Next Stop, Funny Farm

Some near and dear say that I must get over Iraq. They indicate that I’m beginning to sound like an opponent of the Mexican War still smarting over it in the eighteen eighties.

So what if Iraq was a violation of international law, if it is costing $4.3 billion per week, that we continue to lose lives and suffer casualties, that our Army and Marines are overstretched as a result, that recruitment is suffering, that we have to retire the USS John F. Kennedy; that weapons systems must be cancelled or deferred.

I’m accused of not being able to read the paper. Isn’t it clear that freedom is indeed on the march? The Syrians are scurrying to get out of Lebanon. Mubarak really is a two party man after all. Peace is at hand between the Israelis and Palestinians. (I gave Bush an unambiguous compliment on this on Presidents’ Day.) Women will be driving cars in Saudi Arabia in just months.

Even the French have thrown in the towel; Jacques and George are raising the dickens with Assad over pulling out of Beirut. The tyrannical regimes in the Arab world are collapsing like houses of cards. George Bush is the most important president since Franklin Roosevelt. The neocons were right all along. Why can’t I get on the right side of history?

I can’t. Bush took this nation to war under false pretenses. The attack on a sovereign power that posed no threat to us and that is bleeding us dry physically and fiscally is a cancer that must be resolved – and it can’t be in the short or medium terms. The war on terror is neglected because of it, and our homeland is more vulnerable due to it.

Red herrings are everywhere: Social Security is in crisis; private accounts are what are needed; freedom is at hand in Egypt; and so on. Each one is drawn across the trail, but nothing stanches the flood of money or blood in Iraq.

Am I wrong? Tell me. I need to hear it.

Bill

Three Card Monte

The United States under George W. Bush has as its great foreign policy goal the spread of freedom and democracy to the four corners of the globe. Since we found none of the weapons of mass destruction that were the reason for overthrowing the regime in Baghdad, the spread of democracy has become the ex post facto rationale for the Iraq War while the United Nations resolutions that we unilaterally enforced to save that world body turned out not to have been a big deal after all.

The cost of the Iraq War alone now exceeds $200 billion and will certainly more than double before we can walk away. As we approach the $10,000.00 spending mark for every man woman and child in Iraq to prosecute the war and enforce the peace, it is clear that this is a financially disastrous as well as a debilitating military quagmire in which we are caught.

This says nothing about the hidden and deferred costs of the war such as restocking arms and armaments used up in the desert sand, the cost of veterans’ compensation and hospitalization for our dead and broken bodies, the cost of expanding the army to its newly increased quota, the additional cost of recruiting as bonuses have to double and triple and as more recruiters must be assigned.

The cost of the War is also degrading our other armed forces and home defenses as we put off the purchase of new weapons systems, retire the Navy carrier USS John F. Kennedy, and as we fail to find the money to adequately protect our major ports and cities.

Naturally, as the cost of the war is kept off budget, the deficit grows accordingly and our dependence on countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan to fund it grows each day.

Even if a few of President Bush’s ideas for Social Security were found by the Congress to have merit, there is no way these reforms can be implemented in any but a token manner as the amount of debt that would have to be taken on by the nation is simply too onerous.

Our budget and trade deficits are burgeoning even as the incomes of ordinary Americans stagnate while our plutocrats grow richer and more callous. But all of our major present problems can be traced to the Iraq War.

The president is a master of three card monte in which he is the supreme tosser. His aids; the ropers, Cheney, Rice and a host of neocons continue to draw marks in. But as more and more citizens see through the game, it always gets back to the same queen, Iraq, which he hides with every trick at his disposal.

Even as administration apologists scream that liberal media is undercutting them, they stock the press with ringers and ropers – using tax money in many cases. But every day more voters see that there is no real plan for anything except getting through the day to maintain power.

We’ve been badly used by these neoconservative incompetents.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Look At It This Way

Let’s look at Iraq from a different perspective. How long will we be there? Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld – rightly, in my judgment - says that no one can accurately predict how long the coalition forces will be required to stay. That said, a number of variables have not been considered, at least publicly.

The President has said that we’ll stay only as long as we’re needed and no longer. He’s also said that if the legitimate Iraqi government asks us to leave, the United States will honor the decision. That sounds very good, even hopeful, but there are things in the background that have not been fully vetted for the public.

One of the most important reasons for our intercession in Iraq - as compared for example: to our reticence in Sudan – was the oil. When the constitutional government of Iraq is up and running next year, there is likely to be great pressure from the population and many power centers for the coalition to be sent home. That seems normal enough. But one thing I’ve learned about government – we could call it a law of nature – is that those in power do everything they can to remain in power. That goes for democracies, plutocracies, tyrannies, monarchies, and any other form or philosophy of government that one can conceive.

A year from now the newly formed government in Iraq will be hearing from all sides that they should kick us out of the country. Fair enough. That government will also find – I’m absolutely certain – that there is great interest in how the nation’s oil will be controlled and the income from it distributed. That means that major players not in power would like to be and that should be no surprise to anyone. What does that mean for the coalition? A long stay in Iraq would be my guess.

The new government will not ask us to leave until and unless it is certain of its ability to maintain power. The lives and riches of literally tens of thousands of people will depend on the government's ability to maintain its grip on power and on the spigot of the great national natural resource, oil. It is the simply the nature of human beings to act this way. The government will have Iraqis – encouraged by the tribal and political structure from within the country and by foreign powers – conspiring to overthrow it and to redistribute power and riches in a different manner. The rule of law and that beautiful new constitution be damned.

The whiff of conspiracies designed to kick the legitimate government from power and to seize the wealth of the nation will force the government to act with an abundance of caution as it relates to the protecting coalition. That critics of the Bush Administration scream for and will raise their voices still higher for a timetable means little. We have chosen to ride this tiger, and we will have to remain mounted until the new government in Baghdad is supremely confident of its ability to maintain itself.

I have opposed this war since it was but a gleam in the eyes of these foolish neoconservatives, but all with an ounce of realism about them must see that there is no choice but for the coalition to stay. It is sad that the government of the U.S. did not think this through, but we’re going to continue suffering casualties and pouring treasure into the desert sand for a very long time, and none of this will raise our standing in the Muslim world.

There were no weapons of mass destruction. Reprehensible as the government of Saddam was, it posed no threat to our national security. The war on terror has worsened as a result of this fiasco. None the less, we must no go on indefinitely.

Despite the president’s great skill at diverting us from reality, Iraq is and will remain our greatest problem for the indefinite future. Sadly, it is keeping us from dealing with terror and economic problems of great concern.

It is a terribly sad situation that these neocons have gotten us into

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Middle East Peace

I’ve been beating up something awful on the Used Car Salesman in Chief, but sometimes even Wild Bill has to step back and offer a tip of the cap to the man. I thought President George W. Bush’s policy toward Israel and the Palestinians was, for virtually his entire presidency, a disaster. I am convinced that I was wrong in that assessment.

An acolyte of Samuel Huntington, I was of the view that it was up to the U.S. to rein in its client state, Israel, and, on the other hand, to defend it against its enemies. I was a victim of stodgy thinking on the part of previous presidents. (In his defense, Wild Bill like so many others is never wrong except when he has been victimized.)

From Truman to Clinton and with virtually every other president in between, our policy has been to walk the line between being protector of Israel and an honest broker with her Arab neighbors. It’s gotten us, Israel, and the Palestinians nowhere.

President Bush, like many a parent of fighting children, decided that both sides in this issue were too bellicose and too sure of both the backing of their friends and that the U.S. would never let them fight it out to exhaustion. They and Wild Bill were wrong. All that shuttle diplomacy over fifty years, all those walks in the woods at Camp David, all that hand wringing by American presidents, all of the foreign aid, none of it gained peace for the combatants.

George W. Bush’s policy of hands off benign neglect has worked. Of all the things Wild Bill has ever said about this president from calling him wrong in Iraq to ridiculous on Social Security it’s been a long time since he hasn’t regarded George Bush as a lot smarter than the Democrats and the media have ever given him credit. And in this case, Mr. Bush was brilliant.

A high percentage of Israelis and Jews around the world came to the conclusion that the long time policy of Israel toward the Palestinians had a fatal flaw. That no matter how many settlements were seeded on the West bank and Gaza, demography would inevitably make it impossible for Israel to sustain its long held views toward these outposts. But it was not going to be an American president who was going to impress this upon the Israelis or their government. It would be done by home boys or nobody.

Obviously, a goodly number of Israelis have understood this for years, but as it took a Richard Nixon, the great anti communist, to cut the Gordian knot of establishing relations with Red China so it would take a powerhouse from Likud to show the way in Israel. Ariel Sharon is that man. Only a leader with a life long record of toughness on the question could have performed this great task.

So, after four years of both sides throwing everything they had into the fray, they have concluded that peace may be the only or at least the best option. Wild Bill, not being anywhere near an expert on the nuances of the issues separating the sides, will wind down here. The pain of the pullback from Gaza will be intense. The same goes for what lies ahead for many of the settlements on the West Bank.

The Palestinians have had four years to examine their policy and it too is laden with pain. But after all the suffering, an independent Palestine that includes recovery of much of its pre 1967 land and some reasonable access to Jerusalem looks mighty good. The almost impossible decision on the right of return for Palestinians has not been settled publicly, still nobody’s screaming, “Stop!”

Two men are to be given credit for the journey and the twists and turns that got us here, George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon. Wild Bill on this Presidents Day Holiday takes a respite from his job of beating up the president on his flawed policies in Iraq and on the Domestic scene, and, as Herblock of the Washington Post did for Richard Nixon, and give him a clean shave and a pat on the back. He’s right!

Pool

Judgment has been rendered; the New Deal and The Great Society are unsustainable and they must go. The corporate and financial leadership has decided that if America is to be competitive, the social safety net must have bigger holes. Social Security, health care, pension benefits, everything must be on the table.

In the March 10, 2005 edition of the New York Review of Books, Paul Krugman in his brilliant essay and book review, America’s Senior Moment, mounts a great defense against the leadership’s judgment but it may not penetrate the national psyche (See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17771).

The leadership has looked at our major competitors, The European Union, Japan, Russia, and China, and concluded that America must become leaner and meaner if it is to maintain its economic leadership. The Used Car Salesman in Chief, now that his military adventure in Iraq has come unglued, has found the great purpose of his second term and, I might add, his medium. He roars about the country selling his great vision of the ownership society that will be bought with borrowed money.

It has been determined by the leadership that the cradle to the grave benefits programs of European countries and Japan are not the way to go. While Krugman dramatically destroys many of the assumptions of the leadership’s new ideal in America, I fear that few are really listening to anyone but the car salesman.

I shouldn’t put this all on Mr. Bush. In the nineteen seventies under Jimmy Carter, it was decided that federal and military pensions were unsustainable, and both program were changed. The Federal Civil Service defined benefits program was cut by almost fifty percent, and employees hired after its adoption live in a hybrid world of reduced benefits and defined contributions. These are generous, but the government’s obligation is significantly reduced.

Similarly during President Carter’s administration, deregulation of major industries, including airlines, undermined the benefits programs of workers in these industries. Over the years since Carter, many other defined benefits programs in American industries have been under funded and are unable to meet their obligations.

So The Car Salesman in Chief has proclaimed Social Security to be in crisis, and he has stated that he has a plan to correct the situation, but, of course, no plan has emerged – nothing, it’s all problem and no solution, except that we must have private accounts and borrow trillions of dollars to get them up and running. As our Harold Hill traverses the boonies selling his trombones and cornets to save us from today’s version of `pool’, there is little but hot air to determine the necessity of the effort. But we’ve got to buy it.

As we enter into trade agreements that undermine the wages of American workers and that ship their jobs to low wage countries, we learn that our economy is doing great and will get better if we only we will continue to strip it of manufacturing jobs and capacity and still more robust when we reform – scuttle - the remnants of the New Deal and The Great Society.

It is amazing that this pitch is working more effectively in Red States than in Blue ones. Many Red States are far more dependent on New Deal and Great Society programs, yet these folks cheer loudest as our Harold Hill points to the future when we’ll all be playing Sousa on our new trombones and cornets. Franklin Roosevelt with Social Security and farm subsidy programs saved America, including – perhaps even especially – those states colored scarlet, and perpetrated a peaceful revolution that saved the American capitalism in the 1930s. But we don’t need these programs any longer, so preacheth Harold.

Wild Bill feels he’s watching a surreal version of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in which the Salesman is playing Lenny and assuring George that there’ll be bunnies and kittens. Well we all know how Lenny solved George’s problems. I don’t mind snake oil, but it really is those on the bottom who will be most adversely impacted. And they’re screaming for the changes at full throat.

Oh well, it’s Happy Hour.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

It's Granny! She's Got Her Bag!

It seems that everybody’s down on Grandma, at least all the free market Republicans. She’s accused of chewing up resources that could be better used by younger more productive people. Not only does she gobble up Social Security payments, she practically inhales Medicare and may even someday be faced with sucking up Medicaid. The question seems to be heading toward, “Why doesn’t the old fart make like an Eskimo and drift away on an ice flow?”

Since I live with one of these grandmas, I feel obligated to mount a defense for the old bats and try to offer reasons why that kind might not be so bad to keep around, at least for a while. As you young folks go about reforming Social Security try not to think only negative thoughts about the oldsters. Remember you may well be a granny or grampa one day too, unless, of course, they take you to the vet’s and put you to sleep.

As the president keeps reminding us, most workers contribute more than 6% of their wages into the system for well over forty years, and their employers are dunned a like amount. The government borrows from the fund at the low rate of T-Bills thus saving taxpayers a goodly sum over the period. Now, instead of investing program funds at a better rate itself, the president proposes to let individuals make such investment while it borrows trillions to prop up the system.

Obviously, tax liability on 85% percent of Social Security payments provides significant income to the feds at least from all those rich seniors which are the ones that everyone complains about.

Another factor that is lost in the discussion on Social Security, federal, and private defined benefit pension programs is that at least when Grandma was young, it was a social good to provide job openings for younger generations of workers by buying out the incumbents. You may recall from reading about the Civil War that doddering clerks were unable to keep up with the burgeoning paper work due to their physical and mental incapacity and decline. They had no choice but to work until they fell face first on their desks. In actuality, that’s the way it was everywhere until the New Deal. We’re rethinking that one, and Granny will have to soldier on into the sunset.

Many of the elderly contribute to the present boom by providing off books services to workers in the form of baby sitting and other minor work that maintain the productivity of the working generation. Wild Bill opines that more of that goes on at the lower income levels where it is more desperately needed. Obviously, that service ranges from almost nothing to practically supporting the whole operation while the productive generation puts food on the table. Also because of many a Granny, the lucky minority also puts money in 401Ks and contributes their 6% to granny’s current Social Security check.

Next time you’re in the hospital – naturally, we hope it’s only to visit the sick – look around and note that many of the unpaid volunteers are a little older than you. When Granny’s broke, health care costs will have to rise as she will require a wage to do that job. Grannies also read to your kids at school. I guess we’ll have to budget an aid for that job when Granny has to bag groceries. That reminds me, a lot of old folks are working for pay – and paying all kinds of taxes – even as this is written.

Seniors pay a great deal more in local taxes than they take in the form of services. While this can be written off their federal liability, their net property tax is far greater than their local benefits. Also many millions of home owning seniors who are exempt from federal taxes because of low income pay a local tax tariff. This eases the burden on workers who – if they have children – are heavily subsidized as they prepare for the burden of paying for college. Naturally, seniors continue to support state schools if they pay state taxes and millions of them do.

But by far the biggest subsidy that goes to the elderly is in the form of health care, including nursing home care. This federal subsidy in the form of Medicare and Medicaid – which spills over to become a state problem as well - is terribly expensive. But there are mitigations to these benefits as well. For earlier generations, many were sandwiched by two other generations needing their physical and financial support. Much about what the president rails about came about because a lot of folks didn’t want to be saddled with Grandma just hanging around the house.

These are hidden subsidies for the working middle class as well as for the direct beneficiaries. People today have enough trouble raising and caring for junior without the added burden of putting old Mom up in the closet.

The social compact works in many ways and to attack it frontally sometimes opens up things that are not usually taken into account. Times have changed since the majority of grannies lived in the back bedroom of the middle aged, so as you think about cutting Grandma off the federal teat, remember she may have to come live with you. Not to worry, you’ll treasure those memories when you move in with your own little junior.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Dollars in the Sand

Not counting the human cost for our troops, our allies, or for Iraqis, the administration has asked for a supplemental appropriation for Iraq that amounts to $4.3 billion per week. This does not include the war in Afghanistan, homeland security or anything else in the supplemental such as tsunami relief.

So $614 million per day, $25.6 million per hour, or $460,000 per minute - your choice on units of time - are being poured into the sand in Iraq. Extrapolate that over truly difficult potential adversaries such as Iran or North Korea and it is easy to see why we must realign ourselves with our friends.


After all the sloganeering about freedom and that the Iraqis are better off without Saddam, we need some accounting for this fiasco.

Question Authority

Before the world of blogging opened before him, Wild Bill was an inveterate writer of letters to editors – and a damn successful one with numerous letters appearing in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and many other smaller papers. But it was such a pain to have to boil one’s thoughts down to the very small number of words under the tiny maximums permitted. And, of course, about ninety percent of them didn’t make it while the stupid rants of lesser lights filled space that could have been used to educate and entertain the readers.

But blogging changed everything. Bloggers could say what they wanted at any length they chose. The only limit was their perception of the patience of the readers they’d lured to their sites. Since last August, I haven’t written a single letter to an editor, relying on my blog to serve as bait for as many readers as possible. I’ve been lucky, and the number who tune in on my pieces increases slightly with each posting.

But under prodding from a few wise guy friends and relatives, my weakness was exploited and I sent a poison pen missile to the local section of the Washington Post about a proposal by the Fairfax County, VA Park Authority to single out seniors for a rate increase to play golf. It was fun, my old mean streak shown like a beacon.

Wild Bill’s not the even handed angel he portrays when his personal ox is gored. Here’s his little dab of spilled bile.

“To the Editor:

The Fairfax County Park Authority has looked into the future and completely misread it. Instead of seeing the need for more open space that might be used by its citizens for recreation, it has determined that the best course of action is to identify one of the groups most in need of such facilities and the one most likely to use them in off peak hours – seniors – and to price out the poorest among them. Naturally, they expect these same seniors – the largest growing group of taxpayers in the county by the Authority’s own reckoning – to support Park Authority bonds.

The proposed increase in fees for seniors on county golf courses makes no sense. I’m in my seventies and play golf at Pinecrest, Burke Lake, Greendale, the two courses at Twin Lakes, and on semi-public facilities throughout the region about once a week during the fair weather months, so I’m subsidized to the tune of about $100.00 per year under present policy.

The Authority is correct in its assumption that seniors will grow both in number and as a percentage of the county’s residents, but for them to work backward from that to the solution that poorer seniors must be driven from these courses by draconian price increases defies logic, especially since – at least as it relates to Pinecrest, Greendale, and Burke Lake, the facilities most often cited in the media – the authority has its facts wrong. The idea that seniors are overwhelming these courses is simply not true.

No serious affluent golfer of any age would play these courses on a regular basis. Anyone with means and serious intent is a member of a country club or plays the rapidly proliferating semi-private courses throughout the region that compete aggressively for off peak affluent players. Most of the golfers playing Burke Lake, Pinecrest and Greendale are far from wealthy, and I invite the members of the Authority to check these parking lots for BMWs and Mercedes.

That senior charges should increase while junior golfers retain their present rates is rank age discrimination and defies logic. The increase for seniors is designed to head off an avalanche of golfers, while the junior fees are set to encourage growth of play to develop the customers of tomorrow. In view of the new holes coming on line in Lorton, are there really going to be too many off-peak players?

Taxes on senior owned property increases far faster than their retirement income and they are under great cost pressure. Yet they are called upon – begged – to support school and park bonds. While the Authority judges seniors to be daft, if the proposed rate increase for seniors stands, older members of the community would be foolish to support any future park bond issues.

Seniors are generous in support of children through our votes and our taxes. So to demonstrate where the county’s priorities lie, the Authority proposes to remove one of the small subsidies from seniors who pay far more taxes than they get in services and continue to subsidize school age youngsters to play golf. Seniors pay taxes, do not require new roads, don’t attend school, and don’t play subsidized golf on the weekends so, “Off with their heads!” This seems a poor way to preserve the social compact within the county.

Obviously, the intent of the new rate schedule is to ration play by cost, to increase income, and to reduce wear and tear on the facilities. I won’t argue with those goals but would point out that an independent study will almost certainly show that virtually all prime tee times on the three courses above and both Twin Lakes courses are reserved long before play begins. It is obvious that an economic model that does not result in some open spots indicates a rate schedule that is too low. Therefore, it is clear that the Park Authority is trying to balance its budget on golfers who play on off peak hours.

The proposed rate increase is based on faulty analysis, is discriminatory, and will result in bad public policy. See you at the polls!

Sincerely,”

Life’s too much fun not to question authority.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Not in Our Stars But In Ourselves

Human beings can rationalize anything, and for most the answers are always simple.

I was saddened to read of the Neo Nazi demonstration in Dresden. Anyone who has studied World War II or read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut has empathized with the residents of that great old city and felt despair at the sight of the bodies and the ruins. Now the Neo Nazis have found in this tragedy the victimhood needed to dilute blame for the Holocaust.

They have found common cause with residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in blaming the allies, especially the United States, for what happened in February 1945. Fortunately, most Germans reject that notion and accept national guilt for crimes of the Third Reich.

It is so easy to blame others for our difficulties. If only the Kulaks would give in the new Soviet man could appear. Twenty million deaths later, the Soviets were no closer to a stateless society than when the purge began. Germany’s economic problems of the twenties and thirties were the fault of the Jews.

There seem to be four great answers to political and economic difficulties: it’s somebody else’s fault; it must be collectivized; the state must control the economy; and the market will make us free. Men and women of my era have seen each of these answers come a cropper.

Despite the greatest failure of collectivism of all time, there is never a shortage of those screaming for nationalization of industries and for the reeducation of the rest of us. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are not alone in calling for redistribution as the answer to a nation’s needs.

Even as Hitler’s Germany was being consumed in its own excesses, strong men from the right were being born and preparing to cure the ills of such disparate societies as Chile, Iraq and a host of other states.

Even as communism fades in China, the regime saves itself by taking on the qualities of gangsterism so representative of National Socialism.

While here in the U.S. as the memory of the Great Depression fades from our national memory, many are intent on dismantling the tools that saved us from the excesses of the market. Laissez faire policies that brought us robber barons in the nineteenth century are being recycled in our own time to create a capitalist class of great wealth even as the national standard of living stagnates.

Words like business cycle and crash have been banished from our lexicon. Ownership has new meaning as we happily ignore or forget that everyone was welcome to participate in the market run up of the nineteen-twenties.

Progressives of both of our political parties saw a role for government in a capitalist society. But now the watch word from one side is that liberals want to socialize and impoverish and from the other that capitalist excess has already crossed the line to right wing excess.

The answers are harder than the slogans that parties proclaim. But those who seem to understand this are marginalized. We centrists must never give up. It is up to us to demand that the rules of reason and law must not disappear.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Rainbow Over The Potomac

There is hope! Wild Bill is clean and sober and sees a rainbow through his window.

While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was giving the Europeans a taste of good old American common sense and a bit of a schoolmarm tongue lashing that they just have to put all those bad feelings about Iraq behind them and get with the program, we have to realize dear readers that the scolding was for consumption in the American hinterland. And Rush and Sean and Ann and G. Gordon and all the rest will use Condi’s words as bedtime stories of the faithful.

Red staters will cheer as Condi tells “old Europe” just what must be done to spread the Bush doctrine of freedom throughout the world and why they better leap to our side. The message for consumers in Fargo and Lincoln is that Jacques Chirac should simply ignore the past and get on with life.

But there is another message being sent to the international community, a serious and somber one. Yesterday, in watching Donald Rumsfeld interact with both wounded Americans and Iraqi police recruits, I was struck by how old and weary he appeared. The always ebullient Rummy just plodded through his obligatory hand holding and moved on to the next bed. Reading Doonsebury this morning – I get my Sunday comics a day early – I was stunned to see that Gary Trudeau had picked up on this even earlier than me.

When Rumsfeld returned to Europe for a conference on security in Munich, it was clear that Rummy speaks for a badly chastened administration. He openly acknowledged that the U.S. will be unable to sustain the war on terror without outside help. Bloomberg reports that for Rumsfeld, force is, “always the last resort.” And that in the fight against terror there will be a need for contributions from “many governments.”

“It must be clear that one nation can’t defeat the extremists alone,” Rumsfeld said. “Neither can any one nation successfully combat the asymmetrical threats of this new era. It will take the cooperation of many nations to stop the proliferation of dangerous weapons.” This is hardly the Rummy of two years ago when “Mission Accomplished” was the marquee headline.

Beneath the surface of the bold and brave rhetoric of the president and the Secretary of State there is a realization that there are limits to American power and that we were wrong in Iraq. What we need now is cover from our real allies as we are forced to withdraw from Baghdad. Rummy was almost begging for it, and I think that Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac are clever enough to provide it.

So while we bask in the glow of the January 30 elections in Iraq, we are preparing those who supported the adventure for the idea that the Iraqis will have to sink or swim on their own. We can cover them for a while with troops and aid, but it will be up to them to survive on their own. Democracy and freedom are great words for Inaugural Addresses, but when the rubber hits the road in Baghdad, the government and constitution in place will bear only slight resemblance to our own. The government may well have the consent of the governed, however, and that’s the best we can do..

So while Condi gives the French what for and as Rush and the rest rail at the United Nations, reality is setting in at the Pentagon and – you may be sure – in other buildings in Washington. There is hope for the nation this morning.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Investing Social Security Funds in Equities

One of my loyal readers wants to know why I'm opposed to investing Social Security payments in equities and bonds? I'm not. I'm opposed to personal accounts. By ridiculing that notion so vigorously, I suppose it was natural for readers to jump to that conclusion.

I have no trouble with the government investing the fund into something other than Treasury Notes. The Congress would have to keep in mind that risks are out there and that members would be responsible for setting up a program that costs relatively little to administer and that is nimble enough to cut losses.

My basic complaint with Mr. Bush's program is that it will create winners and losers and exacerbate class complaints. I would bet on the nation and its economy and have the profits used to shore up and extend the present level benefits far into the future. It too will take massive borrowing, but if it saves the system and makes long term fiscal sense, why not?

My first move, however, would be to raise the regressive tax that limits Social Security payments to the first $80,000.00 of income. That's a supposed sticking point with the president. Tough luck for him!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Happy Retirement

As the administration’s proposals for Social Security are exposed to scrutiny, a new concern rears its ugly head - at least for me - the possible adverse impact on the social compact between the generations. To develop support for his program, the president may well exacerbate the conflict between the generations – the opposite of the stated intention.

All those receiving Social Security payments and those close to retirement would, under the president’s plan, be exempt from the provisions that he supports – good politics. That, however, does not settle the war between the generations but merely postpones it – in this case until those under age fifty begin to retire in fifteen or twenty years.

The president and the Congress can exempt present and near retirees from the provisions of the new legislation, but they cannot guarantee that the exemption will remain in place.

In 1972, large numbers of the so-called “Notch” generation were significantly and adversely impacted by a change in Social Security benefits. That grouping of cohorts born between 1917 and 1921 were inadvertently impacted by legislation in 1972 that caused a number of anomalies in benefits. Many of that age grouping who retired young (age 62) did relatively better than those who worked many years beyond the age of minimum retirement.

The “Notch” generation – those remaining are now all well into their eighties – fought to no avail over many years for equity and for a revisit of the calculation of benefits they received. This relatively small number of recipients that thought it had been unfairly treated by the government – and it cannot be said with certainty that they were not but it was certainly without intent – was able to secure support in Congress for a long struggle in which they ultimately failed.

The benefits cut off proposed by the president just about splits the Baby Boom generation down the middle, the older half would be treated as all today’s recipients are and the younger would get some yet to be explained transitional set of benefits. Young workers coming into the system after enactment would be covered by the provisions of the new program.

Today’s mantra is that anyone on Social Security today and those near retirement age would have nothing to worry about. Really? As those favored under the president’s proposal begin to die off, the massive number of the Baby Boomers and those behind them in the queue for benefits will have an opportunity to see the new program unfold. Obviously, as the program comes on line, it will become more and more apparent that the program works pretty much as expected, more generously than expected, or, obviously, less generously.

Clearly, the millions of young retirees (today’s 55 to 65 group) and those younger will have ample time to asses if the deal is equitable. If not, any promises made to today’s retirees and near retirees will be subject to great political pressure either to bring the new group up equivalently – impossible – or to adversely impact those on the Social Security rolls at that time. That could include reducing cost of living benefits or any number of other ways of assuring equity.

The president and the Congress will make promises, but they won’t be around when the rubber hits the road. While it is easy for us older folks to buy into the system, most of the effects will be felt only after we’re dead, younger people both retired and within ten years of retirement today had better consider that as the benefits of those paid under the old system will be paid to a smaller number of beneficiaries over time while those looking at lesser benefits will be a constantly increasing percentage of the electorate, so all promises made in 2005 may be revisited in the future.

We’re I in my forties or fifties, I’d be looking for ways to shore up the present system rather than buying the pig in a poke of personal accounts.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Feelin' Blue

Today’s a bad day for Wild Bill. He‘s seeing red and feeling blue.

Frankly, when the president goes out in the boon docks to sell that hokum of his on Social Security and Iraq, I feel bad. I was born during the Great Depression and came of age during the Cold War and believe deeply that he is wrong on both issues.

If there were two things that I thought might survive those bad old times, they were Social Security and collective security among the nations of the world. Obviously, I was wrong and the heroes of my youth, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and even Richard Nixon are gone and forgotten, about as relevant as passe heroes of my own youth like Franklin Pierce and William McKinley.

Clearly the reasons for passing Social Security have been forgotten. So too it is with collective security. The reasons the United Nations was deemed essential have been dumped as the venality of a few is allowed to obscure the goals and objectives of the institution.

But that isn’t what makes me sad; it’s the reaction of those good ol’ boys from North Dakota, Nebraska and wherever the hell else Bush roams among the buffalo. Those good folks lapped it up like a litter of kittens after a saucer of milk. How about that? Bush's approval ratings are rising like my blood pressure.

They’re so damned dependent on Social Security, farm subsidies, Amtrak and every other damn federal program and still they’re buying into that ownership society. Hot damn! Those boys and girls are gonna be so rich they won’t know what to do with their money.

So I’m spending my days drowning my sorrow and writing my latest Country and Western song, Cheers of Red Make My Tears of Blue. I can hardly wait for it to hit the charts so I can join the ownership society.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

State of the Union

President Bush’s performance last night in the State of the Union Address was very formidable. He has definitely grown in office and no longer looks like a man dependent on his underlings. The giants of the first administration, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld, looked oddly smaller and older while the power and vigor of the president shone through.

Thus Bush began his quest for support for his two major issues – the Iraq War and Social Security Reform – with a leg up in the public mind, if not in the Congress. The speech brilliantly written and almost flawlessly delivered was deficient on those two issues to the point of obfuscation.

That Iraqis voted in large number last Sunday was a triumph of the human spirit. It doesn’t mean that democracy can be permanently imposed on that country at the point of an American gun. We’re going to have to go home someday. Nor does it hide the fact that our new rationale for the attack – extension of freedom around the world – is a giant leap away from traditional views of the American presidency and the Constitution itself. That the Bush Doctrine on display in the Inaugural Address which had to be interpreted by so many, including George H.W. Bush, as not nearly so bellicose as it was believed by those who heard it, was in my judgment an ex post facto rationale for the war itself.

With regard to Social Security reform, the president left the Republican majority with the unenviable task of writing the legislation and of explaining it to the voters. Mr. Bush recited many of the proposals that leading commentators have made but didn’t say he favored any of them. The Republicans are going to have to write the legislation and suffer the slings and arrows of the Democrats along the way – or were those catcalls I heard from the Democrat side really cheers?

10.0 for delivery and 2.0 for content does not sound like a guaranteed winner to me. The president failed to adequately address the fiscal problems of Medicare and Medicaid, far more important drains on our treasury than Social Security. I guess what I’m saying is that the president’s performance was a tour de force of style over substance. A gentleman’s C just won’t do for issues of this magnitude.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Post Election Questions

In the face of the overwhelming success of the election in Iraq yesterday, what are those of us who opposed the war to make of this?

We must acknowledge the desire of Iraqis to find stability and democracy – I, and I’m sure my readers, never doubted it. They turned out to the polls in great numbers, braving terrorist threats and actions. There can be no doubt that this war torn nation and its citizens will go to great lengths to stop the carnage. This acknowledgement in no way, however, signifies that how we came to this day and this result was an appropriate action on the part of our government.

That a people would rather elect their officials and select their constitution and form of government instead of living under a tyrannical regime should surprise no one. Frankly, I will admit surprise at the large number of voters who turned out. The threats made by the terrorists were very frightening and it took courage to stand in open lines at the polling stations.

In retrospect, the confidence of the Bush Administration that an election could be held and that many voters would brave the dangers was correct. Obviously, the intelligence within Iraq is improving. But what does all this mean?

My first thought is that my mindset during the Inaugural Address of two weeks ago was improperly focused and I evaluated it in the wrong light. My initial reaction to the speech was, as directed by the words of the president, to look to the future. While our military position in Iraq made it obvious that we could not at this time sustain another war and rebuilding project in an even larger and more difficult situation such as in Iran, President Bush was staking a claim to the hearts and minds of oppressed people across the globe.

In the wake of the Iraqi election, perhaps we were looking in the wrong direction. Maybe we should have been looking backward. Since all of our reasons for attacking Iraq and toppling the existing regime turned out to be wrong, perhaps the Inaugural Address was meant to be President Bush’s apology for the war. Since why we went in could not be supported, the new Bush Doctrine of helping oppressed people everywhere could be applied retrospectively and all would be made right with American citizens and voters.

Unless one buys into the idea that toppling Saddam was a good thing for the Iraqi people, everything we’ve done is a terrible waste of lives and resources and makes no sense in the War on Terror. Agreeing with the Bush Doctrine makes the regime change in Baghdad a permissible use of American military might and an ex post facto legitimizing of the action. And the president’s constant mantra of stating that the Iraqis are better off without Saddam suddenly takes on new meaning.

All of these mental gymnastics must, however, be performed in isolation from the rest of the world. Nothing has changed in the way we went to war except our after the fact explanation of why we did it. We did not secure the approval of the Security Council. Our coalition of the willing is still us, Great Britain, and token support from a small percentage of the nations of the world. And all of the problems of illegality of our preemptive (really it was preventive) action under international law have not been expunged.

We know that the Iraqis want peace, democracy and stability. We knew that before the war. We can deduce the same for the people of Iran, North Korea and just about any other place in the world governed by a tyrant. That said, what’s next? I don’t know, but there are still questions to be answered.

The Iraqis will have a self selected government within weeks. They will have a wonderful constitution in the very near future. The presence of more than 100,000 troops from the U.S. and its coalition partners assures that the new government will have time to prepare for its own security and survival. When the Americans leave, will the coalition of ethnic groups hold? Will the new Iraqi government require significant financial and military aid even after the oil revenue begins to pour in? Even further out, if a coup is attempted, would we intervene militarily? Could we? Could we not?

Yesterday was great. The future lies ahead, a great unkown.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Carnac the Magnificent

With the death this week of late night host Johnny Carson, those of us who watched him for years were saddened by his loss and the reminder of our own mortality. But sadness should not lead to despair. As Johnny borrowed liberally from his predecessors, like his own hero, Jack Benny, so others borrow from him. As we recognize these techniques in a new generation of comedians, we can take comfort and smile that nothing is ever really lost and gone forever.

You recall how with the great red and gold combination pillow and turban, Carnac the Magnificent could divine the answer to any question without the need of reading or hearing the query. Thus, “Sis-boom-baa,” was the answer to the yet to be asked, “What sounds does an exploding sheep make?”

And you thought we’d never hear such cleverness again. Silly reader.

The answers by George are: “The Iraqi people are better off without Saddam.” “Condi Rice will make a great Secretary of State and should be confirmed without delay.” “Al Gonzalez will make a great Attorney General and should be confirmed without further delay.”

Give up? Okay, I won’t tease you any longer; here are the questions in order:

“Since all of the reasons you gave for attacking Iraq turned out to be wrong and we’ve lost almost two thousand American lives, more than ten thousand of our troops have been wounded, almost twenty thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed, we poured more than two hundred billion dollars into the desert sand, and we’ve lost our focus on the War on Terror, was the Iraq War worth fighting?”

“Since Secretary Designate Rice withheld information from the Congress, press and public on the uses of the aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq before the war, and completely misrepresented the threat posed by Iraq, should she not be rejected by the Senate?”

“Since Attorney General Designate Gonzalez was the architect of a policy to undermine the Geneva Convention’s prohibition on the torture of those in our custody, and since he refused to explain his role in this to the Senate Judiciary Committee, should he not be rejected by the full Senate?”

Clearly dear reader our period of mourning for Johnny should be shortened as we realize that his best routines will never die.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Amendment XXII

A question that often arises these days is whether the Twenty-second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution should be repealed. That amendment limits U.S. presidents to two elected terms and to not more than ten years total in that office.

The amendment was proposed in 1947 in reaction to the long tenure of Franklin Roosevelt. When the amendment was adopted in 1951, I – a youngster of but seventeen years - was outraged as it was clearly directed at my political hero. With the passage of time, my political views and the presidency itself have changed.

Despite having feet of clay, Roosevelt remains my hero. Since my youth, when anything he did was in a word `heroic’, heroes and the presidency have changed. Until recently, the private lives of those in leadership positions were generally off limits to the public, and our leaders were portrayed as the unalloyed gold standard of humanity. Today, even seventeen year olds realize that our leaders are mere mortals.

Times have changed since 1951. Men are smaller, but that has given rise to a much more powerful presidency. Theodore Roosevelt’s `bully pulpit’ has morphed into the ubiquitous and unrelenting presence and sound of George Bush in our living rooms. While politicians and pundits scream for our attention, only the President of the United States commands that great window in our homes and cannot be banished from our TV screens.

In my posting of December 28, 2004, Blog On, I made the case that the presidency has grown too powerful vis-à-vis the Congress and the courts and that our system of checks and balances is out of whack.

While I voted for President George W. Bush in 2000, The Iraq War, his tax policy tilt in favor of the rich, and the tremendous trade and budget deficits caused me to vote for Senator John F. Kerry. Since then, the president’s ability to transmit his message and to not waver has drawn both my ire and admiration. While harboring no personal animus toward Mr. Bush, I believe that permitting him or anyone else to run for more than two terms would not be in the best interest of the country and would not favor repealing the Amendment.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Just What Do We Owe To Our Grandchildren?

President Bush has made a point of repeatedly reminding us that we must reform Social Security so that our grandchildren will not be left unprotected when the program can no longer pay full benefits sometime after 2042. Just what do we owe our grandchildren?

During the Great Depression, under the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this nation took on unprecedented debt as a result of public works and social spending deemed essential to maintaining our society. This great program of Keynesian economics may or may not have contributed to the ending of bad times, but it certainly worked as political tool in preserving our government and nation in its worst economic crisis.

Before we knew it, we were at war with forces of evil that exceed even those we face today since it was directed by nation states with the power to back it up with arms. Again that greatest generation did what it had to do to preserve protect and defend the nation against its enemies.

Frankly, these double barreled crises called for action without regard to what it might do to the children and grandchildren of the nation. In the first, our social fabric was at stake and in the second our very survival was in question. During the period between 1932 and 1945, we took on greater debt than could ever have been dreamed of just a decade earlier. There was no concern over how would repay this debt or its impact on future generations.

That debt has never been paid in full and is now commingled with debt that can be attributed to the Civil War and perhaps even earlier. Certainly dear reader, you don’t think that we compartmentalize our debts by year or event. You must know that debt loses its identity with the years and is rolled over – the new with the old – as new paper is issued and old retired by the Treasury.

President Bush says over and over again that he is intent on protecting our grandchildren from a crisis in Social Security funding. This is a problem not of his making, but it is one that he is bound and determined to bring to our attention. Rome is burning, and he is intent on solving a problem that can wait? Could it be that he is attempting to distract us? As I’ve written before, this is red herring designed to take our minds off of our real problems.

We are at war in Iraq. We overthrew a regime – admittedly hated and without morals – that was no threat to us or our allies. The two major charges against Saddam’s government: that they had weapons of mass destruction with which they threatened us and our allies; and that they were conspiring with al Qaeda in an effort to aid that evil institution – by making it possible for the terrorists to acquire WMDs. No such weapons were uncovered and no such conspiracy was proved.

As the president talked about a nation at war, he asked no sacrifice from us, the citizens of this generation. In fact he pushed through a major tax program that reduced our liability in funding our adventures. As an aside, this reduction was far greater for those with high income and wealth than on those of modest means, but that’s for another posting. The rationale for the cuts was clear and simple, we needed to stimulate the economy. Even giving on that point, the president now alleges that the economy is going great guns but we must extend the tax benefits – that still favor the rich over the middle class.

Social Security must be addressed, but is certainly not something that must be faced while we are at war and in budget crisis. Our people are living longer – and healthier – and there is no reason why over time we could not raise the age of retirement. Some of our people will make a lot more money than the amount taxed by Social Security. That doesn’t mean that a larger amount should not be taxed; it is after all an insurance program. I find it ludicrous that one of the selling points for the private accounts is that one can be left as part of an estate. To me SS is a term policy for those who live to collect and for the dependents of those who die or become disabled. Why you would divert a third of the self contribution and turn it into an inheritable asset while the fund continues to gallop its way to bankruptcy.

As many have noted, for years we have had retirement accounts but millions of our citizens, especially lower income people, do not participate in these programs. That has some bearing on why I would favor the government investing a portion of the fund in slightly higher yielding investments – with the obvious caveats about risk. Clearly the intent for me would be to extend the solvency period and not enrich the few lottery winners who invest very well over their careers. These winners have the talent and will have the resources to win without further government support.

The country is in the midst of a demographic revolution. Since readily available and reliable birth control measures became available in the sixties all elements of the society (not just the rich) have been able to reduce the number of children born per woman. Over time, we will have to adjust to that fact. Right now, however, we can tinker on the edges of our social system, Social Security, and demographic problems while observing how nations that are even more demographically challenged deal with the problem. Obviously, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and many others will show us the way.

Our SS fund is sufficient until about 2042. And contrary to what the president says it will not be bankrupt then. If we do nothing, benefits will have to be reduced substantially or retirement made even later. If we tinker modestly at this time, we can push that time frame out by many decades. Long before that time, many of the mature nations above will have solved the problem by hook, crook, or bankruptcy, and we will have the opportunity to pick the best models and courses.

I believe that it is for each generation to solve the problems it faces. I’m not saying we should intentionally ruin our grandchildren for our pleasure and comfort, but we don’t have to go out of or way to solve their problems. The greatest generation paid for Keynesian solutions to the Great Depression and created the greatest military machine in the history of warfare with borrowed dollars that we gladly pay for even today. Had they not saddled their grandchildren with this debt, there might well be no United States.

In the same vein, those of us who came of age in time to fight – if that’s the word for it – the Cold War created the great technology that underlies much of our success today. We defended the free world and saved Western Civilization once again. This too involved debt that is commingled with our present obligations to be paid much later.

Still the president, the protector of generations yet unborn, asks for no sacrifice from those of us alive and kicking. He wants to take on more debt for the future so that some child will have a chance at winning a stock lottery.

All this while, the president is calling for us to take on debt to solve the SS `crisis’ while carrying budget and trade deficits of record proportions. He has no trouble solving a problem of his choosing while ignoring one of his making.

I’m for working on the budget and tax problems of today and tomorrow and only playing with the edges of a problem that will become a crisis only after more than another generation comes and goes.

We are a nation with gigantic problems. The Iraq War is directly attributable to President Bush. The budget deficits are as much his as anyone’s, yet he insists on continuing his tax cuts and solving the problem with Social Security while our men and women fight and die in a cause that clearly does not in any way measure up to the one described in the run up to the conflict

We owe our grandchildren the inheritance of the best society and healthiest nation we can pass on. Beyond that, they we will have to solve their own problems

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Just How Did It Happen?

Often decisions in government – and I presume elsewhere – are made on the “I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with facts,” system.

My GUESS is that this tried and true method got us into the situation in Iraq. Let me make it perfectly clear; this posting is no more than conjecture.

For all of the reasons enumerated in the press, on television, and on numerous blogs, including this one, we wanted to go to war against and to topple the Saddam regime in Iraq. This hypothetical case does not address arguments of preemption and preventive action that I and many others have raised numerous times.

Before the final decision was made, there were some uncomfortable issues on the table concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The U.N. inspection teams operating in the country had been unable to find any, and there some folks – certainly not including me – who doubted elements of the intelligence, for example that involving alleged purchases of yellow cake uranium.

The decision makers, including high ranking officers preparing to invade, military and civilian leaders at the Pentagon, other high ranking executives at the CIA and other intelligence agencies, at the State Department and elsewhere, as well as the Vice President and, ultimately, the President had to weigh the inability of the U.N. inspectors to locate caches and protestations of the Iraqis that there weren’t any forbidden weapons.

Our own intelligence and that of our allies indicated to almost a certainty that there were such weapons or programs to develop them in Iraq. So, if WMDs were the rationale for the war, why not go ahead and cause regime change? What could be the downside?

Under those conditions, based on my own government experience, if the big boys wanted war, most of the bureaucrats I’ve known and the political leaders would have attacked in a heart beat. The underlying thought was almost certainly that Saddam just wouldn’t have given up these weapons; it’s as simple as that. Our leaders – not just the people in this administration whom I’ve beaten about the head and shoulders for so long – but virtually all of them are rather cynical when it comes to the motives and actions of the leaders of other nations, especially petty third world tyrants.

We constantly ascribe completely cynical motives to them and believe that they maintain power through the unsentimental use of power to crush their enemies and in lying about it to the world at large. Therefore, in my view, it would have been incomprehensible to almost any high level appointee that I ever knew that someone like Saddam wasn’t telling bald faced lies when he denied having such weapons that he did in fact once have.

Therefore, without trying to slander some very fine public servants I’ve known, I’m convinced that virtually no one in the advisory or decision making chain ever dreamed that we wouldn’t find enough WMDs, such as canisters of poison gas, to be able to point to when the dust settled and say, “See, told you so.”

So while opponents of the war like me rant and rave about the lack of WMD evidence, at least in my case, I’m shocked to this day that we didn’t find them.

In my mind, the argument about WMDs was never essential; it was the lack of threat to us and our allies, the terrible precedent of preemption, and our failure to secure U.N. approval for the war.

As Saddam tends his flowers at the Baghdad International Airport Hilton, I wonder whether his action to dispose of the chemical, biological and radiological programs was made in case such an attack would come, a decision that was made by others without his knowledge, or just dumb luck.

In any case, the failure to locate these weapons gave the U.S. a huge black eye. Had I been in the chain, I'd be sporting one too.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Inauguration Day 2005

President Bush’s second inaugural speech clearly places him in the neoconservative intellectual camp.

Even as war clouds gathered over Iraq, I gave him the benefit of the doubt about the policy of military preemption and laid the blame (that is my loaded word for it) for the policy on such people as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearl, the Kristols, and other neocons. I was wrong.

Clearly, Mr. Bush stepped front and center and declared himself a neocon rather than a member of the realist camp that virtually all previous presidents, but especially Republicans, have espoused since the Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

In his speech the president threw down the gauntlet to Americans, its allies and its opponents and enemies that we would be on the side of activists for democracy and freedom. The clear inference must be drawn that China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan, North Korea, Iran and dozens of other nations that are not democracies are on notice that their relations with the U.S. will no longer be the same as they have been in recent decades.

What this means for major trading partners such as China and Saudi Arabia has yet to be defined, but his speech was a clear message of, “in your face,” to these and other nations not classified as democracies. We shall see.

There will be no blaming of others for Iraq. If it turns out well, George W. Bush will be exonerated by time. A bad outcome will consign his presidency to the dustbin of history. His ability to define success and stay on message is as great or greater than any of his predecessors, so we may have to wait for some time after he leaves office to find the answer.

I look forward to learning the outcome of this ambitious program and wish my readers the same good fortune in determining the result. On this day I step away from my anger and hope for the sake of the nation that the president is right.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Racism in High Places

This Saturday the National Football Conference Championship Game will feature two African American quarterbacks. Michael Wilbon in a column in the Washington Post describes this as the culmination of a great effort to root out racism from the sport. There can be no doubt that Michael Vick and Donovan McNabb are among the elite in the ranks of NFL players and quarterbacks, despite the protestations of Loudmouth Limbaugh, and this game represents a watershed in race relations.

Wilbon describes a conversation he had years ago with Warren Moon – a pioneering Black quarterback – about when Black QBs would no longer be a big deal in the league. Moon’s answer, ”…when Blacks could be backups at quarterback, hold clipboards, get traded and released, picked up by coaches with whom they had become friends at previous stops.” That’s happened and Blacks can make it and be fired based on their performance. The same pretty much goes – or is soon going to go - for coaches.

Racism and sexism are receding, however glacially, in our society. It’s unfortunate that the same goes for the United States Senate – a glacial pace of improvement in race, sex and ethnic relations. Two of President Bush’s major proposed appointees, Attorney General Designate Alberto Gonzales and the Secretary of State Designee Condoleezza Rice were treated by the Justice and Foreign Affairs Committee’s of the Senate with kid gloves because of race, ethnicity, and gender.

Gonzales was the architect of the tortured logic of the torture policy that gave this nation a huge black eye in the Islamic world. He was probed only gently by the senators and allowed to get away with what no one should have been in refusing to be drawn out on his role in the scandal.

Rice was given virtually a free pass on the contradictions in her prior statements about the Iraq War. She bristled when Senator Boxer probed these conflicting statements and for her troubles the Senator was curbed about coming close to questioning the designee’s integrity, which of course she was and should have been doing. Only because Boxer was a woman was she allowed an escape route on a charge of racism or sexism.

There can be no doubt that these two designees did what was only hinted at, yet because the Senators are indeed still in the dark ages of racism and sexism these two people who should have been exposed for what they did escaped scrutiny and will be appointed to two of the highest offices in the land.

Clearly, we have a long way to go in this country before people will be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It’s too bad the United States Senate is not the equal of the National Football League in this important area of human relations.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Winner Take All

There is a new meaning for the word election. Election: a referendum on your policy positions. If you win all of your positions are approved by the voters.

Last week in an interview with the Washington Post, President Bush claimed that because he won the election his policy on Iraq was approved by the voters and no longer a subject of concern to the majority of voters.

By that logic, I don’t see why we bother with a long debate on Social Security. He ran on platform that would change the program. He should just send up his proposals and Congress should adopt them - without debate.

Naturally, the same goes for such issues as a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting Same Sex Marriage, another Amendment prohibiting abortion, approving his program for Homeland Security, and everything else he supported in the campaign.

Am I the only person shocked by this absurdity?

Blog on!

Wild Bill

George Washington on Iraq

“…it is well known, that when one side only of a Story is heard, and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it, insensibly.” George Washington understood that the repetition of a great untruth would inevitably lead to `brain washing.’ Forgive me for inserting this modern term into the great man’s thought process. On page 214 of his new biography of our first president, His Excellency: George Washington, Joseph J. Ellis sums up Washington’s view of the big lie in government, indeed in all human activities.

It was saddening to learn yesterday that President George W. Bush asserted, after having to acknowledge under pressure of the revealed facts and truth that our hegemonic venture into Iraq based on that country’s possession of and threats to use `weapons of mass destruction’ against us or our allies was without foundation, that our War in Iraq, was still a good thing.

Either President Bush is scandalously out of touch with reality or he is in the process of redefining reality. It is one thing to have taken this nation to war based on flawed intelligence. He (and I hope most of our citizens, including me) may be forgiven for believing that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was in the process of seeking to restart its nuclear weapons program. It is quite another to, in the face of his own government’s findings to the contrary, to assert, despite no evidence to support our attack, that what we did to that nation and ours was the best policy.

In effect, we attacked a stable nation whose government we despised, toppled that government, and inserted ourselves into a civil war on the side of the largest ethnic and religious faction. Regardless of the outcome of the election – almost certainly a Shiite victory – we have alienated Sunnis everywhere. The likely result will be an Iraqi government friendly to its traditional enemy, Iran, that calls into question the balance of power in the region.

It is possible, even likely, that we have destroyed a secular government in favor of one that will be controlled by a theocracy that is even more opposed to us and our presence in the central Civilization than was Saddam. It is difficult to imagine a worse outcome to this act of hubris that has cost us the lives and health of thousands of young men and women, destroyed the lives of thousands of Iraqis who admired us, poured our treasure to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars into the desert, alienated a civilization with more than a billion adherents, and cost us the respect of the nations of our own civilization, including Canada, Mexico, France, Germany and many more.

Repetition of obviously false assertions can work for only so long. The American people see what is going on and, more importantly, believe their eyes rather than the propaganda emanating from the president’s mouth. If Mr. Bush loses complete credibility on this vital issue, his presidency will be a total failure. If he cannot separate himself from those neoconservatives who took him down this terrible path, he will join them in being wrong on the single issue that will define his presidency in history.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

No Weapons of Mass Destruction

Today it was announced that the U.S. had recently abandoned its efforts to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The failure of the United States to find these weapons or programs for their development troubles me not nearly such much as the post war revelation that differences between CIA and Department of Energy analysts over the possible uses for the aluminum tubes that became the basis for the administration charge that a nuclear weapons program was being reestablished by the Iraqi government were not shared with the Congress. This is especially damning as all of the key players in the administration were aware of the withholding of this information while the Congress was being asked to back the attack.

For months after the war was instigated and prior to the revelation, Members of Congress were repeatedly castigated by the president and other key officials for complaining about the war after authorizing it based on the same information the administration had used to seek Congressional authority for the venture.

Based on everything I’ve read and heard, the President, the CIA, the Department of Defense and most of our allies believed that weapons of mass destruction were in the hands of the Iraqi military. Based on the limited public information, I held these same beliefs about Iraq’s weapons, and I see no reason to condemn the administration on this one point even though it is the most important item of intelligence failure by the government during the prewar period.

My complaint before the attack had little to do with weapons intelligence. Rather, it was based on our failure to permit U.N. weapons inspectors to complete their program prior to going to war. I also did not believe that the administration had made its case that Iraq was an immediate threat to us or to our allies in the region. And our naked bullying of the Security Council members and our clear intent to attack Iraq without such inspection program and without a grand coalition summed up my problems.

It was also my deeply held belief that that the prattle that our military would be welcomed as liberators and that we could deliver Western style democracy and freedom to the people of Iraq was incorrect – at least in anything resembling a reasonable time frame.

That I believe I was right on these points gives me no comfort. But I do not believe that we can castigate the president about our inability to find evidence of weapons or programs to develop them.

Wild Bill

Goodbye John

I voted for John Kerry, but I’m no longer crying over the loss.

This President Bush 43 and his handlers are so obdurate and stay so relentlessly on message that is virtually impossible for them to acknowledge reality. Surely, had Senator Kerry won, the long knives of the reactionary right and the neocons would be out for him with regard to his plan to disengage from Iraq.

That the Iraq War and its aftermath is one of the great foreign policy blunders in American history is becoming more evident to the American people each day, and President Bush is going to have to redefine all of his goals and definitions of success in order to disengage our forces from this quagmire.

Had Senator Kerry won, these very steps would likely have been cause for the radical right to call for his impeachment. Surely his actions would have been labeled a stab in the back to our men and women in the military and a cowardly retreat in the War on Terror. So we must suffer through as many months and years as it takes for President Bush to explain that his disastrous folly in Iraq is in actuality a great success and that the Iraqis will now and forever more enjoy freedom and the American way.

The neocons and their drum beaters on the radical right like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Oliver North are going to have to put their stream of consciousness baloney machines into overdrive to talk their way out of this mess. Their constant upbeat messages about the true situation in that troubled land are going to have to be finessed over the balance of 2005 and probably long after.

I’ve said about everything I can or care to on this matter and will try to avoid writing about this tragedy any more. Let's hope I succeed.

The Republicans have clearly overreached, and I look forward to a safely divided government. My hope is that never again in my lifetime will we have both houses of Congress and the White House in the hands of either party at the same time. I look to 2008 with great hope and optimism.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Who is Losing Iraq?

“He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana’s oft stated observation is as reviled as it is relevant.

Who lost China? When the Cold War was ramping up and China’s civil war ended badly for our side, scapegoats had to be dredged up to satisfy the mob’s need for blood. In that case, a generation of `Old China Hands’ was condemned to take the fall for something that was inevitable given the nature of the corrupt regime we were backing. Great Americans, including President Harry Truman, General George C. Marshall and General Joseph Stilwell, were badly tarnished because ardent anticommunists such as Senator Joseph McCarthy could not accept the reality of the situation.

When great ventures end badly, someone must pay. That World War I ended badly for Germany could not possibly have been the fault of the Kaiser’s great military machine. It had to have been because of `the stab in the back’ of politicians back in Berlin. The leader of the American Expeditionary Force, General John J. Pershing, was against the Armistice in 1918. Pershing argued that if the German army was perceived by the German people not to have lost, the conflict would have to be reopened and fought to the finish. He was overruled and a quarter of a century and sixty million deaths later, it was settled.

Who is to blame for the situation in Iraq? Already as the adventure proceeds to a bad outcome, those who led us into it thrash about for scapegoats. Liberals, the media, France, a few bad apples in abu Ghraib – were it not for them, democracy and freedom would be flourishing among the Iraqi people.

Unfortunately for the small group of leaders who made this war, scapegoats while under slight temporary pressure as the situation deteriorated will not have to take the fall for this debacle. President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, their immediate aids and small number of advisors in and out of government together with those who beat the drums for them are responsible for this failed mission. The focus will not change.

We’ve learned that our military can beat any foe that stands up to it. Of this there was no doubt before we attacked Iraq.

We’ve learned that the administration cooked the books on the mission. We know, for instance, that internal debate among intelligence analysts over the potential uses of aluminum tubes was not brought to the attention of the Congress, the media or the public. We realize that the dazzling display put on for the U.N. Security Council by Secretary of State Colin Powell was vastly overstated. We’ve learned that charges that Saddam’s government conspired with terrorists have yet to be shown to have any merit.

We’ve learned that while our military is capable of defeating any enemy, it is not sufficiently staffed to occupy even a middle sized country. We know that the Army advised the top leaders that the force proposed to pacify Iraq was insufficient to do the job. For that assessment, we know that the Army Chief of Staff lost the confidence of the top leaders in the country.

We know that the stated reasons for the war: Saddam’s weapons programs that threatened us and our allies and the conspiracy between Iraq and al Qaeda have yet to be found or proved.

We were told by the President, the Vice President, their advisors and their media drum beaters that our forces would be welcomed as liberators. Not even fools continue to hold that mad view. As the election nears, most Americans are aware that the result will not satisfy the Iraqi nation. The winners will be viewed as American puppets and only force of arms – ours now and theirs as soon as possible – will hold the country together long enough for us to retreat.

The War on Terror has almost disappeared from the media and public attention. Iraq, the terrible Tsunami, and the false crises on the domestic front have driven the focus from our true enemies, international terrorists. American lives and treasure are being spent while our defenses against terrorists on the home front are being starved for lack of funds. A deficit created by tax cuts made while the nation was, according to our president, at war limits our ability to defend our ports and cities.

What to do? Borrow two billion dollars to fix Social Security; hey, it’s a start.

Wild Bill

Mom? Dad?

A few questions for Moms and Dads living in the heartland - and elsewhere.

Does the Iraq War make you and your little Dick and Jane feel safer from terrorists? Have you abandoned the cloth coat conservatism of your own parents? As you drive young Dick and Jane around, are you aware that much of your gasoline is refined from crude oil from Saudi Arabia and other sources that may not be secure or guaranteed? If California, New York and Massachusetts seceded – without bloodshed, of course – would America be a better country?

Are you aware that many blue states, including the three named above, have a net transfer of tax dollars to red states? Are you and your neighbors dependent on dollars from the Left or Right Coasts? Those good old conservative values - do they include imposing U.S. national will on a worldwide economic empire? Are you aware that you live in a country with five or six percent of the world's people? That we gobble up about 30% of the resources that are consumed on the planet's each year? That our consumption is underwritten by economic competitors, some of whom really don't like our policies?

Are you aware that every day American men and women are dying in Iraq to protect you from terrorists? Are you aware that the reasons given before attacking that country had no basis in fact? Are you aware that tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died because of the deception the drove us into their midst? You know that Saddam gassed 5,000 of his own people, but what multiplier of that number have been killed by our forces in your name?

Did your own Moms and Dads want America to be an aggressor nation? Did they believe in collective security based on strong international alliances? Do you remember when America was the last best hope for democracy? Do you remember when America was both respected and loved by the vast majority of the world’s peoples and nations? Is it possible that even young Dick and Jane remember when the answer to that question was `yes'?

Are you aware that many of the nations that our leaders admonish for failure to support us in Iraq are fighting with us in Afghanistan where the national government actually supported those who attacked us on September 11?

After reading these questions, are you still convinced that you’re doing right by young Dick and Jane? Are you really conservative? Sen. Chuck Hagel from Nebraska is a conservative who voted to support the Iraq War; why is he questioning our strategy? Does he know something you don't?

Are we really going in the right direction in the world? Should you be writing your representatives in Washington?

Wild Bill

George I, Sportsman

In keeping with the Bloggers' pledge of occasionally writing about the serious, pitchers and catchers report in just a few weeks. Sure, the football playoffs have yet to kickoff, but in Florida and Arizona baseball diamonds are already being groomed.

As we all know, this will be the happiest spring training in eighty-four season for the Boston Red Sox. The weight of the world is off their shoulders but, of course, some of those responsible for the joy won’t be there to celebrate. For example, Pedro will be back with the pack of losers from Gotham, but with the low class way he said goodbye few in Southie will be weeping.

George Steinbrenner, the Boss, is a fierce competitor, one who’ll do most anything to win, especially by writing mega checks. But he’s a good sport too. That commercial in which he signs one too many and sprains his arm is hilarious. I’ll bet he’s thought about a secret surprise for the Red Sox fans that will cement his place in the hearts of New Englanders.

When the Yankees and Red Sox meet in Grapefruit League play this spring, wouldn’t it be great if George brought those American League Championship trophies that the Yankees won over the past several years when powered by a juiced up slugger and forfeited them to Red Sox Nation as token of gentlemanly sportsmanship. He can’t help but have thought about it and, given his warm and cuddly feelings about the Sox, wouldn’t that just be the icing on the cake as a way to kick off a new era in New York / Boston relations. So don't wait for Bud Selig to make the ruling, George, just do it! You'll feel so good.

If The Boss does that by opening day, I pledge that Wild Bill will never again describe the Yanks as the Evil Empire. I know that my legion of friends and readers who live for the empire are, in reality, intent on equity and will read these lines and see the wisdom of this proposal.

Deal? Done! Love you, Georgie,

Wild Bill

Ghosts in the White House

Where have you gone, Franklin Roosevelt?

About a decade ago before becoming painfully aware of my limitations as a scholar, I decided to write the definitive biography of Roosevelt that would capture the human essence of my political hero. None of the efforts by others satisfied me, and there was no doubt that such a work was needed. It would be simple matter of reading what had been done, reviewing the obligatory files in Hyde Park and sitting before the keyboard.

How could a man of perhaps sixty be so silly? The bibliography on Roosevelt and his administration is almost without end and growing, so, true to my youthful M.O. when faced with the very daunting, I didn’t try.

Instead, after reading literally dozens of biographies and histories on FDR and the greatest generation, I determined to approach the `Sphinx’ via fiction. That would be far easier, and I would permit my imagination to fill in the blanks. My notes on the protagonist’s character and events soon ran to hundreds of pages and covered everything from his boyhood birding on the banks of the Hudson to his death in Georgia just prior to victory in World War II.

Ready, the book already written in my mind, I began typing. Fifty pages into the novel, I reviewed what was done with a critical eye. It was awful, an unmitigated disaster. There was no choice but to abandon the effort. The great man had eluded me. Defeat was complete, and I surrendered unconditionally - almost.

Since then, I have written two novels about the first half of the twentieth century, and the ghost of Roosevelt is in the background. My present efforts are devoted to a novel about the internment of the Japanese aliens and citizens residing on the West Coast when the war broke out. The ghost is closer here because of the direct role played by the man. He comes off, of course, as less of hero; regardless, he still resists being drawn from the shadows.

A Christmas present, Joseph Ellis’s biography, His Excellency, George Washington, joined the reading list and is being devoured as part of a buffet of books piled high by my chair. Early on, Ellis complains that his subject did everything in his power to hide from him. From this and my own experience, I began to theorize. Many presidents are charged with deception by their biographers. Among presidents, a few simple men like Grant and Truman seem to defy the tradition but they may be the exceptions that prove the rule.

My theorizing led to this: the vast majority of humans, heroes or not, spend their lives altering, revising, embellishing, and erasing their pasts. The difference between them and the Roosevelts, Washingtons, and Lincolns is that no one cares. The nature of the beast is not revealed by the Grants but by those who would deceive us.

Paul Simon cries out for Joe DiMaggio but his lament is for all of our heroes. We thought they were different from the rest of us, but they too suffer the defect of being human – only grander. As they obfuscated their pasts, they were confident that we would seek them out. They were right. As the rest hide, the error is that no one seeks.

To the Barricades of the Mind!

I was opposed to the Vietnam War and took to the streets of Washington in protest. My act of moral courage in some small way helped to stop the carnage. Wasn't I great?

When that war began, like most Americans I went along. Hey, dominoes made as much sense as anything else in the Cold War. Soon, however, the pictures coming into my home were horrific and the casualty numbers extremely troubling.

The early protests didn't seem like much, and I solved the problems of the pictures and sounds of war by shutting off the TV and by not reading the coverage of the conflict.

It was only when President Johnson escalated the war that I began to pay closer attention. Still I was not ready to abandon the government's rationale for continuing to pour human and material treasure into the fray.

But as the months became years, something changed, and I prepared to act, to take to the streets and move on the barricades. Enlightenment? An epiphany? Goodness? All three but not of the kind that makes me proud today. I had been raising three boys, mere babies when the war came to my attention. It dawned on me that the madness would soon engulf me and mine.

My sons were growing up and would have to choose between the draft and defiance. I was focusing. Quickly my choice was made, I would work to stop the war. I, like millions of others, had lost confidence in the government. To the streets we turned. But the enlightenment, the epiphany and the goodness were far from altruistic. I only acted when my self interest became clear.

Now we are in a war in Iraq that does not create fear in the guts of middle class parents. In fact many of them are pleased with the way this is going. Somehow the killing and the propaganda make them feel safer from the terrorists. I don't know a single enlisted man serving in Iraq. The dead and wounded are total strangers to me. Who will demand a stop to the mad neocon dream of empire? If we do not turn the ship of state, forces from beyond our shores will do it for us, but only after a tragedy that could wreck the nation on rocky shoals.

We must fight those who attacked us. Of this there can be no doubt, but we must review the policies that have brought us to this juncture, not only this crazy Iraqi adventure but our entire foreign policy to determine if some of the complaints of the jihadists have merit. The baloney that they hate because we're free sickens the stomach.

Clearly, the Central Civilization with but a single major commodity, oil, is in crisis. Anything we would recognize as a renaissance that would elevate man is, at least at this point, nowhere in sight. The screwball notion that we will impose democracy and freedom on its peoples and make them better for it is more suited for after midnight musings in bars and psychiatric couches than for serious discussion among rational adults.

The future of the United States and its people is at stake. Spread the word. There will be no middle class parents carrying placards to save their young. This time those without personal interest must muster and maintain the courage on their own.

Enough of that Mild Bill bull crap,

Wild Bill

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Live the Life You've Imagined

Aim high! Live the life you’ve imagined! Simplify! These, of course, are the lessons Thoreau intended to impart in Walden. Do many people act on these maxims? Certainly, and many who do so have no idea that these are Henry’s directions and they may in fact have come to them from other equally positive sources, especially from within their own hearts and minds.

Not all who aim high, live fully realized and authentic lives, and simplify are seeking fame and fortune. Some very private beings have done it all in tiny hamlets in which they delivered all of the babies for two generations or married the town's youth and buried it's dead or served as selectmen or emergency medical technicians. Others own local businesses that enrich the town and employ their neighbors. These lives can be just as rich and fulfilling as those whose visions were as bright as comets streaking across the heavens.

Bill Clinton dreamed of becoming president. Warren Beatty was bound to make movies. Picasso seemed born to paint. And Mother Teresa was determined to ease the pain and suffering of the dying. Did they ever aim high and live the lives they imagined. Simplify? Except for Mother Teresa, perhaps this group might have been a little light on that count.

Henry’s notion that, “In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high,” says nothing about failing and quitting. Perhaps that first dream wasn’t quite right. Bill Frist set out to be a surgeon but today finds himself the U.S. Senate Majority leader, and it’s rumored that he aspires to the White House. And Mark Twain might have lived out his life as the steamboat captain Sam Clemens were it not for the choice to act on his dreams.

Some are late bloomers. Cesar Chavez was impelled by the animal like conditions in the fields to organize his union and seek justice for his lettuce picking followers.

Just because you aimed high and failed doesn’t mean that you can’t still dream or dream again or dream anew and follow it. America is the land of second – and third, fourth and fifth – chances.

Instead of resolving for 2005 to lose twenty pounds, to curse less often or to cure some other perceived personal flaw or fault, why not aim high and live the life you’ve imagined?

It’s never too late. You can do it! Happy New Year!

Mild Bill

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