But Ma, Everyone's Doing It!

I wanted to take a moment today away from a serious fact-based analysis of various issues and just rant for a minute. As I've watched the various post-debate discussions, I've repeatedly heard an assertion which has gone unchallenged, and it's really starting to frost me.

Commentators, campaign managers and even Senator Kerry have said that before we went to war in Iraq, that they believed that the evidence of weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq -- we all did [emphasis mine].

Not ALL of us did. I didn't. The tens of leaks coming out of the CIA on a weekly basis to the contrary indicate that there were intelligence people who didn't. The diligent op-ed columnists who questioned the sudden "drum-beat" for war in Iraq didn't. Obviously, Valerie Plame's husband had questions. The UN inspectors hadn't yet called the game, but were arguing for more time--an indicator that they weren't persuaded either.

So, I challenge those who are examining the issue of whether Iraq is a mistake to stop letting this remark pass as accepted gospel, and to stop letting Kerry and other take themselves off the hook by making it sound as if nobody could have walked away from these discussions with another position on the issue.

Whether the questioners and dissenters were simply a minority, or just a group without an effective channel to communicate their concerns, they still deserve to be acknowledged, not rhetorically "disappeared" after the fact. Those that truly believe that "we all did" were not paying attention. As a nation, we should be mortified that this conversation did not take place before the war, and we should be ashamed that we still cannot have it afterwards.

The Truman Show, the Sequel

In the 1998 Peter Weir film, The Truman Show, we were treated to an idealistic vision in which Truman Burbank's human spirit somehow intuitively understood the truth beyond a completely artificial universe concocted solely for him. His soulful yearning helped him conquer an implanted phobia, avoid meddling friends and family and ultimately find the door to what was real.

Here in 2004, I worry that life is imitating art in the comfy cocoon that is being erected around President Bush. More importantly, I worry that life will not imitate art enough to protect the electorate.

In a carefully stage-managed media bubble that rivals the carefully stage-managed town that was erected for Truman, our President gets to wander the highways and by-ways of this country fully convinced of the absolute righteousness of his regime, and the certainty that everyone agrees with him.

One would want to believe that it is all about the image he is projecting for the the rest of us, and an attempt to keep "on message", but more and more I'm coming to believe that, like the producers of the fictional Truman show, Bush's media managers are needing to remake reality internally for W, so that the finished product will look as they want it to.

The extraordinary measures being taken resemble more the kind of censorship and oppression found in totalitarian regimes: loyalty oaths, pre-screening of rally attendees, the segregation (and imprisonment) of dissenters and willful disregard of international protests. All seemed designed to keep W insulated from that pesky "real world" that might ruin his good mood, and all resemble those endlessly circling bicycles, cars and people in the film that dictated the rhythms of Truman's life.

W, too, has a father-related phobia implanted in him early in his political life, which is being used to keep him inside the well-defined borders of his pseudo-world. Like Truman's fear of water that keeps him isolated on his little island, Bush lives in fear of repeating what he views as his father's political failures, and leaving office without a legacy. This fear has led to a stubbornness that will take him over the edge of a cliff, rather than admit he'd misread the map.

What remains to be seen, is whether W will be human like Truman--whether his inner sense will push him to reach beyond the illusion and find out what's on the other side.

Making the Rounds

Good day everyone. I would like to add another feature to this column, called "Makin' the Rounds". I receive a fair amount of anonymously authored, but strikingly on-point political humor via email circulation. I would like to highlight some of the best stuff here. Forewarning: I am an unapologetic liberal progressive and make no claims to being "fair and balanced" with regard to editorial humor. I also take no responsibility for the truthfulness of the comments contained within--I am merely reprinting items that find their way into my inbox (though I do not intend to reprint anything that defames or libels anyone).

Links to existing material on the internet will be added to the permanent link list on the right. I realize that some "anonymous" pieces are often lifted off of other sites and circulated without attribution. If that happens to your material, and you see it here, please don't call your lawyer, or take offense--just let me know, and if I can verify your site as the source, I'll be happy to credit you and link to your site, or take it down if you prefer.

So, without further ado, here is the first edition of "Making the Rounds", sent to me by a fellow blogger and campaign volunteer via email:

Things you have to believe to be a Republican today:

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

Installing elections is vital to Iraq’s national security and promotes democracy. Postponing elections here in America is vital to our own.national security and protects our own democracy.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness, and you need our prayers for your recovery.

You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

Lowered Expectations

Maybe being from New York City, I somehow perceive the economy differently from everyone else in the country—but I doubt it. The race seems to be on to lower expectations for this President prior to his re-election campaign, and we seem to be falling for it all over again.

How hard was it to see that this President presided over the worst job loss record in American history since Herbert Hoover? This while arm-twisting through tax cuts for the wealthy that drained the last vestiges of health from dozens of essential support programs for the needy.

Now that the economy is turning around—according to the Labor Department, the net job loss figure is down from 2.6 million to 1.1 million jobs—Bush wants to take credit for turning a corner that never should have been there in the first place.

Personally, I don’t see this improvement in the economy. My perception is that my neighbors suffered an increase of 25% to their cost of living almost overnight and wages and salaries are stagnating. Everything basic to living here has gone up drastically, subway fares, property taxes, insurance, food, clothing, electricity, health care—and that doesn’t include the recent flirtation with the $3 gallon of gas. So, even if you aren’t one of those 1.1 million who lost a job without a replacement, you are still hurting.

If you happen to be one of the other 1.5 million who lost a job and found another, chances are, you are making $9,000 less a year than you were before. Break out those party hats, folks. Aren’t you glad you got that $300 rebate to tide you over during those two years you were unemployed?

And the Bush team is arguing that this is good news. Why does he get to throw away two and a half years of bad economic news, while simultaneously using it as a baseline for measuring success? 1.1 million lost jobs ain’t chicken feed, and without the social support programs that the government used to pay for, those unemployed folks are leaning on their families, their churches, shelters, whomever, just to survive. That’s a drag on everyone else’s economy too.

Even if the job numbers even out tomorrow, I still think that this is the wrong measure to be using here. If you spent two months, or two years out of work, you know that it’s going to take you another two to get back to where you were before—assuming you are making a salary that’s on par with what you had before. To get to the growing economy we had shortly before the Bushies started talking down the economy (yes, that’s right, they started talking it down, BEFORE they got into office, knowing that the wealth distribution that was about to take place would displace jobs, they wanted to be able to blame Clinton for the downturn), we are going to need another two and a half years of forward growth. Can we really afford to wait for Bush to make it happen?

Spitzer’s Bad Medicine

Being from New York, Eliot Spitzer is one of my heroes. He is to this generation what Ralph Nader was to Ford Pinto-owners in the seventies or what Geraldo was to the warehoused disabled with his “Willowbrook” expose.

His lawsuits on behalf of the powerless to prevent predation by spammers, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the tobacco industry, the consumer lending industry (+) and efforts to protect the environment and investors (+) are proof that you can make a difference within the system—even in a state as politically hide-bound as New York.

However, Spitzer’s latest adventure with the pharmaceutical industry, as well-intentioned as it is, will worsen the problem he is intending to correct. Spitzer wants to address the quasi-unethical practice by pharma, in which a company pays for studies of the effects of it’s drugs, but releases the results only from the studies that fovor the company.

He has initiated a lawsuit against the international pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. The company, in what is a very common practice in the industry, had chosen not to release the results of a study of Paxil’s effects on children. Spitzer’s suit claims that by not releasing ALL available study data on a drug, consumers are harmed. In this case, the drug was actively prescribed to children, even though test results collectively (and this particular study) do not show that they derive any benefit from it, or that it is safe. However, it is not unreasonable for doctors to have concluded that it was safe, since another similar drug from a competitor—Prozac—had conducted tests and received approval for children.

While Spitzer’s consumer-protectionist heart is in the right place, he stands to create a bigger problem than he is out to solve. (Full disclosure here: I formerly worked for a firm that specialized in consulting for the pharmaceutical industry.) This is because it assumes that all clinical studies are equal in validity.

The pharmaceutical companies pay for these studies because they are required to show safety and efficacy by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who holds approval over whether the drugs can be marketed, and how. The FDA makes best efforts to look at the studies, and then to determine: if they are scientifically valid, if the benefits are as presented, which patient group actually benefits (if any), whether there are safety issues, and so on. The FDA can explicitly exclude companies from marketing a drug for a particular use, or to a particular age group. But there is such a thing as off-label use, which can be fed by word-of-mouth understanding of a drug’s effect that hasn’t formally been addressed by the FDA. Once a drug is perceived as safe for one use, doctors feel more comfortable prescribing for other uses, if there appears to be data to support that use.

The companies will naturally try to present all the scientific evidence in the most favorable light, or in a way that will not lead to the outright exclusion of certain markets. So what will happen if you require them to release all of the studies they conduct? They will have a strong incentive to produce studies that won’t really tell you much one way or the other, and to bury everyone with data. The resulting confusion will mean that there will be ten studies to sift through, without any outside measure of which ones are scientifically sound. The noise will produce a huge consumer pressure on doctors to continue to prescribe for off-label uses, based upon “results” that have no sound backing.

In the meantime, the FDA will slow to an even slower crawl than it is operating at currently, stalling truly innovative cures from coming to market.

I realize that pharma is this year’s tobacco as the big villain, and therefore, would be a politically popular target, but if Spitzer continues to pursue this course, it’s going to be bad medicine.

(Full Disclosure: I spent several years working for a consulting firm that exclusively serviced clients from the pharmaceutical industry.)

The Disabled vs. The Rest of Us

The tension over paper-trail verification of ballots is pitting the rights of ordinary citizens against the rights of the disabled, and the fight is starting to get ugly.

The rush to put in place electronic, touch-screen voting machines is creating a (wholly justified, in my view) backlash from people who are concerned that the machines are vulnerable to a whole host of manipulation problems and mechanical errors. These range from the possibility of hacking to machines that record fantasy vote totals (like the mysterious deduction of 16,000 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Florida in the 2000 election from a county with only 600 registered voters). Groups like Electronic Privacy Information Center have issued white papers outlining the problems and the range of possible solutions. Douglas W. Jones of the University of Iowa Department of Computer Science has also done a wonderful job of comparing the various current voting systems. For more information, have a look at the hearings held by the Science Committee in the House of Representatives on this issue.

Many now believe that further introduction of these machines should be halted until some form of voter-verified paper record can be produced, much like your ATM currently produces a record of your bank transaction.

It sounds reasonable to wait until the machines actually work, doesn’t it? It does if you are not already disenfranchised or having your privacy compromised by old-fashioned voting equipment that does not accommodate the blind, severely-disabled or non-English speaking voter.

There are a number of advocate groups like the American Council of the Blind that are opposing any delay in upgrading the equipment because the benefits to their constituencies are enormous. To get an idea of this, imagine for a moment that you are blind and need to have a poll attendant who is an absolute stranger assist you in casting your vote. How can you possibly be sure that your vote was cast accurately?

Ordinarily I am strongly in favor of any and all reasonable accommodation that can be made for the handicapped, even if it results in greater inconvenience or expense. In this case, however, the arguments in favor of moving ahead are severely flawed and pose a huge danger to democracy.

Under the current system, the votes of a select group of people are possibly being compromised, while the great bulk of the voters are reasonably assured of casting a private, secure and accurate vote. Under the new system, that same group would gain a perceived benefit of being able to participate on par with the rest of the population, while the entire voting population runs the risk of being compromised in the other direction.

If the disabled are to be re-enfranchised with the rest of the voters, this is not the way to go about it. If they are willing to assume the risks for themselves, for no other benefit than a perceived gain, then perhaps the newer voting machines should be made available only for disabled voters, until the system can be secured for the rest of us. It would be undemocratic to ask everyone to assume that risk on behalf of the few.

Is Bush Drinking Again?

It’s come to this. I’m seeing a pattern here and I can’t keep it to myself any longer. I think our President may be drinking again. Either that, or he’s the clumsiest President in history, save Gerald Ford.

Despite being classified as being in the top 2% in cardiovascular health for men his age when he was examined in 2001, our Commander-in-Chief has managed a couple of plainly embarrassing accidents over the years.

On January 14th, 2002, he was sitting and watching a football game and managed to get himself knocked unconscious by an improperly swallowed pretzel. From a seated position he managed to fall in such a way as to bruise his face. Perhaps the whack against the table jarred the pretzel loose?

In June of 2003, photographers famously managed to capture the President taking a rather clumsy fall off of a Segway device. No facial injuries this time, thank goodness!

In December of the same year, President Bush reportedly injured the meniscus in his leg and had to cut back on his near-fanatical exercise routine. It was not reported exactly how the damage came about. Could another fall be the culprit?

Finally, just a few days ago, on May 22, 2004, our President took a spill off his bicycle. Once again, the cuts and scrapes are on his face. Fortunately, Bush just happened to have his doctor along on a seventeen-mile bike ride for just such an emergency. Never mind house calls, this doctor definitely goes above and beyond.

Though not strictly in the same category with the others, there are also the red marks on his face. On at least one occasion, the President has made a public appearance in which he had these bright red marks on his face. This was later explained to be a result of having some lesions removed. If that were the case, why not advise the press before the procedure?

I realize that a couple of accidents do not a drunk make, but couple these incidents with the President’s decided aversion to making speeches, his reported disinterest in reading and his passion for extended vacations away from the public view, and I really am starting to wonder. What exactly is he doing when nobody is looking?

Is he really as clumsy and unlucky as all of that? Or, is it just possible, that he keeps falling down under the influence and all of these silly explanations are being cooked up to cover a problem? In the past, we’ve had alcoholics in the oval office, but none of them staked their political base upon a born-again conversion to sobriety.

Interestingly enough, Katherine Wormer has suggested that, in fact, Bush may be sober, but still suffering from a form of addiction-related brain damage called “dry drunk” syndrome. Is it possible that these are physical manifestations of that damage?

Lack of Imagination, Part II

This article will be re-posted shortly. We are experiencing technical difficulties.

Lack of Imagination, Part I

What do I think of this administration’s handling of the Qaeda threat prior to the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2004? To borrow (and mangle) the words of Strother Martin in the classic movie, Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here, is a failure to imaginate.”

That’s right. Unlike those testifying before the commission, I do not think that the failure is one of communication. It’s a failure of imagination. In January of 2001, a group of very smart, experienced people took control of policy for the United States. They retained just about all of the intelligence apparatus that belonged to the previous administration.

They were briefed in transition meetings about the threat of Al Qaeda. In late January, they were given a list of actions, some might dare call it a plan, to protect Americans from these fundamentalists who had issued a fatwa against Americans everywhere. These were people who had attempted to bomb the World Trade Center, had successfully bombed embassies and the U.S.S. Cole.

Do you remember what the White House media coverage was obsessed with at the time this plan was pressed into Condi Rice’s capable hands? I do. They were busy smearing the departing Clinton staff with a since-discredited story about vandalized keyboards, stolen furniture and porn bombs. Revelations from un-named sources were coming out seemingly hourly with ever more outlandish accusations. When that story started losing legs, the focus shifted to the outgoing Clinton pardon of Marc Rich.

Now imagine the tone of those reports had the leaks involved items about Osama Bin Laden. Just imagine.

During his Inauguration speech in January, Bush said, “We will build our defenses beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge. We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors. The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom. We will defend our allies and our interests. We will show purpose without arrogance. We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength. And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth.”

It would appear that he was aware of the need to defend the homeland, but throughout the coming months, his administration would focus on tax cuts, an education plan, faith-based initiatives and a plan to weaken immigration rules to favor Mexican immigrants.

What is clear is that over the coming months, there was plenty of communication. The so-called wall between the various departments was not preventing information from reaching the White House. Everyone admits to knowing about intense “chatter”. Clarke was drafting memos to Condi. Tenet was running around with his hair on fire. There was the August 6th PDB. There was the arrest of Zacharias Moussaoui.

What we didn’t have was imagination. At no point did anyone sit down with that August 6th PDB and ask themselves what this could mean. The decision-making was limited to asking themselves whether there was anything actionable in it. It is inexcusable that they did not call a meeting to brainstorm possible targets, means of securing commercial airplanes and ways to infiltrate the family of plotters. Nobody developed insomnia imagining scenarios and checking whether we had a plan to disrupt those scenarios. Our leaders could not imagine an attack on American soil, until it actually happened.

Even after September 11th, it wasn’t until a huge momentum built behind the idea of a Department of Homeland Security that the administration announced it would be reorganizing the government. That idea was foisted upon the Bush administration from outside. After a brief stint in Afghanistan, they reverted again to an enemy of choice, rather than imagine ways to go after Osama Bin Laden.

Today the risk stands as great as it ever was. President Bush is still demonstrating a remarkable lack of imagination when it comes to terrorism and defense. Every major security effort that you could imagine as a risk is underfunded, from nuclear power plants to shipping containers, while the White House contemplates adding another layer of bureacracy to the reporting structure. Now I wonder where that idea came from…

In part II of "Lack of Imagination", the target will be Iraq. stay tuned. send comments to "thederrywitch@yahoo.com"

Welcome!

Welcome to the inaugural entry of "No One Asked Me", a featured commentary of the Guttersnipes blog. It is here that you will find political and cultural commentary with all the entertainment value of professional wrestling and modern politics. It is my intention to focus in on issues with laser-like intensity from an angle that can only be described as "through the looking glass". Rose-colored glasses will not protect your eyes, as we shed light on the more hidden corners of today's issues.

Join us here in the coming weeks, where we will ask you to sweep out those unused corners in the attic of your brain, shine a light on those wriggling unmentionables hiding there, and send them scurrying out into the world to frighten those who would ask you to blindly follow the herd. They are your ideas and they deserve a place in the world.