Bush's Big Business Agenda

From americanprogressaction.org

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Analysis by The Washington Post and The New York Times shows the Bush
administration is continuing to use regulatory action, exempt from
Congressional oversight and often hidden from public scrutiny, to further a
big business agenda despite demonstrated risks to public health and
safety. An extensive analysis by the WP reveals the administration has
employed regulatory action " to implement far-reaching policy changes
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1315-2004Aug14?language=printer)
...Under Bush, these decisions have spanned logging in national
forests, patients' rights in government health insurance programs, tests for
tainted packaged meats, Indian land transactions and grants to religious
charities." The NYT notes the public has been distracted by Iraq and
the fight against terrorism. Meanwhile, "Health rules, environmental
regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety
disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please
business and industry leaders
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/politics/14bush.html?pagewanted=print&position=)
." The weakening of regulations has possibly endangered "consumers,
workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others." Check
out American Progress' and OMB Watch's report on the Bush
administration's dismantling of public safeguards
(http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=81986).



THE RECORD: According to the Post's analysis, President Bush's
deregulatory record represents a radical departure from previous
administrations. "All presidents have written or eliminated regulations to further
their agendas," the Post notes. "What is distinctive about Bush is that
he quickly imposed a culture intended to put his anti-regulatory stamp
on government
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1315-2004Aug14.html) ."
In the past 3 1/2 years, the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), the branch of the Labor Department in charge of workers'
well-being, "has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards
as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety
rules, setting Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including
Ronald Reagan. Unlike his two predecessors, Bush has canceled more of
the unfinished regulatory work he inherited than he has completed."



ADMINISTRATION SAYS SAFETY INFO "NOT OF MUCH INTEREST": One example of
the Bush administration's disregard for public safety: On Saturday, the
NYT highlighted a controversial regulation published by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration forbidding the release of some
data relating to unsafe motor vehicles
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/politics/14bush.html?pagewanted=print&position=)
. Following the lead of auto company lobbyists, the administration said
"publicizing the information would cause 'substantial competitive harm'
to manufacturers," even though it might help consumers choose safer
cars. Chief spokesman Ray Tyson said he was sure the now-suppressed
information, which includes "warranty-claim information, industry reports on
safety issues and consumer complaints," would not be " of much interest
to the general public
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/politics/14bush.html?pagewanted=print&position=)
." Last week, the NYT documented how the administration is trying to
rewrite coal regulations
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/politics/09coal.html?hp) in favor of
owners, rescinding "more than a half-dozen proposals intended to make
coal miners' jobs safer, including steps to limit miners' exposure to
toxic chemicals."



QUESTIONING THE DATA: Since it would be embarrassing to simply tell
consumers and workers it's not willing to make businesses pay to protect
them, the Bush administration has developed a different strategy for
achieving regulatory roll backs: question the science. In today's WP
addresses with the Data Quality Act
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3733-2004Aug15.html) , a
little-known piece of legislation "written by an industry lobbyist and
slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional
discussion or debate." The act is supposedly meant to ensure new
regulations are based on "sound science," but the WP found it has been used
predominantly by industry to challenge scientific data indicating risks
to workers or consumers. Included among the petitions so far: sugar
interests challenged dietary recommendations to limit sugar intake;
logging groups challenged calculations used to justify restrictions on timber
harvests; and the American Chemistry Council challenged data meant to
justify bans on wood treated with heavy metals and arsenic in playground
equipment.

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Saving the Vote

August 17, 2004

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Everyone knows it, but not many politicians or mainstream journalists are willing to talk about it, for fear of sounding conspiracy-minded: there is a substantial chance that the result of the 2004 presidential election will be suspect.

When I say that the result will be suspect, I don't mean that the election will, in fact, have been stolen. (We may never know.) I mean that there will be sufficient uncertainty about the honesty of the vote count that much of the world and many Americans will have serious doubts.

How might the election result be suspect? Well, to take only one of several possibilities, suppose that Florida - where recent polls give John Kerry the lead - once again swings the election to George Bush.

Much of Florida's vote will be counted by electronic voting machines with no paper trails. Independent computer scientists who have examined some of these machines' programming code are appalled at the security flaws. So there will be reasonable doubts about whether Florida's votes were properly counted, and no paper ballots to recount. The public will have to take the result on faith.

Yet the behavior of Gov. Jeb Bush's officials with regard to other election-related matters offers no justification for such faith. First there was the affair of the felon list. Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. But in 2000 many innocent people, a great number of them black, couldn't vote because they were erroneously put on a list of felons; these wrongful exclusions may have put Governor Bush's brother in the White House.

This year, Florida again drew up a felon list, and tried to keep it secret. When a judge forced the list's release, it turned out that it once again wrongly disenfranchised many people - again, largely African-American - while including almost no Hispanics.

Yesterday, my colleague Bob Herbert [article below] reported on another highly suspicious Florida initiative: state police officers have gone into the homes of elderly African-American voters - including participants in get-out-the-vote operations - and interrogated them as part of what the state says is a fraud investigation. But the state has provided little information about the investigation, and, as Mr. Herbert says, this looks remarkably like an attempt to intimidate voters.

Given this pattern, there will be skepticism if Florida's paperless voting machines give President Bush an upset, uncheckable victory.

Congress should have acted long ago to place the coming election above suspicion by requiring a paper trail for votes. But legislation was bottled up in committee, and it may be too late to change the hardware. Yet it is crucial that this election be credible. What can be done?

There is still time for officials to provide enhanced security, assuring the public that nobody can tamper with voting machines before or during the election; to hire independent security consultants to perform random tests before and during Election Day; and to provide paper ballots to every voter who requests one.

Voters, too, can do their bit. Recently the Florida Republican Party sent out a brochure urging supporters to use absentee ballots to make sure their votes are counted. The party claims that was a mistake - but it was, in fact, good advice. Voters should use paper ballots where they are available, and if this means voting absentee, so be it. (Election officials will be furious about the increased workload, but they have brought this on themselves.)

Finally, some voting activists have urged a last-minute push for independent exit polling, parallel to but independent of polling by media groups (whose combined operation suffered a meltdown during the upset Republican electoral triumph in 2002). This sounds like a very good idea.

Intensive exit polling would do triple duty. It would serve as a deterrent to anyone contemplating election fraud. If all went well, it would help validate the results and silence skeptics. And it would give an early warning if there was election tampering - perhaps early enough to seek redress.

It's horrifying to think that the credibility of our democracy - a democracy bought through the courage and sacrifice of many brave men and women - is now in danger. It's so horrifying that many prefer not to think about it. But closing our eyes won't make the threat go away. On the contrary, denial will only increase the chances of a disastrously suspect election.

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Suppress the Vote?

NY TIMES
August 16, 2004

By BOB HERBERT

The big story out of Florida over the weekend was the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. But there's another story from Florida that deserves our attention.

State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.

The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.

Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election.

"We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.

The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

I asked Mr. Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.

"I can't talk about that," he said.

I asked if all the people interrogated were black.

"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes,'' he said.

He also said, "Most of them were elderly."

When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."

Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today.

Not surprisingly, many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote.

The president of the Orlando League of Voters is Ezzie Thomas, who is 73 years old. With his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Mr. Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat.

The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Joseph Egan, an Orlando lawyer who represents Mr. Thomas, said: "The Voters League has workers who go into the community to do voter registration, drive people to the polls and help with absentee ballots. They are elderly women mostly. They get paid like $100 for four or five months' work, just to offset things like the cost of their gas. They see this political activity as an important contribution to their community. Some of the people in the community had never cast a ballot until the league came to their door and encouraged them to vote."

Now, said Mr. Egan, the fear generated by state police officers going into people's homes as part of an ongoing criminal investigation related to voting is threatening to undo much of the good work of the league. He said, "One woman asked me, 'Am I going to go to jail now because I voted by absentee ballot?' "

According to Mr. Egan, "People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation."

Florida is a state that's very much in play in the presidential election, with some polls showing John Kerry in the lead. A heavy-handed state police investigation that throws a blanket of fear over thousands of black voters can only help President Bush.

The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State.

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Misconceived Military Shuffle

NY TIMES
August 17, 2004

The troop redeployment plan announced yesterday by President Bush makes little long-term strategic sense. It is certain to strain crucial alliances, increase overall costs and dangerously weaken deterrence on the Korean peninsula at the worst possible moment. Meanwhile, it will do nothing to address the military's most pressing current need: relieving the chronic strain on ground forces that has resulted from failing to anticipate the long, and largely unilateral, American occupation of Iraq.

Mr. Bush provided few new details yesterday, confirming only that over the next 10 years, about 60,000 to 70,000 uniformed troops, along with some 100,000 family members and civilian employees, would be transferred from bases and other military installations in Europe and Asia to the United States.

It has been known for some time that the Pentagon wants to pull back perhaps half of the roughly 70,000 soldiers now in Germany and a third of the nearly 40,000 troops in South Korea. Further cuts in Europe and Asia will be needed to reach Mr. Bush's totals, especially since some of those withdrawn from South Korea may be headed toward other parts of Asia.

The Bush administration justifies these movements by pointing to fundamental changes in the geography of threats since the end of the cold war. In Asia, however, that geography has not changed all that much.

The most dangerous threat still comes from North Korea, which is now thought to be building nuclear weapons. At a time when negotiating a halt to that buildup is imperative, Washington has inexplicably granted Pyongyang something it has long coveted - a reduction in American troop levels - instead of building those reductions into a bargaining proposal requiring constructive North Korean moves in return. The Korean pullback also sends a dangerous signal to the North that America is devaluing its alliance with South Korea.

In Europe, the withdrawals are less immediately dangerous, but they will be expensive because Germany pays a hefty share of the costs for the American military bases located there.

While sending military personnel back to Kansas or Colorado may avert some base closings and make local politicians happy, it will cost the taxpayers money. Furthermore, the military will also lose the advantage that comes with giving large numbers of its men and women the experience of living in other cultures.

The administration seems to be planning to establish new installations in Eastern Europe, but they are more likely to be used for occasional exercises than as permanent bases. An increased presence in Eastern Europe is fine, but it need not come at the expense of our German bases. Although it is certainly true that American troops no longer have to sit in Germany to protect Western Europe from the Red Army, many of today's battlefields, like Iraq and Afghanistan, are in fact closer to Germany than they are to the United States.

The Pentagon is right to stress lighter, more mobile Army brigades. It is also good to aim to reduce the number of job and location changes in a typical Army career. With the huge personnel demands of Iraqi operations forcing repeated tours, extended tours and involuntary callbacks, such sensible steps aimed at raising morale and encouraging re-enlistments are welcome. But over all, this plan marches in the wrong direction. Instead of reflecting and reinforcing America's core alliances, the new plan dilutes them.

Despite the Pentagon's denials, it seems deliberate that the two largest withdrawals have been proposed for countries that the Bush administration has had serious differences with in recent years, over Iraq in the German case, and over negotiating strategy with North Korea in the case of Seoul. Both countries have been working hard to patch up relations - South Korea is one of the few American allies with troops in Iraq - but the Pentagon does not seem interested in reciprocating.

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Illinois to Help Residents Buy Drugs From Canada, and Afar

NY TIMES
August 17, 2004

By MONICA DAVEY

CHICAGO, Aug. 16 - Opening a new front in the fight over the cost of prescription drugs, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois is preparing to help residents of his state buy cheaper medicines from Britain and Ireland, as well as Canada.

Aides to Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat, said he would announce on Tuesday that Illinois would create a program, accessible on the Internet, so people could buy 100 of the most common drugs for 25 percent to 50 percent less than in most American drugstores.

Federal authorities say it is illegal to buy drugs from outside the United States, but since early this year, officials in at least four other states - Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wisconsin - have set up Web sites that link residents to Canadian pharmacies. Expanding the market to Britain and Ireland, Mr. Blagojevich's aides said, will spread demand beyond Canada, where some suppliers have reported shortages of certain drugs.

"The drug companies have pretty aggressively been shutting supplies to Canada, and we want to ensure that the supply will meet the demand," Abby Ottenhoff, a spokeswoman for Mr. Blagojevich, said. "Ultimately, they can't shut down supplies to the world to keep prices high in the United States."

William K. Hubbard, an associate commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, said Mr. Blagojevich's plan "sounds like yet another expansion of an effort to import unapproved drugs from foreign countries that will be illegal under U.S. law and will raise serious concerns on the part of the F.D.A."

The notion that Illinois was reaching even beyond Canada, Mr. Hubbard said, made matters worse. "The more they go into other countries, the more concerns we have," he said.

Illinois' move is the latest in what has become a political and economic standoff over how Americans buy their drugs: the F.D.A. and drug companies contend that medications from other countries may be counterfeit, mislabeled or otherwise unsafe, while a growing number of local and state officials argue that their residents must be allowed to buy the least expensive drugs.

Illinois plans to contract with a Canadian company to create a clearinghouse of more than 35 approved pharmacies and wholesalers in Canada, Ireland and Britain. The state hopes to first reach the estimated 2.8 million Illinois residents who have no prescription drug coverage. If only 100,000 of them bought drugs through the clearinghouse, they would save as much as $29 million a year, Ms. Ottenhoff said.

Wanda Moebius, a spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents drug makers, said Illinois would not be able to guarantee that drugs said to be from Britain or Ireland really came from there. "We have serious safety concerns," Ms. Moebius said.

The Illinois program is designed for state residents only. Customers will have to provide billing and shipping addresses in the state.

Minnesota, the first state to start a Web site, in late January, had 117,000 visitors to its site by the end of July. Other states are using different methods to press for change. Vermont authorities have announced that they plan to sue the F.D.A. for rejecting their plan to bring Canadian drugs to their residents.

"On this issue, you can see the waves lapping up at the fortress," said Gary C. Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics. "The question is, What will they do about these waves?"

The F.D.A. considers it illegal to buy drugs, or cause the sale of drugs, from other countries, but so far the agency has not taken legal action against states with Web sites that help people get drugs from abroad.

Mr. Hubbard said he could not say whether the agency might take legal action against Illinois because he had not seen details of its plan.

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Revolt of the Press Corps

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, August 16, 2004

The press corps appears to have had about enough of those hokey "Ask President Bush" events.

Instead of taking questions from reporters, President Bush has become increasingly partial to playing talk-show host to an audience of sycophantic fans.

There were four "Ask President Bush" events last week and in each case, after a long speech and staged interviews with prepped guests, Bush opened the floor to some incredible softballs.

The format allows the president to come off as very smooth.

As John Harris writes in The Washington Post: "In loosening his style, Bush tightened his message. Fielding friendly questions at 'Ask President Bush' forums, or lathering up the crowds at pep rallies like the one here on Saturday afternoon, he presented his case for reelection with a force and fluency that sometimes eluded him at important moments over the past year."

There's never a nasty question, never a heckler, nothing but love. That makes for great imagery and great soundbytes.

But now the press is pulling back the curtain.

Bill Plante did a long report on the CBS Evening News on Friday, showing video of campaign wranglers trying to pump up the hand-picked crowd.

"The art of TV-friendly political stragecraft reaches new levels in this campaign," Plante says. "This tight control means that hecklers . . . are almost never seen at Bush events. . . .

"At events like these, it's all about getting the message without any distraction, and making sure that there's no public argument to spoil the party."

Elisabeth Bumiller writes in her White House Letter in the New York Times: "Bush campaign officials readily say that they carefully screen the crowds by distributing tickets through campaign volunteers. . . .

"The result is often a love-in with heavily religious crowds. Bush relaxes, shows off his humor and appears more human than in his sometimes tongue-tied and tense encounters with the press."

Bumiller notes: "As of Wednesday in Wisconsin, Bush will have had 12 such campaign forums, which is one fewer than the number of solo news conferences he has had in three and a half years in the White House."

AFP writes: "President George W. Bush famously dislikes press conferences but has embraced 'Ask President Bush' sessions packed with supporters at least as eager to pay tribute to him as get an answer."

Here's the text (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040813-7.html) of the most recent "Ask the President," in Beaverton, Ore. Here are the transcripts (http://www.whitehouse.gov/query.html?op0=%2B&fl0=title%3A&ty0=p&tx0=ask+president+bush&op1=%2B&fl1=&ty1=w&tx1=&op2=%2B&fl2=keywords%3A&ty2=p&tx2=&op3=%2B&fl3=document.type%3A&ty3=p&tx3=&dt=an&inthe=604800&ady=10&amo=8&ayr=2004&bdy=17&bmo=8&byr=2004&nh=25) from previous events.

Religious Themes

Another defining aspect of these events is that the audiences are packed with evangelical Christians.

Maura Reynolds writes in the Los Angeles Times: "At town hall-style events from Niceville, Fla., to Albuquerque to Beaverton, Ore., many supporters posed the president with religiously themed questions and comments about faith, prayer and issues such as abortion and stem cell research.

"And although the president does not usually shy away from discussing his personal faith, he sometimes found himself in an awkward position -- trying to validate his supporters' views without endorsing them in a way that would alienate more-moderate swing voters. . . .

"Which is why the president deflected the comment with a joke when a 60-year-old man in Niceville, Fla., said Tuesday, 'This is the very first time that I have felt that God was in the White House.'

"'Thank you. Thank you all. Let me ask you a question: Do you like Jeb?' Bush asked, referring to his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush."

As John F. Harris and Jonathan Finer wrote in Saturday's Washington Post: "Bush had to calm the ardor of the crowd at Southridge High School in Beaverton. One woman noted that Oregon has one of the nation's highest percentages of 'unchurched' citizens and asked the president to 'take a minute to pray for Oregon.'

"Bush, who had won loud applause earlier when noting his Christian faith, told the woman 'I appreciate what you say' but then seemed to rebuke her statement. 'People can choose church or not church, and they're equally American,' he said, adding that it is important that 'we jealously guard' the tradition of protecting religious freedom.

"The crowd, seemingly surprised by Bush's refusal to endorse the woman's statement, responded with only a smattering of applause."

Character Assassination

The format also offers a highly public airing of unsubstantiated charges against Bush's opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry, that the campaign would never make directly.

And Bush doesn't jump to refute those.

For instance, in Beaverton:

"Q On behalf of Vietnam veterans -- and I served six tours over there -- we do support the President. I only have one concern, and that's on the Purple Heart, and that is, is that there are over 200,000 Vietnam vets that died from Agent Orange and were never -- no Purple Heart has ever been awarded to a Vietnam veteran because of Agent Orange because it's never been changed in the regulations. Yet, we've got a candidate for President out here with two self-inflicted scratches, and I take that as an insult. (Applause.)

"THE PRESIDENT: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Six tours? Whew. That's a lot of tours.

"Let's see, who've we got here? You got a question?"

No Substitute

These "Ask the President" events are no substitute for news conferences.

As White House press corps veteran and columnist Helen Thomas recently put it in an interview in the Progressive: "The President of the United States should be able to answer any question, or at least dance around one. At some time -- early and often -- he should submit to questioning and be held accountable, because if you don't have that then you only have one side of the story. The Presidential news conference is the only forum in our society, the only institution, where a President can be questioned. If a leader is not questioned, he can rule by edict or executive order. He can be a king or a dictator. Who's to challenge him? We're there to pull his chain and to ask the questions that should be asked every day, for every move."
Troop Withdrawal on Today's Agenda

Deb Riechmann writes for the Associated Press: "In a speech Monday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Cincinnati, Bush will announce one of the largest troop realignments since the end of the Cold War.

"Senior administration officials say Bush's plan affects 70,000 or more uniformed military personnel plus 100,000 of their family members and support personnel."

The Washington Post's Mike Allen and Thomas E. Ricks wrote on Saturday that Bush "plans to say that the change is necessary to adapt the nation's military to the demands of the global war on terrorism and to take advantage of new technologies, said a senior aide involved in developing the plan. "

Anne E. Kornblut writes in the Boston Globe: "Armed with the advantage of incumbency, President Bush is preparing to showcase his role as commander in chief this week while his Republican allies are attempting to cast doubt on the national security credentials claimed by his Democratic rival, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts."

After his speech in Cincinnati, Bush heads to Traverse City, Mich., for a campaign rally.

John Flesher writes for the Associated Press: "Traverse City and the rest of the northwestern Lower Peninsula is mostly friendly turf" for Bush.

All About Iraq

Ronald Brownstein writes in the Los Angeles Times: "By challenging Kerry to say whether he too would have invaded Iraq, Bush has targeted what may be Kerry's greatest weakness with voters: a reputation for vacillation and hairsplitting.

"But Bush simultaneously may be spotlighting what many voters like least about him: a reluctance to change course even amid changing circumstances and a belief in his own decisions so unwavering that it straddles the line between confidence and arrogance."

Hugh Sykes reports from Washington for the BBC: "There is widespread - and, I sense, slowly growing - mystification about the Iraq war of George Bush and Tony Blair."

Broder Watch

The blogosphere is chattering about the significance of David S. Broder's column in The Washington Post on Sunday, in which he writes: "The factors that make President Bush a vulnerable incumbent have almost nothing to do with his opponent, John F. Kerry. They stem directly from two closely linked, high-stakes policy gambles that Bush chose on his own. Neither has worked out as he hoped.

"The first gamble was the decision to attack Iraq; the second, to avoid paying for the war."

Blogger Joshua Micah Marshall writes that Broder's words "mark a significant milestone simply because of Broder's role in defining conventional wisdom in Washington."

Bush and Florida

Ceci Connolly writes in The Washington Post: "With Gov. Jeb Bush as guide, the president saw the devastation wrought by Hurricane Charley, pledging speedy relief to a state that still smarts from the slow response by his father's administration to Hurricane Andrew in 1992."

Bush was asked about suggestions the tour was about Campaign 2004. "If I didn't come, they would have said, 'He should have been here more rapidly,' " he said. Here's the text (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040815.html) of his remarks in Punta Gorda.

Henry Hamman and James Harding write in the Financial Times that the hurricane is "a natural disaster loaded with unforeseen costs for the state government of Jeb Bush, his brother, and for his re-election."

Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford tells Keith Olbermann on MSNBC: "Hard to know what's worse, the hurricane or the politicians that file in after them."

Who's Sensitive?

Bush administration critics have been quick to note just how many times Bush and Vice President Cheney have stressed the need to be sensitive in military affairs (see for instance, the Center for American Progress [http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480#2 ].)

But now a reader of the Eschaton blog points out that in the course of the very same interview with Hugh Hewitt on Thursday in which Cheney savaged Kerry for his use of the s-word, Cheney then used it twice himself, in comments about the fighting around a shrine in Najaf.

"Well, from the standpoint of the shrine, obviously it is a sensitive area, and we are very much aware of its sensitivity," Cheney said.

Writing Regulations

The Washington Post is publishing a series about how the Bush administration has used the regulatory process to redirect the course of government.

The stories show "how an administration can employ this subtle aspect of presidential power to implement far-reaching policy changes. Most of the decisions are made without the public attention that accompanies congressional debate."

Amy Goldstein and Sarah Cohen write about "the way OSHA has altered its regulatory mission to embrace a more business-friendly posture. In the past 3 1/2 years, OSHA, the branch of the Labor Department in charge of workers' well-being, has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety rules, setting Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including Ronald Reagan."

Rick Weiss writes about how "the Data Quality Act, a little-known piece of legislation that, under President Bush's Office of Management and Budget, has become a potent tool for companies seeking to beat back regulation."

The New York Times also weighs in on the topic. Joel Brinkley writes: "Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives."

Poll Watch

The latest Zogby poll shows Bush's approval rating up three points to 47 percent, with 52 percent disapproving. In the horserace, Zogby shows Kerry at 47 percent, Bush at 43 and Ralph Nader at 2.

Richard Morin and Christopher Muste write in The Washington Post: "Mounting concerns over the war and the sluggish economy have sent President Bush's popularity plummeting among young adults in the past four months, complicating his bid for reelection and challenging Republicans to increase their efforts to win over new or lightly committed young voters."

Valerie Plame Watch

Howard Kurtz asks in The Washington Post: "Do journalists deserve blanket immunity when accepting information that is illegal to leak, as in the Plame case?"

Tax Policy Watch

William Neikirk writes for the Chicago Tribune: "A once-quiet campaign by several top Republicans to abolish the IRS and replace the federal income tax with a European-style national sales tax has burst into the open, leading President Bush to withhold his blessing of the controversial proposal."

Karen Hughes Watch

It's official.

Ken Herman writes for Cox News Service: "The most important woman in President Bush's political life is back on the payroll as of today.

"Longtime adviser and friend Karen Hughes traveled with Bush on the campaign trail this past week for the first time in the current election cycle."

In the 2002 campaign, as Herman notes, "The Bush-Hughes connection became the stuff of legend as reporters noted her penchant for mouthing words as Bush said them."

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Cheney and Edwards: The Me 2 Campaign

washingtonpost.com

Cheney and Edwards: The Me 2 Campaign
In the Midwest, Aiming for Second Best

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 15, 2004; Page D01


DAYTON, Ohio -- Dick Cheney and John Edwards have a few things in common: They are both running for vice president and they are both Homo sapiens.

But you would struggle to find two greater stylistic opposites in American politics.

Edwards is a populist outsider; Cheney is a capitalist insider.

Edwards, who is 51 but looks younger, is known for his oratorical flair and exuberance. Cheney, who is 63 but looks older, is known for his reticence and discretion. He takes as a mantra, "You never get in trouble for something you don't say." (A quote he attributes to former House speaker Sam Rayburn.) Edwards's wife, Elizabeth, calls her relentlessly sunny husband "the most optimistic person I know." Cheney once took a personality test that found him best-suited to a career as a funeral director.

Edwards runs four miles a day. Cheney has had four heart attacks.

Edwards is "very beautiful," according to Teresa Heinz Kerry. Cheney is "not the prettiest face in the race," says President Bush.

"People keep telling me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, charm and great hair," Cheney said in a speech here Thursday. "And I say to them, 'How do you think I got this job?' " The line -- a staple of his stump routine -- always brings giggles. But it also is revealing. These are very different men touting very different tickets to very different constituencies. To compare their manners, themes, applause lines and crowds is to glimpse the distinct anthropologies of the two campaigns for the presidency.

Traditionally, vice presidential candidates have served a set of prescribed functions. They are cheerleaders for their running mates and attack dogs against their opponents. In this campaign, they are playing to carefully screened audiences, who have usually been issued tickets. The crowds cheer, make noise, wave signs and do what they're supposed to do -- look good and giddy for television news clips, convey a sense of momentum.

Both men campaigned last week in battleground states of the Midwest. It's unknown whether either changed any minds. But their performances yield broader lessons.

On With the Show


Campaign venues in a general election are essentially TV studios. This is what it looked like Wednesday when Cheney, accompanied by his wife, Lynne, held a "town meeting" in the southwestern Missouri city of Joplin. The Cheneys sat side by side on a small stage amid flags, Bush-Cheney signs and 300 supporters who filled four risers around them. There were, at first glance, no more than two non-whites in the audience.

With muscled security guards standing everywhere, the setting looked a little like the "Jerry Springer Show" -- except that there was absolutely no disagreement here about anything. One member of the audience began a question by saying, "Just let Brother Ashcroft know that his fellow Missourians are praying with you guys."

The iconic town meeting provides a forum for citizens to engage community leaders in a vigorous exchange of concerns. The election town meeting provides true believers the chance to ask softball questions and applaud answers they already know and agree with.

On Friday, Edwards participated in a Kerry-Edwards version in front of a little yellow house in Flint, Mich. The "front porch" meeting -- a staple of the Kerry-Edwards campaign's roving studio -- convenes the candidate with a group of "regular people" who are going through some hardship, usually economic. The candidate will then tell the "regular people" how his prospective administration would address their concerns.

This could be any neighborly lawn scene, except for the bright lights and boom mikes and huge speakers and the mob of photographers on a flatbed truck and the entourage of about 200 staffers, media members, Secret Service agents, police officers and onlookers swarming 4021 Cuthberton.

Otherwise it all looked very intimate, authentic and unstaged.

Friday's meeting was actually held on a front yard because its host -- Philip Phelps, a 25-year-old pizza delivery man -- doesn't have a porch. Phelps was one of three "regular people" meeting with Edwards, all of whose hardships jibe neatly with the campaign's "Real Plan for a Strong Economy."

"It's very hard, isn't it?" Edwards asked after Phelps detailed his struggle to put himself through college. Edwards, deeply tanned, was hairsprayed and in a blue dress shirt with no tie. His hands were folded on his lap and his head bobbed in a slow, understanding nod while dozens of cameras clicked and a loud TV reporter did a live shot 25 feet away.

It started to rain.

Shirley Wood was telling Edwards how she was just laid off from her job at GM. He told her he was the son of a mill worker and had seen, firsthand, the ravages of plant closings. And that he and John Kerry are committed to keeping jobs in the United States and enforcing trade agreements.

It started to rain harder.

"Time to wrap up," an advance man said, and the lights went off and everyone slopped through the mud back to their vans and buses and limousines.

And Edwards thanked his panel of regular people for a "really great discussion," which lasted a total of 12 minutes.

Holding an Audience


Both Cheney and Edwards are at their best before small groups. Cheney, who had planned to teach political science before he entered politics, speaks into his chin, in the matter-of-fact mumbles of a professor who has been teaching the same class for 35 years. Sometimes, when the questions are asked, he looks distracted (he began swabbing his ear with his pinkie in Joplin). But he conveys the authority of one who has clearly been around and knows more than he's telling.

Edwards honed his speaking skills in front of juries. He is a whiz at eye contact and holding his hands far apart to project openness. He looks like a terrific listener, cocking his head, nodding rhythmically, asking empathetic questions. He looks like he feels your pain.

Cheney has been briefed on your pain. But his mind is heavy with the ominous. He is at his most commanding when discussing the prospective horrors of the post-9/11 age -- bioterror, beheadings. Speaking in a grave monotone, like the narrator of a Civil War documentary, Cheney leaves the hope-and-optimism stuff for the president.

The enemy is "sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal," Cheney said in a speech in Dayton, quoting from the 9/11 commission report. It's inevitable that the United States will be hit again. He leaves people nodding.

Edwards leaves them pumped. He is a rollicking speaker, with a booming, drawling voice that gains momentum as he goes. After the front porch meeting, Edwards addressed a rally of 1,000 people who waited in the rain for him to arrive at Mott Community College in Flint. "HELLO, FLINT!" Edwards yelled like an arena rocker, making sure to sure to "thank y'all for waitin' out in the rain" and stirring his crowds to responsive chants of "Hope is on the way."

Edwards's surefire applause lines include: The GOP is bent on "tearing us apart, not bringing us together," any reference to nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the president's "go it alone" foreign policy, the shame of having 35 million people living in poverty in the United States, the need for a higher minimum wage and the acknowledgment that the country has "a long way to go" on civil rights.

Cheney's applause lines include: the need to confirm the Bush administration's judicial nominations, the need to curtail "junk lawsuits," mentions of God, particularly as relating to attempts to strike the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, and any mention of "the sanctity of life," tax relief, the right to bear arms and George W. Bush.

Edwards is often accompanied by his two young children, ages 4 and 6. Cheney was joined last week by his daughter Liz, who was backstage bottle-feeding her 5-week-old son, Philip. Lynne Cheney mentioned Philip while introducing her husband in Battle Creek, Mich., assuring everyone that they are "training him to be a Republican."

Cheney often begins his speeches by saying something about the place he's visiting. "People call Battle Creek the breakfast capital of the world," he said of the city that is home to the Kellogg corporation. "From the looks of things," he said, looking out at the ticket-holding crowd of 400, "Battle Creek is the Bush-Cheney capital of the world."

From the looks of things, the Bush-Cheney capital of the world ends at the walls of Lakeview High School. Outside, 150 protesters were holding Kerry-Edwards and other signs ("Where are the jobs? Where are those WMDs?)."

As he did during his campaign for the Democratic nomination, Edwards talked relentlessly about his humble beginnings as a millworker's son in the Carolinas. He told how he was the first person in his family to go to college and how he saw the injustice of racial discrimination firsthand growing up in the South. Edwards -- who is likely to run for president in 2008 or 2012 -- talks much more about himself in speeches than does Cheney, who has no interest in seeking the Oval Office.

Edwards's speech in Flint was interrupted by chants of "Edwards, Edwards," which he acknowledged with pumped fists.

Cheney's was interrupted by chants of "four more years," which he acknowledged by quipping "I accept," a retort that serves the dual purpose of drawing laughter and shutting people up so the vice president can get on with his speech.

Attack Dogging


Cheney's attacks are often sarcastic. He frequently quotes Kerry's statement that he both supported and opposed the funding to provide resources to U.S. troops in Iraq: "I actually voted for the $87 million before I voted against it."

"Well," Cheney says, "that certainly clears things up."

Lynne Cheney is an able attack dog in her own right.

"I'd like to direct this question to Mrs. Cheney," one supporter asked in Joplin. "Senator Kerry has made the statement that he'd like to fight a more sensitive war on terror. What could he possibly mean by that?"

He was referring to a speech by Kerry last week in which he said, "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history."

Kerry's "more sensitive" quote would become the centerpiece of an attack that Cheney would launch against him in a speech the next day. Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Anne Womack said none of the town meeting questions were scripted and that the timing of the man's question was "purely coincidental."

Either way, Lynne Cheney can wax sarcastic in her own right . "I can't imagine al Qaeda is going to be impressed with our sensitivity," she said, going on to say that Kerry's philosophy is akin to "the kind of left-wing foolishness that suggests that problem is somehow with us, not the terrorists who attacked us."

While Dick Cheney derides Kerry with a kind of grandfatherly disdain, Edwards attacks Bush with the polished outrage of a lawyer. His eyes go squinty and his voice low and even. At the Flint rally on Friday, Edwards defended Kerry from Cheney's attack the previous day.

"The vice president picked out one word and distorted it to argue that John Kerry will not keep America safe." He reeled off the standard litany of Kerry's Vietnam exploits: how he volunteered for duty after college, how he suffered injuries, how he saved the life of a crewmate. And the home crowd loved it.

Pressing the Flesh


Cheney says he likes to campaign, to meet people. But his manner on the stump often betrays all the joy of someone cleaning an oven. After speaking to a rally at a high school in Battle Creek, the vice president grimaced forth and worked a ropeline, the back of his bald head now covered in red, white and blue confetti. Edwards lunges into crowds, grabbing for every hand and clutching them for several seconds at a time. Cheney approaches handshakes as if trying to pick mosquitoes out of the air with one hand. He makes quick and minimal contact.

Edwards loves babies and toddlers. In Flint, he leaned four-deep into a crowd so he could grab tow-headed Bennett Rauscher, 2 1/2, of East Lansing. He held him, hugged him and hoisted him for the cameras.

"Hey, he has a sister, too," Bennett's mom yelled to Edwards, and Edwards gladly performed the same routine with twin sister Audrey.

When a woman in Battle Creek handed Cheney her baby, he carried the kid for a few seconds and then handed him back, no kiss. In the next three minutes, he would quick-pinch about 100 more hands.

As he walked out a back door, the vice president vigorously rubbed his hands with sanitizing lotion provided by an aide.

Faces in the Crowd


One of the odd things about a Dick Cheney event is that many people in the crowd and dignitaries on the podium look like Dick Cheney. There appears to be a higher proportion of bald, white men wearing glasses here than in the general population. They exude calm, certainty and, not surprisingly, unabashed love for the president and his Christian values, and flagrant distaste for his opponent.

"I just saw something on 'Hannity & Colmes' about Kerry," said Teece Davenport, a bartender from Joplin. "Some of his shipmates in Vietnam were questioning his integrity. He sounds like a big liar to me."

Of Edwards, Joe Barfield of Carl Junction, Mo., said, "I have no respect for some guy who goes around chasing ambulances."

And the sentiment is mutual.

"I think Cheney is a [expletive] corporate thug," said Larry Roehrig, the secretary and treasurer of Michigan AFSCME Council 25, who attended both Edwards events in Flint. "And his buddy Bush comes off like a spoiled rich kid to us union members."

"Finally, after four years, we'll have a vice president who smiles," said former Minnesota governor Wendell Anderson, who introduced Edwards at a rally Friday night in Minneapolis. "We'll even have a vice president who enjoys campaigning, that loves people."

Who says this country is divided?

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Out of Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations

NY TIMES
August 14, 2004

By JOEL BRINKLEY

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 - April 21 was an unusually violent day in Iraq; 68 people died in a car bombing in Basra, among them 23 children. As the news went from bad to worse, President Bush took a tough line, vowing to a group of journalists, "We're not going to cut and run while I'm in the Oval Office."

On the same day, deep within the turgid pages of the Federal Register, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause "substantial competitive harm" to manufacturers.

As soon as the rule was published, consumer groups yelped in complaint, while the government responded that it was trying to balance the interests of consumers with the competitive needs of business. But hardly anyone else noticed, and that was hardly an isolated case.

Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives. Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders while dismaying interest groups representing consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others.

And most of it was done through regulation, not law - lowering the profile of the actions. The administration can write or revise regulations largely on its own, while Congress must pass laws. For that reason, most modern-day presidents have pursued much of their agendas through regulation. But administration officials acknowledge that Mr. Bush has been particularly aggressive in using this strategy.

"There's been more federal regulations, more regulatory notices, than previous administrations," said Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, though he attributed much of that to the new rules dealing with domestic security.

Scott McClellan, the chief White House spokesman, said of the changes, "The president's common-sense policies reflect the values of America, whether it is cracking down on corporate wrongdoing or eliminating burdensome regulations to create jobs."

Some leaders of advocacy groups argue that the public preoccupation with war and terrorism has allowed the administration to push through changes that otherwise would have provoked an outcry. Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, says he does not think the administration could have succeeded in rewriting so many environmental rules, for example, if the public's attention had not been focused on national security issues.

"The effect of the administration's concentration on war and terror has been to prevent the public from focusing on these issues," Mr. Pope said. "Now, when I hold focus groups with the general public and tell them what has been done, they exclaim, 'How could this have happened without me knowing about it?' "

The administration has often been stymied in its efforts to pass major domestic initiatives in Congress. Even when both houses have been under Republican control, Senate Democrats, using parliamentary rules, have been able to block legislation eagerly sought by the White House and business groups, including bills on energy, bankruptcy and medical malpractice. So officials have turned to regulatory change.

Chad Colton, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, which approves all new regulations, defends the administration's handling of new rules, saying: "The process is very open, very transparent. Some regulations we post get hundreds of comments, even thousands." Mr. Colton acknowledged that most comments came from industry or from public interest groups. "But those groups represent consumers."

Clarence Ditlow, who directs one of those public interest groups, the Center for Auto Safety, said: "People in my line of work are frustrated. We try to work harder. But the amount of media attention and public attention to consumer issues has gone way, way down since 9/11."

Stuart M. Butler, senior domestic policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, while agreeing that the wars "push a lot of other issues off the page, literally and figuratively," said, "It cuts both ways." The White House "also can't get traction on issues they care about, like Social Security reform, because of all the noise from the war in Iraq."

Bush administration officials and their allies say they use regulations because new laws are not needed for many of the changes they have made and going to Congress every time would be needlessly complicated. But Representative David R. Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who is the ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee, said regulatory changes did not benefit from the "checks and balances and oversight" that Congress provides.

New regulations first appear as notices of proposed rule-making in the Federal Register, which is published every weekday. Generally, government officials and others directly concerned with government business read this dense publication.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published the new rule on the public release of auto-safety information on July 28, 2003, but outside the industry hardly anyone took notice. In the following months, allies of tire manufacturers and automakers flooded the agency with comments, and all of them "contended that the release of early warning data is likely to cause substantial competitive harm," the agency said. At the same time, consumer groups argued that the data "should be released because it is important to the identification of potential defects," the agency added.

When the agency published a revised final rule on April 21, 2004, it exempted from public release warranty-claim information, industry reports on safety issues and consumer complaints, among other data, saying that releasing that information would cause "substantial competitive harm."

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, filed suit, saying consumers needed the data to inform themselves about unsafe vehicles and tires. But Ray Tyson, the chief spokesman for the highway safety agency, said: "The suggestion that the American consumer is missing out is off the mark. I can't believe this information would be of much interest to the general public."

A Pro-Business Tilt

The overall regulatory record shows that the Bush administration has heeded the interests of business and industry. Like the Reagan administration, which made regulatory reform a priority, officials under Mr. Bush have introduced new rules to ease or dismantle existing regulations they see as cumbersome. Some analysts argue that the Bush administration has introduced rules favoring industry with a dedication unmatched in modern times.

"My thoughts go back to Herbert Hoover," said Robert Dallek, the presidential historian. "No president could have been more friendly to business than Hoover" until the Bush administration.

While John D. Graham, administrator of information and regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, does not dispute the administration's pro-business tilt, he said there had been notable exceptions, which his office approved when government officials "provided adequate scientific and economic justification."

Examples, Mr. Graham added, include "stricter fuel-saving rules for S.U.V.'s" and "a 90-percent reduction in diesel-engine exhaust," as well as "mandatory criteria for the lifesaving performance of side-impact air bags" in cars.

But examples of countervailing, business-friendly changes abound, some that broke through the flak thrown up from the wars, and others that remain little known.

The administration, at the request of lumber and paper companies, gave Forest Service managers the right to approve logging in federal forests without the usual environmental reviews. A Forest Service official explained that the new rule was intended "to better harmonize the environmental, social and economic benefits of America's greatest natural resource, our forests and grasslands."

In March of 2003, the Mine Safety and Health Administration published a proposed new regulation that would dilute the rules intended to protect coal miners from black-lung disease. The mine workers union called the new rules "extremely dangerous," while a mine safety administration official contended, "We are moving on toward more effective prevention of black-lung disease."

In May 2003, the Bush administration dropped a proposed rule that would have required hospitals to install facilities to protect workers against tuberculosis. Hospitals and other industry groups had lobbied against the change, saying that it would be costly and that existing regulations would accomplish many of the same aims.

But workers unions and public health officials argued that the number of tuberculosis cases had risen in 20 states and that the same precautions that were to have been put into place for tuberculosis would also have been effective against SARS.

The next month, the Department of Labor, responding to complaints from industry, dropped a rule that required employers to keep a record of employees' ergonomic injuries. Labor unions complained that without the reporting, it would be difficult to identify dangerous workplaces. But the department, in a statement, argued that the records "would not provide additional information useful to identifying possible causes or methods to prevent injury."

The administration's 2004 budget proposed to cut 77 enforcement and related positions from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, while adding two new staff members whose jobs would be to help industry comply with agency rules. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao explained to a House committee that the agency would "continue to target inspections based on the worst hazards and the most dangerous workplaces." As the budget proposal was announced, President Bush and other senior officials focused most of their remarks on the large increases proposed for defense and domestic security.

A Case of Tired Truckers

In one little-known case, litigants say the administration managed to turn a Congressional mandate on its head. In 1995, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a startling study on fatal truck accidents. Thousands of people die on the highways each year in collisions with heavy trucks. The board studied 107 crashes in which the truck driver survived and found that more than half resulted from truck-driver fatigue. Nineteen of the truckers admitted to falling asleep at the wheel.

As a result of that report, Congress the same year ordered the government to revise driving-hour rules for truckers. Under regulations unchanged since 1939, truckers could drive 10 hours at a stretch and then had to rest for eight hours. The rules, Congress said, were to be changed to "reduce fatigue-related incidents and increase driver alertness." At that time, both the Senate and the House were under Republican control, and lawmakers began debating what to do.

The truck-related accident death toll hit a new high in 1997; 5,398 people died. Congress went further in 1999 and created a new federal agency, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and the Clinton administration set a goal of reducing truck-related accident fatalities by half over the following 10 years.

Consumer and driver-safety groups, including Public Citizen and Parents Against Tired Truckers, started lobbying the new agency to shorten the number of hours drivers could stay behind the wheel. But trucking industry officials argued that shorter shifts would disrupt delivery schedules, which in turn would raise prices on thousands of products delivered by truck.

Last year, the Department of Transportation finally issued a new rule, saying in a prepared statement that it would "save hundreds of lives" and "protect billions in commerce." The change would increase allowable driving time from 10 hours without a break to 11 hours. But after 11 hours, drivers would have to take 10 hours off instead of eight.

Trucking companies said they were satisfied with the rule while truck drivers deplored it, saying the added hours of driving time would increase driver fatigue.

Public Citizen and the other safety groups filed suit, saying the new rule, in all its detail, actually increased driving hours per week by 30 percent. The suit is pending. Joan Claybrook, the president of Public Citizen, said the new rule "does nothing positive, it does a lot of negative, and it's a big waste of four years' effort."

Courts Have Their Say

For all the ambition behind the campaign to remake the government's regulatory structure, courts have forced the administration to pull back a striking number of initiatives.

Last August, for example, the administration relaxed its clean-air rules by allowing thousands of corporations to upgrade their plants without having to install expensive pollution-control equipment, saying that would allow plants to modernize more easily, leading to greater efficiency and lower consumer costs.

Utilities had lobbied for change; environmental groups filed suit. In December, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked the rule, at least temporarily, indicating that the court doubted the administration had authority to modify the Clean Air Act by regulation.

In a case involving air-conditioners, the Department of Energy announced in May 2002 that it would weaken a standard issued during the Clinton administration to make home air-conditioners more efficient. The department did order an efficiency increase, but less than had been mandated under Mr. Clinton. An Energy Department official said: "This is not a rollback. It is an increase" in efficiency.

Major air-conditioner manufacturers had lobbied against the improved efficiency standard, saying the new models would be unaffordable. Right away, the attorneys general from seven states, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California, filed suit to restore the old standard. In January of this year, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled that the Bush administration did not have the legal right to revise the efficiency rule.

While the administration has had some successes in relaxing environmental rules, other changes have been stymied by the courts. A federal judge blocked a plan by the Department of the Interior to allow an energy company to drill for oil at one proposed location, adjacent to the Arches National Park in Utah, saying the government had not adequately considered the environmental impact of the plan. And an Interior Department judicial agency blocked a plan to develop the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.

Still, the administration is pleased with its overall record of regulatory change. Mr. Graham, the budget office official, eagerly acknowledged that the regulatory tilt had been toward business. "The Bush administration has cut the growth of costly business regulations by 75 percent, compared to the two previous administrations," he said.

Representative Obey said he believed most Americans remained unaware of many of the changes.

"Most people are busy just trying to make a living," he said. "And with all the focus on Iraq and bin Laden, it gives the administration an opportunity to take a lot of loot out the back door without anybody noticing."

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Report Finds Tax Cuts Heavily Favor the Wealthy

NY TIMES
August 13, 2004

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 - Fully one-third of President Bush's tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday.

The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings - averaging about $57,000 a year - were getting an average cut of only $1,090.

The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush's tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers. Those are also the people, however, who pay a disproportionate share of federal income taxes.

The calculations, which were requested by Congressional Democrats, are all but certain to intensify a central debate between Mr. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Mr. Bush has argued that the tax cuts provided crucial support to the economy at a time when it was mired in a recession and reeling from the effects of a stock market collapse, terrorist attacks and corporate scandals.

Mr. Kerry has argued that the cuts were tilted so much in favor of the wealthy that they provided relatively little stimulus to the economy and set the stage for record budget deficits. Since 2001, the federal budget has deteriorated from a surplus of more than $100 billion to a deficit expected to exceed $400 billion in 2004.

Mr. Bush's top economic priority has been to make his tax cuts permanent, rather than letting them expire at the end of this decade as they would under current law. Mr. Kerry would seek to roll back the tax cuts for households with incomes above $200,000 a year, a move his campaign estimates would save $860 billion over 10 years, and use that money in large part to pay for a vast new national health care plan.

According to the new report from the Congressional Budget Office, about two-thirds of the benefits from the tax cuts, enacted in 2001 and 2003, went to households in the top fifth of earnings, with an average income of $203,740.

But the report also gave Republicans support for their contention that tax reduction had brought some benefit to people in almost all income categories. People with the bottom fifth of income, for example, averaging earnings of only $16,620, saw their effective tax rate drop to 5.2 percent from 6.7. Yet because lower- and many middle-income families had been paying very little federal income tax in the first place, those in that bottom fifth of earnings received an average tax cut of only $250.

"It doesn't matter who you are, the report shows that you are better off now than you were before the tax cuts,'' said a House Republican aide. "It's showing that everybody's tax burden has gone down as a result of the tax cuts.''

The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 reduced tax rates for people in all income brackets. But they had a disproportionate effect on people at the very highest income levels because they had already been paying a disproportionate share of total federal taxes and in part because stock dividends got a special lower rate.

People in the very top income categories fared better by almost any measure, according to the report. The average after-tax income for people in the top 1 percent of income earners climbed 10.1 percent, while that of those in the middle 20 percent climbed 2.3 percent, and that of those in the bottom fifth only 1.6 percent.

Put another way, people with the top 1 percent of income saw their share of the tax burden drop to 20.1 percent after the tax cuts from 21.9 percent under the old law.

William G. Gale, a longtime tax analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the new Congressional report was consistent with his own calculations on the distribution of benefits from Mr. Bush's tax cuts.

"It's not just that lower-income people are getting smaller benefits,'' Dr. Gale said. "It's also that these tax cuts will eventually have to be paid for with either spending cuts or tax increases, and those are likely to be less progressive than the taxes they are paying now.''

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The Doctored Clip Sean Hannity Doesn't Want You to Know About

From americanprogress.org

The Doctored Clip Sean Hannity Doesn't Want You to Know About

August 12, 2004

In June, John Podesta appeared on Sean Hannity's radio program and confronted him with a Center for American Progress document detailing 15 distortions that Hannity had made on the air. Hannity, true to form, changed the subject, instead accusing Podesta of lying. When a New York Observer reporter this week raised the subject again, Hannity was forced to do a little cutting and splicing in order to "prove" that Podesta had lied on his program. This heavily-edited clip now appears on his Web site. It's missing critical audio from the Podesta interview.

Transcript of Hannity's doctored clip:

HANNITY: When Howard Dean advances the theory that George Bush knew about 9/11 ahead of time, I can't find you on record condemning that.

JDP: Howard Dean never said that, Sean.

HANNITY: Howard Dean advanced the theory. He said it was an interesting theory.

JDP: He never said that, Sean.

HANNITY: He advanced the theory, John. John, don't lie. He said—

JDP: Don't call me a liar. Sean, you said that I called you a liar during the whole front hour…

HANNITY: He advanced the theory…

JDP: I never called you a liar. I said you get distant from the facts.

[7 MINUTES, 10 SECONDS OF AUDIO CUT]

DEAN: The most interesting theory that I've heard so far...

[4 SECONDS OF AUDIO FROM MIDDLE OF DEAN SENTENCE CUT]

...is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is.

[50 SECONDS OF AUDIO CUT]

HANNITY: He advanced the theory. Why would he say it if he wasn't advancing it?

JDP: Get him on the air and ask him that.

[8 SECONDS OF AUDIO CUT]

JDP: I just said that I disagreed with him if that's what he meant.

[AUDIO CUT]

What Hannity Cut Out:

1. Dean said the theory was nothing more than a theory.

Missing from the Dean clip is the crucial middle clause of his sentence. Of the theory, he said, it "is nothing more than a theory, it can't be proved." Also missing from the Hannitized version of the interview: Dean said, "No, I don't believe that. I can't imagine the president of the United States doing that."

2. Podesta knew Dean's quotes didn't add up to supporting the theory.

Podesta said both, "I don't think that's what those statements implicate," and, "It didn't sound to me like that's what he said."

3. Podesta called the theory in question "dead wrong."

Podesta disclaimed it completely, saying, "If Howard Dean was suggesting that the President knew about 9/11 and did nothing about it, then I think he's dead wrong."

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Kerry vs. Bush: Values. Valor. Compassion. Leadership.

Kerry:
Good sport in school.

Bush:
Sucker punched another player.

Kerry:
Volunteered to serve his country, despite family links that could have gotten him softer duty. Went to Viet Nam.

Bush:
Used family links to get into National Guard.

Kerry:
Was a hero to many, including acting swiftly and decisively to save the life of one of his men. Every man who served under Kerry would trust him with their lives. Kerry also saved the life of a Republican member of Congress years later by performing heimlich maneuver.

Bush:
A.W.O.L. from National Guard. Failed to act swiftly and decisively when the USA was under attack.

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George W. Bush sucker-punches a rugby opponent at Yale

Here's the photo.


See the link for the details.
http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2004_08_08.html#001687

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Statistics regarding cable coverage of the Democratic Convention

Statistics from Media Matters for America:

• Former President Jimmy Carter: FOX News Channel aired just over four minutes of Carter's speech; CNN and MSNBC aired almost 14 minutes.

• Former Vice President Al Gore: FOX News Channel aired 45 seconds of Gore's speech; CNN and MSNBC aired 13 minutes.

• Senator Edward Kennedy: FOX News Channel aired a little more than four minutes of Kennedy's speech; CNN and MSNBC aired 25 minutes of his speech.

• Ret. General Wesley Clark: FOX News Channel aired none of Clark's speech; CNN aired about two minutes and MSNBC aired almost 11 minutes.

• Reverend Al Sharpton: FOX News Channel aired two and a half minutes of Sharpton's speech live; CNN aired almost 20 minutes, and MSNBC aired almost 17 minutes.

• Overall, Fox aired 3 hours 40 minutes live—an hour and 16 minutes less than CNN, and an hour and 47 minutes less than MSNBC.

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GOP Loyalty Oath Causing Problems

A Republican National Committee practice of having people sign a form endorsing President Bush or pledging to vote for him in November before being issued tickets for RNC-sponsored rallies is raising concern among voters. When Vice President Dick Cheney spoke July 31 to a crowd of 2,000 in Rio Rancho, a city of 45,000 near Albuquerque, several people who showed up at the event complained about being asked to sign endorsement forms in order to receive a ticket to hear Cheney.

"Whose vice president is he?" said 72-year-old retiree John Wade of Albuquerque, who was asked to sign the form when he picked up his tickets. "I just wanted to hear what my vice president had to say, and they make me sign a loyalty oath.

Full article:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/09/bush_backers_only_policy_riles_voters_at_rnc_rallies?mode=PF

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Bush's nominee for CIA director says he's not qualified

Filmmaker Moore Quotes Goss on Lack of CIA Credentials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Congressman Porter Goss, President Bush's nominee for CIA director, could be his own worst enemy when it comes to making the case that he deserves to lead the U.S. intelligence agency.

"I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified," the Florida Republican told documentary-maker Michael Moore's production company during the filming of the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Full article at:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=5944517

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Al Franken Radio Show to Be on Cable TV

NEW YORK - Satirist-commentator Al Franken will return to his TV roots next month when his radio show begins appearing on cable's Sundance Channel.

Beginning Sept. 7, "The Al Franken Show," heard live each weekday from noon to 3 p.m. Eastern on Air America Radio, will go on display in a one-hour edition on Sundance each night at 11:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m., executives at both networks told The Associated Press on Monday.

The "Franken" TV hour is currently scheduled through the November election, but all parties voiced hope the show would continue on Sundance indefinitely.

"It would be nice if it were a permanent home," Franken said.

A writer-performer who helped launch NBC's "Saturday Night Live" three decades ago, Franken in recent years has been more identified as a left-leaning political humorist whose best-selling books include "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."

He became a talk-show host when Manhattan-based Air America signed on in March as a response to the mostly conservative world of talk radio. At Air America, Franken joined a roster of other liberal personalities including actress-comedian Janeane Garofalo (news), radio veteran Randi Rhodes and Lizz Winstead, a co-creator of "The Daily Show."

The Air America network includes stations in 19 markets and growing. Markets include New York, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Anchorage, Alaska, and San Diego. It is also heard on the XM and Sirius satellite radio networks, as well as through the Internet on streaming audio.

Distribution through Sundance will mean welcome added exposure for the show, and Air America overall, said Doug Kreeger, the network's chairman.

"It takes the network and lets people see how it works," he said. "It puts a face to our voice."

Each day, with co-host Katherine Lanpher, Franken offers irreverent commentary, interviews and comedy segments often with an anti-Bush Administration theme: "Anything I can do to get this guy out of office I'll do, and to get (John) Kerry in," he said.

Franken's unabashedly partisan slant was somewhat beside the point in bringing him to Sundance, said Larry Aidem, president of the network (a venture between Robert Redford, NBC Universal and Showtime Networks Inc.).

"In a digital television environment, it is important to be relevant and talked about," said Aidem, "but that's not to say we'll do anything to get on the radar screen."

More important, he said, was the effect the Franken show would have on broadening the scope of the network, whose primary focus is independent feature films and documentaries.

"This is an opportunity for us to be in partnership with a personality who we think is extremely attractive to our audience," he said — "someone funny, smart, insightful."

"They just approached us, and we said yes," Franken explained when asked how the Sundance alliance happened.

"I don't know how much I'm going to make an effort to adapt the show to TV," he added, suggesting he might follow the example of Don Imus, whose widely syndicated radio show has been simulcast on cable's MSNBC since 1996.

"Imus does nothing to adapt to TV but sit up straight," Franken said.

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Malpractice Makes Perfect

How the GOP milks a bogus doctors' insurance crisis.

Great article:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0310.mencimer.html

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BOOK'S AUTHORS -- A BIGOT AND A 30-YEAR ANTI-KERRY CRUSADER

From americanprogressaction.org
August 10, 2004

As a sequel to their dishonest TV ads, SBVT is planning the release of a new book on Aug. 15. The book -- which has already soared to number one on the Amazon bestseller list -- is expected to expand on the same discredited allegations featured in the TV spot.

It is co-authored by Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D. MediaMatters.org has complied a dossier of Corsi's screeds (http://mediamatters.org/items/200408060010) which he has been posting on an Internet bulletin board for the last three years.

Corsi on Islam: "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion."

Corsi on Hillary Clinton: "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything is she?"

Corsi on Muslims: "Ragheads are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together."

The book's author, John O'Neill -- member of the SBVT steering committee -- is a longtime Republican operative. O'Neill was recruited by President Richard Nixon (http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040004) in the 1970s to be a counterfoil to Kerry when he was advocating for the end of the Vietnam War.

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TELL BUSH TO HONOR HIS OWN WISHES FROM 1992

From americanprogressaction.org
August 10, 2004

What a difference a decade makes. According to the 7/14/92 Washington Post, George W. Bush wrote a letter in 1992 on behalf of his father's presidential campaign to 85,697 campaign contributors condemning an operation attempting to smear Bill Clinton and encouraging them not to contribute to the effort.

E-mail George W. Bush (mailto:president@whitehouse.gov) and tell him to follow his own example by condemning the smear tactics of the SBVT and urging his contributors not to finance their activities.

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Letting the Cronies Off

From americanprogressaction.org
August 10, 2004

Just one day after attending a church service where the topic was the excesses of wealth (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0808-06.htm) , President Bush joked about taxes, saying "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes (http://www.wtopnews.com/?sid=243903&nid=25) anyway." The statement was a sharp departure from his past tough talk on tax enforcement. Just four months ago, the president claimed he wanted "to make sure that tax cheaters are found (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040415-7.html) , make sure the IRS gets after those who don't pay taxes; make sure that the system is fair for those of us who do pay taxes. We want everybody paying their fair share." Unfortunately, though, yesterday's quip was far more indicative of the White House's record on taxes than the tough talk from before. The Bush administration has simultaneously reduced audits of the biggest corporations (many of which finance its political campaigns) while increasing scrutiny of indivduals. More specifically, that increased scrutiny has fallen on the working poor, even as high-income and corporate tax cheating increases.

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Man Kerry Rescued Calls Swift Boat Ad False: Gives Vivid Account of Rescue Under Enemy Fire

From FactCheck.org

In an Aug. 10 opinion piece in the conservative Wall Street Journal , Jim Rassmann -- the man Kerry rescued to win the Bronze Star -- says the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad was "launched by people without decency" who are "lying" and "should hang their heads in shame."

Rassmann said that after the first explosion that disabled PCF-3:

Rassmann: Machine-gun fire erupted from both banks of the river and a second explosion followed moments later. The second blast blew me off John's swift boat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats would run me over, I swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as I could hold my breath.

When I surfaced, all the swift boats had left, and I was alone taking fire from both banks. To avoid the incoming fire I repeatedly swam under water as long as I could hold my breath, attempting to make it to the north bank of the river. I thought I would die right there. The odds were against me avoiding the incoming fire and, even if I made it out of the river, I thought I thought I'd be captured and executed. Kerry must have seen me in the water and directed his driver, Del Sandusky, to turn the boat around. Kerry's boat ran up to me in the water, bow on, and I was able to climb up a cargo net to the lip of the deck. But, because I was nearly upside down, I couldn't make it over the edge of the deck. This left me hanging out in the open, a perfect target. John, already wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat, came out onto the bow, exposing himself to the fire directed at us from the jungle, and pulled me aboard.

Rassmann said he recommended Kerry for the Silver Star for that action, and learned only later that the Bronze Star had been awarded instead. "To this day I still believe he deserved the Silver Star for his courage," he wrote. Rassmann described himself as a retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have largely voted for Republicans," Rassmann said. But he said Kerry "will be a great commander in chief."

"This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency," Rassmann said. "Their new charges are false; their stories are fabricated, made up by people who did not serve with Kerry in Vietnam."

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Being Clear About Present Dangers

NY TIMES
August 11, 2004

By PHILIP BOBBITT

London — Within the last week, both the United States and the British governments have come in for criticism about how they alert their publics of impending terrorist attacks. In London, the minister for home affairs, David Blunkett, was accused of keeping the public in the dark over the extent of the terrorist threat to Britain; Tory opponents challenged him to release as much detail as the Bush administration had in the United States. In America, the secretary for homeland security, Tom Ridge, was accused of playing election-year politics by ratcheting up the alert level while praising "the president's leadership in the war against terror." The problem reached such a crisis that it now appears that a substantial intelligence asset was compromised in one official's desperation to convince the news media that yes, there really was information about an imminent attack even though some of it was years old.

There was a time when societies at war were willing to trust their leaders to decide when, from a strategic point of view, information could be safely released. In a way, this trust was responsible for the famous Coventry legend, the false story that Winston Churchill, despite knowing through decoded intercepts that the city of Coventry was about to be bombed, did not warn the residents so that he could preserve the secret that the British were reading encrypted German radio signals.

Different attitudes prevail today, even in Britain, and one must have some sympathy with the governments of both countries. On the one hand, no official wants to neglect giving a warning to the public that might save lives; on the other, such action awards the terrorists a costless if minor victory by terrorizing the population and using government channels to do it. If officials then try to minimize the impact of the warning with suggestions that the public go about its business as usual, they dilute the effectiveness of the announcement and encourage a complacency that they were trying to pierce in the first place.

There is always going to be some threatening chatter among our enemies. There are more than 4,000 Web sites maintained by terrorist groups, and specific targets, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or financial institutions in the United States and Britain, are openly discussed. Since Osama bin Laden's expressed goal is to weaken the West financially, every family that avoids a ballpark or decides not to take a vacation is advancing the aims of terrorists. It may be that people like Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft can take their children to the Statue of Liberty while maintaining the recommended "heightened awareness," but it sounds like a trip to hell to me.

While there are no perfect solutions to this conundrum, we could vastly improve our rules for warning if we stepped back and looked more closely at the strategy of alert systems.

First, let's distinguish between informing, alerting and warning. Informing, in this context, means simply putting into the public domain as much of what we know as we can without compromising intelligence sources and countermeasures. Alerting means contacting public officials and managers of the infrastructure in the private sector when we have a good reason for them to be on the alert. Warning means cautioning the public at large when we have something specific to warn them about and when we can couple that warning with advice on substantially reducing risks.

Now how does that play out in practice?

If the government believes it knows something is coming, but not where or when, it should inform the public about the nature of the threat - general information about Al Qaeda's activities and its expressed intentions. For example, Osama bin Laden has openly discussed his desire to acquire nuclear weapons and has, on at least one occasion, attempted to purchase nuclear materials. If the government thinks something is about to happen and believes it knows either where or when, but not both, it should alert not the public generally, but federal, state and local officials and private operators of the critical national infrastructure (banks, hospitals, energy links and power grids, etc.) that it, for example, believes Al Qaeda has targeted the Statue of Liberty but the attack could come five years from now. If the government believes it knows an attack is coming, and where and when it will occur, it should warn the public directly through the sort of press conference they have been using to announce general changes in the color-coded system.

The rationale for these distinctions arises from the strategic costs imposed on the United States and Britain by terrorists. If we confuse the terms inform, alert and warn, we inadvertently shift the calculus of costs to the terrorists' advantage. For example, if we alert when we should be informing, we unnecessarily increase costs and make the long-term (or the widespread) precautions that are imposed impossible to sustain. If we warn when we should be alerting, we invite the Chicken Little (or perhaps the Boy Who Cried Wolf) costs of making real warning more expensive to achieve. If we merely inform when we should be warning, we lose the trust of our people and make them prey to conspiracy theorists of all kinds, including the calculatedly malevolent.

The terrorists want the maximum effect with the minimum of risk. By confining our costs, we force them to escalate theirs - we force them, that is, to be more specific - and sooner or later we learn how to cross-hatch their threats to track down their operatives.

The general approach of empowering millions of persons by putting them on the lookout is a good one. It was, after all, an alert Border Patrol guard, not anyone in Washington, who foiled the so-called millennium plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport. But the color-coded system is too broad, too indiscriminate; there is a reason it is so easy to ridicule. The underlying problem is not so easy, but it is amenable to more careful thinking.

Philip Bobbitt, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of the forthcoming "The War on Terror.''

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Sidestepping Reform at the C.I.A.

NY TIMES
August 11, 2004

As the Sept. 11 commission made clear, the nation urgently needs to reorganize its intelligence agencies. Nominating a new candidate for the old, unreformed job of director of central intelligence, as President Bush did yesterday, is not the logical or appropriate place to start. Last week, Mr. Bush attempted to transform the powerful new position of national intelligence director, as proposed by the commission, into a neutralized bureaucratic cipher by depriving the office of any real authority. Now he once again seems intent on draining momentum from the idea of systematic intelligence reform.

Even under normal circumstances, it's questionable whether a president should try to install a new C.I.A. chief a few months before an election. Mr. Bush seems to be deliberately inviting a confirmation battle by turning to Representative Porter Goss of Florida, a partisan Republican and a man criticized for his close, protective relationship with that intelligence agency - where he once worked. After the catastrophic intelligence failures and oversight lapses of recent years, the Senate must rigorously examine Mr. Goss's suitability and political independence. But contentious confirmation hearings are likely to distract the Senate's attention from the far more important job of figuring out how to coordinate America's disparate and overlapping intelligence agencies and streamline a largely dysfunctional system of Congressional oversight.

Mr. Goss, who has served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee since 1997, shares some of the responsibility for the oversight breakdown. His embrace of the Sept. 11 report has been little better than lukewarm. While calling the committee back for August hearings, he has taken a go-slow attitude. The most important service he could perform for the country at this time would be to put his experience to work shaping reform legislation. Instead, he has been nominated for a job that will have to be thoroughly redefined.

The nation is now well aware that American intelligence operations are too far-flung and disorganized to respond to the complexities of the post-cold-war world. The Sept. 11 commission concluded that there should be a single official responsible for coordinating the intelligence work that is now spread among the C.I.A., the Defense Department and numerous other agencies.

To make the new coordinator more than a figurehead, the commission proposed that the job be endowed with power over the budgets of the various intelligence agencies and the appointment of their leaders. President Bush, in an attempt to get the credit for reform without the substance, announced his support for creating the new position - minus the budget and appointment powers. Congress has hardly begun to tackle the issue, but the president is already in the process of changing the conversation.

There is no reason the C.I.A.'s current acting director, John McLaughlin, cannot be kept in his job while the new structure is being designed. And no reason the appointment of a permanent successor cannot be delayed, at least until after the next presidential term begins in January.

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Spin the Payrolls

By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY TIMES
August 10, 2004

When Friday's dismal job report was released, traders in the Chicago pit began chanting, "Kerry, Kerry." But apologists for President Bush's economic policies are frantically spinning the bad news. Here's a guide to their techniques.

First, they talk about recent increases in the number of jobs, not the fact that payroll employment is still far below its previous peak, and even further below anything one could call full employment. Because job growth has finally turned positive, some economists (who probably know better) claim that prosperity has returned - and some partisans have even claimed that we have the best economy in 20 years.

But job growth, by itself, says nothing about prosperity: growth can be higher in a bad year than a good year, if the bad year follows a terrible year while the good year follows another good year. I've drawn a chart of job growth for the 1930's; there was rapid nonfarm job growth (8.1 percent) in 1934, a year of mass unemployment and widespread misery - but that year was slightly less terrible than 1933.

So have we returned to prosperity? No: jobs are harder to find, by any measure, than they were at any point during Bill Clinton's second term. The job situation might have improved somewhat in the past year, but it's still not good.

Second, the apologists give numbers without context. President Bush boasts about 1.5 million new jobs over the past 11 months. Yet this was barely enough to keep up with population growth, and it's worse than any 11-month stretch during the Clinton years.

Third, they cherry-pick any good numbers they can find.

The shocking news that the economy added only 32,000 jobs in July comes from payroll data. Experts say what Alan Greenspan said in February: "Everything we've looked at suggests that it's the payroll data which are the series which you have to follow." Another measure of employment, from the household survey, fluctuates erratically; for example, it fell by 265,000 in February, a result nobody believes. Yet because July's household number was good, suddenly administration officials were telling reporters to look at that number, not the more reliable payroll data.

By the way, over the longer term all the available data tell the same story: the job situation deteriorated drastically between early 2001 and the summer of 2003, and has, at best, improved modestly since then.

Fourth, apologists try to shift the blame. Officials often claim, falsely, that the 2001 recession began under Bill Clinton, or at least that it was somehow his fault. But even if you attribute the eight-month recession that began in March 2001 to Mr. Clinton - a very dubious proposition - job loss during the recession wasn't exceptionally severe. The reason the employment picture looks so bad now is the unprecedented weakness of job growth in the subsequent recovery.

Nor is it plausible to continue attributing poor economic performance to terrorism, three years after 9/11. Bear in mind that in the 2002 Economic Report of the President, the administration's own economists predicted full recovery by 2004, with payroll employment rising to 138 million, 7 million more than the actual number.

Finally, many apologists have returned to that old standby: the claim that presidents don't control the economy. But that's not what the administration said when selling its tax policies. Last year's tax cut was officially named the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 - and administration economists provided a glowing projection of the job growth that would follow the bill's passage. That projection has, needless to say, proved to be wildly overoptimistic.

What we've just seen is as clear a test of trickledown economics as we're ever likely to get. Twice, in 2001 and in 2003, the administration insisted that a tax cut heavily tilted toward the affluent was just what the economy needed. Officials brushed aside pleas to give relief instead to lower- and middle-income families, who would be more likely to spend the money, and to cash-strapped state and local governments. Given the actual results - huge deficits, but minimal job growth - don't you wish the administration had listened to that advice?

Oh, and on a nonpolitical note: even before Friday's grim report on jobs, I was puzzled by Mr. Greenspan's eagerness to start raising interest rates. Now I don't understand his policy at all.

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