links for 2008-07-08

• Janet Yellen on risks and prospects for the U.S. economy - Econbrowser
• Free trade, but not for the flag - Andrew Leonard
• The fall (and rise?) of FHA mortgage lending - Justin Fox
  
• Phil Gramm's UBS problem. - Daniel Gross
  
• Fed, SEC Team Up On Bank Oversight - washingtonpost.com
• Members of consumer-driven health plans choosing less care - EurekAlert
  
• Candidates Diverge on How to Save Social Security - washingtonpost.com
  
• The quiet bailout continues - Brad Setser
  
• After 40 Years, Moon Rocks Still in Demand for Research - NYTimes.com
  
• Diesel Demand May Be Driving Oil Price - John M. Berry
  
• Global Financial Turmoil and the World Economy - FRB: Speech--Mishkin
  
• The Changing Nature of the U.S. Balance of Payments - FRB NY
  
• Infrastructure: The Foundation for Prosperity - EconSouth
  
• Homeland Security Official: Shock Bracelets for Air Travellers - Discourse.net

Comments

[anne]

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-humane-policy-shift-which-is.html

July 7, 2008

How humane! "The policy shift, which is outlined in a three-page memo signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, would require that after 2018, more than 99 percent of the bomblets in a cluster bomb must detonate." *

* http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5haTLOCrj-hNmVmOsqCas31UuyEYwD91PB5O00

-- As'ad AbuKhalil

[anne]

Point....

http://www.juancole.com/2008/07/bombings-in-islamabad-kabul.html

July 7, 2008

Bombings in Islamabad, Kabul
By Juan Cole

Two Iraq-style suicide bombings hit South Asia in the past 24 hours.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber hit a police checkpoint in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, killing 17 and wounding 54. Most of the dead were police. Some speculated that the bombing was meant as a grim commemoration of the storming of the Red Mosque last year this time, when Pakistani troops took on armed militants within the complex. A conference was being held on the attack last year.

Then a suicide bomber struck at the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing 28 persons and wounding 141. The Indian ambassador was not there at the time, but Indian embassy guards and possibly other Embassy personnel appear to have been killed.

India has 3,000 nationals doing reconstruction work in Afghanistan. Since the neo-Taliban want to pull down the Karzai government, trying to scare the Indians into leaving would be a way of removing one foreign pillar of support from the edifice of state.

Since the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence is alleged to be secretly backing some Taliban elements, there is a danger that New Delhi will read this assault on its embassy in Kabul as an indirect strike by Pakistan. Pakistan had long considered Afghanistan its sphere of influence (which the military called its 'strategic depth' against India). Pakistan exercised its regional hegemony through the Taliban in the 1990s. The Northern Alliance gradually allied with India, Russia and Iran. The Taliban were mostly Pushtun, while the Northern Alliance was Tajik (Persian-speaking), Hazarah (ditto but Shiite) and Uzbek. So from a Pakistani and Pushtun Taliban point of view, when the US put the Northern Alliance in charge of Kabul in late 2001, it more or less turned Afghanistan into an Indian sphere of influence. Pakistan is unhappy about this change, which helps explain why its military may be backing some Pushtun Taliban again.

But my own guess is that the strike on the Indian embassy was unrelated to Pakistan and was meant to end Indian economic and reconstruction assistance to Karzai, since that aid helps him stay in power and the neo-Taliban want to overthrow him.

[anne]

Point....

http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/07/attack-on-indian-embassy-in-kabul.html

July 7, 2008

Attack on Indian Embassy in Kabul
By Barnett R. Rubin

After the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul this morning, I wrote the following comment in response to a query from a journalist:

"The war in Afghanistan is often depicted as a battle between jihadi groups and the U.S. or the west. But Afghanistan is also a theater for the struggle between India and Pakistan and for the domestic struggles of Pakistan. This is the second major terrorist attack on an Indian target since the election of a civilian government in Pakistan. Nine synchronized bombs killed 63 people in the Indian city of Jaipur on May 13, just before the first high-level diplomatic meeting between India and Pakistan after the elections. Part of the context of this attack is also the Afghan official, public charges that the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, organized the attempted assassination of President Karzai in Kabul in April. These attacks seem designed to sabotage any improvement of relations between Pakistan and either of its two neighbors, India and Afghanistan, to assure that Pakistan has no alternative but to continue to support militant organizations as part of its foreign policy."

I might add that there is also a consistent pattern of attacks on Indian road construction teams in southwest Afghanistan. These teams are constructing a road linking Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf via the Iranian rail and road network, which would bypass both Karachi and Pakistan's new port in Gwadar. This road also passes through the Baluch parts of Afghanistan and Iran, next to the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, where Pakistan charges India with supporting nationalist/separatist insurgents.

Juan Cole * links the bombing to the attack yesterday in Islamabad and posits:

"Since the neo-Taliban want to pull down the Karzai government, trying to scare the Indians into leaving would be a way of removing one foreign pillar of support from the edifice of state."

The link to the Islamabad attack on the anniversary of the raid on the Red Mosque may well be valid, but, along with the pattern I cited above, it looks to me more like it forms a pattern of a regional strategy by those who want to place (or keep) the state in Pakistani in the jihadi camp. In addition, in my (admittedly limited) contact with Taliban and in examining Taliban texts from Afghan sources, I see a focus on foreign troops in Afghanistan, not the Karzai government or India.

* http://www.juancole.com/2008/07/bombings-in-islamabad-kabul.html

[anne]

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/4/1111

July, 2008

The Impact Of Consumer-Directed Health Plans On Prescription Drug Use
By Jessica Greene, Judith Hibbard, James F. Murray, Steven M. Teutsch, and Marc L. Berger

There has been much debate over the merits of consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs), yet there is little empirical evidence of their influence on health care use. We examined patterns in prescription drug use in the first year that CDHPs were offered alongside traditional plans. Using pharmacy claims data from one large company, we found that enrollees in high-deductible CDHPs were much more likely than those with other coverage to discontinue two of five drug classes. Enrollment in a CDHP did not, however, reduce adherence among those continuing their medication, nor did it greatly influence the use of generic drugs.

[anne]

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/4/1120

July, 2008

Do Consumer-Directed Health Plans Drive Change In Enrollees' Health Care Behavior?
By Anna Dixon, Jessica Greene, and Judith Hibbard

Using panel data from two surveys of employees at one large employer from 2004 and 2005, this paper examines consumer-directed health plans' (CDHPs') influence on the use of health-related information and health services. We compare enrollees in a high-deductible CDHP, a lower-deductible CDHP, and a preferred provider organization (PPO). Enrollees in the lower-deductible CDHP were more likely than enrollees in the other plans to start using information. Enrollees in the high-deductible CDHP were more likely than those in the PPO to start forgoing medical care to save money.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/opinion/08herbert.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

July 8, 2008

Lurching With Abandon
BOB HERBERT

Senator Barack Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He's zigging so fast it's guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/opinion/l08obama.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

Is This the Same Barack Obama?

To the Editor:

"New and Not Improved":

There is something very important that Barack Obama and his advisers need to understand. Senator Obama could lose the election this fall if he squanders the support of people like us, who have high hopes for him and send modest and frequent donations to his campaign.

We realize that in today's world, we may never see a real "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"-type candidate. But if the choice in November is between two different takes on same old, same old, there is a strong possibility that we may just not vote.

Mel Minthorn
Gail Minthorn
Wilton, Conn., July 4, 2008

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/opinion/08herbert.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

July 8, 2008

Lurching With Abandon
By BOB HERBERT

In one of the numbers from "Fiddler on the Roof," Tevye sings, with a mixture of emotions: "We haven't got the man ... we had when we began."

Back in January when Barack Obama pulled off his stunning win in the Iowa caucuses, and people were lining up in the cold and snow for hours just to get a glimpse of him, there was a wide and growing belief — encouraged to the max by the candidate — that something new in American politics had arrived.

His brilliant, nationally televised victory speech in Des Moines sent a shiver of hope through much of the electorate. "The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face," said Senator Obama, "who will listen to you and learn from you, even when we disagree, who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know."

Only an idiot would think or hope that a politician going through the crucible of a presidential campaign could hold fast to every position, steer clear of the stumbling blocks of nuance and never make a mistake. But Barack Obama went out of his way to create the impression that he was a new kind of political leader — more honest, less cynical and less relentlessly calculating than most.

You would be able to listen to him without worrying about what the meaning of "is" is.

This is why so many of Senator Obama's strongest supporters are uneasy, upset, dismayed and even angry at the candidate who is now emerging in the bright light of summer.

One issue or another might not have made much difference. Tacking toward the center in a general election is as common as kissing babies in a campaign, and lord knows the Democrats need to expand their coalition.

But Senator Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He's lurching right when it suits him, and he's zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that's guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.

So there he was in Zanesville, Ohio, pandering to evangelicals by promising not just to maintain the Bush program of investing taxpayer dollars in religious-based initiatives, but to expand it. Separation of church and state? Forget about it.

And there he was, in the midst of an election campaign in which the makeup of the Supreme Court is as important as it has ever been, agreeing with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas that the death penalty could be imposed for crimes other than murder. What was the man thinking?

Thankfully, a majority on the court left the barbaric Scalia-Thomas-Obama (and John McCain) reasoning behind and held that capital punishment would apply only to homicides.

"What's he doing?" is the most common question heard recently from Obama supporters.

For one thing, he's taking his base for granted, apparently believing that such stalwart supporters as blacks, progressives and pumped-up younger voters will be with him no matter what. A taste of the backlash this can produce erupted on the candidate's own Web site.

Thousands of Obama supporters flooded the site with protests over his decision to support an electronic surveillance bill that gives retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The senator had previously promised to filibuster the bill if it contained the immunity clause.

There has been a reluctance among blacks to openly criticize Senator Obama, the first black candidate with a real shot at the presidency. But behind the scenes, there is discontent among African-Americans....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/opinion/l08obama.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

Is This the Same Barack Obama?

To the Editor:

I share your disappointment with the "New and Not Improved" Barack Obama.

As a 60-year-old white woman who should have been firmly in Hillary Rodham Clinton's camp, I eschewed her triangulating for the promise of a politician who promised to restore the Constitution and govern the country for the common good, not just for a wealthy elite.

It is particularly disheartening that on our nation's birthday, a progressive Democratic candidate cannot find the courage to uphold the vision of the founding fathers against an overbearing state and instead feels moved to support warrantless wiretapping and telecom amnesty.

His disheartened supporters are beginning to see that "Change We Can Believe In" is really "Change When It's Expedient."

Barbara Kautz
Tiburon, Calif., July 4, 2008

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/health/08canc.html?ref=science&pagewanted=print

July 8, 2008

Screening for Cancer in Elderly Fuels Fight
By RONI CARYN RABIN

So far, large clinical trials focused on the benefits of screening for breast cancer have ignored the booming population of elderly women.

[Huh?]

[anne]

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/letters.html

But What Have They Done Lately?

To the Editor:

Benjamin Zycher's "Drug Development Needs Private Industry" * aims to refute my statement, which he accurately quotes, "The drug companies do almost no innovation now." But the examples of innovation he cites date back to the 1980s or earlier. Moreover, he doesn't tell the whole story even about these older drugs. For example, Amgen did not work out the synthesis of Epogen on its own; it licensed the basic technique from Columbia University. Nearly every top-selling drug today has progenitors dating back many years, often based on NIH-funded research in universities.

Even Mr. Zycher found that of the 35 drugs he reviewed, "private-sector research was responsible for central advances in basic science for seven." That's not much of a yield. (Mr. Zycher should have mentioned that the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, with which he collaborated, is largely supported by the pharmaceutical industry.) Far from doing scientific innovation, the large drug companies license or otherwise acquire discoveries from universities or small biotech companies, then develop them for commercial production and sponsor the clinical research necessary for FDA approval. That's expensive, but hardly creative in the scientific sense. As one senior executive told Journal reporter Gautam Naik (Feb. 13, 2002), "We're not going to put our money in-house if there's a better investment vehicle outside."

The problem with this sequence — publicly-funded innovation handed off to the drug companies — is that the industry expects to be rewarded as though it were the source of innovation, pricing drugs as high as the traffic will bear and doing everything possible to extend its exclusive marketing rights. The only really innovative thing about this industry today is the claims of its apologists.

Marcia Angell, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
Cambridge, Mass., July 7, 2008

* http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121460680460712083.html

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/world/europe/08anglican.html?hp&pagewanted=print

July 8, 2008

The Church of England Endorses Women as Bishops
By JOHN F. BURNS

[Catholics next; right....]

[hari]

Jennet Yellen (SF) says *..things will get worse before they get better* in the financial sector. She is not convinced on role of speculators on commodity/oil prices; cannot accept Fed rate policy is driving speculative bubble; and so on.

Now, if this is how SF/Fed gets its economic intelligence and eventually decides on Fed Policy, I dont feel comfortable
with her understanding of the global market for commodities, etc.

There is adequate CFTC evidence of speculative bubble in oil futures market driven by *paper oil* hedging/options - not for delivery - driving up the volume of trade while supply is stagnant (more or less).

[anne]

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/07/burned-by-portrayals-of-vietnam.html

July 8, 2008

"Burned by portrayals of Vietnam, the Pentagon focuses on a new era of filmmakers. 'It's important to tell the full story,' says Army Lt. Col. J. Todd Breasseale, who is deployed to Wilshire Boulevard." *

* http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-armyfilms7-2008jul07,0,4772877.story

-- As'ad AbuKhalil

[Right.]

[kthomas]

Shock bracelets? They have yet to find and arrest the criminals who masterminded 9/11, and at the end of the Deciders term, they suggest all of us wear these cursed devices? The Bush admin is treasonous, to the core. I can just picture a dyed-in-the-wool Republican voter from a solid red state enjoying the shock of his master's bracelet.

[anne]

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79143

July 8, 2008

Hundreds of Families Displaced By Fighting in Baidoa
By IRIN

NAIROBI - A number of people were killed and injured and hundreds of families displaced, after a night of heavy fighting in the southwestern town of Baidoa, the seat of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), witnesses told IRIN on 8 July.

"At around midnight [local time] last night the town came under attack from Al-Shabab [insurgents]. There was so much mortar fire around the presidential compound," said a local resident who requested anonymity.

The clashes were concentrated in and around parts of the town where government offices and Ethiopian army bases are located, said the eyewitness.

"They seemed to be targeting the area near the airport where Ethiopian troops have a base, and the presidential and parliamentary compounds."

The fighting displaced many previously displaced families, who had fled from the violence in Mogadishu and were living in camps near the presidential compound. "Many of them have left their camps and are now scattered around the town," the local eyewitness said.

The source said these families were some of the poorest and most vulnerable in Baidoa. "They were already in bad shape and this will only make their situation worse."

Shiino Moalim Nur, deputy governor of Bay Region, told IRIN the insurgent attacks added to the suffering of the displaced people. "All they achieve is to add to the suffering of the people."

The fighting subsided after a couple of hours. The insurgents withdrew, and the town is reported to be calm but tense on 8 July.

The insurgents have claimed on their website that the attack was "the first of many to come," said the source. Nur, however, said that the security forces were in control.

Baidoa under threat?

Baidoa, the seat of the TFG, was one of the few towns in the country totally under the control of the government and their Ethiopian allies, and therefore has been spared the violence that is a daily occurrence in the capital, Mogadishu.

The insurgents have in the past captured towns and later abandoned them, but last night's attack may signal their ability to expand their area of operations, said a Somali observer. "It does not augur well for Baidoa." ...

[anne]

Again, with encouragement and support from America, Ethiopia needlessly invaded and occupied a fairly stable Somalia in December 2006. Since then, in an ever ongoing war between countries among the poorest of the poor, some million Somalis have been driven from country or home. Conditions worse in Somalia and Ethiopia, but the war goes on and save for an American bombing on occasion we take almost no public notice thinking when we notice that after all this is the heritage of Somalia.

[anne]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/07/AR2008070702773_pf.html

Candidates Diverge on How to Save Social Security

[No, I am not going to read the article but the idea that both candidates think Social Security needs fixing, which it does not, tells me we are in trouble.]

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/business/worldbusiness/08fuel.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print

July 8, 2008

Europeans Reconsider Biofuel Goal
By JAMES KANTER

BRUSSELS — European officials proposed scaling back drastically on their goal of increasing Europe's use of biofuels, a major about-face on a central environmental and energy issue.

At the same time, a new report by the British government cast fresh doubt on fuels made from crops as a way to the fight climate change.

Until recently, European governments had sought to lead the rest of the world in the use of biofuels, aiming to derive 10 percent of Europe's transportation fuels from biofuels by 2020. But the allure has dimmed amid growing evidence that the kind of goals proposed by the European Union are contributing to deforestation, which speeds climate change, and helping force up food prices.

"I think when we will look back we will say this was the beginning of a turning point for Europe on biofuels," said Juan Delgado, a research fellow specializing in energy and climate change at Breugel, a research organization in Brussels. "It will be very difficult now for Europe to stick by its targets."

In the United States, one quarter of the corn crop goes to biofuels. An energy bill passed last year requires that 36 billion gallons of biofuels be produced annually by 2022, but criticism of the policy is growing, including calls to end tax breaks for corn-based ethanol.

A major reason is that over the last 18 months, studies have shown that the current generation of biofuels — reliant on food crops like canola, corn and soybeans — helps drive up food prices by using agricultural land, as well as aggravating deforestation, and may be worse for the climate than conventional oil once the cost of production and transport are taken into account.

Most of the world's biofuel is extracted from corn in the United States, sugar in Brazil, and both grain and oil-seed crops in Europe.

Europe's reversal on biofuels had gained significant momentum in recent days. Over the weekend, energy ministers gave one of their strongest signs that European governments were prepared to back away from the 10 percent target. "We have to decide if the quota can be kept," Jochen Homann, the German economics minister, said Saturday in Paris. "It might be changed."

Britain, one of the biggest proponents of increased biofuel use, signaled a new course Monday. Ruth Kelly, the British transport minister, said the introduction of biofuels should be slowed down, citing a newly released report warning that current goals for biofuel production could cause a global rise in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in poverty in the poorest countries....

[anne]

What is important to note is the where ethanol had taken up 20% of American corn production and 16% of overall American grain production by 2006, the effect on competing food supplies, which were less emphasized by subsidy, was also profound. The effect was lessened domestically, because processing and marketing costs of food are so significant here but more emphasized where processing and marketing is insignificant. So, the price effect in less developed countries that had not been subsidizing agricultural production became profound as researchers long ago predicted would be the case.

[Barkley Rosser]

anne,

Read the article. This is one area where Obama's position has not whipsawed into the center (and I agree that he has done some unpleasant moving, although everybody knew there would be some, and it is better to get it over with now rather than later). I agree that nothing should be done (see my new post on econospeak). But no candidate agreed with our position in the primary, certainly not your fave, Hillary, who was going to turn everything over to a bipartisan commission, with their track records being notoriously well known (and a point that you never ever responded to).

I do not like Obama's position, but it is the least harmful of any proposed by any candidate during the primary. OTOH, the article makes it clear that McCain is rerunning the horrible proposal that Bush was pushing: increase the retirement age, cut benefits, and "allow" young people to have their taxes go into private accounts, all with no tax increases for the system. This would put the system under catastrophic strain.

If you would have read the article you would realize that there is an enormous difference between Obama and McCain on this very important issue. Are you still playing games like the ones I just read about being played by some of Hillary's former supporters who are saying that they might vote for McCain because of what Chris Matthews said about Hillary?

[anne]

Interesting, the thinking that Barack Obama can never ever be criticized, which has been the thinking from the beginning and continues to be, because Obama might be a better President than Grover Cleveland, were Cleveland alive and running. I understand completely, and were Cleveland running I would think Obama just the "cat's pajamas" (even the read pajamas).

Beyond the pajama matter, though, I find Obama continually taking policy stances that are a problem. Not that I would ever point that out.

[anne]

Apart from the resurrection of the dread Grover Cleveland, who I fear more mightily than any alternative, I am continually disappointed in the policy stances of Obama; not surprised anymore, but disappointed. The hope however is that being allowed to make the disappointment clear might even have an effect, so I think warily of Cleveland and dare to go about my way.

Watch me being all faith-based.

[Barkley Rosser]

anne,

Actually, the only one of these policy switches that really bothers me is the one on FISA. That is serious business, and Obama has been bombarded on his site over it by many supporters, apparently. No, he is not beyond being criticized. Please do not be silly while being sarcastic.

His position on Iraq has actually barely changed and remains better than good old Hillary's, although the MSM would have everybody believe that he has made some big move on that.

As for the faith-based stuff, I view this as so much window dressing. The US government has long worked with various religious charities in various ways. There was just not this big fuss about it. Bush turned it into a big political deal, and then turned it into a boondoggle. Obama has had long experience dealing with religious charities in his community organizing. I do not see him proposing anything serious or of substance here. This is a non-issue, trivial.

OTOH, it is clearly crafty politics. A lot of evangelicals are pissed off at McCain. Peeling some of them off over nothing is definitely smart politics, not just some bad cave to a bad position as the FISA stuff is. Would help offset all those pissed off Hillary supporters who are going to vote for McCain just to show everybody that they must be kowtowed to and that Chris Matthews had better behave himself in the future.

In the end Obama may yet be a George W. Bush rather than a Bill Clinton. By that I mean that he may run as a centrist but revert to more progressive positions on the left after election, especially if he is pushed hard by the electorate and a strongly Dem Congress, the way Bush turned into a partisan GOPster after running to the center in the campaign. Clinton, OTOH, kept going further and further into the center, becoming that wonderful master of triangulation. He was clearly better than those before and after him, but I am hard pressed to list genuinely progressive things he did that I can count beyond the fingers of one hand. Even his Supreme Court nominees were not as liberal as John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by a GOP president, the late Gerald Ford.

[anne]

Curiously enough, I never ever mentioned Hillary Clinton, never even thought about mentioning Clinton, but Clinton has a use just like Grover Cleveland. Mention Cleveland and even teenagers, who are otherwise afraid of nothing, run crying in fear to Dad, who Mom knows has a spare shotgun hidden away in case of Cleveland sightings.

As for Bill Clinton, who I also never mentioned, why would I mention yet another President whose name begins with a "c?" A President who blinded Americans by, like, providing for an economy that created 225,000 jobs a month for 96 months when all Americans ever wanted was more time for golf?

[Barkley Rosser]

anne,

Ah, but I have seen you tout this figure of his job growth only about ten million times, often in conjunction with your long defenses of Hillary. She was supposedly going to do the same, and this has long been your bottom line on how great a prez he was.

Sure, that was great, but it did not have jack bananas to do with any progressive policies by Clinton. I agree with many who attribute it to at least as much dumb luck as anything else. Like Reagan before him, he reigned through a period of falling oil prices. Now, his budget balancing policies, which do not exactly stand out as "progressive," although they may have been wise at the time (even if they cost the Dems control of Congress), did play into Greenspan cutting interest rates, which allowed the speculative bubble and boom in high tech to take place. The crash of that provided the recession that hit the beginning of the Bush presidency (and more stimulative policies by Greenspan that would help trigger the housing bubble that has led to... ).

And, of course, you are just seething with all the terrible changes in policy positions you see Obama making, even when some of those policy positions continue to be better than Hillary's, whose policy positions you never criticized.

As for social security, anne, read the article. Obama's position is better than Hillary's and far, far better than McCain's. Give some credit where credit is due, and do not just make irrelevant sarcastic comments. Criticize Obama for what he deserves criticism for, not other stuff, especially when his positions are better than Hillary's were, which you never criticized.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/opinion/l08obama.html

Is This the Same Barack Obama?

To the Editor:

Your editorial seems surprised that Barack Obama has shifted positions on so many important issues.

What surprised me most during the primaries was the group euphoria among the media and many Democrats for his candidacy. Most of these people were taken in by his soaring rhetoric and lofty proposals.

But these same people failed to examine his record in Chicago, a city not known for genteel politics or honest politicians. Or perhaps they chose to ignore it. If they had bothered to look, they would have found a crafty politician who made calculating choices from the very beginning.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has asked her supporters to endorse Mr. Obama. Although I cannot vote for John McCain, neither can I cast my vote for Senator Obama. He is a roll of the dice, and I'm not a gambler.

Laura Stern
New York, July 4, 2008

[Barkley Rosser]

anne,

I am not going to pursue any further our earlier rather unpleasant contretemps over Obama versus Hillary. I for one was never all that naive as some of those who are being quoted here. Of course they can have their views as can you, and if they do not wish to vote for Obama, well, that is their right as it is yours. (And if McCain wins, we can all remember all those ever-so pure folks who voted for Nader because Clinton had been such a triangulating centrist and Gore was obviously not much better if at all.)

Of course I was previously an Edwards supporter, so I was never one of those who was all dewey-eyed over Obama. I know he is from Chicago, and all I have to say about that is that I know people who are from there and know the dirt, and their story is that Obama did a pretty good job of keeping most of the dirt off himself as well as that the machine there wanted him out of there and on up as fast as possible because he was too big a star and too goody goody, which would have led him to cause problems if he had stuck around. But he knows his way around there, and the "Fast Eddie" moniker that one of the conservative columnists (forget which one) put on him is not all that far off. But then, do we really want some naive goody goody as president?

[Lafayette]

Rove Rules

anne: Senator Barack Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He's zigging so fast it's guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.

Elections in America are not won on the Left. They are won in the center.

Obama has to do what has to be done. Which proves only one thing .... he probably knows what he is doing.

And, any accusation of flip-flopping is the sort of vicious character assassination that was used successfully by the Troglodytic Right against Kerry.

Rove Rules (No 217): When we have no concrete filth against someone, make up any sh*t that will stick. We Repubs invented political-Teflon.

[Lafayette]

Flip from Flop

BR: But then, do we really want some naive goody goody as president?

Well, we had a naive lead-head of PotUS for 8 years -- and that got us where? Deep, deep in fecal matter.

Stop the polemics and get down to specifics. What "goody-goody" out of the Obama platform is not to your liking?

That he has been imprecise in his programs? Fair enough. But, given the rotten climate in which a PotUS election is held in the US, what would you do?

Open oneself honestly to being platform specific in an electoral campaign risks a shower of "swift-boat"-like malarkey thrown your way. Or, flip-flop accusations from a leaden media that could not tell Flip from Flop if both bit the press corps collectively in the arse -- so avid are they to obtain THE lurid nightly news sensation that will sell TV-publicity.

Commercial television built this monster all by itself and the monster feeds pap to the masses, which gorges on it. The Communists should have had such a tool with which to manipulate mindsets. They would be masters of the universe instead of destined for the dustbin of history.

Given these hypotheses (e.g., an ineptly subjective press corps), just what can we expect of political candidates -- an evocation of key national challenges and an in-depth debate of their proposed solutions? Where is the instrument by which American’s form their opinions regarding important matters that decide their destiny? Where?

No candidate in his/her right mind would dare debate specifics So, expect the bullsh*t to keep flowing.

THEN, by the January after the November election, two months later, the American public just might have a wee, tiny idea of what the elected president has on his (alleged) mind.

[anne]

The graphic language of the thug, keep on keeping on.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html?hp&pagewanted=print

July 10, 2008

Senate Backs Wiretap Bill to Shield Phone Companies
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON

The issue put Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. After long opposing the idea of immunity for the phone companies in the wiretapping operation, he voted for the plan on Wednesday....

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was Mr. Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill....

["And, of course, you are just seething with all the terrible changes in policy positions you see Obama making, even when some of those policy positions continue to be better than Hillary's, whose policy positions you never criticized."]

["And, any accusation of flip-flopping is the sort of vicious character assassination that was used successfully by the Troglodytic Right against Kerry."]