Monday, January 19, 2004

Mona Charen: Accidental Comedienne Of all the professional right-wing defenders of the administration, few are as ludicrously incompetent as Mona Charen. But nothing has risen--or maybe dropped--to the level of stupidity as her most recent column. Warning to wingers: you can dig so far into the administration's horse-shit that won't be able to see out. Charen's column reviewed David Frum and Richard Perle's book An End to Evil and she chose to highlight this: They further recommend radical reformation of the CIA, which may surprise those who think the CIA is peopled by hard-liners. In fact, the CIA was spooked (as it were) by the Church hearings in the 1970s and has been backpedaling ever since to the point where it is now dominated by liberals, which means in too many cases, political correctness. "The CIA must reemphasize linguistic competence -- and must overcome its reluctance to check, double-check and triple-check the loyalties of native-born speakers of the languages in which we are most interested." By now, everyone knows that Perle--along with many other neo-cons-- allowed himself to be hoodwinked by Iraqi exiles. They fed him "information" about Iraq's WMDs, assured him of the Welcome that American troops would receive, and promised that Iraq would make a quick and easy transformation into a liberal, pro-America democracy. Regardless of how anyone feels about the war, it is undeniable that the US went into the occupation phase of the conflict under-prepared. The reason for that was that too many administration advisors did not "check, double-check and triple-check" the loyalties of their sources. Attacking the CIA for doing such checks is delusional; quoting that attack in a newspaper column guaranteed to make you ill-informed or just stupid. In a saner journalistic world, it would also get your column bumped from dozens of newspapers. 7:03:28 PM    comment []trackback []

Boy Are We Screwed On Friday, I posted a link to a news story about the administration upping funds to a program that helped businesses reduce regulations to increase profits. It was a special Presidential council to "give a voice to US corporations a greater voice in government decisions". The priority appeared to be on increasing profitability and there seemed to be little concern with creating jobs. In today's Blade, there was a story that confirmed that suspicion. Unless Congress issues a last-minute reprieve, funding will be cut by two-thirds for a popular federal program that offers practical help and advice to small and medium-sized U.S. manufacturers. An omnibus funding measure for fiscal 2004 pending in the Senate would cut $66 million from the 2003 budget of $106 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which operates through a nationwide network of nonprofit centers. President Bush proposed to spend only $13 million. The MEP actually has a track record of helping small firms create more business, and of saving and creating jobs. Supporters also note that the latest MEP data, covering the year from October, 2001, through September, 2002, show that the program works. According to the data, MEP helped 18,748 clients create or retain 35,000 jobs, increase sales by $953 million, and realize $681 million in cost savings in 2002. The cuts in this program will particularly hurt Ohio, where there are many small manufacturers, and they are an important part of the local employment picture. For example, EISC, the MEP center serving northwest Ohio, recently helped Delafoil, Inc., of Perrysburg rebound after a prime customer closed its local facility. After Delafoil had decided to consolidate all of its U.S. manufacturing into the Perrysburg facility, EISC officials worked with Delafoil to identify new markets for the company[base ']s thin-gauge stampings, developing a business plan that pinpointed nearly 400 potential new customers. "The bottom line is they offer many services, do excellent work, and are a great value,[base '][base '] Jim Cash, president and CEO of Delafoil, said of the Toledo-based EISC, formerly known as Edison Industrial System Center. This paragraph ought to scare the hell out of anyone looking for work: Bush administration officials say they firmly support MEP[base ']s efforts to provide consulting services and technical expertise to manufacturers with fewer than 500 employees. But they also contend that it[base ']s time for states, and for businesses helped by MEP, to carry most of the funding load of the program, especially given the increasing federal deficit and the need to target money for rebuilding Iraq. Essentially, the administration said: "it's a nice program that works, but we really aren't in the job creation business, and we created these other problems, so we really can't be bothered with you jobless folks right now". Helping big corporations avoid lawsuits and environmental regulations, good. Helping small manufacturers keep jobs, bad. 5:21:49 PM    comment []trackback []

The Bully Pulpit The winner of the Iowa caucuses on Monday night will have an unexpected competitor waiting right around the corner, and he is not one of the Democrats running for president. The opponent is President Bush and his State of the Union address, which White House officials scheduled for Tuesday night, only 24 hours after Iowa, to draw attention from the Democratic victor, a Republican close to the Bush campaign said. "Was it planned?" the Republican said. "Yes. The fact that the Iowa caucus was going to be held on a certain date was not unknown to people in the White House." The underlying strategy, the Republican said, was not to steal all the thunder from the Democrats, which even another "axis of evil" State of the Union address was unlikely to do, but rather to change the subject. "What you achieve by doing it quickly is to get people to focus on the president's positive agenda after two weeks of people beating his brains in and criticizing every aspect of his policies," the Republican said. He did not want to be named for fear of angering White House officials who insist that there is no political element to Mr. Bush's address [~] even as Bush campaign officials say the speech will outline the broad themes of the his 2004 campaign. Timing of Address No Accident, Official Says. White House officials scheduled President Bush's State of the Union address only 24 hours after the Iowa caucuses to draw attention from the Democratic victor. By Elisabeth Bumiller and Carl Hulse. [New York Times: Politics] 9:08:59 AM    comment []trackback []