bombings. But, “limited sovereignty”! How limited? Al Jazeera reports that the Iraqi police and army is (understandably- see below) not trusted by the US and is being stripped of its fire power. "US occupation forces are taking measures to ensure that the emerging Iraqi Army remain a small defensive force with limited capabilities and no armor. For the first time in its 84-year history, the Iraqi Army has been reduced to a nearly impotent force deprived of heavy armaments, armor, and aircraft."
Iraqi Police/Army fight the U.S.
The Telegraph (GB) report that the newly trained army and police don’t always work with us.
An Iraqi journalist went into Fallujah on behalf of the Telegraph on Wednesday, a day on which an orchestrated wave of bloody rebel attacks across the country cost more than 100 lives.
Inside the Sunni-dominated town, he met police officers and units of the country's new army who have formed a united front with Muslim fundamentalists against the Americans, their resistance focused on al-Askeri district on the eastern outskirts of the town.
That morning, US marines had taken up "aggressive defence" positions on one side of Highway One. On the other side, militant fighters were dug in, ready for battle. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/27/wirq127.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/27/ixnewstop.html
Yellowcake, revisited:
More is a-stirring about the old story of alleged Iraqi purchases of yellowcake uranium from Niger. The forger of the documents in that case is allegedly a businessman who will surface to explain the particulars. But, according to Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo, there’s much more to the story, which will ultimately be revealed… but not yet, for strategic reasons. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_06_27.php#003106 http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373295039&p=1012571727088
Let My People Go!
The Brits remain unhappy as to their charges who are stuck at Guantanamo: From the Guardian (Vikram Dodd). The Administration, weakened and valuing appearances, may relent.
Tony Blair has personally asked President George Bush to send the four remaining Britons in Guantánamo Bay home, amid mounting calls for the government to increase its pressure on Washington to end alleged human rights abuses.
The Guardian has seen court papers revealing the prime minister's direct plea to Mr Bush. They form the government's formal defence to a legal action brought by lawyers for two of the remaining prisoners seeking a court order compelling Britain to formally demand their return.
The government's defence states: "The United Kingdom government is continuing to seek the return of the four remaining prisoners and the prime minister has made a di rect request to President Bush to that effect".
The four prisoners alleged by the US to be terrorists have been held without trial, charge or access to lawyers for up to two and a half years. Mr Blair has been condemned for doing too little to secure their release from conditions that have caused worldwide outrage. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4956955-111575,00.html
Rapprochement w/ Chirac? Not so simple.
The Guardian’s Ian Black and Michael White report that Chirac isn’t ready to play ball. Again, the Administration may need to bend.
President George Bush was facing stiff French-led resistance last night to his efforts to persuade his Nato allies to agree to train Iraqi security forces.
The French president, Jacques Chirac, is determined to thwart any deal that allows the US and Britain to claim that the alliance has a formal role in the disputed occupation.
Tony Blair flew into Istanbul last night intent on talking up the summit's chance of achieving even a modest success in respect of Iraq and in terms of a wider Nato role in "forgotten" Afghanistan, but was keen to say nothing that would further offend France. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4958107-103550,00.html
And, reports from the NATO meeting reinforce the impression that the U.S. has “lost its edge”.
"What we are seeing is other nations joining to resist U.S. unilateralism and exacting a higher price," said Cliff Kupchan, vice president of the Nixon Center, an institute in Washington created by former President Richard M. Nixon that specializes in foreign policy. "We've seen pounds of flesh being exacted before. Now it's an aggregate pound of flesh."
Mr. Kupchan said international skepticism and domestic pressure from Americans seeking a more collaborative role with the world had prompted the administration to adjust its tone. But it may be too late, he said. "I don't think you can turn around three years of U.S. foreign policy with some midnight initiatives," he said. "The image of this president in the public's and the world's eyes is pretty much established." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/politics/28DIPL.html
Anthony Lewis on Torture: ‘We need a criminal investigation.’
The issues raised by the Bush administration's legal assertions in its "war on terror" are so numerous and so troubling that one hardly knows where to begin discussing them. The torture and death of prisoners, the end result of cool legal abstractions, have a powerful claim on our national conscience. They are described in horrifying detail in a report published recently by Human Rights Watch, "The Road to Abu Ghraib." But equally disturbing, in its way, is the administration's constitutional argument that presidential power is unconstrained by law…
… we cannot look to the Supreme Court for answers to the torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The answer will have to come from the political system. It could, conceivably, be a congressional investigation, perhaps by a special joint committee; but so far, at least, members of Congress do not seem to have the appetite for that. Nor can we expect real results from various investigations being undertaken by the armed forces.
The situation calls for a criminal investigation by an independent prosecutor armed with subpoena power— and with the ethical commitment of such a person as Archibald Cox. It goes without saying that Attorney General Ashcroft cannot be in charge. Soon after September 11 he made his idea of constitutionalism plain when he said that those who expressed concern about the impact of administration measures on civil liberties were aiding the terrorists. In Senate testimony on the torture scandal this month he stonewalled attempts to find out who ordered what.
A committed prosecutor would do what investigators of official crimes have done since Nuremberg: apply the principle of command responsibility and work his way up the chain to the source of misconduct. That principle is why Slobodan Milosevic is in the dock in The Hague.
It will hardly be easy to get an independent prosecutor for this task. George W. Bush and Karl Rove will do all they can to prevent a real investigation. It will take great pressure from the public and Congress. But there is no other visible way for America to recover its good name—and its moral sense of itself. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17230
The Disaster of Failed PolicyThe LA Times editorial:
In its scale and intent, President Bush's war against Iraq was something new and radical: a premeditated decision to invade, occupy and topple the government of a country that was no imminent threat to the United States. This was not a handful of GIs sent to overthrow Panamanian thug Manuel Noriega or to oust a new Marxist government in tiny Grenada. It was the dispatch of more than 100,000 U.S. troops to implement Bush's post-Sept. 11 doctrine of preemption, one whose dangers President John Quincy Adams understood when he said the United States "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."
In the case of Vietnam, the U.S. began by assisting a friendly government resisting communist takeover in a civil war, though the conflict disintegrated into a failure that still haunts this country. The 1991 Persian Gulf War, under Bush's father, was a successful response to Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait — and Bush's father deliberately stopped short of toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq.
The current president outlined a far more aggressive policy in a speech to the West Point graduating class in 2002, declaring that in the war on terror "we must take the battle to the enemy" and confront threats before they emerge. The Iraq war was intended as a monument to his new Bush Doctrine, which also posited that the U.S. would take what help was available from allies but would not be held back by them. It now stands as a monument to folly. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-iraq27jun27,1,2763257,print.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
Health Care: Getting Worse
Meanwhile, “We don’t have any national health policy at all in this country.” Bob Herbert’s NY Times column:
Last week I talked with Dr. Starfield, an internationally respected physician, professor and researcher, and asked whether the situation had improved over the last four years.
"It's getting worse," she said, noting, "We've done a lot more studies in terms of the international comparisons. We've done them a million different ways. The findings are so robust that I think they're probably incontrovertible."
The U.S. has the most expensive health care system on the planet, but millions of Americans without access to care die from illnesses that could have been successfully treated if diagnosed in time. Poor people line up at emergency rooms for care that should be provided in a doctor's office or clinic. Each year tens of thousands of men, women and children die from medical errors and many more are maimed.
But when you look for leadership on these issues, you find yourself staring into the void. If you want to get physicians' representatives excited, ask them about tort reform, not patient care. Elected officials give lip service to health care issues, but at the end of the campaign day their allegiance goes to the highest bidders, and they are never the people who put patients first.
To get a sense of just how backward we're becoming on these matters, consider that in places like Texas, Florida and Mississippi the politicians are dreaming up new ways to remove the protective cloak of health coverage from children, the elderly and the poor. Texas and Florida have been pulling the plug on coverage for low-income kids. And Mississippi recently approved the deepest cut in Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled that has ever been approved anywhere in the U.S. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/opinion/28HERB.html
And, there are few quality jobs
After 20 months of looking for work and sending out hundreds of résumés, Jeffrey Schwab has given up trying to find another job as a draftsman. He's now taken early Social Security and is considering whether to sell his Bellingham, Wash., home to move to something smaller. "From what I can tell, there's not much to look for," says Mr. Schwab, who has 35 years of pipeline-design experience. "I am standing around with nothing to do."
Even though the economy has created 1.2 million jobs since January, some 265,000 people have dropped out of the job hunt during the same period. They would join some 19.1 million Americans in the same situation as Schwab, who are unemployed and not looking for work largely because they are convinced they won't find it. This figure, at a record level, is up 44 percent from 10 years ago. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0628/p02s01-usec.htm
Science and The Bush Administration:
Familiar theme. Tom Hamburger of the LA Times:
Administration Tries to Rein In Scientists
The Bush administration has ordered that government scientists must be approved by a senior political appointee before they can participate in meetings convened by the World Health Organization, the leading international health and science agency.
A top official from the Health and Human Services Department in April asked the WHO to begin routing requests for participation in its meetings to the department's secretary for review, rather than directly invite individual scientists, as has long been the case. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-science26jun26,1,7447273.story?coll=la-home-headlines
-R
