January 2005 Archives

In my earlier post about John Edwards, that bit about Edwards' father being a deacon in the church was fascinating. Not because it's about the church but because it's about the politics of being a deacon.

My father was a pastor. I saw his political struggles with the church board up close and personal. Many years later, when I became an executive board member at my synagogue, I experienced the whole thing again from the reverse perspective. And you know what? Whether you're Christian or Jewish, the politics are all the same.

Now, my hunch is that my own children are (among other things) third-generation political scientists with an advanced degree in that hottest of growth industries: the politics of worship.

If you're like me, you think the phrase "conviction politics" is an oxymoron, or at least sounds like one.

But John Edwards has a point and E.J. Dionne was there to capture it:

"It needs to be clear to the country what our core beliefs are, and the last thing we need is strategic maneuvering," Edwards says. "What people want to see is leadership and strength and conviction. This is about what's inside us. It's not about how we get to the right place."

[Dionne continues]... conviction politics has not been in vogue in progressive circles. This era's two great center-left politicians, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, have been resolute Third Wayers, tacking carefully between left and right. The Third Way was a tacit admission of conservatism's momentum.

Edwards is well positioned to offer Third Way 3.0. He's a young southerner, a working-class kid made good whose dad was a deacon in his church. He speaks admiringly of Clinton's skills, particularly the former president's ability to make others feel that he identifies with their struggles.

But Edwards's instincts tell him that tepid politics are exactly what the Democrats don't need now. "I don't think this is about moderate, conservative, liberal," he says. "Americans are looking for strength, an idealistic strength. They want to know what we'd do on Day One if we ran the country."

I like his instincts. I think he's right.

Here's another thing: I can't speak for Tony Blair, but I think it would be a mistake to remember Clinton as a guy with no core beliefs. Furthermore, when you're talking about politicians, I think it's a mistake to put the words "tepid" and "Clinton" in the same paragraph. The fact is, Clinton had very strong core beliefs -- they were grounded in his own biography, in his identification with "the have-nots." That's part of what Toni Morrison sensed when she wrote that infamous piece about Clinton being "the first black President."

And if you're still reading and shaking your head in disagreement right about now, I'll make you a bet that will prove my point: the African American Church will be the framing metaphor for Clinton's funeral the same way the American military was the framing metaphor for Reagan's. They will welcome him into their loving embrace and guide him home to his final rest.

Back to Edwards: like Clinton, his personal story is authentic and inspiring and it has the added benefit of providing a plausible explanation for who Edwards turned out to be: someone who fights for the little guy. The fact that he became a millionaire doing it, well, that's just a good old Horatio Alger, Jimmy Stewart, rags-to-riches Amercian success story. Who doesn't love that?

By way of random comparison, the connection between John Kerry's biography and his core beliefs, well, it was pretty tenous, although God knows there really was a lot to work with. But the whole Vietnam thing didn't work because Kerry simply never dropped the other shoe: he never explained how his experience back then informed and animated his world-view today. He was the one who famously said, "How do you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?" and then he couldn't (or wouldn't) say the Iraq war was a mistake! Wasn't that the whole point of a guy like Kerry running against a guy like Bush! I mean, for God's sake people, only Nixon could go to China! But Kerry simply nuanced and thought his campaign to death and American history just walked on by one of its great defining moments.

Of course, all of this is just my opinion; I could be wrong.

But I doubt it.

Dr. Lisa Littman is a board certified Obstetrician/Gynecologist from New Jersey. She works primarily in family planning.

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/reprod/littmanabortion?nopag=1

Ask the real question: prevention or punishment? The abortion debate is not about who chooses or when life begins. These arguments rarely reach the other sides. The true abortion debate question comes down to the following:

Would you rather reduce unintended pregnancies, reduce abortions, and reduce sexually transmitted diseases while protecting the health of women and men, or do you want to deliberately increase unintended pregnancies, increase abortions, increase sexually transmitted diseases and harm the health of women and men in order to punish them for having sex?

That's the real debate. Every discussion on abortion needs to be about this question. Understanding the values, policies and goals of both sides will allow people to support the policies consistent with their goals.

Prevention policies result in fewer pregnancies, fewer abortions, and fewer women dying.

Punishment policies result in higher pregnancy rates, higher abortion rates, and more women dying.

Those who take the side of increasing risk to accentuate punishments will have to defend their views. And that's an abortion debate worth having. It's the abortion debate. It's definitely an abortion debate we can win.

Carol Joffee argues that abortion can best be defended if it is framed as one element of a larger platform of sexual and reproductive rights and services:

Abortion can’t be defended by a single issue focus— as urgent as the defense of Roe needs to be.

To reinvigorate itself and draw new support, from both progressives and others, the reproductive freedom movement must go back to its roots. The movement must reaffirm its willingness to fight for a full range of services that make it possible not only to prevent unwanted pregnancies but to enable women to have and raise the children they want.

This means vigorous support not only of contraception, prenatal care, and child care services, but also of living-wage campaigns, occupational health issues, and of course, full health care coverage for all Americans.

But important as such efforts to put abortion in context are, reciting a litany of services will not in itself make the emotional connections needed if abortion is to become acceptable in this culture.

To be sure, for those who truly think abortion is murder, no reframing will ever work. But for the majority of Americans who don’t agree with the concept of abstinence till marriage, and who do think procreation should be separate from sexuality, there is one overriding message from the reproductive freedom movement that needs to accompany any demands for a full range of reproductive services: it is that we trust women to make the right decisions about their own bodies.

Joffee wrote this article for the Rockridge Institute website. Bookmark it and visit regularly.

From Ethan Bronner, originally in the Times:

In the final years of the British mandate in Palestine, there was not one Jewish militia but several, just as there are competing Palestinian groups today. The main one, the Haganah, was led by Mr. Ben-Gurion. A more violent and radical one, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, often called simply the Irgun, was led by Menachem Begin.

A comedian once said that children are wonderful, "but who are we kidding? They're really here to replace us."

On Sunday evening, my son, Michael Rubyan, a high-school senior, delivered the keynote speech at his school's observance of Martin Luther King Day and I couldn't be more proud that he'll someday (God willing) be my replacement:

This evening, I would like to speak about our future -- a future of hope, a future of peace, a future of prosperity.

In this vision of the future, it doesn't matter who you are, who you know or how much money you have, but rather what you know, what you value and what you do with your life.

It’s a future where coalitions are formed between countries to achieve peace, rather than to fight wars.

It’s a future in which each of us deeply cares about one another.

In order to achieve this future, I believe we must check our politics at the door, color our map with one color instead of blue and red and work as one team, remembering that we live as one nation, in a world where we must all take care of each other.

It’s a world where we can rise above our differences of opinion, and find our similarities of cause.

It’s a world where caring for people in need supersedes all political disagreements.

It’s a world where open dialogue and endless opportunities for peace, replace closed doors and unbending policies.

Tonight we stand at a crucial point in world history. We have the responsibility to help make the future we are talking about possible. The only way to do this is to use the diverse nature of humanity as a strength that unifies us rather than a force that tears us apart.

Instead of pushing our diversity aside or pretending that it does not exist, we need to recognize that the unique characteristics we each hold play a crucial part in achieving a peaceful tomorrow.

Every person that walks the planet brings something different to the table. That means that being diverse in nature, culture, age gender, generation, religion, sexual preference and even personality is what makes our race, the human race, so powerful and beautiful.

Diversity surrounds us and is part of each of us. You know what the secret is – if all of us start thinking this way then we can share a grand future together. The only thing that stops us from getting there is ourselves. We hold the keys.

I ask all of you to join me in recognizing and appreciating the beauty and power of our diversity. Take a look around the room, around the neighborhood, around the community, around the world. Not just this evening, not just tomorrow, or this week or this month or this year.

Wherever you go, in whatever you do, find ways toward each other, rather than finding reasons to stay apart. Reach out to your neighbor, in good times and in times of need. Find ways to communicate and to share all that life has to offer.

Join me in the adventure that lies ahead, the journey that we can make together. Join the team of those who believe that our differences and our similarities are what we need in order to achieve a better world.

The journey of tomorrow lies in store for all of us. All we have to do to get there is reach out and grab it. Then, in this way, we can truly be one people, one race, the human race, sharing a future of peace and freedom forever.

Imagine that Israel never existed.

• Would the economic malaise and political repression that drive angry young men to become suicide bombers vanish?

• Would the Palestinians have an independent state?

• Would the United States, freed of its burdensome ally, suddenly find itself beloved throughout the Muslim world?

Wishful thinking....

(HT to Moe Freedman)

1. Institute a national, non-partisan standard for re-districting.
   In other words, kill and bury gerrymandering once and for all. Extra twist: Schwarzenegger wants to do it in California.

   Peter Beinart has the story:

   Democrats across the country should jump on the Schwarzenegger bandwagon, demanding that their states also take redistricting away from the state legislatures that deny voters a real choice over who represents them. In a state like Florida, where the GOP has absurdly gerrymandered to ensure a mass of safe Republican seats, such a change could bring real Democratic gains and perhaps even help put control of the House back in play.

   ....Openings like this don't come along very often. If Democrats don't seize it, they will have no one to blame but themselves.

2. Triple the size of the House of Representatives.
   Let Jeff Jacoby explain it:

   When the Framers drafted the Constitution, they fully expected that as the American population grew, so would the House of Representatives. "I take for granted," James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 55, "that the number of representatives will be augmented from time to time in the manner provided by the Constitution." He was writing to rebut charges that the proposed House was too small to be democratic and would turn into an oligarchy. He repeated the point in Federalist Nos. 56 and 58, noting that the purpose of the decennial census was to facilitate the growth of the House.

   And growth there was. From 65 seats in 1789, the House grew to 105 after the 1790 Census tallied 3.9 million Americans -- putting the ratio of representatives to citizens at 1 to 37,000. After the 1800 Census, the House was enlarged to 142, then to 186 after the 1810 Census, 213 after the 1820 Census, and so on for more than a century. The increase in House members always lagged behind the increase in population, so the number of citizens per member of Congress steadily rose.

   Still, it was 1860 before the ratio went over 1 for every 100,000, and not until 1910, when the House expanded to 435 members, that it surpassed 1 for every 200,000. But in the years since, the number of House seats has remained fixed at 435, while the population has more than tripled. The result is today's swollen congressional districts, each of which now contains more people than most states did when the Constitution was ratified.

   Enlarging the House to around 1,300 members -- triple its current size -- would doubtless take some getting used to. But the benefits would more than outweigh any inconvenience.

   Among them: Congress would be enriched by a great infusion of new blood and new ideas. Congressional staffs could be sharply reduced. Smaller districts would promote greater political intimacy -- elections would be more likely to turn on personal campaigning and local ties instead of costly mass-media advertising. No longer would states have to lose seats in Congress even though their population had grown, and with fewer votes needed to get elected, the House would be more likely to reflect the nation's social and political diversity.

   As the number of people grow, the "people's house" should grow. On this as on so much else, the Framers had it right.

What do you think?

Ken at Lying in Ponds has completed his yearly review of partisanship in the media. This year (as in years past) Ann Coulter and Paul Krugman took the top two spots. The rest of the top ten is about evenly split between GOP and Dem partisans. You can see the entire list here.

If you're a math geek, you might find his methodology interesting, but it misses (I think) an important dimension. The author's methodology doesn't have a way of measuring the truth and accuracy of a pundit's columns -- only the number of times he speaks highly of a Democrat or a Republican. Ken stipulates this right at the top:

The methods used here are an attempt to quantify only partisanship, and are not intended as a more general guide to the quality of a columnist. There are other important traits such as accuracy, relevance, fairness, civility and style, but Lying in Ponds makes no attempt to measure them.

Well.

In other words, if Paul Krugman says 100 negative things about Bush that are, ahem, true and Coulter says 100 negative things about Clinton that are a flight of deranged and vitriolic fancy, well then, they're both judged equally partisan. Oh well.

But, for fun, let's stipulate that all of Ann Coulter's columns are truthful and accurate. Is it really a bad thing for her to rant against liberals every day for the rest of her life? At least you know where she (and President Bush) stand on the issues that are important to conservatives.

Same goes for Krugman: if he uses well-established statistical analyses to blow apart the President's Social Insecurity initiative, why on earth is it a bad thing for him to point out those flaws every day?

In my mind, partisan pundits serve a useful purpose -- they define the length and breadth of the playing field. What makes them great is the thought that goes into their explanation of the issues, not that they skewer both sides on alternate Fridays.

But most people reject this concept of partisanship. I think it's because they don't want to have to read both Coulter and Krugman to see the whole field. To put it bluntly, most people are lazy.

So, hat's off to Coulter and Krugman -- they serve the national interest.

P.S. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm proud to call myself a Yellow Dog Democrat.

From Drudge:

President Bush said yesterday that he doesn't "see how you can be president without a relationship with the Lord," but that he is always mindful to protect the right of others to worship or not worship.

Mr. Bush told editors and reporters of The Washington Times yesterday in an interview in the Oval Office that many in the public misunderstand the role of faith in his life and his view of the proper relationship between religion and the government.

"I think people attack me because they are fearful that I will then say that you're not equally as patriotic if you're not a religious person," Mr. Bush said. "I've never said that. I've never acted like that.

"I think that's just the way it is."

See, here's the thing: "In God We Trust" is a statement of American resolve. I'm OK with that.

But "In Jesus We Trust?" Not so much, and here's why: "E Pluribus Unum" is our national ideal -- "Out of many, one." The United States was founded on the ideal that a pluralistic society can offer hope, freedom and liberty to anyone, regardless of religious belief (or non-belief).

So, for President Bush to say that "In Jesus We Trust" is the way it is, well, it's wrong. Just say, "It's what I believe" and leave it at that.

But, sadly, no. He can't bring himself to say that. So he's isolated himself from the American ideal.

And in so doing, he's the lesser for it.

I began reading the following story with mixed emotions. Regardless, I kept reading until I got to the end. And when I got there, I felt like I had met the author before. Not only that -- I had a hunch that his story was true.

And I had to admit I didn't know how I felt about that.

From Abu Khaleel:

Amir was a young military officer. He was a captain in the old Iraqi army before it was disbanded. He joined the resistance in July of last year.

A few days ago, he and eleven others set up an ambush for a US army convoy....

I do agree with POTUS on one thing: there is a problem with medical malpractice litigation.

My conclusion, however is different: bad doctors are screwing it up for everyone else. Fact is, a tiny, tiny fraction of doctors cause the majority of malpractice suits, resulting in huge damage awards.

POTUS' solution is to cap damage awards. But common sense tells you to strongly punish the bad doctors so they cannot continue practicing shoddy medicine.

And, you know what? POTUS' own experts agree:

Experts retained by the Bush administration said Tuesday that more effective disciplining of incompetent doctors could significantly alleviate the problem of medical malpractice litigation...

[T]the experts said states should first identify those doctors most likely to make mistakes that injure patients and lead to lawsuits.

The administration commissioned a study by the University of Iowa and the Urban Institute to help state boards of medical examiners in disciplining doctors.

"There's a need to protect the public from substandard performance by physicians," said Josephine Gittler, a law professor at the University of Iowa supervising part of the study. "If you had more aggressive policing of incompetent physicians and more effective disciplining of doctors who engage in substandard practice, that could decrease the type of negligence that leads to malpractice suits."

But here's the problem: most State Boards of Medical Examiners are loathe to discipline their own. So, tort law becomes the vehicle whereby bad doctors are punished.

Not all state boards are like this, however:

Massachusetts has adopted an approach that experts say may provide a model for other states. Without waiting for a complaint to be filed, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine conducts a clinical review of any doctor who has made three or more malpractice payments to patients, as a result of jury verdicts or settlements. Nancy Achin Audesse, executive director of the board, said: "Three is a magic number. Doctors who have to make three or more payments are also more likely to be named in consumer complaints and to be subject to discipline by hospitals and the medical board."

In Massachusetts during the last 10 years, Audesse said, "one-fourth of 1 percent of all the doctors — 98 of the 37,369 doctors — accounted for more than 13 percent of all the malpractice payments, $134 million of the $1 billion in total payments."

Let conservatives tout their "Corporate Immunity Act," commonly called "tort reform."

Progressives will re-frame the issue so that it's about responsibility and accountability to the average citizen.

(HT to Charles Kuffner)

No doubt you've heard that POTUS was in Illinois on Wednesday touting yet another phony solution to a phony crisis -- capping damage awards on "frivolous lawsuits" against doctors. He's framing it as a battle for "tort reform."

Don't fall for it.

If you do, if you argue whether or not we need "tort reform," you've already lost the battle. If you argue whether or not malpractice insurance is too high, you've already lost the battle.

Instead, re-frame the issue -- POTUS' initiative is one that will close the courts against injured patients while offering physicians, hospitals and insurance companies lifetime immunity against personal and professional accountability.

Consider this:

According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments:

• 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
  
• 7,000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals
  
• 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals
  
• 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals
  
• 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs

Thus, America's healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.

So what price does the medical industry pay for this kind of performance? They pay -- wait for it -- 2% of the cost of health care towards malpractice insurance.

Two cents on the dollar. POTUS calls that a crisis.

Let's be fair -- many, many health care professionals are finding that severe cost-cutting is forcing them to change the way they practice medicine, often cutting corners. That might account for some of the deaths cited above.

Another part of the problem is that over 40 million people in the U.S. do not have access to proper healthcare as we know it. They are forced to get help from understaffed and overworked hospital emergency rooms or simply postponing care until it is too late. That might account for another portion of the deaths cited above.

But what about the rest?

The fact is, large corporations have no disincentive against engaging in irresponsible and immoral behavior that harms the public. Behavior that accounts for all the rest of the 225,000 deaths cited above.

Well, that's not strictly true...there is one disincentive -- tort law:

It is only the threat of huge punitive damages that has any effect on companies that put profit ahead of public health and well-being. Without that threat — with a small cap on awards — irresponsible companies can fold the relatively low cost of potential lawsuits into the cost of doing business and go on selling dangerous products unchecked.

Public safety requires keeping the courts open for juries to make awards appropriate not just to the suffering of the victims, but to the threat to the public.

It is a matter of protection.

The proposal to cap awards would effectively take the power to punish away from juries, and would make it hard for those harmed to sue, since lawyers would have a financial disincentive to take such a case. This would have the practical effect of closing off the courts to those seeking redress from corporate harm.

Justice requires open courts.

As progressives, we need to promote our fundamental core values:

• We are empathetic; we care about people.
  
• We promote responsibility and accountability
  
• We help, we don't harm
  
• We protect the powerless

Lastly, be careful in your use of language --

talk about responsibility instead of victimhood. Talk about accountability instead of grievances. Talk about citizens instead of consumers. Talk about open courts instead of money.

Given the common-sense approach to this problem, why on earth would conservatives tout the phony solution of "tort reform" to the phony crisis of "higher malpractice premiums?"

what they really care most about is other effects that follow from this: to allow corporations to weaken public protection laws which guard the public's health and safety, to weaken environmental regulations that restrict their business operations, and to eliminate an important fund-raising base for Democratic candidates by limiting the income of public protection attorneys who overwhelmingly donate to Democratic candidates.

Although "frivolous lawsuits" is the catchphrase, it's about many other goals that go unstated in the public debate.

Keep your eyes on the ball, my friends. There's a lot at stake.

:::UPDATE::: Massachusetts has come up with a novel approach to protecting public safety in the medical field: sideline the bad doctors.

(HT to The Rockridge Institute)

This year, the editors of NRO are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Review's founding.

Atrios chimes in with this golden oldie from 1957, entitled Why The South Must Prevail:

The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.

National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.

The use of the word "obtrude" seems, to me, to indicate that this was written by William F. Buckley.

What do you think?

P.S. Every one of us has probably written something that we regretted later; many of us have even apologized for it. I know I have.

Did Buckley ever apologize for writing this? Or, at least, publishing it?

Many in the Bush-based community suggest that anti-war progressives are against the establishment of a democratic Iraq. Of course, this is hogwash (and simplistic hogwash to boot).

If anything, progressives believe that there should be more to American foreign policy than just, "Excuse me, we're going to blow up your house. Now here's some money -- go build a new one."

If anything, a core conviction of progressives used to be the fight against tyranny and for the growth of democracy:

[Throughout the 1950s] support for a U.S.-led campaign to defeat Third World communism through economic development and social justice remained central to anti-totalitarian liberalism...

• Addressing an ADA meeting in 1952, Democratic Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut called for an "army" of young Americans to travel to the Third World as "missionaries of democracy."

• In 1955, the ADA called for doubling U.S. aid to the Third World, to blunt "the main thrust of communist expansion" and to "help those countries provide the reality of freedom and make an actual start toward economic betterment."

• When Kennedy took office, he proposed the Alliance for Progress, a $20 billion Marshall Plan for Latin America.

• And, answering McMahon's call, he launched the Peace Corps, an opportunity for young Americans to participate "in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace."

I'm for more of that and you would be too, if you thought about it and looked at this excerpt of a video called Voices of Iraq.

Who doesn't want to promote democracy over tyranny?

Yet, current US policy seems bound to do just that.

In the 1940's and 50's Republicans were content to cut taxes and balance the budget in the face of the challenges abroad. Today, Republicans want to cut taxes, shrink the government and fight tyranny abroad...sort of.

Fact is, the Republicans havena't changed much in the last 60 years -- they still want to cut taxes first and fund the important work of national defense and nation-building second. Our troops are sent into battle in insufficient numbers, without proper intelligence or even adequate armor. Expecting to be met as liberators, we are tied down instead, being forced to take on the role of occupiers. The Iraqi peoples' irrepressible urge for freedom is being worn down by our inability to overcome the insurgents and give Iraq back to the Iraqis. The important work of nation-building is given lip-service and not much else.

Bush and Rumsfeld expected our troops to be warriors and nation-builders. As a result, and despite the valiant efforts of our fighting forces, the results on both counts have been a disappointment.

But we can do better. It isn't right to blow up their country and then give them some money to rebuild it. We need a more determined and sustained effort at nation-building. It'll cost money. It'll require a change in focus. For starters we ought to take nation-building away from the Defense Department and put it where it belongs -- in the State Department or, if we're really serious about promoting democracy in the Middle East, create a cabinet level department tasked with getting it done right.

What do you think?