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1/5/2009
Editorial - A Pitch for Mass Transit - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05mon2.html?ref=opinion
For years, the division of transportation money in Washington has heavily favored cars and trucks — more than 80 percent of the big transit money from gas taxes goes to highways and bridges, and less than 20 percent to railroads or mass transit. Mr. Oberstar is leading the charge to change that formula and divide this money a little more evenly. This will not be easy. Automobiles will be with us a long time, and old spending habits die hard. But as part of the stimulus package now under discussion for transportation, Mr. Oberstar is proposing $30 billion for highways and bridges and $12 billion for public transit. That is certainly a far healthier mix.
The new administration could further help mass transit by shelving the unfair “cost effectiveness index” that President Bush put in place several years ago for new transit programs. The net effect of this index was to make it easier to build highways and almost impossible to use federal money for buses, streetcars, light rail, trolleys — indeed, any commuter-rail projects.
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David Ignatius - Obama’s Limited Middle East Options - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202097.html
Perhaps Barack Obama imagined that he could take office on Jan. 20 with a clean slate in the Middle East. He spoke of opening a dialogue with America's adversaries, such as Syria and Iran, in the pursuit of peace and security in the region.
That image of "turning a page" brought hope to many in the Middle East, but it created concern among hard-liners on all sides. Iran and its proxies worried that American diplomacy might undercut their radical appeal; some Israelis worried that the peace policies of an untested new administration might undermine Israeli security.
But as the continuing fighting in Gaza shows, there is no such thing as a clean slate in the Middle East.
The latest chain of events was dismally predictable: Hamas, pushed by Iran and its own extremist ideology, refused to extend a six-month cease-fire that expired Dec. 19, and stepped up rocket attacks. Israeli leaders, pushed by election politics and an angry public, responded with a furious assault on Gaza -- escalating yesterday to a ground invasion. The Israelis may have wanted to take their shot at Hamas while a supportive President Bush was still in office.
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Without Diplomatic Intervention, Israel Nears Escalation in Gaza - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/03/AR2009010301744.html
ISRAEL SAYS that the aim of its offensive in Gaza, which yesterday expanded to a ground invasion, is simple: to end rocket fire aimed at its citizens. That barrage began seven years ago and sporadically continued even during the six-month cease-fire that Hamas refused to extend in December; though the mostly primitive missiles have caused few casualties, they are a threat that no country could be expected to tolerate. The problem is that Israel probably cannot end the rocket fire by military means alone. Nor, without toppling the Hamas government and reoccupying part or all of Gaza, can it unilaterally ensure that Hamas does not rebuild its arsenal once the current fighting ends. To win this mini-war, Israel will have to rely on the United States, Egypt, Turkey or possibly European governments to broker a settlement. By that measure, a victory for Israel still appears uncertain -- and the ground attack may not help its cause.
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Mr. Richardson Withdraws - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/04/AR2009010401410.html
NEW MEXICO Gov. Bill Richardson (D) made the right call in withdrawing as President-elect Barack Obama's choice for commerce secretary. Given the ongoing grand jury investigation into his administration's awarding of state contracts to a firm whose president contributed generously to Mr. Richardson's political committees, his confirmation would inevitably have been delayed and the controversy an unnecessary distraction for the new Obama administration. What's less clear is whether Mr. Richardson did anything wrong -- he claims that the investigation will show that "I and my administration have acted properly in all matters" -- or whether he is simply the victim of exquisitely bad political timing, with the pay-to-play scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) making otherwise survivable questions about Mr. Richardson's own fundraising activities untenable. It's also unclear whether Mr. Obama's transition team failed to adequately scrutinize Mr. Richardson -- after all, the Albuquerque Journal reported the grand jury probe in August -- or whether the political ground simply shifted on them in the wake of the Blagojevich arrest.
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Paul Krugman - Fighting Off Depression - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05krugman.html?ref=opinion
The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.
So will we “act swiftly and boldly” enough to stop that from happening? We’ll soon find out.
We weren’t supposed to find ourselves in this situation. For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy. In 2003, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, declared that the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades.”
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Editorial - No Mugs, but What About Those Fees? - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05mon1.html?ref=opinion
New pharmaceutical industry guidelines should stop most drug companies from distributing a wide range of trinkets and office supplies designed to keep their brand names before doctors as a subliminal inducement to prescribe high-priced drugs.
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James Carroll - Enlightenment in Gaza - The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/05/enlightenment_in_gaza/
THE WRITER Eudora Welty once observed that the novelist "assumes at the start an enlightenment in his reader equal to his own." This principle applies to writers of newspaper columns, too. Nothing prompts such modesty like the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, and the bloody climax to which it has been brought in recent days. By now, readers have reached conclusions of their own about Israel's war against Gaza, Hamas rocket fire into populated areas of Israel, questions of disproportionate retaliation, civilian vulnerability on both sides, prospects of a cease-fire - or brutal escalation. Israel's obligation to defend its citizens is obvious, but so is the catastrophic suffering of ordinary Palestinians who are at the mercy of both Hamas and Israeli bombardment. Readers are aware of political calendars - whether in America, where an interregnum creates a power vacuum, or in Israel, where approaching elections inevitably pollute military assertions with partisan self-interest.
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Editorial - A Voice for the Consumer - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04sun3.html
The time has come to give the American consumer a much stronger voice in Washington. President-elect Barack Obama has already named what amounts to an energy and environmental czar in the White House, and America’s beleaguered consumers deserve no less.
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Obama’s Afghan challenge - The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/01/05/obamas_afghan_challenge/
PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama has said he intends to expand the military effort to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. The reality that Obama must soon confront, however, is that Afghanistan cannot be saved from the Taliban by military means alone.
Ultimately, Afghan stability will require cooperation among many parties. This need for cooperation is illuminated by current American and NATO efforts to arrange for supplies to be transported into Afghanistan from Central Asian states to the north. These include Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, where the US military already has use of an airfield.
The reason for turning to these Central Asian neighbors is that the passage from Pakistan, through the bottleneck of the Khyber Pass, has become too dangerous. A resurgent Taliban and kindred groups have been ambushing US convoys that carry supplies overland from the port of Karachi, through the Khyber Pass, to Afghanistan.
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Bob Barr - No defending the Defense of Marriage Act - Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-barr5-2009jan05,0,1855836.story
In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, "Decisions about marriage should be left to the states." He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.
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Tom C. Korologos - The Art of Getting Confirmed - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/04/AR2009010401437.html
Your role is that of a bridegroom at a wedding. Accordingly, you should: Stay out of the way. Be on time. Keep your mouth shut.
You should spend every waking moment preparing. But do not ever assume that you have the job, nor go anywhere near the agency/office to which you have been nominated. Do not meet with lobbyists, the media or any outside groups that have an interest in your agency; reserve any comments for the hearing.
Scrutinize the legislative act creating your department or agency; it provides an excellent job description.
Examine past confirmation hearing transcripts -- the questions are sometimes about evergreen issues. And scour the news for stories affecting your department.
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Frank Rich - A President Forgotten but Not Gone - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04rich.html
The ruins of his administration’s top policy priority can be found not only in Gaza but in the new “democratic” Iraq, where the local journalist who tossed the shoes was jailed without formal charges and may have been tortured. Almost simultaneously, opponents of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki accused him of making politically motivated arrests of rival-party government officials in anticipation of this month’s much-postponed provincial elections.
Condi Rice blamed the press for the image that sullied Bush’s Iraq swan song: “That someone chose to throw a shoe at the president is what gets reported over and over.” We are back where we came in. This was the same line Donald Rumsfeld used to deny the significance of the looting in Baghdad during his famous “Stuff happens!” press conference of April 2003. “Images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over,” he said then, referring to the much-recycled video of a man stealing a vase from the Baghdad museum. “Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?” he asked, playing for laughs.
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Kathleen Parker - Mainstream Media on Life Support - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202157.html
Bloggers, bless their hearts, are becoming the new-old curmudgeons, thinking hard before writing, still insisting on complete sentences with more than 140 characters, clinging to their gerunds, participles and semicolons. Many are camouflaged renegades from (or appendages to) newspapers, not so much new breeds as Darwinian adapters to a new environment.
Watching newspapers tumble the past few years, and especially toward the end of last, when even the once-great Tribune Co. declared bankruptcy, has been painful to watch and more painful to experience. No city editor or beat reporter ever fantasized about the day he would surrender his press pass to write releases for the local hospital.
What fresh hell, indeed.
But most painful -- perhaps odd is a better word -- has been the celebration in some quarters.
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Steve Chapman - Why the Senate should seat Burris—chicagotribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0104chapmanjan04,0,6983915.column
One of the axioms of American democracy is that we are a government of laws, not of men. We are supposed to follow the requirements of our Constitution and statutes even when they yield results we don't like—say, freeing a person who appears guilty. We are about to find out if Democrats in the U.S. Senate want to follow the rule of law or indulge their own preferences.
The dilemma arises because of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's decision to appoint a replacement, Roland Burris, for the seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama. I have no desire to be represented in Washington by Burris, but then, I have no desire to be represented in Springfield by Blagojevich. The truth, though, is that both were chosen by legitimate, democratic procedures, and until they are removed by legitimate, democratic procedures, we—and the Senate—have an obligation to put up with them.
Given Blagojevich's pending indictment and impeachment, it took a lot of gall for the governor to act. But the facts remain: He is the governor, and state law confers on him the unchecked authority (and, by implication, the responsibility) to fill a vacant Senate seat when the term has less than two years to run.
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Ellen Goodman - The truth about teens and sex - The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/03/the_truth_about_teens_and_sex/
I HATE TO bring this up right now when the ink is barely dry on your New Year's resolution. But if history is any guide, you are likely to fall off the assorted wagons to which you are currently lashed.
I don't say this to disparage your will power. Hang onto that celery stick for dear life. And even if you stop doing those stomach crunches and start sneaking out for a smoke, at least you can comfort yourself with fond memories of your moment of resolution.
Compare that to the factoid in the newest research about teens who pledge abstinence. The majority not only break the pledge, they forget they ever made it.
This study of about 1,000 teens comes from Johns Hopkins researcher Janet Rosenbaum, who compared teens who took a pledge of abstinence with teens of similar backgrounds and beliefs who didn't. She found absolutely no difference in their sexual behavior, or the age at which they began having sex, or the number of their partners.
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12/19/2008
Paul Krugman - The Madoff Economy - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/opinion/19krugman.html?ref=opinion
The financial services industry has claimed an ever-growing share of the nation’s income over the past generation, making the people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it. And it’s not just a matter of money: the vast riches achieved by those who managed other people’s money have had a corrupting effect on our society as a whole.
Let’s start with those paychecks. Last year, the average salary of employees in “securities, commodity contracts, and investments” was more than four times the average salary in the rest of the economy. Earning a million dollars was nothing special, and even incomes of $20 million or more were fairly common. The incomes of the richest Americans have exploded over the past generation, even as wages of ordinary workers have stagnated; high pay on Wall Street was a major cause of that divergence.
But surely those financial superstars must have been earning their millions, right? No, not necessarily. The pay system on Wall Street lavishly rewards the appearance of profit, even if that appearance later turns out to have been an illusion.
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Scot Lehigh - What’s the best way to jump-start the economy? - The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/12/19/whats_the_best_way_to_jump_start_the_economy/
IN THIS collapsing economy, we have a lot more to fear than just fear itself.
Still, anxiety is clearly making things worse. As people cut back on spending to prepare for hard times, that diminished demand deals another blow to economic activity. Thus behavior that makes sense for the individual is counterproductive for the nation. It's what economist John Maynard Keynes called the paradox of thrift.
This question then comes: What's the best way to combat a recessionary psychology and jump-start the economy?
Here's the reality: There are only a few possible replacements for the drop-off in consumer spending.
One is business investment - but that won't pick up until the overall economy does.
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Harold Meyerson - Labor’s fresh face - Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-meyerson19-2008dec19,0,5862785.story
When Barack Obama set out to choose his secretary of Labor, his top priority was probably not recruiting an emblematic Angeleno. But in tapping Hilda L. Solis, a Democrat who represents a portion of the San Gabriel Valley in Congress, that's just what he's done.
The Latina daughter of immigrants, a product and champion of the labor movement, a staunch environmentalist, an ardent feminist and one of the gutsiest elected officials in American politics, Solis personifies the best of the new Los Angeles.
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Editorial—The Fed’s risky foray into anti-deflation economics - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/18/AR2008121803386.html
ALICE HAD her looking glass. Rod Serling had his Twilight Zone. And now Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is ushering Americans into the strange economic world of the "zero bound." This is a technical term for the current state of U.S. monetary policy: By cutting nominal interest rates to zero -- or near zero -- this week, Mr. Bernanke used up the last of the central bank's conventional anti-recession weaponry. For now, the Fed will forget interest rates and begin intervening directly in credit markets using "all available tools." Expect the central bank to follow through on, and perhaps expand, its previously announced plans to buy up hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of securities backed by mortgages, car loans and credit-card debt. It may also promise low interest rates on medium-term government debt. With a balance sheet already in excess of $2.2 trillion, the Fed is morphing from a lender of last resort to the last lender, period.
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Joe Solmonese - Obama’s Inaugural Mistake - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/18/AR2008121802788.html
It is difficult to comprehend how our president-elect, who has been so spot on in nearly every political move and gesture, could fail to grasp the symbolism of inviting an anti-gay theologian to deliver his inaugural invocation. And the Obama campaign's response to the anger about this decision? Hey, we're also bringing a gay marching band. You know how the gays love a parade.
Yes, the Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of the humongous, evangelical Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., has a sound message on poverty. And certainly, in the world of politics, there is a view that Barack Obama owes Warren for bringing him before fellow evangelicals, despite fierce opposition during the heat of the presidential campaign.
But here's the other thing about Warren, the author of the bestselling book "The Purpose Driven Life": He was a general in the campaign to pass California's Proposition 8, which dissolved the legal marriage rights of loving, committed same-sex couples.
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Editorial - Fixing Agriculture - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/opinion/19fri3.html?ref=opinion
Tom Vilsack, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Agriculture Department has the merit of being unsatisfactory to both extremes of the farm-policy debates.
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Editorial - Survival Guide for Veterans - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/opinion/19fri2.html?ref=opinion
Far too often, military veterans find themselves desperately short of the information they need as they make the torturous quest for benefits within one of this country’s most daunting bureaucracies, the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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Auto repair—chicagotribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-1219edit2dec19,0,585172.story
The only thing worse than a long-term government bailout for the auto industry would be a short-term bailout.
After Congress failed to approve a whopping loan for the domestic carmakers, the White House sent word it was thinking about dipping into the $700 billion financial rescue plan to tide them over.
Given the deep and broad problems of the auto industry, a short-term loan, without the mandate of a vast restructuring of these companies, would be money wasted.
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Eugene Robinson - Many Friends Of Bill - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/18/AR2008121803176.html
It's far-fetched to think that Hillary Clinton's performance of her duties as secretary of state would be influenced in any way by foreign donations to her husband's charitable foundation. But it is naive to think that the exhaustive list of donors released yesterday by the William J. Clinton Foundation won't provoke suspicion and give rise to conspiracy theories in parts of the world where transparency is seen as nothing more than an illusion.
President-elect Barack Obama knew that if he named Hillary Clinton to take charge of U.S. foreign policy, Bill Clinton's charitable and business activities would be complicating factors. The former president had steadfastly resisted naming the contributors to his foundation -- saying he had promised them confidentiality -- and released the list only as part of a negotiated deal paving the way for his wife to become secretary of state.
Posting the list on the Internet drew so much interest that the Clinton Foundation's computer servers were overwhelmed. The charity really could afford to buy more robust hardware: Over the past decade, it has raised nearly $500 million to pay for Clinton's philanthropic initiatives and his presidential library.
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Kennedy’s stealth campaign - The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/12/19/kennedys_stealth_campaign/
CAROLINE KENNEDY went on a "listening tour" through upstate New York on Wednesday, meeting with the mayors of Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo to advance her bid for the US Senate seat soon to be vacated by Hillary Clinton. But the Senate hopeful may have been doing a bit too much listening and not enough speaking - to reporters, who mostly got the silent treatment from an overly coddled Kennedy.
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