The Keen Meme Memo

2004-06-05T14:21:00.000-05:00

"...beside the possibility that the White House's favored Iraqi exile was an Iranian agent, that the spy chief just got canned, that the OSD is wired to polygraphs, and that the president has had to retain outside counsel in the investigation into which members of his staff burned one of the country's own spies, I'd say the place is being run like a pretty well-oiled machine."

2004-05-25T22:02:00.000-05:00

Two days ago Brad De Long wondered:

A top Bush aide says that two-thirds of Bush's high political appointees are likely to be fired to "kick-start" a second term. But if a "kick-start" is needed, why haven't they been fired already? And if they have been doing a good enough job to be still in office, why do they need to be fired in January 2004?

Today the White House has a measured response:

"GEORGE Bush, the United States president, last night praised the outgoing top US officer in Iraq in a bid to quash suggestions he was being replaced because of the prisoner-abuse scandal."

The house cleaning has to be slow, so as not to appear as an admission of mistakes. But it is happening. DiIullio. Garner. O'Neill. Sanchez. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Bush speech fails to quell controversy about US course in Iraq

2004-05-25T21:32:00.000-05:00

President Bush's speech on US policy in Iraq has failed to subdue critics as the resolution put forward by the Bush administration is already growing more controversy.

According to the AP:

"Germany and China today praised as positive a U.S.-British blueprint for giving Iraqis power to run their own government after more than a year of unrelenting violence under an American-led occupation.

But France and Russia, which have all-important veto power on the UN Security Council, greeted the blueprint only half-heartedly, with French leaders complaining the measure may not go far enough in handing future Iraqi leaders real authority."

The governments of France would like the new Iraqi government to "have a say in the actions of US-led forces." Meanwhile, another member of the UN security council with veto power would like to see who will be in the new Iraqi government before it votes for a UN resolution on Iraqi sovereignty.

"As far as the content of the new resolution is concerned, it should be an answer to the concerns of Iraqi society," said a [Russian] ministry comment posted on its web site (www.mid.ru).

"In that sense, we assume that the document should be adopted after UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy L. Brahimi informs the UN Security Council of the results of his mission and an interim government is formed in Iraq," it added.

The demands of UN security council members place considerable constraints on the Bush administration as it scrambles to assemble a new government for Iraq before the June 30 deadline.

This is an ironic twist on the run-up to war: not only did the Bush Administration need the approval of the UN Security Council to legitimately go into Iraq (which it did not get) but it needs the Council's approval to get out.

"U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush are counting on UN backing for their work in Iraq to ensure troops eventually can leave the region." (Bloomberg).

The perils of unilateral military action are well-illustrated by Blair and Bush's predicament.

2004-05-20T23:13:00.000-05:00

And according to this article in USA Today Chalabi's supporter's have "cut him loose". But look closer. The following passage seems to contradict this claim:

Richard Perle, a former top Pentagon adviser and supporter of the Iraq war, called the raid "appalling" and said it has shaken his faith in the Bush administration's commitment to promoting democracy in Iraq. Perle said Chalabi, who holds degrees from MIT and the University of Chicago, would be an excellent choice to lead a democratic Iraq.

So there are still neocons in Washington who have not given up on their pipe dream of seeing Chalabi in charge of Iraq.

What this tells me is that an important split must have occured withing the Administration which left the hard core of neocon stalwarts in the cold. The article characterizes the raid as

...a belated victory for the State Department and CIA, which have accused Chalabi of supplying false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction and misusing U.S. taxpayers' funds. Those agencies have clashed with the Pentagon and Vice President Cheney's office about many aspects of Iraq policy, including who should govern the country after Saddam Hussein.

In effect it is a victory for State and the CIA, but that does not mean that the raid was executed of their volition. A big shift must have taken place within the thick walls of the CPA. To me this inducates that the announcement of who will lead Iraq on July 1 is nearby and Chalabi is in the way.

Speculations abound...

Shroeder opposes sending NATO troops to Iraq

2004-05-20T22:43:00.000-05:00

According to this article in the New York Times German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder thinks NATO troops would not play a constructive role in Iraq, arguing that the troops, if sent there, would not have the confidence of the Iraqi people. Schroeder plans to voice his concerts at the NATO meeting in Istanbut, where he will recommend against NATO involvement.

This is a problem not only for Bush, but potentially for Kerry too, if he gets elected. By the time November comes around any interest among NATO members in participating in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq may be so low 'multilateralism' may be an impossibility.

Chalabi's home and headquarters raided; Bremer keeps distance

2004-05-20T21:36:00.000-05:00

Iraqi police raided the home of Ahmed Chalabi and the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress he heads. Theories on the meaning of the raid diverge. Some say it is actually an attempt by the Coalition Provisional Authority to elevate Chalabi's standing among Iraqis; others claim it is a response to Chalabi's plans to subvert the provisional government which will assume sovereignty on July 1. It is clear, however, that L. Paul Bremer, the US Envoy to Iraq is trying to keep his hands free of this.

A spokesman for the United States occupation authority acknowledged that there was American involvement in the operation but asserted that it had been planned and led by the Iraqi police.

"It was an Iraqi-led investigation, it was an Iraqi-led raid, it was the result of Iraqi arrest warrants," Dan Senor, the chief spokesman for L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator in Iraq, said.

Mr. Senor asserted that Mr. Bremer "did not know the operation was occurring today" and was notified only after it had been completed.

Ok, that's a pretty pathetic denial. Did he think the raid would take place tomorrow?

Sovereignty My A$$

2004-04-23T22:21:00.000-05:00

Another Orwellian moment sponsored by the fibsters in the Bush Administration. Remember the June 30th deadline for handing over sovereignty to Iraq? If you answered "yes" then the White House spits "fogetaboutit!" right back at you. According to an official at the State Department the new Iraqi government set up by the CPA to manage the country after June 30th will not have the power to make new laws. Key posts in the new government will be staffed with officials recommended by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

Not only will Iraqis not get an elected government, not even one selected by gerrymandered caucases, the new officialdom will arrive handcuffed and on a leish. Bringin' democracy to Iraq sure comes in a strange package. This new big idea creates several unique philosophical questions. For example: can a "government" that can not make laws be called a government? And can a state with such a "government" be considered sovereign? Even Vichy France could write laws. What next? Baseball without bats?

Great Moments in Propaganda Journalism: Up is Downey

2004-04-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

Take a look at the headline of today's WP article by Kirstin Downey: "Plan Expands Eligibility for Overtime Pay". Sounds so certain, so unambiguous, you can almost feel those extra bills crowding in your pocket. "The plan" is the FairPay Initiative unveiled by the Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao on April 20. You may wonder "what is Bush's Secretary of Labor doing expanding entitlements to the worthless lazy wretches who actually have to work?" Doesn't this cut against the grain of conservative ideology? Whatever happened to "tough love" and self-reliance? If you are asking yourself these questions you may find the FairPay overtime standards vaguely reminiscent of the Clear Skies initiative, which lowered pollution standards.

But Downey has no place in her head for such simplistic analogies. After all, the Department of Labor press release loudly exclaims that "Workers Win!" under the new rules.

The author finds the giddiness contagious: "The Labor Department will allow workers who earn up to $100,000 a year to be eligible for overtime pay, a substantial shift upward from an earlier proposal that Democrats had promised to make an issue in the presidential campaign" exclaims the first sentence of the article. This is better than anyone had wished for! "More low-wage workers would become automatically eligible for overtime under the final rules" elaborates the second paragraph. In paragraph four we get a brief mention that a reasearch organization has found that 8 million workers would loose their overtime pay under the new regulations, but "Elaine L. Chao has countered that the original rules would cost fewer than 1 million more highly paid workers their overtime checks, while expanding overtime eligibility to millions of lower-wage workers." Ok, case closed, time to move on. Paragraphs 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13 are unambiguously positive to the new overtime standards--plain regurgetations of the DOL press release praising the new standards. In paragraph 9, some disembodied ramblings, without support, context or statistics, from Tom Harkin, who is criticizing the new standards.

In the last paragraph we get a hint that the "research organization" that found that the new regulation will lead to a loss of overtime pay for 8 million workers is no other than the Economic Policy Institute, whose vice president Ross Eisenbrey is quoted. In a brazen propaganda spin deserving of Joseph Goebbels, Downey writes that Eisenbrey "said it sounded as though the department 'had made some positive changes'... but he said he would reserve judgment until he could review the actual regulations."

This is what Mr. Eisenbrey really said:

"Any day now, the Bush administration will issue new rules that could deprive more than 8 million American workers of overtime pay. When it does, expect more talk about how the rules are good for workers.

"Don't believe it. The administration's claims about its overtime rules haven't been any more reliable than its predictions about job creation or Medicare costs. The ones who will reap the benefits of these new rules are not working Americans but their employers.

"The new rules will make it much easier for employers to reclassify workers as managers or administrators, making them ineligible for time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. The Department of Labor claims that only 644,000 workers will lose overtime pay, but their own data show what a gross underestimate that is. When you factor in all the workers whose jobs could be reclassified, it's not 644,000 who will lose out--already far too many--but 12 times that many.

Without examining closely EPI's estimates we should suspend judgement on their accuracy too, but putting a positive spin on Mr. Eisenbrey's comments is scandalous. This article does not deserve to be published in a major paper. Compared to the WSJ article "US Plans to Issue New Set of Rules On Overtime Pay" by McKinnon and Pierceall, the Downey article is sheer Bizarro.

"Actionable Intelligence" is a Fig Leaf

2004-04-11T12:38:00.000-05:00

In their defense against questions posed by journalists and members of the Commission investigating the 9/11 hijackings the Bush Administration has erected a brilliant and highly effective set of rhetorical defenses. The head bulwark is the claim that the Administration had no "actionable intelligence" prior to the 9/11 attacks. During her testimony to the Commission National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice reiterated the claim that the Administration did not know when, where and how terrorists would attack the US. This is a fairly worn line of defense, one that Rice offered as early as May 2002 when she said: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." Knowledge of the "whens, wheres and hows" is what is now commonly referenced by the useful phrase "actionable intelligence." Incidentally saying we had no actionable intelligence is much fancier and sexier than simply admitting you did not know what is essentially your job to know, and it serves the useful purpose of diverting attention from follow-up questions dealing with why you did not know what you were supposed to know. A lesson to all you students, if you are ever asked why you failed that math course instead of clumsily admitting that you did not know where the class would meet nor at what time, nor would you know the course material even if you did know the time and location, just say: "I did not have enough actionable intelligence to pass." Period. End of story.

A more substantive line of inquiry for those trying to understand why and how the hijackings succeeded is answering the question: why did the Administration not know what it should have known? And these are precisely the questions phrases like "actionable intelligence" and "silver bullet" are intended to pre-empt. Instead of consoling ourselves with the hollow answers that the Administration did not have enough information to prevent the attacks we can ask whether the Administration could have done more to obtain "actionable" information.

As things now stand the information available to the Administration prior to 9/11 is looking more actionable, but first, let us consider the task of preventing an attack of 9/11 caliber. It is much more difficult to prevent a conspiracy of 5 then a conspiracy of fifty. In a way, the magnitude of the attacks made the task of subverting Al-Qaida's plans easier for US intelligence agencies. There were 19 known hijackers in the air on September 11, 2001. To operationalize the hijackings Al-Qaida had to have a sizeable number of personnell to provide financial and logistical support, communication, couriers and scouts: members assisting with travel and immigration authorities. The recently released August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief says as much:

"Al-Qa'ida members--including some who are US citizens--have resided or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks."

Let us assume that from top-to-bottom, from Bin Laden himself to the 19th hijacker there was one logistical support operative for every suicide hijacker. That would make for about 40 conspirators, many traveling in and out of the US, some tracked by US and foreign intelligence agencies. More from the PDB:

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an ___ service at the same time that Bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

Remember that two of the known hijackers were on the FBI's watch list. We also have to consider that the attacks were planned from Afghanistan, requiring rather long lines of communication. The longer the lines of communication, the more points are available for interception. Also keep in mind, that the hijacking 19 were using unprotected chat software at public internet cafes to communicate. What would an Administration intent on preventing an imminent attack by these foreign fighters have to do to thwart it?

Firstly, find known and suspected Al-Qaida members and track them;
Secondly, intercept lines of communications and let one conspirator take investigators to others;
Thirdly, accumulate sufficient evidence to break up the conspiracy and arrest, try or deport those involved.

These are practicable steps on the way to actionable intelligence, steps the executive authorities, it seems, failed to take. Why?

Between the lines of the released PDB are written other questions:

What steps were taken to track the movement of known and suspected Al Quaida operatives in and out of the US?

It appears that an Egyptian Islamic Jihad operative was in contact with a foreign or domestic intelligence service and an Al Qaida member involved in preparations for an attack on the US. Were steps taken to find and track the Al Quaida member via the EIJ operative? If not, why?

Note the language used in the PDB: "the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks". Not "allegedly" or "supposedly", but "apparently". If US intelligence knew something about Al Quaida's supporting operatives what steps were taken to find and track them?

The August 6 PDB suggests that some degree of monitoring did, indeed, take place: "...FBI information ... indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." We need to know more about this "suspicious activity" in to determine whether its classifications as "not actionable" is appropriate or a tragic misjudgement.

Flooding the Mainstream

2004-03-13T13:36:00.000-05:00

In an article with a title vaguely reminiscent of a Dean campaign press release circa June 2003--"Democrat Kerry Raises $10 Million Through Internet in 10 Days"--Bloomberg reports:

"John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic U.S. presidential nominee, has raised $10 million from donations made on the Internet since he won nine of 10 primary contests on March 2, his campaign said.

The total is more than the $8 million Kerry raised from all donors in February, when he still faced primary challenges from other Democrats."

The line between "insider Kerry" and "Dean--the outsider," has been erased. In the long run, a more democratic political process will diminish the relevance of "candidate Dean", just as it will extend the political innovations of the Dean campaign. The more candidates rely on small contributions from individual voters the more they will act like brazen ousiders. They will want to learn why we sponsor their tickets and will give us what we pay for.

When an Economy Stops Working

2004-03-09T23:13:00.000-05:00

Last spring the consensus among economists blamed the clouds of war on the delayed economy. Uncertainty, the story went, was preventing businesses from investing and hiring new workers. "If only we got this war over with we could get this economy started" lamented analysts. They were half-right.

According to recent economic reports, output is running faster and better but employment is still in neutral. The Bloomberg survey of economists projects a 4.6% GDP increase in 2004, which would be good news in any year considering that historically, the average rate of GDP growth has been around 3%. It would be... except that the unemployment line still looks like a long zig-zag.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (a pro-business lobbying group and the source of a a river of campaign contributions for Republicans) reports that 46% of small businesses participating in its survey reported trying to hire more workers in February, down from 49% in January. The difference between the number of firms hiring and the number of firms planning to lay off workers was the smallest since October 2003.

Who is responsible? On the left-leaning and liberal blogs the answer is universally "Bush". And they are half-right. But as important it is to assign responsibility and demand accountability, it is necessary to first understand the dynamic underlying the "jobless recovery". If the disease is: increasing ouput with stagnating wages; its origin can be traced back to the economic jungles of the 1970's. The problem has been exacerbated by current policies but it is fundamentally structural.

In developed economies sustainable growth is "balanced". That means supply grows with demand and no sector is an extreme breaker or accelerator. Too much supply (or overinvestment) ends in recession and capital scrapping. When it over-reaches itself, monetized demand takes the economy back to square one in terms of consumption, but with inflation in one pocket and a devalued currency in another.

Since the 1970's structural changes set the US economy on a long-term oversupply trend. In particular, exchange rate liberalization, the decline of the labor unions, tight monetary policy have clamped down on consumption. The tax policies of the `80s gave the "supply side" a boost... but that's old news. What is important is that in the `90's the supply/demand scale has been tipping slowly but steadily towards over-supply of investment capital due to increased productivity. Even analysts are waiting for productivity to drop so that firms can start hiring again. But the problem is not high productivity per se, (how can an increasingly more efficient economy be a "problem"?), the real problem is that gains in productivity do not translate into higher wages but flow into corporate revenue funds (and yes corporate profits, too, are doing fine these days, thank you very much). Are corporate profits bad? Not usually, but when pushed up by productivity gains the pool of investment capital swells while consumer demand shrinks, sustainable growth is short-circuited. When a structural supply overhang in the making meets economic policies that send more capital into corporate revenue funds the results are, well, as you see them.

Political Memetics: Intro

2004-02-28T01:24:00.000-05:00

In 1976 zoologist Richard Dawkins introduced us to the concept of the meme. A meme is “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture”. It is the psycho-sociological analogue of the gene—an indivisible element that spreads by replication and measures success by its own prevalence. Since the publication of The Selfish Gene, memetics has revealed a number of discoveries, not the least of which is the observation that people adopt ideas not necessarily because those ideas are true but… for other reasons too.

I argue that modern politics can not be understood without the help of memetics. Polls that produce quirky results (depending on how the question is phrased), the promotion of unpopular policies, strange voting behavior, seemingly against one’s own interest can sometimes be elucidated with meme theory. However, the application of memetics to politics makes the concept of the “meme” as defined by Websters an unnecessarily bulky unit of analysis. Studying the origin, meaning, dissemination and usage of political ideas means working primarily in the field of political rhetoric. The rhetorical element, or “reme”, if you will, is the indivisible atom of discourse.

Rhetorical memes in electoral politics have a distinct set of laws that describe their dynamic and this too requires the above differentiation. While behavioral memes have no aversion for complexity, political remes owe their survival and prevalence to simplicity. In physics, the velocity of an object is inversely related to its mass according to the formula: Velocity = Square Root(2*Kinetic Energy/Mass). The leaner the object, the farther it will travel on a given amount of kinetic energy. Because processing information imposes costs, a similar relationship exists in the domain of language: the tighter the phrase or the simpler the idea, the more common is its usage. There is a reason that despite Einstein's numerous contributions to science, among lay people he is remembered mostly by one cliche formula: E=mc^2. This equality is easy to understand and relate on a philosophical level, unlike, of course, the derivations that prove it.

The concepts we use to communicate are as useful as they are dangerous; useful because they expedite communication and dangerous because they tend to be the base residua of complex ideas and therefore distort our comprehension.

To be continued…

The Progressive Lexicon Project

2004-02-22T03:39:00.000-05:00

Keen Meme Memo is launching a series of posts focusing on the politics of language. We tend to think that language is a neutral tool for describing the world. In fact it is far from it.

I remember reading an anecdote about a nineteenth-century Pope, who was asked "is it a sin to smoke while praying?" The Pope thought about the question a little and answered yes--because prayer is a way of cleansing sin and engaging in an activity that detracts from prayer must therefore be a sin. Some years later another devotee asked the Pope "is it a sin to pray while smoking?" This time the Pope said no, because prayer is good and is always encouraged.

How we say it is as important as what we say. In this case a change in the way the question was posed produced a completely different answer. Words are biased. They come with multiple denotations, conotations and associations. Specific words can divert our attention one way or another in the same way using the words "one way or another" may lead you to remember that often-played song by Blondie without me even mentioning this song explicitly.
Gotcha.

Controlling the terms of discourse means winning half the battle. Whether Mideast negotiators refer to the West Bank as the "occupied territories" or "disputed territories" shifts leverage in the negotiations. The word "occupied" suggests the existence of an occupation and implies illegitimacy; the word "disputed", on the other hand, makes plausible division of the object subject to the "dispute". When a newsperson uses one of these terms he is not just reporting facts, he is choosing sides.

Words forward arguments and--absent the hanging of an occasional chad--in electoral politics the following equality applies:

winning the argument = winning the election

A Direct Challenge to Dean Supporters

2004-02-13T22:34:00.000-05:00

I attended my first Dean meetup in February, about a year ago. In the back of a local coffee shop ten people gathered to talk about the upcoming presidential election and the prospects of a little-known governor, who aimed at taking on the Bush administration. The political climate felt suffocating. Pressing questions that were obvious to us could not be voiced by a subservient national media, while every cornerstone of national achievement felt the chipping of the Bush-Cheney chisel. Since then, those who have supported Governor Dean have scaled mountains. We built the first national campaign without the funding of large industrial interests; we not only broke the deafening silence, we set the terms of discourse; and we have made the halls of Beltway tremble. Most importantly, we built a national progressive network that just a year ago simply did not exist.

But despite our high climb, we arrived at another valley. Although Dean is not out of the race yet, the odds are slim. Last winter’s despair is here again. I attended my first Dean meetup in February, about a year ago. In the back of a local coffee shop ten people gathered to talk about the upcoming presidential election and the prospects of a little-known governor, who aimed at taking on the Bush administration. The political climate felt suffocating. Pressing questions that were obvious to us could not be voiced by a subservient national media, while every cornerstone of national achievement felt the chipping of the Bush-Cheney chisel. Since then, those who have supported Governor Dean have scaled mountains. We built the first presidential campaign without the funding of large industrial interests; we not only broke the deafening silence, we set the terms of discourse; and we have made the halls of Beltway tremble. Most importantly, we built a national progressive network that just a year ago simply did not exist.

But despite our high climb, we arrived at another valley. Although Dean is not out of the race yet, the odds are slim. Last winter’s despair is here again... At the last meeting one supporter confided to me that with Dean nearly out of the race he thought further involvement was “a waste of my time”. He may not come back next month. And that’s a crying shame. While the Democrats may miss a historic opportunity by not nominating Dean, we—Dean supporters—risk making our own historic mistake by turning our backs on the network we have built. Mainstream Democrats may not have the courage to nominate a candidate with the sturdiest vertebrae, but we are not responsible for their mistakes. We are only responsible for ours. Failing to secure what we and Governor Dean have labored to achieve in this campaign would be a monumental failure.

In the aftermath of Iowa, two trends of thought are driving activists and volunteers away from the Dean progressive network. The first is a “my way or the highway” attitude which culminates in a vengeful spoiler syndrome. One member of the Kos community recently advised others to “make them pay for voting for a do-nothing rather than a doer. I believe that Deaniacs could impact the election in the same way that Nader did in 2000.” That is excellent advice for moving the political center further to the right. Electoral activism is a dirty business in which you never get 100% of what you want 100% of the time. Victory belongs to those who have been scaling the same part of the wall the longest. Currently that’s Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist. We will either build a network to counterbalance theirs or we will find ourselves in the dungeon of radical right-wing policies.

Implicit in the thought of Dean supporters who disappear into gloominess is that the Dean campaign had only one goal—-to win the White House. Once that goal is stifled, what is there to do but disperse? But Governor Dean’s campaign is simply one attempt, among many, to bring politics closer to ordinary people and to make it work for them. As long as this goal still exists then it only makes sense to expand the network and find other channels for our energies. At the risk of offending many who can not imagine this grassroots campaign without Governor Dean, I would like to suggest that the Dean progressive network is more important than the Dean candidacy—-it is even more important than the results of one election because it has the potential to harness future elections. Stirling Newberry has pointed out that “The internet is where TV was in the 1950's - the cutting edge of culture, with a disproportionately influential base - but still small. The "frequent" visitors to web sites were 10% of New Hampshire. They broke heavily for Dean. If that number were 30%, which is to say, the difference in television penetration between 1952 and 1956 - then Dean would have been within 2% of Kerry, a dead heat.”

For all the above reasons we have a compelling motive to maintain the network created by Governor Dean’s campaign. We have influenced the political process in a positive way and we can continue doing the same if we set forth a less ephemeral objective than winning one campaign. Nor should “evict Bush” be our ultimate objective; that, too, is a short-sighted goal. Imagine: if Bush were gone tomorrow, would poverty, injustice and environmental pollution disappear? Would a single liberty taken away by the PATRIOT Act be restored? Not unless there are people giving politicians the backbone to do what is right. It is therefore important to create organizations that will build on the momentum the Dean campaign created and act as watch dogs of progressive policies, in much the same way the ACLU acts as a guardian of civil liberties. One community member observes the advantages that come from sticking together:

"Deaniacs are only a core constituency because right at the moment we're organized. If we cease to remain organized at the end of the Dean campaign, we'll once again be relegated to being nothing more than votes to which the Democratic Party feels entitled..."

What should these organizations look like? He suggests joining the ADA as a way to maintain organizational momentum. That may be one possible strategy on the national level, but starting with state-wide organizations may be a less risky way to capitalize of what we have built. In the process of helping a candidate win a nomination we have been engaged in 50 distinct elections. This made us create state-wide ties with groups, activists and meetups in other cities within our respective states. Maintaining these ties under a state-wide umbrella would be a natural, relatively easy and highly effective way to preserve organizational assets. But regardless the form, we need to create a forum in which we can meet to formulate and advance a progressive agenda. This is the challenge. The time is now.

Reasons Dean lost Iowa

2004-01-31T16:48:00.000-05:00

1. The media missile attack

According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs Dean received a bucketfull of negative press:
Only 49 percent of all on-air evaluations of former Vermont governor in 2003 were positive while the rest of the democratic field collectively received 78 percent favorable coverage. Here is a sampling of manufactured scandals that hit the airways within three weeks of the Iowa caucuses. Exhibit:

a. A trooper working for the Vermont state government was found guilty of abusing his wife. Implication: Dean is somehow responsible.

b. Dean wrote a letter to Clinton urging him to intervene in Bosnia. Implication: Hypocrite! Aren't you supposed to be against all wars?

c. Dean did not appoint any minority cabinet members while governor of Vermont (a state that's 98% white). Accusation: He's a racist!

The problem is that Dean did not fight back for much too long, suggesting guilt to some voters. Both the timing and relentlessness of the negative coverate are suspect. These scandals have disappeared right after the Iowa loss, a testament to their baselessness.

2. Poor ad campaign

Dean's ads, in Iowa and elsewhere have been total floppers. It was obvious since at least June--when the first batch aired in Iowa--that standing lifeless in front of a tractor for 30 seconds, is not the greatest way to convey a message. No, not even if the tractor is a John Deere. Simply showing Dean in the middle of his passionate stump speech would have been a far better way to showcase the candidate. Ironically, while Dean is a powerhouse of passion in real life, his ads totally lacked dynamo.

3. Lame response to attacks

The Dean campaign's media operation was weak. Negative coverage can be contained with an able media strategy. Dean received the short end of the stick from every other major candidate during the debate. At the same time, the Kerry campaign was playing dirty behind the scenes, throwing every little piece of dirt it could dig up. Certainly Dean has his peccadillos--he's a politician after all--but, assymetrically, we did not get a chance to see other candidates' "warts" and that is partly Dean's fault. While we were hearing about Dean's "anger anger anger" we could have also heard, for example, about the time Kerry claimed he was Irish (which he is not) or the time he encouraged Vietnam War vets to throw away their medals, while he kept his.

4. Poorly managed internet-based voter turnout efforts

I embarked on a trip to Iowa the weekend before the "Perfect Storm" culmination, or anticlimax. It was a cold day, which became colder as I drove further north, but not as wet and miserable as Iowa can be in the autumn. Arriving in Des Moines I passed the Kerry headquarters, with its many placards and a conspicuously empty parking lot. The Edwards headquarters, not far away, also looked lonely. Across the street, the Dean campaign's lots were jammed with cars with a rainbow of colorful license plates: from Vermont to Washington, from Arizona to North Dakota, very possibly every state was represented. Few minutes into the building I met another fresh arrival, who flew in from California... and a college student from U Penn... In another lively time Jerry Rubin wrote "do not trust anyone under thirty"--here in the Des Moines Dean headquarters it was hard do find someone not trustworthy. To think that this was a national assembly of volunteers was exhilarating. No one had to be here, we all came because we wanted to. Our group received a run-down on the Iowa caucus process and was directed to Ames, to help with the canvassing effort. On our way to Ames we lost our way and ended up in a warehouse district looking for the AFSCME headquarters but finding nothing but warehouses and farmland. Our directions were flawed. Some kid back in Des Moines made a mistake on our directions. It was easy to dismiss this as a singular incident but based on my discussions with other Storm volunteers this was quite typical. Multiple groups of canvassers were sent into the same neighborhoods, volunteers working the phones were not trained. I do not say this to denigrate the dedicated and capable staff. Getting thousands of vollunteers to sign up to travel to a state via the internet and then directing them to effective GOTV activities is a complicated logistical task that has never been tried before.

These logistical problems will be solved in the future if not by Dean then by others to come. It is not enough to recruit thousands of supporters to travel to Iowa, you still need to know what to do with them when they arrive. Jerome Armstrong notes:

The task for the Dean troops in upcoming caucus states is to learn from the mistakes of Iowa. Prepare, concentrate more early on for 1's and 2's, train in persuasive tactics, and recruit establishment democratic officials for precinct captains.

The Kerry campaign identified precinct captains early, and they turned out to be its hidden strength. Precinct captains helped turn out the vote, while helping participants argue effectively during the caucuses. This is decidedly old school politics, studied by Sidney Blumenthal in his pre-Clinton days. But there is no reason why the new politics of the internet can not take the old modus operandi and improve it!

Doldrums

2004-01-29T00:49:00.000-05:00

Just one month ago this diary post on Kos documented Dean's stellar rise and it seemed the star would never wane. Now at the grassroots the mood inside the Dean campaign ranges between the brooding and the apocalyptic. I feel like a Rennesian after the fall of Paris. Angry? You betcha. The most optimistic statement I heard all day is that after all this is over Dean will become a political commentator. This morning I heard Dean being interviewed by NPR's Corey Clintoff. Clintoff asked, Governor you came in third in Iowa last week and now you came in second in New Hampshire, you seem to be moving up. Dean's reply was not "Yes we are" or "Yeah!" but a meek and fleeting "Maybe so"...

I will be writing a longer piece later on what happened, why and what it all means.

Elect Ability

2004-01-28T23:25:00.000-05:00

An amazing diary piece appeared on the Daily Kos' front page yesterday, written by one Sterling Newberry. A Washington resident, Newberry disects the beltway mentality with the precision of a surgeon and makes several unique points. He observes that the beltway Republicans view themselves as extremely vulnerable:

The economy is what they worry about, and again, the recognition is that the books are cooked. The worry is not that Democrats will use it - because the feeling here is that Kerry's stumble on the tax question is typical - but that there will be a revolt on the conservative flank.

Yet the prospects for Democrats are not bright either:

If you look at this election the old way, we don't stand a a chance. There are only 33 congressional districts in play, and more of them, thanks to Texas Redistricting, are Democrats. The institutional pressure to put forward a "safe" nominee who will not scare away swing voters gives us a candidate who cannot attack much of the worst of the last four years, because he voted for it.

There is a real argument here for a new politics and it is an argument that you will not catch on mainstream airwaves. The way to win this election does not pass through forests of hedging and equivocating. If the Democratic Party has not lost its instinct of self-preservation it can not afford not to hit the Achilles heel of policies of the past three and a half years. There is a real political cost to giving the nomination of an insider like Kerry or Edwards because they are inextricably complicit in much of the bad policymaking.

Somehow this fact escapes the debate over the the comparative electability of the candidates. In its present usage "electability" is a term that pertains to the degree of affiliation with the beltway. It is not the case that an outsider like Dean or Clark could not be elected. Not sullied by affiliation with recent policy flops like No Child Left Behind, both would have the advantage of having their hands free to tackle the current administration. The only problem is that for the insiders the re-equilibrium in the Democratic Party's internal power balance that would follow the nomination of a Clark or a Dean is unimaginable. "Is he electable?"--ask the insiders; they really mean: "Is he one of us?"

CNN all over Dean's "warts"

2004-01-24T16:06:00.000-05:00

Of all the words spoken in his interview with Diane Sawyer there is only one phrase that CNN likes so much it keeps posting it as a descriptor of the interview... that phrase is "I have all kinds of warts".

CNN reports Gephardt to drop out of the race...

2004-01-19T22:18:00.000-05:00

Edwards-Kucinich

2004-01-19T21:04:00.000-05:00

It is 7:24 PM Central Time and the Iowa caucuses are well under way. The late Edwards-Kucinich alliance is inexplicable. Why would Kucinich want to allign himself with a candidate who voted for the Iraq war resolution which Kucinich so strongly opposes. One of the assumptions incorporated into my earlier caucus prediciton is that Kucinich voters will tend to vote for Dean. This is now less likely.

Dick Cheney Admits He's Evil

2004-01-19T20:19:00.000-05:00

"Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? It's a nice way to operate, actually." --Dick Cheney in an interview to the LA Times.

I hope that hole near Tikrit still vacant so that Cheney can move into a more work-conducive environment.

Boone County

2004-01-19T12:49:00.000-05:00

Last week, a Dean organizer involved with the Boone County canvassing effort mentioned that their local canvassing office recieved a "commit card"--a written promise by a supporter to attend the caucus--from 5% of the county's Democratic roster. By his words a 1.5% commit rate is considered good, while 3% is truly excellent. There is, however, plenty of room for skepticism: part of the Des Moines metropolitain area, Boone County is about five miles from Ames, home of Iowa State University. College organizers energized by the Dean campaign are certainly doing marvels, but how far from the university centers their efforts will spread is a question that will have to wait until 6:30pm CT to be answered.

The Hardest Count

2004-01-19T11:49:00.000-05:00

My sources in Iowa tell me that the number of Dean supporters who have confirmed with the campaign they will attend the caucus, the "hard count"--is 55,000. If this is true, that means we are hours away from another surprise, another "Dean awakening" a la the release of 2nd quarter fundraising numbers by the Dean campaign back in May, only this time the results will be more tangible. I suspect, however, that this is an optimistic estimate and that the actual turnout will be lower. But even assuming a 25% no-show rate and a larger than average turnout of 130,000 that would give Dean 32% of total support in the first round of voting.

Iowa Musings

2004-01-17T15:56:00.000-05:00

In anticipation of the Iowa caucus I decided to do several back-of-the-envelope estimations of the final outcome. The model is based on the average of the most recent Zogby, Des Moines Register and Survey USA polls. It incorporates adjustments for organizational strength, recent trend path, 2nd choice preferences posted on Kos and the likely preferences of voters supporting Clark, Lieberman, Kucinich and others. With so many factors to consider the estimation is somewhat arbitrary, but then again, what else do I have besides creative conjecture.

Prediction

Dean: 29%
Kerry: 26%
Gephardt: 24%
Edwards: 21%

If Kerry wins in Iowa, he will be best positiond to become the "anti-Dean" candidate for the remainder of the nomination contest. If Gephardt ups Kerry, the "anti-Dean" mantle is more likely to be worn by Clark, who has chosen to have his decisive battle in New Hampshire. Expect a bitter fight between Kerry and Clark for 2nd place in NH, as Dean hovers above the fray. Gephardt, despite his organizational advantages is very unlikely to get past Iowa; he needs to come in 1st, but the line ahead of him is getting longer.

Majority Satisfied with Democratic Field

2003-12-27T19:25:00.000-05:00

According to a Washington Post/ABC Poll 52% of Americans are satisfied with the choice of candidates for the Democratic nomination.

Bush Gets Approval Boost... (Are we doomed?)

2003-12-27T18:45:00.000-05:00

From an article in the Washington Post

Growing optimism about the economy and a spike in support for going to war in Iraq have given President Bush a sharp year-end boost in his approval ratings, suggesting that the president is in a strong position politically as he looks toward his reelection campaign next year.

The article also highlights Dean's surge in the battle for nomination.

The poll also shows former Vermont governor Howard Dean surging ahead of his rivals in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, cementing his status as the party's front-runner a month before the first major contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire. But when matched against the president, Dean fares badly, both in a hypothetical trial heat and on who is trusted to handle both national security and domestic issues.

The juxtaposition quietly asks a question... "What are Democrats thinking? They're about to nominate an anti- Iraq War candidate, and a critic of the Bush Administration's economic policy, just when the administration's foreign and economic programs are brearing fruit?" This silent squirming is quite typical of the present Democratic establishment. Republicans command a language of resolute platitudes; Democrats speak in words of indecisive equivocation. But in this report the unease is plainly evident. Balz and Morin are highly suggestive about the necessity to dump Dean, without saying as much. Impartial, objective reporting?

The problem with the electability argument tirelessly flung at Dean arises from the failure to consider the importance of argument and persuasion. In a modestly functional electoral system a politician can win not only by the strength of a vote turnout machine or by the slow-shifting tectonics of identity politics, but by the force and relevance of ideas. In his 1913 Inaugural Address Woodrow Wilson summed up the currents that brought him to the White House. (Emphasis by KMM).

There has been a change of government. It began two years ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive majority. It has now been completed. The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic. The offices of President and Vice-President have been put into the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean? That is the question that is uppermost in our minds to-day. That is the question I am going to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the occasion.

It means much more than the mere success of a party. The success of a party means little except when the Nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose. No one can mistake the purpose for which the Nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party. It seeks to use it to interpret a change in its own plans and point of view. Some old things with which we had grown familiar, and which had begun to creep into the very habit of our thought and of our lives, have altered their aspect as we have latterly looked critically upon them, with fresh, awakened eyes; have dropped their disguises and shown themselves alien and sinister. Some new things, as we look frankly upon them, willing to comprehend their real character, have come to assume the aspect of things long believed in and familiar, stuff of our own convictions. We have been refreshed by a new insight into our own life.

If the Democrats are ever to reclaim the mandate of the American electorate they need to light new light bulbs. And this is where the Dean campaign has been working overtime. Unlike the stale Gore campaign of 2000, Dean's run is not just about legislative agendas, but about principles and ideas. Much like Wilson in 1913, Dean offers an interpretation of current events and animates his campaign with American political values: democracy, justice, civil liberties. He may not win the argument, but at least he is willing to have a debate of ideas. Now, in December 2003 hypothetical polls squaring Dean against Bush mean less then what they suggest because the 2004 battle of ideas has has not even started. It will, once there is a single Democratic challenger.

Policing "Friends"

2003-09-20T22:15:00.000-05:00

From the September 20, 2003 Wall Street Journal:

"Israeli officials said the U.S. is interested in their training materials on policing a hostile population. "

But Dick Cheney says the Iraqis are glad US & UK troops are there.

Iraq: a numbers game

2003-07-10T01:28:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, July 9 General Franks assured the Congress that the situation in Iraq will continue to stabilize, and many thanks to the additional 30,000 foreign troops scheduled to arrive to help maintain order. If foreign countries do deliver on their military commitments that would bring the total number of troops in Iraq to approximately 190,000--an inch away from the 200,000 General Shinseki told Congress would be needed after the end of hostilities. We can not expect the DoD to admit they were wrong in cutting down the now-retired Shinseki, but it is obvious that they were.

Don't be afraid of changes...

2003-07-10T01:16:00.000-05:00

This site is still in flux. Some items may be perepatetic only because web management is an art that requires a delecate balance. The plan is to revamp the links and add a comments capability as soon as possible.

Talking economics

2003-07-08T13:20:00.000-05:00

With the national economy slumbering, Democrats have ceized the moment to criticize the Bush Administration on its management of the economy. Although at the trough of the economic cycle pointing out inadequacies in government policies seems a no-brainer, the approach can easily back-fire. The trick is to know what to criticize--and how. Consider the following scenario. After three and a half years in the doldrums the US turns the corner and begins a slow and tedious recovery. Growth rates are not spectacular, but positive, and continue to rise. By autumn of 2004 the latest economic releases show a 3% growth rate in gross domestic product.

In this scenario the Administration will have an opening to label its oponents as enemies of growth, redeem its tax policies, project an aura of economic competence and resurrect the "Reagan was right!" slogan. Indeed, this is where the Democrats are headed. Going into the 2004 election year the economic landscape is not unfavorable, but it must be navigated with skill.

A boom or a recession may be long or short but in any case its duration is finate. Counting on an endless recession to beat the opposition with is silly. In downturns, the success of economic policy should be determined by its effect on the length and depth of the downturn. A policy success can be claimed if the effect of the economic policy can be determined to have made the recession shallower or shorter in duration. Does the Administration's economic program pass this test?

First, what is the Administration's approach to economic recovery? Two tax cuts encompass the bread and meat of it, yet it is strikingly skinny. Someone may note that so much more could have been done to fasten the end of recession. Direct provision of employment, investment in high-growth sectors and public infrastructure, wider unemployment insurance. The first argument against the Administration is that by lack of a vigorous recovery policy it has delayed the moment of recovery. And the tax cuts that were passed to end the recession have made a housing bust, a trade crisis and an unsustainable spiral of public debt so much more likely. The phrase of the future: "gross economic imbalance". Start using it now, prudent people are already worried:

Financial Times, July 1, 2003:

“The Bush tax cuts risk undermining confidence in US public finances, according to the Bank for International Settlements...

The BIS said in its annual report that the $350bn tax cuts package agreed by Congress had ‘not been helpful’, given the growing budget deficit.

Although couched in diplomatic language, the BIS also warned that the US risked exacerbating imbalances in its economy which could result in a painful correction in the future.”

Most economic projections show a modest turnaround in 2004. Yet the unemployment rate is projected to remain high as late as 2005. Some voters may wonder why John Snow, who delivered a run in the stock market by eliminating the tax on dividends neglected to do anything about the rise in the unemployment rate.

So if you're a Democrat you may find the following words useful: "gross economic imbalance", "delaying the recovery", "unemployment".

Lining up the competition

2003-07-07T10:51:00.000-05:00

To further the subject of criminally insane White House operatives, Karl Rove has recently circulated a buzz that he wants Howard Dean to win the 2004 Democratic nomination. The July 5th Washington Post ran the following story:

"Talk about lining up the competition. President Bush's chief political adviser has seen the possible presidential candidates among the Democrats and has found one he apparently thinks his man can beat: former Vermont governor Howard Dean.

Karl Rove tried to stir up enthusiasm for Dean marchers yesterday at the 37th annual Palisades Citizens' Association Fourth of July parade along the District's MacArthur Boulevard, which always attracts plenty of politicians.

As a dozen people marched toward Dana Place wearing Dean for President T-shirts and carrying Dean for America signs, Rove told a companion, 'Heh, heh, heh. Yeah, that's the one we want'... "

The "Rove roots for Dean" buzz has two possible explanations:
1. Rove is just being sincere and is sharing with us his political reasoning
or 2. Rove is expressing a desire to see Dean win for reasons having nothing to do with sincerity.

Since a lie has not been uttered in Washington D.C. since 1777, we can be sure possibility #1 provides the best and only explanation for Karl Rove's endorsement. That seems to be the logic that informs Washington Democrats as they hurry to undermine the Dean campaign. According to some sources Kerry is already digging into Dean's past in search of precious dirt.

Politics in establishment circles teaches mental sloth, unwillingness to scratch the surface, unhealthy dependence on prevailing conventional wisdom. The Keen Meme Memo advocates Intellectual Ninjitsu as an intidote to these afflictions. Let us start with a simple mental exercise.

Ask yourself: if your name is Karl Rove will you think Howard Dean is the most beatable of all Democratic candidates?
Maybe. If you thought that Dean's positions are so out of tune with the American public that you may as well pencil in an extra vacation during the campaign season you would come to that conclusion. It is not clear however if you would have any vacation time in 2004, since several major issues like the war and the rights of homosexuals have been trending in Dean's favor. Dean's anti-unilateralist stance on the war makes him the first among other democrats to gain a favorable public hearing if events in Iraq continue to deteriorate (which is likely). His "gun rights as states' rights" position may channel centrist and rural voters away from the Republicans. And his vow to go South to convince poor southern whites to start voting Democratic again may not only cut into planned vacation time, it may even cost you your weekends. It is possible to put forth a defensible argument for why Dean is the most "defeatable" but it is not apparent, unless you're on the DLC.

Then ask yourself: if your name is Karl Rove and you voice an endorsement of Howard Dean in public what is the likely effect of your public outbursts?
Your enemy's dream is your nightmare. If Karl Rove and the Republicans want Dean to win then any sensible Democrat will stop to ponder whether supporting Dean is a good idea. Certain elements within the Democratic party may be encouraged to deflate the Dean campaign before it is too late if they think Republicans are rooting for him. Other Democratic contenders may view this as a license to pull out the heavy ammunition. Young and innocent neocon activists decide to contribute $20 to the Dean campaign.

Finally: if your name is Karl Rove and you think "Howard Dean is the most beatable of all Democratic candidates" will you voice your thoughts in public?
Certainly not. This is where your alter-ego Rove parts ways with the real Rove. If revealing your sentiments about the outcome of the Democratic nomination is likely to bruise "your guy" then the sensible course of action is to stay quiet.

On the other hand, if your purpose is to shoot holes in the Dean campaign, then you may air your "endorsement" for its likely effects.

Conclusion: If anything, Rove's comments reveal that the Administration considers facing Dean in 2004 a worst-case scenario.

Memo to the Washington Democrats: Do not spread seeds of discord by playing favorites. Let voting Democrats decide.

Present at the creation...

2003-07-05T13:08:00.000-05:00

The Keen Meme Memo was launched on July 5, 2003. It is a chemically volaile product of the early-21st-century American political environment.