Greenwashing

Environmentalists have a shaky relationship with corporations. Corporations are the biggest, most powerful, most unified force fighting to destroy the environment. Business gets a lot cheaper when you can just dump your waste in the creek, as it were.

Corporations have a shaky relationship with environmentalists. Corporations like the environmentalist seal of approval because it gives them good PR. But environmentalists demand that corporations actually do something good for the environment before getting support.

This is where the concept of "greenwashing" comes in. To whitewash a problem means to do something very superficial that makes everything seem better without solving anything. To greenwash is to do something superficial to make yourself appear environmentally responsible without putting anything behind it.

A classic example of greenwashing is so-called "clean coal".

This ad from GE last year is disgusting on a number of levels, not least of which is that it combines a folk song about the horrendous exploitation of coal miners over the last couple centuries with Zoolander-style models strutting around. All for the sake of a "coal is great" message. But the real issue here is portraying coal as clean. Granted, there are ways to filter out some of the most disgusting particulate burn-off (aka soot) that coal plants generate, but they still generate huge amounts of CO2. It might be possible to have cleanER coal, there will never be any such thing as clean coal.

This morning, evil energy giant TXU, which had been aggressively trying to build more coal power plants without even pretending to make them clean, has been bought out. Not only that, but the new owners are pledging to stop building (so many) coal plants. Not only that, but they are also pledging to support government regulations capping CO2 emissions!

The head of one of the equity firms involved is also on the board of the World Wildlife Fund. So someone in the process has an environmental conscious, which pretty much explains why the deal worked out as it did.

Do we need to worry that this deal is just greenwashing? TXU was originally going to be building 11 coal plants, and now they're scaling it back to 3. That's cool and all, because it's a big reduction. But if it's a bad idea to build 11 new particulate-spewing, climate destroying power plants, why is it still a good idea to build 3?

In the end, I don't think this deal is greenwashing. It's not as great as it would be if environmentalists conceived and executed it from start to finish, but it's tremendous progress. The interests behind this have involved more people, and made more serious commitments, than they would have if they didn't mean it. And, as the Post article quotes an anonymous source saying, getting a big energy concern like TXU to do this may go a long way to changing a lot of minds among traditional opponents of the environment.

Update - 2/27:
The Christian Science Monitor has an article today pointing up the increased relevance of environmental costs for Wall Street. I take this as partial confirmation that the TXU deal is more than simple greenwashing.

Update 2 - 2/27:
Yes, I'm aware that the GE video is strikingly similar to this idiotic (hot?) techno video from several years ago:

The Netroots vs. The Restroots

One of the main reasons the 2006 election was so amazing is that the grassroots finally harnessed the power of the internet to wrench a small portion of political influence away from entrenched politicians, mainstream media, and megadonors.

Naturally, the powers that were are not too happy about sharing their power with the "netroots" (a lazy man's portmanteau of grass roots and internet, you see). It will always work out better for beltway insiders to scratch each other's backs than it will for them to behave as if they represented actual citizens, which is why it's crucial that the netroots maintain, and expand, their influence.

Don't get me wrong - beltway insiders have the right, nay, the obligation to look out for themselves. A basic premise of capitalism, and its ally democracy, is that people should pursue their own interests. We should no more blame insiders for their chauvinism than we should blame the Yankees for spending twice as much money as every other baseball team. As long as the system doesn't restrict you from doing something, you are free to do it.

But the justification for selfishly pursuing individual interests is having opposing interests challenging them, keeping them in check. An article today in the Washington Post, the official mouthpiece of beltway conventional wisdom, simultaneously analyzes the opposing relationship of the netroots to the establishment and participates in it. The article, titled "Woman in the Middle", is by Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald. It is about the efforts of the left/netroots to challenge Rep. Ellen Tauscher (a centrist Democrat from a very liberal district of California) in her Democratic primary in 2008.

There are several hints scattered throughout the article as to the establishment sympathies of the writers. First, the netroots is composed of rowdy bomb throwers:

• "Moderate Democrat Is New Target of Liberal Bloggers"
• "the party's left wing had already settled on their new enemy"
• "eight MoveOn.org activists were accusing her of helping President Bush".

The beginning of the piece also has an anecdote about how the party's left wing demands Tauscher show some leadership on opposing Bush's escalation in Iraq. Tauscher apparently responds that she gave a speech opposing the escalation and that she has shown leadership in bringing infrastructure pork to the district. Since the point is that the leadership be focused on Iraq, the left is left unsatisfied by the encounter. The article insinuates that we want to argue more than we want to be convinced.

The fundamental objection the netroots has to Tauscher is that she doesn't support progressive policies or politics. For instance, she echoed Republican (!) talking points before the 2006 election by accusing the netroots of dragging the party off a left cliff. She has also been pro-corporate, siding with Republicans on issues like the odious bankruptcy bill, and thus making such bills look more bipartisan than they are or should be.

But these actions don't just piss off bomb throwing bloggers, they are are also out of step with Tauscher's liberal district. As the story notes, the netroots aren't challenging conservative Democrats in conservative districts, like Heath Shuler (D-NC). But the story makes it clear that, in the minds of the writers, Tauscher is doing an awesome job of representing her district. For instance, Tauscher is described lobbying for more C-17 cargo planes, which are based in her district.

She then raced to catch the last minutes of an Armed Services Committee hearing, just in time to question Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As five women from the antiwar group Code Pink stood in protest, Tauscher asked two quick questions: Why didn't Bush's budget increase production of the C-17, a plane based at Travis? And how much would the president's troop increase cost?

Pace called the C-17 a "great aircraft" and hinted that he wouldn't be too upset if Tauscher, who chairs the subcommittee on strategic forces, stuck a few more into the budget, as she did last year.

This is not the space to argue about pork, but suffice it to say I am not impressed with Tauscher's devotion to her district as expressed by betraying its values and bribing it with a couple extra jobs. This passage also illustrates the back-scratch ménage à trois that boils the blood of any grassroots activist. Beltway insider Pace passes a wink to beltway insider Tauscher, who nods back. The beltway insider fishwrap holds up its end of the bargain by reporting this as positive evidence of Tauscher's devotion to her district. Never mind that our military budget is way out of control or that Tauscher's constituents would benefit more from balanced bankruptcy regulations and a higher minimum wage.

The WaPo's ally on this issue of protecting the establishment first turns out to be House leader Nancy Pelosi. The story goes on to explain how Pelosi and Tauscher used to have their differences, but now they're suspiciously good friends. The newfound friendliness would sound a bit more natural if the teeth expressing it were a bit less clenched.

Said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly: "We want to protect our incumbents. That's what we're about."
[...]
[Tauscher] was once the only California Democrat to oppose Pelosi's campaign for leadership, but she now marvels that the speaker's performance has been "absolutely perfect -- and she looks so beautiful doing it!"

I should note that this is actually exactly what I want to hear from the Pelosi camp, which is advancing its own interests as it is supposed to. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to vote with the Congress you want, not the Congress you have. If you're Nancy Pelosi, and you want members to vote with the caucus, one of the few bargaining chips you have is the promise to help them keep their jobs. So this is precisely how you should run a caucus, and running a caucus is precisely what I want Nancy Pelosi to do.

But this story also proves the benefit of having a third force, i.e. the netroots, wielding some influence. If it were left up to the mainstream press and the political leadership, as it always was in the past, there would be no pressure on Tauscher. And it is obvious that the pressure the netroots is putting on Tauscher is helping already: she is following Pelosi's lead in the caucus since she knows she needs Pelosi to help her with the coming challenge.

The article also mentions Rep. Jane Harman, another Democrat from California, and Sen. Joe Lieberman. Even if a primary challenge against an incumbent like Tauscher fails to unseat her, the cases of Harman and Lieberman show that putting the pressure on can still be crucial.

"I don't think [Lieberman is] a fair comparison," Tauscher said. "My colleagues look at this and say, 'If they're going after Ellen Tauscher, holy moly!' "
[...]
But Kos points to Harman as a perfect example of how the Net roots can keep Democrats in line. He said Harman used to be a constant irritant, a go-to quote for reporters looking for a Democrat to tweak liberals -- until she had to fight off a primary challenge from the left in 2006. "She's been great ever since," he said. Now Harman even writes on the liberal Huffington Post blog.

Under the old paradigm, the beltway insiders were free to collude, thereby shutting out passionate, concerned citizens who lacked only organization. Now, the concerned multitudes have the means to organize, and we should not be surprised that their concern is not welcome. The establishment interests can kick and scream all they want, I don't think the netroots are about to let up on them.

Triangulation: The Strategy I Love to Hate

[If] deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray--by the subtle signs of self-knowledge--the deception being practiced.

Robert Trivers wrote this sentence in the introduction to Richard Dawkins' influential The Selfish Gene, and it gives a genetic excuse for every earnest promise that has ever gone unfulfilled. Ladies, this is why that gentleman was able to say he loved you and then slept with your sister anyway - people have a capacity to mean things only when they say them in order to convince other people they believe them.

Casting around completely at random for an example to illustrate this, we could take a shot in the dark and hit Hillary Clinton. Clinton has a major problem admitting that her vote for the Iraq war was a mistake. Primary voters in New Hampshire seem to be especially displeased by this, as well they should.

So why won't Clinton just repudiate her stupid vote already and move on to enjoy her enormous structural advantage on the campaign trail? Apparently she thinks apologizing would be "a gimmick".

OK, fair enough. If she doesn't mean it, she shouldn't apologize. Such an apology would sound like the apology for resting your french fries on your brother's side of the back seat. But just as in the back seat, it's not that we want to hear her say "I'm sorry", it's that we want her to be sorry.

Quoth Clinton, “If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.” As Kos trenchantly remarks, "Thank you, Hillary. I think I will."

There are plenty of ways for Clinton to get out of this situation without saying she's sorry. For example, she could use her genetically programmed excuse and say that it seemed right at the time but it was actually wrong. There, problem solved.

Trotting out her usual laundry list about why and how she was misled and did the right thing given the situation and blah and blah isn't going to cut it. Voting for the invasion of Iraq was a huge mistake. I opposed it from Day 1. So did Barack Obama. It was obvious (to me at least) that Bush and his cronies really had deceived themselves into believing that Iraq had to be invaded, but erasing the subtle signs of self-knowledge wasn't enough to convince me that the invasion was worth supporting.

What really nags at me about Clinton's refusal to say something straightforward is the presence of some subtle signs of self knowledge in her persona. One suspects that she knows that voting for the invasion was wrong, and she was just intimidated into going with the crowd by the jingoistic atmosphere and Bush's high approval ratings. But she won't admit it.

Even though John Edwards voted for the war resolution, he has completely and humbly retracted that vote. This tells me that if chose him from the other candidates, as Clinton would have me do, John Edwards would use better judgment next time. I don't see that from Clinton.

Shifting to the other side of the aisle, conservatives still hold Clinton to be public enemy #1. Her current position on the war, moderate as it is, simply isn't ludicrous enough to convince any right winger that the sexual threat she represents can be overlooked. To wit, the smash and grab artists who were behind the bogus swift boat attacks on John Kerry are now trying to figure out how they can baselessly smear Clinton the same way.

Clinton is a strong girl who can take of herself, and she's been public enemy #1 for so long that there isn't going to be any new dirt on her. Without new dirt, the same old attacks will (a) not pique much media coverage and (b) fail to turn anyone against her who doesn't already hate her. So whatever further conservative attacks she suffers, she has nowhere to go but up. But the conservative opinion thus identified underscores the larger problem: triangulation.

Clinton is taking two very distant ideological points and creating a third point in the middle. The assumption of this strategy is that public opinion will be distributed maybe 20% strongly left and 20% strongly right with the two sides fighting over the 40% in the middle. Therefore, says the strategy, if any one candidate could appeal directly to that middle, he or she would have an instant plurality.

But in the case of Iraq, strong majorities oppose the occupation under every formulation. And here the main problem with triangulation emerges: by trying to appeal to some sort of middle, Clinton is left with no friends. People on the left hate that she won't own up to her misjudgments, and people on the right hate her because they're bitter, hateful people.

Some centrists might conclude that they like her style, but passionate people, the kind of people who will really go to bat for you, believe in things. They won't accept "maybe" for an answer.

More Internship and Training Opportunities

OK, after digging deeply through my browser's bookmarks, I have unearthed some more opportunities for young people in the progressive world.

• Media Matters: progressive media watchdog offers internships in several areas.
• Progressive States Network: organization devoted to state-level politics, based in New York.
• Progressive Policy Institute: not as progressive as the name would have you believe, this Washington think tank is allied with the DLC.
• Mother Jones: San Francisco-based liberal magazine and institute offers journalism internships.
• Campaign for America's Future: internships are available at this think tank/activism group.
• 21st Century Democrats: this organization trains Democratic campaign workers for management level positions on campaigns, but I'm not sure it's still active.
• Center for Policy Alternatives: this Washington-based organization is also interested in state-level political transformation. The Center is under the same umbrella as the Progressive States Network. Both branches offer internships.
• Center for Progressive Leadership: this group offers trainings and fellowships for progressive youth.
• Common Cause: a Washington-based organization that focuses on accountability and government transparency. Offers internships.
• Demos: based in New York, this think tank offers policy internships.
• Drum Major Institute: also in New York, DMI has internships in social justice.
• Emily's List: this advocacy group to promote progressive female candidates. It offers trainings and internships.
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR): the title sums up what this organization is about. It offers media internships.
• Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute: offered by Choice USA, this program does trainings for pro-choice youth.
• Green Corps: offers environmental leadership training.
• Institute for Policy Studies: this DC think tank offers internships during the summer.
• New Democrat Network: NDN bills itself a policy and advocacy group. It offers internships in the spring for sure, and possibly in the summer.
• People for the American Way: PAW is a venerable civil liberties group, and in today's environment that means it's effectively liberal. Offers internships.

Now go forth, and develop thy career track!

Because It's Never Too Early...

These days, I've been casting my mind back to my days during 1st and 2nd year, and I can remember how much of a pain it was to hunt down all the cool internships that are just waiting to be applied for. So in that vein, here's a preliminary list of places to look for summer internships:

DCCC (Congressional Campaigns): http://www.dccc.org/get_involved/internships/

DSCC (Senate Campaigns): http://www.dscc.org/about/internships/

DNC (Get Ready for '08): http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/07/dnc_internshi.php

Center For American Progress: http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus/intern

DLC (Centrist Democratic Politics): http://www.ndol.org/ndol_sub.cfm?kaid=86&subid=62

Politicorps (Through the Bus Project):

The PolitiCorps Fellowship is geared toward juniors and seniors who would like a 10-week experience of politics: hands-on campaign skills training, innovative public policy intensives, and real-world applications of leadership skills and campaign savvy. PolitiCorps fellows learn new ways to think about the world, but PolitiCorps is not just a school of thought. It's a place where Fellows learn by doing, and make a real difference every day. Rolling Admissions through May 1st--if there are spots left! The application is available online. Check out our website!

So These are some starting points, but feel free to get in touch with the exec board if you have questions about applying, or if you have more specific places you want to work. We've got some contacts with the Hillary, Edwards, and Obama campaigns, as well as some congressional stuff as well. Happy Hunting!

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

Maybe I'm the only one who does this, but whenever I hear a politician being blatantly disingenuous, it makes me think of this scene from Donny Darko. We're talking the kind of dishonesty that just reeks of insincerity, inauthenticity, or a basic failure to realize how easy it is to fact-check with Google nowadays.

You see, Sparkle Motion is not a terribly profound project (see Appendix A), and there isn't much reason to be committed to it. So when a politician exhibits an insulting disregard for the actual priorities of the nation, it makes me think he's treating citizens' priorities like the mom in the doorway treats Sparkle Motion. Herewith, a roundup of recent insults to the collective intellect of America.

John McCain:
You may know John McCain (R-AZ) as the politician committed to being a maverick outsider, willing to stake himself against unregulated soft money contributions to political campaigns. He even put his name all over the issue by cosponsoring the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law of 2002 that has helped Democrats rediscover their small donor base. His partner in that endeavor, Democrat Russ Feingold, has put his money where his mouth is by voluntarily declining soft money donations. But where he should have put his money, McCain put his foot last week by actively courting the very same soft money donors he used to oppose.

Hillary Clinton:
Clinton (D-NY) is addicted to triangulation. For those who are too young or don't remember, triangulation is the practice of stabbing your allies in the back to make yourself look good. More to the point, it's the worst of squirmy political pandering. For example, triangulation would counsel a politician to support the invasion of Iraq so as to not appear too dovish, but also to not appear too out of touch with reality by acknowledging that the occupation isn't going well; instead, the politician ought to find some ill-defined middle ground from which to scuzzily stand for nothing.

Clinton took a page right out of the triangulation book this weekend in New Hampshire. A primary voter asked her to just say she was wrong about voting for the Iraq war. Instead, she stuck to her script by saying that she was right to do what she did when she did it based on the evidence she had but that she wouldn't do it again knowing what she knows now. Does she even understand how lame that sounds? No one is questioning her hindsight, we just want to know that she understands what it means to just be wrong.

Joe Lieberman
Lieberman (CfL-CT) has proved everyone right who said he was just a selfish jerk out for he, himself, and him. Incidentally, in a hilarious twist, it does not look like Lieberman will be getting the nomination for the Connecticut for Lieberman party's 2012 Senate bid, as some cantankerous malcontent in Fairfield will be holding the party's convention in his rumpus room.

But back to the latest betrayal: Lieberman made a big stink during his campaign about how he was going to hold people's feet to the fire on Katrina accountability. To the surprise of none of his critics, he promptly abandoned that promise in favor of making out with George W. Bush some more (see Appendix B). I could have sworn someone like Lieberman would have been more committed to Sparkle Motion than that.

George W. Bush
I know what you're thinking, and the answer is yes: Bush really did do something disingenuous for once, if you can believe it. Technically, there are some people who still support Bush for some reason. But defend him as much as you like, I don't think anyone serious would argue that Bush is an environmentalist. Which is why it was so hilarious (and insulting) when the Administration tried to claim last week that Bush is really on the ball with climate change science.

This is like the Pope trying to claim he's a Mormon. Are you kidding me? I know you fooled the country going into Iraq, but who do you think is really going to believe Bush has been forthright on climate change science? The Administration's claim was laid out in a letter quoting Bush from 2001 but with a generous dose of ellipses:

"First, we know the surface temperature of the earth is warming ... There is a natural greenhouse effect that contributes to warming ... And the National Academy of Sciences indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity."

Turns out those ellipses are the places where he is saying that humans aren't to blame. Sometimes I doubt his commitment to the environment, honestly. This is like Elaine yada yada'ing sex. Come on, guy. Show us you really care about Sparkle Motion, just once.


Appendix A - Sparkle Motion in Concert



Appendix B - Bush and Lieberman, sitting in a tree

Law Giver -or- Moses and The Burning Bush

George W. Bush is a divine law giver, sanctioned by God to bring rules to all mankind. He need look nowhere but inside himself to determine what these laws are. At least, that's the impression you get if you look at his administration's actions over the last couple years.

An excellent diary today by Kagro X over at DailyKos puts this fact in stark relief by discussing the recent flap over Douglas Feith's "inappropriate" but not "unauthorized" intelligence memo. But before getting into the Feith situation, I'm going to lift the Nixon quote Kagro X cites:

Frost: "So ... what ... you're saying is that there are certain situations ... where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal."

Nixon: "Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

Frost: " By definition."

Nixon: "Exactly, exactly. If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security ... then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out to carry it out without violating a law."

The fact that Nixon is the one who made this comment is (a) not surprising at all and (b) the connection we need to the current administration. People like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld came of political age in the Ford administration, and they have a huge chip on their shoulders from when Congress reined in Nixon's absurd theories about the executive. Much of the unitary executive theory that crackpots in the White House subscribe to today is basically a continuation of Nixon's plans to bring Law to Man.

Which brings us back to Feith's comment that his unsavory, reprehensible, morally odious memo was not unauthorized. Who cares whether the thing was authorized if it was illegal, right? The Administration cares, because whatever the president approves becomes legal. As Kagro X also points out, that's why Alberto Gonzales felt justified to tell the Senate that the Administration was operating within the law on its blatantly illegal wiretapping program. Since the president approved that program, in the eyes of theorists at the White House, it was legal.

This concept of the "unitary executive branch" is dangerous and illegitimate, and it underlies everything Bush does. Case in point, his now-infamous signing statements. At a far higher rate than any previous president, Bush has issued statements when he signs laws that say that he will interpret the law in question "in a manner consistent with his constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

Note that Bush does not say he will or won't disregard any law in any specific way. All he says is that he will interpret them however his royal whim dictates.

In addition to ignoring any bill Congress passes, Bush's protection of "the...executive branch" apparently extends to ignoring any oversight Congress attempts to exert over the various cabinet departments. Senators Grassley, Leahy, and Specter (at least) have voiced strong opposition to the non-responsiveness (and at times obstructiveness) of the Department of Justice under Alberto Gonzales.

Not only does DOJ apparently refuse to provide its own responsive documents at the request of Senate committees, but it also tells other executive branch departments not to do so either. You see, DOJ is responsible for handling the legal representation of all federal agencies, and as their attorney, it has advised them not to comply with Congressional oversight requests.

In this context, what would normally be merely a disgusting misuse of power for political purposes starts to take on a much more sinister character: DOJ has also been firing US Attorneys from offices around the country to replace them with hyper-partisan loyalists. They may also take advantage of a provision of the PATRIOT Act that will allow these appointments to become indefinite without Senate confirmation. Not that they need a legal justification since every bead of Bush's sweat is as good as law.

If Bush & Co. are to be believed, he is the only part of government that matters. Heck, I bet he could play all nine positions on a baseball team, too. But I don't think this is what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they set up three separate branches of government any more than Abner Doubleday had one-person baseball teams in mind. Since Bush's most significant experience before becoming governor of Texas was (poorly) running the Texas Rangers baseball team, maybe this shouldn't come as such a surprise.

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

Big news in health care today, as a new super coalition is going to try to tackle America's insurance mess. The new group, vapidly titled Better Health Care Together, brings together unlikely partners such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Center for American Progress, Wal*Mart, and AT&T. The idea is to promote these four bland and content-free action items:

1) We believe each person in America must be guaranteed access to quality, affordable health insurance coverage;

2) We believe individuals have a responsibility to maintain and protect their health;

3) We believe that America must dramatically improve the value it receives for every health care dollar; and

4) We believe that businesses, governments, and individuals all should contribute to managing and financing a new American health care system.

The interesting part of this news is obviously not the action items but rather the coalition itself. Previous efforts at health care reform have been stymied by business interests, led especially by health insurance companies. Somehow the insurance industry got it in its head that eliminating private health insurance would be bad for their business model, and they will do everything they can to stop the most effective reform: eliminating private health insurance, just like every other advanced country:

Every other advanced nation in the world has a national health care system for all. Try asking a crowd of people if they know anyone in Europe who doesn't have health care coverage. Or in Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malta, Costa Rica, Cuba or dozens of other countries in the world..

It's not an easy thing to do when you want to eliminate an entire sector of your economy for the health, as it were, of the rest of the economy. But it will be easier if big corporations that have previously sided with health insurers throw their weight behind fixing the problem. Not just because they are the largest consumers of health insurance and will be listened to, but also because you have to have corporate money talking if you want any Republicans to listen.

The good news is that for the last couple of years, big business has started to realize how much it's getting screwed by the current employer-provided system. Notably, GM announced that health care expenses were adding thousands of dollars per vehicle in extra costs to their bottom line. GM reasoned that this was forcing them to be less competitive on the global marketplace, since their competitors have operations in countries with sensible health care systems. Now, this is pretty much BS, since GM's lack of competitiveness is more easily traced to their willingness to let Honda and Toyota make much better cars with much better gas mileage. But overpaying for health care isn't doing big powerful corporations any favors, and the point is that they now realize it.

So perhaps we have reach an impasse. Big corporations want to stop paying for health insurance, and health insurance companies want people to keep buying it. It would take a real visionary, decider, uniter of a politician to craft the delicate solution that could fix this problem. Fortunately, George W. Bush is still in office, and the health care plan he announced at the State of the Union Address addresses every corporation's worry. It changes tax incentives to make it more economical for people to buy their own private insurance and less economical for them to get it through their employer. But by sticking with private insurance, the HMOs get to keep making a profit off denying people medical treatment This is not an adequate solution, and fortunately it doesn't look like the Democratic Congress is going to jump up and help Bush make it work.

That's the real beauty of this coalition. It isolates the health insurance companies from their erstwhile allies in big business, and it lends legitimacy to the only actual solution. By combining the forces of the Wise (people who want to see effective, efficient coverage for everyone) with the Wealthy (those who want to see costs become reasonable), we can only end up with the one rational solution for making everyone in America more Healthy: single payer care.

Inconvenient Monday

We're showing Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth on Monday at 6 PM.

There may also be dancing/singing/melting ice cream. Maybe. We'll see.

Love the posters:

It's All Grossman's fault

Tonight the Bears lost to the Colts in the Superbowl. This is disappointing on at least two levels.

1. Fact: Superbowl MVP Peyton Manning is a whiny choke artist, and seeing him fail again would have been great. Also, he donates to Republicans.
2. I live in Chicago, and therefore the Bears were my choice.

The consolation prize for the distraught Bears fan is that the team is still quite good, it's really just one guy's fault. Grossman. With even a moderately competent quarterback, one who could have gotten a first down at some point in the second quarter for example, the Bears would have walked away with this one.

Sure, the stats show that he was 20-28 with 1 TD and 2 INTs, but he really played much worse than that. Raw numbers just can't capture the futility that is running ten yards back of the line of scrimmage and falling down by yourself twice on consecutive plays.

But the real highlight of the game came before the opening whistle, when Billy Joel sang our national anthem. It was enough to bring a tear to the eye of even the least patriotic/biggest terrorists among us. Fortunately, through the miracle of Youtbe, the video of Joel's rendition has already been made available. Enjoy.

Gloating is Over

This isn’t going to be long. It seems like an overly simplistic and idealized notion, but I feel like it has not been said enough. It can never be said enough.

Bush is trying to salvage some semblance of a legacy. He is, in many ways, making compromises and welcoming debate. I applaud the Democrats for the 100 Hours agenda—they delivered for the first time in over a decade, or at least as long as I have been interested in politics.

But Bush has been putting himself out there—gas reduction, Iraq debate, balancing the budget, even social security—Democrats need to call his bluff. The political environment is ripe. Drop the bitterness and show the country that you care what the other half has to say—invite Republicans to the caucuses and get their input, because they have constituents as well. I just don’t want to blow this. The Republicans know they got beat; they’re desperate to save the Bush Era. Give ‘em some credit (even if it is undeserved). They’ve had a rough few years.

Plus, it will get the easy shit out of the way so Barrack can concentrate on things we’ve been neglecting, like Medicare, education, and human rights.

I Gotcha Politics Right Here [gestures]

Have you noticed how people keep using this phrase "play gotcha"? (You may have noticed it here, here, here, here, or here, for example.) Sometimes it's even varied as "gotcha journalism". Using this term is basically a defensive tactic for when you believe your side is not getting a fair shake. For example, you could accuse Tim Russert of playing gotcha when he asks deceptive and irrelevant questions that he knows Howard Dean won't have an answer for. In this sense, it expresses the frustration of being marginalized by someone who isn't playing fair but controls the discourse anyway.

However, there is a much more insidious use of the term. And wouldn't you know it, our old friend Joe Lieberman is at the forefront. Lieberman recently used the term in response to a heckler. Seems this gentleman was disappointed that Lieberman promised so earnestly to investigate the Administration's response to Katrina during his campaign, only to refuse to do anything about once he had won. GOP Joe, I mean 'independent Democrat' Joe, seems to think Congress has no role in placing blame. Quoth the slimeball,

"We don't want to play `gotcha' anymore," Lieberman said. "We want to get the aid and assistance to the people of the region who need it."

Now, no one is here to say that aid and assistance should not go to the people of the region who need it (sic). But decrying gotcha politics when you're Joe Lieberman is like decrying the need to know how the nation was misled into war when you're Tony Snow. The Administration has been pretty consistent in wanting to talk about how we're going to win in Iraq instead of talking about why we're there, which makes sense because they look really bad when the conversation shifts that direction.

Gotcha politics, focusing on the present, looking forward. Whatever you want to call them, these terms all denote the tactics of people who wouldn't look so good if we focused on the past. But, as Josh Eidelson points out, gotcha politics is a pretty good thing for Washington because of one simple virtue: accountability.

If no one ever played gotcha politics, no one would ever be calling anyone on their mistakes. Entrenched beltway insiders like Lieberman would be free to make mistakes all the time, constantly undermine the fellow members of their party, and generally behave in the most selfish ways possible without ever having to answer for it. W would be within reason when he asks us to trust him on Iraq. I hope I don't need to flesh out this nightmare scenario any further.

This is where politics starts to seem like a mutual fund. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, we are constantly told. And while technically that is true, it's also pretty much the only thing we have to go on when choosing mutual funds, unless we have inside (and idiosyncratic) information on how some of the stocks in the fund will be performing. So, Joe and George, I'd love to not bother assigning blame, but you guys just keep screwing up. I personally don't have any reason to think your future results will differ greatly from your past performance.

I agree that it would be nice not to have to play gotcha politics all the time, but the solution to the problem is to stop people from screwing up. Running around whining about how much we dislike it is a deceptive, ad hominem, disingenuous tactic that ends up hurting productive political discourse more than it helps. Therefore, here here for gotcha politics.