Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog and The Librarian, has an interesting take on our predilection for fighting wars that are really wars in name only. Take a minute and stream it with QuickTime or Windows Media Player.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the LA Times' new right-wing bootlick, David Gelernter. Today, he has an absolute doozy--I think he's going to be on par with David Horowitz. Here's his plenty-plaint:

…The whole basis of Democratic philosophy (I use the term loosely) [is] we'll take care of you. Leave the thinking to us. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, minority leaders of the House and Senate, respectively, -- kindly Mom and Pop to a nation of intellectually limited youngsters. (But thank goodness, they love us anyway.)

[…]

Advanced Democrats are now revving up to make sure you eat your vegetables and steer clear of those nasty French fries. Why is it their business? Because Democrats are professors in disguise. Scratch a Democrat, find a professor.

It all goes back to central planning, socialism, Marxism -- let the experts run the economy; free markets are too democratic and messy. Many professors believed in Marxism right up to the point where Communist China itself bailed out in disgust.
Professors see the world in terms of experts and students: "We are smart; you are dumb." That's the Infantile American Principle in a nutshell. Now go play with your toys and don't bother me.

OK, so it's one of those absolutely silly columns about how liberals treat Americans like morons. But in the middle of the piece, Gelernter let's loose with this bit of idiocy:

How could anyone be opposed in principle to private investment accounts within Social Security? I could understand Democrats arguing that "private accounts are a wonderful idea but the country can't afford the transition costs right now." But mostly I hear Democrats saying they're a lousy idea, and that President Bush wants to wreck Social Security -- because, after all, he wants to let you keep a great big whopping 4% of your payroll taxes in a private account instead of handing over every cent to the government. How on Earth could anyone be opposed in principle to letting taxpayers manage a minuscule fraction of their own money (their own money, dammit!) if they want to? Because private accounts violate the Infantile American Principle, so dear to Democratic hearts. Little kids should turn over their cash to the Big Smart Government for safekeeping.

No, David, Mr. Yale Professor. Six and a quarter percent of our salaries go to payroll taxes. Four of those six and a quarter percentage points would be diverted to private accounts under the President's rumored plan. That's two-thirds of our Social Security contributions (dammit!), and even most Yalies know that two-thirds isn't a "miniscule amount." His column is titled 'The 'We're Smart, You're Dumb' Principle.' Obviously, Liberals don't see it that way, but if we did, who could blame us with guys like Gelernter out there?

As an aside, a sharp reader pointed out that Gelernter was a victim of the Unabomber, and it led to his anger at the mainstream press with its confounded 'moral relativism.'

Via the Washington Post:

A new argument has been kicking around the social security debate in recent days. It holds that a number of polls which show that a majority of Americans oppose Bush's (non-)scheme are skewed, naturally, by those hacks in the Liberal Media®.

Here's Byron York's take from the National Review:

"Barely a third of the public approves of the way President Bush is dealing with Social Security," writes the Washington Post's Richard Morin, "and a majority says the more they hear about Bush's plan to reform the giant retirement system, the less they like it, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll."

Yet inside the same Post poll, there is news that 56 percent of those surveyed say they would support "a plan in which people who chose to could invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market," which is the centerpiece of the president's still-to-be-unveiled Social Security proposal…

The 56-percent support figure -- 60 percent and higher among respondents under 50 years of age -- is the highest level of support on that question in the last six Post polls going back before the 2000 election…

Nice sleight-of-hand. It's technically true: support for private accounts hasn't been higher in the Post's poll since May of 2000--when Bush started campaigning on them. A more honest way to put it, as Anita Kumar did in the St. Petersburg Times, is:

"…more people oppose the accounts than at any time in recent history, including during President Bill Clinton's administration, when a similar idea was floated. In 2000, 64 percent polled supported accounts and 31 percent opposed them."

York goes on to lay out the vast left-wing conspiracy surrounding these supposedly skewed polls:

The Post also found that 71 percent of those polled believe that, if changes are not made, the Social Security system "is heading for a crisis down the road" -- a perception that the president's advisers call a "precondition to authentic reform."

Thus, the poll indicates that solid majorities of those surveyed a) accept the president's underlying rationale for reform, and b) support his main proposal for that reform. Yet the Post's reporting of its results -- and indeed the generally accepted wisdom on the Social Security debate -- clearly suggests that the president is losing (the front-page headline on today's Post is "Skepticism of Bush's Social Security Plan is Growing"). What is going on?

York thinks 'what's going on' is that pollsters are asking biased questions. It's an assertion echoed here by right-wing radio squawker (and former honcho of Godfather's Pizza) Herman Cain, writing for Sun Myung Moon's UPI news service:

The skunk in the polls is that most media outlets are predetermining the results of their polls by asking the wrong questions. They then distort their stories to indicate that the public opposes personal retirement accounts. The question pollsters ask to determine support for personal retirement accounts rarely focuses on the accounts, but rather on the president himself and his handling of Social Security.

For example, an April 24 ABC News/Washington Post poll asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling Social Security?" 64 percent of respondents disapproved, and 31 percent approved.

An April 16 CBS News poll asked, "Do you have confidence in George W. Bush's ability to make the right decision about Social Security, or are you uneasy about his approach?" 70 percent said they were uneasy, and 25 percent were confident.

A March 18 Newsweek poll asked, "We're interested in your opinion of the way George W. Bush is handling certain aspects of his job. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling Social Security?" 59 percent disapproved, and 33 percent approved…

The president's "handling" of Social Security is not the right question before the U.S. public, or the issue on which members of Congress will ultimately base their votes.

Uh, yes it is. It is entirely appropriate to ask what people think of a second-term president's handling of a given issue. After all, we've had five years to evaluate this administration's economic policies. And whether your preferred narrative of Bush's re-election is 'God, guns and gays,' 'Security Moms,' or some combination thereof, few would argue that he won on his handling of the economy.

In fact, most people disagree with him on important economic questions . While the administration is blasé about ballooning deficits, a CBS/ New York Times poll in late February found that 90 percent of respondents thought the issue was "serious" or "very serious."

And, after hearing Bush promise during the 2000 campaign that the "vast majority" of his tax cuts would "go to the bottom end of the spectrum," 58 percent of those polled by the Los Angeles Times this January believed they helped the rich most and only 30 percent said the biggest gainers were the poor or middle class.

That mistrust carries over to Bush's overall handling of pocketbook issues. Polls like the one done by CNN, USA Today and Gallup in January show that a majority of Americans don't think Bush "Cares about the needs of people like you" (45-53%) or "Is in touch with the problems ordinary Americans face in their daily lives" (44-56%).

And while most people believe that Social Security has long-term problems, folks never bought the notion that it's going broke tomorrow. So why wouldn't it follow that Americans might want to fix the system, but don't trust this particular administration to do it in a competent and fair way?

Anyway, Cain goes on to get in a plug for his favorite broadcaster:

The only poll to consistently show support for the president's plan is the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll. The Fox poll is also the only poll that focuses solely on personal retirement accounts, and not on the president or his "handling" of Social Security.

A March 30 Fox poll asked, "Do you favor or oppose giving individuals the choice to invest a portion of their Social Security contributions in stocks or mutual funds?" On this straightforward question, 60 percent favored giving people this option, and 28 percent opposed.

If I ask you if you want $20 dollars, you'll say yes. It's a "straightforward question." But if I add that you have to strangle your puppy to get it, you'd probably reconsider.

Same thing here. In the ABC News poll released last week, 45 percent approved of private accounts generally, but when informed that the accounts would reduce their guaranteed benefits, support fell to just 25 percent of respondents (70 percent opposed).

Despite the weakness of these arguments, the 'media bias' narrative must be having some impact. While the Dems hold a ten-point polling advantage on the question of which party people trust more to 'fix' Social Security, C-Span asked its Washington Journal callers this morning if 'Democrats are losing the Social Security debate?' Go figure.

Ahhh DC Republicans...You know they just have stars in their eyes and pitter pattering little hearts when thinking about our troops--as long as their kids are a little closer to home doing Da Butt on vomit-soaked barroom floors, like Rush Limbaugh after the maid is an hour late with the meds.

So I am sure you are shocked that Rummy is playing chicken with soldiers' paychecks yet again. As always, Noah Shachtman is on the case.

The American Prospect's Mark Leon Goldberg reports the depressing news that the Bush administration is rapidly backtracking from action to stop the genocide in Darfur, and is recently making nice with the Sudanese government. Goldberg writes that on a trip last week to Darfur, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick vastly lowballed the death count there and refused to call what is occurring in Darfur genocide, as former Secretary of State Colin Powell had already declared it. Africa watchers and human rights activists say Zoellick's equivocating was a very deliberate signal:

"Zoellick is not some State Department official acting on his own," [the International Crisis Group's John] Prendergast told me, "but was deliberately signaling a shift in administration policy." Eric Reeves, the Smith College professor whose analysis of the conflict continues to prove prescient, agrees. Shortly after the press conference, Reeves surmised on his Web site that Zoellick's comments heralded a new administration strategy meant to forestall the need for a U.S. commitment to humanitarian intervention by downplaying the urgency of the situation.

If so, this post-Powell policy is placing the administration on a collision course with Congress. Last week, the Senate unanimously passed the Darfur Accountability Act as part of the Iraq-Afghanistan emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Led by Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas and Democrat John Corzine of New Jersey, the act appropriates $90 million in U.S. aid for Darfur and establishes targeted U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime, accelerates assistance to expand the size and mandate of the African Union mission in Darfur, expands the United Nations Mission in Sudan to include the protection of civilians in Darfur, establishes a no-fly zone over Darfur, and calls for a presidential envoy to Sudan...

Yet in an April 25 letter from the White House's Office of Management and Budget to House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis obtained by the Prospect, the administration signaled its desire to strike the Darfur Accountability Act from the supplemental.

Rice is a far more disappointing Secretary of State than some of us could have imagined, and Bolton's appeasing of genocide has been well established. The Bush administration is being ill served by the team Bush has chosen to advise him on humanitarian matters.

Update: More on the revelations in the Silverstein piece about the Bush-Khartoum intelligence relationship from Tapped's Goldberg.

Over at the Air Force Academy, it's even worse than we thought:

The report's authors were told that cadets who refused to attend chapel after dinner were marched by upperclassmen back to their dorms in a ritual called "heathen flight." They found that teachers introduced themselves as "born again" Christians and invited students to be saved as well. A history instructor ordered students to pray before a final exam, the report said. And a Christmas greeting in the base newspaper said Jesus was the only hope for the world; it was signed by 300 people, including 16 heads or deputy heads of academic departments, nine professors, the dean of faculty and the football coach.

The report said that Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, commandant of cadets and professed "born-again" Christian, had developed a system of code words shared with evangelicals.

During a chapel service, Weida reportedly told cadets the New Testament parable about building a house on a rock. The story is meant to convey the importance of a solid foundation for one's faith.

"Gen. Weida then instructed cadets that, whenever he uses the phrase 'Airpower!' they should respond with the phrase 'Rock Sir!' thus invoking the parable," the report said. "Gen. Weida advised the cadets that, when asked by their classmates about the meaning of the call and response, the cadets should use the opportunity to discuss their Christian faith."

The American Prospect's Mark Leon Goldberg reports the depressing news that the Bush administration is rapidly backtracking from action to stop the genocide in Darfur, and is recently making nice with the Sudanese government. Goldberg writes that on a trip last week to Darfur, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick vastly lowballed the death count there and refused to call what is occurring in Darfur genocide, as former Secretary of State Colin Powell had already declared it. Africa watchers and human rights activists say Zoellick's equivocating was a very deliberate signal:

"Zoellick is not some State Department official acting on his own," [the International Crisis Group's John] Prendergast told me, "but was deliberately signaling a shift in administration policy." Eric Reeves, the Smith College professor whose analysis of the conflict continues to prove prescient, agrees. Shortly after the press conference, Reeves surmised on his Web site that Zoellick's comments heralded a new administration strategy meant to forestall the need for a U.S. commitment to humanitarian intervention by downplaying the urgency of the situation.

If so, this post-Powell policy is placing the administration on a collision course with Congress. Last week, the Senate unanimously passed the Darfur Accountability Act as part of the Iraq-Afghanistan emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Led by Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas and Democrat John Corzine of New Jersey, the act appropriates $90 million in U.S. aid for Darfur and establishes targeted U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime, accelerates assistance to expand the size and mandate of the African Union mission in Darfur, expands the United Nations Mission in Sudan to include the protection of civilians in Darfur, establishes a no-fly zone over Darfur, and calls for a presidential envoy to Sudan...

Yet in an April 25 letter from the White House's Office of Management and Budget to House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis obtained by the Prospect, the administration signaled its desire to strike the Darfur Accountability Act from the supplemental.

Rice is a far more disappointing Secretary of State than some of us could have imagined, and Bolton's appeasing of genocide has been well established. The Bush administration is being ill served by the team Bush has chosen to advise him on humanitarian matters.

About two years ago, when I was an organizer with the Service Employees International Union, I made the naive observation that in the midst of a recession, working for a union would be a smart move. A bad economy meant dissatified workers, which would create a demand for organizers, while other folks who had just graduated from college could no longer depend on the dot-com boom to make them six figures within three years.

Not so much.

Today, Thomas Edsall of the Washington Post reported (in the business section of all places) that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney announced that he will be laying off 25 percent of the federation's staff.

Way to combat that capitalist paradigm!

The article attributes the layoffs to declining union membership, making it more difficult for the federation to collect dues. This lack of funds has led to splits in the labor movement, as leaders try to figure out the best way to rebuild with limited resources, with five union presidents, led by SEIU President Andy Stern, forming the "anti-Sweeney wing," as described by Edsall.

As Edsall points out, some want to rely solely on organizing, while the current leadership wants to split resources between organizing and political mobilization. There are also issues of organizing territory and mergers within and between industries. However, I tend to think a lot of these fights are more about ego and personal politics than anything truly substantive. After all, Sweeney came to the AFL-CIO after helping to build SEIU into the organizing machine it is today, and has devoted far more attention and resources to new organizing than his predecessor, Lane Kirkland. While improvements are clearly still needed, a major overhaul of the federation, as Stern has proposed, would only create division and weaken everyone.

Debate is healthy and necessary at this point, but the AFL-CIO's inability to sustain itself is going to make membership growth incredibly difficult. Generating press like this doesn't only make unions look weakand divided; it feeds employer myths that unions are just like businesses, with backroom deals, power struggles, and corruption. Why would anyone want to get involved in that?

Better to keep the egos in check and make sure everyone benefits together. You know, like a union.

F is for Failure. While Senators consider the merits and drawbacks of Bolton as UN ambassador, they might consider this. This is the result of John Bolton's four years as the top nonproliferation official in the United States. You don't get a bigger failure than this until North Korea tests one, which could be any time. Bolton's supporters might have felt good when Bolton tried to derail six party talks, but they have nothing but increased insecurity for Americans and allies abroad to show for it.

**

Former Bolton protege John Wolf tells Senate Foreign Relations committee staff of Bolton's bizarrely extreme efforts over months to retaliate against junior State Department rising star Rexon Ryu, and two other still unnamed State Department officials. Steve Clemons as usual has the latest details. Here's some background from a reader on Bolton and Wolf. More from Doug Jehl.

**

More on John Wolf's and Alan Foley's interviews with Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff yesterday, from the Washington Post's Dafna Linzer. Up shot? Bolton tried to get fired or disciplined at least four people at State, and at least one at CIA, because he disagreed with their views, contrary to what he said at his testimony a couple weeks back. Three of the cases we've heard about (Fulton Armstrong, Christian Westermann, Rexon Ryu), but two are still under wraps, and the targets of Bolton's wrath are still working at State. Linzer writes:

In an interview yesterday with Republican and Democratic staff members, Wolf elaborated on that incident [involving Ryu] in 2003 and told the committee for the first time that Bolton demanded disciplinary actions against other career officials who offered views that differed from his own. To protect the officials' privacy, Wolf did not name them to the committee staff or describe the nature of the views they offered...

Committee sources said [former CIA WINPAC director Alan Foley] confirmed testimony provided by Stuart Cohen, the former acting director of the National Intelligence Council, that Bolton had tried to fire the national intelligence officer for Latin America who disagreed with Bolton's assertions about an alleged bioweapons programs in Cuba.

"Foley told us that Bolton's chief of staff, Fred Fleitz, called him up and said that Bolton wanted the analyst fired," one committee investigator said. Bolton has denied that he sought to fire the officer.

The committee also interviewed Thomas Hubbard, the former ambassador to South Korea, who reiterated earlier statements that he did not approve a controversial speech Bolton gave on North Korea, as Bolton had testified in his confirmation hearing.

Karen Arenson at the New York Times picked up on the memo uncovered by The Nation that I wrote about earlier today, and reported that Brinkley was not acting out of his own "personal views."

It's a good thing that Brinkley was a professor of history and not ethics.

Fortunately, Brinkley seems to feel appropriately embarrassed, backing away from his comments:

"This was a list of proposals to be considered if we were going to take action," said Alan Brinkley, Columbia's provost. "Obviously, doing nothing was always an option, too."

I'm not quite sure why that's obvious, but okay. And I\'m not quite sure how that justifies discussing heinous proposals in the first place either. But Brinkley's statements indicate that he must realize that union busting is generally frowned upon. Rather than trying to justify his statements or further demonize strikers, Brinkley seems to be backing down.

Score for labor.

Of course, the negative perception of union busting is fostered by articles like the one that appeared in The Nation, and that show exactly what an anti-union campaign entails. If the public understood that half of American employers threaten to shut down operations if employees try to unionize, and that in 25 percent of private sector organizing campaigns workers are illegally fired, there might be a lot more sympathy for workers trying to improve their lives, and support for legislation like this.

Pennsylvania Republican Melissa Hart is slated to head up the subcommittee which, once made official, will be charged with investigating whether Tom DeLay violated House ethics rules by traveling on a lobbyist's -- namely Jack Abramoff's -- dime. Hart is a DeLay loyalist who has accepted $15,000 in campaign contributions from DeLay's ARMPAC, something Hart calls "normal."

Hart is a rising star within the Republican Party, chosen last year to be co-chair of the Republican National Convention Platform Committee and reported to have aspirations for state-wide office. According to The Insider, a Pennsylvania political newsletter, Hart, who has been dubbed "Rick Santorum in a skirt," is "a great favorite among national conservatives."

Indeed Hart is a favorite in the medieval crowd, an ally of James Dobson's Focus on the Family and Beverly LaHaye's Concerned Women for America since she was first elected to Congress five years ago. Since then, she has earned their favor by sponsoring the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and co-sponsoring the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Ban, among other abortion-related legislation.

Focus on the Family has been firmly behind DeLay's agenda to "restor[e] the rightful role of God in the public square," and Concerned Women for America has lauded him for his efforts to "rein in activist courts and protect marriage." Hart has signaled her willingness to inject religious fanaticism into politics by co-sponsoring the Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act, a favorite piece of legislation of these groups because it would lift the I.R.S. restriction on electioneering by churches.

Yesterday, Hart was scheduled to speak at a breakfast training session, held at the Heritage Foundation, for "Real Women's Voices", a citizen lobbying day sponsored by the Justice Sunday sponsor Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, and Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum. This supposedly pro-woman advocacy was sponsored by groups who have said that feminists dream of prison abuse and that post-modernism and its "most successful offspring, radical feminism," have "betrayed women" by making them think having a career is a good thing.

These "real women" also think that they should stand with Tom DeLay -- someone who knows how to be a man -- because he "has always stood with us."

While Hart was slated to give these "real women" pointers on how to lobby for legislation that would allow the government -- run by real men like DeLay -- to intrude into their private affairs, Schlafly was up to her usual DeLay-defending tricks, distorting history in her political column to make it seem as though Abraham Lincoln would have approved of DeLay's extremist attacks on an independent judiciary.

Hart is cozying up to these groups, despite clear evidence that the majority of Americans don't agree with their agenda or their attempt to implement it through a takeover of the federal courts.

The groups that have stood behind Hart are hell-bent on ramming their medievalist agenda through Congress, and they know they need not only DeLay's dedication to the cause but his political skills as well. They will undoubtedly be watching Hart's committee's moves closely, and loudly signaling any discontent, as they are wont to do. So it's not just Hart's loyalty to DeLay that should be under the microscope during this process. It's how closely she's listening to the rallying cries of the extremists who are holding the Republican leadership hostage.

Following up on my previous posting about the coordinated strike between graduate employees at Columbia and Yale, I just wanted to draw attention to the union busting tactics described in this internal memo, originally posted by The Nation this week as part of an online article by Jennifer Washburn.

According to the memo written by Columbia's provost Alan Brinkley, graduate employees who chose to go on strike should not only be denied their stipend pay, but should be forced to teach an extra semester or year and have other opportunities and benefits denied to them.

Forced labor without pay? Isn't there some amendment that prohibits that?

If a university can treat students in this manner, imagine the threats that migrant workers face in order to attain even the most basic levels of ecomonic justice. To be optimistic, which I rarely am, perhaps one of the benefits of the corporate university that Washburn describes is that it will inspire some real solidarities between a new generation of academics and the larger working community.

Or maybe it will just lead bloggers to discuss some struggles over others.

It's rare these days to see a discussion of Russia that does not dwell on Mikhail Khodorkovsky or Russia's democratic backsliding more generally, but instead focuses on the social catastrophe that has befallen that country since 1991. So, kudos to David Brooks this morning for devoting his column to Russia's social ills. Brooks points to population decline, the stunning drop in life expectancy and the fact that the "health care system is in shambles."

Unfortunately, Brooks' diagnosis is itself a catastrophe. He attributes the dramatic decline in men's health in particular to "ruinous lifestyle choices." These ruinous choices, Brooks asserts, flow from the fact that "When totalitarian regimes take control of a country, they destroy the bonds of civic trust and the normal patterns of social cohesion. They rule by fear, and public life becomes brutish. They pervert private and public morality." Then, after Communism's collapse "private morality, the habits of self-control and the social fabric take a lot longer to recover. So you wind up with nations in which high growth rates and lingering military power mask profound social chaos."

Brooks' analysis is selective to the point of being worthless. He fails to mention, even once, that Russia suffered perhaps the 20th century's worst industrial depression, where between 1991-1998 the economy contracted by 40% or more, most of that attributable to the effects of shock therapy economic reform. He also neglects to point out that Russia has suffered net capital flight in the tens of billions, or that for years in the early to mid-1990s, wages went unpaid to millions at a time, or that the strong growth rates of recent years have still not nearly restored the living standards of the average Russian before shock therapy economic reform was introduced in 1992. Or, that the collapse of the public health system has facilitated the spread of ruinous epidemic diseases, like tuberculosis.

He notes that fertility rates fell in half between 1987 and 1999, but it doesn't pique his curiosity to wonder whether the economic catastrophe of the 1990s had anything to do with that. In David Brooks' world, we all have comfortable choices to make – some people simply make better decisions than others. Rest assured there's no discussion in here of the degree to which the United States encouraged Russia to adopt shock therapy. And, Brooks surely isn't about to be drawn into a discussion about comparisons which undermine his thesis. Why for example, are we witnessing comparable social ills in places like Brazil and South Africa, which did not have a totalitarian communist legacy? Why did Poland, which unlike Russia, did not privatize state property at break-neck speed, forestalling the looting of state assets and infrastructure, not suffer social decay to the degree that Russia did?

It's always easy to blame either communism or people's personal behavior for what ails them, and if you can somehow combine the two – well that's a neo-conservative's dream. Unfortunately, the 800-pound gorilla in the room that Brooks dares not name is the predatory form of capitalism that Russia adopted in the 1990s. If you want to talk about unhealthy lifestyle choices, let's start with that one.

From the New Scientist:

DEATHS from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year by 2050, mainly in developing countries. This could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer - but there are signs that opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths.

The trouble is that the human papilloma virus (HPV) is sexually transmitted. So to prevent infection, girls will have to be vaccinated before they become sexually active, which could be a problem in many countries.

In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex," Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.

Is it too much of an exaggeration to say that some people actually seem to want young women who have sex to contract HPV and die? After all, if you mess with your dirty parts, you deserve to be punished.

If you're interested in some of the strange sexual ideology coming from some on the radical religious right, check out this article. Let's just say Mel Gibson wearing a skirt and wielding a sword figures heavily in men's thoughts. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Bruce Springsteen's new album, "Devils and Dust" was released yesterday with a warning label on the back, targetted to one specific song, "Reno." According to the label, the song contains "adult imagery."

This is not your typical "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" sticker. On the one hand, this new warning seems to ackowledge the artistic value of lyrics contained on the CD, rather than relegating it to trash. On the other hand, once that value is acknowledged, it seems that pointing out that there is something "adult" about it tells people that they should shy away from exposing themselves to quality music, only perpetuating certain taboos.

So what makes this song so unique that it should pave the way for yet another form of quasi-censorship from record companies?

The answer, according to Rolling Stone: Anal sex!

For the record, here are the lyrics to "Reno":

She took off her stockings, I held them to my face.
She had your ankles, I felt filled with grace.
"Two hundred dollars straight in,
Two-fifty up the ass," she smiled and said.
She unbuckled my belt, pulled back her hair,
And sat in front of me on the bed.
She said, "Honey how's that feel, do you want me to go slow?"
My eyes drifted out the window, down to the road below.

I felt my stomach tighten. The sun bloodied the sky
And sliced through the hotel blinds. I closed my eyes.
Sunlight on the Amatitlan, sunlight streaming thru your hair.
In the Valle de dos Rios, smell of mock orange filled the air.
We rode with the vaqueros, down into cool rivers of green.
I was sure the work and that smile coming out 'neath your hat
Was all I'd ever need.
Somehow all you ever need's, never really quite enough you know.
You and I, Maria, we learned it's so.

She slipped me out of her mouth, "You're ready," she said.
She took off her bra and panties, wet her finger, slipped it inside her,
And crawled over me on the bed.
She poured me another whisky,
Said, "Here's to the best you ever had."
We laughed and made a toast.
It wasn't the best I ever had,
Not even close.

The danger of this label is apparent in reading an interview Springsteen gave to NBC's Matt Lauer-- it makes people call into question a musician's artistic choices. Here's an excerpt:

Lauer: "What's that song about?"

Springsteen: "Actually, it's a love song."

Lauer: "It's a graphic love song."

Springsteen: "It just comes at it from a different point of view."

Lauer: "But why did it have to be so graphic. I mean, sexual intercourse images. You know, could you not have told the story without those things?"

Springsteen: "No."

Lauer: "No? Just leave it off the album?"

Springsteen: "No, I don't think so. And the label is to say if you're going to hand it over to your 10-year-old kid. It sort of lets the parent know along the way this story comes up. It was just part of the story. It made the story real."

Rather than question why the label is there in the first place, Lauer immediately asked why a 55 year-old man has to sing about such naughty things. With the warning, even the artistic now appears gratuitous.

Springsteen may accept the warning as an indication that the song may not be appropriate for a 10 year-old. I hate to break it to him, but no 10 year-old has listened to one of his albums since he danced with Courtney Cox. While his lyrics and intended audience are certainly mature, it would be difficult to prove that they are unprecedently so. So why do they deserve an unprecedented warning?

What is unprecedented is the degree to which record labels and politicians fear conservative backlash. As Josh Holland indicated this week, it doesn't seem that Democrats as a whole are willing to stand up and fight for artistic freedom and against corporate censorship. And as discussed by Tom Shales in yesterday's Washington Post, a whole new industry is sprouting to satisfy the demands of social conservatives who want squeaky clean entertainment.

If progressives don't step up to reverse this trend, we may all be forced to limit our culture consumption to Spongebob Squarepants. Oh wait...

The Washington Post reports today that the State Department, in its annual report to Congress on global terror, due out this week, will withhold data on the actual number of terrorist incidents that took place in 2004. Congressional aides told the Post that the number of incidents more than tripled in 2004, including a nine-fold increase in terrorist attacks in Iraq. Incidents do not include those targeting US military personnel who were on duty at the time of the attack.

Following the Bush/Friedman line, we can infer that everything is proceeding according to plan. The Bush administration, recall, argues that we fight terrorists "over there" so we don't have to fight them "here." "Over there," according to the data that the State Department won't release, appears to be everywhere, from Chechnya to Kashmir in addition to Iraq. So, as long as terror is wracking the rest of the world, we are presumably safe at home. Friedman, meanwhile, believes that as soon as things calm down in Iraq and our troops come home, then the terrorists will be tempted to throw a "hail mary" pass on our homeland. Rest easy, Tom, as long as Iraq is exploding in violence, no worries here.

Hilariously, according to the Post, "the State Department's acting counterterrorism chief, Karen Aguilar, [said] that the statistics are not relevant to the required report on trends in global terrorism." Certainly not, especially when the statistics so badly undermine the administration's claims about its smashing successes in the war on terror.

Seriously, I am not one to argue that every terrorist incident is attributable to the administration's approach to terror. But, since the administration has turned every single policy area into a political one, whose only goal is to advance the administration's propaganda efforts, the Bush White House is begging to be bashed every time the real world contradicts its preferred spin on that world. If the administration were serious about solving problems, we could be having a very different conversation right now – one that might actually make the world a safer place than it is, both "over there" and here.

In Clinton time, regardless of how serious his administration was about a policy matter, it was assumed that his statements and actions could always be read through the prism of cynical political calculation. Why the current administration is benefiting from a fundamentally more favorable presumption remains perhaps the key mystery of our time. As Eric Alterman recently outlined in detail, the administration's comprehensive efforts at lying and withholding information are standard operating procedure. The latest Global Terror report shows the extent to which this impulse has reached farcical proportions.

Last Friday, in celebration of Earth day, President Bush traveled to Alcoa, Tennessee where he gave some remarks about the environment. Jon Stewart captured the outing, focusing on the silly smile on Bill Frist's face as he stood behind Bush during the President's remarks. Stewart speculated that Frist himself had lapsed into a vegetative state, though Stewart hesitated to make that diagnosis based solely on videotaped footage. What got my attention was the comment that the President made: "One of the interesting things about our nation is that since 1970, our air is cleaner and the water is more pure, we're using our land better." Then, while spreading his arms for emphasis, Bush added "and our economy's grown a whole lot."

Presumably, what Bush meant for us to learn from that compelling history lesson is that economic growth is not the enemy of a strong environment. The fact is, of course, that the US economy has grown faster under Democratic presidents since 1970 than under Republican ones, undermining the implicit claim by Bush – that the Republican approach toward growth and environmental protection is the optimal way to ensure both. But, more to the point, when Bush made these comments was he unaware of the fact that the EPA was created in 1970? A question, Mr. President: pray-tell, do you think that agency and the pro-environmental forces that ushered it into existence, not to mention the subsequent environmental legislation that you are now trying so hard to undermine, might have something to do with the fact that our air and water are cleaner today than they were in 1970?

Are his speech-writers trying to embarrass him?

What were Bolton's meetings on the Hill with GOP Senators notably not on the Senate Foreign Relations committee about yesterday? The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei and Charles Babington report that the White House and GOP leaders are maneuvering to bring a vote on Bolton to the whole Senate floor even if he does not get an up vote in the SFRC committee:

With Bolton's confirmation jeopardized by allegations that he bullied colleagues who crossed him, Bush is planning a three-pronged strategy to win Senate approval next month of his nominee, aides said.

The White House is providing detailed rebuttals to any allegations Republican senators find troubling. Bush is also looking to make the debate over Bolton about reforming the United Nations, not Bolton's temperament, and working with Senate Republicans to produce a vote count this week showing there are enough votes to approve the nominee on the floor.

I got some interesting mail about my piece on Alternet yesterday. If you missed it, the gist was that we get suckered into constantly talking about the economy in aggregate, and it completely obscures how us regular folk are actually doing.

I used this startling statistic (which I swiped from Paul Krugman):

Consider the research of economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez: while we've witnessed several periods of immense growth in recent decades, the average real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers -- in other words, most of us -- actually fell by 7 percent between 1973 and 2000.

I got a note today from Sam Pizzigati, author of Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality That Limits Our Lives, who pointed out that "Saez and Piketty have updated their terrific income distribution numbers through 2002. The bottom 90 percent of Americans, they now find, have seen their incomes drop 9 percent in real terms since 1973."

I'm no math whiz, but I think the bottom 90 percent is most of us.

Then Warren Gunnels, Bernie Sanders' (I-Vermont) Legislative Director, sent me this exchange between Sanders and Carlos Gutierrez, Bush's new Commerce Secretary and former CEO of the Kellogg Company, from an April 6th committee hearing:

SANDERS: Mr. Chairman, I found Secretary Gutierrez's remarks particularly interesting. He began his remarks, and I quote, by saying, "the president and the administration start with the belief, first and foremost, that the tremendous economic prosperity America enjoys has not reached all corners of our country." Tremendous economic prosperity. Did I hear you correctly on that one?

GUTIERREZ: Yes, sir.

SANDERS: Maybe the confusion is that some folks go to country clubs and go to fund-raisers with millionaires and billionaires. I have to agree with you. Those people are doing very well. But I would suggest, Mr. Secretary, that if you talk to the middle class of this country, they do not believe that they are enjoying tremendous economic prosperity. How can you talk about tremendous economic prosperity when over the last four years we have seen an increase in poverty in America by four million people? How do you talk about economic prosperity when almost 22 percent of the children in America live in poverty, which is by far the highest rate of childhood poverty? How do you talk about economic prosperity when more than four million more Americans have lost their health insurance? Forty- five million Americans today have no health insurance.

How do you talk about economic prosperity when 1.6 million American families went bankrupt recently, and most of that bankruptcy had to do with the loss of a job, a medical emergency or a divorce? How do you talk about economic prosperity when the new jobs being created today pay 21 percent less than the jobs that are being lost? How do you talk about economic prosperity when the middle class is shrinking and the gap between the rich and poor is growing wider?

[…]

Do you think there is something fundamentally wrong in a country as wealthy as ours when 22 percent of our kids live in poverty? Mr. Secretary?

GUTIERREZ: Congressman, let me address your question with facts and the numbers that I have. This economy is growing at, the last number for 2004, is 4.4 percent. That puts us as number six of the top 20 economies in the world.

SANDERS: And corporate profits are also going up. What is happening to the average worker, Mr. Secretary?

GUTIERREZ: So if I could just finish the thought on the economy. We are number six in the top 20 economies in the world. The only five that are growing faster are developing economies. So if you take large developed markets, there is no market in the world that comes close.

SANDERS: True, but not relevant to the needs of ordinary workers. Their wages are going down.

GUTIERREZ: In terms of average income, which would be the best way to measure if our jobs are generating more income than not, the average income during this administration's time in office is up 10 percent.

SANDERS: The average income is, excuse me, average income is not the best way to determine what is happening for ordinary families. If you are a billionaire and I am broke, on average we have $500 million. That is not what is important. What is important is the real income of middle class families, which is going down. The rich are in fact getting richer and that distorts this whole question of average income.

That's exactly what I was talking about. God bless Bernie Sanders, a guy who's ballsy enough to be a legit Social Democrat in the US of A.

Meanwhile, in Britain, where New Labour (with all its flaws) is poised to kick the Tories' collective butts for a third term in next month's elections, the debate in Parliament is not about 'tax relief,' keeping wages in check and de-regulation; it's about 'investing' in the future of Britain and creating a prosperous economy for all. Labour gets it.

Some of the achievements they're running on:

All workers now have a right to 4 weeks' paid holiday

Over 200,000 more workers are now covered by a recognised trade union. Industrial disputes substantially reduced;

Increased child benefit, Working Tax Credit and Childcare Tax Credit ensure work pays. The National Minimum Wage, now £4.50 rising to £4.85 in October, has lifted more than 1.5 million workers, mostly women, out of poverty.

New mothers enjoy 26 weeks paid maternity leave, fathers 2 weeks' paternity leave and adoptive parents gain six months' paid and six months' unpaid leave.

Sounds like a prosperous society to me. That national minimum wage, by the way, works out to $9.40 U.S. come October.

New Labour says it's committed to "delivering prosperity for all in a fair and inclusive society." How to achieve it? "A modern welfare state is central to our vision of a society where nobody is held back by disadvantage or lack of opportunity."

And they keep winning.

This piece in the Washington Post shows why I thought Dean was a good, bold choice for the DNC Chair:

Howard Dean may not be running for anything, but his elbows appear to be as sharp as ever.

Since taking over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee earlier this year, the former presidential candidate has been quoted in newspapers making unusually caustic remarks about Republicans.

Dean has suggested that they are "evil." That they are "corrupt." He called them "brain-dead" during a stop in Toronto -- and while the Terri Schiavo case was still in the news. He has tagged Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as a "liar." Last week, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that he mimicked a "drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh" at an event there.

Oh, I know I'm wrong. I'm just an unsophisticated, hot-headed lefty out of touch with mainstream politics. Otherwise I'd know that it's just a fundraising job, the party needs to be modernized, the 2008 candidate should define the Dem's ideology and blah blah blah. Dean shouldn't rock the boat.

All thay may be true, but the right has so overreached that it's high time Democrats and their allies stepped up their rhetoric. Where's our Frank Luntz?

Imagine what a Bizarro Luntz could do. You remember those poll numbers from earlier this month during the Schiavo brewhaha:

By more than 2-to-1, 39%-18%, Americans say the "religious right" has too much influence in the Bush administration...

Americans by 53%-34% say they disapprove of Bush's handling of the Schiavo case. Congress' rating on Schiavo is worse: 76% disapprove, 20% approve.

And then this today:

A strong majority of Americans oppose changing U.S. Senate rules to make it easier for Republicans to confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll published on Tuesday.

The poll found 66 percent of respondents opposed a possible rule change to eliminate procedural roadblocks known as filibusters against judicial nominees, while 26 percent supported the idea.

Nearly half of Republicans surveyed in the poll were against any rule changes, along with eight in 10 Democrats and seven in 10 independents.

[…]

Bush's overall job approval rating was 47 percent, matching his all-time low in Washington Post-ABC News polls, while half disapproved of his performance.

The president's ratings on other major issues were at or near new lows, the poll found.

Meanwhile, Bill Frist--a true blue plutocrat if ever there was one--was promising the wackjobs at Bloody Sunday, or whatever it's called, that he's going to end the filibusters that have been used so adroitly to beat down 'people of faith,' even while he was also "quietly talking" with Harry Reid about a deal to save it.

That's because the industry groups that Frist calls 'mother' started squawking; see they have some agenda items like flat taxes, asbestos litigation, regulatory budgeting and Medicare privatization they'd like to shove through the Senate before Bush becomes a complete lame duck. The nuclear option, they feared, would shut down the process.

But then Fox News reported that Frist was 'caving,' the right-wing blogs heated up and started suggesting he was some sort of commie and Bush and the GOP put the kibosh on the deal. After all, they had given the boys at the club limits on class-action suits and bankruptcy, along with an energy bill porkier than a K Street lobbyist's wildest dreams. They figured they might as well play to the socially conservative 'sucker base' on this one.

So they're in real trouble--damned if they do and damned if they don't. And what are our leaders saying about all this?

The Financial Times ran an article about how Harry Reid has "sharpened his attack" on Frist:

"I'm afraid that his presidential aspirations are getting in the way of his Senate leadership position," Mr Reid said on Monday at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

The comment, an unusually personal remark from one senator about another follows Mr Frist's appearance on Sunday in a telecast organised by conservative Christian groups to boost public support for changing Senate rules...

Reid went on to say: "I resent anyone accusing the 44 Democrats [in the Senate] of not being religious people…We have prayed together, we heathen Democrats."

Wow that's…blistering.

But this isn't a dig on Harry Reid--I'm quite divided on him, and sometimes suspect he may be brilliant. It's just that wherever you go in the leftisphere, you either get lots of historical facts about the filibuster--I'm not complaining--or these tepid condemnations.

I think a lot of people are scared of the passionate activism of the religious Right, despite their modest numbers. The Repubs have become mad with power and are vulnerable to ridicule--a powerful tool long underappreciated among Dems--but aside from Dean, Boxer and a handful of others, all they can say is that Delay and Frist and Robertson are "extremists." The time has come for our Luntz to emerge and start painting the Repubs as the out-of-touch, anti-American screwballs they are.

So I'd like to hear 'conservative Christian leaders' referred to as 'televangelists,' or 'greasy televangelists.' They're shysters and snake oil salesmen, and it's time we called them what they are.

I'd like to hear a mainstream voice say, 'what the hell does Pat Robertson know about faith? He's a TV preacher and a European banker.

There's nothing to fear. The Republicans don't worry about pissing off the people at Counterpunch and the Dems shouldn't sweat upsetting the folks who consider the 700-club hard news.

Look at the headline on the right (from the Dallas Morning News):

The blogosphere is abuzz with who dubbed the radical rule change to eliminate the judicial filibuster the "nuclear option." Well, here it is, straight from Manuel Miranda, who used to be Bill Frist's counsel before he took an inappropriate peek at Senate Democrats' computer files stored on a shared Senate server, and is now, via the Heritage Foundation, the point person for the Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters.

Writing in May 2004 in the National Review, Miranda reported that indeed Trent Lott was the one who coined the phrase "nuclear option" during the Democrats' filibuster of Miguel Estrada's nomination to the D.C. Circuit.

In Saturday's Gadflyer, Joshua Holland picked apart a column by Thomas Sowell, showing how Sowell used cherry-picked facts to reach a foreordained conclusion. While Sowell's column was focused on zoning laws and housing prices, his broad conclusion was that wealthy, elite "limousine liberals, who constantly proclaim concern for the poor, children and minorities," are actually no friends of the downtrodden.

This is not the first time that Sowell has reached this conclusion, and it is not the first time that he has made sloppy use of evidence to get there. Just after the November 2004 elections, Sowell wrote a column claiming that:

The oldest fraud is the belief that the political left is the party of the poor and the downtrodden.

The election results in California are only the latest evidence to give the lie to that belief. While the state as a whole went for Kerry, 55 percent versus 44 percent for Bush, the various counties ranged from 71 percent Bush to 83 percent Kerry. The most affluent counties were where Kerry had his strongest support.

In Marin County, where the average home price is $750,000, 73 percent of the votes went for Kerry. In Alameda County, where Berkeley is located, it was 74 percent Kerry. San Francisco, with the highest rents of any major city in the country, gave 83 percent of its votes to Kerry.

Out where ordinary people live, it was a different story. Thirty-six counties went for Bush versus 22 counties for Kerry, and usually by more balanced vote totals, though Bush went over 70 percent in less fashionable places like Lassen County and Modoc County. If you have never heard of them, there's a reason.

Sowell's mistake here is known as the ecological fallacy: using aggregated data to make inferences about individual behavior. Here Sowell is using county averages to make inferences about how individuals vote.

There may be cases where county averages provide the best information we have about individuals. But in the case of
voting we can do much better, since exit polls ask individuals about their income as well as their voting preferences. In the 2004 elections, exit
polls showed clearly that most low-income voters favored Kerry, while most high-income voters—even in California—favored Bush.

	California		Entire U.S.
	Bush	Kerry	Bush	Kerry
Under $15,000	29%	70%	36%	63%
$15-30,000	42%	55%	42%	57%
$30-50,000	42%	56%	49%	50%
$50-75,000	47%	50%	56%	43%
$75-100,000	47%	49%	55%	45%
$100-150,000	41%	58%	57%	42%
$150-200,000	54%	46%	58%	42%
$200,000 or more	64%	36%	63%	35%

Although the 2004 exit polls had some widely publicized problems, the results for income are not hard to corroborate. Looking at the National Election Survey from 1952 to 2000, the political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal found that high-income voters tended to favor the GOP—and this tendency has grown stronger, not weaker, in recent years.

Thomas Sowell owes much of his credibility to his academic credentials. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, and since 1980 he has been a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. Yet in a single column, he commits the ecological fallacy, he ignores recent political science research, and he overlooks more than five decades of political surveys.

It's hard to believe that he doesn't know better.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, reported in this morning's paper, contains some good news, if Senate Republicans should feel inclined to follow public opinion: the majority of Americans oppose changing Senate rules to eliminate the judicial filibuster. The poll makes clear that the Republicans' proposed nuclear option is contrary to the very American notion of fair play. Nobody likes the kid on the playground who changes the rules in the middle of the game.

But buried in the poll is bad news for Democrats, and it has to do with how the American public perceives fringiness. As I've discussed before, the extremist right has managed to define mainstream liberalism -- indeed the entire cornerstone of the constitutional republic -- as fringe, while portraying itself as mainstream. And out of willingness or obliviousness, the press plays an important role in shaping public perceptions of what is fringy.

The poll contains evidence that roughly equal numbers of people think that "religious conservatives" represent the extreme on the right, while "liberals" represent the extreme on the left, and that more Republicans perceive liberalism as fringe than Democrats perceive the religious right as fringe. While four in ten respondents said they thought religious conservatives play too large a role in the Republican Party (representing only half of Democrats and independents and only one in five Republicans), 35% said "liberals have too much influence over the Democratic Party, a view held by nearly six in 10 Republicans."

What's clear from this is that there are far more self-loathing Democrats than there are self-loathing Republicans. What explains that more Republicans think that liberals have too much influence over the Democratic Party than Democrats think religious conservatives have too much influence over the Republican Party? It makes no sense, especially since fully 65% of Democrats (and only 35% of Republicans) believed that a political leader should not rely on his or her religious beliefs in making policy decisions.

Conservatives have succeeded in their efforts to make liberalism a dirty word, even to a lot of liberals. Why else would someone who identifies themselves as a Democrat balk at identifying themselves as liberal? You don't see Republicans balking at calling themselves conservative, because unlike conservative efforts to identify liberalism with too much government, too many taxes, socialism, moral relativism, enforced political correctness, and the disintegration of the American family, liberals have barely begun to equate conservatism, in the public mind, with religious, ethnic, and sexual bigotry, corrupt government, and reverse Robin Hood-ism. In other words, everything that is unAmerican.

Today the Washington Post has an article that's guaranteed to make you want to scream:

Shykell Pinkney is in the seventh grade, but her developmental age is three months. Her teacher communicates with Shykell the only way possible, by holding two or three symbols in front of her face and watching to see whether her head turns to focus on one of them.

Shykell has Rett syndrome, a neurological disorder. She cannot write, point or speak. But her teacher, Paula Gentile, had to spend nearly 30 hours testing her on a battery of academic tasks -- 10 in reading, 10 in math -- to measure her academic performance under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

So Gentile and her colleagues at Ruth Parker Eason School in Anne Arundel County found some tasks Shykell might be able to complete. With sufficient help, she could distinguish between the sounds made by the letters P and M and recognize the title of a picture book when a recording of it was played for her. Gentile and her colleagues went through the tasks one by one and watched Shykell for any hint of a response.

But here's a question: just how much are they willing to take? When will some brave governor or group of state legislators say, "That's it, we've had enough. We are willing to forego all federal education funding if that's what it takes not to be bound by this ridiculous law." After all, the federal government accounts for only about 7% of spending on education in this country. Just how much are the states willing to put up with? And why aren't Democrats in Congress working to amend this law?

OK, maybe it's nitpicking – but in this morning's New York Times account of the Senate Finance Committee's impending consideration of Social security reform, Robin Toner and Dave Rosenbaum make this observation about the composition of the committee: "After years of dominance by oil- and gas-producing states, the Finance Committee today reflects a strong rural orientation. Mr. Grassley, a 71-year-old Iowan, has a working family farm, where he produces soybeans and corn with his son; he heads home every weekend he can." I appreciate Chairman Grassley's down-homeness, but the article's next sentence is an unsupported leap: "Some analysts note that this makes many of these senators more sensitive to the needs of retirees, since rural states tend to have disproportionately older populations." So, we are to believe that those good old middle state Senators, like Grassley, with their good old farm and family values, care about retirees. Well, if that were true, why would Mr. Grassley not be heeding seniors, who overwhelmingly reject private accounts? Furthermore, if Mr. Grassley cared about the long-term well-being of the retirement system, why would he support private accounts, which even the administration has had to concede do nothing to address the long-term solvency of the program?

The assumption of good intentions here is just that – an assumption. And it has a decisive impact on how this whole debate is framed. Whether Mr. Grassley bristles at the notion that his support for private accounts is mere shilling for the administration is his problem. As has already been demonstrated ad nauseam, private accounts are a non-solution to the putative problem that the administration is trying to sell the American people. If Grassley believes they're a good idea, he's either badly misinformed or worse. The Times needn't give him a pass on this fundamental question. If you care about seniors and solvency, Mr. Grassley, why do you support a "solution" that seniors reject and that won't address solvency at all?

You never know what those all-powerful liberals are going to do next to destroy people of faith. The Moonies over at the Washington Times pointed out a new one today. Under the headline, "P.C. scholars take Christ out of B.C.," Michael Gormley writes:

In certain precincts of a world encouraged to embrace differences, Christ is out.

The terms "B.C." and "A.D." increasingly are shunned by certain scholars.

Educators and historians say schools from North America to Australia have been changing the terms "Before Christ," or B.C., to "Before Common Era," or B.C.E., and "anno Domini" (Latin for "in the year of the Lord") to "Common Era." In short, they're referred to as B.C.E. and C.E.

The life of Christ still divides the epochs, but the change has stoked the ire of Christians and religious leaders who see it as an attack on a social and political order that has been in place for centuries.

[…]

The new terms were introduced by academics in the 1990s in public elementary and high school classrooms.

In New York, the terms are entering public classrooms through textbooks and worksheets, but B.C.E. and C.E. are not part of the state's official curriculum, and there is no plan to debate the issue, said state Education Department spokesman Jonathan Burman.

"The standard textbooks primarily used in New York use the terms A.D. and B.C.," Mr. Burman said. Schools, however, may choose to use the new terms, although B.C. and A.D. will continue to be used in the state Regents exams, many of which are required for high school graduation.

Candace de Russy, a national writer on education and Catholic issues and a trustee for the State University of New York, doesn't accept the notion of fence-straddling.

"The use of B.C.E. and C.E. is not mere verbal tweaking; rather it is integral to the leftist language police -- a concerted attack on the religious foundation of our social and political order," she said.

Aah, the Leftist Language Police.

"I find it distressing; I don't like it," said Gilbert Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, which finds politics intruding on instruction. He said changing terms accepted for centuries because of a current social movement could threaten other long-held principles.

[…]

In a 2000 national resolution, the Southern Baptist Convention condemned the new terms as "the result of the secularization, anti-supernaturalism, religious pluralism, and political correctness pervasive in our society."

I think the same people who tried to poison our blessed country with the Metric system are bringing this about.

If all this seems a bit silly to you, it should. But, interestingly, the folks at the DLC are buying. From the same "newspaper":

An analysis by a Democratic think tank argues that Democrats are suffering from a severe "parent gap" among married people with children, who say the entertainment industry is lowering the moral standards of the country.

The study, published last week by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), the policy arm of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, admonishes Democrats to pay more attention to parental concerns about "morally corrosive forces in the culture," and warns that the party will not fare better with this pivotal voting bloc until they do.

[…]

"Democrats will not do better with married parents until they recognize one simple truth: Parents have a beef with popular culture. As they see it, the culture is getting ever more violent, materialistic, and misogynistic, and they are losing their ability to protect their kids from morally corrosive images and messages," said the study's author, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project of Rutgers University and a senior fellow at PPI.

"To be credible, Democrats must acknowledge the legitimacy of parents' beef and make it unmistakably clear that they are on the parents' side," Ms. Whitehead said.

[…]

Urging Democrats to change the way they look at cultural issues, the PPI report calls on party leaders to "use the bully pulpit regularly and aggressively to identify with parents' concerns and to attack the irresponsible marketeers of violence and sleaze to young kids."

Why don't we just throw it in and become Republicans? After all, popular culture is shaped by market forces, and there's not much you can do about it except pay lip service to the ridiculous right--or, in other words, lie to the voters to get elected. We may have to think that way sometime, but I for one am not there yet.

Sebastian Mallaby opens
his column this morning by observing "It's easy to want democracy for the Middle East. But what sort of democracy? Should American foreign policy focus on promoting elections, or on checks and balances? Is the crucial question how power is achieved? Or is it how power is exercised?"

Mallaby's column focuses on a study by two economists about the perils of democracy promotion in oil-rich states, which argues that oil wealth makes it easy for leaders to buy votes in a way that corrupts the political process and undermines economic growth and well-being. The study's conclusion is that, under such conditions, democracy does not benefit a country economically. This is important ground to cover and political scientists, like Terry Karl, have done important work examining the pitfalls of trying to install working democratic institutions in oil-rich states. Especially given our growing thirst for black gold and the extent to which our foreign policy is predicated on preserving and expanding access to oil, this subject takes on added significance.

But, Mallaby's first question is vitally important on its own terms – what sort of democracy? Though more countries than ever before hold competitive elections and thereby fulfill the requisites of Schumpeterian democracy, elections don't necessarily bear any meaningful relationship to real accountability. Furthermore, when they fail to do so, elections can be a recipe for lots of short-term energy and excitement, followed by bitter cynicism and potentially serious unrest over the medium-to-long-term. In other words, elections can be fools' gold. The current administration is especially cynical about this process, but, as William Robinson pointed out so compellingly in Promoting Polyarchy, this is part of a much longer bi-partisan policy-making dynamic in the United States, whereby electoralism is a cover for promoting leadership only weakly accountable to its domestic public and far more concerned with the interests of powerful elites at home and abroad.

The problem with such showcase elections is that they will not convince anybody that their lives are better for very long. And governments predicated on the thin legitimacy of elections may be no more likely to take seriously the popular will and public good than an authoritarian regime. It's not enough to hold elections and call it a day. That's been the clear lesson of the democratic wave that has swept the globe over the past two decades. Just looking at the major "success stories" of the past year and a half, there are danger signs everywhere. In Georgia, the bloom is already off the rose. The State department's country report for Georgia in 2004 reports that, despite the Rose revolution that swept Eduoard Shevardnadze from power in November 2003, serious abuses, including torture and arbitrary arrest continued, and independent observers believe that conditions have worsened in key areas. Meanwhile, the executive branch has far too much power concentrated in its hands and appears unresponsive to the serious decline in living conditions through which Georgians have suffered since the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Afghanistan, meanwhile, remains largely ungovernable. Writing after last Fall's elections in Afghanistan, Christian Parenti reports "[o]ut here in the desert and mountains there is no democracy, no nation building, no NGOs, no American patrols--only an appallingly bad road that once, long ago, was a paved link to the world and one of Afghanistan's few symbols of modernity and national progress. Now the only sign of something like state power is a local commander's young gunman with a bayonet on his AK-47."

In Iraq, a rough road ahead remains, with violence occurring at an appalling rate and a continued dearth of the most basic services. Mallaby writes, "It's natural to defer to Iraqi leaders as they write their constitution this year; after all, it's their country. But the political class in any nation has few incentives to create checks on its own freedom to govern, and elections, which take place only occasionally and attract lots of healthy international attention, are easier to get right than the boring details of competitive tendering. Left to its own devices, Iraq is likely to fall into the trap that Collier and Hoeffler describe -- a constitution that focuses adequately on how power is achieved but too little on how it is exercised."

To reiterate, it's more than just a matter of competitive tenders. Businesses, after all, manage to adapt to all sorts of regime types and circumstances and, ultimately, capital is mobile and can vote with its feet. But, the citizens of a country are, for the most part, stuck where they are. By voting, they display their resolve to make the best of their circumstances, no matter how trying. But, giving them the hope of a better life by offering the ballot box without the accountability that ought to follow from pulling the lever runs the risk of further embittering the population. If the administration is serious that freedom is the antidote to tyranny and terror, it better get its institutions right. Checking a ballot box makes for great television. Checking power is, as our founding fathers well understood, the only way to avoid tyranny. Elections alone simply don't serve that purpose.

Over at TomPaine.com, I have a new column on Justice Sunday and the right's victimization complex. You are commanded to read it.

Over at Alternet today, I argue that we get suckered into talking about economic growth when our focus should be on economic prosperity.

If you read this site regularly the argument will be familiar, but it's more fleshed out in the long-form essay.