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Sunday, February 27, 2005
WEEKEND UPDATE A Heavy Snow Warning is in effect for the entire area. The low pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico is strengthening faster than forecast by the models, and its large shield of precipitation has dead aim on our area.Excellent. After a mild December and a May-like January, we're finally getting a real winter. District public health officials, police and firefighters clad in white biohazard suits descended yesterday afternoon on the homes of the students, who live a few blocks apart in the Park View and Columbia Heights neighborhoods. In one home, officials said, firefighters found "low levels of mercury" in the air and concentrations of mercury in the pocket of a jacket stuffed in a closet. Aid, Rite Friday, February 25, 2005
Thursday, February 24, 2005
UNINFORMED COMMENT One of the most dishonest, defeatist commentators on Iraq these days is University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, who writes the "Informed Comment" blog.* Cole appears to be among those who believe the Shiite Iraqis will ally with, or at any rate prove to be little better than, the Iranian theocrats. This morning, Cole ominously reported: Al-Hayat has a long interview with an "informed Iraqi source" who is close to US officials in Iraq. He maintains that the US officials there were astounded that the United Iraqi Alliance did so well, and that they felt helpless and resigned as the process unfolded. He says that they are now asking privately if the US shed so much blood and treasure in Iraq to help fundamentalist Shiite allies of Iran take over Baghdad.This is almost surely wrong, as many have argued, including reformed pessimist Tom Friedman. Why would the U.S. fear Ayatollah Ali Sistani's party controlling the country? Cole doesn't explain. Sistani is about as moderate an Islamic cleric as you could hope for in that country: he helped quash Al-Sadr's brief insurgency, and has encouraged a pluralistic democracy. And why would we be "astounded" at this electoral result? Either Cole or Al-Hayat's source is ill-informed — possibly both. Elsewhere in the same post, Cole also writes: Now, the United Iraqi Alliance has 51 percent of the seats, having attacted the religious Shiite vote ... which is enough to confirm the new government once a cabinet is selectedUh, no. That's just factually wrong. The UIA actually got 48.1% — hence the haggling over who will be the next prime minister. And they only got that far with the help of Ahmed Chalabi's INC. And they'll still have to cut deals with the Kurds and others to assemble a ruling majority. Furthermore, Cole implies that Iyad Allawi is going to do something doubtlessly nefarious — his exact words: "some other purpose" — but doesn't even begin to hint at what. I'd also like to point out that fully 31% of all seats held in the Iraqi parliament will be held by women. That's the highest in the Arab world, and stands in sharp contrast with the recent electoral traveshamockery next door in Saudi Arabia. And it should take quell the alarmism from this old Cole post. No, Iraq won't be exactly like the United States. But it won't be Iran, either. P.S. — The funny thing is, Cole is willing to praise Iran when it suits him. His first post-election post inexplicably compared Iraq unfavorably with Iran's meaningless 1997 vote. Most anti-war bloggers simply ignored the Iraq election (Josh Marshall still hasn't mentioned it) but I can say this for Juan Cole: At least he was brave enough to let everyone know that he was "just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news coverage" that day. _____ * Cole is probably best known these days for accusing the pro-American Iraqi bloggers at Iraq the Model of being CIA stooges, for which the widely-read centrist blogger Jeff Jarvis slammed him as "pond scum." Wednesday, February 23, 2005
BRRRR!!!  Weather.com has been predicting up to 8" of snow beginning late tonight and continuing throughout tomorrow. Capital Weather has been more skeptical throughout the day, but even they're predicting 4"-7". Also, they've got a cool weather map. If the little black line separating the purple area from the pink area moves just one centimeter down, we could be getting that 8". I will be bitterly disappointed if it all comes to naught. After how cold it's been these past couple months, we deserve another snowfall. UPDATE, 7AM-ish — The DC public schools announced their closure this morning before a single flake had fallen. Lucky for them, and not so lucky for those of us who'll have to commute home later, the snow has been coming down steadily for a couple hours now. RE: MY HEALTH AND SAFETY This is what's going on outside my apartment complex, right now:     It's a good thing that mercury isn't airborne. UPDATE — Wait, wait ... what?!?! Who wants to help pay my medical bills? I'm taking pledges in the comments below ... UPDATE, 10PM-ish — Well, it looks like we're digging in for the long haul. See those port-a-johns on the back of that truck three photos off? Now they've joined several others on the opposite side of the street. It's difficult to tell what's going on from up here, and I don't have the digi handy to help confuse you as well. Know this: The fire trucks departed a few hours ago, but the police and various unknown public vehicles remain, as do the TV vans. I count three, but there's probably at least one more. Mercury may in fact be airborne on occasion, but I assume I would've been relocated to a hotel if it had been in this case. If this is the last post of the Washington Canard ever, well, then I assumed wrong. Tuesday, February 22, 2005
GONZO BUT NOT FORGOTTEN Blog gets the man exactly right. I offer up no eulogy of my own? Nay, my entire existence is one walking, drinking, cussing, smoking homage:   Although I do have to work on my typewriter-shooting. UPDATE — While I agree with Blog, I also have to agree with this much harsher take. What can I say, I'm of two minds on HST. Meanwhile, Tom Wolfe shares his memories. Sunday, February 20, 2005
MNEMONIC POSSESSION As closely as I'm following the Nationals these days, players not named Vinny Castilla, Nick Johnson, Cristian Guzman, and Esteban Loaiza remain a bit of a mystery to me (perhaps one could accuse me of living in the past). Sensing that there are a few out there who share this dilemma, BallWonk has started running a series of flash cards featuring my favorite squadron. First up: Er ... Vinny Castilla and Nick Johnson! P.S. — In other surfing-the-blogs-at-this-ungodly-hour news, and coincidentally, tangentially related to the subject of baseball, BlameBush! discovers what the newspapers are afraid to publish: U.S. intel czar-designate John Negroponte is no negro: John Negroponte, indeed! This has to be the worst case of deceptive labelling since Gaylord Perry. FOLLOWING UP ON THE LACK OF SCARE QUOTES Now that it's a three-day weekend and I'm procrastinating on projects with actual deadlines, and this being the deadliest day in Iraq since the elections, I figured it was the best moment to follow up on this post and see if anybody else had noted or corrected the AP's Maggie Michael (not Michaels, as I originally had it) for writing this paragraph: The U.S. military also reported Wednesday that a U.S. soldier assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action Tuesday in western Iraq. In addition, the bodies of eight Iraqis described as collaborators with U.S. forces were found in a desert area north of Baghdad.Emphasis mine, of course. I found this at the New York Times' website, and while that story is no longer available, versions featuring the same careless repetition of  propaganda are widely available on other newspaper sites. Oddly, the right-wing New York Post (currently the fourth result at the above link) edited the offending sentence but didn't remove the terrorist spin. The right-er Washington Times didn't touch it at all.Searching Google as well as Nexis I could find no example of a newspaper or website removing the line, but it's always possible one did. Meanwhile, my friend and milblogger Bryan from the E-R-C argued in a comment to my previous post that we shouldn't "place the onus of carelessness on one reporter's shoulders alone": It's a journalist's job to get to the truth of things. Ideally this involves cutting through the rhetoric employed by the various players in the game of impression management that surrounds any public event, most especially armed violence. ... These interested parties time events and successions to events in such a manner as to deliberately confound the media's ability to parse through spun information before moving to the next news item.My account, according to Bryan, "seems a cavalier dismissal of the extent of the problem." Nonsense. I made my assertion knowing full well that interested parties try to influence journalists all the time. If Maggie Michael didn't know exactly who the victims were, then she should have said their identities were yet unknown. There is no excusing what she wrote. Another reason Ms. Michael cannot defend herself on the basis of limited knowledge is because some versions of her story, like the one available from ABC News, include more information about the murdered Iraqis: Police found the bound, gagged bodies of eight Iraqis, mostly civilians who had worked at a U.S. military base, in shallow graves north of the Iraqi capital. All were shot in the back of the head.And not in the next sentence or paragraph: it comes nineteen paragraphs later. Whether she filed an update later or wrote one story that others truncated, she should have known what she was doing. It remains a possibility that this was just a case of mere carelessness, but we must also consider that this was an example of purposeful disregard. Update, early morning hours, still procrastinating — We "must" consider this? Well, it's up to you. Because I wasn't sure whether this was just an isolated incident or not, I logged into Nexis and searched for the terms "Iraqi" and "collaborators" occurring within three or so so words of each other in U.S. newspapers and wires during the past 90 days. Non-hyperlinked text of the results, cut-and-pasted, is here. There were 44 instances, and while plenty of reporters/agencies used scare quotes and/or clearly attributed the usage to terrorists (many of course say "insurgents," a more frequently debated word choice — and one which I would argue is less distateful than "collaborators") I quickly noticed that at least a few did not distance themselves from the term. A reporter with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Brian Thevenot, appears at first glance to have done so more than once. On the other hand, it seems that Agence France-Presse assiduously flags the term as questionable; perhaps once working under real collaborators left an impression. I haven't had the time to go through the whole thing, but it would seem there's something to all this. I'll dig deeper. Thursday, February 17, 2005
WASN'T HE ONCE SUPPOSED TO COME FOR MY UNCOOL NIECE? No sooner had I quoted the former Governor Moonbeam than it turns out my favorite California Democrat (besides Gray Davis), Edmund G. Brown Jr. himself, has joined the blogosphere. Best of luck, Jerry. Hope it works out better for you than Gary Hart's blog did for him. Which reminds me: there's something creepy about wandering around Wesley Clark's now-abandoned campaign blog. And there's something creepy about Wesley Clark, too. P.S. — I have successfully resisted the urge to rename the preceding post "The Other Dead Kennedy Center." THE OTHER KENNEDY CENTER Wherein I walk from Lincoln Park down East Capitol Street to RFK Stadium:  Don't get your hopes up. It's not that exciting.  Call now. Operators are standing by.  The once and future scene of Washington baseball. And when the Nationals either move: a) to their retro-futuristic new digs on the south waterfront, or b) to Las Vegas and become the Craps (that's the best I could think of) then it will be "once" once again.  DC isn't so special. Just like every city, it has an armory. And just like every city, that armory is a concert venue.  On the other side of the road, you've got ... gosh, this is dull. I'm getting out of here.  Somebody call Art Bell (weekends only) — I think I see contrails. Wednesday, February 16, 2005
PUT YOUR LITTLE HAND IN MINE The last time I posted a transcript from Larry King it was such a big hit (read: zero comments) that I would be foolish not to post a follow-up. So I'm working on a longer version of my first DCist post about Sonny Bono Memorial Park for another publication, and in my extended research I came across this hilarious bit from the end of a March 1996 episode of "Larry King Live": [Commercial break]I really have nothing to add to that. SHE COULDN'T EVEN USE SCARE QUOTES? About an hour ago, Associated Press writer Maggie Michaels filed a story from Baghdad about how Iraq's new prime minister will be either Ibrahim al-Jaafari or Ahmad Chalabi (ha!). Done with the top story, she moved right along to the unfortunate but necessary recap of the latest allied deaths: The U.S. military also reported Wednesday that a U.S. soldier assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action Tuesday in western Iraq. In addition, the bodies of eight Iraqis described as collaborators with U.S. forces were found in a desert area north of Baghdad.If they aren't really collaborators, then what were they? And who described them as such? Of course we know the answer to both of these questions: The slain men were Iraqi soldiers or police, and the missing "describers" were the terrorists who killed them and then released a statement. Could Ms. Michaels really be so dense as to know the word "collaborator" but know only its first definition and not its second? Unlikely. Why couldn't she just write "eight Iraqi security officials" and leave the murderers' opinion out of it? I'd like a correction. I'll be on the lookout. Tuesday, February 15, 2005
YOUR MISSION Too late, you've already accepted: Follow this link, and read the column you find there. All of it. Return tomorrow. Read that, too. Repeat until you have found true spiritual (not to mention political) enlightment. If you do this, I may get around to sharing some more pictures from the dark heart of NE DC. Enlightment may vary. Sunday, February 13, 2005
FREE ADVERTISING As promised, more pictures from last week's expedition to NE DC. Here's one just a block or so away from tony Lincoln Park, due East of the Capitol:  Yes, that's L-I-3 as in 5-4-3. Not as perplexing as JOCKO 1409, but still worth a double-take. Maybe they're just representing Long Island. Or maybe it's Chinese-owned? Anyway, if you decide to stop in at McCullers' Beauty Shop, tell 'em the Washington Canard sent you. LARRYZ NUTZ  Snoop Dogg was on Larry King a few days ago to defend himself against rape charges, and last night CNN replayed the two-segment interview. Snoop appeared sober and clear-headed, and actually did pretty well (it seems premature to say he "acquitted himself well"). You can read the full transcript here. But if you just want the good stuff, here are the two discussing Snoop's inclinations toward rape, or lack thereof: KING: Do you think having a -- you had a criminal record once. Do you think that is going to affect you in this lawsuit?In fact, apparently Snoop's even given up the gin and juice: SNOOP DOGG: Me personally, I don't really drink alcohol. So I can't say what other people was doing. But I know personally me, I don't going to down with alcohol like that. So, I would have to say no for myself.And there's more! See Snoop compare himself favorably with Ted Bundy: SNOOP DOGG: I want to go to court. I want them to come at me the way they come at real rapists. If somebody -- Ted Bundy was a rapist, right? I'm pretty sure they didn't get Ted Bundy and say, hey, Ted, we need to get $35 million out of you, and then we're going to try to prosecute you. They locked him up, and then they went after his money, if he had money. That's the proper way. That's the appropriate way. If you have a criminal act committed against you, you go to the law enforcement and you get that act handled. That didn't happen with me. My name was not named in none of the criminal acts that happened. I wasn't even in the building.Perhaps the best passage includes the phrases "Snooper Bowl" and "Come get at me, policeman": KING: [T]omorrow, you have the Snoop's Youth All-Star football game, the Snoop Bowl, right? The Snooper Bowl.Now, here's tha Top Dogg and tha King closing things out: KING: Does it make you feel an affinity for, like, Kobe Bryant or other celebrities charged with things?See you at the trizzack, Larry. For recent posts on Snoop's post-cred (and pre-rape allegation) career, click here and here. Saturday, February 12, 2005
DEANAPALOOZA  At this late date, there's nothing remotely newsworthy about Howard Dean's Wednesday rally at the Capitol City Brewing Co. next door to Union Station. Not after Byron York's too bored to be smug report on Thursday morning, and certainly not after today, when "The 447" named him "a piece of furniture." But I've got pictures, and you've got a few minutes to kill. They're a bit dark, though. This is because I didn't actually get in. Management stopped admitting entrants by about 8:00 p.m., but anticipating an outdoor crowd, they'd set up a bar on the Roman porch in front of the main hall. We couldn't see much, but they did place loudspeakers outside, and I decided to stick around and try the house amber ale (not bad). This is about what it looked like:  Dean spoke for less than half an hour, then gave a shorter speech to everyone outside, and worked the crowd. In appearances like this, he's still on the trail. And when he left, I could have sworn someone said Dean had "left the building."  Those picture-phone cameras will be in photographs at such events for a long time to come. But eventually I hope they go the way of the huge flashbulbs of the early 20th century.  Pleased to meet you! Hope you guess my name!  Capitol City opened the doors again pretty quickly, and so I got inside for the aftermath: people milling about. A side-note: I should really inquire about the name "Capitol City." The vastly more popular phrase is "capital city" (Exhibit A, Exhibit B). Capitol means the big building in the middle of the capital city. And here's some soft-core democracy porn:  In a previous post I linked to my DCist pre-game assessment, but this time I'll just selectively quote it and add commentary. I said to look for: Conciliatory statements toward Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.Check. It would only have been news had he not. But he paid proper tribute to the party's congressional leadership. More statements along the lines of: 'I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for,' which he said just a few days ago.Well, not so much. The most memorable line of the night, as York noted: "I'm trying to be restrained in my new role here in Washington."Dean has always been self-aware of his "excitability" (about which more in a bit) but he doesn't seem able to self-correct. And this is why I'm most happy he's won: speaking on behalf of the Washington "political mediasphere" (I don't think they'll mind) we're quite enthused about having Howard Dean to kick around some more. Will Chairman Dean be more like Governor Dean or Candidate Dean?This question was probably the wrong one. This was Dean at a rally, after all. Not a good indicator of how he'll run the office, or what strategic decisions he makes. If I was Dean, I'd give a round of interviews starting for the coming week and then stay off TV for a few months. He's got to prove he'll be more on the gubernatorial side. But there's another thing: A number of politicians and commentators supporting Dean have pointed to his innovative campaigning (blog activism, fundraising), but I submit that Dean was the least responsible for these developments. Credit Joe Trippi for getting his prophet thing going with the blog and attendant network of blogs and for the McCain-esque aura of openness around the camp. And credit the network of blogs, including (I'm sorry to say) the Kossacks. And then Steve McMahon for making that early ad buy in Iowa. It's easy to forget now, but it was that week in August '03 where reporters first attached word "frontrunner" to Dean. Sort of like Clinton's relatonship to the 1990s technology heyday, he'll get credit for it even if he wasn't the prime mover. Dean of course signed off on these ideas, for which he should get some credit. But Howard Dean's problem is akin to Andrew Sullivan's — they're both a little unstable, or as Kaus calls Sullivan, "excitable." Moody. Mercurial. It can make for great theater, but you wouldn't want him to run your business. Now I'm going to pretend you've been wondering: What do I think about Dean right now? I think he's got a better shot at helping his party win the White House next time than Terry McAuliffe ever had. Dean, or should I say his party's nominee, doesn't have to face Bush. (I'd be surprised if he broke his pledge not to run.) And lucky for them, it seems certain neither Jeb nor Arnold will be representing the "hate"-able other side. I think Gingrich said this week that Dean could help Hillary, if by continuing to be "exciteable" he makes her look stable and clear-headed. I generally would agree with this. She's one of the Senate's shrewdest operator and justified her place on the list of one-name celebrities. Perhaps I should to go back and re-read "No One Left To Lie To," Hitchens' "slow motion citizen's cardiac arrest of the Clinton presidency." At a bar last night I talked to someone who works in research at the DNC, and who indicated there will be a lot of turnover in the next few weeks. He didn't seem concerned with Dean taking over, but that's what I'd expect him to say. (I also met Max from P.J. O'Rourke's "The CEO of the Sofa." Seemed a decent chap. And I nearly got into a fistfight with the soon-to-be owner of this space (or something like it). But I think everything's fine now.) And lastly, here's a pointless rant: Was the pre-election party at a capital city bar an outburst of civic activism? Only partly. York likened the event to the glory days in 2003 when Dean was steamrolling the competition. This is about right. But the Dean movement is as an affinity group too, i.e. groupies, and this is what they do instead of go to rock shows. Which makes sense, considering most bands skip over DC on their East coast tours. With Dean just left, a man to my left said: "He's like a rock star. It's like the Beatles." See what I mean? Anecdotal evidence is good enough for a rant as pointless as this one. But let's not forget, Bill Clinton played saxophone, Joe Scarborough had his own rock band, and even John Ashcroft can carry a tune. John Kerry had a high school garage band. On the other hand, the Bushes aren't musically inclined, so far as I know. Politics and entertainment intersect a lot, because both sides are fascinated with each other. Rock of course mostly embraces the Democratic party, but exceptions exist: Bruce Springsteen hits the trail for Kerry, and Kid Rock almost played last month's inauguration. Dennis Hopper was there, too. This attitude basically allows Rolling Stone to dictate the definition of a political rock star to us. We don't want this. Jann Wenner once thought Al Gore qualified. Now, that is entirely too much politics for a lazy Saturday afternoon. I'll have more pictures from the heart of NE Massachusetts and East Capitol Street later. Thursday, February 10, 2005
NO ALTERNATIVE Starting this month, there's a new feature in the back of the Hill Rag (but not yet online) called "The Nose." Wait a minute, doesn't Baltimore's City Paper already have a regular column by that name? Yes, I think it does. And I'm pretty sure my hometown Willamette Week used to have a similar feature by the same name. Who is this Nose character? Any relation to Publius? Nevertheless, I welcome the new column, even if I rarely ever pick up the paper (or its sister covering my area, Capital North). It's bound to be more interesting than the hiatal Loose Lips in DC's City Paper, which I've always found perpetually dull. So leading off with a blurb on the Mayor-for-Life isn't a bad way to start: When former At-large Councilman, Mayor, Mayor, Mayor, Ward 8 Councilman, Mayor Marion Barry ran for the Ward 8 City Council seat last November, his slogan was 'Ward 8 Needs a Fighter.' On January 17th, one of his first actions as Ward 8 City Councilman was to cancel the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Parade in Ward 8 because he felt it was too cold.Hold on, which ward are we talking about here? Also: In their list of positions held by Barry, they forgot "federal prison inmate." Looks like "The Nose" has a few kinks to work out. Not Barry, though. He's in fine form: Participation in the parade was always free until this year when forms were distributed saying that checks were to be made payable to the Barry Parade Committee at $100 a whop.That old coot, he's still got it! Wednesday, February 09, 2005
THIS POST WON'T BE FUNNY IF YOU'RE ON THE SCHOOL BOARD Hey, 9/11 commission member/ex-Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer — you've just lost the race for Democratic chairman to Howard Dean! What are you going to do next? "Will I run for school board or dog catcher someday? I always want to reserve that possibility."If he runs and wins, why, before long he could be the highest-ranking Democrat in the country! (Actually, in Indiana...) Via Roll Call (sub. req.) WEISMAN REDUX Last week I gave the Post's Jon Weisman the benefit of the doubt when he royally screwed up an assessment of the emerging Social Security plan. Today I'm much less inclined to do so; his column today seems deliberately stacked against the Bush plan. Let's begin where he does: To conclude that Social Security is careening toward a crisis in 2042, President Bush is relying on projections that an aging society will drag down economic growth. Yet his proposal to establish personal accounts is counting on strong investment gains in financial markets that would be coping with the same demographic head wind.That's interesting. I honestly don't know enough about the debate to take a side. But it seems that Weisman already has; at the very least, he doesn't think it's important to fully explain both arguments. Consider Weisman's sourcing for the article ...
Are there instances in which the pro-reform crowd has a compelling argument against the status quo? Of course, but the Washington Post isn't interested. The assumption seems to be either a) everyone already knows those arguments, or b) it's Bush's job alone to sell it, or c) both. Therefore, any story that doesn't single out the Bush plan for criticism is just cheerleading. But that shouldn't be the case. Yes, most people are vaguely aware that Social Security is likely to run out of money and that it's a bad deal. Of course, we also know it will cost a lot to do anything about that. Both sides are worth exploring. Not to mention quoting. I haven't watched his byline enough in the past to know if this is his modus operandi. Now I'm paying attention. Tuesday, February 08, 2005
COME AGAIN? Found at 14th and Mass. Ave NE:  Interesting. I wonder if they're aware of the implications... Anyway, I walked at least 40 blocks this afternoon, from Union Station to RFK Stadium and back, scouting various monuments for upcoming DCist posts. My latest is on the "American Meridian" that once served as our prime meridian back before everyone threw their support to the Royal Greenwich Observatory. You can check it out here. (More recently at DCist, I've weighed in on Howard Dean and reported on the Nationals.) This is an inordinately busy week for me, but in coming days I'll make time to post some other non-monument pictures from my epic Capitol Hill trek. Saturday, February 05, 2005
FUN WITH NEXIS So for some reason I was seized by the idea of finding the first mention of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the LexisNexis database. I located it in an Associated Press brief from April 4, 2001: Headline: Jordan names two more suspects in millennium terrorNow you can't say I never told you. Friday, February 04, 2005
A WEISMAN ONCE SAID This is supposed to be a mostly apolitical weblog (to invert a phrase used by Mickey Kaus) but in the past 24 hours that isn't quite how it's worked out. Apparently I stumbled onto a pretty big story with Jon Weisman's botched (some say hoaxed) Social Security reporting; Instapundit and Donald Luskin were both kind enough to bless this site with links, and 18 hours later the readers are still pouring in. Welcome! Now, on to new developments: To his credit, Weisman did correct his error yesterday — but not before the likes of Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong used it to make some purposefully confusing arguments against the proposed reform. For example, Krugman begins by quoting the anonymous senior administration official that Weisman talked to in the first place: "In return for the opportunity to get the benefits from the personal account, the person forgoes a certain amount of benefits from the traditional system. Now, the way that election is structured, the person comes out ahead if their personal account exceeds a 3 percent rate of return" -- after inflation -- "which is the rate of return that the trust fund bonds receive. So, basically, the net effect on an individual's benefits would be zero if his personal account earned a 3 percent rate of return."Does that "translation" sound more confusing than the first paragraph? It does to me. Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institution got it exactly right: "It's not a nest egg. It's a loan."What loan? (And there's that Orszag quote again.) Your money would be split between two accounts: 1) the regular Social Security fund that exists today, and 2) another one that would return interest. One doesn't have to pay anything more than one already pays. How much interest one would earn is unknown, though it's likely you would do better than the 3% bandied about, based on past market performance; it's possible it could be a wash. But as a Bush official (possibly the same one as yesterday, though it's impossible to know for certain) explains in Weisman's follow-up today, it would still be better than the current system: "Even if I break even, we would argue I'm still better off because I own the money," a White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "If I die, it belongs to my estate. If I divorce, it's a marital asset. And it's protected from political risk. Government can't take it away."And if that still sounds unappealing, then that's just fine — it would be optional in any case. I tend to believe Weisman made an honest error, but I can't say the same for DeLong and Krugman. They're the kind of ideologues whom I believe would write whatever they felt was needed in order to dissuade people from supporting Bush's plan. If that means writing about it in an intentionally misleading way, then I bet they'd do it. P.S. — A rather Squiggy-like Weisman was on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning, talking about Bush's Social Security plans. I haven't watched it yet, but I'm curious to find out what he says about the article. I doubt Brian Lamb reads the blogs all that much, but they usually do their homework. Thursday, February 03, 2005
ECONOMIC ILLITERACY AT THE POST As someone who generally supports the proposal to create private investment accounts out of Social Security — even though nobody really knows exactly what the president is going to propose yet — this Jonathan Weisman article in today's Post alarmed me greatly: Under the White House Social Security plan, workers who opt to divert some of their payroll taxes into individual accounts would ultimately get to keep only the investment returns that exceed the rate of return that the money would have accrued in the traditional system.It even quoted well-known Social Security reform advocate Stephen Moore, saying "the mechanism would undermine the president's notion of an 'ownership society.'" And Moore has probably been the president's main cheerleader on this issue. So I went back looking for the article this afternoon to send to a former colleague who knows his government programs better than I do, to get a second opinion. What I found was that early this afternoon Weisman had corrected and rewritten the whole thing. Here's what runs in place of those initial two paragraphs: Under the White House Social Security plan, workers who opt to divert some of their payroll taxes into individual accounts would ultimately earn benefits more than those under the traditional system only if the return on their investments exceed the amount their money would have accrued under the traditional system.The original version had Brookings economist Peter Orszag "retort[ing]" to Bush's promise of creating a nest egg for young workers: "It's not a nest egg. It's a loan." It's gone from the updated story. Tellingly, the Moore quote has been excised as well. So the new version is at least accurate and less alarmist, if still confusingly written. It is also substantially shorter. Anyway, what does this all mean? Well, I still had to have it translated by someone with an actual econ degree. The original account seemed to imply that Social Security would deduct all of your contributions and only pay you interest that you (might not) accrue. Your chances of losing money would be very good, but your chances of making more than Social Security pays back under the current system are very low. That isn't the case at all. The new article drops that bit, but still misses the point. The old headline — "Participants Would Forfeit Part of Accounts' Profits" &mdash has been mostly preserved as "Participants Would Lose Some Profits From Accounts." How would that happen? Weisman doesn't explain, although he does note: What Bush did not detail is how contributions in the account would reduce workers' monthly Social Security checks. Under the system, described by an administration official, every dollar contributed to an account would be taken from the guaranteed Social Security benefit, with interest.What Weisman did not detail — and the headline writer didn't get at all — is that one doesn't "lose" anything (unless of course the whole market crashes in a Greater Depression). One is left with the impression that if the system works as planned, you still lose money. That isn't the case, either. Frankly, I'm still not sure that I understand this entirely — and I took eight credits of university-level economics and at least try to keep up with this stuff. That doesn't really matter, because I don't write about economics for a living. What does matter is that Weisman doesn't seem to understand it either, but he does cover this regularly. I've always contended that accredited j-schools should require more economics credits of their graduates than they do currently. As implied above, for me it was eight credits at the University of Oregon: one term of micro, one of macro; elsewhere, it could be less. And that's just for general economic literacy. Any reporter writing for the business section or about the economic impact of government programs should probably be required to hold a business or economics minor. Because right now this country's leading newspaper reporters don't have a clue. OH, GOOD Recently friends living outside the city have asked before just how dangerous is my Columbia Heights neighborhood. I've usually shrugged and said it was fine. Well, it's not always fine — here's a letter from building management I found in front of my door yesterday, transcribed verbatim: Dear Residents of [my apartment building]:The worst I can report is having a crowd of unruly high schoolers hit me in the back with a snowball, early last week. I'll take it. Wednesday, February 02, 2005
MOVIN' ON UP So, does this mean I'm somebody? Actually, I can answer that: No. As long as I have time to Google myself and blog about it, I am not somebody. Tuesday, February 01, 2005
PLAYING CLEAN-UP Regarding this post, it seems I may have spoken too soon. I hope not. And regarding this post, it seems I was dead on. On that point, I don't really care one way or the other. WISHING DEATH UPON PEOPLE I DON'T REALLY WISH DEATH UPON  This year I had the opportunity to join a celebrity dead pool sponsored by a former colleague at the Oregon Commentator. (And in case you think this is the sort of horribly mean-spirited game that guys do, this colleague is female.) You can follow our progress throughout the year at the blog she set up, Courtney's Celebrity Death Pool (we'll just have to agree to disagree over whether "dead" or "death" is the best term). The first relevant death occurred a weekend ago; my esteemed successor at the OC, Pete Hunt, made the great Johnny Carson one of his picks. (Speaking of Carson, have you ever seen the informercial for his greatest hits DVD collection? I watch the whole thing whenever I find it — it's great.) Anyway, my picks:I probably should point out that I actually do wish death upon Zarqawi. And I won't be too sorry when Pinochet goes, either.  The coup de grace, I'm pretty sure, is Manute Bol. I don't know if he'll actually go this year, but I bet he goes soon. The reasons are numerous: He is both very tall and very skinny — never a good combination. That puts a lot of strain on the heart. Think Kevin Peter "Harry and the Hendersons" Hall. Since his retirement, Bol has also put most of his fortune toward the Christian rebels in his native Sudan — for which the Islamic government there has on occasion held him hostage. Last year, he was in a death-defying car accident, and spent several weeks in the hospital. Add to that his polygamous marital status; how long before one of his wives gets jealous and stabs him? (Details here.)In short, don't get too attached to Manute Bol.
I got my hopes up a few weeks ago when Lady Bird went into the hospital. Nothing came of it (dang!) but it's a start, you know? The dead pool entrants listed above and below me at the dead pool's blog each chose both President Bush and Vice President Cheney to go this year, which leaves me a bit perplexed. I assume these cannot be serious guesses. Cheney himself would be a reasonable pick, what with the bad ticker and all. So these must be the picks of inveterate Bush-haters. But really, why waste one or two available picks on people who are very unlikely to miss January 1, 2006? Never underestimate the Bush-haters, I guess — or perhaps, the Denny Hastert-lovers. Here's a few (okay, more than a few) of my favorites from my fellow entrants' picks: Nearly everybody mentioned Pope John Paul II, just as everyone surely would have picked Ronald Reagan last year (had there been a last year). Only one person chose Osama bin Laden, which I assume would be unheard of on a list drawn up in late 2001. And only one other person beside me chose Zarqawi — who is presumably running around coordinating attacks, rather than (also presumably) hiding in a cave — and at least a couple picked Saddam Hussein. A few months ago I would have added the Butcher of Baghdad to my list, but from the sound of it the trial is still awhile off. Assuming I'm right about that, he's definitely on my list for 2006. |
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