AnnotatedOpinions.com

“I don’t think that this is the Obama administration’s fault. This is the way bureaucracies work or don’t work.”

Ah, I see. Even though it was President Barack Obama’s Transportation Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security, CIA and State Department that the Christmas Day terrorist penetrated. . .  

This interesting rationalization was offered by Washington Post op-ed columnist Ruth Marcus on ABC’s Dec. 27 “This Week” program . . . 

“Brownie,” of course, was Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who received Bush’s accolades in the first days of the Hurricane Katrina recovery, but then resigned as the chief scapegoat. Still, that didn’t save Bush from years of ridicule and finger-pointing. No liberals suggested that the Katrina failures in New Orleans were the result of bureaucracies being bureaucracies. . .

[AO: There is a difference between Michael Brown’s actions regarding Hurricane Katrina and the TSA, Homeland Security, CIA and State Department’s collective inaction that resulted in the Christmas Day terrorist incident. In the former, Brown was criticized because he, in his individual capacity, took steps that made things worse. In the latter, the agencies can and should be criticized for failure to make things better (i.e. failure to improve national security). However,
these are not comparable reasons for criticisms because of the act/omission difference and because one involves an individual's actions while the other involves actions by many individuals across different government agencies.  

Put another way, no one blamed Michael Brown for the hurricane. He was blamed for his actions. To make a comparable criticism of the Obama administration regarding the Christmas Day terrorist incident, one must blame the administration, not for the terrorist plot, but for the various agencies failure to do enough. In other words, this is exactly what Washington Post op-ed columnist Ruth Marcus said on ABC's Dec. 27 "This Week."]

·       Op-Classic, 1989: Freedom Danced Before My Eyes [New York Times]

·       The rusting and fall of the Iron Curtain: Today is the 20th anniversary of the event that proved the realists wrong. When joyous citizens breached the Berlin Wall with rock music and dancing instead of guns and tanks, the Cold War was over. [Boston Globe]

·      After the wall fell: Too many of the commemorations treat the past two decades as a foregone conclusion. [Washington Post]

·       Cold War nostalgia: In the former East, there is ostalgie. In the West, we too look back in longing: for the symbol of moral clarity and superiority the wall was to us. [LA Times]  

·       After collapse, jubilation, fear, and uncertainty [Boston Globe]

·     Hungary was the first rip in Iron Curtain: Months before the Berlin Wall fell, Hungarians had marched to demand  democracy. [LA Times]

A 2d chance at freedom for juvenile offenders: The United States stands apart from its European allies in sentencing minors to languish in prison until they die. [Boston Globe]

Imprisoning a Child for Life: Sentencing children to life without the possibility of parole for a nonhomicide violates the Eighth amendment. [New York Times]

Healthcare’s hurdles: Democrats in the House get their way, but what we need is real debate. If only the Republicans would oblige. [LA Times]

Why is reforming health care so hard? Broad satisfaction and deep divides hinder change. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

House-passed health plan mixes good ideas, deep flaws [USA Today]

The next bubble? There’s a thin line between promoting recovery and the next crash. [Washington Post]

Who’s afraid of the big, bad Fairness Doctrine? If Rush Limbaugh and his ilk were forced to engage in a reasonable debate, rather than ad hominems, they would forfeit the moral surety — and the seductive rage — that is the central appeal of all demagogues. [Boston Globe]

Climate change bill is in trouble: Political tactics tie up the Senate version, and efforts to salvage it may be too little too late. [LA Times]

Government-haters lose: Apparently some voters think government is necessary — and good. [Washington Post]

Mickey goes rogue [Chicago Tribune]

Disney: The mouse that bored – In some ways, the effort to revitalize Mickey seems sad and desperate [Boston Globe]

Paranoia Strikes Deep: If the G.O.P. essentially shrinks down to a rump party across America, the country could become ungovernable in the idst of a continuing economic disaster. [New York Times]

Letting big money in: Supreme Court watchers are growing anxious about an imminent legal ruling that could open the floodgates of money in politics like never before. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Red flags at Fort Hood [USA Today]

Voters thinking about jobs, not Obama [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

The smell test: Canine witnesses need tighter judicial leashes [Houston Chronicle]

Guinness got it: The company’s 250-year legacy of God-inspired good provides myriad lessons for today. Among them: A benevolent corporate vision is good for business, for its employees and for the world. [USA Today]

THOUGH it hasn’t been true for years, many people believe that government employees receive lavish employment and retirement benefits in order to compensate for their meager paychecks. The reality is that their paychecks aren’t meager at all: Government jobs often pay more than those in the private sector, and the difference between the two is growing.

Consider the lucrative lot of the men and women who work for Uncle Sam. In 2008, according to data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 1.9 million civilian employees of the federal government earned an average salary of $79,197. The average private employee, by contrast, earned just $49,935. The difference between them came to more than $29,000 – a differential that has more than doubled since 2000.

[AO: This is the problem with averages. Sure, the average federal government worker may earn more than the average private sector employee, but who is the average federal government worker and who is the average private sector worker? Remember, the private sector hires oodles and oodles of non-professional, low wage and minimum wage workers. These works draws down the average private sector salary.  

Perhaps we should consider another metric: how does the average salary of the heads of the top 100 government departments and agencies compared to the average fortune 100 CEO’s salary?

Most tellingly is the desire of most Americans to go into the private sector rather than government service. Until the recent recession, government service had been shunned like the plague by individuals entering professional careers. One primary reason so many more individuals are now interested in government service is because employment in the private sector has dried up. If the Boston Globe article is correct, why would so many make choices that are not in their best interest? Unless, of course, the Globe is overlooking important aspects of government service (like pay caps, lower pay, limits on advancement, etc.) that individuals factor into their decision making when deciding whether to seek private or public employment.]

Secession is for losers [Chicago Tribune]

Torture and the Law: ‘Those methods’ are not just immoral but also illegal. [Washington Post]

Holding Up the Housing Recovery: Republican senators need to understand that a vote against bankruptcy reform is a vote against economic recovery. [New York Times]

Good Government and Animal Spirits: Every talented player understands the importance of a strong referee. [Wall Street Journal]

Obama’s Battle on the Hill: What the president and his administration really need is a strategy in dealing with Congress. [Washington Post]

Ricci vs. DeStefano: A firefighters exam in New Haven, Conn., poses some tough questions on discrimination for the Supreme Court.  [LA Times]

Yanks in Crisis: The economic downturn has produced a desire for change but not a philosophical shift. Americans are open to ideas from government, but remain skeptical and fiercely self-sufficient. [New York Times]

U.S. citizens caught in immigration net [USA Today]

Subsidizing Scrooge: Banks showered with federal largess are up to some old and unsavory tricks. [Washington Post]

Horrors! A Handshake! President Obama has pledged to mend relations with Latin America; the handshake with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela was a good start. [New York Times]

High speed rails for  . . . Texas? [Houston Chronicle]

Winds shift for credit issuers [USA Today]

Reclaiming America’s Soul: The only way for the nation to regain its moral compass is to investigate how the government’s interrogation abuses happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible. [New York Times]

Has nuclear arms control worked? [LA Times]

Morning-After Pills: The Food and Drug Administration has wisely agreed to let 17-year-olds have access to emergency contraceptive pills without a doctor’s prescription. [New York Times]

. . . But Mr. Rattner’s high profile is nonetheless useful in drawing attention to the real story here, which is the growing evidence of corruption by officials who use their power over public pension funds to shake down private companies. This is the same political class that has been blaming banks for “greed” in the financial crisis. The pension fund scandal exposes the myth of the superior virtue of the public and nonprofit worlds. Greed is universal. And the opportunity for corruption is enormous when political discretion is tied to vast sums of public money. [AO: Here’s the logic: We’re greedy but they’re greedy too. So, don’t blame us for being greedy because there are other greedy people. We’re not the only ones! So stop complaining about OUR greed. Focus on THEIR greed. After all, their greed creates an “enormous” potential for corruption because they have discretion over vast sums of money . . .  which are no where near the vast sums of money WE have control over.]

General Motors and Chrysler, President Obama yesterday declared, “must ultimately stand on their own, not as wards of the state.”

Yet Obama — by virtually taking charge of the two companies’ economic structure and demanding the ouster of GM Chairman Rick Wagoner as the price of further federal aid — has pretty much made the auto giants “wards of the state.” [AO: What part of “ultimately stand on their own” don’t you understand?]

Because while Wagoner may have earned the blow, over the long haul does America really want its heavy industry run from the Oval Office? [AO: Get this: Obama wants the GM and Chrysler to STAND ON THEIR OWN]

Deal-making is fast reshaping the pharmaceutical industry, and we wish we could say it was a sign of creative destruction. More likely it is the industry’s way of anticipating, and building insurance against, the coming era of government-run health care. As a sign of “animal spirits,” it’s closer to Noah saying, as he saw the clouds approaching, file into the ark two-by-two. . . [AO: Why is it more likely that it is the “the industry's way of anticipating, and building insurance?”]

These deals are good short-term news for shareholders of the target companies, some of whom have been beaten down for years. Merck’s offer for Schering-Plough, for example, is a 34% premium over Friday’s close. But the deals also come amid a worsening political (and hence economic) climate for drug makers and health-care stocks generally. Aside from the merger premiums of recent few days, health stocks have been hammered in 2009. . . [AO: Right. And so have stocks by virtually all other companies. Why would Merck pay a 34% premium for a company it thought was about to be hurt by the political climate? ]

The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents — John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance — President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter’s higher taxes and Mr. Clinton’s draconian defense drawdown.

Mr. Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once. [AO: Nice flowery language.]

So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new. [AO: I have two questions for the opinion writer. First, do you think the items in the budget are necessary (disregard cost for a second)? Second, even if the budget represents “social engineering,” what do you have against it if the result is a better America for everyone?]

The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment. Yet the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward. [AO: Really? What do you call the attack by the Bush administration on the middle class? Think about it this way: assume the tax rate for the rich 5% f Americans is 35% and the rate for the rest of America is 30%. If you lower the tax rate for the rich 5% of Americans without lowering the tax rate for the rest of America you are redistributing benefits upwards. It’s simply the flip side of your “class” argument. Think about it.]