HolyJoe - shared view

After my last rant about HolyJoe, I wondered if I had some unrecognized prejudice against this man. Then I read Gail Collins' New York Times column, "Goodbye To a Guy Named Joe;" at least she has the same reaction that I did, only better expressed. Some excerpts:

Normally people look particularly appealing when they’re promising to go away. This time, not so much. . . . Lieberman has reached a point in his public career when every single thing he does, including talking about his grandparents, is irritating. . . .

[Last week] When he was not busy comparing himself to John Kennedy on Wednesday, Lieberman denounced partisanship. “I have not always fit comfortably into conventional political boxes,” he said proudly. This is, of course, an old theme for him, but it’s also a cautionary tale.

The reason we have political parties is that the best way to get things done is by working together. Obviously, sometimes people with principles have to take an independent stand. But Lieberman’s career has taught us how important it is to do that with a sense of humility. If you’re continually admiring yourself as you walk away from your group, eventually people are going to feel an irresistible desire to trip you.

When he started in politics in Connecticut, Lieberman was a careful politician whom everybody regarded as an up-and-comer, even though he was extremely boring. . . .

“He’s the kind of guy who, when you see him in line at the supermarket, you go and get in a different line so you won’t have to make conversation,” a friend from Connecticut protested, . . .

[After the losing Gore/Lieberman campaign in 2000] . . . he left it with the idea that he should be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Nobody else had gotten that message.

Lieberman, a big supporter of the war in Iraq, expected the party’s base to nominate a candidate who disagreed with them about the critical issue of the day . . . and was one of the most sluggish and cliché-ridden public speakers in the history of oratory.

He was shocked when they decided not to.

“It wasn’t a personal rejection, but I never saw anybody take anything so personally. He became so bitter about Democratic liberals,” said Bill Curry, a former Connecticut comptroller and gubernatorial candidate.

He then lost the Democratic nomination for his senate reelection bid in 2006 and experienced more shock and outrage. He won the general election running as an Independent in a 3 way race, largely due to the cross-over Republican voters who didn't like their own weak candidate. Blind to the reality of the mechanism of his win, however, for HolyJoe

"it cemented his sense of exceptionalism."

Looking at his prospects for 2012, even he could not deny that they were not favorable. Polls indicated that he would lose in a landslide. Republicans wouldn't make the same mistake again and would have a formidable candidate, as would the Democrats.

However, true to form,

. . . on Wednesday, Lieberman assured everyone that he was not stepping down because the odds of his losing the next race were astronomically high but rather because he had been reading the Old Testament and decided that to everything there is a season.

He will leave behind a long list of achievements, from helping to consolidate the nation’s intelligence gathering services in a way that appears to make it more difficult to gather intelligence, to threatening to filibuster the health care reform act until it had been watered down to suit his own high principles.

You will find it all in my upcoming book, “Everything Bad Is Joe Lieberman’s Fault.”

Gail Collins, former NYT editorial page editor and now weekly columnist, clearly does not like HolyJoe, and her feelings seem similar to mine, even though I give him a little credit for helping repeal DADT. For whatever reason (self-serving, I am sure) he jumped out ahead of that parade to influence some wavering senate colleagues.

It's not yet goodbye, unfortunately. HolyJoe has two more years in the senate. Let's see what he does with it. You can be sure it will somehow serve his grandiose sense of himself. Even if it takes the form of a humble leave-taking -- he will be admiring himself for being humble.

Ralph

PBS News -- most trusted

In a recent poll by Public Policy Polling, PBS has by a good margin the highest trust ratings of any TV news. Fox News comes in with the second highest number who trust it, but it also has the highest number who distrust it.'

And, as would be expected, there is a very high correlation between political ideology and which news is trusted. Democrats trust everything but Fox. Republicans don't trust anything but Fox.

The poll results were tabulated with a "trust/distrust" ratio and the net difference in the two.

PBS 50 trust/30 distrust = + 20 net
NBC 41/41 = 0 net
CNN 40/43 = -2 net
Fox 42/46 = -4 net
CBS 46/43 = -7 net
ABC 35/43 = -12 net

It's interesting how this has changed in just one year. .

In 2009, a comparable poll show that a plurality of Americans said they trusted Fox News. Now a plurality of them don't. Conservatives have stayed much the same: 75% trusted it last year and 72% do this year. Moderate and liberals have both strongly increased their mistrust of Fox: from 48% to 60% for moderates and from 66% to 82% for liberals.

PBS was not included in the poll last year.

The three networks NBC, CBS, and ABC are all more trusted this year than last. NBC is the most trusted, breaking even this year with 41%/41% between trust and mistrust. MSNBC was not separated from the NBC network in the poll, and this may have been what gave it the advantage. All three have risen, compared with Fox News which has declined in trust over the past year.

It's encouraging that PBS comes in with the highest trust ratings, especially given that its audience share is probably lower than the others. I'd like to think that a majority of Americans actually listen to news and think critically about what they hear. But, if that were the case, would we have the Congress that has just been elected?

Ralph

DADT is dead #19

The General Accounting Office has calculated how much DADT cost the U.S. taxpayers.

Between 2004 and 2009, the militatry services expelled 3,664 gay men and lesbians, costing roughly $193,300,000 -- 96% of which went to recruit and train replacements for those discharged, many of whom held critical occupational or language skill positions.

The cost to the individuals discharged: incalculable.

Take note: Those years represent only 1/3 of the time DADT was in effect. And even before that, gays were being kicked out -- often by dishonorable discharge -- going all the way back.

Ah, the wisdom of our elected representatives !!! And the folly of those like Sen. McNothing who fought so hard to retain this stupid policy in 2010.

Ralph

HolyJoe just blew it

Any slight uptick in my (non)esteem for HolyJoe Lieberman just went slack . . . sagging . . . sagging . . . gone.

Appearing on Morning Joe, along with fellow guest Arianna Huffington, HolyJoe maintained that the war in Iraq was justified and he doesn't regret his support of it. He justifies this by claiming, despite lack of evidence, that he still believes that Sadaam was a threat to the stability of the region and that Iraq is much better off now and has become the most democratic Arab nation.

Arianna challenged this assertion, saying that even George W. Bush acknowledges now that believing there were WMD was his biggest mistake. HolyJoe refers to the Duelfer Report -- which did not find WMD but, according to HolyJoe, "proved" Sadaam had every intention to develop nuclear weapons and was developing chemical and biological WMDs.

Arianna countered that the report proved nothing of the sort.

Dripping with condescension, Lieberman retorted, "I don't think you've read it, sweetheart."

EEEUUUUUWWWWW !!!! And it was accompanied by that trademark sickly-sweet, kewpie doll smile that he flashes at inappropriate times. This is disgusting.

To say nothing of what it reveals about his character that he stubbornly refuses to face the reality that Sadaam had become a beleaguered, weakened tiger who wasn't much of threat to anyone but his own people.

Sen. McNothing is promoting his buddy HolyJoe, suggesting that Obama choose him to replace retiring Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.

Bad idea. Very bad idea. HolyJoe and McNothing should just go off somewhere together and form a mutual admiration folie a duex.

Ralph

Why isn't he in charge of economic policy?

Robert Reich was Clinton's first Secretary of Labor; he is now a professor at University of California at Berkeley and author of numerous books. This bit of clarity and wisdom is too good not to share in full:

Highlighting today's summit between Chinese President Hu Jintao and President Obama is China's agreement to buy $45 billion of American exports. The president says this will create more American jobs. That's not exactly right. It will create more profits for American companies but relatively few new jobs.

Nearly half of the deal is for two hundred Boeing aircraft whose parts come from all over the world. The rest involves agricultural commodities that don't require much U.S. labor because American agribusiness is highly automated, and chemical and high-tech goods that are even less labor-intensive.

General Electric and other companies are signing up for deals with China involving energy and aviation manufacturing. But much of this will be done in China. GE's joint venture with Aviation Industries of China, to develop new integrated avionics systems (which presumably will find their way into Boeing planes) will be based in Shanghai.

Here's the real story. China has a national economic strategy designed to make it, and its people, the economic powerhouse of the future. They're intent on learning as much as they can from us and then going beyond us (as they already are in solar and electric-battery technologies). They're pouring money into basic research and education at all levels. In the last 12 years they've built twenty universities, each designed to be the equivalent of MIT.

Their goal is to make China Number one in power and prestige, and in high-wage jobs.

The United States doesn't have a national economic strategy. Instead, we have global corporations that happen to be headquartered here. Their goal is to maximize profits, wherever they can make the most money. They'll make things in America for export to China when that's most profitable; they'll make it in China and give the Chinese their know-how when that's the best way to boost the bottom line. They'll utilize research and development wherever around the world it will deliver the biggest bang for the dollar.

Meanwhile, Republicans and deficit hawks are cutting publicly-supported R&D. And cash-starved states are cutting K-12 education, and slashing the budgets of their great public research universities, such as the one I teach at.

No contest.

And no hyped-up trade deals are going to change this fundamental imbalance.

Some say all we need to do is put our currencies in better balance. But even if the Chinese upped the value of the yuan and the US (courtesy of the Fed) reduced the value of the dollar -- so everything they bought from us was cheaper and everything we bought from them, far more expensive -- they'd still win. We'd have more jobs than now because our exports would be more attractive in world markets, but those jobs would summon fewer goods from around the world. In other words, we'd be poorer.

Let's get real. We're losing ground. The U.S. labor force is now smaller than it was before the Great Recession began and most American families are worse off. December's unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent but almost half the improvement was due to 260,000 people dropping out of the labor force.

Average hourly wages grew by three cents in December; weekly wages, by $1.02. And almost all the gains in income occurred at the top. The major assets of rich Americans are financial - whose values have increased as corporate profits have grown. The major assets of the middle-class asset are their homes, whose values continue to drop.

The President now says the answer is to help American business. "We can't succeed unless American businesses succeed," he said recently. "And I'm going to do everything I can to promote their ability to grow and prosper."

But the prosperity of America's big businesses has become disconnected from the prosperity of most Americans.

Republicans say the answer is to reduce the size and scope of government. But without a government that's focused on more and better jobs, we're left with global corporations that don't give a damn.

China is eating our lunch. Why? It has a national economic strategy designed to create more and better jobs. We have global corporations designed to make money for shareholders.

Ralph

Another slight up-tick

Dick Cheney has been another on my scorn list. In an interview on NBC this week, he cracked the door open just a bit when he said he thought it might be worth considering limiting the size of ammunition magazines for semi-automatic guns. Noting that we did have that in effect from 1994-2004, when it was allowed to expire, he said we should be very careful (of what, he didn't say; I guess the passions of the NRA) in returning to that limitation.

I also give him credit for supporting gay rights and gay marriage. Thanks to daughter Mary for that.

Also in the interview, Cheney said that he will have to make a decision about going for a heart transplant. The heart pump that he had installed last year was originally intended to buy time for those waiting for a transplant. Now, as Cheney points out, the technology has improved to the extent that it is possible to live on the pump much longer. But, he says, it does limit his walking around. So he may consider the transplant option.

That's it. No scorn, nothing negative this time.

Ralph

HolyJoe bows out

I have heaped a fair share of scorn on HolyJoe Lieberman.

After the Democratic Party had nurtured him for decades, even anointed him as its VP nominee in 2000, he turned on his party in 2006 to run as an Independent for the senate -- and winning the general election against the same Ned Lamont who beat him in the Democratic primary.

Then he proceeded to play this cat and mouse game with the Senate Democratic leaders -- dangling his crucial vote as bait for retaining his subcommittee chairmanship and status within the Democratic caucus. But then some of us saw him as a traitor for actively campaigning for John McCain against Obama in 2008. He should have been stripped of the chairmanship for that, for sure. And then he wasn't exactly an asset in the negotiations for health care reform.

He partially redeemed himself by breaking with this same McNothing over repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- even to becoming one of the leading advocates for repeal.

Because of that last act, I am less gleeful over his official announcement today that he will not seek re-election in the 2012 race. But I would be very happy to see him replaced by a more reliable liberal vote in the senate. That remains to be seen. Connecticut just elected a Republican governor. On the other hand, Obama will head the ticket in 2012 and should bring out the voters.

Mostly, I am just glad to see HolyJoe go.

Ralph

New civility

As part of the new civility in political discourse, I am going to come back to neutral in comments about the one I had taken to calling McNothing. John McCain is the senior senator from the state in which the Tucson massacre occurred. He seemed to remain appropriately in the background.

Now he has written an article for the Washington Post in which he praises Obama as a patriot and rejects the critics who say he is not fit to lead our country. He went further:

Our political discourse should be more civil than it currently is, and we all, myself included, bear some responsibility for it not being so. . . .

I disagree with many of the president's policies, but I believe he is a patriot sincerely intent on using his time in office to advance our country's cause. . . . I reject accusations that his policies and beliefs make him unworthy to lead America or opposed to its founding ideals. And I reject accusations that Americans who vigorously oppose his policies are less intelligent, compassionate or just than those who support them. . . .

It probably asks too much of human nature to expect any of us to be restrained at all times by persistent modesty and empathy from committing rhetorical excesses that exaggerate our differences and ignore our similarities. But I do not think it is beyond our ability and virtue to refrain from substituting character assassination for spirited and respectful debate.

OK. Let's take him at his word. And hold him to it. If he flips, yet again, I will call him on it. But, in the interest of civility, he gets one more chance.

Now, about She Who Still Shall Not Be Named, she had a good chance to show her capacity to rise to the occasion as a reflective, mature leader. She did not.

Ralph

Cyber warfare

While the kill-people kind of warfare winds down in Iraq and limps along in Afghanistan, the U.S. and Israel are engaged in a new kind of warfare behind the scenes -- specifically in the centrifuge rooms of Iran's nuclear fuel project.

Back in November, Iran's Ahmadinejad announced that a "cyberattack" had caused minor problems with some of their centrifuges that were concentrating the uranium necessary for nuclear power. He downplayed the significance, but it was the tip of the iceberg that is now being pieced together.

The evidence suggests that both Israel and the U.S. were involved in developing a computer worm designed to target the specific kind of centrifuges being used in Iran. Called Stuxnet, the worm was detected around the globe last year but seemed to cause little harm to computer systems -- except, we now know, in the Iranian uranium processing plants.

Having tested it out on the same kind of centrifuges set up in an Israeli facility for that purpose, the Stuxnet developers designed the worm to go into effect only when it encountered that exact type of centrifuge spinning. Then, after lying dormant for long periods, it set the centrifuges spinning so fast and out of control that they destroyed themselves. A second feature of the worm was copying the normal feedback data and playing it back to fool the operators into thinking everything was all right, until the damage was done.

Meanwhile, curious computer scientists began to analyze the seemingly benign Stuxnet to see what it was set up to do. From the Times article:

No one was more intrigued than Mr. Langner, a former psychologist who runs a small computer security company in a suburb of Hamburg. Eager to design protective software for his clients, he had his five employees focus on picking apart the code and running it on the series of Siemens controllers neatly stacked in racks, their lights blinking.

He quickly discovered that the worm only kicked into gear when it detected the presence of a specific configuration of controllers, running a set of processes that appear to exist only in a centrifuge plant. “The attackers took great care to make sure that only their designated targets were hit,” he said. “It was a marksman’s job.”

For example, one small section of the code appears designed to send commands to 984 machines linked together.

Curiously, when international inspectors visited Natanz in late 2009, they found that the Iranians had taken out of service a total of exactly 984 machines that had been running the previous summer.

Bingo. Cyber warfare? Indeed. This raises all kinds of worries: about the vulnerability of, not only the U.S. military/defense systems, but also the U.S. economic systems. Our whole society now is run by computers. What would happen if they were thrown into disarray even for a few days? Airlines, banking systems, instant credit card charges, manufacturing plants, and even medical records and hospital operations would come to a halt. It's almost unthinkable.

On the other hand, it sure beats the alternate of nuclear warfare.

Meanwhile, back on the diplomatic surface, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton announced that we have reason to believe that Iran's nuclear bomb program had been set back by several years. She attributed it to the sanctions, and her tone signaled a definite easing of the urgency about Iran and the bomb.

But the retiring chief of Mossad, Israel's intelligence unit, bluntly told the Knesset that Iran had "run into technological difficulties" that would delay their bomb capability until 2015. The timing and suddenness of this sharp reversal in predictions points to the Stuxnet worm as the primary factor.

What interesting times; what scary times -- fighting a 20th century war and a 21st century war at the same time.

Ralph