THE FIVE BOXES OF POPULIST ECONOMICS

post from TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed on 11 December 2006 11:05:02 AM. © TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed

One strategy aimed at populist economic insurgency is to depict it as obsessed with trade. That enables populism to be muddied by association with neo-fascists like Pat Buchanan, the anti-immigrant lunacy of Lou Dobbs, and economic crankery. This is reinforced by the accurate observation that trade policy alone is woefully inadequate to significantly lightening the burdens of the working class.

Populism is really much more, broader and deeper. Its point of departure is the domination of monied elites who jury-rig commerce and call it free enterprise, who marginalize dissent and call it democracy. It rejects the Horatio Alger myth, with its false promise that if you study, work hard, and play by the rules, economic security will be yours.

Now to the economics: here are my nominations for the five leading concerns in populist economics:

1. Trade is most prominent, but it may be the least important of my top five. Measures to protect better-paying jobs in the U.S. are feasible but only promise results to a limited extent.

2. Deficit dementia. The dirty secret in economic policy is that most economists, radical, liberal, moderate, and conservative, understand that the Federal budget need never be balanced, that moderate deficits can be sustained indefinitely. The implications of tolerating deficits of two percent of GDP -- over $200 billion in today's terms -- rather than a deficit of zero are huge.

3. Social Security. Forget "there is no crisis," the clarion call of anti-Bush campaigners. The new slogan should be, there is no problem. No benefit cuts are necessary for the foreseeable future. If anything, there is a projected shortfall of income tax revenue required to repay debts to the Trust Fund, as per current law, as well as for maintaining other Federal programs.

4. Health care. There is no crisis. There is, rather, huge projected growth in demand for an ever-expanding menu of treatments, and the burden of managing efficient, ample, and fair public sector finance of this care.

5. The Imperial Fed. Our true economic overlords, the Federal Reserve Bank's Board of Governors, have arrogated to themselves the right to ignore their mandate for full employment, elevating slow-growth anti-inflation policy over the unparalleled benefits of tight labor markets.

Trade is important, but in the grand scheme of economic security, it is also a pigeon-hole.

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It's Official: Foley Report Sucked

post from TPMmuckraker on 11 December 2006 11:02:38 AM. © TPMmuckraker

The reviews are in on the House ethics committee report on the Foley scandal, and they aren't good. "[A] 91-page exercise in cowardice," a New York Times editorial thundered."The report?s authors were clearly more concerned about protecting the members of...

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Mikes Blog Roundup

post from Crooks and Liars on 11 December 2006 11:00:43 AM. © Crooks and Liars

Norbizness: Another look at how "The Left" is harshing the national mellow…but good-bye to all that, the real perps are the Assclowns of the Week! The solution? Neo-cons, like smoking and trans fat, must be outlawed from American civilizationMilitary.com: "Leave Iraq now," writes Joe Galloway, one of America's preeminent war correspondents.The Opinion Mill: A swaggering indifference [...]

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Nah. Gah. Duh.

post from Firedoglake on 11 December 2006 11:00:17 AM. © Firedoglake

Someone explain to me how this is possible:A top Air Force lawyer who served at the White House and in a senior position in Iraq turns out to have been practicing law for 23 years without a license.Col. Michael D. Murphy was most recently commander of[...]

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Frameshop: My Book!!

post from FRAMESHOP on 11 December 2006 10:56:00 AM. © FRAMESHOP

Pop the champagne corks, the first Frameshop book is on the way!...

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A political chronicler bids a sorrowful adieu to
a "cherished" subject--a man who has proclaimed, "I am the troublemaker"--and we all feel the loss

post from DownWithTyranny! on 11 December 2006 10:50:00 AM. © DownWithTyranny!

If you've got a bugler handy--or a trumpeter, in a pinch--you'll want to have him/her sound "Taps" while you read this item from Al Kamen's Washington Post "In the Loop" column today:

Farewell, Weldon

Outgoing Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), a cherished Loop favorite, waxed eloquent at his last hearing of the House Armed Service Committee Thursday, going on for a good 20 minutes about how he and the committee can take credit for, among other things: a "normalized relationship" with Libya; two meetings with the North Koreans despite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice doing "everything she could to stop us"; ensuring the unmanned drone "Predator would be armed"; developing "missile defense"; and, negotiating "the framework to end the Kosovo War."

"I am the troublemaker," he said proudly, maybe losing his seat because of his "pushing the envelope." Or perhaps it was those FBI agents searching his offices? "And God willing, I'll be going back to North Korea in the next two months to continue that dialogue," he vowed.

So the six-party talks will be seven-party talks?

Gonna miss him a lot.

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Juan Williams to FOXs warmongers: sometimes I
just want to scream!

post from Crooks and Liars on 11 December 2006 10:45:27 AM. © Crooks and Liars

On FOX News Sunday, Juan Williams says he wants to scream after listening to Brit Hume and that blood sucking vampire whine threw a segment about the ISG report. I only wish screaming would help.Video-WMP Video-QT Bill Kristol is still calling for more troops and says: "I agree, some of the Republicans are going wet or squishy…" While Hume [...]

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Rick Santorum’s Plan For Iran: With Our
Help, Bus Drivers Could Topple The Government

This morning on MSNBC, outgoing Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) unveiled his plan to “confront” Iran. Santorum said that the United States should have supported a bus driver strike that occurred a few weeks ago. According to Santorum, “We should have quietly gone in there and given them a whole boat-load of money so they could [...]

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Almost 40 years later, a then-CBS News reporter
identifies the general whose "sober, intellectual analysis" unmasked the "stalemate" in Vietnam

"I've destroyed a single division three times. I've chased main-force units all over the country and the impact was zilch. . . . The war appears likely to go on until someone gets tired and quits, which could take generations."
--"a senior American general" in Vietnam quoted in August 1967 by then CBS News correspondent Murray Fromson (left) and New York Times reporter R. W. "Johnny" Apple Jr.

Today retired journalism professor Murray Fromson, who as a CBS news corresondent played a major role in digging up a "scoop" that in turn likely played a major role in turning American public opinion against our involvement in Vietnam, identifies his and NYT reporter Johnny Apple's source, and explains how the story came about.

December 11, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor

Name That Source
By MURRAY FROMSON

Los Angeles

THE article was headlined "Vietnam: The Signs of Stalemate," and it appeared on the front page of this paper on Aug. 7, 1967. Written by R. W. Apple Jr. [left], it was a bombshell that resonated in both Washington and Saigon, caused consternation in the United States Army and the intelligence community and gradually altered perceptions of American success or failure for the remainder of the Vietnam War.

Over nearly four decades, dozens of historians and journalists asked Johnny (as he was known) and me, because I did a similar story for CBS, to identify our source for that report, and we steadfastly declined to name him. But now, the source has come forward to release us from our pledge of confidentiality.

In 1967, when I was a CBS News correspondent in Vietnam, I met an American general at a cocktail party in Saigon. He whispered to me: "Westy just doesn't get it. The war is unwinnable. We've reached a stalemate and we should find a dignified way out." He was referring to Gen. William Westmoreland [right], the commander of United States forces in Vietnam.

The reception was crowded and noisy, and I asked whether I could meet with him at another time. "O.K., but no cameras," he replied. Might I bring another reporter with me? "O.K., but one only." I had advised CBS News in New York that I probably had an important story to report but that it would be what we used to call a standupper on camera with no film. The reaction was decidedly cool. Had Walter Cronkite or Mike Wallace been available, such a report might have led "The CBS Evening News." On the other hand, I guessed--correctly--that once it appeared in The Times, the universal scream would be for me to match it.

So I ambled up Tu Do Street to Johnny's office and invited him to come along. We took a helicopter ride into the Mekong Delta and then spent two hours with one of the more erudite general officers either of us had ever met in Vietnam.

The general pledged us to absolute confidentiality. Later, when Johnny and I compared notes to ensure we had understood him correctly, both of us were stunned. His article was published 24 hours later. Mine, in the era before satellites, reached CBS News in New York days later. Here, in essence, is how we quoted the general for our reports:

"?I've destroyed a single division three times,' a senior American general said the other day. ?I've chased main-force units all over the country and the impact was zilch. It meant nothing to the people. Unless a more positive and more stirring theme than simple anti-communism can be found, the war appears likely to go on until someone gets tired and quits, which could take generations.' " The report enraged President Lyndon Johnson, General Westmoreland and, as I recall it, Gen. Earle Wheeler, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Johnson then initiated action to call up an additional 205,000 troops for the coming war against the North Vietnamese. But the action was negated by the misleading perception many of us had that the Communists achieved a major victory in the Tet offensive, which began on Jan. 30, 1968.

The "stalemate" story re-surfaced in 1984, when Westmoreland filed a multibillion-dollar libel suit against CBS News for a report that said the general had knowingly understated the strength of North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces to make it appear that victory was in sight. David Boies [right], CBS's lead lawyer, remembers asking Westmoreland: "General, I want to read you an excerpt from a story reported by R. W. Apple in The New York Times on Aug. 7, 1967. In it, Mr. Apple refers to an American general who said the war is unwinnable. What about that, General Westmoreland?"

The normally composed Westmoreland, then retired, was shaking as he replied, "No general of mine would ever have said that." I called Mr. Boies's office the following day and told one of his associates that the general in question had said it not once, but twice--the first time in my conversation with him in Saigon.

In 1995, on the 20th anniversary of the war's end, I was invited to participate in a Freedom Forum discussion in Oakland, Calif. With Johnny's knowledge, I called our source to ask whether he might release us from our pledge of confidentiality so that we could set the record straight. He was hesitant. "Westy is an old friend," he said, "and I would not want to hurt or embarrass him. Let's wait until he's no longer with us."

Westmoreland died in 2005. The officer in question, then a three-star general, now 90 years old and retired and living in Hawaii, is Frederick Weyand. General Weyand was a distinguished combat officer and commander of III Corps in the Mekong Delta who later supervised the American withdrawal from Vietnam and then became United States Army Chief of Staff. Last week, in the interest of historical accuracy, I called to tell him about the coming memorial service for Johnny. I told him Johnny had described the "stalemate" piece as the most important story he'd ever done, and I was renewing my request for a release from the pledge of confidentiality we had given him 40 years ago. He agreed.

I believe both Johnny and I were struck, in 1967, by General Weyand's sober, intellectual analysis of the problems facing both the Americans and the Vietnamese. So many years later, I suspect there may be other officers of his caliber who are thinking about the contradictions in yet another war.

There is, of course, no way of determining how much of an impact the "stalemate" story had on Lyndon Johnson's decision to abandon plans to seek re-election in 1968. The daring of the Communists' Tet offensive undoubtedly swung American public opinion irreversibly. But to me, writ larger, our reports demonstrated how important it was and is for journalists to offer pledges of confidentiality to credible sources in order to report the kind of stories officials normally are reluctant to discuss. It was essential during the Vietnam War, as it is essential today in Iraq.

Murray Fromson, a professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Southern California, was a CBS News correspondent during the Vietnam War.

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Speaking of Accountability

The High Temple of Elite Punditry is truly an accountability-free zone.

Look, on every defining issue I can think of over the past decade or so the consensus view of elite pundits and the master narrative perpetuated by them has been utterly and completely wrong. Whitewater, the Lewinsky scandal, impeachment, the 2000 election, the 2000 post-election, the 2004 "mandate," Iraq, ... and those are just the big ones. And they just keep on writing.

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