The New Editor

Democratic strategists pooh-pooh the polls

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes:

The Democrats, facing an electoral washout in November of the sort rarely seen since the campaign of Noah (D- Mt. Ararat), have launched their autumn campaign with one of the underdog's time-honored strategies: pooh-poohing the polling.
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As campaign themes go, "pay no attention to the polls" is seldom a winner. And while it's technically true that the only poll that matters is Election Day, it's also notable that the public opinion surveys and the forecasting models are all pointing heavily in the same direction.

Still, the Democrats have few options but to fight the tyranny of the numbers. Polls and forecasts will become self-fulfilling if they further depress Democratic voters and convince them there's no point in voting.

What the midterm election really looks like -- right now:

What if the September 11 Attack was Thwarted?

The 9-year anniversary of the attack is coming up, and the more time goes by, the less unlikely seems this piece of satire ...

(A version of this parody was originally published in the Vallejo (CA) Times-Herald on September 11, 2002)

19 Arrested In 'Terrorist Plot'

New York, September 12 (AP) -- In what it called "an unprecedented operation in the history of the US intelligence community," the FBI today announced that yesterday it had arrested 19 men from the Middle East in New York and Boston in connection with what was called "a terrorist plot to blow up the World Trade Center, the White House, the Capitol, and the Pentagon."

A spokesman for the FBI said that the men, 15 Saudi Arabians and 4 Egyptians, were carrying "box-cutters, flight-manuals, copies of the Koran, and death shrouds" at the time of their arrests and had booked flights bound from New York and Boston to the West Coast intending to hijack the flights and use them to "crash into various federal buildings."

The FBI said that the group comprised part of the al Qaeda terrorist network run by Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Islamic fundamentalist and Saudi dissident.

In an interview broadcast on CNN, a spokesman for the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington said, "These men were arrested because they are of Middle Eastern descent. It's an outrage."

When reached for comment, a spokesman for the Arab-American Anti-Defamation Committee called the arrests "an outrageous example of racial profiling."

Ari Fleisher, President Bush's press secretary, said the White House would make no comment about the arrests until more was known.

Protests Over The 'Arab 19'

New York, September 17 (AP) - In response to the arrests of 19 men of Middle Eastern descent suspected of terrorism on September 11, protests popped up across the nation.

The New York police department estimated that protesters outside of the United Nations numbered in the "low thousands."

"This is yet another example of the injustice of racial profiling in the United States," said Tiffany Suit, a protester and law student from New York University. "And I'm tired of it."

In Washington, DC, hundreds of protesters gathered across from the White House, in Lafayette Park. Some carried signs that read, "Bush is a Fascist," "Free The 'Arab 19,'" and "The United States of Racism."

Speaking at the rally, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) said, "as a woman of color, I am all too familiar with the horrific reality of racial profiling in America. This Administration wants you to believe that just because these men are of Middle Eastern heritage, they are suspects in some diabolical plot. Box cutters? Get serious. What could anyone do with box-cutters - take down a plane? The Republicans are paranoid. Bush has got to go."

In Boston, a crowd estimated around three thousand showed up to listen to a short speech by MIT linguistics professor, Noam Chomsky.

"The US government wants you to believe that because these men were taking classes at flight training schools that they are somehow dangerous and in need of incarceration. They had flight manuals with them? Of course they did. They were student pilots! The United States is a terrorist regime bent on world hegemony."

In Berkeley, California, police, donned in riot gear, were pelted with crumpled pages of the US Constitution by students chanting, "shame, shame, shame."

Some in the crowd said they thought that President Bush was to blame.

Student leader Nathan Cabbage, an anti-globalization activist and environmental studies major at the University of California at Berkeley, said, "Bush is the problem. This is what happens to a country that kills innocent animals for food - they become paranoid nuts. Bush stole the election and now he wants to throw all of us in jail because we are different from him and his rich oil buddies. I stand in solidarity with my Arab brothers. So they had copies of the Koran with them. So what? Bush claims to be religious. Should we throw him in jail because he reads the Bible? America is a racist country."

McAuliffe Calls for Investigation

Chicago, September 21 (AP) -- In a speech at a fundraiser, Terry McAuliffe, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called for an investigation into the arrests of the "Arab 19." "It is time to put an end to racial profiling in America -- the airlines should apologize to Arab-Americans," he said.

United, American Apologize: To Start Scholarships

Chicago, September 24 (AP) - United Airlines apologized to all Arab-Americans today and offered to fund a scholarship for the training of pilots of Middle Eastern descent. "We want to correct the false impression that we are anti-Arab. We are not," said a spokesman for United Airlines.

In Dallas, American Airlines announced that it would match the United offer "because we care," said a company spokesman.

Small businesses feel squeezed by Obama policies

The Washington Post's V. Dion Haynes reports: (emphasis added)

As small businesses try to plot their recovery, attention is turning to what many owners consider burdensome policies -- higher taxes, new accounting procedures and health-care mandates. Even as the government tries to help with an array of small-business initiatives, many owners say the intervention is as much a hindrance to hiring as the faltering economy.

Their perceptions are important because the Obama administration is counting on small-business owners ... whose ranks represent more than half the U.S. workforce, to jump-start the economy, much like they did after downturns in the early 1990s and 2001.
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Some business owners and advocates complain that some of the programs contradict one another. Stephanie Cathcart, spokeswoman for the National Federation of Independent Business, said benefits from the payroll tax exemption business owners use when they hire unemployed people are mitigated by provisions in the health-care overhaul law that reduce a tax credit when businesses hire.

"It's counterintuitive," she said. "Frankly, a lot of these initiatives fall short."

Brogan of the National Small Business Administration said a new accounting regulation dramatically increases the requirements associated with providing documentation to the government on businesses' vendors, a rule that on average will multiply the average number of 1099 tax forms an owner files every year to 86 from 10.

"This will take the money they'd spend to hire a part- or full-time employee and give it to accountants," she said.

On This Day

September 9 ...

In 490 BC the Battle of Marathon took place between the invading Persians and the Athenians. The Athenian Phidippides ran 40 kilometers from Marathon to Athens to announce the news of the Greek victory; this event was the origin of the race known as the marathon. In 1776 the Second Continental Congress made the term "United States" official, replacing "United Colonies." In 1830 Charles Durant flew a balloon from New York City across the Hudson River to Perth Amboy, NJ. In 1850 California became the 31st state of the union. In 1893 President Grover Cleveland's wife, Frances Cleveland, gave birth to a daughter, Esther. It was the first time a president's child was born in the White House. In 1926 the National Broadcasting Co. was created by the Radio Corporation of America. In 1942 a Japanese floatplane dropped incendiary bombs over Oregon in an attempt to set fire to the forests in Oregon and Washington. The forest did not ignite. In 1943 Allied forces landed at Salerno and Taranto during World War II. In 1948 the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was created. In 1957 President Eisenhower signed into law the first civil rights bill to pass Congress since Reconstruction. In 1971 prisoners seized control of the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, NY, beginning a siege that ended up claiming 43 lives. In 1976 Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung died in Beijing at age 82. In 1993 PLO leaders and Israel agreed to recognize each other, clearing the way for a peace accord. In 1997 Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, formally renounced violence as it took its place in talks on Northern Ireland's future. In 2001 Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, was killed by suicide bombers in Afghanistan; it is widely believed that Osama bin Laden ordered the assassination.

In Illinois: State Worker Pension Fund Free Fall

From a Chicago Tribune editorial: (emphasis added)

Just when you thought the state of Illinois' fiscal trajectory couldn't get worse, Springfield has done it again. The major Illinois pension funds are selling off core assets to pay benefits. The biggest fund, Teachers' Retirement System, may have to cut $3 billion from its investment portfolio in the coming year, nearly 10 percent of its total.

This money is supposed to build over time to pay employees who've been promised retirement income at taxpayer expense. State lawmakers have catastrophically underfunded the too-generous pension system ? and a forced liquidation of assets makes the outlook even worse: The pension funds are devouring their seed corn.

The effect is doubly insidious. Emergency sales of assets, by reducing the size of the nest egg, undermine investment returns in the short run. The compounding effect of that loss cripples long-term prospects as well.
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The unsurprising shortfall in its investment results contributes to the Big Lie about just how much the state owes. Bureaucrats with a vested political interest in low-balling hate to admit it, but the real amount of pension underfunding is huge -- and rising, unless by some miracle these depleted investment portfolios suddenly grow to the moon. Writing in the Aug. 13 Tribune, public finance professors Joshua Rauh of Northwestern University and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Rochester warned that, "A true financial valuation of unfunded pension liabilities reveals a debt of more than $200 billion for (Illinois) state and local governments." They envision the state's funds empty as early as 2018.
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Illinois politicians created this mess. Now they need to meet their obligations to the funds -- and set realistic pension benefits for current employees. One sure road to further ruin: Gov. Pat Quinn's plan for still more billions in pension debt -- borrowing on one credit card to pay down another. These funds have had enough irresponsible stewardship.

Faux California pol dupes Washington Post journalist

Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart, on the ball.

We Are Ruled by Professors

Victor Davis Hanson:

We are presently governed by academics. In an era in which university people proliferate in this administration and seem to make things far worse for the rest of us, we need to be reminded why we should not look to the university for answers. What I hear coming out of Washington reminds me a lot of what I once heard coming out of the philosophy or English department. And that is a scary thing indeed.

You see, that tribe is more likely to embody the illness rather than the cure, and this time 300 million are paying the price.

Read the whole piece.

Chris Matthews: Obama Sends "The Same Thrill Up My Leg, All Over Me"

(via Mediate)

On This Day

September 8 ...

In 1565 a Spanish expedition established the first permanent European settlement in North America at present-day St. Augustine, FL. In 1664 the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York. In 1900 Galveston, TX was struck by a hurricane that killed about 6,000 people. In 1921 Margaret Gorman of Washington, DC was crowned the first Miss America in Atlantic City, NJ. In 1930 Scotch cellophane tape made its debut as a sample of the tape, invented by Richard Drew of 3M, was shipped to a Chicago firm which specialized in wrapping bakery goods in cellophane. In 1935 Senator Huey P. Long, "The Kingfish" of Louisiana politics, was shot and mortally wounded; he died two days later. In 1945 Bess Myerson of New York was crowned "Miss America" in Atlantic City, NJ, becoming the first Jewish contestant to win the title. In 1951 a peace treaty with Japan was signed by 48 other nations in San Francisco. In 1974 President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon. In 1975 Boston's public schools began their court-ordered citywide busing program amid scattered incidents of violence. In 1995 Bosnia's warring sides reached a compromise in Geneva, agreeing to divide the nation into two states: one for the rebel Serbs and another for the Muslims and Croats. In 2004 CBS' 60 Minutes Wednesday aired a report questioning President Bush's National Guard service; however, CBS News ended up apologizing for a "mistake in judgment" after memos featured in the report were shown to be forgeries.

Chicago's Mayor Daley Will Not Seek Re-Election

The Chicago Tribune reports that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley will not seek another term.

Do You Know How Lucky You Are, America?

Higher education bubble poised to burst

Michael Barone:

A century ago only about 2 percent of American adults graduated from college; in 1910 the number of college graduates nationally was 39,755 -- smaller than the student bodies at many campuses today.

Higher education expanded when the GI Bill financed veterans' education after World War II and then expanded further with postwar growth. Government's student loan subsidies have enabled institutions to grow faster over the last three decades than the economy on whose productivity they ultimately depend.

As often happens, success leads to excess. America leads the world in higher education, yet there is much in our colleges and universities that is amiss and, more to the point, suddenly not sustainable. The people running America's colleges and universities have long thought they were exempt from the laws of supply and demand and unaffected by the business cycle. Turns out that's wrong.

On This Day

September 7 ...

In 1822 Brazil declared its independence from Portugal. In 1825 the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution, bade farewell to President John Quincy Adams at the White House. In 1892 James J. Corbett knocked out John L. Sullivan to win the world heavyweight crown in New Orleans in the first major prize fight conducted under the Marquis of Queensberry rules. In 1901 the Peace of Beijing ended the Boxer Rebellion in China. In 1936 rock legend Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, TX. In 1940 Nazi Germany began its initial blitz on London during World War II. In 1966 the final episode of the original The Dick Van Dyke Show was aired on CBS-TV. In 1969 Senate Republican leader Everett M. Dirksen (IL) died in Washington, DC. In 1977 the Panama Canal treaties, calling for the US to eventually turn over control of the waterway to Panama, were signed in Washington. In 1978 while walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated (he actually died September 11) by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from in a specially-designed umbrella. In 1979 the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) made its cable TV debut. In 1995 after 27 years in the Senate, Bob Packwood, R-OR, announced he would resign, heading off a vote by colleagues to expel him for allegations of sexual and official misconduct; also on this day, the space shuttle Endeavour went into orbit with five astronauts on a mission to release and recapture a pair of science satellites.

Fewer Young Voters See Themselves as Democrats

Figuring it out.

On This Day

September 6 ...

In 1757 the Marquis de Lafayette was born in Haute-Loire, France. In 1766 chemist and physicist John Dalton was born in Eaglesfield, England. In 1837 the Oberlin Collegiate Institute of Ohio went co-educational. In 1860 social worker and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, IL. In 1888 Kennedy family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy was born in Boston, MA. In 1901 President McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. McKinley died eight days later; he was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1909 American explorer Robert Peary sent word that he had reached the North Pole five months earlier. In 1939 South Africa declared war on Germany. In 1941 Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas were ordered to wear on their clothing yellow Stars of David with the word "Jude" (German for Jew) inscribed. In 1948 Queen Juliana of the Netherlands was coronated. In 1952 Canadian television broadcasting began in Montreal. In 1970 Palestinian guerrillas seized control of three jetliners which were later blown up on the ground in Jordan after the passengers and crews were evacuated. In 1986 two Arab terrorists associated with Abu Nidal's organization killed 22 and wounded six inside the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey during Shabbat services. In 1995 the Senate Ethics Committee voted unanimously to recommend expulsion of Senator Bob Packwood, accused of sexual and official misconduct; also on this day, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig's Major League record by playing his 2,131st consecutive game. In 2004 former President Clinton underwent successful heart bypass surgery during a four-hour procedure at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia.