... The warnings during the summer [of 2001] were more dire and more specific than generally recognized. Descriptions of the threat were communicated repeatedly to the highest levels within the White House. In more than 40 briefings, Mr. Bush was told by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, of threats involving Al Qaeda.
The review suggests that the government never collected in one place all the information that was flowing into Washington about Al Qaeda and its interest in using commercial aircraft to carry out attacks, and about extremist groups' interest in pilot training. A Congressional inquiry into intelligence activities before Sept. 11 found 12 reports over a seven-year period suggesting that terrorists might use airplanes as weapons.
The story does detail a number of anti-terrorism measures that the Administration initiated -- or talked about initiating -- before 9/11, but there was little follow-through. For example, this:
Mr. Bush proposed a 7 percent increase in overall spending on counterterrorism programs, a larger increase than was proposed for any cabinet department or agency other than education.
... The report also called for a $6.6 million program to improve intelligence collection at ports of entry; an additional $10 million, for a total of $76.7 million, to help state and local authorities learn to detect biological warfare agents; and a $17.3 million increase for a program to help purchase special equipment for fire departments, emergency medical services and law enforcement agencies, bringing the cost to $126.7 million.
But on Capitol Hill, the administration put relatively little political capital behind its proposals, choosing instead to emphasize its plan for a missile defense system.
When Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who was then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, sought to transfer money to counterterrorism from the missile defense program, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent a letter on Sept. 6 2001, saying he would urge Mr. Bush to veto the measure. Mr. Levin nonetheless pushed the measure through the next day on a party-line vote.
The most sweeping challenge to Clarke's account has come from two Bush allies, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Fred F. Fielding, a member of investigative panel. They have suggested that sworn testimony Clarke gave in 2002 to a joint congressional committee that probed intelligence failures was at odds with his sworn testimony last month. Frist said Clarke may have "lied under oath to the United States Congress."
But the broad outline of Clarke's criticism has been corroborated by a number of other former officials, congressional and commission investigators, and by Bush's admission in the 2003 Bob Woodward book "Bush at War" that he "didn't feel that sense of urgency" about Osama bin Laden before the attacks occurred.
In addition, a review of dozens of declassified citations from Clarke's 2002 testimony provides no evidence of contradiction, and White House officials familiar with the testimony agree that any differences are matters of emphasis, not fact. Indeed, the declassified 838-page report of the 2002 congressional inquiry includes many passages that appear to bolster the arguments Clarke has made.
Sen. Frist, as you may recall, stood on the floor of the Senate and said (full statement here), among other things, that
I am troubled by these charges. I am equally troubled that someone would sell a book, trading on their former service as a government insider with access to our nation's most valuable intelligence, in order to profit from the suffering that this nation endured on September 11, 2001. I am troubled that Senators on the other side are so quick to accept such claims. I am troubled that Mr. Clarke has a hard time keeping his own story straight.
At the time, I wrote that "I'm not sure how or why I have this feeling, but I suspect [the] statement by Senate Majority Leader Bill 'Cat Killer' Frist is going to backfire." Thankfully, it looks like I may have been right for once.
AB
UPDATE: Atrios says, "Censure Frist," which I think is as appropriate as it is unlikely (not that an apology is any likelier.)
You are Paul Krugman! You're a brilliant economist with a knack for both making sense of the current economic situation and exposing the Bush administration's lies about it. You somehow came out as the best anti-war writer on the Op-Ed staff. Other economists hate your guts for selling out to the liberals. To hell with 'em.
On Wednesday, responding to the news that Bush would need to be accompanied by a guardian/vice-president in order to testify before the 9/11 commission. At the time I remarked that "[It] seems like some enterprising young Photoshopper could get some mileage from a few pictures of ventriloquists, their dummies, Bush, and Cheney." The General has delivered the goods.
Via TBogg, this from Eleanor Clift on the subject of Bush's agreement to testify before the full 9/11 Commission, but only if Uncle Dick is at his side:
A top Republican strategist dubbed the legal document striking the unusual deal “the Wizard of Oz letter” because it strips away the myth that Bush is in charge. Until now, it’s been all speculation about Vice President Cheney’s influence. With the revelation of the tandem testimony, nobody with a straight face can deny Cheney is a co-president or worse, the puppeteer who pulls Bush’s strings.
... Try thinking about it this way: can anyone imagine Bush’s father in a similar situation bringing his vice president?
In Salon today, an interview of Gary Hart who, in 2000, co-chaired the little-publicized U.S. Commission on National Security:
Hart was co-chair (with former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H.) of the U.S. Commission on National Security, a bipartisan panel that conducted the most thorough investigation of U.S. security challenges since World War II. After completing the report, which warned that a devastating terrorist attack on America was imminent and called for the immediate creation of a Cabinet-level national security agency, and delivering it to President Bush on January 31, 2001, Hart and Rudman personally briefed Rice, Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. But, according to Hart, the Bush administration never followed up on the commission's urgent recommendations, even after he repeated them in a private White House meeting with Rice just days before 9/11.
The whole interview is facscinating; here's a telling exchange:
HART: ... And then as Congress started to move on this, and the heat was turned up, George Bush -- and this is often overlooked -- held a press conference or made a public statement on May 5, 2001, calling on Congress not to act and saying he was turning over the whole matter to Dick Cheney.
So this wasn't just neglect, it was an active position by the administration. He said, "I don't want Congress to do anything until the vice president advises me." We now know from Dick Clarke that Cheney never held a meeting on terrorism, there was never any kind of discussion on the department of homeland security that we had proposed. There was no vice presidential action on this matter.
In other words, a bipartisan commission of seven Democrats and seven Republicans who had spent two and a half years studying the problem, a group of Americans with a cumulative 300 years in national security affairs, recommended to the president of the United States on a reasonably urgent basis the creation of a Cabinet-level agency to protect our country -- and the president did nothing!
By the way, when our final report came out in 2001, it did not receive word one in the New York Times. Zero. The Washington Post put it on Page 3 or 4, below the fold.
So there was absolutely no follow-up on your commission's recommendations once Bush referred the matter to Cheney?
You’ve probably already seen the news, but if not: The BLS’s labor market report for March is out, and it includes a blowout job creation number of 308,000. This is well past economists’ average expectations. The unemployment rate rose from 5.6% to 5.7%, which somewhat paradoxically may also be a signal of a stronger labor market – apparently lots of people are reentering the labor force after sitting it out for a while.
This is a big, big report, and it is almost completely good. One month doesn’t make a trend... but could it be the start of one?
Postcards from Old Europe - The rocket that didn't launch
Trying to divine central bank's policies by interpreting the public statements made by their representatives always reminds me of the arcane art of Kremlinology. Practitioners of Centralbankology must have been working overtime the past couple of weeks to make sense of the many little tidbits emanating from the bank's ivory towers. One thing that was evident is that the US and European monetary policy seem to be moving towards each other - the Fed's comments are getting a little more hawkish, while the ECB's governors are signaling a possible cut in rates.
Although the ECB has refrained from hiking rates at their meeting on the 1st of April a whole raft of comments before and after the meeting give the impression that an interest rate cut might be in the offing. I don't want to beat my own drum, but I do have to mention that this was my opinion all along. The simple fact of the matter is that the Eurozone's recovery is half dead already.
Optimists keep citing the an imminent "export led recovery" as the catalyst for higher growth rates in the Eurozone. This is understandable as the major European countries have usually exported or devalued and the exported their way out of economic weakness. As the devaluation route is now mostly closed, they now have to rely on exports to dig themselves out of their hole. In an interview with the German daily Handelsblatt ECB president Trichet said:
In the normal course of economic activity, recovery most often starts with net exports, then passes over to investment and then, as the third stage of the rocket, so to speak, arrives at consumption.
The only problem is the fact that this doesn't seem to be working. A look at the ECB's March report showed that the volume of exports to countries not in the Eurozone actually fell in the last quarter of 2003! This is not something we should be happy to see as it implies that Europe is not able to profit from the rapid pace of US consumption. The rocket is fizzling on the launchpad. While the Asian economies are reaping the benefits of the credit-fueled and consumption driven boom in the US economy the Eurozone has been left standing on the sidelines and has been trying to convince itself that a strong euro doesn't really matter.
The euro-strength has been helping the consumer by making imports cheaper. The purchasing public responded by increasing the amount of imported goods in their shopping carts all through last year. As it usually takes a while for the effects of a rising currency to fully trickle through into import prices we can probably look forward to European consumers continuing to increase the amount of foreign goods on their shopping list. The only problem with this is that it doesn't help Eurozone companies one bit.
A rising share of imported goods is doubly negative as consumer confidence is still very low in the Eurozone. The consequence of this double whammy is that the recovery rocket's third stage is also in danger of malfunctioning. This is in sharp contrast to the US where the third stage of the rocket has firing all through the recession and hasn't stopped burning yet. The US rocket is burning on fuel supercharged by easy credit and rising asset prices. Some members of the Fed's mission control team think that this sustained buying spree is harmful and are trying to dampen the perceived speculative excesses by ways of hawkish talk.
A quick glance at the media could support this view, some prices (Gas!) are rising right through the roof! Surely there must be inflation right around the corner? Some people are even suggesting that core CPI is a sham. I don't think that this is the case. A look at the medium term shows that core CPI and CPI are almost identical. I am assuming that people are looking at price hikes in frequently purchased goods (think gas) and concluding that all prices are rising. This is simply not true. Many goods are falling quite sharply in price - the only problem is that we tend to remember price increases and forget the bargains. Core CPI (and CPI) are low by any standard so I don't see a rate hike just around the corner.
Back across the Atlantic inflation is low (1.6%) as well which could give the ECB some leeway to cut rates. The only problem that I see, is the fact that a rate cut will not address the root cause of sluggish growth. The relative inflexibility of the major European economies is the major reason why the Eurozone is not able to grow GDP in a meaningful way. Yesterday's ECB meeting threw cold water on expectations of a quick cut in rates. Could it be possible that the ECB intends to keep monetary policy tight with the aim of "encouraging" Europe's larger economies to finally speed up their pace of reforms?
Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out CurryBlog!
But who was his role model? For that we have to turn to the Elder Bush in (roughly) the year of the bored kid's birth, when George Bush Sr. found that he even bored himself:
Based on a story today, Saddam Hussein possessed half the components required to build a nuclear landmine based on 1950's era British technology:
LONDON - A claim that Britain considered using live chickens in a nuclear weapon aroused skepticism Thursday, but officials insisted it was not an April Fool's hoax.
"It's a genuine story," said Robert Smith, head of press and publicity at The National Archives.
The archives released a secret 1957 Ministry of Defense report showing that scientists contemplated putting chickens in the casing of a plutonium land mine.
The chickens' body heat was considered a possible means of preventing the mine's mechanism from freezing.
Here's the half of the 50's era British WMD system (found in the "area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat") that Saddam had in his possession:
His scientists, however, were still having trouble with these parts:
AB
P.S. Be careful when Googling for images of "little boy" without adding "+Nagasaki" or "+atomic." The results are, sadly, not pretty. Who knows what watchlists I'm on now?
Yesterday, I quoted an AP story on some of Bush's reversals. The Center for American Progress has a more complete, though I'm sure not comprehensive, list.
On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.
The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.
This is an interesting tidbit. Apparently someone walked into a Starbucks over the weekend and found some notes that were obviously written by someone prepping Rumsfeld for his Sunday morning interviews on the news shows. That individual then gave them to the Center for American Progress, the Democrats' think tank. The notes are quite entertaining, and both the CAP and the Washington Post are having some fun with them.
I’m referring to the release of the March employment report, which will be released by the BLS at 8:30am tomorrow (EST). This is what CNN/Money has to say about it:
Since at least November, there have been signs of a long-hoped-for jump in jobs, leading economists to make fairly rosy forecasts. And since November, those forecasts have been wrong, and job growth has disappointed.
Will March's jobs data, due on Friday, finally be the moment when the loop is broken? Maybe not -- though things could look a sight better than in February, when just 21,000 new jobs were added to a labor market of more than 130 million.
On Friday, the Labor Department prints the biggest economic report of the month, its measure of March's unemployment rate and growth in non-farm payrolls. Economists, on average, expect unemployment to hold steady at 5.6 percent and non-farm payrolls to grow by about 123,000 new jobs, according to Briefing.com.
Tune in tomorrow to find out if we’ve received a pleasant surprise, or been disappointed yet again by the US’s job market.
Latest report: 600,000 jobs added in March; Bush now on pace to meet jobs projection in the Economic Report of the President.
Budget will be in balance in 2006, due to rapid economic growth caused by Bush tax cuts. Trade deficit plummets as current accounts deficit turns into surplus.
Citing the shining beacon of democracy in the adjacent country, Iran announced today that it will abandon its WMD program and hold democratic elections next October.
Outing himself, Richard Clarke admitted this evening that his only objective was to maximize book sales; retracts allegations that fighting terrorism was not the Bush administration's top priority from day one.
Ken Lay was indicted this morning; arrest is imminent.
President's Mars plan unveiled. Scientists concur that man will land on the Red Planet in 2007.
Mathematical error discovered: President's Medicare plan will cost $400 billion as promised, not $540 billion!
Actual WMD found in Iraq. Hidden bunker containing 1.5 tons of VX gas, 8,000 liters of anthrax, 7,000 liters of botulinum toxin and nearly 1,000 liters of aflatoxin found in the "area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
Income inequality lessened over the last year. While all income brackets saw gains, the poorest households gained the most.
In response to this dramatic turn of events, lefty blogger Atrios accused John Kerry of opportunism and incessant flip-flops and then, on the debut broadcast of Majority Report on Air America, endorsed George W. Bush. Bob Somerby incomparably seconded the endorsement.
I thought I had it working before, but based on a number of emails, the feed quit updating many moons ago. I think I've got it working now, and it gives the full post instead of just the first part. Here's the link:
Generating talking points for the Bush Campaign, via the WSJ (subscription required):
WASHINGTON -- The Treasury tapped civil servants to calculate the cost of Sen. John Kerry's tax plan and then posted the analysis on the Treasury Web site. A federal law bars career government officials from working on political campaigns.
The Treasury analysis doesn't mention Mr. Kerry by name. Rather it sketches out the potential cost of a tax plan that rolls back tax reductions for taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 -- the nub of the Democratic presidential candidate's plan. The result, the Treasury said in the analysis posted March 22, would be a tax increase of as much as $477 billion over 10 years on "hardworking individuals and married couples." The same day, the Republican National Committee issued a press release in which it unveiled what it called its "John Kerry $pendometer," and cited the same $477 billion figure as the cost of "raising taxes on the top income bracket."
Here's one more recent piece of data and analysis about offshore outsourcing, to add to the analysis discussed in the post below.
Jason Kirkegaard of the Institute for International Economics (a nonpartisan think tank devoted to careful research on current issues in international economics) made an extremely detailed examination of the BLS’s labor statistics by industry, occupation, and state to try to identify an impact of offshore outsourcing on those occupations said to be most vulnerable. One could spend hours poring over the detailed cross-tabulations showing exactly which types of jobs have been lost in recent years. In general, the report does not turn up any evidence the offshore outsourcing is responsible for significant job losses in any particular industry or occupation.
Some of the most interesting results can be summarized as follows:
“The vast majority of the jobs lost in the post-bubble US economy from 2000 to 2002 in occupational categories threatened by offshore outsourcing has occurred in the manufacturing sector. This indicates that discussions of white-collar job losses cannot be separated from economic problems in the manufacturing sector.” In other words, the problems of the manufacturing sector affect not just blue collar workers in those firms, but white collar workers as well.
“Most jobs lost have been in high-paying management positions, a different occupational category from the projections most frequently cited.” Since there seems to be little evidence that management jobs are being moved offshore, the cause of these job losses is likely something other than offshore outsourcing.
“Jobs have been lost non-uniformly across different states, with some gaining and others losing jobs, suggesting that no singular nationwide trend other than the regular business cycle is occurring.” For example, in administrative support occupations New York has lost more than 30,000 jobs while California has gained over 30,000 jobs. Thus there seems to be significant relocation and movement of jobs even within the US.
“The US economy every quarter generates many more jobs than are projected to be lost to offshore outsourcing over the next decades.”
“The majority of US jobs projected... to be lost in occupational categories threatened by offshore outsourcing pay less than the US average, suggesting that many of these jobs may face medium-term elimination through technological change, regardless of whether they are outsourced to offshore locations or not.”
“Some IT occupations have declined, but the declines are concentrated in low-skilled IT occupations, and in occupations where economy-wide trends dominate (managers and manufacturing).”
“More than 70,000 computer programmers have lost their jobs since 1999. But more than 115,000 higher paid computer software engineers have gotten jobs since 1999.”
As I’ve said many times before, I’m convinced that the lousy state of the job market in the US is due to the slow economy, plain and simple. Slow economies have always caused sluggish job markets, and this time is no different. In fact, offshore outsourcing was happening in the 1990s, but the job market still did fine because lots of good new jobs were being generated by the strong economy. And despite outsourcing, the job market will improve when the economy finally regains strength and substantial numbers of good new jobs are created once again.
Put another way, even if we imposed a moratorium on offshore outsourcing, the job market would still remain weak because of the weak economy. We won't stop losing jobs, or gain new ones, until demand picks up in the economy, no matter how much or how little international trade the US engages in. So if you’re worried about the job market (which I am), then focus your attention on the pitiful economic management that the Bush administration has shown, and the weak economy that has persisted as a result.
This major study conclusively demonstrat[es] that worldwide sourcing of computer software and services increases the number of U.S. jobs, improves real wages for American workers, and by pushing the U.S. economy to perform at a higher level, has many other economic benefits.
Of course, keep in mind that this was the result that the ITAA had hoped for when they commissioned the study, so one must look very carefully at the assumptions made and models used by Global Insight to arrive at their estimates. Unfortunately, it's a little hard for me to form an opinion about them without having the full report to read, which costs $350. (Though if someone wants to send me a copy, I'd be happy to take a whack at it!) However, from the executive summary it seems that their results are driven by pretty standard and uncontroversial economic effects -- namely, higher productivity and lower prices in the US that are the result of offshore outsourcing.
My initial conclusion? This report by no means provides us with a final or definitive answer -- but it does provide some ammunition for those who point out that there are benefits as well as costs to offshore outsourcing, and that, on an economy-wide basis, those benefits may even outweigh the costs.
Kash
UPDATE: Last sentence modified slightly in response to a reader's comments. Thanks for the input.
TOKYO (CBS.MW) - The dollar fell to the lowest level in almost four years in Asia Wednesday as market participants tested Japan's resolve for its dollar-buying intervention policy ahead of Japan's "tankan" business sentiment survey to be released Thursday.
The dollar traded at 104.29 yen after briefly falling to 103.98. The dollar traded at 105.91 yen late Tuesday in New York. It fell below 104 yen for the first time since June 2000.
UPDATE: Karsten reports on the just-released data describing Japan's interventions in the currency markets over the past month. Japan was apparently still buying lots and lots of dollars in March...
(AP) -- President Bush's decision Tuesday to allow his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to testify publicly before the commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks reversed earlier White House insistence that she would only appear privately.
Some previous Bush reversals in the face of criticism:
# He argued a federal Department of Homeland Security wasn't needed, then devised a plan to create one.
# He resisted a commission to investigate Iraq intelligence failures, but then relented.
# He also initially opposed the creation of the independent commission to examine if the 2001 attacks could have been prevented, before getting behind the idea under pressure from victims' families.
# He opposed, and then supported, a two-month extension of the commission's work, after the panel said protracted disputes over access to White House documents left too little time.
# He at first said any access to the president by the commission would be limited to just one hour but relaxed the limit earlier this month.
And speaking of Bush reversals, he's apparently going to testify before the full 9/11 Commission, but only if Dick Cheney is with him. Seems like some enterprising young Photoshopper could get some mileage from a few pictures of ventriloquists, their dummies, Bush, and Cheney.
AB
UPDATE: TBogg found this CNN story before I did, and he also has the better take:
His supporters will say he is just "evolving". Or, in his case, "creationing".....
In a direct rebuff to the White House, the Senate voted today to increase the amount of money available to provide child care to welfare recipients, who would be subject to stricter work requirements under sweeping welfare legislation favored by President Bush and Congressional leaders.
The vote, 78 to 20, expressed broad bipartisan support for a proposal to add a total of $6 billion to child care programs over the next five years, beyond the additional $1 billion already included in the bill. The federal government now earmarks $4.8 billion a year for such child care assistance.
The vote came one day after the Bush administration expressed its objections to increasing the child care grant, saying in a written statement that it was not needed.
Why does the Bush administration go out of its way to make life more difficult for the most disadvantaged in this country? The cost of providing extra child care support is minimal – just over $1bn per year – and the benefit can be enormous to individuals on welfare, who are told to return to work even if their child care bills exceed the potential income they would earn from working. It may even be the case that increased support for child care will largely pay for itself by moving more people from the welfare rolls and onto private payrolls. So in addition to being mean-spirited, the White House position on this issue makes no economic sense.
Here is the headline from today’s edition of CNN/Money:
Confidence hits 5-month low : Job worries push closely watched measure of sentiment lower in March, though it is above forecasts.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Worries about the job market pushed consumer confidence to its lowest level in five months in March, a research group said Tuesday -- although its index came in above Wall Street forecasts.
We’ve seen indicators that consumer confidence was low for over a month now, so this is completely unsurprising. But given how low consumer confidence has been for the past year or so, I’ve started wondering about whether consumer confidence readings actually tell us anything useful about where the economy is headed.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index comes from tallying the results of a survey of 5,000 randomly selected individuals. A description from their web site follows.
The questions asked to compute the indexes have remained constant throughout the history of the series. The Index is based on responses to 5 questions:
Respondents appraisal of current business conditions.
Respondents expectations regarding business conditions six months hence.
Respondents appraisal of the current employment conditions.
Respondents expectations regarding employment conditions six months hence.
Respondents expectations regarding their total family income six months hence.
For each of the 5 questions, there are three response options: POSITIVE, NEGATIVE and NEUTRAL.
Do these questions actually do a good job of predicting consumer spending? The graph below shows the plot of consumer spending (the orange line, measured in percent shown on the right axis) superimposed on the graph of the consumer confidence rating (the blue line, measured as an index shown on the left axis).
Other than both series being unusually high in the late 1990s, it’s hard to see much of a relationship between the two. Formal econometrics may tease out more of a relationship than casual observation suggests (something that I will leave as an exercise for the reader), but it’s not obvious to me that consumer confidence really does a good job at predicting consumer spending.
She'll probably get points now just for testifying, regardless of what she actually says. In an odd twist, the administration is trying to borrow a page from Bush v. Gore:
In a letter to the commission, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said the commission must agree in writing that Rice's appearance would not set a precedent for testimony by White House staff.
In Bush v. Gore, the majority knew they were writing a bad ruling, and so decided to simply declare that the case would not serve as a precedent for future cases:
Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.
Of course, things become precedents by virtue of happening, not by virtue of beind declared a precedent. On the other hand, I supposed Gonzales is technically correct that Rice's appearance won't be a precedent since previous National Security Advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Sandy Berger have testified before Congress. So what Gonzales must mean is that Rice's testimony could not serve as a precedent for National Security Advisors testifying before "independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature [of the President]."
I now present to you, without further ado, Rice's upcoming testimony:
Saddam Hussein was a dangerous man in the world's most dangerous region.
No one could have predicted that terrorist would use planes as weapons. But had we known that terrorists were going to attack with planes on September 11th, 2001, in the a.m., we would have done everything in our power to prevent it.
C. Fred Bergsten, of the Institute for International Economics, has a piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs in which he outlines his suggested advice for the next president. It’s a lengthy essay, full of sensible thoughts about needed changes to US international economic policy. Highlights:
A reelected President Bush or his successor will have to design and implement new initiatives to address global economic challenges of the highest national and international priority:
forging a new domestic consensus in support of globalization;
restoring and maintaining a sustainable external financial position;
reviving trade liberalization;
and freeing the world economy from the manipulation of energy markets by leading producers.
He will have to do all of this in a new global economic context, in which a unified Europe, a rising China, and a new Asian bloc are shattering the final vestiges of U.S. economic hegemony.
You must watch The Daily Show. On Monday's show, Jon Stewart lead off with some great commentary on the recent talk show circuiting by Rumsfeld, Powell, Cheney, and Clarke.
Addressing Rice’s 60 Minutes appearance in which she said, "Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify":
[Stewart qua Rice] You see, here with you, I can lie. But those people [the 9/11 Commission] want you to put your hand on a Bible and swear to all kinds of crazy stuff. And that, that is not going to help us fight al Qaeda.
On Clarke suggesting, in response to charges that his recent testimony contradicts his 2002 testimony, that the administration not only declassify his October 2002 testimony, but also his 1/2001 memo, the eventual 9/2001 plan, all his emails and memos, and Dr. Rice’s testimony:
[Stewart qua Clarke] I see your declassified memo, and I raise you my hard drive.
Then things got really funny when Stewart turned to Bob Novak, who recently asked Congressman Rahm Emanuel whether he, "believe[s] watching these hearings that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?"
NOVAK: Congressman, do you believe – and you’re a sophisticated guy – watching these hearings that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?”
EMANUEL: [looks stunned, grabs earpiece] Say that again.
STEWART: [interrupting the video] Yes, Robert Novak. Please! Say that again.
NOVAK: Do you believe that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?
EMANUEL: [mixture of non-plussed and bewildered expression] No. Bob, give me a break, no.
STEWART: Wow. Who even knew this deck had a race card? Don't you get it people? Civil rights activist Robert Novak is implying Richard Clarke was never interested in fighting terrorism -- he just hates black people.
That’s the thing about Robert Novak. He’s all about fighting injustice. Whenever he sees a white man attacking a black woman, he’s gotta say something. Or when he hears about a CIA agent still working undercover, he has to reveal that person. That’s Robert Novak. A douchebag for liberty.
Indeed.
AB
P.S. Clarke wasn't on The Daily Show last night, but apparently he'll be on Tuesday night, followed by Karen Hughes on Wednesday.
. But during the Democratic primaries, an unexpected foe stole the ratings crown from all three. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, a mock news program airing on Viacom's (VIA) Comedy Central, attracted more viewers at 11 p.m. than any of the cable news channels in the last two weeks of January, outdoing Fox by 20 percent even as the news network was running live campaign coverage.
Perhaps, but there's still the hang-up of whether or not she'll swear to tell the truth:
The White House looked for a deal on Monday with the Sept. 11, 2001, commission under which national security adviser Condoleezza Rice would appear in private before the panel, but it refused to budge in the face of demands she testify in public and under oath.
I'll repeat my earlier point: Dr. Rice can refuse to answer questions (e.g., if the answers would compromise national security or violate executive priviledge), so I can only divine one reason why she would refused to testify under oath, which I'll politely leave unsaid.
March 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. 10-year Treasury notes fell, pushing yields to their highest in more than three weeks, after the London-based Times said the Bank of Japan may end yen sales, fueling speculation it will buy less U.S. government debt.
Accelerating economic growth means Japan no longer needs a weaker currency to boost exports, the Times said, citing unidentified officials at Japan's central bank, which buys and sells yen on behalf of the Ministry of Finance. The BOJ typically buys U.S. debt with the proceeds of dollar purchases. A ministry official said Japan's currency policy hasn't changed.
Such rumors have been floating around for over a week now, but the fact that they persist and seem to be gaining credibility may be significant. The telltale sign will be if they allow the yen to fall below about 105 yen/dollar, since that seems to have been where they've dug their heels in up to now:
The drop in the yen/dollar exchange rate below 105 would have a minimal impact on the US economy, at least this year. However, given that Treasury data shows that Japan has recently been buying a net of $20-25bn in US government bonds per month, if Japan were to stop buying US treasuries there could be an effect on long-term interest rates. Exactly how much long-term rates will rise is the $64,000 question.
I've noticed that the tradition of free speech -- exercised with enthusiasm -- (laughter) -- is alive and well here in London. We have that at home, too. They now have that right in Baghdad, as well.
American soldiers shut down a popular Baghdad newspaper on Sunday and tightened chains across the doors after the occupation authorities accused it of printing lies that incited violence.
Thousands of outraged Iraqis protested the closing as an act of American hypocrisy, laying bare the hostility many feel toward the United States a year after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
…[T]he letter outlining the reasons for taking action against Al Hawza did not cite any material that directly advocated violence. Several Iraqi journalists said that meant there was no basis to shut Al Hawza down. "That paper might have been anti-American, but it should be free to express its opinion," said Kamal Abdul Karim, night editor of the daily Azzaman.
Omar Jassem, a freelance reporter, said he thought that democracy meant many viewpoints and many newspapers. "I guess this is the Bush edition of democracy," he said.
The US continues to competently win over hearts and minds in Iraq…
First, Clarke: once again, very clear and compelling (I particularly liked this statement.) I also thought Russert was pretty easygoing throughout and let Clarke give detailed answers.
This evening, Dr. Rice was on 60 Minutes to attempt to rebut Clarke's charges. It was the same spin that you've heard before: no plan, we were focused on terrorism and al Qaeda from day one, and so on. But at one point, Dr. Rice did say something interesting:
When we went to Camp David to plan our response to the al Qaeda attack, it was a map of Afghanistan that was rolled out on the table. It was Afghanistan that became the focus of the American response. And Iraq was put aside.
"And Iraq was put aside"? Put aside from what? I thought the administration said Paul O'Neill was lying or mistaken when he said the administration had plans for Iraq from day one? Or did Rice mean that Iraq was in fact the focus during the period from 9/11 to the Camp David meeting and only then were the Iraq plans put aside (which is basically what Clarke charged)? Seriously, I'd like to know what she meant by this.
A just-released Newsweek poll has Bush's approval rating on handling terrorism and homeland security down to 57 percent, a sharp decline from 70 percent two months ago. It is also significant that this rating is down in the 50's--Bush's ratings on terrorism, homeland security and related issues have been steadily in the 60's or above in this and other public polls for a very long time.
