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A Heavy Lift

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

We always knew it would be a heavy lift. When Scott Brown swept away the filibuster-proof majority in the Senate – by taking Ted Kennedy’s seat no less – it seemed like a puckish and malevolent act by the legislative gods. Now, as the endgame draws near, the degree of difficulty only continues to go up.

The problem this time is not the Senate but the House. The plan is for the House to pass the bill that the Senate passed, and for both chambers to then pass a “fix” via reconciliation, which would require only a majority in the Senate.

But since the beginning of the year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has lost several “yes” votes on health care. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), a liberal stalwart, resigned January 3; Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) passed away February 8; Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) stepped down on February 28. On top of that, Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), the only Republican in either chamber to vote for reform, has come out and said he would not be voting for the bill this time around. Add on the Stupak bloc, the group of representatives led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) who reject the Senate bill on the grounds that its anti-abortion provisions are less strict than in the bill the House passed, and the bill’s prospects become even dimmer.

Just today, more bad news. Initially, with all the departures from the House, including that of Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA), the magic number for Pelosi had at least shrunk to 216. But Deal today said he would stick around until the vote, raising the threshold to 217 again. But there’s more! There have been reports of other previous “yes” votes now wavering as the GOP ramps up its anti-health reform campaign to “spook” Dems: Rep. Shelley Berkley (NV), Rep. Michael Arcuri (NY), Rep. Kurt Schrader (OR).

But anyone expecting less than a full-on blitzkrieg from the right to sway quaking Dems has not been paying attention. The question is: Does that include the White House?

Too Much Inside Baseball

One of the ironies of health reform legislation has been its declining popularity with the public even as it progressed up the legislative chain. As it passed each new congressional hurdle, public opinion dipped. By the time 2010 rolled around (and before Scott Brown), health reform was on the brink of passing, but the victory seemed like it wouldn’t be quite the rout its supporters had hoped, with the bill so damaged in the public’s eyes.

I always thought that this was the result of an overcorrection on the White House’s part from the mistakes of the Clinton administration. The Clinton health care plan floundered because the administration was so ham-handed when it came to dealing with Congress. This White House adjusted accordingly, and played the beltway game to perfection.

But it never learned from another Clinton mistake, which is that it’s not all about the beltway – the ground game matters, too. With a highly mobilized right wing getting its message out to congressional districts, hardcore opponents – the town hall screamers of last summer – came out of the woodwork, inevitably coloring the impressions of the casual political observer. Phone calls started coming in to congressional offices opposing the bill.  Poll numbers dropped.

Meanwhile, the White House, with both eyes on Congress, failed to fire up its own base. Obama held events here and there, but nothing like a sustained campaign to mold public opinion. Without that leadership, the progressives and moderates who knocked on doors for Obama simply weren’t there this time around to match the other side’s intensity. By the time Scott Brown showed up, some lawmakers were all but ready to be done with health care.

And so here we are. President Obama has gone all in, even going so far as to set a date for when he wants the House to vote. He has also assiduously courted iffy Democrats, inviting them over to the White House and no doubt seeking to buck them up. And with news that he’s about to embark on a barnstorming tour to stump for health care, it’s clear that the White House sees the importance of aggressively shaping public opinion and the media narrative.

But will it be enough? Or is it too little too late? And will the progressive grassroots that helped Obama win the presidency be there to neutralize motivated right-wing foot soldiers and Astroturf groups? Or will those GOP robocalls and conservative vehemence ultimately topple unsteady Democrats? It’s a real test of leadership for the president. And as others have rightly pointed out, it’s a test of the progressive base, too.

Some Quick Thoughts on the Rockefeller Proposal

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) today introduced a bill which, if passed, would become the “Stationary Source Regulations Delay Act.’’ This bill, like Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) proposal that I’ve written about before, would curtail the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA). There are major differences between the proposals, however, and I think these are worth clearing up. I suspect media reports will group the two proposals together, even though the practical and political effects will be very different.

First, even though both proposals target EPA CAA authority over GHGs, they are mirror images of each other. The Murkowski proposal would kill the EPA’s endangerment finding for mobile sources (cars and trucks). In the short term, this would block all EPA efforts to regulate GHGs under the CAA, though in principle the EPA could make a new endangerment finding under a different section of the act and go after other kinds of sources. The Rockefeller proposal would leave the endangerment finding and mobile source regulation intact but, as its title indicates, would impose a two-year moratorium on EPA regulation of stationary-source (power plants, etc.) GHGs.

The Rockefeller bill makes much more sense, I think. This isn’t to say I personally support it, just that it addresses concerns over EPA regulation of GHGs much more effectively than the Murkowski proposal. Mobile-source regulation is the one piece of the CAA/GHG process that has broad support. The regulations the EPA plans to finalize this month were a product of compromise with the auto industry last year. All of the comprehensive climate bills I know of leave EPA authority over mobile sources intact. It’s EPA regulation of stationary sources, and in particular requirements for preconstruction GHG permits, that is causing the most controversy and putting the most pressure on Congress. If Congress wants to relieve this pressure then the Rockefeller path is the right one, not Murkowski.

Second, the political differences are obvious though I’m skeptical about whether the end result will be any different. Rockefeller is a Democrat, and while Murkowski has support from some moderate Dems, this new proposal seems pitched more directly at the center-left core of the Senate. Unlike Murkowski’s proposal, it will need 60 votes to pass, but it is probably more likely to get them. Similar bills are being proposed by House Dems.  This makes it much more likely, I think, that the bill will pass one or both houses—though I leave it to more adept vote-counters to make the call.

Even if the bill did pass both houses, it would still have to be signed by President Obama. I cannot imagine the president would sign the bill. It blocks action on GHGs that the president has publically stood behind. Also, and maybe more importantly, the bill would take an arrow out of the quiver of the executive branch. No president likes that. Until and unless that changes—or unless Congress somehow comes up with a veto-proof majority—the Rockefeller bill won’t become law.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/haglundc/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

This item is cross-posted at Weathervane.

Must Read: Admiral Mullen’s Speech at Kansas State

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

If you are at all interested in the future national security of the United States, do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to read Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen’s speech yesterday at Kansas State University. It’s clear that Adm. Mullen understands the changing nature of warfare in the 21st century and that the military must adapt along with it. Mullen’s fears that U.S. foreign policy is “too dominated by the military” is particularly striking given that Adm. Mullen is, well, the highest ranking military officer in the U.S. military. Or, to quote Nathan Hodge of Danger Room, Mullen seems to be saying that, “avoiding wars is as important as winning them.”

Adm. Mullen endorses a strong, smart and principled national security worldview that progressives should embrace. Here are a few extended excerpts (they’re long, but worth it), which should double as powerful rebuttals to any conservative who accuses progressives of being “weak on security”:
On the nature of war:

[T]here is no single defining American way of war. It changes over time, and it should change over time, adapting appropriately to the most relevant threats to our national security….[T]he military may be the best and sometimes the first tool; it should never be the only tool. The tangible effects of military engagement may give policymakers a level of comfort not necessarily or wholly justified. As we have seen, the international environment is more fluid and more complex than ever before.
[…]
Contrary to popular imagination, war has never been a set-piece affair. The enemy adapts to your strategy and you adapt to his. And so you keep the interplay going between policy and strategy until you find the right combination at the right time.
[…]
Trying everything else is not weakness. It means we don’t give up. It means we never stop learning, and in my view if we’ve learned nothing else from these two wars of ours, it is that a flexible, balanced approach to using military force is best.

On the relationship between defense and diplomacy:

Defense and diplomacy are simply no longer discrete choices, one to be applied when the other one fails, but must, in fact, complement one another throughout the messy process of international relations….[W]e cannot count on military might alone. We have to invest in our homeland security; we have to improve and better coordinate our intelligence; and we will have to use diplomacy, because no one nation can meet the challenges of an interconnected world acting alone. My fear, quite frankly, is that we aren’t moving fast enough in this regard.

 

U.S. foreign policy is still too dominated by the military, too dependent upon the generals and admirals who lead our major overseas commands. Secretaries Clinton and Gates have called for more funding and more emphasis on our soft power, and I could not agree with them more. Should we choose to exert American influence solely through our troops, we should expect to see that influence diminish in time.

On the use of force:

 

Force should, to the maximum extent possible, be applied in a precise and principled way….[P]recisely applying force in a principled manner can help reduce…costs and actually improve our chances of success. In this type of war, when the objective is not the enemy’s defeat but the people’s success, less really is more. Each time an errant bomb or a bomb accurately aimed but against the wrong target kills or hurts civilians, we risk setting our strategy back months, if not years.

Precise and principled force applies whether we are attacking an entrenched enemy or securing the population. In either case, it protects the innocent. We protect the innocent. It’s who we are. And in so doing, we better preserve both our freedom of action and our security interests.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thejointstaff/ / CC BY 2.0

The Dragon’s Dilemma: A Closer Look at China’s Defense Budget and Priorities

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

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This is the first installment in a three-part series investigating the state of China’s military. The other articles in this series will look at China’s missile capabilities and naval modernization.

This week, China’s National People’s Congress will convene its annual meeting in Beijing. Among the developments that are expected from the gathering is one we should all pay close attention to: the announcement of China’s 2010 defense budget. Beijing has given the military double-digit budget increases for well over a decade, and some Chinese security analysts are calling for a larger-than-usual boost this year in a bid to signal China’s anger over the latest U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Whatever the exact amount of China’s official defense budget, the announcement will once again highlight China’s growing military power — and the potential challenge it poses to the U.S.

Widely dismissed as a “junkyard army” for many years, the Chinese military is now raising quite a few eyebrows with its growing capability. In recent years, China has deployed increasingly potent anti-access capabilities, including modern surface ships, advanced submarines, fourth-generation fighter aircraft, and conventional cruise and ballistic missiles. China is also enhancing its C4ISR*, space and cyber warfare capabilities; developing an anti-ship ballistic missile designed to target U.S. aircraft carriers; and modernizing its nuclear forces.

The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) growing capabilities in these areas, along with other recent notable events — including Beijing’s controversial anti-satellite missile test in January 2007; its January 2009 missile defense intercept test; and the Chinese Navy’s unprecedented and continuing participation in counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia since December 2008 — are raising questions about whether an increasingly powerful China represents a looming military threat to the U.S. and its allies. In an article published last month, the Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney argued, “China is responding to what it perceives to be our declining power by becoming ever more well-armed, assertive and contemptuous — a formula for serious, and possibly ‘major,’ conflict ahead.”1

Fueling China’s accelerating modernization — and the concerns of many observers who see it as an emerging military competitor — is the rapid growth of the country’s defense budget since the late 1990s. In recent years, China’s civilian leadership has been increasing the PLA’s resources in an attempt to develop more credible options for engaging Taiwan and countering U.S. military intervention.

With the warming of the China-Taiwan relationship over the past 18 months, the PLA’s rationale for further hikes in defense spending is now increasingly tied to China’s growing political, economic and security interests on the global stage. These expanding interests, however, may eventually have to be balanced with the need to address pressing domestic problems, especially if China is unable to maintain current economic growth rates. How China juggles these competing priorities will shape its global role and could have major implications for U.S. foreign policy and national security interests. It could, as critics fear, lead to a confrontation down the road. Or it could do just the opposite, by creating opportunities for Chinese global engagement and a new security partnership with the U.S.

China’s Defense by the Numbers

At the outset of the economic reform era in the 1970s, China’s leaders stated that military modernization would take a backseat to domestic economic development. Leader Deng Xiaoping argued that it would be necessary to delay major increases in defense expenditure until China achieved a higher level of economic development. By the end of the 20th century, Deng predicted that China would be much more powerful economically and would then be able to spend more on military modernization without shortchanging other national priorities.

In line with this guidance, the PLA’s share of the budget declined throughout the ’80s. While it saw nominal increases in the late ’80s and early ’90s, much of that gain was devoured by inflation. It was not until the late ’90s — when rapid economic growth began and Beijing became determined to develop more credible military options against Taiwan and the U.S. in a cross-Strait conflict — that the PLA finally started to enjoy major increases in the defense budget.

This trend has continued even as the cross-Strait relationship has improved dramatically following Taiwan’s 2008 election of President Ma Ying-jeou, who favors a closer and more constructive relationship with China. But while Beijing clearly welcomes warming ties with Taiwan, China still increased its defense budget by 14.9 percent in 2009, bringing the official budget to approximately 481 billion RMB, or about $70 billion. This increase was a bit lower than in recent years — the PLA received a 17.6 percent increase in 2008 and a 17.8 percent increase the previous year — but it reflected a determination to continue modernizing the military even as cross-Strait relations have become more cooperative. Chinese officials assert that the increases are mainly for raising salaries and improving benefits for servicemen, purchasing modern equipment and building new facilities.

China’s official figures put defense spending at about 1.4 percent of the country’s rapidly growing GDP in 2008. The official numbers tell only part of the story, however. The true level of China’s current defense budget is difficult to calculate, largely because some items are not reflected in the announced defense budget. Among these are expenditures on foreign weapons procurement, paramilitary expenses, state subsidies for the defense-industrial complex and some defense-related R&D programs. Moreover, the number of funding sources and the involvement of multiple levels of government further complicate attempts to estimate China’s defense spending. Consequently, outside estimates range from about one-and-a-half to three times the official budget figure. The 2009 edition of the U.S. Department of Defense’s annual report on Chinese military power places total Chinese defense spending in 2008 somewhere between about 1.75 and 2.5 times the PRC’s official number. Some other outside estimates, however, are lower. For example, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which maintains the highly regarded SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, estimates that China’s defense budget in 2008 was about 1.4 times the figure that was officially released by China.

Attempting to project future trends in Beijing’s military spending is even more complex. Forecasts of Chinese military spending over the next 10 to 20 years vary widely, depending on the methods employed and the underlying assumptions about China’s future economic performance. For example, in 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense predicted a possible threefold or greater increase in China’s defense spending over the next 20 years, which would place its military budget at $210 billion to $315 billion (in constant 2005 U.S. dollars) or more in 2025.2 In contrast, a RAND Corporation report released at about the same time projected that in 2025 Chinese defense spending would reach about $185 billion (in constant 2005 U.S. dollars). That’s still an impressive sum, but considerably lower than the Pentagon forecast.3 These divergent estimates reflect uncertainty not only about future economic performance, but also about how China’s leaders will choose to allocate budgetary resources when faced with a variety of new security challenges on the one hand and competing domestic priorities on the other.

New Missions for the PLA

As China’s political, economic and security interests become more global and complex, the PLA’s roles and missions are evolving to contend with an increasingly diverse set of security challenges. In December 2004, President Hu Jintao assigned the “New Historic Missions” to the PLA, which encompass four key roles:

  1. help the Communist Party maintain and consolidate its ruling position
  2. provide a strong security guarantee for national development
  3. safeguard national interests
  4. safeguard world peace and promote common development

To fulfill these expanded missions, Chinese leadership has tasked the PLA with enhancing its capabilities to successfully conduct combat operations and participate in military operations other than war. Specifically, President Hu’s concept of “multiple military tasks” provides a conceptual framework for the PLA to properly balance the development of the capabilities required to fulfill its evolving combat duties along and with other military missions.

As Chinese Central Military Commission Vice Chairman General Xu Caihou has indicated, military operations other than war are emerging as “routine and constant missions for the military,” adding:

We believe that in the current era when the tides for peace, development and cooperation are ever more keenly felt, to conduct military operations other than war is becoming an increasingly important form of applying military forces.4

Chinese strategists indicate that Beijing’s conception of such operations covers a wide variety of activities, including counterterrorism operations, participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations, noncombatant evacuation operations, emergency disaster relief operations, international humanitarian assistance and counterpiracy patrols.

But while the military’s participation in such activities, like its counterpiracy patrols off of Somalia, is clearly seen as important, the PLA’s core mission remains clear. As General Xu declared, “To deter and win wars remains the top priority of the armed forces.”5 As part of the concept of “multiple military tasks,” Chinese strategists envision several potential types of combat operations, including, but not limited to, large-scale island attack, air defense and border-area defense operations.

The PLA faces the challenge of balancing the relationship between enhancing combat operations and ramping up military operations other than war. Chinese analysts argue that such activities can help improve the PLA’s ability to win wars by giving it experience in critical areas such as command and decision-making, projection of military strength, logistics and support operations, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities. Growing involvement in such missions can enhance China’s image and offer valuable operational experience that will help improve its ability to conduct combat operations and support the core goal of deterring and winning wars.

Potential Constraints

Even as the PLA’s involvement in nontraditional security missions grows, it seems likely that demand for greater defense spending may increasingly come into conflict with the rising costs of China’s domestic priorities. Indeed, calls for increased defense spending are likely to be matched by growing demands for government outlays to cope with a range of social problems. Such problems, which emerged as consequences of Beijing’s economic reforms during the Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin eras, include a growing income gap, the glaring inadequacies of the Chinese health care system, worsening environmental degradation and rising social unrest. Tensions that have risen from these challenges could worsen if the pace of China’s economic growth slows.

Under the leadership of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, China has been shifting from an economic strategy that emphasized rapid GDP growth above all else to an approach that devotes more attention to reducing income inequality and promoting sustainable economic development. As part of this new approach, Chinese leaders stress that the country’s economic policies must promote the development of a “harmonious society” based on balanced growth and sustainable economic development.6 Hu and Wen are likely to have their hands full, as top officials historically have been evaluated using metrics associated with the rapid growth strategy. The shift in orientation may also begin to impose serious constraints on further dramatic increases in military spending in the future.

Outlook and Implications

Rapid economic growth has allowed Beijing to dramatically increase defense spending since the late 1990s. It has been able to do so without having to make tradeoffs between military modernization and other policy priorities. In the not too distant future, however, the government is likely to face growing pressure to devote a larger share of government spending to cope with serious domestic problems. As these problems become more pressing, Beijing may have to make tough choices it has previously managed to avoid, especially if economic growth slows.

China remains determined to continue modernizing its military for at least two major reasons. First, China still sees military power as an important aspect of its Taiwan policy even in a time of warming relations. Second, Beijing appears convinced that China’s growing global interests require a much more capable military. Indeed, the concepts of “new historic missions” and “multiple military tasks” provide a more expansive rationale for Chinese military modernization beyond Taiwan.

How should the U.S. and the world view these changes? To the extent that new roles and missions ultimately require a greater global presence for the PLA, we could see growing concerns about China’s expanding military capability in some countries, rising tensions within China over some of its traditional foreign policy principles and potentially new challenges for the U.S.-China security relationship. That said, a greater Chinese military presence on the global stage might also create opportunities for an increased U.S.-China partnership. Indeed, both sides have highlighted issues such as antipiracy and international humanitarian assistance as possible areas for greater U.S.-China cooperation.

* Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance

1 Frank Gaffney, “Obama vs. the All-Volunteer Military,” Center for Security Policy, February 1, 2010.

2 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress, Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2005, pp. 21-22.

3 Keith Crane, Roger Cliff, Evan Medeiros, James Mulvenon and William Overholt, Modernizing China’s Military: Opportunities and Constraints, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005.

4 General Xu Caihou, “The Chinese Military: A Force for Multiple Military Tasks,” Speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 26, 2009.

5 Xu, “The Chinese Military: A Force for Multiple Military Tasks.”

6 For a detailed explanation of this approach, see “Communiqué of the Sixth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee,” People’s Daily, October 12, 2006.

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Another Bite at the Apple

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The president held a press conference today to announce that yes, indeed, he will press Congress to act on health care reform this month. There’s was nothing immensely new about that development, but it’s interesting that Obama used the occasion to lay out, quite succinctly, the three key points he made in his health care summit with Republicans: why comprehensive reform is essential, why the time for “negotiations” is over, and why there’s nothing that unusual about the use of reconciliation (though he did not use the word, a very unfamiliar term to most people outside Washington) to get the job done. He essentially took another bite at the apple of responding to the most effective Republican lines of attack, and will apparently do so some more in appearances on the road this month.

On the other hand, the presidential press conference may get demoted on the nightly news if a possible scandal involving Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) continues to develop. Massa, a freshman from a highly marginal district, abruptly let it be known he was retiring. Some sources say he’s suffering from a recurrence of cancer, but Politico is reporting that he was about to come under investigation by the Ethics Committee for allegedly sexually harrassing a male staffer. If the latter story has a basis in reality, it will be big news tonight.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Assessing the Marja Offensive

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I haven’t written much on the Marja offensive—the joint US/Afghan/NATO operation in the Helmand province city of the same name—because I wanted to see how it played out before drawing sweeping conclusions.

The assault on Marja (population 80,000) is now in its third week. It is the largest offensive in Afghanistan by U.S./NATO/Afghan troops since 2002, involving some 5,000 total troops. Marja had been one of the last significant Taliban strongholds in Helmand province, and NATO and Afghan commanders had eyed it as potentially excellent example of the alliance’s new force posture and growing inter-operability with the Afghan military. “Force posture,” you ask? That’s right—lost in last year’s debate of how many American troops to send was the more important point about why extra forces were needed.

General McChrystal’s counter-insurgency strategy was a page ripped from General Petraeus’ Iraq playbook of early 2007, when violence in that war began to decrease significantly. It’s a military mindset that values protecting the local population over killing the enemy. General Petraeus rightly pointed out, “We don’t want to destroy Marja to save it.”

The mantra “clear, hold, and build” has been the recipe for success: clearing Taliban out of an area, holding the area so Taliban don’t immediately return, and building basic governing capacities that show locals that NATO and Afghan forces are serious about improving people’s lives, not just destroying. To execute this strategy, you need more boots on the ground.

It’s important for progressives to realize that though American casualties have been rising as our forces live among Afghans, that’s because they’re putting themselves in the firing line between civilians and the Taliban. Of course, civilians are killed, whether it’s because our forces have mistakenly identified a location as a Taliban hideout or because the Taliban has ruthlessly used civilians as human shields. There have been, depending on whose numbers you believe, probably somewhere around 25 civilian deaths in Marja thus far. They are all tragedies. But as Sarah Holewinski (full disclosure: a friend through the Truman National Security Project) of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Combat (CIVIC) says, care to avoid civilian casualties is at its highest in years:

Soldiers on the ground are telling us, ‘look, we’re restricting our air power. We’re going in on foot. We are shooting only when we know that that other combatant is carrying a gun. So we’re trying to distinguish as clearly as possible between civilians and combatants.’ ….And then when an incident actually does happen, they are very quick to do an investigation, and then pay compensation.

The offensive was repeatedly announced in the Afghan press weeks before it happened. Sounds crazy, right? But the military knew that even though many Taliban fighters would flee out of town, the better course of action was to give civilians time to prepare.

The military side of the campaign was relatively swift and effective. The Afghan flag now flies over Marja, and mid-level American officers are happy with the progress. Taliban certainly remain scattered throughout the countryside, but as long as they are dispersed away from the city with no real power-base, that’s acceptable for now.

But here comes the hard part—the “building” phase. General McChrystal says, “We’re not at the end of the military phase, but we’re clearly approaching that….The government of Afghanistan is in the position now of having the opportunity, and the requirement, to prove they can establish legitimate governance.”

 

McChrystal has said that there’s an Afghan “government in a box” (allegedly trustworthy Afghans set to temporarily run Marja) ready to roll in and start working on basic public services. That’s a plus because it clears out the local corruption-laden crew and stands a better chance of success, but potentially dangerous because the government transplants are aliens to the local power structures and traditional Afghan system of family-based patronage.

So what do the locals think? As far as I’ve observed, quotes from local tend to fall into three general categories, something along these lines and in roughly equal numbers:

  1. “Good riddance to the Taliban. This operation was needed.”
  2. “Life wasn’t so bad under the Taliban. It wasn’t great, but I was surviving. What are the Americans doing?”
  3. “The Afghan Army is completely incompetent. If they Americans don’t stay engaged in Marja, the whole deal will have been for nothing.”

Thus far, Marja seems to have been an effective demonstration of the first two aspects of counter-insurgency strategy (“clear” and “hold”), but the “build” will take months upon months to come to fruition. If the NATO/Afghan engagement produces an effective local government with decent public services, public opinion will begin to swing towards the first quote above. That’s a big “if.”

And if it is indeed one of the last major Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan — I’m not expert enough to weigh whether that’s true — the Marja operation will have certainly been worth it.

Rick Perry Gets Lucky Again

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Texas governor Rick Perry is not what you’d call a statesman, but as the old saying goes, if you can’t be good, be lucky. Perry’s been a very lucky–and opportunistic–politician. He was first elected to the Texas legislature as a Democrat (hard to believe, given his current behavior), and switched parties just in time to take advantage of the rise of the GOP in Texas. In his first statewide race, in 1990, he squeaked by the famous left-populist Jim Hightower to become Agriculture Commissioner; Hightower had not exactly made life easier for himself in Texas by becoming deeply involved in Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign.

In 1998, Perry hitched a ride to the top of Texas politics as George W. Bush’s running-mate, again very narrowly winning the general election (this time over John Sharp) with a lot of help from Bush associates who were getting ready for W.’s presidential run and didn’t want a Democrat wreaking havoc in Austin when the candidate was out of state. Perry inherited the governorship two years later. His two re-elections haven’t been terribly impressive: in 2002, he beat Rick Sanchez, a political neophyte widely perceived as running a very bad campaign, and in 2006, survived with just 39 percent of the vote in a crazy four-candidate general election.

Perry’s great stroke of luck this year was to run against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a formidable politician in the past, in absolutely the worst climate imaginable for a United States senator. Hutchison also obliged Perry by running an unfocused campaign with virtually no message (she joined Sanchez on the Houston Chronicle’s list of the ten worst campaigns in Texas history). Moreover, a third candidate, Tea Party activist Debra Medina, self-destructed by going on Glenn Beck’s show and sounding like a 9/11 “truther.” Perry manged to win yesterday with few votes to spare, garnering 51 percent of the vote against Hutchison’s 30% and Medina’s 19%.

We’ll see if Perry’s luck holds one more time in November; his Democratic opponent, former Houston mayor Bill White, is a respected politician who will not roll over and play dead. It says a lot about the incumbent’s residual weakness that he’s not a prohibitive favorite in a state like Texas in a year like 2010.

Perry gets mentioned now and then as a potential presidential candidate in 2012. He would definitely be stretching his luck by taking his act the national level, but don’t rule it out for a guy who had the opportunity to watch George W. Bush up close and personal when he turned privilege and perfect timing into an unlikely rise to the presidency.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eschipul/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

The Bunning Blockade Ends

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), who had held up Senate passage of a $10 billion short-term benefits extension for days, finally relented yesterday and allowed the measure to come for a vote. Bunning’s objection to unanimous consent to pass the package resulted in the elapsing of funding for a host of federal programs, including infrastructure projects, unemployment benefits, and Medicare payments.

The Kentucky senator, who is retiring after this year (with a helpful nudge from his fellow Republicans), had demanded that Democrats find offsets in the budget for the legislation. Democrats retorted that the bill was a short-term emergency measure that did not fall under “pay-go” rules. (Democrats, on a party-line vote, reinstituted “pay-as-you-go” rules in January.)

The Bunning blockade proved to be a heaven-sent illustration of Republican obstructionism and heartlessness. McClatchy came up with a handy graphic depicting its state-by-state effects:

Even as the blockade stretched over the first couple of days of this week – leaving about 1.2 million unemployed people high and dry, 2,000 Department of Transportation workers furloughed, and numerous projects halted – some of Bunning’s colleagues actually voiced their support for his actions. Sen. John Cornyn (TX) said:

It’s not fun to be accused of having no compassion for the people who are out of work, the people for who these benefits should be forthcoming, and I believe will be forthcoming. But somebody has to stand up, finally, and say enough is enough, no more inter-generational theft from our children and grandchildren by not meeting our responsibilities today.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Kyl (AZ), in response to Bunning’s filibuster of unemployment compensation, helpfully noted: “In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.” Even newly minted Sen. Scott Brown gave Bunning’s efforts a thumbs-up:

The perception in Massachusetts and other parts of the country is that Washington is broken. And if it takes one guy to get up and make a stand, to point out that we need a funding source to pay for everything that’s being pushed here, I think that speaks for itself.

Here’s the best part: Bunning, along with every Republican in the Senate, voted against “pay-as-you-go” legislation. Republicans had thundered that the pay-go bill was a political fig leaf and that Democrats weren’t really serious about budget sanity. Considering that previous pay-go rules elapsed in 2002 under the Republicans’ watch, and that they also presided over the ballooning of the deficit, I suppose they’re experts on the subject.

About Those “Green Shoots” of Moderation

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Yesterday I wrote about the conservative effort to convince the news media and others that crazy people were being kept under control by the Tea Party Movement and the Republican Party. There’s an even less credible media narrative kicking around that was pursued the same day by Janet Hook of the Los Angeles Times: Republican moderates are making a comeback!

If you understandably missed this development, here’s how Hook puts it:

With healthcare legislation mired in partisanship, “tea party” activists on the march and GOP leadership dominated by conservatives, Capitol Hill looks like a parched landscape for the withered moderate wing of the Republican Party.But green shoots are sprouting in Washington and on the campaign trail. A small band of Republican moderates in the Senate broke a logjam on jobs legislation. They added to their ranks with the arrival of another New England Republican, Scott Brown. And several moderate Republicans are in a good position to win Senate seats in November.

The article is loaded with qualifiers of this dubious proposition, but not enough of them. The jobs bill where “Republican moderates” — including Tea Party favorite Scott Brown — offered a few votes for cloture was a vastly watered-down $15 billion measure that included a payroll tax credit for employers long beloved of Republicans (indeed, that’s why it was in the bill). Once cloture was invoked, 13 GOPers voted for the bill, including such decidedly non-moderate senators as James Inhofe (OK), Richard Burr (NC) and Hatch (UT). Indeed, the only reason the bill was even controversial for Republicans is that it was offered by the Democratic leadership in lieu of a much more expensive and tax-cut laden bill worked out between Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA)  that most Democrats intensely disliked. Anyone expecting this development to lead to an outbreak of bipartisanship or a breakdown of Republican obstruction is smoking crack.

Hook’s optimistic spin on “moderate Republican” prospects for election to the Senate is equally off-base. She cites Rep. Mark Kirk (IL), Rep. Mike Castle (DE), Gov. Charlie Crist (FL), former Rep. Tom Campbell (CA), and former Rep. Rob Simmons (CT) as potential additions to the “moderate” ranks. Kirk moved hard right to win his primary, and is running even with his Democratic opponent. Campbell is best known at present as the object of primary opponent Carly Fiorina’s cult favorite “demon sheep” web ad; I’d bet serious money he doesn’t win his primary, and the winner likely won’t beat Democrat Barbara Boxer, either. Simmons is struggling against a well-financed primary opponent, and is trailing Democrat Richard Blumenthal by double digits. Crist is political toast. I’ll grant that Castle is in good shape, and has a quite moderate record (so far). But even if Castle and Kirk win, their election would no more than offset the retirements of George Voinovich and Judd Gregg in the less-than-loudly-conservative ranks. And Hook also doesn’t mention that at least two GOP senators who occasionally cooperate with Democrats, Bob Bennett and John McCain, could get purged in primaries.

As for the forward-looking optimism of Hooks’ “green shoots” metaphor, it should be noted that Castle is 70 years old; Simmons is 67; Campbell is 56; Crist is 53; and Kirk is 50. Even by the geriatric standards of the Senate, this group ain’t exactly the wave of the future. They also don’t look much like America.

Sure, if the Republlican caucus in the Senate expands significantly this November, it is going to include a handful of members who don’t regularly howl at the moon about “socialism.” But any suggestion that the ancient tribe of moderate Republicans is much more than an anthropological curiosity these days is just not credible. It says a lot of the direction of the GOP that the early 2012 presidential favorite of “moderates” appears to be Mitt Romney, who spent the entire 2008 cycle campaigning as the “true conservative” in the race.

If words like “moderate” have any real meaning, it’s not a word that should be applied to any major faction in today’s Republican Party.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Gang of Eight Isn’t Enough

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As an ex-intelligence guy, I’m particularly sensitive to intel’s uncomfortable place in American politics. Because the intelligence community is — by design — inherently secretive, it’s an easy punching bag for politicians looking to score cheap points because they know it can’t publicly respond. Who’s at fault for the Christmas Day bombing? Blame the intelligence community! Need to justify a hard line on Iran in the face of a lukewarm 2007 National Intelligence Estimate? Blame the intelligence community! Who should have stopped the Fort Hood tragedy?  … I think you know where I’m going.

The point is that though the intelligence community needs continued reform, in each of the above cases, it assumed an undue share of responsibility for each incident.

Naturally, then, I got a bit nervous reading that the Gang of Eight — the group of leading members of Congress who are regularly briefed on sensitive intelligence matters — is about to be widened. It follows that increasing Congress’s access to highly classified national security activities will lead to a greater risk of premature public disclosure for political motives.

However, Gang of Eight disclosure reform was necessary in the wake of the post-9/11 dual domestic eavesdropping and torture scandals. If in those cases the Bush administration had informed a wider congressional audience, perhaps the respective congressional oversight committees could have better done their jobs. Because what’s the point of having oversight if there’s nothing to oversee?

It appears as though this deal, which has been worked out but still needs to be passed in the intelligence authorization bill, strikes the right balance between politics, oversight, and national security. In broad strokes, the president would have to notify both intelligence committees that there had been an intelligence disclosure to the Gang of Eight, and provide the full committees with “general information on the content of the finding.” Of course, the devil is in the details — the White House’s interpretation of “general information” will probably differ from the Hill’s.

Even so, here’s the kicker: any one of the eight (theoretically acting on behalf of another committee member) could register opposition to the proposed intelligence operation with the Director of National Intelligence, thereby (hopefully) preempting unnecessary press disclosures.

The end result should create better oversight that pressures the intelligence community to remain within the law, while removing incentive for Congress to go public. Fingers crossed.

President Obama’s Letter: Setting up the Final Push

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The White House today released a letter from President Obama pointing a way forward for passing health care reform. True to the course that he set at the Blair House summit last week, he stressed the areas of agreement between the two parties, even as he acknowledged some unbridgeable differences.

A considerable portion of the letter — and the part that has gotten everyone’s attention — goes into detail about four GOP ideas that the president said he would like to see in any final package. The president writes:

1. Although the proposal I released last week included a comprehensive set of initiatives to combat fraud, waste, and abuse, Senator Coburn had an interesting suggestion that we engage medical professionals to conduct random undercover investigations of health care providers that receive reimbursements from Medicare, Medicaid, and other Federal programs.

2. My proposal also included a provision from the Senate health reform bill that authorizes funding to states for demonstrations of alternatives to resolving medical malpractice disputes, including health courts. Last Thursday, we discussed the provision in the bills cosponsored by Senators Coburn and Burr and Representatives Ryan and Nunes (S. 1099) that provides a similar program of grants to states for demonstration projects. Senator Enzi offered a similar proposal in a health insurance reform bill he sponsored in the last Congress. As we discussed, my Administration is already moving forward in funding demonstration projects through the Department of Health and Human Services, and Secretary Sebelius will be awarding $23 million for these grants in the near future. However, in order to advance our shared interest in incentivizing states to explore what works in this arena, I am open to including an appropriation of $50 million in my proposal for additional grants. Currently there is only an authorization, which does not guarantee that the grants will be funded.

3. At the meeting, Senator Grassley raised a concern, shared by many Democrats, that Medicaid reimbursements to doctors are inadequate in many states, and that if Medicaid is expanded to cover more people, we should consider increasing doctor reimbursement. I’m open to exploring ways to address this issue in a fiscally responsible manner.

4. Senator Barrasso raised a suggestion that we expand Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). I know many Republicans believe that HSAs, when used in conjunction with high-deductible health plans, are a good vehicle to encourage more cost-consciousness in consumers’ use of health care services. I believe that high-deductible health plans could be offered in the exchange under my proposal, and I’m open to including language to ensure that is clear. This could help to encourage more people to take advantage of HSAs.

None of those suggestions should surprise anyone who saw the summit or has been paying attention to the president on health care the last few months. Three of the four touch on cost control, which is also not a surprise considering that’s the one area that both sides agree needs to be addressed (although only one party seems to be willing to actually pass legislation to do something about it). As TNR’s Jonathan Cohn rightly points out, the fraud and Medicaid payment proposals should win Democratic support, while the other two might have more trouble.

The key part of the letter, however, comes at the end:

I also believe that piecemeal reform is not the best way to effectively reduce premiums, end the exclusion of people with pre-existing conditions or offer Americans the security of knowing that they will never lose coverage, even if they lose or change jobs.

The president, who is scheduled to speak tomorrow to chart his way forward for passing reform, here seems like he’s laying the groundwork for Congress to go down the path everyone has already discussed: passage by the House of the comprehensive bill that the Senate has passed, and a sidecar reconciliation bill to “fix” parts of the bill that House members find objectionable.

What’s important, too, is the language that he uses to justify the continued push. If cost control was the issue on which he could reach out to Republicans, coverage and affordability for ordinary families are the talking points as far as selling reform to the public and to the Democratic caucus. Ending exclusions based on pre-existing conditions, lowering out-of-pocket costs, keeping coverage even after losing your job: these are all hugely popular and marketable ideas. The Democrats have thus far done a poor job of explaining the kitchen-table benefits of reform. But those benefits are real, and they will redound to the benefit of the party who can make reform happen, something Obama seems to understand.

The Republican Civil War: Your Guide to This Year’s Primaries

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

All across the country, Republicans are fantasizing about a gigantic electoral tide that will sweep out deeply entrenched Democratic incumbents this November. In their telling, this deep-red surge will be so forceful as to dislodge even legislators who don’t look vulnerable now, securing GOP control of both houses of Congress.

But could this scenario really come to pass? That will depend, in part, on what type of Republican Party the Democrats are running against in the fall.

Hence the importance of this year’s Republican civil war. In a string of GOP primary elections stretching from now until September, the future ideological composition of the elephant party hangs in the balance. Many of these primaries pit self-consciously hard-core conservatives, often aligned with the Tea Party movement, against “establishment” candidates — some who are incumbents, and some who are simply vulnerable to being labeled “RINOs” or “squishes” for expressing insufficiently ferocious conservative views.

Below is your guide to this year’s most important ideologically-freighted GOP primaries and their consequences. Confining ourselves just to statewide races, let’s take them in chronological order:

TEXAS, MARCH 2: Today’s showdown is in Texas, where “establishment” Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is challenging conservative incumbent Governor Rick Perry. Perry, who won only 39 percent of the vote in a four-candidate race in 2006, spent much of the last year cozying up to Tea Party activists and occasionally going over the brink into talk of secession. He seemed to have the race against the Washington-tainted Hutchinson well in hand, until a third GOP candidate, libertarian/Tea Party favorite Debra Medina, started to surge in the polls early this year.

Medina’s candidacy once threatened to knock Perry into a runoff or even displace Hutchison from the second spot. But then Medina went on “Glenn Beck” and expressed openness to the possibility that the federal government was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Still, it’s not clear Perry will clear 50 percent. An expensive and potentially divisive runoff would weaken him against the Democratic candidate, Houston Mayor Bill White, who looks quite competitive in early polling.

INDIANA, MAY 4: In the Hoosier State, right-wingers are flaying each other. Former Senator Dan Coats, a relatively conservative figure with strong “establishment” support, faces three even more conservative rivals in the race to succeed Evan Bayh. Coats is a longtime favorite of religious conservatives and an early member of the evangelical conservative network which author Jeff Sharlet dubs “The Family.” He’s secured early endorsements from D.C.-based conservative leaders Mike Pence and James Bopp (an RNC member who authored both the “Socialist Democrat Party” and “litmus test” resolutions). But his Beltway support has created a backlash in Indiana, and some Second Amendment fans recall that Coats voted for the Brady Bill and the assault-weapons ban. Coats is also smarting from revelations that he’s been registered to vote in Virginia since leaving the Senate, and working in Washington as a lobbyist for banks, equity firms, and even foreign governments (his firm represented—yikes—Yemen).

With the vote coming so soon, hard-core conservatives probably won’t have time to unite behind an alternative; some favor Tea Party-oriented state senator Marlin Stutzman, while others are sticking with a old-timey right-wing warhorse, former Representative John Hostetler. But if they do, and Coats loses, it will probably spur a headlong national panic among “establishment” Republicans, even well-credentialed conservatives who haven’t quite joined the tea partiers. Indiana Democrats have managed to recruit a strong Senate nominee in Rep. Brad Ellsworth, who might hold onto Bayh’s Senate seat.

UTAH, MAY 8: Utah Senator Bob Bennett, the bipartisan dealmaker, is in trouble. He voted for TARP, he has been a high-visibility user of earmarks, and, worse yet, he co-sponsored a universal health-reform bill with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. So right-wingers want his head. Bennett’s defeat has become an obsession of influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson of Red State, and the Club for Growth, the big bully of economic conservatism, has attacked Newt Gingrich for speaking on his behalf.

Bennett’s first test will come on May 8, when delegates to Utah’s state GOP convention will vote on a Senate nominee. If he fails to get 60 percent, he’ll be pushed into a June 22 primary. Bennett faces three potentially credible right-wing challengers, but the “comer” seems to be Mike Lee, a former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, who has been endorsed by Dick Armey’s powerful FreedomWorks organization. Since this is Utah, there is no Democrat in sight who is strong enough to exploit such a right-wing “purge.” Bennett’s defeat would only make the Republican Party more conservative, and provide another object lesson to any GOP-er thinking about cosponsoring major legislation with a Democrat.

Bennett’s first test will come on May 8, when delegates to Utah’s state GOP convention will vote on a Senate nominee. If he fails to get 60 percent, he’ll be pushed into a June 22 primary. Bennett faces three potentially credible right-wing challengers, but the “comer” seems to be Mike Lee, a former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, who has been endorsed by Dick Armey’s powerful FreedomWorks organization. Since this is Utah, there is no Democrat in sight who is strong enough to exploit such a right-wing “purge.” Bennett’s defeat would only make the Republican Party more conservative, and provide another object lesson to any GOP-er thinking about cosponsoring major legislation with a Democrat.

KENTUCKY, MAY 18: Kentuckians will choose a nominee to replace crotchety conservative Senator Jim Bunning, who, as of this writing, has succeeded in temporarily killing unemployment insurance and COBRA health care benefits in order to protest federal spending. This Republican primary matches conservative Secretary of State Trey Grayson against Rand (son of Ron) Paul. Paul has surprised Grayson’s establishment allies—a list that includes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—by surging to a sizable lead. A conspiracy theory-addled ophthalmologist with no political experience, Paul rivals Florida’s Marco Rubio as a Tea Party favorite—which is why Grayson decided to go after him from the right, hitting Paul for wavering on the need for federal action to ban abortion. But Rand has obtained cover on the social conservative front from a champion of anti-abortion politics, Sarah Palin, who endorsed Rand last month. The upshot for Democrats is that one of their candidates, Lieutenant Governor Dan Mongiardo or Attorney General Jack Conway, could have a decent shot at taking over a Republican seat.

IOWA, JUNE 8: This gubernatorial primary has implications for 2012. The big question is whether social conservative hardliner Bob Vander Plaats—who was Mike Huckabee’s Iowa campaign chairman in 2008—can upset former Governor Terry Branstad, a venerable figure who led the state for 16 years before retiring in 1998 (and who has surrounded himself with Mitt Romney acolytes). Branstad, who has a big lead in early general election polls against incumbent Democrat Chet Culver, is no favorite of the right. One leading conservative group, the Iowa Family Policy Center, has pledged to sit out the general election if Branstad is the nominee. The Democrats’ candidate, Chet Culver, is in deep trouble if Branstad wins; but he’s running even or ahead of Vander Plaats in the polls.

ARIZONA, AUGUST 24: Former congressman and talk show host J.D. Hayworth is threatening John McCain, a pariah to many conservatives for championing of immigration reform, among other sins dating back to 2000. (McCain recently gave Hayworth a gift by claiming he had been “misled” by Bush administration officials about the basic purpose of TARP funds in 2008. Not a terribly credible assertion, and it recalls George Romney’s famously self-destructive statement that he was “brainwashed” into supporting the Vietnam War.) McCain will probably survive, given his longstanding popularity in Arizona and help from Sarah Palin. But there’s a wild card: If attorneys for the state Republican Party succeed in overturning Arizona’s open primary law, McCain could go down, providing a graphic illustration of the GOP’s rightward trend since 2008.

FLORIDA, AUGUST 24: McCain’s buddy, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, is sinking like a stone. He’s trailing national conservative superstar Marco Rubio in recent polls, with the trend lines pointing straight down. Conservatives aligned with state’s real power, Jeb Bush, never liked Crist. But he went from “squish” to “enemy” last year by supporting Obama’s economic stimulus, instead of attacking it and pocketing the cash. Crist, though, is benefiting from reports that Rubio allegedly used a state party credit card for personal purchases. But he’s probably toast, just like his famously tanned hide.

NEW HAMPSHIRE, SEPTEMBER 14: In New Hampshire, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, a National Republican Senatorial Committee recruit of indistinct ideological character, will battle “true conservative” Ovide Lamontagne for the nomination to succeed retiring Senator Judd Gregg. An early poll put Lamontagne within nine points of Ayotte. If Lamontagne wins, he may lose to Democratic Representative Paul Hodes, who polls quite well in contrast.

In sum, the Democrats could well benefit from conservative victories in several of this year’s GOP primaries. But the larger impact of such purges may occur after November 2. By 2012, the economy will likely have improved and turnout patterns will be much more favorable to Democrats. Republicans, on the other hand, would be even more radical than they are today. At that point, an unimpressive Republican presidential field could become fatally weak if the nominating process is dominated by a herd of elephants stampeding to the right.

This item is cross-posted from The Democratic Strategist.

A Pretty Wild Mainstream

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I don’t quite know exactly where this is coming from, but there’s clearly a media effort underway to show that the conservative movement and the Republican Party are reining in “the extremists” in their ranks, presumably in order to look all ready to govern.

Today’s Politico features a long piece by Kenneth Vogel detailing claims by various conservative and Tea Party spokesmen that the influence of “the fringe” has been grossly exaggerated by “the Left,” and that in fact unruly elements are being ignored or excluded by the Right’s grownups.

“Birthers,” Birchers and militia types, we are told, are being shown the door, and haven’t been that important to begin with, except in the propaganda of the Left.

The door-keepers in Vogel’s account, however, are not a group that would normally strike you as moderately-tempered unless the bar for political sanity is set very low. One is none other than Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation, who told Vogel that activists needed “to control the message and to prevent the tea party movement from being hijacked.” That’s interesting, since Phillips’ recent National Tea Party Convention featured a race-baiting keynote address by Tom Tancredo, another speech by “birther” advocate Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, and a breakout panel headed by Christian Right extremist Roy Moore. Another is dirty-trickster and ACORN conspiracy theorist Andrew Breitbart, who is credited with disrepecting Farah at Phillips’ event. Still another is Erick Erickson of RedState, that ferocious advocate of strife against “squishes” and moderates of every variety.

If these folk want to keep “the Left” from talking about crazy people on the Right, they might want to make their policing a bit more rigorous than the occasional tip from the coach to stay on the political sidelines. “The Left” did not invent the cosponsorship of the recent Conservative Political Action Conference by the John Birch Society and the militia-friendly Oathkeepers. But more to the point, it’s a disturbing sign in intself that people like Phillips, Breitbart and Erickson are being treated as some sort of “mainstream,” where it’s perfectly normal to call President Obama a socialist, treat Democrats as presumptive traitors, and advocate an array of radical economic and social policies. All the “self-policing of the Right” narrative really shows is how far and fast conservatives have recently moved to what used to be thought of as “the fringe.” It’s cold comfort to learn there is ample frontier territory on the Right that’s well beyond that.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/heroiclife/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Why Does the Country Need an Air Force?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Okay, okay… simmer down there. Before you go accusing me of being a commie-loving freedom-hater, I’m not asking that question. But General Norton Schwartz, the Air Force’s Chief of Staff, is. He continues in the WaPo, “This is our year to look up and out…to ask big questions. Who are we? What are we doing for the nation’s defense?…Where is this grand institution headed?”

Just think about the gravity of those questions. The Air Forces’ FY2011 budget slides in at $170.8 billion, and if the AF’s top general is asking those types of existential questions, I’ll wager that there are quite a few nerves fraying down on contractor’s row in Crystal City.

At the end of the day, they’re good questions. Greg Jaffe’s article frames the tension right now in terms of the “old” Air Force (one whose hierarchy is predicated on daring pilots risking their lives in dog-fights) versus the “new” Air Force (that trains pilots to sit in air-conditioned trailers in Nevada and pilot drones in Afghanistan) as they are involved in America’s current military deployments.

It’s a fascinating juxtaposition to be sure, but I don’t think the article fully captures what’s at stake here. Instead, these questions cut to definitions of basic mission and competency. The Air Force will tell you that it has six core competencies: “air and space superiority; global attack; rapid global mobility; precision engagement; information superiority; agile combat support; and core values.” In the interest of brevity, I won’t get into a full discussion of each here, but rather direct you to the Air Forces’ whizbang of a website. However, if you read through the varying definitions of each core competency, it’s readily apparently why Gen. Schwartz is asking these questions. The USAF dominates the skies and no other country’s air wing could hope to compete with America’s for another 25 years. So “air superiority”? Check. “Global attack”? Ditto. “Combat Support”? Yup. On top of that, it’s not entirely clear whether the AF should be charged with missions like “information superiority” (that doesn’t fly, does it?) or “global mobility” (after all, you can move more stuff on the Navy’s back).

No better example of the AF’s mission conundrum might be the F-22 fighter jet, canceled last year. The F-22 was designed during the Cold War and designed to engage principally in air-to-air combat against a large nation-state air force. Tellingly, not a single one has flown over Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001. Since we already own 187 of them, we aren’t using them in our current deployments, and there isn’t a single air force out there that stands a chance of challenging the USAF’s “air superiority,” we didn’t need to buy any more. Gen. Schwartz and AF Secretary Michael Donley agreed.

It doesn’t seem anyone has great answer to these pressing questions, and I sure don’t either. But if Gen. Schwartz is willing to ask them, the public dialogue over the next year should be fascinating.

The High Court Dismisses the Uighurs’ Case

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On March 23 the Supreme Court was set to hear Kiyemba v. Obama, the most significant case regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees since it decided that detainees had the ability to challenge their detention through use of the constitutional right of habeas corpus. The question before the court in Kiyemba was whether if a Gitmo detainee is granted release by a federal court through a habeas corpus challenge the executive branch must let him go him even if it meant releasing them into the United States. Today, the court decided to avoid answering that question and sent Kiyemba back to a lower federal court.

Here’s a brief background of the case. The detainees involved in Kiyemba are members of a Chinese ethnic minority called the Uighurs. U.S. forces captured them at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan shortly after the beginning of operations there. The Uighurs were training to carry out terrorist attacks against China. They eventually ended up at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, and were held there for years despite the fact that they were not deemed to be enemy combatants. They were held because legal constraints prevented the U.S. from transferring them back to China due to the likelihood that they would be tortured — even executed — and the U.S. could not find another suitable country to accept them. The Uighurs filed the Kiyemba suit demanding they be set free even it if meant releasing them into the U.S.

The central issue in Kiyemba is this: What good is the right to challenge detention if there is not also a right to be released from incarceration? It seems logical that when a court decides that a prisoner is not being lawfully held, he is entitled to be released immediately. However, it is not so black and white with the Gitmo detainees.

There are serious concerns over releasing Gitmo detainees on U.S. soil. One is that a court could end up releasing a dangerous detainee because of shaky evidence that couldn’t be used for their prosecution. It has proven difficult for government attorneys to justify the continued detention of some detainees because evidence against them was classified, tainted by questionable interrogation techniques, rests with government operatives still overseas, or is based on questionable statements made by fellow detainees. This means that a dangerous detainee could actually be released into the U.S. because of a lack of reliable evidence to justify their detention.

Another legitimate concern is that even if a detainee was not a danger to the U.S. when they began their incarceration, they are now. As you can imagine, being wrongfully incarcerated by a country for years may lead to some pretty negative feelings toward that country – feelings that could be expressed violently.

Finally, there is the “not in my back yard” argument. No one is going to want former Gitmo detainees in their community. Even though a detainee may not be a legitimate security threat, a volatile situation could be created by citizens that are afraid of or angry at a detainee in their community.

Tackling difficult and complex issues is the Supreme Court’s most important job. Did the court punt on a major issue in this instance? Some might think so, but this case is different — the security concerns involving Gitmo detainees are very real and very serious.

The fact is that there are diplomatic solutions to the problem. In the Uighurs’ case, only five out of the original 22 Uighurs remain at Gitmo. The executive branch has been working hard to relocate them, and had recently persuaded Switzerland to take two of the men. In addition, the other detainees had been offered -– and refused – to be released to the island nation of Palau. The administration argued that those offers changed the circumstances under which the detainees’ challenge was brought in the first place -– an argument with which the court agreed.

By sending it back to the lower court, the Supreme Court forestalled having to rule on a difficult question. Indeed, if the remaining five Uighurs are released to another country, the judicial system will be able to avoid having to make a decision on the case. Once the Kiyemba case is resolved, the executive will have more time to relocate the remaining detainees at Gitmo, and hopefully will be able to right the constitutional ship through diplomatic efforts rather than by judicial order.

Short-Circuiting Ethics

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The House Ethics Committee investigation of House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) has gotten a lot of attention recently. But there’s a new development on the House ethics front that merits a closer look than it will probably receive, at least nationally.

Georgia Rep. Nathan Deal (R) resigned his seat today, supposedly so he could concentrate on his gubernatorial campaign. But as a conservative blogger in the Peach State immediately noted, this makes zero political sense except as a way to short-circuit an ethics investigation of a state contract held by Deal that was about to get underway:

Deal is giving up the turnout advantage for being the sitting Congressman while the vote for his replacement takes place. GA law calls for a special election to replace Deal, and assuming the special election clears the field for the general election, having an unopposed incumbent running in the 9th when the primary vote for Governor takes place is a major campaign disadvantage for Deal.So why would Deal take the hit on turnout?

The House Ethics Committee came down hard on Charlie Rangel last week. The next case up was to look at Deal’s use of his Congressional staff to protect a no-bid State contract here in Georgia. The House ethics committee was due to release their findings in this case any day. Deal’s resignation probably makes this go away.

So, Deal can campaign full time after tomorrow. If he’s no longer a member of Congress, he can’t be on the list of CREW’s most unethical Congressmen anymore.

This is interesting in no small part because Georgia’s crowded Republican gubernatorial primary primary has become something of a quagmire of ethics issues. State insurance commissioner John Oxendine, who has been the front-runner in the polls for many months, is battling a variety of ethics charges relating to his fundraising efforts among the insurance companies he is responsible for regulating. And several other candidates are struggling to overcome the perception of a cover-up of a recent sex-with-a-utility-lobbyist scandal that ultimately forced state House Speaker Glenn Richardson from office.

It probably doesn’t help that Richardson was replaced in the legislature in a special election last week by another Christian Right activist who has admitted an affair with his mother-in-law while his first wife was heavy with child.

The broader lesson is that Republicans are not exempt from the ongoing anti-government, anti-incumbent popular mood. While they certainly want to promote the idea that voters are only interested in punishing politicians who support economic stimulus funds or health care reform, there are other sins that do not bear exposure in the current climate. And wherever GOPers are entrenched in office, as they are in much of the Deep South, ethics problems are rarely too far beneath the surface.

Update: Deal’s resignation, currently slated to take affect on March 8, could affect the outcome of the expected razor-thin vote on health care reform, due to occur early in April. If nothing else, Deal’s action should offest the decision last week by Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie’s to resign his House seat for a gubernatorial campaign in Hawaii.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.