WaxWorks
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Friday, February 11, 2005
The Competency Myth
Some people, like Dick Cheney, will continue to be viewed by the mainstream press as "extremely competent," no matter how much they screw up or how wrong they are repeatedly on important decisions. (For Cheney, these things include his disastrous decisions as CEO of Halliburton that resulted in the company taking on millions of dollars in absestos liability as part of an acquisition and of course his incredible miscalculations in Iraq.)
Condi Rice apparently also shares this characterization. No matter how negligent she was as NSA or how badly she repeatedly got things wrong, the press constantly ignored her many missteps and created a myth of competency around her. Democrats who opposed her for Secretary of State were deemed to be hopelessly out of touch. Or were they?
Anyone who has read the 9/11 Commission report has seen how incredibly negligent Rice was in the pre-Sept. 11 days, as Richard Clarke sends her urgent e-mail after e-mail and memo after memo, pleading with her to do SOMETHING about the pending Al Qaeda threat, to no avail.
Now some documents have been released to the public, including the memo that Clarke sent to Rice on January 25, 2001, five days into the new Administration. In that memo, Clarke writes that "we urgently need ... a Principals level review on the Al Qida network." (emphasis in original). Rice refused, told him not to request any more Principals meetings, and told him to work through the deputies. The Principals meeting Clarke wanted in January 2001 did not occur until... September 4, 2001.
Clarke also writes:
"As we noted in our briefings for you, Al Qida is not some narrow, little
terrorist issue that needs to be included in broader regional policy.
Rather, several of our regional policies need to address centrally the
transnational challenge to the US and our interests posed by the Al Qida
network. By proceeding with separate policy reviews on Central Asia, the
GCC, North Africa, etc, we would deal inadequately with the need for a
comprehensive, multi-regional policy on Al Qida."
I'm struck, first of all, with the reference to prior briefings given to Rice on the subject, and the fact that Clarke was right on concerning Al Qaeda and Rice just simply did not recognize the danger posed to the US. Finally, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Rice lied to the 9/11 Commission as well. First of all, on March 22, 2004, Rice wrote an Op-Ed column (notably not under oath, as she did not testify publicly until April 7) stating this:
No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration.
Well, if you look at the end of Clarke's January 25, 2001 memo, you'll see that it has two attachments: Tab A is a "December 2000 Paper: Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of Al Qida: Status and Prospects" and Tab B is a "September 1998 Paper: Pol-Mil Plan for Al Qida."
The December 2000 Paper has also been released to the public and guess what? It sure looks like an al Qaeda plan. Judge for yourself.
Dr. Rice and the truth are mutually exclusive. But we may be safer now with her in the State Department than as NSA. But don't be fooled into believing her myth of competency. Richard Clarke was trying to save us all, and she couldn't be bothered to listen.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Truth Be Not Told
I read George Will's latest column in Newsweek and was immediately struck by the intellectual dishonesty that he displayed throughout, particularly due to the fact that Will packages his image to be that as a truth-telling intellectual, down to the bow-tie and obscure historical facts.
But before I could write on it, the incomparable Josh Marshall beat me to it, raising the same point I was going to raise about the fallacious comparison being made between Social Security and federal employees' Thrift Savings Accounts. Of course the Thrift Savings Accounts are comparable to a 401k plan, NOT a guaranteed insurance program like Social Security. Marshall notes:
One of the most misleading comparisons President Bush made in his State of
the Union address came when he compared private accounts carved out of Social Security to the Thrift Savings Plan available to employees of the federal government.
Now George Will has picked up the cudgel, combining this bogus
comparison with the now de rigueur demonization of Sen. Harry Reid, who scares
Republicans.
Will attacks Reid for not supporting Bush's plan, while at the same time participating in the Thrift Savings Plan, ignoring the obvious fact that, as Marshall points out, the Thrift Savings Plan ("TSP"), just like a 401k plan, operates for Reid ON TOP OF Social Security, not instead of it:
Who will make the obvious point?
No federal employees put their Social Security funds into the TSP. The TSP
is in addition to Social Security. To the extent that there is an analogy to
anything it is to an add-on account -- the kind Democrats support
and Republicans oppose. Indeed, the TSP is little different from private
sector 401ks, a defined-contribution retirement plan.
Indeed, no less an authority than the Social Security Administration says: "The TSP is a defined contribution plan similar to the 401K plans offered in the private
sector. Contributions are made by payroll deduction. Both the money that is
contributed and the interest earned are tax-deferred."
Let's give Will the benefit of the doubt and assume he's just ignorant
rather than intentionally misleading. Democrats don't think people shouldn't
invest in private securities as part of their retirement planning. What they say
is that that should be in addition to Social Security, from which workers get a
flat guarantee of a base level of retirement income.
The question isn't why everyone shouldn't have the chance to get in on the
Thrift Savings Plan. The question is why everyday Americans should have to
choose between Social Security and the TSP when federal employees now get to
have both.
The point is simple and no more complicated than the elementary concept of
diversification in an investment portfolio. Ideally, retirement planning should
include multiple sources of income: the guaranteed, threshold level of income
provided by Social Security, private savings and an employer-based pension. Each
has different levels of risk involved. One key importance of Social Security in
this mix is that it is the one part of the equation in which there is a flat,
no-matter-what guarantee.
Will also ridicules Reid for comparing the President's plan to "roulette":
This is the crux of the Democrats' argument against Bush's plan: Equities
markets are terribly risky—indeed, are as irrational and risky as roulette.
Think about that. Roulette is a game without any element of skill. By
comparing the investment of some Social Security funds in stocks and bonds to
gambling on roulette, Reid is saying that the risks and rewards of America's
capital markets, which are the foundation of the nation's economic rationality
and prosperity, are as random as the caroms of the ball in a roulette
wheel. This, from a national leader, is amazing.
Again, Will is using his rhetoric to mask the true issue. Social Security is a social insurance program -- the aim of insurance is to reduce risk. As we have it now, Social Security will provide a guaranteed benefit to recipients, regardless of the vagaries of the stock market. Bush's plan would subject to the potential recipients to unneeded risk, just like, yes, roulette.
Finally, Marshall is absolutely right that Will's attacks on Reid are both over-the-top and unnecessary. In particular, I was taken by Will's denouncement of Reid's rebuttal to Bush's State of the Union address, which Will criticized because -- unbelievably -- it was "written before the [President's] address." What Will fails to note is that EVERY rebuttal to the State of the Union is written before the address itself is given -- the Republicans did the same thing during the Clinton Presidency. By trying to create impropriety where there is none, Will shows his true stripes again. But what should we expect from someone who praised Ronald Reagan's performance in the 1980 Presidential Debate against Jimmy Carter without revealing to viewers that he had prepped Reagan for the debate using a stolen Carter briefing book?
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
How Is That Even Possible?
How about this for a disturbing headline -- "Rove Gets Bigger Role at White House." Check it out:
President Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, will take on a wider role in
developing and coordinating policy in the president's second term, the White
House announced on Tuesday.
Rove, who was Bush's top political strategist
during his 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, will become a deputy White
House chief of staff in charge of coordinating policy between the White House
Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, National Security Council
and Homeland Security Council.
Rove will continue to oversee White House strategy to advance Bush's
agenda and will "make sure we have an open and fair process for the development
of policy and to make sure the policy is complementary and consistent with the
various councils," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
"He is one of the president's most trusted advisers who has played an
integral role in strategy and policy development for a long time," McClellan
said.
I'm glad to see that policy will continue not to be politicized in this adminstration and that we can count on good, sound policy debates continuing. What were Paul O'Neill and John DiIulio thinking?
Monday, February 07, 2005
Hmm, Where Did My Keys Go?
My son is about to turn 4 in March, so this story from Sand Lake, Michigan definitely alarmed me:
A boy drove his mother's car to a video store in the middle of the night,
police said -- and he's all of 4 years old. Even though he was unable to reach
the accelerator, the boy managed to put the car in gear and the idling engine
provided enough power to take him slowly to the store, a quarter-mile from his
home, about 1:30 a.m. Friday, Police Chief Doug Heugel said. Finding the store
closed, the youngster began a slow trip home.
Weaving and with its headlights off, the car got the attention of police Sgt. Jay Osga, who initially thought he was following a driverless car that had taken off after being left running at a gas pump. The car turned into the boy's apartment complex and struck two parked cars, then backed up and struck Osga's police car. That's when Osga discovered the boy inside.
"He knew how to go from forward to reverse," Osga said Monday. "The mother
said she taught him how to drive by letting him sit on her lap and steer." No
charges will be filed against the boy or his mother, Heugel said. "He's 4
years old. His mom didn't even know he was up," Heugel told The Grand Rapids
Press. "I don't think he even realizes what he did."
My son has been known to get upset when we don't let him watch a certain show, but, to my knowledge, he hasn't made a run for our local video store. I would not put it past him though.
