Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

When the middle of the country is tired of falling standards of living and closing opportunities, this will get fixed.

When there is a general consensus not to allow criminals into office - like say, the national Republican Party since Nixon - then it won't be allowed to happen again.

When the rich feel they need the poor for something, they will go along with 1 & 2 above.

Until then, we are stuck with it.

I am about as far from being a fan of Mr. Bush as one can get, but I have to call foul on the question of Laura Bush visiting the Citicorp building.

Deliberately sending one's family members into mortal peril for social (or political ends) must be a horrifying choice for a senior member of government, but it is not exactly without precedent:

http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/tuskegee-airmen.htm

(note that the death rate in training accidents was around 15% at that time)

Cranky

I've read (can't remember where) from people working and living in the area that in back of those buildings in NYC there was no security at all. "Security theatre," is what Bruce Schneier calls it (see his "Beyond Fear" or http://schneier.com/crypto-gram.html ) and in keeping with the thespian theme, I hear an awful lot of people using the theatrical term "flop sweat" to describe this administration and its' antics. Or perhaps this is anti-Security theatre, or Terror theatre. After all, the whole purpose of security theatre is to make you feel safe even though it does nothing to actually increase security.

And for this they exposed the identity of a double agent Pakistan and the US had managed to insert into al-Qa`ida?

Not very Churchillian now, is it?

We could use a bit of that British stiff upper lip and cold blood about now.

Good discussion of the terror alert situation over at Kevin Drum's place:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004472.php

Cranky

Speaking of which, here is one way the NYT tells us the $144.4 billion for Iraq could have been spent to safeguard Americans:

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/08/07/opinion/20040808_opart.gif

Talk about missed opportunities... I would have just diverted a few billions to bribe Israel and what remains of the Palestinian Authority to sit seriously at the same table and strike a deal. (You know, the one every reasonable person has in mind, more or less.)

You know what I see?

I see an administration that sincerely concerned about a terror attack, but is more interested in covering its ass than in actually stopping it. They don't think they can stop it. So they do public crap like this so that when it happens, they'll be able to point to this and say "we warned you."

P.S. It's odd. I was listening to a 10+ year old interview of Nixon. I was left with the impression that this man is not nearly as immoral / evil as our current guys. The main difference is that, as deluded as Nixon was, he did seen to care about his country. You cannot care about your country if you keep crying 'wolf' knowing that this could make a real terror alert unnoticed. And if they don't even understand that...

Meanwhile, others are even more direct:

Bush campaign is crying wolf

August 8, 2004

BY WILLIAM O'ROURKE

The first thing to notice about the elevated orange terror alert is that it is confined to Democratic stronghold cities and states. The next is to realize that no battleground states will be subjected to formal elevated alerts, lest the security interruptions sour the swing voters residing therein.

Terror alerts are mini-"October surprises" for this administration, ready to be employed anytime President Bush wants to move the Kerry-Edwards campaign off the front page for a few days.

Cry wolf

It's almost (but not quite) unimportant whether Bush is or is not using the alerts for political purposes. What's pertinent is that people believe he is. This is a perfect example of why transparency in government, not to mention in elections, is so important. If leaders are not believed and must govern by force and not example, a nation is in serious trouble.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jean-Phillippe, I agree. Nixon was determined to win the election at all costs, even at the senseless sacrifice of American lives. But he at least seemed to care about what came after. This president behaves as if Armageddon comes when he loses power.

> The main difference is that, as deluded
> as Nixon was, he did seen to care about his
> country.

A few additional differences: Nixon was smart, experienced, and surrounded himself with high quality advisors (mostly), whom he occasionally listened to.

Cranky

"Nixon was smart ..."

It just occurred to me that the two smartest recent Presidents on objective measures have been Nixon and Clinton, and they were both impeached. Is there a moral there?

I just watched that Nixon interview.

As it happens, he was wrong about a lot of things he said.

Obsessed with the "great man" view of history.

From the "Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better President?" department:

Subsequent to the creation of the Orange Alert Bush attended a fund raising event and then went on vacation. But should this even surprise us?

"Washington, D.C. - According to recent news reports George W. Bush, for the first time since he took office, will only spend half of the month of August at his Crawford TX getaway, rather than the whole month. Though Bush took August off while there were terrorist warnings in '01, impending war in '02 and sustained job losses in '03, this August apparently necessitates an abbreviated respite due to the more pressing concerns of a campaign year."

"With over 300 days of his Presidency spent on his ranch or at Camp David, Bush has spent more time on vacation in 4 years than most Americans take over their entire careers..."

"A Very Vacationed President
Bush Spends Nearly 43% of His Presidency On Vacation. According to an April CBS News report, Bush has spent 233 days at his Texas ranch since being inaugurated, including his 78 days at Camp David and five days in Kennebunkport, Maine. Since April, Bush has spent an additional 22 days at either Camp David or his Crawford ranch. In total, Bush has spent 42.6 %, of all or part of 522 days, of his time in the White House at a vacation spot. [Washington Post, 4/9/04]"

I'm glad the schoolteacher was brave enough to rush to the frontlines while her jetpilot hubby mans the rear as he tries to decipher the deeper meanings of 'My Pet Goat'.

Jean Phillippe Stijns and Cranky Observer,

You two sound like a couple of thirty-year olds. Nixon, Kissinger, Colson et al. make this Bush crew look like the junior varsity of the dark side. The Nixon administation was operating with a hostile congress and press and yet it managed to soar to the depths.

Try this article on for size:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=549337

(with apologies to Jimmy Breslin, but get tough)

...if you listen carefully, you can hear in the background the faint but unmistakable cry of the Waffen SS.

==============================================

You don't seriously think Der George will lose?

http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=157

While it's easy to be cynical about W and his crowd, it's impossible to make a useful judgment about whether the orange alert was purely political without seeing all the intelligence (which nobody in the press has done).

Idle thought: if it's purely political, why isn't the Kerry camp screaming (hell, even muttering) about it?

"Idle thought: if it's purely political, why isn't the Kerry camp screaming (hell, even muttering) about it?"

Let's game it out. Say they scream about it. Their supporters will support them. Bush's supporters will say they're being ridiculous. There will be no evidence, the evidence is classified. Whoever is undecided who pays a little attention gets to see two sets of idiots yammering. If they only pay a little bit of attention it will look like the democrats are being irresponsible, since they don't have the evidence and it would be absurd for the government to reveal intelligence secrets just to make a political point.

Figure that anybody who's gotten to this point and still hasn't chosen, is trying not to pay attention. What's the chance he'll pay more attention to this one?

So it doesn't make sense to push it. What matters now is things that might persuade the undecided, and this isn't it.

If Kerry wins, and actually gets inaugurated, maybe then they can prosecute some of this stuff.

I just found out that Democrats don't have the stomach to fight terrorism. Ed Koch said so, and I know he knows, 'cause he's a Democrat. Bush seems not to have the smarts or level of concern to do so. I guess our safety now depends entirely on quick-eyed customs officers on the border with Canadian. Thank god for public sector employees.

What I am praying for is some statement by important allies, perhaps the E.U., that any American administration acceding to power through voter disenfranchisement or fraud in Florida or any other statement may not be diplomatically recognized.

I was hoping for UN monitors myself, but Bob H.'s idea is great--hard to imagine it happening but what a wonderful thought.

I agree with the other posters who said that the high level and frequency repeats of the "alerts" are mostly CYA as well as a way to (try) to remind people that Mr. "God speaks to me" Bush is out there protecting him--when he's not falling off of trail bikes--that is. Or relaxing at his ranch in Crawford. Certainly it's a great way of forcing already strapped metro areas to spending money on "security" as opposed to say, summer and evening programs for low income kids, schools, additional policing of high crime areas, drug rehab, job training, subidizing child care for low income parents, public libraries, streets, sanitation, repairing NYC's leaky water tunnels (and finishing the new one), keeping tuition payments from skyrocketing further at CUNY (in NY) . . . I wonder sometimes, if Bush somehow weasels and cheats his way into a second term, will the residents of NY (and/or LA or other large metro areas) be seeing--after another four years-- the same sewage flowing down the streets, power outages, etc., that Iraqis living in Baghdad and elsewhere are seeing now? Just how long can tax dollars (not, of course, corporate tax dollars) leave this nation for invasions, occupations/"reconstructions", "security" and ever increasing interest payments on federal debt (and more expensive oil) before there isn't enough money to pay for infrastructure repairs and replacement? As it is construction of NYC's 4th water tunnel is way behind schedule. The other 3 need a huge amount of repair but not one can be shut down while repairs are performed. Instead, NYC wants to inject chlorinated water into one of the aquifers of Long Island to store it. The rest of LI is not happy with this idea as the effects of injection on the aquifer (LI is dependent on aquifers for drinkable water supply, there are 3, I think the top one is pretty polluted). And it's not that long ago (15 years?) that some of NYC's bridges were close to being declared unsafe and therefore unusable. I suspect other large cities have similar current or impending infrastructure problems/crises. How "safe" will we be if we don't have reliable water supplies (helps to have good water pressure and ample supplies when you're fighting fires, for instance), roads, sewer systems, bridges, power supplies?