The Wobbling Wonk

The Obama Dilemma

2008-04-27T21:30:00.002-04:00

I knew it would be a problem. After reading The Audacity of Hope, I knew I wanted to see Barack Obama in the Oval Office. His approach to evaluating both conservative and liberal sides of an issue in search of a workable solution is, in my opinion, clearly needed.

Idealogical administrations can not govern successfully because they see the world as they want it to be rather than how it is. Even Newt Gingrich says, "I don't think either party can force a narrowly partisan set of solutions" (Time Magazine May 5, 2008).

I ache to have an administration that proposes workable solutions to the big issues facing us. Yet I do not see how a compromising approach, desirable in a president, can be successful in a presidential election culture that does not work that way. That is the problem for Barack Obama.

The Second Amendment

2008-03-18T20:15:00.001-04:00

As the title of my blog suggests, I wobble between conservative and liberal views looking for what makes sense. And the case that came before the Supreme Court today is a perfect study in looking at both sides of the story.

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be known that I tend to be on the left of center politically so my conservative friends might assume that I want the government to strip us of our weapons. I do not feel that way. While I currently own no guns I have owned guns in the past and I do not have a problem with those who want to own guns for personal protection, hunting, or collecting.

The case before the Supreme Court was brought by plaintiffs who assert that the District of Columbia law that forbids the ownership of handguns violates the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If that is as far as it went, I would not much care since I feel that, for example, a shotgun would be more of a deterrent in the home than a handgun. The DC law further says that you can own long guns but they must have a trigger lock installed or must be disassembled. I feel the DC law overreaches in this case since a gun in such a state would be ineffective for personal protection (perhaps one could leave the key in the trigger lock!). In other words, I agree with the plaintiffs that the law is unconstitutional.

But wait, there’s more. I think this is the most interesting case to come before the high court in recent memory. Conservatives have been fond of criticizing the courts for “legislating from the bench”; they favor strict constructionist justices who would strive to interpret the Constitution as the framers would have interpreted it. If one reads the second amendment as a strict constructionist it seems one would have to say that it deals with the necessity for members of a state militia to keep their weapons at home so that they are available when needed. Even though the Court is quite conservative, I do not believe they would find that the right to bear arms refers only to arming militias.

The tradition that there is an “individual” right to bear arms has been part of our culture since the beginning and I do not expect it to change nor would I like it to change. The final decision on this case will probably come down to issues of how much the state can regulate gun ownership (no automatic weapons, etc.) rather than delving into the basic “militia” vs. “individual” constitutional issues but I expect these core issues will be discussed during the arguments before the Court.

For the interested reader, here is the 75-page finding (the DC law is unconstitutional) of the appeals court last year on this matter.

Election 2008 - Is He 'Cocky'?

2008-02-11T10:51:00.000-05:00

It has been said that John McCain tends to verbally spout off when he is riding high which can hurt his standing . His staff tries to keep him focused. He may not be the only one.

I was surprised yesterday when my step-son-in-law suggested that Barack Obama was getting cocky. Later that same day I heard parts of his talk at the T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA in preparation for the Virginia primary. He stated that, as president, he would end the Iraq war in 2009. That sounded unrealistic to me. I doubt very much that he would do that if he was President. Time will tell.

Election 2008 - Romney Quits

2008-02-07T16:21:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney withdrew from the race to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States today. His father, George Romney, withdrew from his race for the same nomination nearly 40 years ago on February 28, 1968.

Election 2008 - Super Tuesday

2008-02-06T14:05:00.000-05:00

Alabama primaries
Democrats
Obama......56%
Clinton....42%

Republicans
Huckabee...41%
McCain.....37%
Romney.....18%

Alaska caucuses
Republicans
Romney.....44%
Huckabee...22%
McCain.....15%

Democrats
Obama......75%
Clinton....25%

Arizona primaries
Democrats
Clinton....51%
Obama......42%

Republicans
McCain.....48%
Romney.....34%
Huckabee...09%

Arkansas primaries
Republicans
Huckabee...60%
McCain.....20%
Romney.....14%

Democrats
Clinton....70%
Obama......27%

California primaries
Democrats
Clinton....52%
Obama......42%

Republicans
McCain.....42%
Romney.....34%
Huckabee...12%

Colorado caucuses
Republicans
Romney.....60%
McCain.....19%
Huckabee...13%

Democrats
Obama......67%
Clinton....32%

Connecticut primaries
Democrats
Obama......51%
Clinton....47%

Republicans
McCain.....52%
Romney.....33%
Huckabee...07%

Delaware primaries
Republicans
McCain.....45%
Romney.....33%
Huckabee...15%

Democrats
Obama......53%
Clinton....43%

Georgia primaries
Democrats
Obama......67%
Clinton....31%

Republicans
Huckabee...34%
McCain.....32%
Romney.....30%

Idaho caucuses (D)
Democrats Only
Obama......79%
Clinton....17%

Illinois primaries
Democrats
Obama......65%
Clinton....33%

Republicans
McCain.....47%
Romney.....29%
Huckabee...17%

Kansas caucuses (D)
Democrats Only
Obama......74%
Clinton....26%

Massachusetts primaries
Democrats
Clinton....56%
Obama......41%

Republicans
Romney.....51%
McCain.....41%
Huckabee...04%

Minnesota primaries
Republicans
Romney.....41%
McCain.....22%
Huckabee...20%

Democrats
Obama......67%
Clinton....32%

Missouri primaries
Democrats
Obama......49%
Clinton....48%

Republicans
McCain.....33%
Huckabee...32%
Romney.....29%

Montana caucuses (R)
Republicans Only
Romney.....38%
Paul.......25%
McCain.....22%
Huckabee...15%

New Jersey primaries
Democrats
Clinton....54%
Obama......44%

Republicans
McCain.....55%
Romney.....28%
Huckabee...08%

New Mexico primary (D)
Democrats Only
Clinton....49%
Obama......48%

New York primaries
Democrats
Clinton....57%
Obama......40%

Republicans
McCain.....51%
Romney.....28%
Huckabee...11%

North Dakota caucuses
Republicans
Romney.....36%
McCain.....23%
Paul.......21%
Huckabee...20%

Democrats
Obama......61%
Clinton....37%

Oklahoma primaries
Democrats
Obama......31%
Clinton....55%

Republicans
McCain.....37%
Huckabee...33%
Romney.....25%

Tennessee primaries
Republicans
Huckabee...34%
McCain.....32%
Romney.....24%

Democrats
Clinton....54%
Obama......41%

Utah primaries
Democrats
Obama......57%
Clinton....39%

Republicans
Romney.....90%
McCain.....05%
Paul.......03%
Huckabee...02%

West Virginia convention (R)
Republicans Only
Huckabee...52%
Romney.....47%
McCain.....01%

Are We Losing in Afghanistan? -- II

2008-01-30T16:14:00.000-05:00

I have completed reading Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer so here is my book report. Some of Scheuer’s main points are discussed below.

Americans have a tendency to redefine those from other cultures in terms we can understand. This is understandable but may be leading us astray. When we have an enemy like bin Laden and we redefine him in a way that makes us feel better—“lunatic”, “fanatic”, etc.—we are missing an important opportunity to know our enemy. Scheuer argues that we miss the fact that he is widely accepted and respected in the Muslim world for various reasons including his piety. His statements ring true to many, many Muslims. We do not have to understand and agree with this from the standpoint of our culture but dismissing the reality of how his culture works puts us at peril.

Afghans do not accept foreign occupiers on their soil. History shows that Afghanistan has been the downfall of any invader. The British were defeated 3 times (1838, 1878, and 1919) during their “Great Game” with Russia for regional dominance. This point leads to the next:

We do not have a chance of winning in Afghanistan. The latest edition of Newsweek has headlines like “As Karzai Looses his Grip…”, and “A Picture of Gloom”. Other media sources paint a similar picture. Whether or not Scheuer is correct—and I am inclined to agree with him because of the British and Soviet experience—it will be interesting to watch how the drama plays out. If we prevail in Afghanistan we may be the first in history to do so.

Everyone in the world does not want to be like us. Scheuer quotes Joshua Mitchell writing in the Washington Post August 10, 2003: “Freedom is neither a spontaneous nor a universal aspiration. Other goods captivate the minds of other people from other lands, order, honor, and tribal loyalties being the most obvious”. And this leads to the next…

Our idealistic drive to impose democracy on those who do not want it wastes our treasure, our lives, and our credibility. The idea that after centuries (actually from 1215 and the Magna Carta) of developing our system we can install instant democracy in places where there is no framework for it is truly ludicrous.

Labeling bin Laden et al. as terrorists misses the fact that their training camps trained insurgents first and terrorists second. Those insurgents went back to their home states and were able to be more effective fighting against those governments and us. The author fears we are not waging an effective response if we do not realize we are fighting a global insurgency. He says that “stepping back from the victim’s perspective, accepting the need for this semantic change, and then making it, could ensure wide recognition that America is at war with a faith-driven force that dwarfs anything that can, with intellectual honesty, be called terrorism.”

Scheuer has harsh criticism of our desires to fight a “dainty” war. We don’t want to hurt too many of the enemy and we certainly don’t want to lose many of our own so we fight half wars that leaves the issue smoldering to re-ignite at a later time. He argues convincingly that we will not get the job done this way and quotes Lincoln’s displeasure with McClellan’s reticence to fight. He also includes a quote from General W.T. Sherman (1875), “Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster”.

Election 2008 - Florida

2008-01-29T15:56:00.000-05:00

Florida is in a similar fix to Michigan. Its Democratic delegates have been stripped to zero and the Republicans have seen their delegates halved. So while I have listed the Democrats' results, below, time will tell whether their delegates will be seated at the convention.

Republicans:
McCain.....36%
Romney.....31%
Giuliani...15%
Huckabee...14%

Democrats:
Clinton....50%
Obama......33%
Edwards....14%

Note added 1/31/2008: Giuliani withdrew and backed McCain. Edwards withdrew and did not initially support any candidate.

Election 2008 - South Carolina (D)

2008-01-26T22:33:00.000-05:00

WOW!!! Perhaps the Clinton's attacks on Obama produced some backlash. We will have to wait for the Sunday morning pundits to tell us. Here are the results:

Democrats
Obama.....55%
Clinton...27%
Edwards...18%
Kucinich...0%

Kucinich withdrew from the race on January 25, 2008.

Are We Losing in Afghanistan?

2008-01-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

On the Diane Rehm Friday (1/25/2008) news roundup, Yochi Dreazen, military correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal", stated that “The level of fear, right now, within the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon about Afghanistan is---skyrocketed (sic). It’s off the charts and it’s rising by the day.”

This statement reminded me how surprised I was two or three years ago when I began to read Imperial Hubris by Anonymous (aka Michael Scheuer) when he said back in 2004 that we were loosing the war in Afghanistan (page xvi of the Introduction). I am going to go back and finish that book.

I have also started reading a somewhat related book: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, by Tim Weiner.

I have been growing concerned lately that our national policies and actions may be leading our form of government toward the ash heap of history. The Introduction to Imperial Hubris begins with a quote from “The American Empire (Get Used to It),” New York Times Magazine, 5 January 2003, by Michael Ignatieff:

A confident and care free republic—the city on the hill, whose people have always believed that they are immune from history’s harms—now has to confront not only an unending imperial destiny but also a remote possibility that seems to haunt the history of empires: hubris followed by defeat.

This suggests another book on my reading list: Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy.

Election 2008 - Nevada and South Carolina (R)

2008-01-23T15:46:00.000-05:00

Nevada Results:

Republicans:
Romney.......51%
Paul.........14%
McCain.......13%
Huckabee......8%
Thompson......8%
Giuliani......4%
Hunter........2%
Tancredo......0%

Democrats:
Clinton......51%
Obama........45%
Edwards.......4%
Uncommitted...0%
Kucinich......0%
Richardson....0%

South Carolina Results:

Republicans only (Dems primary is Jan 26):
McCain.......33%
Huckabee.....30%
Thompson.....16%
Romney.......15%
Paul..........4%
Giuliani......2%
Hunter........0%

Fred Thompson withdrew from the race on January 22, 2008.

Election 2008 - Michigan

2008-01-16T15:37:00.000-05:00

Last fall, in an effort to increase the state’s influence in the nominating process, Michigan Democratic leaders moved the primary, normally set in mid-February, to January 15. This was a breach of Democratic Party rules which allow only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina to hold primaries before February 5. The Democratic National Committee responded rather harshly by stripping Michigan of all delegates to the National Convention. It remains to be seen how this will play out. Michigan Dems are assuming that the eventual party nominee will demand reinstatement of the Michigan delegates. The Michigan Republicans were disciplined less harshly loosing only half of their delegates.

Many of the Democratic candidates officially pulled out of the Michigan Primary in deference to Iowa and New Hampshire. The slate was reduced to only Clinton, Dodd (no longer in race), Gravel, Kucinich, and uncommitted. “Write-in” also was on the ballot but the Michigan Dem leaders have stated that they will not count any write-ins. They suggest using “uncommitted” and then the delegates, if they are allowed entry, will wing it at the convention.

Michigan Primary Results:

Republicans
Romney........39%
McCain........30%
Huckabee......16%
Paul...........6%
Thompson.......4%
Giuliani.......3%
Uncommmitted...2%
Hunter.........0%

Democrats
Clinton.......55%
Uncommitted...40%
Kucinich.......4%
Dodd...........1%
Gravel.........0%

Note: Convention Dates:

Dem: August 25–28, 2008...Denver, CO

Rep: September 1–4, 2008...Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN

A Mideast Peace in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

2008-01-10T21:33:00.000-05:00

President Bush was in the Palestinian Territories today and said that he believed a peace treaty would be signed before the end of the year.

This from a President who actively ignored the Palestinian issue until a few months ago. Now he expects a miracle to happen. I record this here so we can check back next January and see if "Dubya" was prophetic.

Election 2008 - New Hampshire

2008-01-09T10:32:00.000-05:00

It is often heard that New Hampshire voters are fiercely independent and like to surprise. They did this time. Pre-election polls indicated support for Obama at 39% and Clinton at 30%. The actual results flipped; there has been a lot of on-air discussion of this phenomenon. It is unheard of to have 8 or 9 separate polls all agreeing but turn out to be wrong. The best explanation I heard is that there was only 5 days between Iowa and New Hampshire and the polls stopped polling on Sunday. The polls were accurate (they all agreed) but only covered 3/5 of the contest and there was a big shift toward Clinton by women in the last day or two.

Democrats
Clinton.......39%
Obama.........37%
Edwards.......17%
Richardson.....5%
Kucinich.......1%
Biden..........0%
Gravel.........0%
Dodd...........0%

Even though Biden and Dodd retired from the race after Iowa, a few hundred New Hampshire supporters voted for them anyway.

Republicans
McCain........37%
Romney........32%
Huckabee......11%
Giuliani.......9%
Paul...........8%
Thompson.......1%
Hunter.........0%

The next primary is Michigan on January 15.

Election 2008 - Phase I

2008-01-05T22:26:00.000-05:00

We often hear the pundits stressing how important a particular caucus or primary is in picking the party nominee. Let's keep track of the results of this 2008 cycle and see what we can learn. Here are the results of the Iowa Caucuses:

Republicans
Huckabee......34%
Romney........25%
Thompson......13%
McCain........13%
Paul..........10%
Giuliani.......4%
Hunter.........1%

Democrats
Obama.........38%
Edwards.......30%
Clinton.......29%
Richardson.....2%
Biden..........1%
Dodd...........0%
Gravel.........0%
Kucinich.......0%

Biden and Dodd withdrew.

The Democrat Wave

2006-11-08T19:25:00.000-05:00

The gains made by Democrat candidates for Congress were vivid demonstrations of Americans exercising the only leverage they have: the ballot. As Mark Shields said today on The Newshour (PBS), "This was not a Democratic victory, it was a Republican defeat". The Democrats need to deliver more than a left handed mirror image of Republican behavior over the last 12 years.

I have noticed a lot of pundit talk about how this midterm election brought out the moderates and that the Democrats better understand that the voters want the Nation's business attended to and do not want to see "red meat" tokens tossed to the "base". The left and the right need to meet in the center aisle and have a chat.

Governance cannot happen between rigid ideologues. Compromise is essential to the political process.

The Waste and the Fat?

2006-10-22T22:58:00.000-04:00

My conservative friends often talk about reducing the size of government and cutting out the “waste and the fat” or words to that effect. Who can argue with that? When the famous Bush tax cuts of 2001 and beyond increased the U.S. budget deficit, there had to be, of course, a follow-on deficit reduction plan. President Bush signed S. 1932, The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, into law on February 8, 2006.

According to a Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate, the savings are projected to be $99 billion for the period 2006 through 2015.

As a public service, the following list is provided that shows the sources and amounts of the cuts in “waste and fat”. The numbers, in “billions of dollars”, shown are reductions in “estimated outlays” from the base 2005 budget for the 2006-2015 period.

Agriculture: $3.541 billion
Housing and Deposit Insurance: $2.110 billion
Digital Television Transmission and Public Safety: $7.575 billion
Transportation: $0.156 billion
Medicare: $22.392 billion
Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program: $26.384 billion
Human Resources: $7.190 billion
Education: $28.997 billion
Pension Insurance: $0.539 billion
Judiciary: $1.004 billion

One group that saw an increase in estimated outlays was Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program at $0.625 billion. Perhaps that is the “Compassionate Conservative” portion. Note that Education (primarily student loans) took the biggest hit from the “Education President".

Religious Absolutism

2006-10-19T12:29:00.000-04:00

Within the past 10 days I have read or heard three prominent individuals make their case against religious absolutism. That is the position that one's belief is not open for question and if you question it you are a heretic, infidel, or un-patriotic. The three making this argument were Andrew Sullivan, a conservative, in his book excerpt published in the October 9, 2006, issue of Time Magazine; Barack Obama, a liberal, in his book excerpt published in the October 23, 2006 issue of Time Magazine; and Bill Clinton, a "New Democrat", in a speech on The Common Good presented at Georgetown University on October 18, 2006.

In today's world, here and abroad, religious absolutism can easily become political absolutism

The most worrisome thing to me about ideology, a.k.a. absolutism, is the absence of thought and analysis. The ideologue, religious or political, is absolutely convinced of his position. Any evidence to the contrary is viewed as a distracting nuisance. When absolutism is practiced by our political leaders, right or left, political compromise is impossible. Compromise is essential to the political process.

The 2006 Middle East Crisis: What's In a Name?

2006-08-01T16:09:00.000-04:00

A sobering indication of the difficulty (read 'impossibility') of a long term solution for the dispute between Israel and the Arab World is the name given to the large Hezbollah-launched rocket that hit the Israeli town of Afula, south of Haifa. The KHAIBAR-1 is named after a 7th century battle where Muhammad's forces were victorious over the Jews of Khaibar (a.k.a. Khaybar), a town located near Medina in what is now called Saudi Arabia.

This name was also used by the Bali bomber Amrozi bin Nurhasin at his sentencing where he was reported to have shouted: "Jews, remember Khaibar. The army of Muhammad is coming back to defeat you".

How can a solution be found for a dispute rooted in ideology?

The Dreaded "T" Word

2006-05-29T15:32:00.000-04:00

Some of our friends inside the Beltway often remind us that we should have lower and lower taxes because we, as individuals, know better how to spend our money than the government bureaucracy. I certainly like to have more money in my pocket. However I know when pooling my money with others for common purposes is wise; example: fire insurance.

Government is "for the people". We form governments to do things that are best accomplished by joining together. Few would disagree that the foremost of these governmental tasks is ensuring our security. There are others, of course, such as supporting the interstate highway system (actually, even that was originally viewed as a necessity for national defense). Would we rather have a few extra bucks in our pockets or would we like some of the following?

+ Enough Border Patrol agents and equipment to properly manage our borders.

+ Improved security for our shipping ports.

+ Expanded patrols by the Coast Guard.

+ A sufficient number of government personnel to minimize abuse of social services (welfare and Medicare).

+ Enough immigration agents to reduce the multi-year wait time for legal immigration thereby reducing some motivation for illegal immigration.

+ Effective and reliable computer equipment for 1) our intelligence agencies and 2) our air traffic control system.

+ Improved pay for our military men and women to improve our security while maintaining an all-volunteer force.

+ College loans and grants for top-performing but poor high school graduates to both increase the number of educated citizens as well as reduce the future need for social services.

Mexiphobia

2006-05-29T15:21:00.000-04:00

Cyberspace is full of tirades against illegal immigration that demonizes the immigrants as ignorant uneducable low-lifes. This seems to imply that illegal immigration would be acceptable if the newcomers were physicians or college professors.

The ball is in our court. Our immigration issues have ballooned because we have chosen not to properly manage our borders. We can improve our security without demonizing the poor folks who take advantage of the door we left open.

By the way, I expect that the loudest complaints against those from south of the border come from those who do not know them. From my experience living in a border town (El Paso), we could learn much from them about family values.

Alaska Oil

2006-04-27T10:39:00.000-04:00

This is the first article in my planned series on Energy.

Those of a certain age will remember the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973. At that time the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) was underway. As part of the agreement to allow the pipeline to cross federal lands, Congress included a proviso in the legislation to prohibit export of the North Slope oil.

It made some sense to export the oil because 1) there was not enough west coast refinery capacity to handle it all, and 2) selling some to Asian markets would help our trade balance.

Oil started flowing down the pipeline in late 1977. Assuming that the ban was enforced, it is interesting to look at how much crude oil the U.S. exported at that time. Consider the following data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration website(Click "View History):

Year Mbbl/year
----- -----------
1975 2.15
1976 2.94
1977 18.26
1978 57.73
1979 85.71
1980 104.94 (peak year in image below)

Isn't that interesting? If the oil companies were meeting the letter of the law it looks like they were not meeting the spirit of the law. Here is an "educated guess": They may have shipped the California crude to Asia and refined the North Slope crude to be in conformance with the law. Some kind of a shell game was going on.

The same thing is likely to happen if oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is produced

By the way, when you hear someone say "we need to reduce our dependence on Middle East Oil", consider where we get our crude oil imports. The following were the top 5 countries supplying our crude as of November 2005. Source: www.gravmag.com/oil.html.

Canada 18% of our imported crude oil
Mexico 15%
Saudi Arabia 12%
Nigeria 12%
Venezuela 10%

Finally, in 2005 we export crude oil only to Canada much of which comes back to the U.S. as refined product.

Why is al-Jaafari So Unpopular?

2006-04-20T21:01:00.000-04:00

The various Iraqi political factions, and the U.S., are uncomfortable with Mr. al-Jaafari because he was supported by the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr. Also I heard a pundit say that another reason for discomfort is that if al-Jaafari becomes the top guy in the Iraqi government, he will ask the U.S. to withdraw its troops (I have not confirmed that position).

Our Dirty Little Secret

2006-04-10T15:00:00.000-04:00

For decades the United States turned and looked away as illegal immigrants crossed our southern border. INS agents were told not to bother detaining undocumented restaurant workers. Then, after all this permissiveness, the House of Representatives wants to declare all 11 million of these people felons. Is this logical?

If we did not have sufficient resources to block this human traffic when it was right out in the open desert, how will we round up these "felons" now distributed around the country? If they are felons they will have to go to prison for a few years. According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Justice (report NCJ-166582, August 1997) the total number of inmates in state and federal prisons in 1995 was 1,023,572. It is surely more than that now but this is a nice number for comparison. It means we would have to increase our prison capacity by a factor of 10.

Mission Statement

2006-04-10T14:25:00.000-04:00

I expect to write articles for posting here in a strictly non-partisan manner. These articles are intended to discuss current and past events without favoring one political stand over another. I will look at the unvarnished facts and ask, "is this logical"? Merely defending one's party creates more heat than light.

I understand that to a reader on the far left middle ground talk may ring of conservatism and to a reader on the far right, middle ground talk may well sound like liberalism, but, gentle reader, know that my heart is looking for a logical, not partisan, explanation of events.

While a number of topics may appear in these pages, for example, "The Genius of Mr. Lincoln", my primary goal is to shed some light on the unfortunate trend toward disinformation from our friends in Washington. Few of us have time to research the issues to unearth the actual facts. The media, needing drama to keep ratings up, do not rush in to clear up the disinformation. Some examples will help clear up my ramblings.

Example 1: During the debate over Dubai Ports World (DPW), news reports used the words "security" and "ownership" casually. In reality, as I understand it, DPW's involvement would have been in managing the movement of cargo, not port "ownership" and not "port security". News reports rairly cleared the fog.

Example 2: During the immigration debate in March/April 2006, the terms "amnesty" and "automatic citizenship" were casually used to describe elements of the Senate's immigration reform proposal to allow undocumented aliens to remain in the U.S. In fact the proposal would have allowed those who have been here for several years to stay and pursue citizenship through a process that would take 11 years and require that each applicant a) hold jobs, b) demonstrate proficiency in English, c) pass criminal-background checks, d) pay fines, and e) pay back taxes. This does not sound like "amnesty" or "automatic citizenship". In fact, it would be surprising if many "come out of the shadows". Reference: April 10, 2006, Time Magazine article by Karen Tumulty.

The Genius of Mr. Lincoln

2006-04-05T21:00:00.000-04:00

Fortune seemed to be favoring the Confederate army in 1862. President Lincoln could see his goal of preserving the Union slipping away. Dramatic action was called for. The President saw that by using slave labor to aid both the war effort as well as farming and factory work, the Confederate states enjoyed a distinct advantage that he needed to take away.

There had been discussion of limited and gradual emancipation but in the summer of 1862 President Lincoln decided he must take more decisive action: he must free the slaves in the rebel states.

Since the Constitution protected the institution of slavery, a general emancipation was not within his power. But, being commander-in-chief in time of war he could employ his war powers to deny the enemy of material or other advantage only in the rebel states. The Emancipation Proclamation signed on January 1, 1863 freed slaves only in the rebel states (General emancipation was later granted by ratification of the 13th amendment in December 1865, a direct result of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation).

Lincoln's cabinet eventually embraced the plan but there was one concern: Europe depended heavily on cotton production from the Confederate States. Would the European powers join the war on the side of the Confederacy to help protect their source of cotton? Lincoln had already considered this possibility and knew that the institution of slavery was an abomination to Europeans and it was very unlikely that they would interfere militarily.

Of course the Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves unless they escaped to the North or if advancing Union troops were nearby.

Summarized from "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005).