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Journal pudge's Journal: Sunday Thoughts 26

Journal by pudge

Kerry

Kerry was on Meet the Press this morning, and didn't really say anything new.

He still doesn't have much of a plan for the war in Iraq -- despite saying his approach would be radically different -- apart from "I'd be nicer to our allies and get them to help us." I dunno, that doesn't really go far to convince me he'd be different. But on the other hand: if he gets more specific, would that win him more votes, or does he pretty much get all the antiwar people already? Or maybe he is better off enumerating the specifics as we get closer to the election, since the situation will surely change significantly in the next several months?

But even his broad, inspecific plan has problems. He keeps saying the point is to get UN and NATO and allied support, that this is the main problem with how Bush went in; but that ignores the apparent truth that we wouldn't have gone in at all if we had waited for such support. The real political issue, I think, will come down to not how we went in, but whether we should have gone in. If we were right to go into Iraq, then whether or not we had support is insignificant. If we were wrong to go into Iraq, same thing. This is the one area where I think Dean would have made a more effective candidate against Bush, because he made this point fairly well. Of course, since Kerry supported the war, he can't really make that point, so he needs to make a much weaker point, that will convince far fewer people.

Kerry did own up to making mistakes in the early 70s, with his statements about the UN controlling US troops, and his attacks on the actions of US troops in Vietnam. He said he was young, angry, and said stupid things, and that as a Senator, he's never said, thought, or voted along those lines. As far as I am concerned, that ends the issue. But many people have much longer memories than I do, and hold grudges ... or are just looking for an excuse to beat up on Kerry.

He also came out in favor of Israeli actions against Hamas, moreso than Bush has. Bush basically says, Israeli policy is their own business, where Kerry said he supports the rights of the Israelis to defend themselves from terrorists like Hamas. I suppose, as a Senator, he has that luxury moreso than Bush does; it will be interesting to see if Kerry can grab the pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian-terrorist, vote. I doubt it -- especially since Kerry even said he supported Bush's policies in regard to Israel, giving back settlement land, etc. -- but at least Kerry won't lose any ground there.

Now, Kerry is right when he says Bush is distorting his record -- I am not going to go over that $87b vote yet again, except to say Kerry is not answering the question well -- but he makes it sound like he hasn't distorted Bush's record. He tries to take the moral high ground, as though his side is shiny and pristine and the other has a bag full of dirty tricks. He's been distorting Bush's record since last fall, and he even when he's not, Media Fund or MoveOn is. Both sides do it. Get over it. I am not saying he shouldn't respond -- he should -- but to whine about it as though he is the victim is annoying and tiring.

One of Kerry's distortions -- said many times by him and other members of his party -- is that Bush's budget is deceptive because it relies on revenue generated by growth from tax cuts. But Kerry's budget promise -- to cut the deficit in half -- relies on the exact same thing. He dismisses this criticism with (essentially), "well, my policies will result in growth, and his won't!" Even if that were a reasonable response, it would be uninteresting, because it is merely predictive, and the whole point is therefore whether you believe Bush will create growth, or Kerry will, not whether one is being deceptive (similarly to his criticism over international support in Iraq).

And it is not a reasonable response anyway, not at this stage, because we are seeing significantly increased growth under Bush. The "misery index" (inflation + unemployment) is lower now (7.8) than it was in Clinton's last year of his first term in 1996 (8.0); unemployment itself is the same (5.6); unemployment peaked at a much lower rate (6.3) than the three previous recessions (1979 at 7.9, 1982 at 10.8, 1990 at 7.8); and since Bush's tax cut last May, the Dow and NASDAQ are way up, GDP and productivity and housing starts are very strong, and unemployment has dropped significantly while job growth is now looking quite good.

Surely, the economy is not where it needs to be, and you can play with the numbers to make it look like Bush is worse than these numbers make him look, or worse than he actually is. But two things are indisputable: since Bush's tax cuts last May we are doing significantly better, and most of the economic problems we see in Bush's administration were things that began, or were the inevitable result from conditions existing, before Bush took office (the stock market began "crashing" in 1Q 2000; the job market began contraction in the 3Q 2000; the recession was coming and could not have been prevented in the 1.5 months Bush was in office before it began; the shift to outsourcing and offshore manufacturing began many years before Bush and were exacerbated by the other economic conditions; etc.).

So we know Bush inherited a bad economy, and that since his economic policies were fully implemented, the economy has done better. That's not to say he's been perfect: I disagree with his high spending and budget deficit, and surely the Iraq war -- right or wrong -- slowed any potential recovery. It's fair to say those things have harmed the economy, but it is just as fair to say that his other policies have helped cause the gains.

When it comes down to it, people will judge the President, in regard to the economy, based on how well we are currently doing (using measures -- objective and subjective -- similar to the misery index, which is pretty good right now) and in what direction we are currently headed (which over the past year has been almost all positive). I don't think Kerry really wants to run on the economy, in the end. Maybe he's hoping the current trends will reverse before the fall.

Woodward

I just finished Bush at War (in audiobook), and now Woodward's got a new book coming out. He is one of the few people to whom I grant wide latitude, in terms of using anonymous sources, because he has proven himself reliable over the years. It will be interesting to read (or listen to[*]) what he's got to say.

I do find it interesting how much of a double-edged sword the book will be, as Woodward's books usually are (it's common for both parties to use different parts of the same Woodward book to make their case). So far we've heard much made, already, of a supposedly secret meeting Bush had with Rumsfeld, about two months after the 9/11 attacks, telling him to start pulling together a plan to go after Iraq. I don't know if this proves any point in particular, but people are attempting to make it sound like it does. We'll see.

And then there's Woodward's telling of a meeting where Bush expressed doubts about the case the CIA was making that Hussein had WMD, and Tenet saying the evidence was a "slam dunk." It strikes directly to the heart of the one of the primary claims by Bush-haters that Bush ignored and even distorted the evidence of the CIA to make his case for war. I think, frankly, that this may put the final nail in the coffin of that idea, which never had much evidence supporting it to begin with.

I am drawing no firm conclusions, though I am obviously leaning in certain ways. But it seems the question should not have been whether Bush ignored or manipulated the evidence, but why Tenet still has a job. Maybe so he wouldn't have time to write an unfair, mean-spirited, tell-all book?

Conference

Much has been made of Bush's press conference last week. The problem with it is that Bush didn't give many specifics, and the press didn't ask many good questions. Of course, he failed to answer some good questions, but they failed to ask very many of those to begin with. They asked him how he "felt." They asked him to evaluate himself. Those aren't news conference questions. That's fodder for Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters or Larry King, or a first-year J-school student: not serious journalism.

You don't ask the President if he feels like he's made a mistake, or if he's made any mistakes. Those questions are not designed to get an intelligent response of any importance, but to get soundbites. It used to be that the media would cut down important news stories into soundbites; now they cut down news events themselves, that they provide only soundbites to begin with.

It's really obscene laziness. It's hard to explain things, it's hard to interpret events for people, so they shifted from explanation of complex events to quoting people out of context to hopefully make their explanation for them. Now, they try to obtain quotes without context, so there's no context for the quotes to be taken out of.

Just this morning, Tim Russert said to John Kerry: "We'll get to the nuance later, but right now, tell me yes or no ... ." Sorry, but that is not how the world works, Tim. Sometimes, answers need nuance, need context, need explanation. Sometimes there is no simple yes or no that is adequate. Sure, Kerry could have answered yes or no, and it would have been logically reasonable, but millions of people would have taken that yes or no and used it as though it were his categorical answer, because that is what we've learned to do. To his credit, Kerry didn't play along.

A good question for Bush would be: "you said there were WMD; were you right? if not, where are they?" That sort of thing. Being specific and trying to get actual information, instead of trying to express or elicit expression of feelings or decontextualized pat answers. The press justifies this by saying there's a feeling out there that Bush is arrogant or unreflective, so that is the question they ask; but that sort of psychoanalysis is for the op-ed page (if there), which can be based on the answers to good questions, and should not be the subject of questions in a press conference. It's useless and foolish.

Commission

More people are coming out and saying the 9/11 Commission should be disbanded, that its verdict can't be trusted, and worse. I think the publicity it's received has only hurt it. I think the effort to educate the public has served the cause of education very little, and has served partisanship greatly. I think we'd have all been better off if we just waited for their results.

But in the end, I don't think it will matter much. Their conclusions probably won't suprise us at all, will be fair and even-handed, and focus primarily on the failures of our intelligence agencies and the lack of urgency of America -- from both Clinton and Bush and their administrations, and in Congress, and in the media -- to face the threat. They will have sweeping recommendations for how to move forward, and we will evaluate them on their merits.

In the end, the Commission's publicity problems, the public hearings, and the rest won't matter much. There's no reason to disband them merely because they've damaged their own credibility. Their recommendations would have had more force if they'd not had so much publicity, but either way, we were going to evaluate them on their merits.

Patriots

Tomorrow is a very big Patriots Day in Boston (celebrating the start of the Revolutionary War by wearing funny suits and playing/watching sports). Enjoy! And perhaps read the Longfellow poem while you're at it.

*I listen to and read books, and want a single verb to describe both. I like "receive," but that makes it sound like I am being given the book, not that I am listening to or reading it. Any better ideas?

This discussion was created by pudge (3605) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Sunday Thoughts More

Sunday Thoughts

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  • I guess since your talking bout politics, help Bush fight terrorist isn't too far off subject. Sure it's simple, but it's an amusing time killer.
  • You don't ask the President if he feels like he's made a mistake, or if he's made any mistakes...It's really obscene laziness.

    I don't know about laziness -- my impression is that it's more an issue of reporters thinking they're participants, not observers. They all seemed to be competing to be the one who tripped Bush into "admitting" something that they could then all use to beat him over the head with through November.

    • I don't know about laziness -- my impression is that it's more an issue of reporters thinking they're participants, not observers. They all seemed to be competing to be the one who tripped Bush into "admitting" something that they could then all use to beat him over the head with through November.

      I don't disagree, but I think the point is that "real" journalism takes time and effort and hard work. They take the easy way to a story, which is to "get" the President.
  • As is blaming Bush for any economic shortcomings (well apart from the previously normal stance of holding whoever is President responsible for all good and bad things done in their term).

    Ok, I know I do it from the liberal side of the aisle, but it's largely a bogus argument from either side.

    Overall employment is still way down from when Bush took office, to the tune of 2 million jobs. This isn't showing up in the unemployment numbers. Of course the majority of this is manufacturing(and these people are
    • Overall employment is still way down from when Bush took office, to the tune of 2 million jobs.

      As I've pointed out before, this simply is not true. Jan 2001: 136181; Jan 2004: 136924; Mar 2004: 137691. Look at those numbers (total jobs, in thousands). Does the Jan 2001 figure look higher or lower to you than the two 2004 ones? How about the seasonally adjusted ones: 137790, 138566 and 138298 respectively. Does the first number there look higher or lower than the latter two to you?

      9/11 Commission. Not mu

      • Jan 2001: 136181; Jan 2004: 136924; Mar 2004: 137691. Look at those numbers (total jobs, in thousands). Does the Jan 2001 figure look higher or lower to you than the two 2004 ones? How about the seasonally adjusted ones: 137790, 138566 and 138298 respectively. Does the first number there look higher or lower than the latter two to you?

        What numbers are those? There are many ways to count employment, and the numbers don't mean much unless you cite where they came from, and what they include.

        You missed Go
        • What numbers are those? There are many ways to count employment, and the numbers don't mean much unless you cite where they came from, and what they include.

          It's from the BLS survey tables, where they contact people to determine whether or not they have jobs at present. (More accurate than their alternative survey, which depends on contacting a known set of employers - thus missing recent startups totally, among other defects.) I have no idea where buffer's "2 million" figure comes from; on the BLS tables

          • The survey data is widely regarded as the inaccurate set of figures(it tends to overstate employment recently whereas previously it understated it)[It's poll data man!]. The payroll data is the conservative set of numbers which may not be as up to the minute but are far more reliable.

            The 2 million figure is what the total job loss, per the payroll data, was in January, adjusted for the recent gains in employment. It's a PITA to find that information on the BLS site, so I'm working off of memory here.

            No
            • The survey data is widely regarded as the inaccurate set of figures(it tends to overstate employment recently whereas previously it understated it)[It's poll data man!]. The payroll data is the conservative set of numbers which may not be as up to the minute but are far more reliable.

              They are both surveys, but of different entities: one of employees, one of employers. Per table A-6, there is no net job loss. You're presumably referring to table B-1, non-farm payroll information, where the "seasonable adju

    • Overall employment is still way down from when Bush took office, to the tune of 2 million jobs. This isn't showing up in the unemployment numbers. Of course the majority of this is manufacturing(and these people are largely not looking for work once fired), which has been suffering for a while.

      Wouldn't many of these job loses be attributed to:

      (A) NAFTA and related off-shoring/out-sourcing? A trend that started over a decade ago and enabled with legislation passed during the last 5-10 years?

      (B) The dot

  • A quick skim, and I have two points:

    first, the direction of the DJI, NYSE, or NASDAQ indexes are nearly useful as an indication of economic status. They are neither leading, following, or concurrent indicators.

    Second, reading books and listening to them are quite different for most people. No source, but some people have studied comprehension, retention, etc. of people using audiobooks vs. Braille (with visual as opposed to tactile reading as a control) and show that both forms of reading are superior to
    • first, the direction of the DJI, NYSE, or NASDAQ indexes are nearly useful as an indication of economic status. They are neither leading, following, or concurrent indicators.

      That's true in a limited way, just as many statements about the economy are. The major indexes do poorly in generally poor economic times -- such as in recessions -- and well in generally good economic times.
  • Hmm. I always wonder about all of this talk of a recession. I know this was a tiny part of your post, Pudge, but isn't a recession defined by a minimum of two consecutive quarters of GDP decline? We had only one such quarter (Q3 2001) when taken in real dollars, so by definition we never had an actual recession.

    I know there is some committee that gets to decide exactly when we had a recession (the NBER, if I'm not mistaken), and that they tend to look at other factors in addition to GDP decline. I
    • In this one example of the data I've seen [sjsu.edu], GDP went down in both the second and third. In billions, real GDP (1996 dollars) was 9243.8 in 4Q 2000, 9229.9 in 1Q 2001, 9193.1 in 2Q, 9186.4 in 3Q, and 9248.8 in 4Q. Of course, GDP numbers are always changing, so ... whatever. :-)

      However you define it, the real point is that Bush didn't cause it. The conditions precipitating it began in early 2000 (see the graph above the GDP chart, showing GDP flatten in mid-2000, when the stock market bubble began to burst

  • Nice (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by jamie ( 78724 ) *
    Wow, you are an expert at misleading. You should be in politics.

    • Re:Nice (Score:2)

      by pudge ( 3605 ) *
      If you wish to explain yourself instead of making attacks, let me know and I will enable your posting permissions again.
  • I listen to and read books, and want a single verb to describe both. I like "receive," but that makes it sound like I am being given the book, not that I am listening to or reading it. Any better ideas?

    "Experience"?

    "Injest"?
  • Pudge. Another good volley. One of the few Republican (leaning) people that I listen to. Keep up the good work... it is interesting to read.

    I had to do some traveling over the weekend, so I didn't get to catch the Sunday "Heads." Good wrap up. I may have come to different conclusions, but I appreciate your view either way.

    I did get a chance to listen to two audio books (abridged, unfortunately... now I am going to have to READ them) that I thought you might find interesting. The first may be inflama
    • I have absolutely no desire to ingest Molly Ivins. She's biased against Bush and writes stuff to make him look bad. Yawn. I might as well ask you to ingest Ann Coulter. It's all crap, to me.

      I am somewhat interested in House of Saud. It is, at least, real journalism, as best I can tell, unlike Ivins or Coulter or Greg Palast or any of these other people who are more interested in convincing people of opinions than in getting to the truth of a story.

      Any suggestions for pro-Bush or at least neutral Bus

  • Much has been made of Bush's press conference last week. The problem with it is that Bush didn't give many specifics, and the press didn't ask many good questions. Of course, he failed to answer some good questions, but they failed to ask very many of those to begin with. They asked him how he "felt." They asked him to evaluate himself. Those aren't news conference questions. That's fodder for Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters or Larry King, or a first-year J-school student: not serious journalism.

    You do

    • You do know that most recent Presidents (especially Bush) have all the questions that are going to be asked submitted before the press

      I know it is true of Bush.

      THAT is why the President was slightly flustered when two of the questions were asked.

      Yes, I realize all that.

      It doesn't transfer well in the transcript, but you can see he is pissed in the video.

      Yes, I was watching it.

      The issue isn't so much that the questions were "improper" but instead that they weren't expected/orchestrated AND they f

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