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Saturday, August 30, 2008
Palin and Pat Buchanan:
The left blogosphere, and Jewish Democrats, are promoting the idea that Sarah Palin supported Pat Buchanan for President in 2000. Their sole evidence is that Lexis reveals that when Buchanan came to visit her small town in late 1999, she was seen wearing a Buchanan button. When I first read this, it sounded to me more likely that it meant "civic booster mayor of nothing town will wear the campaign button of anyone who is willing to waste their time coming to said nothing town, while that person is speaking in town." And indeed, Lexis also reveals--as I'm sure was readily apparent to the blogger who started the Buchanan meme--that Palin was on Steve Forbes's Alaska leadership committee, and was announced as such only about three weeks after the button incident was reported. [timeline and Palin's position corrected.] How about some basic decency, people?
UPDATE: I guess wearing a Buchanan button, once, when he visited Palin's town is supposed to tell us a lot about Palin's character, and perhaps her feelings about Israel and Jews, but Obama's 20-year intimate history with Rev. Jeremiah Wright is supposed to tell us nothing about Obama. [See Florida Rep. Robert Wexler: "John McCain's decision to select a vice presidential running mate that [sic] endorsed [sic] Pat Buchanan for president in 2000 is a direct affront to all Jewish Americans.]
FURTHER UPDATE: It gets better. Wexler, in February: "It is unfair to attribute Pastor Wright's views to Barack Obama." And Ben Smith reports that Palin wrote a letter to the editor when the button story appeared, making it clear that she wasn't endorsing Buchanan, but just welcoming him to town, like any other candidate.
ONE MORE UPDATE: Pat Buchanan apparently (and self-servingly) claims that Palin and her husband strongly supported him in 1996, and that he met them at a fundraiser. Putting aside the unlikelihood that Buchanan would have such a vivid memory of meeting the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, federal campaign records, accessible online, show that Palin never cut a check to Buchanan (or for that matter, any other politician before 2004), at least not one big enough to be reportable. And it's hard to believe Buchanan would specifically remember a supporter in Alaska who gav e him fifty bucks. Color me skeptical. UPDATE WITHIN AN UPDATE: Ben Smith reports: "I also spoke to Bay Buchanan, Pat's sister, this morning. She also said her only knowledge of Palin's contact with Buchanan was at the event in the '90s, which she described as a fundraiser for Alaska Republican Jerry Ward."
Preliminary Opinion Poll of People on the Palin Pick:
From a USA Today/Gallup poll: Two of three registered voters, 67%, say putting Palin on the ticket won't affect their vote; 72% say that of Biden. Of those who say the running mates will make a difference, 18% say Palin makes them more likely to vote for McCain, 11% less likely. That net-positive impact of 7 points is similar to Biden's: 14% said his pick made them more likely to vote for Obama, 7% less likely.
Reflections on the Palin Pick:
Unlike Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden, John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin seems to have been largely driven by campaign calculations. From an electoral point of view, she brings three assets to the ticket: she's a woman, a staunch conservative, and relatively charismatic. Her gender will give McCain some favorable headlines and perhaps a chance to pick off some pro-Hillary Clinton Democrats and moderates. I'm skeptical that many women or feminists will switch to the GOP ticket merely because the Republicans have a female veep candidate and the Democrats didn't nominate Hillary. But if a few do, it could perhaps make a difference in a close election. Palin's conservatism will help shore up the support of the GOP base, which isn't exactly thrilled with McCain. Finally, her charisma will help in TV appearances and in debates. Since she's articulate and a onetime beauty contest winner, she will certainly cut a better media image than Biden. Though no one else on either ticket this year can match Obama's star power.
As I've argued in the past, the most important attribute of a veep candidate is her potential as a possible future president. How does Palin stack up on this score? In my view, she has one big positive that has to be weighed against a major potential negative.
The big positive is her apparent support for limiting government power. As co-blogger Todd Zywicki notes, she has gone against Alaska's ubiquitous political culture of porkbarrel spending and advocated major cuts in government spending. Sadly, this is an exceptional accomplishment in today's "big government conservative" GOP. Her record in this regard certainly isn't perfect, but it is impressive relative to that of most other prominent politicians in either party. Moreover, the fact that her stands on these issues went against the preferences of powerful interest groups in her state suggest that they are at least to some extent genuine and not solely the product of political calculation. Radley Balko - who is generally very critical of the Republicans - writes that Palin "seems to be about as good a pick from a major party as libertarians could hope for." I tend to agree.
The negative is her lack of experience with foreign policy issues, which are arguably the central focus of the modern presidency. No amount of Republican spin can dissipate this weakness. However, it may be partly mitigated by the fact that she will likely have some time to learn these issues on the job before she has to assume the presidency (if she ever does). Moreover, history suggests that there is at best a weak correlation between prior foreign policy experience and performance in office. Lincoln and Reagan, among others, did an excellent job of managing foreign policy despite having little or no prior experience with such issues. Dick Cheney probably had more foreign policy experience than any other recent vice president; yet his performance in office was far from stellar. Overall, I think that ideology and general political competence are stronger determinants of political leaders' performance in office than issue-specific experience.
Sarah Palin probably would not be my choice if I had the luxury of picking a vice presidential nominee without reference to campaign calculations. Nonetheless, I am guardedly optimistic about her. She seems to be a skillful politician and her positions on size of government issues strike me as a good deal better than what we have gotten from either party in recent years. The idea of a President Palin is more appealing to me than President McCain, President Obama, or President Biden. That, of course, may not be saying much given my grave reservations about all three of the others. Still, I look forward to having her as a VP or as a leading contender for the presidency in 2012 or 2016.
Palin on Exxon Decision:
Tony Mauro has a short item on Gov. Sarah Palin and the Supreme Court's Exxon decision. Interestingly enough, Palin and her husband qualified as members of the class in the litigation, but did not file. Nonetheless, Palin was supportive of the plaintiffs' claims, and critical of the Supreme Court's decision. After the Supreme Court ruled, Gov. Palin was critical of the outcome. “I am extremely disappointed with today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court,” she was quoted as saying. “While the decision brings some degree of closure to Alaskans suffering from 19 years of litigation and delay, the Court gutted the jury’s decision on punitive damages.” She also said, “It is tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision. My heart goes out to those affected, especially the families of the thousands of Alaskans who passed away while waiting for justice.” [ LvHB]
President Palin:
I’ve been trying for the last day to figure out how I feel about McCain’s pick for Vice President. My first instinct was to think that this is a breathtakingly bad choice. It’s bad politics because it highlights the reckless side of McCain’s admirable boldness. And, far more importantly, it’s bad for the country because Palin is unusually unready to be President, yet was chosen primarily as a political stunt to drive wedges and manufacture excitement. All of this puts a dent in McCain’s commitment to “Country First.”
The more I’ve learned about Palin, however, the more I admire and respect her. Her personal story is unquestionably compelling. Her religious beliefs and views on some social issues are not mine, but she’s in the best tradition of Republican reformism against wasteful spending and entrenched bureaucracy. She brings an outsider’s willingness and ability to think anew about what government is doing well and what’s gone wrong. And she brings the newcomer’s enthusiasm and idealism to that effort. I would have voted for her as governor.
However, as McCain himself described his criteria for a veep choice last February, the first question for those of us inclined to vote for him is now this: Is Palin “fully prepared to take over” as president?
Many of the defenses of Palin’s readiness have been partisan hackery. This morning, for example, Newt Gingrich offered up her ex officio role as head of the Alaska National Guard as “military experience.” But several defenses or near-defenses have come from people whose views I take very seriously, including some of my co-bloggers. These have caused me to think harder about why it is I’m uncomfortable with this choice.
Especially impressive is the blog post by Bill Stuntz (noted earlier today by Jim) taking apart the arguments about “experience” now filling the airwaves and commentaries. Stuntz’s taxonomy of the types of experience – time in D.C., time in some “executive” office, and actual accomplishments while in office – is astute. Palin has no experience on the first dimension and little on the second. On the third, she’s more impressive but still thin, given only 18 months as governor.
But we have to ask, compared to whom? Obama himself has had little time in D.C., no time in executive office (running a campaign is not the same thing), and, despite his obvious intelligence and thoughtfulness, an undistinguished record of actual legislative accomplishment either as a state legislator or U.S. Senator. As a feminist friend of mine pointed out, the knock against Palin is that she’s one 72-year-old’s heartbeat away from the presidency, but the Democratic nominee is the living heartbeat of a potentially vacuous president.
Let me suggest a fourth dimension of “experience” that ought also be weighed: sheer exposure and vetting at a national and international level. By this I mean experience over time in answering hard questions about a wide range of issues, meeting with other national and international leaders, and responding on the record to crises and other developments as they arise. This kind of experience gives the country a chance to see how you think, to see how you handle high-octane pressure on the relevant national and international stages, to observe how you adapt when things don’t go as you thought they would, and so on. It also forces you to learn about, and to develop views about, important and complex national and international questions. Voters deserve to know these things about you. On this fourth dimension of experience, I’d rank McCain and Biden about even. I’d put Obama distinctly third. Palin doesn’t even register.
All of this may be academic in short time. The current defenses of McCain’s choice may look downright silly after Palin gives a few uninformed and embarrassing answers to basic questions of policy. The simmering scandal in Alaska over the firing of her ex-brother-in-law (or some other heretofore unexamined matter) may boil over in the heat of a national spotlight, revealing a personal pettiness and vindictiveness behind the earnest persona. For all the optimism we’re now hearing in conservative circles, McCain may be put in the position of having to win despite his veep pick, just as the first President Bush had to do.
None of this is decisive on how a person should vote. Having the relevant experience at the top of the ticket is still more important than having it at the bottom. Even on the experience question, there’s some ground to believe that Palin is smart enough and dedicated enough to ramp up fairly quickly. She’d at least have some time and experience in all four dimensions before she might have to take over as president.
Further, lots of things besides experience matter in a presidential election. We’ve had some “experienced” presidents who were terrible and a few inexperienced ones who were quite good. Substantive policy views matter tremendously. I'd rather have an inexperienced president haphazardly advancing good policies than an experienced one effectively pursuing destructive ones. Intelligence, broad knowledge, willingness to consider opposing views and evidence, and temperament matter, too. On some of these criteria, Palin seems like a good choice, on others not so much, and on still others, we don’t yet know.
But for at least some of us who have welcomed the thought of President McCain, the prospect of President Palin is, at least for now, unsettling.
Hillary Clinton (and Others) on Sarah Palin:
Senator Hillary Clinton made the following statement about John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate:
“We should all be proud of Governor Sarah Palin's historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Senator McCain. While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Governor Palin will add an important new voice to the debate.
The Washington Post also has a roundup of comments on the pick from Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, John Podesta, and others. And Fred Barnes has a good profile in today's WSJ here.
UPDATE: Ed Morrissey responds to criticisms of the Palin pick here.
Palin:
Here's some of the most informative stuff I've read on Palin's background so far:
Fred Barnes had an informative Weekly Standard article last year about her rise.
Her Wikipedia page was very thorough (assuming it hasn't been vandalized since I read it).
And here's an amusing article on Frank Murkowski's state jet, which Palin had the state of Alaska sell on eBay. Murkowski bought it with state money after the Department of Homeland Security turned down his request for money.
I love that Palin has been willing to take on all those pork-barrelling corrupt Alaska Republicans like Murkowski, Don Young, and Ted Stevens. According to Barnes she line-item vetoed 13% of Alaska's capital budget in her first year in office.
Stuntz on Experience and Accomplishments.--
Bill Stuntz has a fascinating analysis of experience and accomplishments. After discussing experience as time spent in state or federal jobs, he writes:
But there is a third definition, and it may be the one the voters care most about: the relevant question is not how much time the candidate has spent in the relevant government jobs, but what the candidate has accomplished during that time. Most politicians, like most people in any line of work, leave no particular mark on the offices they hold. Their chief accomplishment is winning elections. But a few--the real standouts--rise to the top wherever they serve. Mark Warner didn't just warm the Virginia Governor's chair; he blew the job away. When he took office, the state's fiscal condition was awful; there was a massive structural mismatch between its revenue stream and the services voters demanded. (Sort of like the federal government today: an issue none of the candidates seems to want to discuss.) Warner fixed that problem, improved Northern Virginia's awful road system, upgraded the state university system--and did it all while keeping taxes reasonably low. On the Republican side, Bobby Jindal has a Warner-like record: he seems to transform every job he holds, making Louisiana's health care system, its university system, and now the state's government as a whole accomplish much more without spending much more to do it.
How do the current candidates stack up on that definition?
McCain has plainly left his mark on the Senate--whether it's a good or bad mark depends on how one evaluates McCain-Feingold, the Senate compromise on judicial confirmations, the bipartisan immigration bill that failed to pass the House in 2006, and McCain's frequent attacks on Congressional pork. And that's just a short list of domestic issues from the last few years. Reasonable people can disagree about these topics, but it seems clear that McCain hasn't just been a timeserver. The Senate of the last decade (at least) would have been a very different place without him.
Is the same true of Joe Biden, who has been a Senator for fourteen years longer than McCain? Not obviously so, but perhaps that reflects my ignorance. Still, nothing I've read since Obama picked him and nothing in my memory of the past thirty years makes me think that either the Senate in particular or American government in general would look different without Biden's contributions. Quieter maybe, and a little less entertaining. But not appreciably different.
What about Obama? This, it seems to me, is the question that bothers a lot of voters who, like me, find Obama extremely impressive but worry that he might not be ready for the job he seeks. The problem isn't time: four years in the Senate are more than enough for an exceptional talent like Obama's to shine. Nor is the problem that he was a state senator only four years ago. State legislatures are hugely important institutions; eight years of service in one seems to me an underrated plus for a presidential candidate. The problem is, I'm not sure what Obama did during those eight years. It isn't obvious to me that he left a mark on Illinois government--and he should have, if he aspires to the nation's presidency. The same point applies to his current job: I have yet to hear any current Senator explain how Obama changed some important piece of legislation in fundamental ways, or stood up to the Democratic caucus on some major issue about which he and his party disagreed, or worked to bring about some compromise that would have been impossible without his efforts. With McCain, the question is whether you like the things he's done. With Obama--Biden too, I think--the question is whether he's done much.
Which brings me back to Palin. Clearly, her résumé is thin, maybe disqualifying. Perhaps the jobs she has held are too small to count in a national presidential campaign. But that isn't obvious, not yet anyway. What matters more, to me and I bet to more than a few others, is what she's done in those jobs. The fact that her approval rating among Alaskans is in Mark Warner territory suggests that she might be the kind of governor Warner was in Virginia. If so, that should count for a lot--even if she hasn't had much time in office. Because time-serving won't count for much in the offices these four candidates are seeking.
Related Posts (on one page): - Stuntz on Experience and Accomplishments.--
- Experience and Sarah Palin.
Experience and Sarah Palin.
Whichever candidate is elected President, it will be the first time since Kennedy that someone went straight from the Senate to the White House – and Kennedy came from a very politically experienced family. Senators – like most academics, reporters, and we bloggers – tend to be know-it-alls and second-guessers. When I hear Senators speak, I can’t help thinking of Forghorn Leghorn (based on a comedic Senatorial character, Senator Claghorn). Senators (and bloggers) usually act as if they could do everything better, but the institutions that Senators have the most influence over (eg, the federal government, Fannie Mae) tend to be relatively poorly run.
Joseph Biden Questioning SC Nominee Samuel Alito (drawn from memory)
"Pay Attention, Son."
Successful governors and business CEOs learn to say No. They deal with limited resources. If you haven’t dealt with bureaucracies and made tough choices about priorities, — and succeeded at it — you tend to want to add too many new programs.
A President should have held at a minimum a major elective governmental position (such as VP, Governor, or Senator). Assuming that, I believe that the best actual experience for being President is, in descending order:
(1) Vice President,
(2) White House Chief of Staff (plus a major elective position),
(3) Governor,
(4) Business CEO (plus a major elective position),
(5) Mayor of one of the few very largest cities,
(6) major Cabinet Official (plus a major elective position),
(7) Senator.
I am disappointed that neither Senator McCain nor Senator Obama have substantial administrative experience in situations of scarcity. For each man, his most significant administrative experience so far has been his own campaign for President. I was surprised that Barack Obama did not pick a VP with administrative experience (such as Bayh), and I was even more surprised that many commentators (including here at VC) thought that Biden had the sort of experience that Obama lacked. Biden has knowledge of foreign policy, not substantial foreign experience. If Obama wins, I hope he picks David Axelrod as his chief of staff; that guy knows what he’s doing.
I was also hoping and assuming that McCain would pick a governor for VP, though I thought it would be Pawlenty. I follow politics more closely than most, but there are only four sitting governors who before today I had heard interviewed for more than a 30-second sound bite: the governors of California, New Jersey, Illinois (my home state), and Alaska.
I had heard Palin interviewed for several minutes (as well as hearing some sound bites) and before today thought of her as the governor with the best reputation in the nation for fighting pork, the governor with the best reputation in the nation for taking on the corrupt heavyweights in her own party, and one of the nation’s most popular governors. I guess I hadn’t realized until today that she had been in office only two years. Now that Warner has stepped down in Virginia, I thought of Palin somewhat vaguely as perhaps the nation’s best sitting governor. Today I learned more about her that I like and more about her that I don’t like (e.g., her view on abortion and her ridiculous and embarrassing approach to creationism).
I remember when George H.W. Bush picked Dan Quayle. It was obvious from the start that he was a lightweight. If only I knew Dan Quayle personally (rather than knowing friends of his), then I could paraphrase Quayle’s debate opponent, “I knew Dan Quayle; Dan Quayle was a friend of mine; Governor Palin, you’re no Dan Quayle.”
I can assure you that the tepid response to Quayle’s announcement in 1988 was nothing like the excited response to Palin today, and Quayle’s first informal remarks were at best underwhelming. Palin’s remarks were far more impressive, as are her accomplishments. It was said at the time that Quayle’s greatest political accomplishment was getting a friend confirmed for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals despite strong opposition. For most of the people making the Quayle comparisons, either they are too young to remember him, or they are engaging in wishful thinking.
As with any new candidate for President or VP, we don’t actually know whether he or she would be a good President. There’s always a risk of disaster. If I thought it likely that John McCain would drop dead in his first year in office, then I think the lack of foreign policy experience for Sarah Palin might be a very serious risk. But looking at probabilities, even if John McCain were to die in office, it is probable that it would be later in his first (or second) term. By that time, it is likely that Palin would be better prepared by experience to act as President than were these men on their first day as President: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush — or for that matter, Barack Obama would be. That’s why the actual pragmatic standards for being VP are different than the standards for being President.
If Obama or McCain were to die in office, by the time either Joe Biden or Sarah Palin replaced them, they would probably have spent several years getting good experience as VP. With Palin, we know not only that she has administrative experience, but that she has been successful in that experience. McCain brings foreign policy knowledge, as does Biden, and Obama brings brilliance, but we really have very little idea how well these three men can manage a government.
Unlike the Palin risk (becoming President with no substantial foreign policy experience and less than a year’s experience as VP), which is unlikely to occur, the Obama risk is likely to be realized: becoming President without having any substantial administrative experience as a governor or business CEO. I think everyone – Republicans and Democrats alike – hope that Obama’s brilliance and decency can make up for his experiential deficits.
I raise Bill Stuntz’s interesting, and somewhat related, views on experience here.
Palin on Polar Bears:
Back in January, Governor Palin had an op-ed in the NYT arguing against the proposed listing of polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. It began:
About the closest most Americans will ever get to a polar bear are those cute, cuddly animated images that smiled at us while dancing around, pitching soft drinks on TV and movie screens this holiday season.
This is unfortunate, because polar bears are magnificent animals, not cartoon characters. They are worthy of our utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat. But adding polar bears to the nation’s list of endangered species, as some are now proposing, should not be part of those efforts.
The balance of the article makes the standard arguments against listing the polar bear, including that many bear populations are stable or increasing and that an ESA listing won't do much of anything to protect the bear's habitat or forestall the threat of global warming. While the listing won't do much to help the bear, or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it could well hamper oil and gas development in Alaska, which I am certain is one reason Palin wrote the piece, as well as a reason Alaska has filed suit to reverse the FWS' decision. This is the position I would expect just about any Alaska Governor to take. But while this view may make for sound policy -- again, the listing won't do much to help the bear -- it's not good law. I think there was ample legal basis for the FWS listing decision, and I expect Alaska and the other listing opponents to lose their case in court.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Can Polar Bears Save the World?
My New Atlantis article on the FWS decision to list the polar as a "threatened species" under the Endangered Species Act is now available online. Here's my conclusion:
the polar bear’s ESA listing will do little to preserve bear populations in the wild. It could complicate other conservation efforts. It will have no effect on the projected loss of sea ice over the next few decades. And it will have no effect on global warming. Getting a handle on anthropogenic climate change will require broad international efforts; jury-rigging a decades-old species-conservation statute just won’t cut it. The polar bear may be an “animal to save the world,” but the Endangered Species Act will do little to save the bear.
The L.A .Times on Prof. Groseclose's Allegations of Possible Malfeasance in UCLA Admissions:
Seemingly nothing so far (as of 7:47 pm Pacific), though Yahoo! News reports the story has been covered not just by the Orange County Register (the newspaper that broke the story), but by the AP and — apparently mostly based on the AP story — by the sites of the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the Fresno Bee, the Las Vegas Sun, and the local CBS and NBC affiliates.
Maybe I'm spoiled by the 24-hour news cycle, but I would think that the Times would at least run the AP story on its site, while it's waiting to either print the story or produce its own — even recognizing that there's a certain other story out in the news today.
UPDATE: The L.A. Times now has a story, which apparently appeared this (Saturday) morning.
UCLA's Short Response to Prof. Groseclose's Allegations:
Here it is; as I read it, it doesn't really respond to Prof. Groseclose's concerns (which he discusses in more detail here):
UCLA's admissions policies and practices were developed to scrupulously adhere to state law and University of California regulations. The campus remains committed to the highest ethical standards and to openness and transparency in establishing and maintaining admissions policies in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
The admissions process has many safeguards to ensure fairness to all applicants and compliance with state law. For example, approximately 55,000 applications are distributed randomly to more than 160 trained readers, and there is no way for a reader to know who else is reviewing the same applications. Two trained readers score each application, and if one score is inconsistent with another, the application is reviewed by a senior reader.
Nevertheless, UCLA several weeks ago initiated a comprehensive study to analyze the effect of the holistic review admissions process and ensure its continued consistency with state law. Funding has already been approved and a researcher selected to conduct the study. To ensure fairness, the review is being conducted by an independent researcher for the Academic Senate's admissions policy–setting body. The concerns expressed by Professor Timothy Groseclose will be addressed in the study.
UCLA stringently follows state and federal law and university policy protecting the privacy of student applicants and governing the release of personally identifiable information. UCLA's admissions team has offered to work with Professor Groseclose to provide data meaningful for use in his own analysis — within the constraints of privacy laws but going well beyond what would be required by the California Public Records Act. It is disappointing that Professor Groseclose has decided not to work with staff to arrive at a solution.
Background on the holistic review admissions process
Beginning with the fall 2007 freshman class, the UCLA faculty adopted the "holistic" process — which has been in use at UC Berkeley for many years and also is used at Ivy League schools and at most highly selective institutions — in which applicants are assessed in terms of the full range of their academic and personal achievements, viewed in the context of the opportunities and challenges each has faced.
The UCLA Academic Senate made the change because the faculty believed a more individualized and qualitative assessment of each applicant's entire application would be fair and would better achieve the UC Regents' goal of comprehensive review.
Creekstone Farms v. USDA:
Today a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held in Creekstone Farms Premium Beef v. USDA that the USDA may prohibit Creekstone Farms from testing its cows for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), aka "mad cow disease" with the so-called "rapid" BSE test. At issue was whether the Virus-Serum-Toxin Act (VSTA) authorized the USDA to prohibit Creekstone's use of the test. Judges Henderson and Rogers said "yes." Chief Judge Sentelle, dissenting, said "no." I am inclined to think Sentelle is correct.
The majority accepted the USDA's argument that VSTA, which covers "any . . . virus, serum, toxin, or analogous product" used for "treatment" of animals can be stretched to cover BSE test kits. It further argued that USDA's authority to "prevent the preparation, sale, barter, exchange, or shipment" of such items includes the authority to ban the use of the tests as well. I find neither persuasive. While there may be a good argument that the USDA should have such authority, that's not what VSTA does.
In his dissent, Sentelle stressed these points, but also highlighted the problem of allowing an agency to stretch the scope of its own regulatory authority. As Sentelle explained, "congressional provision of an expressed authority mandate to accomplish statutory goals does not create for the agency ‘a roving commission’ to achieve those or ‘any other laudable goal,' . . . by means beyond the authority granted in the statute." Agencies are constrained to the jurisdiction conferred upon them by Congress, and courts should not lightly defer to agency claims that they can construe the scope of their own power (as Nathan Sales and I argue here).
It is worth noting Creekstone did not maintain that such testing was necessary to ensure the safety of its beef. It was undisputed that the test they sought to use was very unlikely to detect the presence of BSE given the age of the cows at slaughter. Rather, Creekstone sought to test its beef so that it could export its meat to Japan and Korea, which have limited U.S. beef imports due to BSE fears. Again from the Sentelle dissent: It seems that the Department’s fear is that Creekstone’s use of the test kits would enable it to provide buyers with a false assurance that the cattle from which its beef is obtained are free of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. However, as I read the record, all Creekstone hopes to do is assure foreign buyers that the beef is as well-tested as would be the case with beef produced in the home countries of those buyers. To this I would add that I believe the USDA has adequate authority to prevent Creekstone and other producers from making false claims about the relative safety of their products vis-a-vis their competitors. So even if the USDA was justified in worrying that Creekstone would make false claims that their meat was somehow "safer" than others, there are other ways to address this concern.
Sarah Who?, Take Two:
My earlier posting on Sarah Palin generated some interesting (and pointed) comments, some of which I tried to respond to directly, but I thought that perhaps it called for a more thoughtful response. I think the choice was both bad and (probably) stupid.
Why It's (probably) Stupid. It's probably stupid because it will gain McCain little and may lose him a great deal. Nobody can possibly know, at this point, how she will perform on the stage she is about to enter onto -- debates with 100 million viewers, a daily crush of reporters, speech after speech after speech, where one bad gaffe puts you in the dustbin of history forever. It's unspeakable pressure, she's never faced anything like it, and I'd happily put money on the following: she will make at least one serious gaffe over the next two months. Plus, I don't care how carefully vetted she's been by the McCain campaign -- I think it's close to even money that 10,000 reporters and bloggers who will now descend upon Alaska (at least virtually) will find something less than savory.
Why It's Bad. It's a bad choice because John McCain is 71 years old, and his vice president will have a non-trivial chance of becoming president, and absolutely nothing suggests that Sarah Palin would be credible as President of the United States. I do NOT think this is just a matter of adding up the number of years spent doing this or doing that. Sarah Palin has been in public life, basically, for two years. to my knowledge, she has never articulated (because she was never called upon to articulate) any views whatsoever on:
military strategy in the Persian Gulf
the proper response to Iranian nuclear weapons
the Russian invasion of Georgia
the United Nations
US immigration policy
the Federal Reserve Bank
the effectiveness of international aid programs
Israeli-Palestinian relations
AIDS policy
federal support for basic research
European Union integration
the US Constitution
the optimal means of protecting US borders from terrorists
Guantanamo, and the proper scope of interrogation techniques
Deficit financing and Keynesian economics
the Supreme Court
Should I go on? I could, of course. But hopefully you get the idea. How anyone could say that knowing what they know now they'd be comfortable with her as President is entirely beyond me.
When Does Experience Matter?
I am having a hard time figuring out when "experience" is important on a presidential ticket. Until yesterday, we were told that "judgment" was more important than any meaningful foreign policy experience for a Presidential candidate. Now that John McCain has selected Alaska's maverick governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, we're told that foreign policy experience is essential for the bottom of the ticket. So while we were told Barack Obama's lack of foreign policy or executive experience was irrelevant, now we hear Sarah Palin's lack of foreign policy experience should be a deal-breaker.
Sure, Sarah Palin was a "hockey mom" before her entry into politics, but Barack Obama has never held a single full-time job for more than three years (and does not have many substantive achievements in any of them). When Palin entered politics, she successfully challenged the corrupt old guard of the Alaska Republican party. When Obama entered politics, he played by the rules of the Chicago machine. So, if experience is what matters (and we ignore the fact that John McCain is the one at the top of the ticket), is it really clear that we'd rather have Obama across the table from Putin than Palin?
Now I've never found the "he has no foreign policy experience" argument against Obama all that compelling. George H.W. Bush had more relevant foreign policy experience than any recent president, and I was hardly a fan. George W. Bush and Bill Clinton partisans, respectively, should also have some difficulty arguing that foreign policy experience is all that important, as neither had any to speak of. Nor, for that matter, did Margaret Thatcher.
If we look at the evidence, I don't think we'd find much evidence that "experienced" Presidents or other Heads of State perform that much better on the international stage. Indeed, in some respects, they perform worse. After all, it was the voices of experience that encouraged the coddling of Saudi Arabia in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. So in the end, I prefer candidates whose principles and perspectives I believe in over old Washington hands. And while I'm still somewhat undecided, the Palin pick makes me more likely to pull the lever for John McCain.
UPDATE: Quite a few folks have asked whether I'm really undecided in the Presidential race. Yes I am. I have never been a big McCain fan, and I continue to have concerns about his temperament, his view of the First Amendment, judges ("Gang of 14"), his approach to regulation, and other issues (even water). I feel no obligation to vote for him because of the "R" after his name. I will only do so if I believe he will be good for the country, and at this point he has yet to close the deal.
Palin a huge hit at the Clinton Forum.--
You would not believe how the Sarah Palin pick is playing out at the Hillary Clinton Forum (tip to a VC commenter). In order, these are all the posts on the first (and only) page I've looked at (page 8 of the Palin thread; this link may not point to exactly the same posts). I cut out headers and footers only.
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Wow, Thanks so much to this Sarah Palin who never forgot us. She is a fighter. She paid her respects to our Hillary and Geraldine . They now no more think women in this country are 2nd class. You go girl and thank you for a refreshing pick Sen. McCain.
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i wish i could see the look on obamas face when he heard this vp pick
Or Michelles. "Why'd he go and do that!"
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I am going over to John McCain's website and thank her for acknowledging the glass ceiling and our struggles. She needs to know that there are LOTS of us behind her fight.
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Maybe those 18 million cracks will help her shatter the ceiling!
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You can bet that BO did not see this coming.
I'm listening to his acolyte now on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell. The tone of her voice and this almost choking quality of her words tells me that she sees this as a real problem for her guy, BO. (I'm gleeful.)
+++++++++++++++
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gave John McCain a standing ovation and a 10 minute claps. It did not matter that there was no one around except my dog to share that.
Hats off! Bigtime!!
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Sarah visiting a wounded soldier in Germany.
Remember just a short while ago Obama would not visit the wounded soldiers in Germany but he would take take to play the rock idol there.
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Geraldine Ferraro is a very astute woman!
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obama made the biggest mistake of his career not choosing Hillary. The Democrats got behind obama so much they didn't even realize what they were doing trying to push Hillary out of the picture. I'm sure Hillary is not happy obama did not make her but she is probably laughing now and preparing for 2012 campaign with the slogan "I told you so"
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I am thrilled her speech was genuine, and promising!!!!! Let's go Forum, we have a mission.
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Obama did not see that coming!
I'm sure a lot of people didn't see it coming. Great job by the McCain campaign to keep things very hush hush!
McCAIN / PALIN '08
+++++++++++++++
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Wow. I've been listening to 98.7 Kluv, and they keep cranking out songs about women. They're really celebrating, too! The last one I heard was, "Treat her like a Lady!" TOOOOOOOOOO cool.
These are the only Clinton Forum comments I've read so far — no cherry-picking. Incredible!
UPDATE: In the comments below, someone is so stunned by this outpouring that he thinks the Clinton Forum is a Republican site. It's a real site for die-hard Clinton supporters. I've now read posts going back to March (the forum started in February).
If the McCain Campaign had such brilliant and energetic grassroots supporters that they could plant 300,000 pro-Hillary comments on one website starting in February, selling Hillary merchandize, and raising money for Hillary -- all the while knowing that Hillary would lose nonetheless, I would be very impressed (and more than a bit frightened). Can the McCain campaign even get 300,000 comments on their OWN campaign website, let alone a fake one?
No, it's a real site, and many recent posters are longtime members of it.
That some of you doubted it just proves my point: this outpouring is amazing.
A Heartbeat Away:
The homepage of the town of Wasilla, Alaska (population 5469 as of the last census), has links to three news stories. The lead story, as you might expect, is that the town's former mayor, Sarah Palin, has been named John McCain's running mate. The second story announces the town's new website. The third advertises the "Baby and Me Lap Sit-Program at the Library."
Before serving as Wasila's mayor, Sarah Palin earned a B.A. at the University of Idaho, worked as a sports reporter for an Anchorage television station, and did commercial fishing with her husband.
At age 72, John McCain has already lived longer than his father, John McCain Jr., who died at age 70.
Sarah Palin looks like an interesting woman, but let's hope she doesn't have to stare down Vladimir Putin any time soon.
Sarah Who?
I've always admired John McCain (though I have to say, in the interests of full disclosure, that I'm not voting for him this Fall); he was, by far, my favorite among the Republicans seeking the nomination, and I was delighted that he prevailed. I have to say, though, that his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate is appalling and insulting to the American people. Perhaps it will turn out to be a political masterstroke, "energizing the base" and garnering lots of disaffected Clinton supporters; perhaps not. But to my mind, as a voter, the sole criterion for evaluating a candidate's VP choice is whether or not the candidate has picked someone who can plausibly be viewed as presidential timber and, no disrespect intended to Ms. Palin, who was apparently a decent mayor of Wasilla AK (pop. 9,000) and who has been serving as governor of Alaska for all of two years, McCain has failed miserably on that score. His recent complaints that Obama is too inexperienced to be President are not only fatally undercut by this choice, they look downright idiotic now -- coming from someone who would put Gov. Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency. It is the grossest form of pandering -- what happened to "putting your country first"? This choice puts McCain's candidacy first and the fate of the country a very distant second, and he should be, and Ihope he is, punished by the electorate for having made it.
Palin speaking well.--
Once the sappy warm-ups were over, Sarah Palin hit her stride. She is good when talking about what she did in Alaska. I can see why she has an 80% approval rating. The frequent interruptions for cheering, however, are annoying.
She's not as polished as Joe Biden, but she's much more straightforward in her speech patterns and (to me) she comes off as more genuine.
So as public speakers, I'd rate Obama way ahead of the other three, McCain at the bottom, and Biden and Palin in the middle (with very different styles). In debates, I don't know how they would rank, but I would be surprised if Palin is as good as the other three.
Videos of Sarah Palin:
Maybe this is obvious, but you can see a lot of interviews of and speeches by Sarah Palin over at YouTube.
A Random Thought:
I'm cautiously optimistic about the Palin pick. I don't know much about her, but from what I have learned in the last 24 hours I see a lot of strengths in her candidacy over the other possible picks. On an only marginally-related note, I have to wonder: Are Pres/VP tickets consisting of two white men going to become a thing of the past? Or at least relatively rare? With the precedent of two "non traditional" tickets established, I wonder if the norm will shift.
Reader Poll on The Palin Pick:
Palin May be Good Politics
but she makes Barack Obama look almost over-qualified to be president. City Councilman and mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (pop. 5,000), before serving less than two years as governor of Alaska. You gotta be kidding me!
I've never been a fan of W, but I respected his choice of Cheney for V.P.--Cheney didn't seem to add much of anything politically to the ticket, and his main qualification for the post seemed to be that he would actually be ready to be president if something happened to Bush. My respect for McCain has gone down a few notches.
UPDATE: She has "executive experience," but Obama doesn't? Obama has run one of the most successful presidential campaign upsets in modern history. And less than two years as governor of Alaska (the second-least populous state in the country) when oil prices have been booming is not exactly trial-by-fire.
Obama's also spent the last several years receiving advice on national and international issues from some of the most talented people in the United States.
No one who's not a Republican partisan is going to take the argument that she's more qualified has more relevant background experience than Obama seriously. Fortunately for the Republicans, Obama is not in a position to raise the experience issue--after all, unlike Palin, who will likely spent the next four years learning the ropes, he'll definitely become president immediately if he wins.
FURTHER UPDATE: Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton for some reason thought it was a good idea to attack Palin for having "zero foreign policy experience." I guess because, you know, during Obama's less-than-one-term in the Senate he's virtually been a shadow Secretary of State.
It's Sarah Palin.--
NBC says it's Sarah Palin for the GOP VP ticket.
UPDATE: CNBC, which had a reporter and film crew with Palin in Alaska last week, reports that Palin calls her husband "the First Dude." Also, CNBC calls him a "sloper," which in Alaska apparently refers to someone who works on the North Slope.
The brief clip CNBC is showing of Sarah Palin pulling in a fish in a net makes her look very competent at fishing. Is she a woman with the kind of genuine blue collar appeal that Hillary Clinton had to work hard to acquire? I don't know.
2d UPDATE: Vice Presidents often become Presidents, a transition which may be slightly more likely to occur with John McCain's health problems.
It is now quite likely that — one way or another — the US will have either an African American or a female President at some time in the next 9 years. And we might have one and then the other.
3d UPDATE: Maria Bartiromo, whose Monday interview of Palin will run today in the 3-4pm hour on CNBC, pronounces Palin's name as PAL-in, not PAY-lin, [but Wikipedia says the pronunciation is PAY-lin].
4th UPDATE: John McCain pronounces it PAY-lin. Related Posts (on one page): - Sarah Who?
- It's Sarah Palin.--
Will Walruses Follow Polar Bears?
The loss of arctic sea ice is bad for walrus populations, which means the walrus may soon be listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Though drops in walrus population haven't been documented, scientists and Natives are afraid the ripple effects of climate change could thin walrus numbers.
Walrus need to rest on sea ice no more than 400 feet above the ocean floor so they can dive down to eat shellfish and plants. But sea ice is retreating so far north that the waters are too deep for walrus to feed. This forces them to squeeze onto land, and last summer about 4,000 young walruses were trampled to death by males in the crowded conditions.
"On land, they are really vulnerable to predators and to being trampled by big males; when a human or polar bear shows up, they panic and stampede," said Shaye Wolf, a staff biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, which is petitioning for an Endangered Species Act listing for the walrus.
The Center for Biological diversity is the same group that successfully petitioned the Fish & Wildlife Service to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the ESA.
Corporations Give More Money to Democrats:
The WSJ reports corporations have given substantially more money to the Democrats for their just-concluded convention than to the Republicans for theirs.
A list of Democratic convention events compiled by the Washington lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates LLC is three times as long as one it compiled for the Republican convention.
A separate study by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute shows that 141 companies have donated $160 million to the host committee for the Democratic convention, compared with 80 companies and $100 million for the Republican convention.
Precise figures are impossible to produce because companies aren't required to disclose all of their spending at conventions, and host committees may report spending at a later date. But nonpartisan watchdogs have been monitoring spending by special interests in Denver. "There certainly seems to be more parties at the Democratic convention than [planned for] the Republican convention," said Nancy Watzman with the Sunlight Foundation.
The story also notes that this shift mirrors broader trends in corporate support for the two parties.
he attention that businesses are devoting to Democrats at the convention underscores a broader shift in political spending as the Democratic Party increases its power in Washington.
For the first time in at least a decade, corporations are spending more money to elect Democrats this fall than they are on Republicans. Data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics show that corporations and their political action committees have contributed $115.9 million to Democratic candidates, the Democratic Party and outside political organizations this election cycle, compared with $111.5 million for Republicans. The data don't include donations from individuals.
That gives Democrats a 51% to 49% advantage over Republicans in corporate money.
One likely explanation is that corporate money follows those that are (or that corporations believe will be) in power. With Democrats in control of Congress, and Senator Obama expected to win in November, corporations are trying to ensure that they have a "place at the table." Another factor is that corporate donations are often influenced by the preferences of their Washington representatives, even if this is not in line with corporate interests. A third factor is that Democratic policies are better for some firms and some industries, particularly those that rely upon or benefit from increased government intervention in the economy. Whatever the ultimate reasons, however, the bottom line is the same: The GOP is not the exclusive party of big business.
McCain Campaign Response to Obama Speech:
Immediately after Obama concluded his acceptance speech, the McCain campaign release a statement calling the speech "misleading" and providing a list of seven allegedly misleading claims made by Obama. McCain's people probably should have spent a bit more time on the response rather than rushing it out the door, because much of this rebuttle doesn't make sense at all (the claims aren't the type that are even subject to being misleading) and much of the rest is pretty unconvincing. Out of seven allegations of "misleading claims," by my count, only one really hits its target. It is a pretty poor performance, indeed, if you can't successfully identify more than one misleading claim in a 50 minute political speech, much of which focused on criticizing the opposing candidate.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #1: Barack Obama Can Bring Democrats and Republicans Together."
It remains to be seen whether he can, of course, but the claim is aspirational, not factual. A claim that he had a record of bringing Democrats and Republicans together would a factual claim, but no such claim was made in the speech. The supposed evidence that the "claim" is misleading are a series of quotes from sources that say Obama takes liberal positions and has a liberal voting record.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #2: Barack Obama Will Ensure That Our Troops On The Ground Have The Equipment They Need In Battle."
It is hard to see how this promise made by Obama during his speech could be true, false, misleading or not misleading, since it is a claim about the future. The supposed evidence is that Obama voted against a particular war funding bill.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #3: Barack Obama Has Not Supported The President."
I'm not sure what to make of this "claim". I think it is a typo, and what is meant is that John McCain has not supported the president, but it is hard to tell because at least one of the pieces of evidence offered to demonstrate that the claim is misleading seems to me to be attempting to suggest that Obama was a frequent supporter of Bush.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #4: John McCain Believes We've Made Great Progress And Families Aren't Hurting."
At least this claim logically could be misleading, but is it? Obama did allege that McCain said he believes the economic has made great progress under Bush. He didn't say that McCain said families were not hurting, although one could infer that from the context of the speech. Interestingly, none of the evidence offered by the McCain campaign on this point even implies that McCain does not in fact believe that economic progress has been made during the Bush years, only that McCain recognizes some people are hurting. If McCain's actual position is that there has been great economic progress but he recognizes some families have suffered, this is only slightly inconsistent with Obama's claim. I don't think Obama was really trying to imply that McCain thinks every single person in the entire country is better off now than 8 years ago, but rather that McCain thinks there has been economic progress generally during the Bush years whereas Obama thinks that there generally has been economic decline.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #5: Barack Obama Will Pay For His Massive Spending."
Fair point here for McCain. The sources that Obama claimed during the speech would pay for his spending priorities certainly would be insufficient to do so.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #6: Under Barack Obama, We Will Achieve Energy Independence."
Obama said he would set a goal of energy independence in 10 years. I can't understand what could be misleading about this. Certainly the McCain response does not challenge the claim that Obama would set such a goal if elected. Sure, this goal might be difficult to achieve, but it was obviously meant to be aspirational. What is misleading about what Obama said?
"MISLEADING CLAIM #7: Barack Obama Will Cut Taxes." Obama claimed that he will cut taxes for 95% of working families. This could potentially be a misleading statement, but the McCain response doesn't argue that Obama's policy proposals would not, in fact, do this. Instead, the evidence cited is that, in the past, Obama voted to raise taxes on middle income workers. Maybe this evidence suggests that Obama could be lying when he promises to cut taxes, or is likely to change his mind, but it doesn't suggest that there is anything misleading about what Obama said during the speech.
Sixth Amendment Violated When Government Pressures Employer Not To Fund Employees' Criminal Defense:
That's what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit just held today in U.S. v. Stein, in a case involving the prosecution of 13 former KPMG partners and employees. "We affirm the district court’s ruling that the government deprived Defendants-Appellees of their right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment by causing KPMG to place conditions on the advancement of legal fees to Defendants-Appellees, and to cap the fees and ultimately end them."
I'm not an expert on this particular area of the law, and the state action caselaw on which the court relied to get to this result is murky. But I tentatively think the court's decision is right. Constitutional rights generally (with some exceptions not applicable here) include the rights to pay for what it takes to exercise the right -- to pay for counsel, advertising space, private schooling, contraceptives, abortion, and the like. They likewise include the rights to pay for what it takes to exercise the right using money donated by friends, family, well-wishers, or others.
Thus, if the government pressures (using the threat of indictment and financial ruin) your customary benefactors to stop paying you the money you need to exercise your rights, precisely to affect your exercise of the right, that would itself presumptively violate the constitution. If the government is investigating (say) a pro-life public advocacy organization's funder for some crime, offers more lenient treatment if the funder cooperates, and tells the funder that one factor in deciding whether he's cooperating is whether he cuts off funding for the advocacy group, I think that would violate the Free Speech Clause. If the government is investigating a Planned Parenthood funder for some crime, offers more lenient treatment if the funder cooperates, and tells the funder that one factor in deciding whether he's cooperating is whether he cuts off funding that goes to paying for abortions for poor women, that would violate the Supreme-Court-recognized right to abortion. Likewise, if the government is investigating a company, offers more lenient treatment if the company cooperates, and tells the company that one factor in deciding whether it's cooperating is whether it cuts off funding for its employees' exercise of their right to hire counsel, that would violate the Sixth Amendment.
It's true that the company might well have been free to voluntarily cut off the payment for its employees' lawyers (apparently such payment was the norm at KPMG and similar companies, but probably wasn't part of any enforceable promise on KPMG's part). Likewise, the funders in the examples above might well have been free to voluntarily cut off funding for others' political advocacy, abortions, and the like. But when the government coercively pressures the funder, the government's actions may violate the funded party's constitutional rights even if purely voluntary actions on the funder's part would be entirely lawful.
In any case, that's my tentative thinking. Thanks to Paul Caron (TaxProf Blog) for the pointer.
Weighing In On Obama's Speech:
I want disagree with David Bernstein's somewhat tepid praise and second Jim Lindgren's more effusive praise of Barack Obama's acceptance speech. Everyone knows Obama can give a good speech, but this was his best. Three highlights: (1) Directly challenging John McCain on national security. Obama forcefully made the case that judgment matters more than experience. (2) Juxtaposing his aggressive agenda of government programs with a call for personal responsibility — critical for appealing to centrists. (3) Identifying common ground on the polarizing issues of abortion, gay marriage, and gun control — critical to his agenda of bringing people together. Moving the event to the football stadium, identified by pundits as a risky move, proved to be a masterstroke. The visual affect was awesome. By comparison, McCain is bound to look small, unimportant, and unpopular when he gives his acceptance speech next week.
There were two weaknesses of the speech, one of commission, one of ommission: (1) Claiming that he could pay for his domestic proposals by closing tax loopholes and eliminating unnecessary government programs (without even naming the targets) was utterly unconvincing. Better to say nothing about the financing than to call attention in this way to the fact that his proposals are expensive. (2) Failing to attack the Bush administration for trampling the Constitution, trashing privacy rights, and mistreating prisoners of war. It might have made sense not to highlight Bush's support of torture, since McCain clearly opposed this and can use that issue to distance himself from the President, but there is lot more in this area Obama could have gone after. Related Posts (on one page): - Weighing In On Obama's Speech:
- Obama's Speech:
Who is Barack Obama:
Over at Concurring Opinions, Nate Oman has one possible answer:
[Cass] Sunstein writes of him:
When he offers visionary approaches, he does so as a visionary minimalist--that is, as someone who attempts to accommodate, rather than to repudiate, the defining beliefs of most Americans. His reluctance to challenge people's deepest commitments might turn out to be what makes ambitious plans possible--notwithstanding the hopes of the far left and the cartoons of the far right.
He goes on to insist, "Above all, Obama's form of pragmatism is heavily empirical; he wants to know what will work."
So it turns out that Obama is a minimalist empiricist who believes in market-based approaches for pursuing progressive ends. In short, Obama is...Cass Sunstein.
Federal Judge Holds Statute Banning Publication of Social Security Numbers Is Unconstitutional,
when the statute is applied to a Web site's reposting of "unredacted public documents such as land and tax-lien records posted on government Web sites" that contain the numbers. The site operator is apparently using such postings to condemn the government's posting of such information: "As part of a campaign to draw attention to the issue, Ostergren routinely posts the Social Security numbers of high-profile individuals that she claims to have easily obtained from county and state government Web sites. The list includes former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, former Missouri Sen. Jean Carnahan and several county clerks in Virginia."
The decision -- Ostergren v. McDonnell, handed down last Friday -- is quite narrow, focusing chiefly on the fact that the social security numbers were drawn from publicly available records, and were presented in the context of quotes from those records, rather than just as some freestanding list. I've argued before (though tentatively) that bans on publishing social security numbers are a rare example of a constitutionally permissible restriction on crime-facilitating speech. I didn't discuss, however, what happens when the laws are applied to republication of publicly available court records that themselves contain such numbers.
The Indictment of U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Kent
is here. You don't see these often for sitting federal judges. I assume that, if Judge Kent doesn't resign, a criminal conviction would be followed promptly by impeachment by the House and then conviction and removal by the Senate. An interesting question is what would happen if Judge Kent is acquitted, but there is sufficient evidence to believe he was likely guilty (the Justice Department obviously believes this to be the case), but not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of a criminal jury. But that's all a hypothetical at this point.
UPDATE: Sorry; I should have made this clearer — certainly the Congress has the power to remove someone who has been acquitted, and I don't see anything wrong with it, if the Representatives and the Senators think he's guilty. As commenter David Nieporent pointed out, that of course is what happened to former Judge (now Congressman) Alcee Hastings. What I was wondering was what the Congress would (not may) do if they thought the accusation wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but was still likely true — not an implausible scenario if the case ends up mostly being a swearing contest between Judge Kent and the woman he is accused of attacking.
There's also the question of what the Congress should do in such a situation; I think it should remove the judge from office — "better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man go to prison" may be a sensible rule, but I don't think that "better that ten guilty judges remain in office than one innocent judge be erroneously removed" is equally sensible.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
UCLA Faculty Member Resigns from Admissions Committee, Alleges Possible Violations of the Law by UCLA:
From the Orange County Register:
A professor who said he suspects UCLA is cheating to illegally admit black students resigned today from its admissions committee, saying the university refused to provide him the data he needs to investigate his suspicions.
Prof. Tim Groseclose's "Report on Suspected Malfeasance in UCLA Admissions and the Accompanying Cover-Up is available online. Groseclose also attaches letters from three other (nonvoting) committee members, including two student members, that support his view that the university has not been sufficiently willing to allow possibly critical examination of the underlying data.
Naturally, if there's a formal response to Prof. Groseclose's allegations, I'd love to link to it, and the Register article notes that "Campus officials deny the accusations and say they're following the law. Privacy concerns prevented the university from giving Groseclose the data he wanted, officials said." (Groseclose spends some time in his report arguing that these privacy arguments are not sound.)
Congratulations on the scoop to Marla Jo Fisher at the Register.
Obama's Speech:
I usually make a point of not watching convention speeches, State of the Union addresses, and the like, because I can't stand politicians' blather. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to watch such a historic event--the acceptance speech of the first African American major party nominee.
So here's my purely stylistic take. I've heard Obama's speeches a few other times, and found him to be an unusually compelling speaker, in large part because he delivers his speeches so naturally, as if he's speaking extemporaneously. I was disappointed at first, this time. I thought he got off to a slow start, and sounded like he was reading from a text prepared by someone else. His initial attacks on McCain also seemed that way. Once he got past that, though, he got better and better, until he reached near perfection when he spoke of MLK. I would have ended the speech there.
Beyond that, I thought he should have looked more often directly at the camera, and less at the audience--better to play to tens of millions than to 84,000. And the missing visual, from my perspective, was Bill and Hillary cheering wildly for their recent opponent.
Consider this an open thread on the speech.
UPDATE: Why no comment on the substance from me? I'm not a political expert, so I have no idea how the speech will "play in Peoria." And I can't otherwise take the substance of a speech like this seriously. Some people watch politicians give speeches like this and see statesmen. I see Joe Isuzu.
The full text of Obama's speech is online.--
The text of Obama's speech is here. I've read it. On balance, it looks excellent.
UPDATE: I think that was the best delivered acceptance speech I've heard since at least Reagan. Reagan perhaps had a little more heart in his delivery; Obama's style is cooler. But then, in prepared remarks Obama comes across as smarter when he talks than Reagan did, though not necessarily deeper.
For both men, their only weaknesses in prepared remarks were that (like almost all politicians) they too often tend to mine platitudes, just different sets of them.
Involuntary Associations and National Service.--
Unlike some European systems of the past two centuries, the American tradition is for individuals to form their own diverse communities and for each community to govern itself to the extent possible. Universal national service seems to reverse the direction of this relationship: its goal is to use the government to transform people to fit within the government’s vision of what’s important and how one should serve. Senator Barack Obama makes that government direction clear, promising us that his administration “will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges,” eschewing the traditional American approach of having the government take its direction from the diverse choices of its people.
As de Tocqueville understood, voluntary associations are valuable not merely on account of what they accomplish, either for participants or for others, but also because they establish cultural and political forces in society independent of government. In modern society, and perhaps especially in America, each individual stands alone as an independent citizen in relation to the state, and individuals are therefore peculiarly dependent on voluntary associations to ensure that the state does not acquire a monopoly of cultural and political influence. Voluntary associations help to protect us from what de Tocqueville called “the tyranny of the majority.”
In Mr. Obama’s vision of voluntary organization, however, the government would develop, coordinate, and focus the efforts of private individuals and their associations, which thus would lose their independence and much of their capacity to offer alternatives to the state and its vision of life. Indeed, far from challenging the state and holding it accountable, morally or politically, many private associations would become aligned with the state. Rather than being alternatives to government, they would become its instruments.
One of John Locke’s most important philosophical moves was to posit a state of limited powers. Not all good things must be within the state or be promoted by the state. For example, the sovereign could be persuaded of the good of the “one true religion” and yet could believe that it would be best for the state to be cautious about promoting that religion.
That crucial Enlightenment insight helped end centuries of European religious wars. Among twentieth-century governments, most communist, fascist, and sharia-based regimes rejected that Enlightenment view and tried to bring within their ambit all things that the state considered good – with predictable results for human flourishing and freedom.
A key element in the rise of modern life, both its freedom and its prosperity, was the substitution of taxation for personal services, a development that allowed indi |
