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December 17, 2002
Vol. 5 No. 52
In this
issue:
1. Kissinger and Make Up
2. Accounting Rules
3. Smallpox, Big Unknown
4. Quick Hits
5. Hit & Run -
the new Web log from Reason Online
6. Reason's print
edition
7. News and
Events
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The ongoing Trent Lott drama and Al Gore's surprise 2004 no-go have usurped attention from yet another strange bit of work from Henry Kissinger. Kissinger's resignation from the president's commission on the 9/11 attacks -- before he ever started -- suggests he thought the rules really don't apply to him.
The former diplomat did not want anyone poking around his Kissinger Associates consulting biz, and evidently some big foot at the White House -- Andy Card? Karl Rove? -- told him that as an unpaid volunteer, no messy disclosure was technically called for. But there is the letter of the law and the spirit of the thing, especially when disclosure of vested interests is concerned.
It is a distinction that the Clintons loved to tumble over and around, beginning with the Health Care Task Force and ending with White House furnishings following them out the door. In fact, maybe more than a few letters of law were trampled along the way. But the motivating impulse is the same for the Clintons and Kissingers of the world: If you are powerful enough, you literally don't have to explain yourself.
Kissinger expected the world and the families of the 9/11 victims simply to take his word for it when he said he had no clients which could possibly present a conflict with the commission's inquiry. It was somebody's job at the White House to step up and tell him that wasn't going to happen, ideally in the first phone call about the job. The failure to do that has left both Kissinger and the White House is a sorry state.
For Kissinger, the problem was being forced to choose his clients over "national service" in a very public way. Part of what allows the influence peddling biz to flourish is the implicit assumption that clients who want discretion get that, not speculation in print over connections and deals.
For Team Bush, the commission that was supposed to produce a nice, clean, exculpatory narrative in time for the 2004 elections is in danger of falling way behind schedule, and may never recapture any aura of authority it once had.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/847697.asp?cp1=1
If you're not sure why we need a clean, above-board airing of the 9/11 facts, consider the recent comments of FBI Director Robert Mueller, who doesn't want anyone actually punished for failures that may have lead to the attacks.
"One cannot look at holding people accountable as a solution to these problems," Mueller told interviewers. He also fell back on the fail-safe position if more money had been spent on the FBI, maybe things might've been different.
Such thinking reveals that all the institutional deck-shuffling in the world isn't going to fix what ails America's national security state. Accountability is a necessary building block for any large, effective organization. The alternative is micromanagement from the very top, which appears to be the bureau's preferred method.
Far from some vengeful purge, accountability at the FBI would mean some objective standards of performance, something that recent charges of politically manipulated whistleblower investigations suggest is sorely lacking.
Mueller may think he is shielding his agents from unfair reprisals. What he is really doing is guaranteeing that, sooner or later, they will be unable to do their jobs.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=Mueller%20Interview
President George W. Bush did the right PR thing by volunteering to take the smallpox vaccine he is ordering U.S. troops to receive. He also probably did the right thing by saying the shot would eventually be available to anyone who insisted on getting one.
In doing so, Bush turned away from the urgings of hard-core hawks, who wanted to begin a massive public inoculation program as soon as possible. In the absence of any direct evidence that a smallpox threat exists, ordering people to get very sick from a powerful inoculation doesn't seem quite right.
Experts at the Centers for Disease Control are refreshingly frank about their lack of knowledge about possible public demand for the smallpox vaccine. They too are probably right that initial interest for the shot will wane once the side-effects are viewed up close.
It is also important to keep in mind that there is great deterrent effect even in partial inoculations of population. Potential smallpox attackers cannot be certain that they are unleashing the virus on a wholly unprepared target.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20021214_180.html
Quote of the Week
"I think that a domain name does not equal a brand name. I'd rather have Disney, thanks, and so would most parents." -- Esther Dyson, former chairwoman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, on the new "kids.us" domain that is supposed to provide a "safe" Internet for children.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44122-2002Dec12?language=printer
Been There, Burned That
Recalling the famous case of Stella Liebeck, who sued a New Mexico McDonald's because her coffee burned her, an Oklahoma woman is suing a Missouri Burger King after spilling coffee on herself. The lid was defective, her lawyer explains.
http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/news/bk121302.html
Lotta Trouble
Don Nickles (R-OK) ventured that new leadership elections might be a good idea in the wake of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's serial self-abasements, which have still failed to wash away the stain of his pro-Dixiecrat comments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59566-2002Dec15?language=printer
Tax Dodge
Proof positive the Bush team is utterly hapless on taxes: The Treasury is at work trying to twist distributional tax burden analysis schemes to show that the poor and middle-class are undertaxed. To do that they'll likely leave the 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax out of the mix. So in order to produce a meaningless table, reality gets the boot.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59577-2002Dec15?language=printer
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