Interesting Stuff # 59

Avoiding Another 'Slam-Dunk' (Another Clinton legacy)

The toughest problem may be demographics. The baby boom generation is beginning to retire, and so few analysts were hired during the post-Cold War years of the 1990s that there's a missing generation between the graybeards and the greenies. Half the analysts in the intelligence community have five years' experience or less, and this "newbie" problem will get worse with a planned 50 percent increase in CIA analysts. "You can't just add water and get an instant seasoned analyst," cautions Mark Lowenthal, who used to oversee analysis across the intelligence community and now heads a private training group called the Intelligence and Security Academy.

Soft and Softer

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is here in Washington trying to sell the U.S. on his plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank in exchange for nothing from the Palestinians….The administration's posture demonstrates the ultimate futility of Olmert's plan, even assuming that it doesn't massively set back Israeli security. What Olmert sees as a final settlement of the dispute over Israel's borders the rest of the world sees as an illegitimate land grab. Thus, Israel will come under more pressure from the U.S. and others to negotiate with the Palestinians (if Bush is leaning on Israel on behalf of the Europeans, imagine how much more a Democratic president would lean) and eventually will succumb. But instead of negotiating from the present highly favorable map, it will be negotiating from a shrunken position….

Subpoenas Not Enough?

The corruption case of William Jefferson took a strange turn yesterday when several Republican members of Congress objected to the execution of a subpoena on the uncooperative subject of the investigation….Congress already has enough problems with corruption and scandal without adding even more arrogance to top it. If the leadership wants to argue that their status as elected officials somehow gives them the ability to disregard subpoenas and court orders, then the American people may want to trade that leadership to ensure that Congress understands that it operates under the same laws as the rest of us….

Why won’t Americans do these jobs?

I also want to suggest that Americans, particularly the privileged classes so eager to vote for entitlement programs, rethink some of their ideas about poverty. While we might not like the idea of living many to a home, working long hours or doing what we might consider hard, unrewarding work, immigrants teach us that resilience, family ties and a sound work ethic are the first steps toward upward mobility. They also remind us that welfare can be the first step into subsistence poverty. Our immigrants are proof that the American dream is still alive and that people are better off when they believe anything is possible through effort. Most poor Americans had come to think of themselves as victims born with begging bowls. For many, such characterizations may sound like callous indifference to human suffering. But if you look deeper, you will find admiration for America’s can-do newcomers, the reality of economic incentives to find and keep work, and fundamental truths about human nature.

A Stretched National Guard?

Editorial writers and talking heads bemoan any additional mission requirements whining that the Guard is “stretched too thin.” Politicians who voted against military budgets for years now whine about “mission creep” and “operational overload.”

Galloway, Nearing Retirement, Hits Rumsfeld in E-mails

“you say i blame your boss for things 3 or 4 levels below him that he can't possibly be controlling and quote accusations from present and former flag officers who he has never eyeballed personally. well the above items are things that he directly controls, or should; things he came into office vowing he was going to fix or change drastically. and in the latest QDR, his last, he made none of the hard choices about wasted money on high dollar weapons systems that make no sense in the real world today….this is what has my attention; this is what has me in a mood to question over and over and over, waiting for answers that never come, change that never comes, course corrections that never come. you wanted some specifics. there are some specifics….

“your boss is fond of saying that this or that thing is ‘unknowable.’ the most unknowable thing of all is who your enemy is going to be next time and where you are going to need allies and bases from which to attack or defend.

“all i can say is what the hell are you doing questioning my columns when you ought to be in there at the elbow of your boss reading those columns aloud to him every wednesday afternoon and urging him to pay attention to them. best wishes, Joe.”

-- DiRita replied: “Thanks for these insights, joe. none of this is easy. Your perspective seems pretty fixed but I do appreciate the experience you bring to it.

“Again, what bothers me most about your coverage is your implication that the people involved in all of this are dumb or have ill-intent or are so sure of what they know that they don't brook discussion. That's the part you're just way off on, friend. This is tough stuff, and we're all hard at it, trying to do what's best for the country.”

THE DEATH OF POLICY

…[read]…But not Bush. He's subject to the same stew of competing interests and factions as any other president, but what truly makes him unique is what's missing: a respect for policy analysis. After eight months of working in the Bush White House, John DiIulio reported that "the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking." Paul O'Neill described Bush in cabinet meetings as "a blind man in a roomful of deaf people." A senior White House official told Ron Suskind that the Bush White House is "just kids on Big Wheels who talk politics and know nothing. It’s depressing." The meltdown at FEMA, the war with the CIA for being insufficiently hawkish, the lack of a serious plan for Social Security privatization, the staffing of postwar Iraq with inexperienced ideologues — all of these things have the same root cause: a belief that ideas are all that matter.
Of course, that also means that President Bush's initiatives fail at a truly spectacular rate. After all, policy is all about figuring out how to implement ideas so that they actually work. If you believe that policy is something for effete liberal wonks — as George Bush evidently does — your ideas are doomed to failure. In the end, ironically, the one thing that Bush disdains so utterly is the very thing that guarantees his utter failure.

Shame on you, Bob Kerry

Shame on Bob Kerry for even suggesting there is anything remotely equivalent between what happened at The New School and Tiananmen, Eastern Europe or Lebanon. Academe has apparently robbed the former Senator of any sense of proportion in this regard.

Governor offers an alternative to Proposition 82

Schwarzenegger, who opposes Proposition 82, has proposed spending $50 million next year as part of a phased in program that would eventually commit $145 million annually to the preschool project.
That might seem puny compared to the $2 billion-plus envisioned by Proposition 82, the measure placed on the ballot by Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his allies. But much of the money raised by the Reiner initiative would go to provide free preschool to children whose middle-class and wealthy families are paying for it now. The smaller amount proposed by the governor would go mostly to children from poor families who are not already enrolled.
In fact, the targeted approach favored by Schwarzenegger might expand preschool to just as many 4-year-olds from poor families as the more broad-based program in Proposition 82, while spending less than one-tenth as much….
Making public policy is all about making choices. Just about every new program can be made to sound good in isolation, if you consider only the good it might do. But a complete analysis must also consider what you have to give up to get the thing that sounds so good.
In the case of Proposition 82, California would be giving up a couple of billion dollars a year that would otherwise be left alone to generate economic growth or be collected in taxes to provide services that are a higher priority than subsidizing preschool for the children of well-off families who are already paying for it themselves.
Schwarzenegger's leaner proposal offers voters concerned about Proposition 82 a sensible alternative.

Cosby's quest for solutions

That's too bad, because Mr. Dyson's view of Mr. Cosby reveals another curious version of elitism, a version that is shared too widely in left-progressive intellectual circles. Institutional racism is still a problem, as Mr. Dyson repeatedly reminds us, but African-Americans will not defeat it through political agitation and legislation alone. We also need to employ the same basic tools that have brought success to countless black families during far worse racial times than these: education, hard work, strong families and high moral standards.

The debate between black self-help and outside help is an old one in black America, but it is a false choice. Black America needs to look not for what's right or what's left, but to what works in our drive to liberate those left behind by the civil rights revolution.

Mr. Cosby doesn't have all of the answers. He doesn't even have all of the facts. But he's helping the rest of us to find both. That's a good start.