Reason Magazine - Staff

Change He Can't Believe In

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EDT

I know, because admirers of Barack Obama tell me, that this year's election poses a choice between a candidate who represents a fresh approach to problems and one who offers a dreary continuation of the status quo. That much I understand. What I sometimes have trouble keeping straight is which candidate is which.

On the subject of elementary and secondary education, the two seem to have gotten their roles completely mixed up. Obama is the staunch defender of the existing public school monopoly, and he's allergic to anything that subverts it. John McCain, on the other hand, went before the NAACP last week to argue for something new and daring.

That something is to facilitate greater parental choice in education. McCain wants to expand a Washington, D.C. program that provides federally funded scholarships so poor students can attend private schools. More than 7,000 kids, he reported, have applied for these vouchers, but only 1,900 can be accommodated.

Obama promptly expressed disdain for McCain's proposal. The Republican, his campaign said, offered "recycled bromides" that would "undermine our public schools."

You would think a leader who plans to liberate us from the partisan dogmas of the past would be open to this approach—and in February, Obama indicated he was. "If there was any argument for vouchers, it was, 'Let's see if the experiment works,'" he said. "And if it does, whatever my preconception, you do what's best for the kids."

But it didn't last. After those comments drew attention, his campaign hastily reminded voters that "throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals" and that his education plan "does not include vouchers, in any shape or form."

Too bad, because vouchers, though they have been tried only in a few places, have shown considerable promise. Patrick Wolf, a University of Arkansas education professor who has the job of evaluating the Washington program, says that of the 10 studies of existing voucher programs, nine found significant achievement gains.

In Washington, it's too early to tell if test scores will improve. But already, Wolf's report says it has had "a positive impact on parent satisfaction and perceptions of school safety."

Those benefits ought to be enough to make Obama reexamine his preconceptions. After all, it's not as though everything else we've been doing has set the world on fire.

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, the nation has seen no improvement worth mentioning. As Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute writes, "U.S. students have suffered overall stagnation or decline in math, reading and science in the years since NCLB was passed."

Democrats don't like NCLB, as a rule, but about the only thing Obama and his party offer is pouring more money into schools and teacher salaries. It's an idea that sounds sensible not only to teachers and principals but to a lot of other Americans as well—mainly because most taxpayers don't realize how much they are already spending.

A survey by William Howell of the University of Chicago and Martin West of Brown University found that 96 percent of Americans underestimate these expenditures, usually by a lot. On average, per-student outlays are more than twice what most people think, and teachers get $14,370 more per year than commonly assumed. Per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, has soared in the last four decades with no visible payoff.

Vouchers are a different approach: Instead of enlarging the monopoly, stimulate competition by empowering low-income students and parents to go outside the public school system. Over time, that should give rise to more private schools and impel public ones to do a better job—or, in the case of the worst ones, close down.

It's not a radical design. It's pretty much the model we use for higher education, and it may explain why American universities are held in much higher regard around the world than our elementary and secondary schools. And it's comparable to what we use for most other goods, which accounts for the vast improvements in computers, cars and TVs that have occurred even as public schools were stagnating.

McCain apparently grasps all this, while his opponent prefers to close his eyes. Obama says he stands for "change we can believe in." But change that works? That's another matter.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Change He Can Believe In

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EDT

It's hard to keep up with Barack Obama's positions on the Iraq war. When he entered the presidential race, he offered a plan that would take more than a year to withdraw from Iraq. In September, he said he would withdraw all our combat brigades over 15 months or so. This week, he vowed to pull those forces out within 16 months of taking office.

Wow. He's really been all over the lot, hasn't he? No one can possibly tell if President Obama will get us out in February of 2010, or if he'll put it off till April.

Small wonder that a John McCain spokesman said that on Iraq, Obama "has held almost every conceivable position." Or that a blogger for the conservative American Spectator said Obama "has entered John Kerry territory when it comes to changing positions on Iraq."

See for yourself. Obama was against the war before it began—and then, in a complete reversal, he was against it after it began. When he launched his campaign in early 2007, he favored a phased withdrawal. But now, with the Democratic nomination in hand, what does he favor? A phased withdrawal.

Recently he said once in office, he would consult the military and "refine" his policies, while stressing his intention to get our troops out within—you will never guess—16 months.

OK, maybe he's not so inconsistent. Waiting for Obama to alter his policy on Iraq has been like waiting for the Sphinx to smile.

It would be more believable for Republicans to blast him for being rigidly committed to withdrawal no matter what. There are two reasons they are not crazy about this option.

The first is that it would remind the electorate that Obama has always opposed a war that most Americans think was a mistake—and that he favors a near-term withdrawal, as most of them do and McCain does not.

The second is that his opponents want to paint him as a shameless flip-flopper. They would like to change the subject from whether the war was wise to whether Obama is a vertebrate. This tactic worked against the 2004 Democratic nominee, who famously said of a bill to fund the war, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

The problem they face is that Obama is no John Kerry. The Massachusetts senator voted for the resolution authorizing the war and later changed his mind about Iraq. This year's nominee was against the war from the beginning and in the subsequent six years has proven unwilling to reverse field.

Obama, however, has never called for an immediate exit, as some on the left would prefer. He has been consistent in refusing either to accelerate his schedule or to slow it down. I suspect when he talks in his sleep, he mumbles his mantra that "we have to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in."

His charge this week that the war in Iraq has diverted us from defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan and going after al-Qaida also sounds a bit familiar. He was criticized during the primaries for saying that if the opportunity arose to hit bin Laden in Pakistan, he would do it. A year ago, he gave a speech called, "The War We Need to Win," which called for "getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

He was right then, and he's right now. Our recent progress in Iraq has come at a high price: growing violence and turmoil in Afghanistan, with the American death toll last month rising to the highest level since 2001.

McCain insists success in Iraq breeds success in Afghanistan. But Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gives a different picture: "I don't have troops I can reach for, brigades I can reach, to send into Afghanistan until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq." The war in Iraq has drained resources needed to go after the people responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, and the consequences are only getting worse.

That's one of the arguments Obama has been making for several years now. For all their charges of flip-flopping, Republicans aren't afraid he will cave on Iraq and Afghanistan. They're afraid he won't.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Armed and Dangerous?

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EDT

Americans often buy guns for self-defense, a purpose that now has Supreme Court validation. But according to advocates of gun control, those purchasers overlook the people who pose the greatest threat: themselves. Anyone who acquires a firearm, we are told, is inviting a bloody death by suicide.

So says Matthew Miller, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. "If you bought a gun today, I could tell you the risk of suicide to you and your family members is going to be two- to tenfold higher over the next 20 years," he told The Washington Post. Since the chance of a gun being used for suicide is so much higher than the chance of it being used to prevent a murder, we would all be better off with fewer firearms around.

It's a rich irony—as though smoke alarms were increasing fire fatalities. But the argument raises two questions: Is it true? And, when it comes to gun control policy, does it matter?

As it turns out, the claims about guns and suicide don't stand up well to scrutiny. A 2004 report by the National Academy of Sciences was doubtful, noting that the alleged association is small and may be illusory.

Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck says there are at least 13 published studies finding no meaningful connection between the rate of firearms and the rate of suicides. The consensus of experts, he says, is that an increase in gun ownership doesn't raise the number of people who kill themselves—only the number who do it with a gun.

That makes obvious sense. Someone who really wants to commit suicide doesn't need a .38, because alternative methods abound. Gun opponents, however, respond that guns inevitably raise the rate because they're uniquely lethal. Take away the gun, and you greatly increase the chance of survival.

But in his 1997 book, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Kleck points out that "suicide attempts with guns are only slightly more likely to end in death than those involving hanging, carbon monoxide poisoning, or drowning." It's not hard to think of some other pretty foolproof means of self-destruction—such as jumping off a tall (or even not so tall) building, stepping in front of a train or driving at 80 mph into a telephone pole.

People who use guns are generally hellbent on ending their lives. So deprived of a sidearm, they will no doubt find another reliable method—rather than swallow a dozen aspirin and wake up in the emergency room. Banning guns is no more likely to reduce suicides than banning ice cream is to curb obesity.

A few decades ago, various European countries changed the type of natural gas used for home heating and cooking—replacing a toxic form with a harmless variety. That step eliminated one time-tested way of killing oneself. Alas, while the number of gas suicides declined, in most of these countries, the death toll didn't.

The same pattern holds for guns. The National Academy of Sciences report noted that any link between firearms and suicides "is not found in comparisons across countries." The number of guns in a nation tells you nothing about its suicide rate.

But let's suppose science could establish that people who obtain firearms do indeed increase their death rate (or the death rate of their family members) from suicide. So what?

Buying a car may shorten your lifespan, since traffic accidents are a major killer. Building a backyard swimming pool creates a potential fatal hazard to you and your loved ones. But nobody says the government should interfere with such decisions.

Personal safety is a far more central matter of individual autonomy than those choices. A mentally stable person living in a crime-ridden neighborhood should be free to judge whether she's more at risk from street criminals than from a spell of intense depression.

Presumptuous paternalists argue that Americans should be deprived of guns because gun owners are their own worst enemies. A lot of Americans would reply: We can't trust ourselves, but we can trust you?

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Obama, McCain, and Financial Disaster

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EDT

Federal budget policy is a dry subject with far too many numbers and charts, which makes it uninviting to most Americans. But the theme of the current budget story is one that could have come from a blockbuster summer movie: We are doomed. There is a fiscal asteroid on course to pulverize us, and no one is coming to the rescue.

The problem is simple and depressingly familiar. This year, federal spending will exceed federal revenue by more than $400 billion. Given the weak state of the economy, the deficit will get worse before it gets better.

Actually, it may never get better, because the current shortfall coincides with the start of the most dreaded fiscal event of all time: the retirement of the baby boomers, who will soon consume eye-popping amounts in Social Security and Medicare.

If that's not bad enough, Bruce Willis is not on hand to intercept the doomsday object before it arrives. Worse yet, neither Barack Obama nor John McCain wants the job.

The latest proof came when McCain unveiled his economic plan, in which he vows to eliminate the deficit in four years. His plan to balance the budget is simple: He plans to balance the budget. Exactly which programs he will trim to reach that goal are anyone's guess.

For someone with a reputation as a fearless foe of congressional earmarks and pork-barrel waste, McCain is amazingly timid in taking on the rest of the budget. About his only specific proposal is a one-year freeze in those discretionary programs that don't involve defense or veterans.

McCain doesn't say how much that would save, but it wouldn't be a lot. Those expenditures amount to only 17 percent of all federal outlays. Eighty-three percent of the budget would keep on growing. After a year, so would the other 17 percent.

He vows to follow up with "comprehensive spending controls." But promising to control spending in general means promising to control nothing in particular.

Just because voters will go along with a vague limit on total outlays doesn't mean they are willing to surrender funds going to them or their favorite causes. It's one thing to inform a toddler that he shouldn't eat too much candy. It's another to take the Tootsie Roll Pop out of his hand.

The Republican standard-bearer, however, acts as though the task will be easy. Among the methods offered in this plan: "Eliminate broken programs. The federal government itself admits that one in five programs do not perform." How about naming one? How about promising to pound a stake through its heart?

When it comes to spending, though, Obama is even worse. The National Taxpayers Union Foundation added up all the promises made by the two candidates and found that McCain's would cost taxpayers an extra $68 billion a year. Obama's add up to $344 billion a year.

The Illinois senator's pledge to get tough on unnecessary expenditures is as solid as cotton candy. Among his vows is to "slash earmarks to no greater than what they were in 2001," but earmarks make up less than 2 percent of the budget. Trying to restore fiscal discipline by cutting earmarks is like trying to lose weight by adopting an exercise program for your left index finger.

Obama claims he'll pay for all his new spending with new revenues and spending cuts. But like McCain, he has been hazy on the details. And it will be far easier for him to get Congress to approve new spending than to enact the measures needed to pay for it. Unless Obama is willing to take on his own party with the veto pen, we should expect four more years of irresponsible budgeting.

His only defense is that he would not have to make up as much lost revenue as his rival. The Tax Policy Center says his tax plan would cut federal receipts by $2.7 trillion over the next decade, compared with $3.6 trillion for McCain.

The details differ, but the basic picture is the same regardless of who wins: Washington will spend more, red ink will roll down like a mighty river, and we as a nation will continue to dodge the critical choices we face.

It would be nice to think some unexpected event will save us from the consequences of that folly. But as McCain is fond of saying, it's always darkest just before it goes totally black.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Truth and the Gitmo Detainees

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EDT

"Islamic terrorists have constitutional rights," lamented one conservative blog when the Supreme Court said Guantanamo inmates can challenge their detention in court. "These are enemy combatants," railed John McCain. The court, charged former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy of National Review, sided with foreigners "whose only connection with our body politic is their bloody jihad against Americans."

The operating assumption here is that the prisoners are terrorists who were captured while fighting a vicious war against the United States. But can the critics be sure? All they really know about the Guantanamo detainees is that they are Guantanamo detainees. To conclude that they are all bloodthirsty jihadists requires believing that the U.S. government is infallible.

But how sensible is that approach? Judging from a little-noticed federal appeals court decision that came down after the Supreme Court ruling, not very.

The case involved Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Muslim who fled to Afghanistan in May 2001 to escape persecution of his Uighur ethnic group by the Beijing government. When the U.S. invaded after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Uighur camp where he lived was destroyed by air strikes. He and his compatriots made their way to Pakistan, where villagers handed them over to the government, which transferred them to American custody.

You might think you would have to do something pretty obvious to wind up in Guantanamo. Apparently not. The U.S. government does not claim Parhat was a member of the Taliban or al-Qaida. He was not captured on a battlefield. The government's own military commission admitted it found no evidence that he "committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition partners."

So why did the Pentagon insist on holding him as an enemy combatant? Because he was affiliated with the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, a separatist Muslim group fighting for independence from Beijing. It had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks but reputedly got help from al-Qaida.

But the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after reviewing secret documents submitted by the government, found that there was no real evidence. It said the flimsy case mounted against Parhat "comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true." And it ruled that, based on the information available, he was not an enemy combatant even under the Pentagon's own definition of the term.

Is this verdict just another act of judicial activism by arrogant liberals on the bench? Not by a long shot.

Of the three judges who signed the opinion, one, Thomas Griffith, was appointed in 2005 by President Bush himself. Another, David Sentelle, was nominated in 1985 by President Reagan—and had earlier joined in ruling that the Guantanamo detainees could not go to federal court to assert their innocence (a decision the Supreme Court overturned).

The administration could hardly have asked for a more accommodating group of judges. Yet they found in favor of the detainee on the simple grounds that if the government is going to imprison someone as an enemy combatant, it needs some evidence that he is one.

Parhat may not be an exceptional case. Most of the prisoners were not captured by the U.S. in combat but were turned over by local forces, often in exchange for a bounty. We had to take someone else's word that they were bad guys.

A 2006 report by Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux found that only 8 percent of those held at Guantanamo were al-Qaida fighters. Even a study done at West Point concluded that just 73 percent of the detainees were a "demonstrated threat"—which means 27 percent were not.

The Parhat case doesn't prove that everyone in detention at Guantanamo is an innocent victim of some misunderstanding. But it does show the dangers of trusting the administration—any administration—to act as judge, jury, and jailer. It illustrates the need for an independent review to make sure there is some reason to believe the people being treated as terrorists really deserve it.

If any particular detainees are as bad as the administration claims, it should have no trouble making that case in court. But there is nothing to be gained from the indefinite imprisonment of someone whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Keeping innocent people behind bars is a tragedy for them and a waste for us.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

The Pursuit of Happiness

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EDT

One of the pleasures of living in America is getting to argue about rights—what they are, who has them, and how to define them. In the last week, we've all had a rousing time debating the right to keep and bear arms. Americans can hardly talk about political issues without invoking these fundamental prerogatives.

Other countries may have a similar inclination to quarrel over whether people have a legitimate claim to religious freedom, a fair trial, health care, or housing. The right to life and the right to liberty, on the other hand, are common assumptions around the world. But only America was founded on a right that, even today, sounds eccentric: the right to the pursuit of happiness.

The delegates in Philadelphia who approved the Declaration of Independence had a long list of complaints about King George III. They excoriated him for maintaining a standing army, dissolving elected assemblies, imposing taxes without the consent of the taxpayers, and sending out "swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance."

Those are all specific, tangible abuses understandable to anyone. But the idea that the king was somehow interfering with Americans' propensity to chase after bliss was a novel one at the time. No more. One of the notable changes in the world in recent decades is the spread of freedom, including the freedom of each person to pursue happiness as he or she conceives it.

Letting people do that, it turns out, actually makes them content. This may sound like the most incontestable of truisms, but it's not.

Some science suggests that happiness is essentially a fixed commodity. It may rise or fall sharply because of events—getting a raise, breaking a leg—but over the long run, people adapt to those experiences and revert to their natural level of satisfaction (or melancholy).

Scratch that theory. According to a recent global survey, happiness is not only variable but on the rise in most of the world.

Two things, it appears, are needed to increase the supply of happiness: freedom and money. As it happens, a substantial amount of freedom is crucial to the creation of wealth. There is no such thing as a rich totalitarian country, as even the onetime totalitarians in Beijing finally realized. So in a very real sense, freedom is the key to happiness.

The survey, by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, involved asking people in 97 countries two simple questions: "Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, rather happy, not very happy or not at all happy?" and "All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?"

What the researchers found is that in the 52 countries where the poll has been done over the last couple of decades, the percentage of people giving upbeat answers rose in 40. Among the places where smiles have been spreading are such developing countries as China and India, which have grown freer as well as more prosperous.

The same has occurred in much of the advanced world as well, including the United States, France, Canada, Denmark, and Japan. Only four countries (Austria, Belgium, Britain, and Germany) have gotten less happy since the pre-1981 era. They are all free as well as rich, which suggests those two factors are necessary but not sufficient for people to count their blessings.

Still, if money can't buy happiness, it certainly makes misery easier to bear. Some of us might rather be a depressed Brit than a sunny Sudanese.

The Germans also might take a more chipper view of their fortunes were they to consider, say, Zimbabweans, the most unhappy people on the planet. Small wonder, since they live under a psychotic tyrant who has wrecked the economy, inflicting hyperinflation and mass hunger.

The 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson wrote, "How small, of all that human hearts endure, that part which laws or kings can cause or cure." The people who wrote the Declaration of Independence, by contrast, understood that if you want to be happy, it helps to have a decent government and a free society.

As it happened, they did want themselves and their descendants to be happy. They also created a pretty good model for any country that wants to be.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

How Gun Control Lost

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EDT

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, pessimistically, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." He would probably not have been surprised to see the proliferation of gun control laws in our time. But he might not have anticipated that the water would run back uphill.

Thursday's Supreme Court decision affirming that the Second Amendment recognizes an individual right to own firearms for self-defense was a vindication of those who have long argued that position. But it was an even more stunning defeat for advocates of gun control, who not so long ago seemed to have history, law, and public sympathy on their side. Back then, they couldn't have dreamed that the Supreme Court would say, "You know what? The National Rifle Association is right."

In the 1980s and 1990s, as violence raged at epidemic levels, the preferred remedy of policymakers was to restrict the manufacture, sale, and ownership of firearms. Washington, D.C. had banned handguns in 1976, and in 1982, Chicago did likewise, prompting several of its suburbs to follow suit.

New York required anyone who wanted a handgun to acquire a special permit, which was expensive and hard to get. Meanwhile, the federal government and several states outlawed "assault weapons"—semiautomatic guns with a military appearance.

It looked as though ever-stricter gun control was the wave of the future. But the future had different ideas. What happened? Three main things:

Gun control didn't work. In the 1990s, despite its draconian ban, Washington became the murder capital of the United States. Chicago's homicide rate, which had been declining in the years before it banned handguns, climbed over the following decade. Gun control didn't work.

During the time the federal assault weapons law was in effect, the number of gun murders declined—but so did murders involving knives and other weapons. When the law was allowed to expire in 2004, something interesting happened to the national murder rate: nothing.

Laws allowing concealed weapons proliferated—with no ill effects. In 1987, Florida gained national attention—and notoriety—by passing a law allowing citizens to get permits to carry concealed handguns. Opponents predicted a wave of carnage by pistol-packing hotheads, but it didn't happen. In fact, murders and other violent crimes subsided. Permit holders proved to be sober and restrained.

People elsewhere took heed, and today, according to the NRA, 40 states have "right-to-carry" laws. As those laws have spread, the homicide rate has fallen sharply from the peak reached in 1991.

The Second Amendment got a second look. In 1983, a San Francisco lawyer named Don Kates published an article in the University of Michigan Law Review arguing that, contrary to prevailing wisdom in the judiciary and law schools, the Constitution upholds an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Numerous legal scholars, spurred to examine the record, reached the same surprising conclusion. Before long, even some liberal law professors were coming around.

In 2000, Harvard's Laurence Tribe published a new edition of his influential constitutional law textbook, asserting that the Second Amendment had an undeniable meaning: "The federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification consistent with the authority of the states to organize their own militias. That assurance in turn is provided through recognizing a right (admittedly of uncertain scope) on the part of individuals to possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes..."

The majority opinion last week, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, drew heavily on this stack of scholarship to argue that the framers did not limit the right to the context of service in a state militia. Without the stimulus provided by these contrarian thinkers, the decision would never have come to pass. And the Second Amendment would have remained what it was for so long: a curious irrelevancy.

Instead, the right to keep and bear arms has finally taken its rightful place with our other fundamental liberties. It may be the natural course of things for government control to expand and freedom to shrink. But as Jefferson knew, America was founded to reverse that process.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Politicized Justice

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:00:00 EDT

In his zest to purge enemies in the government, Richard Nixon was so thorough that he set out to remove a "Jewish cabal" at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. President Bush and his subordinates may match Nixon for paranoia. Some of them lay awake nights wondering how to keep ideologically questionable applicants from infiltrating the Justice Department's summer internship program.

According to the department's inspector general in a report issued this week, they had some success in heading off this potential catastrophe—eliminating many candidates with subversive affiliations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. But the report condemned the effort, finding that it involved official misconduct and broke the law.

Political abuses in the summer internship program may be no more than a minor threat to honest government. The same cannot be said of abuses in the hiring and firing of federal prosecutors, which the inspector general is also investigating. Back in 2006, the Justice Department abruptly dismissed nine U.S. attorneys, some apparently because they declined to prosecute certain Democrats.

One of those fired was David Iglesias of New Mexico, who was shown the door after deciding not to seek indictments in a case involving a Democratic state senator—and after getting ominous phone calls from congressional Republicans asking how the case was proceeding.

Another was Todd Graves, who had refused to file a vote fraud case against the state of Missouri. His successor filed it, but Graves was vindicated when a federal court tossed it out for lack of evidence.

That successor is now contemplating the criminal justice system from a different vantage. Bradley Schlozman, The Wall Street Journal reported recently, could be the target of a grand jury investigation stemming from possible perjury in his testimony on Capitol Hill.

He may not be the only one who will get to know federal prosecutors in an entirely new way. The New York Times disclosed that a federal grand jury has "begun to examine statements by Justice Department officials about hiring decisions in the civil rights division, where some employees said they were subject to a political litmus test."

The 2006 firings violated a long tradition of independence for U.S. attorneys, who are appointed by the president but actually work for the people. It betrayed a zeal to use government power to advance partisan purposes at the expense of justice.

It also confirmed the remark by John DiIulio, a conservative scholar who quit as head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives after making an unpleasant discovery: "What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, run by the political arm."

If you want to know the source of Barack Obama's success, look no further. Republicans think they will win once Americans figure out he's more liberal than he sounds. But Obama's appeal lies less in any supposedly moderate ideology than in his rejection of a corrosive but prevalent view: Government is nothing more than partisan warfare, and may the stronger side win.

The Bush administration thinks every aspect of governance should serve the ends of the Republican Party. Obama says—and may even believe—that some matters should be above politics.

In the case of federal prosecutors, that is not a new view but an old one. U.S. attorneys are political appointees but not, traditionally, political agents. They are supposed to advance justice without fear or favor. To turn them into partisan attack dogs is to make the law merely a weapon of those in power.

Republicans may dismiss such notions as 8th-grade civics tripe, or as sour grapes from those whom the American people have wisely kept out of the White House. But it also happens to be the view of Bush's former deputy attorney general, James Comey.

In testifying before Congress about the intrusion of politics into the hiring of career prosecutors, he said, "If that was going on, that strikes at the core of what the Department of Justice is...It deprives the department of its lifeblood, which is the ability to stand up and have juries of all stripes believe what you say and have sheriffs and judges and jailers—the people we deal with—trust the Department of Justice."

Public trust was once something the department could take for granted. It would be nice if, four years from now, it is again.

Force-Fed the Facts

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EDT

The 21st century has many problems, but a shortage of information is not one of them. Trying to avoid being endlessly barraged with facts is like trying to stay dry in a hurricane. But no matter. One government body after another has the idea that some people need more information, and it will be supplied or else.

The targets of this campaign are restaurants. New York City has a new law commanding chain outlets to post the calorie count of every item on menus and menu boards. The legislatures in New York and California are considering state laws to require even more extensive disclosures.

The reason, as the New York City Health Department explains, is that "New Yorkers get a third or more of their calories away from home. The lack of readily available calorie information in food service establishments makes it easy to consume too many calories without realizing it."

Imposing this mandate is supposed to help combat obesity. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health asserts that if just 10 percent of restaurant patrons cut their intake by a mere 100 calories per meal, we would see a 39 percent decline in weight gain.

But the entire effort rests on assumptions that are unexamined and unfounded. The first is that consumers place a high value on the information being mandated. Actually, most of it is already accessible (online, among other ways) to anyone who is interested. In many places, it is available onsite, on tray liners or pamphlets.

Americans may say they would also like to see dietary information on menus. But providing it costs money, in a fiercely competitive industry. If patrons really wanted such disclosures, no law would be needed. Restaurants, eager to attract customers, would already be providing the numbers—just as they strive to offer other things that bring in business.

Among the attributes that most people look for when they dine out, nutritional information is below tasty fare, reasonable prices, courteous service, pleasant surroundings, agreeable lighting, and free parking. It's probably tied with clean restrooms and free mints at the cashier's counter.

The belief that more facts will generate wiser decisions is appealing but, at least in the realm of food, yet to be proved. No one seems to have noticed that as nutritional labeling has expanded, so have American waistlines. The federal government first required packaged foods to carry such information in the mid-1970s, and today, we are collectively fatter than we were then.

What does that suggest? Either people don't notice what's in the food they buy, or they don't let the knowledge affect what goes in their mouths.

"You can certainly say that most people certainly don't understand the food label," former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester Crawford told the 2004 World Obesity Congress. "And it's not because they can't understand it, it's because they don't care to understand it."

If people don't heed the information they already have, they aren't going to waste effort digesting an additional onslaught of facts. The assumption is that people eat badly because they don't acquire the essential knowledge about their food. But it may be they fail to obtain those facts because they prefer to eat whatever they like. Not everyone approaches dinner as a research project.

There is little research to suggest that calorie alerts will make any difference in obesity rates. In 2004, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported that when women of normal weight were given this kind of information, it had no effect on what they ate, and that facts furnished in restaurants were also irrelevant in dining decisions.

A study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that people who dine out frequently are less likely to pay attention to nutritional data than people who eat mostly at home. It suggested that "those who have a less nutritious diet are less likely to use food labels and have less interest in doing so."

As anyone who's ever raised a teenager knows, continually bombarding people with information that is useful or even crucial to their well-being is not always productive. Menu laws may not increase our ability to make good food choices. But they will certainly improve our ability to tune out.

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Terrorized by the Supreme Court

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EDT

A lot of people who strongly believe in the war on terror are not above sowing a little terror of their own. From the reaction to last week's Supreme Court decision on Guantanamo, you would think the detainees were all going to be trained, armed and set free at Ground Zero, with free shuttle service to the nearest airport.

John McCain denounced the ruling, which said inmates may ask for federal court review under a procedure known as habeas corpus, as "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." Former Bush Justice Department official John Yoo warned that henceforth, captured enemy fighters will be read their Miranda rights. The irrepressible Wall Street Journal had a cartoon with a judge atop a cage labeled "Gitmo" watching masked inmates stream out wearing suicide vests and lugging AK-47s.

All this outrage builds on the dissent registered by Justice Antonin Scalia. The court's decision "will make the war harder on us," he thundered. "It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Well, it won't have that effect unless it leads to inmates being released—which it has not, will not anytime soon, and may not ever. If and when it does, he may have a point, though not necessarily a powerful one.

Anytime you let someone out of prison, even if he's innocent, you create the possibility that he will someday kill someone. Scalia makes much of the supposed fact that 30 of the detainees freed from Guantanamo "have returned to the battlefield." Just because they were later captured or killed, however, doesn't mean they "returned" to the war.

Some of them may have been victims of mistaken identity, which could explain why those softhearted folks at the Pentagon let them go. But stick a blameless unfortunate in a cage for six years, abusing him in the process, and when he comes out, he may seek revenge. The only way to eliminate the risk is to keep all the detainees locked up forever.

Even the Bush administration has not gone that far. It was happy to free more than 500 inmates over the years. When it did, by the way, nobody accused the president of causing more Americans to be killed.

Besides, any releases are only speculative right now. To have a chance at freedom, a prisoner will have to make a plausible case that he's innocent. The administration had already planned to try 80 of the detainees before military commissions, which suggests it has abundant evidence of guilt.

Presumably the Defense Department has information to show that many, if not all, of the others were connected to al-Qaida or other enemy forces. If the government presents incriminating evidence that the inmate can't refute, a habeas corpus petition will be about as useful to him as a snowboard.

Nor are the courts likely to let the American Civil Liberties Union draw up the standards for release. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, indicated the judiciary will err on the side of caution.

"Habeas corpus proceedings need not resemble a criminal trial," he stipulated, for those worried about Miranda warnings. Though inmates have rights, he noted, "it does not follow that a habeas corpus court may disregard the dangers the detention in these cases was intended to prevent."

Let's suppose there's an inmate whom the Pentagon thinks was fighting for al-Qaida but lacks any supporting evidence it can use in court. Does he now have a get-out-of-Gitmo-free card? Not necessarily.

In that case, says Northwestern University law professor Ronald Allen, the government could classify him as a prisoner of war—who, like POWs in previous wars, may be held until the hostilities cease. The trouble, from the administration's point of view, is that he would then be entitled to standard POW protections, such as being treated humanely and not being punished for refusing to answer questions. But at this point, that's a small price to pay.

It's also a small price to say that if the executive wants to capture someone, treat him as an unlawful enemy combatant and hold him for the rest of his life, it should have to justify that decision to someone other than itself. Critics of this decision are terrified that the courts will have the power to free innocent men. But really, the alternative is a lot scarier.

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The Limits of Power

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EDT

One of the ancient axioms of chemistry is, "The dose makes the poison." What may be beneficial in small doses can be harmful in large ones. A couple of aspirin can cure a headache, but a couple of hundred will kill the patient.

That insight applies in other areas, too. In wartime, you don't want the sort of president we had in, say, James Buchanan—who thought that while the South had no right to secede, he had no right to stop it, either. You want a president willing to act, quickly and forcefully.

But those qualities can be taken too far. If a powerful, assertive executive were an unmixed blessing, the United States would never have revolted against King George III.

From the beginning of the war on terror, the Bush administration has had two central objectives. The first is protecting the nation against its enemies. The second is asserting the president's near-absolute authority to wage this war. That approach involved a crucial error: It couldn't advance the second goal without undermining the first.

That's because ours is not a system designed to unleash the power of the government. It's a system designed to control it. By conceiving the president as a virtual monarch in national security matters, George W. Bush and his subordinates have provoked active resistance from both Congress and the courts—which might have been avoided with a more cooperative and pragmatic approach.

The latest illustration came Thursday, when the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that the administration overstepped lawful bounds in its treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo. For the first time, the justices said foreign enemy combatants held outside our borders may appeal to the federal courts.

This is a welcome development because it upholds certain basic rights and safeguards that are due even to suspected terrorists. It's a worrisome development, on the other hand, because it requires the judiciary to assume grave responsibilities in a realm where it has no special competence.

The ideal is not for the courts to step into these matters. The ideal is for the elected branches to act with enough respect for constitutional values that the courts would see no need to step in.

But that happy optimum was not to be. The administration asserted that in time of war, even an unconventional war against a shadowy foe, the executive branch has the power to capture a foreigner abroad and hold him for the rest of his life, without any independent review by the courts.

Short of claiming the right to do that to an American citizen arrested on U.S. soil—a claim the administration had also made, only to see it repudiated by the courts—that's about as vast and dangerous a power as you could find. So it is not surprising that the Supreme Court balked.

The justices insisted that the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus, which lets prisoners challenge their confinement, must be respected. Except when Congress formally suspends that right, wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, it assures that "the judiciary will have a time-tested device...to maintain the 'delicate balance of governance' that is itself the surest safeguard of liberty."

The response among the administration's allies on Capitol Hill was predictably angry. Republican Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri said the court "chose to give foreign terrorists the constitutional rights and privileges of U.S. citizens."

But the Constitution is very clear in extending protections to non-citizens present on sovereign U.S. territory or the functional equivalent, which Guantanamo clearly is. And how does Bond know the inmates are terrorists? The Court's chief objection was that the existing review process gives detainees no plausible means to demonstrate their innocence.

Such measures may be unnecessary if you're fighting the Wehrmacht or the Imperial Japanese Navy, whose members are easy to identify. But against an adversary like al-Qaida, mistakes are far more likely—and, given the open-ended nature of the conflict, far more harmful.

So if Congress and the president refuse to provide the checks needed to guard against error and abuse, they should not be surprised to find them imposed by the courts. Whatever the Supreme Court may not know about fighting a war, it knows something the elected branches should have kept in mind: In America, the only legitimate power is a limited power.

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The Return of Stagflation?

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EDT

If you're at a party and the subject of the economy comes up, it's easy to sound like you know what you're talking about: Just drop the phrase "the return of stagflation"—a phenomenon not seen, and not missed, since the 1970s and early 1980s. With unemployment and gas prices climbing, you're not likely to get an argument.

Even Ben Bernanke is paying heed to that concern. This week, the Fed chairman pledged that "we will not countenance building inflationary expectations."

That wasn't universally reassuring. His comment added to worries that, having let inflation emerge, the Fed will now take steps that are a) too late to head it off but b) just in time to squeeze any remaining life out of the economy. So we'll be left with the dismal worst of both worlds.

Given negligible recent growth, the economy can already be described as stagnant. But as with a ham-and-cheese sandwich, one ingredient is not enough. To get stagflation, you also need inflation. And contrary to popular impression, that has yet to show itself.

For months now, Bernanke and Co. have been trying to stimulate lending by cutting interest rates. In normal times, that can be inflationary. But these are not normal times.

Because of the mortgage crisis, banks are inclined to cut back on loans, which means a shrinkage of the money supply. To counter that contractionary effect and try to avert a recession, the Fed had to use expansionary tools. If it's got the balance right, the result will be that inflation won't rise or fall but stay the same.

Critics insist that the Fed has surrendered on inflation, pumping money out in a desperate attempt to prevent a full-fledged downturn. Exhibit A in the charge is the weakness of the dollar. Bernanke's detractors say he's let the greenback sink, which in turn has pushed up the price of oil and doomed us to the sort of inflation we haven't seen in a long time.

But the theory and the evidence find themselves at odds. The dollar has actually been stable over the last three months, both against the Euro and against other currencies. Three months ago, however, the price of oil was below $100, and lately, it's been above $130. A dollar that's not declining can't explain why oil prices are rising.

If the dollar were steadily losing value, another commodity should also be soaring in price—namely gold, the traditional haven for the inflation-wary. In fact, gold, which came within sight of $1,000 per ounce back in March, has been trading well below $900.

Nor has inflation spread across the rest of the economy. The core rate, which excludes food and energy, has been eerily consistent for a long time. In April, the annual core inflation rate was 2.3 percent higher than a year before. In April 2007, it was up 2.4 percent. In April 2006, 2.3 percent. A year before that, 2.2 percent. Whatever the Fed was doing right before, it seems to be doing still.

It may seem absurd to omit two hugely important categories like food and energy. The reason for leaving them out is that they are notoriously unpredictable and can suddenly climb or plunge for reasons having nothing to do with how much money is in circulation.

You can get high energy or food prices even when inflation is in check. But you can't get high prices everywhere else unless the Fed is pumping too much money into the economy for an extended period of time.

Rising costs at the pump and the grocery are a major problem. But the problem is not inflation. It's that worldwide demand for some key commodities has risen faster than supply. Unlike inflation, which tends to feed on itself, supply and demand changes tend to be self-correcting.

That's why it makes sense for Bernanke not to get too wrought up about $4 gas. The Fed's job is not to maintain price stability in any specific good or service, which no central bank can hope to do. It's to maintain general price stability—preferably while keeping the economy growing at a healthy pace.

So far, the Fed has managed to keep inflation in check, and it's done so without strangling the economy. These may not be the days of wine and roses, but the 1970s never had it so good.

Steve Chapman blogs daily at newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman

A Liberal Like No Other

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EDT

I was just getting used to the idea that Barack Obama is an America-hating left-winger bent on socialism and surrender. Then along comes Ralph Nader, who says the problem with Obama is that he's an obedient steward of the status quo, doing the bidding of greedy corporations. Naderites, conservatives, and many others agree he's a menace. They just can't agree on why.

Obama has said, in reference to his broad appeal, "I am like a Rorschach test"—meaning that his admirers have a knack for seeing in him exactly what they want to find. But the inkblots work the other way, too: People who dislike him have detected a multitude of reasons to justify their animus.

To Hillary Clinton's supporters, he was always a dreamy innocent who would be ground up by the Republican attack machine. To some critics, he's a sleazy Chicago pol. When he ran for Congress against a black incumbent, he lost because some voters thought he was too white. In some primary states this year, some voters thought he was, well, not too white.

By the time this campaign is over, he'll be called everything but a child of God. Some of it will be true, some of it will be false, and much of it won't matter.

One of the favorite Republican themes will be labeling him the most liberal senator, as ranked by the National Journal. Now, it's true that Obama—how to put it?—votes eerily like a Democrat. But it's hard to believe he's really more liberal than Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, or Bernie Sanders.

By more comprehensive measures, he's not. According to one scholarly analysis of all non-unanimous votes, Obama is only the 10th most liberal senator. Still, there is no doubt he's a liberal of one shade or another. If he's elected, you should not expect a reduction in taxes, spending, regulation, federal power, or Birkenstock sales.

Obama insists his views are more complicated than simple labels convey. But while McCain has often defied his own party's orthodoxy, Obama has declined to do so.

As liberals go, however, opponents of Big Government could do worse. On economic matters, like the mortgage crisis, he's more respectful of property rights and free markets than, say, Clinton. His health care plan rankles many liberals because it doesn't force everyone to buy insurance.

While Obama has criticized various free trade agreements, he's also written that in today's world, "it's hard to even imagine, much less enforce, an effective regime of protectionism."

Some of the positions that get him tagged as liberal confound traditional categories. Among the members of Congress who share his support for withdrawal from Iraq are Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who favors dismantling most of the federal government, and Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, who was secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan.

These days, 20 percent of Republicans say we should bring the bulk of our troops home within a year. They can attest that opposing the war doesn't make you a liberal any more than eating nuts makes you a squirrel.

That's one reason the liberal label may not be quite the ball and chain Republicans hope. If "liberal" is taken to connote gay marriage, socialized medicine, and unilateral disarmament, most people won't find it appealing. But Obama does not espouse those. If it is taken to mean trying something different from the last seven years—or offering a plausible alternative to war, inflation, and a housing bust—they will be receptive.

Back in 1980, everyone knew Ronald Reagan was too conservative to win. But when non-conservatives were presented with a conservative who was likable, temperate, and occasionally eloquent, many of them found they could vote for him. What Obama has going for him, more than anything, is a quality of calm and thoughtful gravity, which offers a refreshing contrast to President Bush's inarticulate defensiveness and McCain's stubborn pugnacity.

I disagree with Obama's positions more often than not, but reducing a political leader to the sum of his positions is like judging the value of an artwork by adding up the cost of the canvas and paint. Obama didn't get where he is by being a liberal like any other. He got there by being a liberal like no other.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Whose Iraq Is It, Anyway?

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EDT

"I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude," President Bush said last year, a bit resentfully. "That's the problem here in America: They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."

Apparently not. It seems the rarest person in the world is a grateful Iraqi. This week the Baghdad government said it would reject any agreement on U.S. forces that "violates Iraq's sovereignty." That came days after tens of thousands of Shiites took to the streets to protest a proposed agreement that would keep U.S. forces there for years to come.

Followers of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who rejects any such accord, turned out to hear a sheikh who warned, "The cancer has spread and has to be removed." Afterward, reports The Washington Post, they chanted, "Get out, get out, occupier."

Cancer? Occupier? That's not quite how it looks to American supporters of the war.

They see the United States as the savior of the ordinary Iraqis who survived Saddam Hussein only to be victimized by violent extremists. We certainly have made some sacrifices on their behalf, including more than 4,000 troops killed in the war and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on it.

In light of the improvement in security over the last year, you would expect most Iraqis to have a new appreciation for our efforts. Before the surge, Iraqi civilians were dying at the rate of more than 3,000 a month. This year, it's been fewer than 1,000 a month. So it might make sense to keep the Americans around for a while.

But that was not the prevailing sentiment last week among Sadr's followers. The proposed deal has also been denounced by the head of a Shiite party that is part of the ruling government, as well as the country's premier Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

It's not the prevailing sentiment among the Shiites' main rivals, either. A February poll found that 73 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of foreign troops in Iraq—including 77 percent of Shiites and 95 percent of Sunnis.

Americans spend a lot of time debating the question of whether we should remain in Iraq. What never seems to occur to us is to ask the Iraqis the same question. Sadr is demanding that any agreement be put to a national referendum. We ought to endorse that approach, asking the government to let Iraqis vote on whether we should stay or go.

The U.S. went into Iraq five years ago to liberate the country from a tyrant. We have made war on al-Qaida in Iraq, whose tactics managed to alienate even their Sunni allies. Lately, we've also established comparative tranquility. If there was ever a time when Iraqis could calmly and peacefully weigh in on our presence, it's now.

Every major group has obvious grounds to want us around. We facilitated elections that let the Shiites gain dominance, allowed the Kurds to maintain their autonomy in northern Iraq, and brought Sunni militias over to our side. In short, we've done something for everyone.

Yet all indications are that Iraqis can unite behind only one proposition: Yankee, go home! If that's the case—or even if it's not—how can we justify not letting them express their preference? How can we say that the people we have tried to bless with democracy should be denied a democratic means of resolving the issue?

And why on earth should we mind? If the issue were put to a vote, one of two things could happen. The first is that Iraqis would make it clear they don't want us around anymore and are ready to take over full responsibility for their own affairs. In that case, we can hit the exits with a clear conscience.

The second is that they would have a sudden change of heart, realize they can't manage without us and ask us to stay. That would not convince many Americans who think the potential gains to our security are not worth the cost. But it would surely strengthen the argument for staying.

In November, Americans will get to vote in what amounts to a referendum on the U.S. role in Iraq. Why should we be the only ones?

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Rocky Road to the White House

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EDT

John McCain and Barack Obama are savvy politicians who have won numerous elections and stand poised to capture the biggest office of all. So obviously, each has a good ear for what will persuade voters and what won't. But even Pavarotti sometimes missed a high note. And lately both candidates have been noticeably off-key.

McCain's bad moment came after Obama expressed bewilderment at his opposition to a new GI Bill expanding educational benefits for veterans. Instead of explaining the genuine flaws in the legislation, McCain decided to climb on his high horse. "And I will not accept from Sen. Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did," he said, dripping with contempt.

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and McCain's jibe demonstrated that his personality has an excess of acid content. Angry young men may be indulged, but angry old men tend to get dismissed.

Besides reminding voters that a McCain presidency would not spread healing balm over the body politic, his remark insulted anyone who has never been in the military—which is 90 percent of adult Americans. Just about all of them admire the former Navy pilot's heroism as a prisoner of war. But very few like to be treated as if, by not enlisting, they forfeited their right to speak or vote.

There is also something hypocritical in McCain suddenly using this issue against a political rival. Among the nominees he has voted to confirm for secretary of defense were Republicans William Cohen, who never wore a uniform, and Dick Cheney, who used five deferments to avoid the Vietnam War draft. If these lifelong civilians were entitled to run the Pentagon, why isn't another one entitled to his own opinion about veterans' benefits?

Someone should tell McCain that touting your military credentials is a proven recipe for political failure. The military sociologist (and Army veteran) Charles Moskos of Northwestern University has noted that in recent presidential elections, the candidate with the superior military record has usually fared poorly.

Al Gore and John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, came in second to George W. Bush, who didn't. Draft-evader Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole, who both saw combat in World War II. Jimmy Carter, whose seven years in the Navy included service aboard a nuclear submarine, lost to Ronald Reagan, who spent World War II in the Army making training movies here at home.

So Obama should not expect to be penalized at the polls merely because McCain disapproves of him for bypassing military service. But the Illinois senator may pay a price for his disdain of the economic ethos that fuels our vibrant economy and complements our love of freedom.

In his recent commencement address at Wesleyan University, Obama practically sneered at any students in the audience who would "take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy." He warned the graduates that "fulfilling your immediate wants and needs" indicates "a poverty of ambition."

He urged them to disregard the grubby pursuit of profit in favor of, say, joining the Peace Corps or helping "lead a green revolution" to promote conservation and renewable energy.

What he neglected to mention is that American corporations investing and selling abroad, and American consumers buying foreign-made goods, have done far more to raise living standards in poor countries than all the Peace Corps volunteers who ever lived. As for the "green revolution," Obama doesn't seem to realize that when breakthroughs come, they will most likely come from capitalists intent on making money, not from selfless social workers or community activists.

He may forget that most of his fellow citizens see nothing contemptible in laboring at a mundane job to achieve material success for themselves and their loved ones. On the contrary, Americans generally respect people who work hard and take responsibility for their own welfare. And they understand that what profits those individuals generally benefits the rest of us as well.

McCain should be proud of his military career and Obama of his work as a community organizer. But if only to avoid alienating those who have chosen a different course, they might want to admit there are other ways to live a useful life.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Oil Prices and Economic Reality

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

Right now, energy consumers can only envy the Greek King Sisyphus. He was condemned by the gods to spend his life pushing a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down again. Motorists and other fuel users seem condemned to push uphill forever, with never a downward respite.

In the past year, world crude oil prices have risen like a bottle rocket. In the last year, they have doubled. Since February, they have gone from less than $90 a barrel to $135 a barrel—a level that was almost unimaginable at one time, like three months ago.

And some experts say that someday, we'll look back fondly to the days of $4-a-gallon gasoline. Famed oilman Boone Pickens is betting oil prices will reach $150 a barrel. Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti, one of the few to anticipate the recent price surge, says they could reach $200. That would mean pump prices of $6 a gallon.

All this is the result, we are told, of a devilish convergence of forces: tight supplies, geopolitical uncertainty and booming demand in countries like China and India. Since none of these is likely to change, the upward trajectory of prices won't either.

At the risk of ending up on Pollyanna's Christmas card list, allow me to differ. Oil prices are unpredictable, particularly in the immediate future, and it's easy to think of events that could force them higher—like, say, a war between the United States and Iran. But in the long run, there is every reason to think that the steep, rocky ascent we have been on will give way to a welcome downhill path.

I'm not alone in my optimism. Michael Lynch, head of an energy consulting firm in Massachusetts, told the Associated Press the current price of gasoline "is the peak or very close to it." Analysts at the investment bank Lehman Brothers say we are just as likely to see oil at $80 a barrel as at $200.

It's easy to take a trend line as eternal fate. The oil market may look particularly inflexible, given the finite nature of fossil fuel deposits and the insatiable needs of growing economies. But two important things in the oil market can change. One is demand. The other is supply.

Demand here is already in full retreat. People are abandoning SUVs for hybrids, taking mass transit and even venturing out on foot. "The average American motorist is driving substantially fewer miles for the first time in 26 years," reported USA Today recently. "Miles driven in February declined 1.9 percent from February 2006 before rebounding slightly for a 0.3 percent year-over-year gain in March." And that was before gas got to $4 per gallon.

Americans are not the only influence on oil demand, but they're the biggest one. We consume a quarter of the world's annual supply—three times more than China and eight times more than India. So if our consumption starts falling and keeps falling, the petroleum sector will quickly feel the effects.

The common assumption is that oil use in China and India will soar no matter what. But even on the other side of the planet, demand is inversely related to price. Pump prices have risen in China, and if American motorists are cutting back on travel, you can bet that Chinese drivers are doing the same.

The supply of oil is also related to the amount it sells for. It's not getting easier to find new reserves, but at $130 a barrel, a lot of companies are going to be looking really, really hard. They will also be reevaluating fields that couldn't be profitably tapped at $60 a barrel. The federal Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. production will rise 24 percent in the next decade.

The same factors should boost output abroad. OPEC members will face far more temptation to cheat on their production limits. "This year will be a year in which supply will be put into the market by stealth by OPEC countries and countries we call black-hole countries" such as China, Lehman Brothers energy economist Edward Morse told The New York Times.

Back in the 1970s, everyone thought the world was running out of petroleum. But spurred by huge price increases, production rose even as demand was falling. Before long, the world was awash in cheap oil.

Don't be surprised if it happens again.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Balancing Act

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 26 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

People who are under the influence of alcohol often are seized with impulses that seem brilliant at the time but end up looking like horrible mistakes the next day. We are now at the stage of the presidential election when intoxication at the prospect of the fall campaign produces ideas that, if adopted, will lead only to regret.

One came in an article on the influential op-ed page of The Washington Post, proposing a simple way to reconcile Hillary Clinton and her supporters to Barack Obama's looming victory. "It's likely that the next president will face at least one Supreme Court vacancy," wrote James Andrew Miller, formerly an aide to Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. "Obama should promise Hillary Clinton, now, that if he wins in November, the vacancy will be hers, making her first on a list of one."

In Miller's view, it would guarantee a quick Senate confirmation, gratify her supporters by assuring her life tenure in a job more consequential than vice president and add a solid liberal vote to a conservative-leaning court.

No doubt. But it would brand Obama as an unsavory deal-maker willing to bribe a rival for her blessing, badly tarnishing the rationale of his candidacy. It would also give Republicans a matchless opportunity in the fall campaign—trumpeting the specter of an Obama presidency and a Clinton court.

Making her his running mate, as many people have suggested, would be nearly as bad an idea. It, too, would taint him as a cynical pol bartering his soul for the White House. It would do little to attract the independent voters he will need, many of whom detest her. And who would trust Obama to negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after this craven appeasement of Clinton?

But not all the bad ideas are on the Democratic side. John McCain spent some time the other day looking over possible vice presidential nominees, including Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, former rival Mitt Romney, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

The choice of a running mate is especially important for McCain because, at 72, he would be the oldest person ever to become president. So his first priority should be to find a vice president who is ready from day one to take over if the worst should happen.

None of these prospects qualifies. Crist has only 17 months' service in the statehouse. Romney is a one-term governor whose presidential race exposed him as a man of weak political skills and weaker political convictions. Jindal is 36 years old, barely above the minimum age for the office, and was elected governor only last fall. All are conspicuously lacking in experience on matters of national security.

Any of these candidates would make it hard for McCain to exploit an issue that should work greatly to his advantage: Obama's skimpy political résumé. If it's unwise to entrust our security to a neophyte, how can McCain expose the nation to that very risk? And how can the GOP say national security should be paramount in choosing a president if it is irrelevant in choosing a vice president?

Time was you could pick a running mate with modest credentials purely for political reasons. But in recent decades, Americans have come to expect considerably more heft—which is why Dan Quayle was a liability to George H.W. Bush and why George W. Bush picked a No. 2 from a state with only three electoral votes that he was sure to carry anyway.

History suggests that running mates make little if any difference in the outcome of an election. So Obama and McCain have a duty to choose someone who would be both a useful contributor as veep and a suitable replacement as president.

There are plenty of good options available. In the spirit of bipartisanship, let me suggest two. For Obama: former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Vietnam veteran who received the Medal of Honor and was a member of the 9/11 commission. For McCain: South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a military lawyer who has been an independent voice on the treatment of enemy prisoners and whose voting record is more conservative than McCain's.

In weighing how to vote in November, Americans have to wonder how McCain and Obama will handle the sort of difficult, inescapable, important decisions a president has to face. When they grapple with these matters, we won't have to wonder.

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Mythmaking for the Next War

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 22 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had some 45,000 nuclear warheads. At the moment, Iran has none. But when Barack Obama said the obvious—that Iran does not pose the sort of threat the Soviet Union did—John McCain reacted as though his rival had offered to trade Fort Knox for a sack of magic beans.

"Such a statement betrays the depth of Sen. Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment," exclaimed McCain. "These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess."

But if Iran is the Soviet Union, I'm Shaquille O'Neal. There is nothing reckless in soberly distinguishing large threats from small ones, and there is something foolhardy in grossly exaggerating the strength of your enemies.

As military powers go, Iran is a pipsqueak. It has no nuclear weapons. It has a pitiful air force. Its navy is really just a coast guard. It spends less on defense than Singapore or Sweden. Our military budget is 145 times bigger than Iran's.

By contrast, the Soviets had far more nuclear weapons than we did, a blue-water navy, formidable air power and ground forces that dwarfed ours. In a conventional war, it was anything but certain that we could prevail, and in a nuclear exchange, it was clear they could destroy us.

Iran is a very modest adversary. Of course, even a Chihuahua can bite. The U.S. government claims Iran has provided arms and training to Iraqi insurgents—never mind that it is allied with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

But it's worthwhile to remember that even bad regimes sometimes have understandable motivations. The United States helped overthrow a democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 and provided aid to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. If Iran sees an interest in bleeding the U.S. military, that is likely a defensive response to the presence of an avowed enemy on its border rather than a sign of aggressive intent.

Its actions in Iraq, however, are supposedly the least of the menace. McCain and many others are convinced that Iran will soon get nuclear weapons and proceed to use them.

The first claim overlooks the Bush administration's own National Intelligence Estimate, issued last year, which concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The NIE also said, "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."

Even if Iran were to acquire atomic bombs, there is no reason to think it would use them or turn them over to terrorists. McCain, however, insists that Iran has "a commitment to Israel's destruction," and appears to think its leaders cannot be contained because of their religious fanaticism.

But as University of Michigan Middle East scholar Juan Cole has explained, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never vowed to "wipe Israel off the map"—an oft-quoted phrase that Cole says is a mistranslation of the milder words he used. In fact, he says, "Ahmadinejad has never threatened Israel with physical aggression," however much he would welcome its collapse.

Even if the Iranians would like to destroy Israel, they face a powerful disincentive: the prospect of radioactive incineration. The Tehran government has been intimidated by less. Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg writes in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy magazine, "Iran agreed to a ceasefire in the war with Iraq once Iraqi missiles began falling on Tehran. The ayatollahs were willing to sacrifice soldiers—but not to pay a higher price." Even fanatics have their limits.

Nor would Iran be so irrational as to give nukes to a terrorist group. That would be the worst of both worlds— giving up control of those weapons, while inviting annihilation the moment they are put to use.

But there is no reasoning with McCain and his allies, who yearn for the simple clarity of the Cold War. If we don't have an enemy on the mammoth scale of the Soviet Union, they will take a pint-sized one, inflate it beyond recognition and pretend that military confrontation is the only way to deal with it.

That was how we got into the war in Iraq and how, under a McCain presidency, we are liable to end up in a war in Iran. If he's looking for reckless judgment, he should look in the mirror.

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No Reason to Rush

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

In the old story, a preacher gives an inspiring sermon, which he concludes by asking his congregants to stand up if they want to go to heaven. Everyone rises except one nervous-looking fellow. "Brother," asks the incredulous pastor, "don't you want to ascend to paradise when you die?" Says the holdout: "When I die? Sure! I thought you were getting up a group to go right now."

That's pretty much how I feel about the California Supreme Court's decision granting the right of same-sex couples to marry. The destination is a good one. I just wish the court weren't in such a hurry to get there.

In recent years, the country has been moving at a steady pace to affirm a once-unthinkable concept—namely that as a matter of both individual rights and social good, gays should be free to make the same commitments as heterosexuals. According to a 2007 CBS News/New York Times poll, 60 percent of Americans now support allowing same-sex couples to enter into civil unions or marriage.

Radical changes don't happen overnight. But the speed of this one has been impressive. It's been only 22 years since the U.S. Supreme Court said states may criminalize homosexual conduct. It's been only 15 years since the Supreme Court of Hawaii shocked the country by ruling that gays might have a constitutional right to marry.

It's been only eight years since Vermont became the first state to admit same-sex couples to the rights and responsibilities of matrimony through civil unions. It's been only three years since California followed suit by letting gays enter into domestic partnerships.

But all of a sudden, the justices have discovered that their state constitution not only allows but requires that marriage include homosexual couples—even though in 2000, 61 percent of the state's voters rejected that option.

The majority is not always right, and in that instance, I thought the majority was wrong. But democracy doesn't say the people will always be right. It merely says they have the right to decide most matters of public policy. Here, by contrast, the California Supreme Court says the citizenry has no right to define marriage the way it has been defined by custom and law for eons.

At stake was not whether gay couples may acquire the rights and duties of marriage in a state-sanctioned framework. As the court acknowledged, they can already do so under the domestic partnership law. But it's not enough for them to get the substance of marriage. The court said they must also get the same terminology.

It reached this conclusion through a lot of philosophizing about "the right of same-sex couples to have their official family relationship accorded the same dignity, respect and stature as that accorded to other officially recognized family relationships." But the state constitution (like the federal one) does not traffic in mushy terms like "dignity" and "stature." When a court puts such heavy reliance on amorphous concepts, it telegraphs that it will not be tied down by the actual words of the state charter.

For further proof, consider that while the California constitution forbids discrimination on the basis of "sex, race, creed, color, or national or ethnic origin," it does not forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The justices somehow found something in the document that the authors thought they omitted.

Prudence and caution, which are virtues in the executive and the legislative branch, are no sin in the judiciary, either. What those attributes dictated here is that the court give civil unions a fair interval to show their merits or flaws in practice, rather than rushing in to pronounce them inadequate.

The justices would have been wise to mark time while the people of California continued on their path toward full equality for gays. Instead, the court has practically exhorted them to stop the journey. Opponents of gay rights have mounted a drive to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November, which stands a good chance of passing.

The exercise may end up not only overturning the Supreme Court's presumptuous decree but hardening public attitudes against the whole idea for years to come. In time, Californians would probably be inclined to embrace gay marriage. But if you insist they go there today, don't be surprised if they refuse.

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Republicans and Tax Realities

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:00:00 EDT

In the 1980s, a Republican House member, fed up with bipartisan efforts to reduce the budget deficit, denounced Republican Sen. Bob Dole as the "tax collector for the welfare state." Newt Gingrich, who later became Speaker, had captured something essential about the party's mood. It was not against the welfare state. It was just against paying for it.

That remains the case today, as John McCain and his supporters make clear. He rules out tax increases to cut the deficit, while vowing to get tough on spending. But the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says that while his proposals would slow the growth of spending, total outlays would still rise faster than inflation. Result: a larger deficit.

Republicans used to argue that keeping taxes down was the only way to restrain spending. But as taxes have been cut under President Bush, spending has soared by 29 percent (after adjustment for inflation). Meanwhile, a $236 billion budget surplus has morphed into a deficit of more than $400 billion.

If we want to cut federal spending, apparently we have to do it directly. And if we don't want to cut spending, the least we can do is pay for it ourselves instead of running up debts for our children to pay.

But Republicans object to raising taxes in general, and one in particular: the tax on capital gains. Obama's plan to increase the rate applied to the sale of assets has provoked howls of outrage on the right.

McCain said it proves Obama "doesn't understand the economy." An editorial in The Wall Street Journal claimed that lower rates yield higher revenues and drew a damning conclusion: "Either the young Illinois senator is ignorant of this revenue data, or he doesn't really care because he's a true income redistributionist who prefers high tax rates as a matter of ideological dogma regardless of the revenue consequences."

You don't have to be a Democrat to doubt that logic. Conservatives regard Obama as a true-blue liberal who itches to expand the size of the federal government. Do they think he would forfeit money to do that just for spite?

As it happens, Obama is the one who is heeding data rather than ideology. Most economists believe that in the long run, the 2003 cut in the capital gains rate reduced revenue rather than raising it. For that matter, even the Bush administration's budget admits as much. Keeping the rate at 15 percent rather than letting it revert to 20 percent, it estimates, would cause a revenue loss of $79 billion over the next decade.

It's true that rates and revenues may sometimes move in opposite directions. When the rate rose in 1987, capital gains realizations dropped. But there's an obvious explanation for that transitory effect. In 1986, seeing the increase coming, people hurried to cash in capital gains while the rate was low.

It's also true that after the rate fell in 1997, realizations rose. But as University of Michigan economist Joel Slemrod notes, that increase began well before the cut—and they plunged after 2000, without any rate increase. Assessing the last two decades, the Congressional Budget Office reports that any positive effect on realizations is "certainly not large enough to offset the losses from a lower rate."

Sensible people might not mind the lost revenue if the change strengthened the economy. But chances are it does just the opposite, by encouraging taxpayers to jump through hoops to reduce their tax liability.

A low capital gains rate hinders the free market by inducing people (especially very wealthy ones) to find ways to take earnings as capital gains instead of ordinary income. In other words, it encourages them to do things that would not make economic sense otherwise. A modestly higher rate would discourage such wasteful avoidance.

Like all taxes, capital gains taxes are a burden. But given that the federal government spends nearly $3 trillion a year, taxes are a regrettable necessity. When we cut capital gains taxes, we have to raise other taxes to make up the loss. Or we have to borrow more money—which means raising taxes in the future.

Republicans may abhor the obligation of paying for the welfare state they helped preserve. But for the moment, the only real choice is between doing that job better and doing it worse.

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Sailing into a Storm?

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

The last couple of months have been springtime in paradise for Republicans: the loveliest of all possible seasons. They have been watching two Democratic presidential candidates in an endless battle to destroy each other—a process that does not appear to enhance the chance that the eventual nominee will win in November.

A recent Gallup poll shows John McCain leading both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup. All this before Republicans even begin publicizing the worst that can be said about either of two candidates whose alleged defects provide a supremely target-rich environment.

But it's easy to let the individuals involved obscure larger factors that may prove more important. In a hurricane, even handsome, well-built boats can end up underwater. And right now, the GOP looks as though it may be sailing into a perfect storm.

Currently, 69 percent of Americans disapprove of the way President Bush is doing his job. That is the highest disapproval rating since Gallup began polling 70 years ago—higher than Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon during Watergate, or Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis.

Today, notes polling expert Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute, more Americans think the country is on the wrong track than at any time since the late 1970s—which set the stage for the Republican resurgence of 1980, led by Ronald Reagan. The sentiment is even more negative now than it was in 1992, when the GOP lost the White House. Some 63 percent see the Iraq war as a mistake.

Bush's troubles have sent voters fleeing from his party. In 2004, 47 percent of Americans leaned toward the Democratic Party, with 44 percent leaning Republican—a 3-point difference. Today, it's 51 to 38 in favor of the Democrats—a gap of 13 percentage points.

To win, McCain will have to pry away a lot of voters who currently find the GOP unappealing. Obama (or Clinton), by contrast, will have only to avoid alienating those who are already favorably inclined to a change.

Issue after issue also promises to hurt Republicans. Among the topics creating the most anxiety are the economy, domestic matters like health care and immigration, and Iraq. Of those, immigration is the only one that might not favor the Democrats.

Richard Norton Smith, a historian who has run the presidential libraries of Republicans Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, is pessimistic about the party's prospects. He thinks the correct analogy is not 1988 but 1920 or 1952—when an unpopular war and an equally unpopular president spelled doom for the party in the White House. He thinks 2008 is shaping up not only as a narrow defeat for the GOP but a decisive "repudiation."

Many Republicans see Barack Obama as the natural heir of George McGovern—an antiwar liberal with an avid but narrow base who is perfectly positioned to lose. They are also reminded of Michael Dukakis and his difficulty connecting with white males and working-class voters.

But Smith sees a big difference: In 1988, when Dukakis lost, the outgoing Republican president was popular, with an approval rating above 50 percent. Not so today.

Against trends like this, he strongly doubts that voters will put much weight on factors like Obama's associations with radical preachers or his flag-free lapel. Thanks to the Democratic contest, those matters have been fully aired, without fatal effect, and they are likely to sound stale and irrelevant by November.

In his view, the portents are all ominous for the Republican Party and its nominee. "Why do you think the race started so early? Why do you think turnout has been so high?" he asks. "A desire to put this chapter behind us."

The fallout is already apparent. In recent months, Republicans have lost two special elections to fill seats that had been GOP strongholds. Those shocks prompted former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to warn that come November, his party faces the prospect of "a real disaster."

The bad news for Republicans is that objective factors are conspiring to produce a Democratic victory. The good news? If the Democrats can't win this year, they may never.

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How to Lose a War

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:00:00 EDT

When it comes to the war in Iraq and other foreign policy issues, Republicans like to harken back to the stalwart presidents of the Cold War. John McCain has invoked Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan as kindred spirits, and so has George W. Bush. Which raises the question: Why do they embrace those leaders while rejecting their policy?

The centerpiece of the U.S. approach to the Soviet Union was captured in a famous 1947 essay by American diplomat George Kennan, who rejected either war or retreat in favor of "a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."

Some conservatives, regarding this as appeasement, advocated "rollback" to liberate captive nations from oppression. But even resolute anti-communists like Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon saw the risks and costs were too high. They kept troops to guard Western Europe, built a robust nuclear deterrent and employed prudent measures to block Soviet expansion. That was containment.

But in the months before the Iraq war, it became a dirty word. "Containment is not possible," President Bush insisted, "when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies." The only remedy for such regimes lay in pre-emptive war. McCain agreed, saying the only option in Iraq was "disarmament by regime change."

Amid all the war hysteria, it was easy to forget containment worked against Stalin and Mao -- both unbalanced dictators with nuclear weapons. They were far more formidable tyrants with dreams of world domination. Yet we managed to preserve our security without pre-emptive war.

For that matter, containment had worked against Saddam Hussein. In the 12 years after the first Gulf War, we kept him in a box, where he was no threat to us or his neighbors. In 2002, he even had to accept the return of United Nations weapons inspectors -- who found no weapons of mass destruction because, thanks to our efforts, he had none.

But as Yale foreign policy scholar Ian Shapiro noted in his 2007 book "Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy Against Global Terror" (just published in paperback), the Bush administration was dissatisfied. One reason was its unfounded certitude that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz also complained that containing Iraq had cost a staggering $30 billion over those 12 years.

Today, that sounds like a bargain. The long-term cost of the Iraq war, according to an estimate by Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, will exceed $3 trillion -- or 100 times the cost lamented by Wolfowitz.
Ronald Reagan took a different approach. In response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he continued President Carter's covert aid to the rebels, but didn't send American troops. Likewise when a pro-Soviet regime gained power in Nicaragua. The key to containment was finding affordable means to constrain and weaken the enemy, without bleeding ourselves down in wars we didn't have to fight.

Our policy in Iraq has been just the opposite. And Iran could be the next mistake. McCain says Tehran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons -- which implies he would go to war to prevent it, no matter what the price in blood or treasure.

The claim is that the Iranians are too crazy to be deterred from using nukes against Israel or giving them to terrorist groups to use against us. One common trait of governments and their leaders is an overriding desire to survive. If Iranian nukes are ever used for aggression, the regime can be sure Iran will be, as Hillary Clinton so vividly put it, "obliterated."

Shapiro told me he sees no evidence that Clinton or Barack Obama would return to containment. But the challenges we face are likely to push them toward it. Those dilemmas, after all, have prompted a reconsideration by none other than President Bush.

One member of the Axis of Evil, North Korea, has acquired a nuclear arsenal. Instead of launching a pre-emptive strike, the Bush administration has chosen to 1) live with it if we have to, 2) negotiate with Pyongyang to give it up, and 3) maintain strong defenses in South Korea.

That route is plainly the least bad option toward North Korea. But don't dare call it containment. And don't get the idea it could ever work anywhere else.

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McCain Finds His Own Radical Friend

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

Can a presidential candidate justify a long and friendly relationship with someone who, back in the 1970s, extolled violence and committed crimes in the name of a radical ideology—and who has never shown remorse or admitted error? When the candidate in question is Barack Obama, John McCain says no. But when the candidate in question is John McCain, he's not so sure.

Obama has been justly criticized for his ties to former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, who in 1995 hosted a campaign event for Obama and in 2001 gave him a $200 contribution. The two have also served together on the board of a foundation. When their connection became known, McCain minced no words: "I think not only a repudiation but an apology for ever having anything to do with an unrepentant terrorist is due the American people."

What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers—in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk show host, Liddy spent more than four years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him.

How close are McCain and Liddy? At least as close as Obama and Ayers appear to be. In 1998, Liddy's home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns—including $1,000 this year.

Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

Which principles would those be? The ones that told Liddy it was fine to break in to the office of the Democratic National Committee to plant bugs and photograph documents? The ones that made him propose to kidnap antiwar activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 Republican convention? The ones that inspired him to plan the murder (never carried out) of an unfriendly newspaper columnist?

Liddy was in the thick of the biggest political scandal in American history—and one of the greatest threats to the rule of law. He has said he has no regrets about what he did, insisting that he went to jail as "a prisoner of war."

All this may sound like ancient history. But it's from the same era as the bombings Ayers helped carry out as a member of the Weather Underground. And Liddy's penchant for extreme solutions has not abated.
In 1994, after the disastrous federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, he gave some advice to his listeners: "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches."

He later backed off, saying he meant merely that people should defend themselves if federal agents came with guns blazing. But his amended guidance was not exactly conciliatory: Liddy also said he should have recommended shots to the groin instead of the head. If that wasn't enough to inflame any nut cases, he mentioned labeling targets "Bill" and "Hillary" when he practiced shooting.

Given Liddy's record, it's hard to see why McCain would touch him with a 10-foot pole. On the contrary, he should be returning his donations and shunning his show. Yet the senator shows no qualms about associating with Liddy—or celebrating his service to their common cause.

How does McCain explain his howling hypocrisy on the subject? He doesn't. I made repeated inquiries to his campaign aides, which they refused to acknowledge, much less answer. On this topic, the pilot of the Straight Talk Express would rather stay parked in the garage.

That's an odd policy for someone who is so forthright about his rival's responsibility. McCain thinks Obama should apologize for associating with a criminal extremist. To which Obama might reply: After you.

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A Better Way to Fight Crime

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

In June 2006, a minor brawl erupted at Ye Olde Six Bells pub in Horley, England. In the aftermath, police arrested Mark Dixie, a chef at the pub, who surprised them by breaking into tears.

He had good reason. As a standard practice in arrests, a DNA swab was taken from him. What the authorities didn't suspect, but he did, is that his DNA would match that of the man who raped and murdered an 18-year-old woman nine months earlier. He was eventually sentenced to life in prison.

This is just one of many cases that have vindicated the use of DNA in cracking crimes. Britain, which now has the world's biggest collection of such profiles, has found it abundantly useful as a law enforcement tool. In a typical month, police get 3,500 matches between samples recovered at crime scenes and DNA profiles in the database.

Now the U.S. government is set to expand its own database to include anyone arrested by federal agents, as well as many foreigners who are detained for one reason or another. It will add more than 1 million samples each year, greatly increasing the chances of getting "cold hits" from crime scenes.

But the expansion alarms some civil liberties advocates, who think it is dangerous to include people who may be innocent. They would prefer to see the files limited to those who have already been convicted of crimes. By that logic, we would throw out the fingerprints of anyone who is arrested but never prosecuted. In reality, we don't. Why? Not because we impute guilt to anyone who is arrested, but because a bigger database is more helpful in solving crimes than a smaller one. And because the only people who stand to be implicated by such information are those who are guilty of later crimes.

We could "protect" innocent arrestees by discarding such helpful identifying information. But we have reached the conclusion that the potential value of preserving it outweighs any burden it places on those who were wrongly arrested.

In some instances, the database can be a boon to the innocent. In 2004, when Chester Turner was implicated in a string of Los Angeles murders through DNA analysis, a man wrongly convicted for three of them was freed from prison.

Opponents of the new system fear that information from the federal bank may someday be used for purposes other than law enforcement—say, screening insurance applicants for certain diseases. But this is a weak excuse for rejecting the administration's proposal.

In the first place, the potential uses of the DNA information kept in databases have been greatly exaggerated. "The profile's not useful for anything much other than identification," says David Kaye, a law and life sciences professor at Arizona State University. "The 'medical' information is, and is likely to remain, no more significant than, say, a blood type."

The actual DNA swabs tell far more. But those are not what goes into the database. The privacy concern is an argument for getting rid of the original samples—not for getting rid of the identifying markers they yield.
Besides, the obvious way to address potential abuses of useful information is by enforcing appropriate rules.

The government might do something alarming with the existing fingerprint files—such as require employers to cross-check prints from all private-sector job applicants. But you don't need to throw out the fingerprints of anyone not convicted to prevent such misuse, as we have found. You can prevent it by not allowing it.

In the case of the DNA database, the looming imposition on the guiltless is minimal. Under the proposed policy, when someone is arrested or detained, his DNA will be taken and a profile included in the federal collection. If he is not convicted, though, that profile will be expunged on his request.

The American Civil Liberties Union thinks the removal should occur automatically. But if keeping the profile is of no concern to the innocent person in question, it's hard to see why it should be of concern to the rest of us. Those who consider it an intolerable invasion of privacy, after all, will avoid it. Those who couldn't care less won't.

DNA analysis is one of the most valuable instruments ever devised for snaring the guilty and exonerating the innocent. This expansion will make it even more potent.

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Clinton's Endearing Fictions

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EDT

During the Pennsylvania primary campaign, Barack Obama made a rather charitable gesture not only toward his Democratic rival but toward the presumptive Republican nominee as well. "You have real choice in this election," he told a crowd in Reading. "You know, either Democrat would be better than John McCain, but ... all three of us would be better than George Bush."

That was all it took to set off Hillary Clinton. She rattled off a list of McCain's misguided positions, asking her audience over and over, "Is that better than George Bush?" She concluded, "We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain, and I will be that nominee."

It came as a revelation to hear that Obama, who I thought was plotting to become president, actually has been shrewdly maneuvering himself in position to lead the pom squad at McCain's inauguration. But there was something else that struck me as strange about Clinton's reaction: Obama was not the first of the two Democrats to say something nice about the Arizona senator. He was the second.

A few weeks ago, campaigning in Texas, Clinton sounded downright glowing about McCain. Referring to those 3 a.m. phone calls at the White House, she said, "I think you'll be able to imagine many things Sen. McCain will be able to say. He's never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Sen. Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002."

Let's review. Clinton criticized Obama for ranking McCain No. 3 in a four-person assessment, ahead of Bush. But Clinton herself put McCain No. 2—or maybe even in a tie for No. 1—in her evaluation of the three candidates.

She thinks McCain is better than Obama and McCain is no better than Bush. Which can mean only one thing: Bush is better than Obama!

Of course that's probably not what she actually believes. But it's a tribute to her talent for bold deceit and bizarre logic that she can attack Obama for doing something that she herself had done so recently, and more fervently.

And it brings me to my real revelation about Clinton. In the wake of her Pennsylvania victory, I pondered what it is about her that appeals to so many voters, even when she looks hopelessly out of the race. And I decided only one thing can explain it: A lot of us like our politicians to lie and fudge—the more flagrantly, the better.

Why would that be? For the same reason women enjoy hearing that their eyes are like sapphires and guys like to be told they resemble Greek gods—even when they know full well that the person talking is not being entirely candid. If a politician won't mislead you to get elected, it seems as though he or she doesn't care enough to deserve the office.

Clinton has always been willing to do just about anything to win, which apparently endears her to many voters. Biographer Carl Bernstein, who made his name uncovering President Nixon's monumental dishonesty, judged her guilty of "Jesuitical lying, evasion, and ... stonewalling." The Bosnia sniper tale was unusual only in that her campaign actually admitted that what she said was not, uh, true.

And with Clinton, you get a double dose—one from her and one from her husband. For anyone who's forgotten his memorable performance of 1998 ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman"), he recently provided an encore. He told a radio interviewer that the Obama campaign "played the race card on me." Then, when a reporter asked him about the comment, he replied, "When did I say that and to whom did I say that?" before wagging a finger and insisting, "That's not what I said."

It was a vintage Billary performance. Say something false, then deny you said it, while blaming the person who's telling the truth. It may not be convincing, but it's mighty entertaining.

Some people are of the same mind as the rock band Monday In London, which sings, "Lie to me, baby, and I'll let you get away with it." And if Hillary Clinton gets elected, they are going to have a blissful four years.

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