IN THE FEDERALIST PAPERS NO. 68, ALEXANDER HAMILTON writing as Publius defends the Electoral College. Hamilton wrote: "A small number of persons, selected by thir fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations." In other words, don't let the mob rule.

Like the New York Times has recommended in its editorial, "Abolish the Electoral College," I agree that since "the majority does not rule and every vote is not equal," the Electoral College is an anachronism that should be abandoned.

However, Americans have lost three valuable years in this debate following the contested victory of President Bush in 2000, when a U.S. president again won the White House without winning a majority of the vote. Yes, I know, the Supreme Court helped. But nonetheless, America went to sleep after this debacle and should have begun to dismantle the Electoral College then.

In August, when the Democrats were outperforming Bush in projected electoral college tabulations, there was virtually no coverage of this topic. Now, Bush is pulling ahead in some states, and the Democrats (and New York Times editorial page) are calling for the undemocratic Electoral College system to be scrapped.

I agree with the effort, but this should have been part of the Democratic Party's efforts to broaden and deepen its voter base after 2000. Democrats should have made the case three years ago that the Electoral College was no longer assuring civilized, anti-mob rule but was rather undermining democracy and empowering shrewd political strategists (i.e., Karl Rove) that were gaming the system and establishing a national political machine.

I blame myself as well because I thought after 2000 that the Electoral College disenfranchised the active participation of millions of voters in this national political process. If one resided in what are considered "safe states" in one candidate's column or the other, then those citizens' votes were pretty much disregarded and candidates didn't even try to connect with those people. This would not be true if there were direct elections for the president. We all should have tried to use our political weight in this town to move this issue when there was time to get something done.

Last night, while watching the Convention, there was some post-Giuliani discussion on CNN with the New York Times' Sam Roberts who bluntly said that the Republicans were trying to suppress the black vote in Florida. He said that everyone, Democrat and Republican, in Forida political circles would say "off the record" that the black vote in Florida was Democrat and thus had to be choked.

This revival of poll tax type strategies in the South is directly caused by Electoral College politics. If those black voters and voters throughout the nation were voting directly for the president, there would be a lot less interest in stripping suspected felons off of voting rosters.

Remove the borders between our voters. This is something the Democratic Party should passionately embrace -- whether or not John Kerry wins this election.

And if the Democrats don't do it, it could very well be the next trick in the Republican Party's sleeve to look like a 21st century populist party. I know that if I were Rove, I'd go for aboloshing the Electoral College. . .right after this election.

If you want to see an interesting site that tracks political polls and translates them into likely Electoral College outcomes, see www.electoral-vote.com. I can't vouch for its accuracy -- and the battleground states clearly flip a lot as Kerry has been leading Bush recently on this site. Today, those states in Bush's corner or leaning that way have him at 280 electoral votes, with Kerry at 242. However, the August 30th report had Kerry at 249 and Bush at 232.

-- Steve Clemons

I USED TO THINK THAT SEBASTIAN MALLABY WAS A MANIC NEOLIBERAL. I have always respected the former Economist magazine writer and thinker who now writes as an editorial writer at the Washington Post, but much of his writing years ago was so heavily on the go-go globalization side that I wondered whether he ever thought seriously about the costs and adjustments, and real train wrecks in some societies, associated with high speed neoliberal style globalization.

I was wrong because Sebastian Mallaby -- and his wife the talented and thoughtful top U.S. economics correspondent, Zanny Minton Beddoes -- have emerged as two important writers who can write about neoliberalism while not suspending conscience or political rationality. Mallaby is out there with Harvard's Dani Rodrik arguing that we need to get the developing nation problem right -- and that whether it is more enlightened drug policies or finally removing anachronistic farm subsidies -- failing to think about the "welfare to work" road map in Congo will eventually undermine globalization.

Beddoes, as well, while a believer in the net economic benefits of outsourcing of jobs focuses a great deal on the burdens faced by those who carry the burden for outsourcing and thinks that the Bush administration has simply failed to implement policies that help retrain and rehire displaced workers.

Today, Mallaby poses "The Character Question" about George Bush in his op-ed in the Washington Post and asks the question of whether Bush is all attitude and boldness combined with intellectual laziness and ignorance -- or whether he is fundamentally duplicitous and a liar. These words are mine -- but the article poses roughly this set of questions.

Mallaby writes:

This weakness (sometimes defending positions that have no intellectual basis) is most commonly associated with this war in Iraq -- a radical policy that has backfired on him. Even if you accept the case for war, the way Bush has argued it raises fundamental character issues. Why did he claim links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein despite the lack of evidence? Had he failed to absorb the facts, or was he being plain dishonest?

Why did he allow the postwar planning to be so scandalously poor? Could he not be bothered to cross-examine the officials who were drawing up plans that would determine his standing in history? Bush appears to have been deaf to the chorus of outside experts who warned that nation-building would be difficult. Doesn't this illustrate a lazy lack of curiosity about how bold ideas will play out in the real world? Doesn't this raise doubts about Bush's fitness to be President?

Believe me, Sebastian Mallaby is as tough on John Kerry in the pages of the Post. As in his critique of Kerry, Mallaby pulls no punches on the questions that should be posed to Bush and those of his team in power.

Questions are important and legitimate. Why are so many of our nation's best journalists failing to pose the kinds of questions Mallaby is posing?

Why didn't anyone ask James Shlesinger if he would resign over the Abu Ghraib mess if he were in Rumsfeld's shoes?

Why isn't anyone asking Senator Joe Lieberman why he is mixing his name and reputation with James Woolsey who is making financial profits off of the Iraq War.

Why isn't anyone asking our former chief spy James Woolsey whether he feels guilty for serving as the lawyer for Ahmed Chalabi who now seems at the nexus of an intelligence investigation involving BOTH Israel and Iran? John Le Carre must love this.

I got goose bumps reading Mallaby's hit on the Bush tax cuts. He writes:

The clearest illustration of this inflexibility (not acknowledging mistakes) is not Iraq. It is the central plank of the economic agenda: the tax cuts. These were conceived when the economy was booming and huge budget surpluses were expected, but when the boom turned inito bust, Bush showed no ability to course-correct. Almost unbelievably, Bush not only rammed through the huge tax cut he had promised in the campaign: He cut taxes again in 2002 and a third time in 2003. Even now he seems ready to sign an appalling pork-ridden corporate tax reduction. . .

Again, this is not just a policy issue; it goes to Bush's character. How can he push such a dramatic shift in economic policy without grappling with the basic point that his cuts are unaffordable?

. . .Bush fails to understand that his policies are unsustainable, or perhaps he understands but refuses to say so. In other words he is either ignorant or dishonest: Neither suggests that he deserves the trust of the electorate.

Sebastian Mallaby, and his former Economist magazine colleagues Zanny Minton Beddoes, Adrian Wooldridge, John Micklethwait, John Parker -- and there are probably others on staff there -- are all the sort of writers who are biased towards a "kinder, gentler" conservatism and kind of soft neoliberalism. They are the kind of center-right commentators that if Fox News were fair and balanced they would be using. I know that many of my progressive friends despise the Economist magazine -- but these folks are everything that I would hope from serious thinkers in both moderate Republican and moderate Democrat circles.

Bill Emmott, editor of the Economist and an old friend who used to be Tokyo Bureau Chief for the magazine, and his editors were big supporters of the Iraq War. They did not have unanimity in their circle -- but the fact is that the Economist ate crow, for the most part, and admitted their failures of perspective and reporting this last year. I give them credit for that.

But mostly -- though he is no longer at the Economist -- Sebastian Mallaby deserves kudos for having the guts to pose exactly the right questions about Bush's continual resistance of empirical reality -- "Is he either ignorant or dishonest."

Congratulations Sebastian Mallaby -- for reacquainting us with our backbone and political conscience.

-- Steve Clemons

THE WASHINGTON POST IS TAKING NOMINATIONS for the best political blogs. Obviously, I think that Josh Marshall's www.TalkingPointsMemo.com ought to sweep the categories, but I think that there may be a couple of sections that www.TheWashingtonNote.com might be competitive in.

Also, Matthew Yglesias and a great number of brilliant bloggers are out there whom you might want to nominate. Did you know that if you Google just the name "Matthew" the first item that comes up is not Matthew the Apostle -- but rather Matthew Yglesias' blog.

If you are so inclined to look into this, the nominations end at noon on September 3rd, about a week away. Then voting for those nominated will begin on September 27th. Only the top five nominated sites in each category will be eligible to be voted on.

The link for more information is: www.washingtonpost.com/bestblogs

-- Steve Clemons

THE POST'S BRADLEY GRAHAM AND THOMAS RICKS also finger Pentagon staffer Larry Franklin (confirmed to me by two sources as well) as the FBI's spy probe target in an article today.

About Franklin and his background, they write:

The name of the person under investigation was not officially released, but two sources identified him as Larry Franklin. He was described as a desk officer in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia Bureau, one of six regional policy sections. Franklin worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency before moving to the Pentagon's policy branch three years ago and is nearing retirement, the officials said. Franklin could not be located for comment last night.

There is a great deal we do not know about this case -- and a lot will become clear when and if Franklin is formally charged with a crime.

One thing that needs to be sorted out was whether this alleged spy was a spy of ideology and conscience, or a spy for money.

If the allegations are true, was the spy passing on information that he himself thought might be useful to Israel? Or did Israel solicit this spy for a roster of wanted information?

Also, if the allegations against Larry Franklin turn out to be true on any of these fronts, one has to wonder whether there was some odd "double agent" things going on. Franklin worked closely with Douglas Feith and Harold Rhode, both movement neoconservatives embedded in the Pentagon and both strong advocates of Ahmed Chalabi. In fact, the official address of Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress was also the address of Doug Feith's former law firm.

If Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress intelligence chief were a sieve to Iran, as seems to have been the case when Chalabi allegedly tipped off Iran that the U.S. had broken its codes, could Feith's office have both been feeding intelligence to Israel and Iran at the same time? Was Israel trying to use Franklin and Chalabi to get intelligence from Iran, and the tip about the codes was a confidence building gesture?

It's strange when reality is so much more dramatic than fiction -- but this may be one of those cases. What is clear is that Douglas Feith, No. 3 in the Pentagon, had a cesspool of intelligence intrigue swirling in, around, and through his office -- and he still has his job.

Lurking through much of this is Michael Ledeen, about whom we will be writing more later.

-- Steve Clemons

A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE ASKING ABOUT LARRY FRANKLIN in the next few days. Josh Marshall has been working on a related story for a long time and will be offering a lot on this -- so do check what he says about this when he posts.

However, I have spoken this morning to someone this morning who has confirmed what CBS, CNN's David Ensor, and Knight Ridder's Warren Strobel and John Walcott have reported.

No one seems to want to mention names yet, but what has been reported is that the alleged high level "mole" working for Israeli interests worked for Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official. The 'person of interest' is "a veteran of the Defense Intelligence Agency who moved to the Pentagon's policy branch three years ago and had been nearing retirement," according to the Washington Post.

The FBI is apparently investigating not only the flow of high level secrets from this individual to Israel, possibly through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, but also meetings with and sensitive information passed on to Ahmed Chalabi and Manucher Ghorbanifar -- which AEI scholar and Iran-Contra player Michael Ledeen helped set up.

I have to be a bit careful here because Josh Marshall is sitting on a ton of information that he needs to get out, but he is working with other people and news bureaus and has to handle some protocol.

What I have shared above comes from news reports on the web -- the bulk of which I have just confirmed with sources of my own in the government.

As this story was breaking last night, one person instantly recognized the possibility that Larry Franklin, who participated with Harold Rhode in a secret meeting with Ghorbanifar, might be the target of the investigation.

I do not have confirmation that Larry Franklin has been fingered -- but I was informed that Larry Franklin's profile does in fact closely match the profile of the individual under investigation.

In fact, I was strongly encouraged that this might be the right track to follow. We should hear more today.

I just got a call from another source who finally confirmed for me that Larry Franklin is the target of the investigation.

This is going to open a big can of worms -- and hopefully get the nation back into asking big questions about the Iraq War and how we got into it rather than refighting Vietnam.

-- Steve Clemons

TWO YEARS AGO, LE MEMORIAL DE CAEN INVITED ME TO DEBATE RICHARD PERLE on the conduct and direction of U.S. foreign policy at a star-studded event attended by about 4,000 people. The entire meeting was terrific, and on another day I will share some of the juicier moments of the exchange.

However, today is my birthday and I want to keep today's commentary somewhat festive.

One of the other speakers at this assembly in Caen, France was former Polish President Lech Walesa, with whom I had a two hour lunch discussion via a very busy interpreter. Walesa didn't need much prompting to share his views on anything, but at some point, I needed to ask him something that might prove worth his attention.

So, I asked him who among the many U.S. presidents he met did he like and appreciate the most. He paused and went silent for quite a long time and then pounced on this question, replying that as he thought about it, he was of a mixed mind.

Walesa liked Ronald Reagan the best. He trusted Reagan; they joked a lot and traded bad jokes. He thought George H.W. Bush honorable but less compelling than Reagan. But then his face crinkled up and said that Bill Clinton used to make him crazy, making him wait forever in a holding room. He said that Clinton wouldn't waste the time meeting until all of the media and camera crews were in the room, and then as soon as the cameras were rolling, Clinton came alive and the show began. Clinton taught Walesa that what really mattered when they met and pushed big issues was how the world was seeing the meeting -- and that depended on the performances before the camera.

Walesa said that though Clinton could be frustrating, he learned the most from him, particularly about the politics of communication.

This is all leading somewhere. Somehow, and I am not sure how, I have been receiving internal emails from Department of Homeland Security staff that I don't think I should have received. Clearly, after this posting, I'm going to be cut off. I've called a lawyer and don't think I can be tossed in jail for posting what I am about to share with you.

Besides, what I am going to post is a cool thing to know -- rather than something devious or dark. And frankly, if I were helping to run one of the units at the Department of Homeland Security, I'd be thinking about movie and television branding too.

To cut to the chase, various officials at Customs & Border Protection at the Department of Homeland Security are worried that Heather Locklear and NBC's new show (scheduled to premiere on September 13th), LAX, will feature border control authorities in the wrong uniforms with the wrong patches, and so on.

Does anyone think that the premiere date coming just two days after 9/11 is just coincidental?

NBC's promo blurb for the show reads:

Television favorites Heather Locklear and Blair Underwood are teamed as intense rivals in this dramatic series centered in a world unto itself: a major international airport. Security breaches, terrorist threats, illegal immigrants, missing children, drug busts -- when it comes to stories to tell, well, the sky's the limit. Each week will feature compelling dramas, from chance encounters to surprise reunions to the ongoing power struggles and romantic misadventures between the people who keep LAX running smoothly.

Clearly, lots of intense homeland security action and terrorist tension are planned each week if the show makes the cut -- which is all a great opportunity for DHS Customs and Border Protection personnel to get some good branding and air time on commercial television.

Again, nothing cosmic follows in these three emails -- and reportedly, the show's producers have promised everything under the sun (short of compromising artistic license) to make sure that DHS/CBP is happy with the image of CBP officers generated in the show.

I have censored certain names to protect the innocent and those who may have inadvertently sent this to me. Email number one reads:

Subject: 'LAX' - NBC series

XXX (initials removed)

Email number two follows:

We don't want to endorse the show. we want the pubic, however, to know that we are the unified border agency for the U.S. We need to be careful here.

XXX (name removed),
Please advise on any "landmines" here re our conversation with the show.

The final email I am probably going to receive on this reads:

I think it is extremely important that we work with them to get our agency right. I got a strong feeling that they will work with us if we are cooperative...anyway..branding a new agency is difficult enough without having a television show watched by millions as unbranding us by calling us something different and making us look different..xxx (name removed)

This clearly isn't a major national security item, but I think it does provide some insight into the marketing concerns and priorities of evolving government agencies which know that they will be depicted in entertainment shows.

Heather Locklear assures that this will get some attention.

And who knows -- maybe some of the folks on the email list I have will end up advising the show like former Clinton White House National Economic Advisor Gene Sperling does for The West Wing.

-- Steve Clemons

DID YOU KNOW THAT REP. RANDY "DUKE" CUNNINGHAM (R-CA-50) was an official attendee at the scandalous 1991 Tailhook Association Meeting in Las Vegas? I had no idea that this repugnant ideologue in the House of Representatives was part of that misogynist mess.

I just received a powerful and very informed email from Chalmers Johnson, author of the best-selling books Blowback: The Costs and Consequence of American Empire and Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic, that does a great job exposing the seediness of this member of Congress. Chalmers is supporting a Democratic Party challenger who lives in Cardiff, California -- Francine Busby.

The entire email is too long to post, but I'd be happy to forward to any interested parties. Just send me a note at steve@steveclemons.com, and I'll send it off.

I should add that I am not opposed to all Republicans -- just those who don't believe in the Enlightenment. I really like moderate Republicans and have been a supporter and advisor to the Republican Main Street Partnership, which Amo Houghton (R-NY-29) founded. But moderate Republicans are currently an endangered species, regrettably.

Here is an excerpt of Chalmers Johnson's email:

Cunningham's most famous naval exploit occurred after he had left the Navy and was a freshman Congressman. In 1991, Cunningham was a member of the board of directors of the Tailhook Association, a private group of active duty, reserve, and retired Navy and Marine Corps aviators, defense contractors, and their supporters. (The name 'tailhook' comes from the device that halts aircraft when they land on aircraft carriers.)

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune of March 11, 1998, he referred to such efforts as "B.S." and "political correctness." In 1998, Cunningham insulted his fellow congressman Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who is openly gay, causing Frank to reply that "Cunningham seems to be more obsessed with homosexuality than most homosexuals."

Earlier today I encouraged the media to ask James Schlesinger not whether Rumsfeld should be fired -- but rather would Schlesinger himself resign from the Defense Secretary job if he were in Rumsfeld's shoes?

If personal integrity won't move Rumsfeld to do what is right -- then both the media and Congress need to compel him to do so.

But guys like Duke Cunningham (and Tom Delay) have warped the system of checks and balances that so many during our long history have fought to establish and preserve.

How can a guy who thinks Tailhook was just all good fun be counted on to responsibly legislate or investigate matters related to Abu Ghraib. If a House Member cannot be part of an accountability action plan in the U.S. government, then he or she needs to be voted out.

Check out Busby and send her some support if you can. Most of Cunningham's financial support comes not from his constituents but from DC and New York -- whereas Busby's comes from those she hopes to represent in Cardiff, Rancho Santa Fe and the San Diego metro region.

Maybe some folks reading this can balance out Cunningham's Northeast Corridor fundraising advantage.

-- Steve Clemons

"ABUSE REPORT WIDENS SCOPE OF CULPABILITY" blares over the full top page of the Washington Post this morning. One of the subtitles reads "Generals Point to Contractors, Military Intelligence Soldiers."

The author, Josh White, writes:

Gen. Paul J. Kern, Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones and Maj. Gen. George R. Fay flatly reported that they had found "serious misconduct and loss of moral values" in the ranks of Abu Ghraib and explained that abuse occurred both in the chaos of the military police-run nightshift and also during official interrogations by military intelligence soldiers. Tactics employed by military intelligence set the stage for a subsequent escalation of maltreatment."

What these generals are saying is that they do not accept responsibility for being in charge or for establishing the values system operating in the prison.

It's hard for me to believe that any of those of the 372nd Military Police Academy could be responsible for establishing the norms and rules of handling prisoners; nor were they in command. They followed others, be they professional intelligence extractors of the 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion, other CIA officials, and apparently some military officers. Those being tried for prison abuse and torture are small time compared to those really responsible.

The Schlesinger Report goes a long way in at least speaking about the importance of accountability -- but then disappoints when it gets to its punch line. Donald Rumsfeld was the overlord of this entire operation and meddled in the rules for managing detainees. I cannot understand why both Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner and former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger pull their punches when it comes to the real issue at hand: Rumsfeld failed to manage his responsibilities well and presided over a climate that led to the humiliation and torture of people in custody. I happen to know Schlesinger, not well but well enough to know that he would be resigning now if he had Rumsfeld's job.

All of the reporters are asking Warner, Schlesinger, and others if Rumsfeld 'should' resign. The better question I hope reporters ask Schlesinger next time (or today??) is "Would you resign if you were Secretary of Defense and this had happened during your watch?"

What I dislike about the report and the coverage of it is that it deals with the detention abuses at Abu Ghraib and other facilities as isolated from fundamentally deeper questions about military values and culture. I realize that this is a complicated subject for many, particularly those who believe that the core values embedded in military organization and service are those to which society should aspire. I grew up as a military dependent and am familiar with the positive and negative aspects of military life.

One of the things I learned when growing up in a military household is that enlisted men and officers, and their families, are inculcated to a great degree "to not make waves," to not challenge authority, to just go along with what is instructed and expected. This creates a climate where those at the top set the rules and norms, and those in lower ranks either contribute to the values architecture promulgated from above, or they drop out of the system and are often harassed for resisting and not going along.

Abu Ghraib is a small blip on a long list of military culture questions I have.

In July 1999, Private First Class Barry Winchell, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was murdered by two soldiers who thought he was gay. An investigation later found that Winchell had endured taunts for four months prior to this murder. The Commanding Officer of that installation, Major General Robert Clark, was nonetheless promoted and not found responsible for the behavior of his troops or for presiding while a hateful atmosphere thrived under his watch.

Why are the generals not in charge? These incidents do differ in some ways, but they are similar in the sense that generals in both circumstances are denying responsibility -- when they are in fact paid by taxpayers to be those responsibly charged with important duties.

During the Nazification of Germany, there were numerous German generals who tried to maintain their charges and follow their duties as they believed them to be. They were often demoted, transferred, imprisoned, or shot if they crossed instructions coming from informal authorities in the SS, which were loyal to Hitler rather than to the military's command structure.

I am not implying that our military system is being Nazified, but I think it is legitimate to question why responsibility and accountability seem to be disappearing from the historical code of conduct and honor of the military forces and the civilian leadership that manages them. Why aren't the generals responsible when those beneath them do bad things? Why isn't the president responsible when his Defense Secretary fails to take responsibility for the military he is managing?

Remember the rape scandal and cover-up at the U.S. Air Force Academy? Or the rape of a 12 year old girl in Okinawa by three U.S. military troops? In that case, the presiding Admiral in charge, Richard Macke, at least apologized. Remember Tailhook?

I am not anti-military and was proud of my own father's service in the Air Force. However, when I lived overseas (in particular), I never could quite understand why the military police -- which was often harassing us high school students -- turned a blind eye to prostitution, public drunkenness, rapes, and petty crime that servicemen would engage in along "the strip" near the air base where we lived. I soon learned that these "strips" existed around nearly every U.S. military base abroad, at least in Asia -- and I saw them at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo, around the bases in Okinawa; and also South Korea, the Philippines, and Guam. Our military police were complicit with the host nation's military police in "managing" the rebelliousness of 18 and 19 year old (and often older) troops and keeping most of the problems hidden -- short of murder and really violent rapes.

The Schlesinger Report does not delve into the bigger question of what has gone wrong in military culture where evil things occur but those in charge aren't held accountable. There is something wrong in a "don't make waves" military culture where so few feel empowered to blow the whistle on abuses. Even Joseph M. Darby, the young reservist who blew the whistle on Abu Ghraib is now in military protective custody because of death threats.

In the future, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate as a whole -- when considering senior Pentagon appointments -- needs to inquire of those they are charging with important responsibilities whether or not they will readily accept responsibility for the failures as well as the successes of people and institutions under their command.

That is clearly not happening today.

-- Steve Clemons

AS IF THE COSTS OF THE IRAQ WAR WEREN'T HIGH ENOUGH, the battle over a new roster of permanent UN Security Council members may add to the tally. Some of America's allies see their cooperation with America in Iraq as enhancing their bona fides for possible permanent Security Council membership.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said that he will announce his campaign to secure a permanent seat for Japan at a speech before the UN next month. Germany is working hard at this too.

What is disturbing is that Sylvio Berlusconi is lobbying President Bush to make sure that if Germany is added, Italy gets its place too. Since Italy and Japan have both sent forces to Iraq, they hope to capitalize quid pro quo on support from Bush to make their way towards a coveted permanent Security Council membership.

I am not a specialist on UN reform, but it seems to me that global governance schemes ought to rank above petty sentimentalism about who stood with America, or not, in a single controversial war. If this Pandora's box is opened, the final Security Council membership list will be decided through a brutal consensus-building process, but America should support those nations that give it the most long term leverage in building trusted and stable regional centers of power.

I can easily contain my enthusiasm for the United Nations, where pretension outstrips competence and credibility far more regularly than in Washington -- as bad as it has been there lately. The world is better off with the United Nations, however, with the U.S. straddling both engagement with the UN as well as willing to pursue its interests independent of the UN when necessary.

Long term, I can envision Japan's permanent membership -- if it somehow comes to terms with its historical amnesia in a manner that is not just a function of American pressure. Otherwise, a more empowered Japan remains too destabilizing in the Asia Pacific region. But for many other reasons, Japan's membership makes sense.

China and Russia are already in the club, but the obvious missing candidates are Brazil and India -- regional powerhouse nations whom America needs to cultivate to help maintain stability in their respective spheres.

Europe, though, is the biggest impediment to reform. France and the UK already have memberships; and other European nations float on and off the non-permanent roster of Security Council members. Germany arguably belongs if one is considering current nation states because of its economic weight, population size, and its heavy contributions in men, materials and money to international stabilization projects. If Italy were to succeed in maneuvering a seat if Germany is added, and there are no other forfeitures of position, then Europe would have four permanent seats.

Poland and eventually Turkey would feel that if Italy made a revised membership cut, then they too should be added.

I am sure that others have much better ideas than me on how to reform the Security Council, but Europe (old and new) needs to pull the plug on its own anachronisms and step up to the plate to propose a single European seat in a revised Security Council.

Besides Europe and the United States, China and Russia should keep their seats. Brazil and India need to be there too. South Africa should be considered. There are probably others like Turkey, Iran, Nigeria and Indonesia that should one day be considered, but in my view, not for many years and not until they become more stable democracies committed to regional and global stability.

Japan is a real toss-up case. It has a powerful military and huge economy, but at this point -- it behaves too much like a supplicant of the United States -- which means that its behavior when less tethered to America is harder to predict.

I'm of a mixed mind on Japan, but very clear-headed on the importance of all European nations sharing a single permanent Security Council seat. It's time for Europe to decide that it is indeed Europe.

To help promote global stability, America will need responsible centers of power around the world, allies or occasional collaborators, to help achieve this objective. Having the world's obvious regional superpowers at the table is not a celebration of the UN as an institution but good common sense furthering U.S. national interests.

-- Steve Clemons

STILL NOT ABLE TO GET ON LINE HERE IN LONDON, but I have had an interesting week, some of which is worth reporting. . .discreetly.

First of all, the British are overall not pleased with Bush or the U.S. One of my well-placed government friends commented that while many Europeans regretted earlier episodes of fanatical anti-Americanism and were swinging back towards a "collaborative spirit" with the U.S., the opposite is unfolding in Britain.

Whereas the UK stood by President Bush and the U.S. in the Iraq War and many felt that the special relationship with America required Britain to take that stand, even in a bad war, polls show that the British really detest Bush. Apparently, polling is showing that, over time, this anger at the American president is morphing into full-fledged anti-Americanism.

My friends -- who are pretty close to Tony Blair though don't speak for him -- worry that the re-election of George W. Bush will dramatically energize these currents of anti-Americanism and significantly harm this important relationship.

Tony Blair was in Tuscany vacationing these last several days but stayed close to his staff on national security matters. The British have lost three military staff in Basra these last several weeks -- after not having had any killed for several months (in dramatic contrast with the U.S.) -- and are seriously worried that the conflict in Najaf could incite Shia sympathy and insurgency throughout Iraq.

Several senior officials repeated the same fear that this stand-off between Iraqi national guardsmen (guided and backed by U.S. military detachments) and Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has all of the ingredients of a "Middle East Waco." They fear that any assault by the Iraqi National Guard and U.S. troops could trigger al-Sadr to blow up the Najaf Shrine, making it look like the U.S. did it.

As I am currently on a plane back to Washington, I have no idea whether there has been further action in Najaf, but many in Blair's world are worried that the price of being America's most dependable ally is becoming very high.

Working through these themes, my colleague Michael Lind has a thoughtful op-ed in the 23 August Financial Times, "The Atlantic is Becoming Even Wider" in which he argues that while America and Britain are converging in a lot of cosmetic ways, geo-strategically, they are set on divergent courses. Lind, like Charles Kupchan, and many others believe that the forces driving a wedge in the transatlantic UK-US relationship are fundamental and not sensitive to a personality switch in the White House.

However, many over in London see Kerry as the only potential relief on the horizon who might set the special relationship back on some positive course.

One of the interesting observations shared by another government friend is that those in British circles most sympathetic to neoconservative thinking are those who want the UK to preserve full British sovereignty and avoid further entanglement in what they see as the mess evolving in Europe. Those most opposed to neocons support the European project and think that the best way for the UK to maintain influence is to become a greater part of the rule-writing and management process evolving in Brussels.

While the British don't really have neoconservatives, their British nationalists have made common cause with our neocons. Strangely, those Brits who want John Kerry to be the next president are those most committed to a strong Europe and to a demotion of the American relationship.

The UK-US relationship is clearly headed for greater complexity. I'm going to need to call Andrew Sullivan when I get back.

-- Steve Clemons

REMEMBER WHEN GEORGE SOROS BET AGAINST THE BRITISH POUND and raked in more than one billion dollars for his efforts? I do. I was in London at that time, and the currency was going through the floor.

Although the pound is much higher against the U.S. dollar today than it was at that time (when holding dollars in my pocket felt good), I bet Soros is placing wagers not only against George Bush but that the dollar is going to sink to even lower levels.

I'm at the Starbucks on Victoria Street, not far from the Houses of Parliament. I don't see any political celebrities here like I saw recently at the Starbucks near the White House. They seem to hang out at pub down the street. In fact, I think that the EU's successor trade minister to Pascal Lamy, Britain's Peter Mandelson may be down at the Red Lion Pub trying to convince members of the House of Commons that he won't become too European in his new job.

Starbucks is just beginning to get T-Mobile wifi installed at its European locations -- but service is spotty. The pub barristas (ok, bartenders), like at the Red Lion, get pretty addled if you ask for wireless while ordering a pint. I am having a very difficult time getting on line here, mostly because of a computer problem, so I may have to upload these posts when I return to Washington.

A cup of venti size coffee of the day at Starbucks at Connecticut and R Streets in Dupont Circle in Washington costs $1.87. Here in London, a venti coffee is 1.75 pounds, which is approximately $3.50. Shockingly, a gallon of gas is about $7.00 a gallon here, about 75% of which goes to the national treasury. And if one drives a car into central London -- just driving through -- the charge, or congestion tax as it is called, is 5 pounds a day, or roughly $10.00.

Tokyo used to seem expensive to me -- but now seems like a dream destination compared to the prices in London. Last year, Tokyo's central bank spent nearly $200 billion buying dollars and dumping yen to keep the dollar from drastically dropping in relative value and crippling the ability of Americans to buy Japanese exports. My guess from my experience thus far in London is that Britain's central bankers meddle less in markets (other than gas consumption and car useage) and did not worry about the dollar's fall.

During the 80s and 90s, America's current account deficit as a percentage of GDP basically wavered between 2.5% and 3.25%, but recently, the current account deficit has surged to nearly 5% of GDP and is projected to rise to about 6% in the near term. Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf has written some superb commentary regarding America's worsening macroeconomic conditions, and sensibly argued that "the high and rising U.S. current account deficit is one of the most remarkable features of the world economy."

I have never worried that much about the absolute dollar value of the current account deficit -- but when GDP ratios begin changing quickly over short time spans -- I get concerned. Wolf agrees that deciding whether this current account deficit surge matters or not "is of some significance."

An array of structural imbalances in the American economy is making America feel like a richer nation than it is. U.S. savings levels have reached all-time lows. America is exporting the least in memory in comparison to that which it imports. And as Martin Wolf writes, "foreigners are now funding close to three-quarters of net U.S. investment." In commentary that Wolf offered a week ago (on August 18th), he writes "unless trends change, 10 years from now the U.S. will have fiscal debt and external liabilities that are both over 100 per cent of GDP. It will have lost control over its economic fate."

Despite this worrisome data, Japan and China continue to finance America's current account gluttony to keep U.S. consumers intoxicated on their exports. At some point, however, the only way out of America's dysfunctional binge is that it consumes less or exports more; that it buys down debt and external liabilities by working harder without near term rewards because these rewards were enjoyed yesterday and paid for through a mortgage. At minimum, when accounts revert to historical trendlines, American living standards will certainly flounder but more likely fall.

I'm getting a glimpse of what this will feel like as I spend two dollars here on every British pound.

President Bush's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, N. Gregory Mankiw, is duking out the real state of the economy with President Clinton's former Chair of the same Council, Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who is here in London as Dean of the London Business School. In the International Herald Tribune (and perhaps the New York Times which I haven't seen -- just found it and link is here), Mankiw reports that Tyson has said that this is "the worst economic recovery period in terms off job creation that the nation has experienced since the Great Depression."

Read the article if you would like to learn more about the job creation debate. Tyson, it seems to me, is talking about job levels as compared to the unusually low level of unemployment since the period of Clinton's second term whereas Mankiw is arguing that today's unemployment rate of 5.5% is the same as 1996 when Clinton was running for a second term, arguably an easier goal post for the Bush administration to compete with than the very best unemployment rates achieved during Clinton's tenure.

But back to exchange rates and current account deficits. When one gets hit in the pocket book with the macro realities of a U.S. economy that will purchase less from abroad because the value of the dollar is sinking in real terms against most other economies, it's clear that Americans will be compelled at some point to work harder (though they are arguably among the hardest working when compared to other OECD countries) but receive fewer returns for their labor so as to offset foreign liabilities.

Since the Chinese yuan has been fixed to the dollar, and the Japanese have been manipulating their currency's market value with massive government intervention, we have not felt the high price of world purchases across our consumer sector. But if America hopes to have any manufacturing or services industry left (in the long run), the Chinese are going to have to float their currency. The Japanese are going to have to stop overdosing on dollar purchases.

And the price of nearly everything from abroad will rise for Americans, thus correcting some of the excesses manifested in our surging current account deficit.

Mankiw doesn't address this fundamental reality. There is not only anxiety out there about job and retirement security -- but there is some sense that people are beginning to notice that America is becoming a less rich nation. With oil now hitting $50 a barrel (well, $49.40 as of the time of this writing), how can Mankiw and his boss, President Bush, think that they can get away with the headline that ran here: "The U.S. Economy is Strong and Getting Stronger."

What is their definition of a weaker economy? Would they know it if they saw it?

-- Steve Clemons

I AM IN LONDON FOR A FEW DAYS, meeting people and sorting out to what degree the American foreign policy debate is the U.K.'s as well. I just spoke to a friend, who will remain unnamed, in circles close to Tony Blair. He likes the blog (!), and I asked if there was some sort of neocon civil war going on over here as well.

His response basically was that they "were having a civil war, but without the neocons."

I will be writing more these next several days about what an enlightened and compelling foreign policy vision for the U.S. might look like. In fact, I am working on a New America Foundation foreign policy program funding proposal in which pieces of this effort may prominently figure, so I'll look forward to any thoughtful responses.

In the mean time, I would like to share an email that I received from a distinguished journalist that mirrors a lot of my own thinking about how America's failure to implement early on a stakeholder scheme for Iraqi citizens has dramatically enhanced the instability rampant there today.

He discusses the insurrection in Sadr city in the context of Douglas MacArthur's management of the Japan Occupation, something close to a piece I wrote some time ago in the New York Times that suggested that an Alaska Permanent Fund model for managing Iraq's oil might help tie Iraqi citizens closer to the success of their next government and make them less cynical about American intentions (of course, a lot of our performance deserves such cynicism).

He writes:

I am watching the development of the Sadr rebellion in Iraq with alarm. This is a classic case of an originally warm reception of American troops gone horribly sour.

Actually, army units in combat, since they are concerned about their own security and because of the nature of Americans, tend to try to help local communities in order to find friends therein, but this has to receive a powerful push from the center and given top priority from the very start of the occupation, and not be left up to the discretion of individual units. . .

These are hindsight comments that nonetheless seem important to me, particularly if America has any plans to stay in the nation building business, which I think we do.

More from London soon.

-- Steve Clemons

RON ASMUS HAS AN INTERESTING OP-ED IN THE WASHINGTON POST today. Early in his article, he writes:

The president proposes something that generations of U.S. diplomats and soldiers fought to prevent and that our adversaries sought unsuccessfully to achieve: radical reduction of U.S. political and military influence on the European and Asian continents. The Bush message, delivered at a campaign rally, also smells of political opportunism. Under pressure but unable to withdraw troops from Iraq, the president has instead reached for what his advisers hope is the next best thing politically -- a pledge to bring the boys home from Europe and Asia.

I buy what Asmus writes about Bush's political opportunism, but that doesn't change the fact that when the president raises any issue during an election season that the best strategy is to endorse bad policy. Europe is fixed. Those troops should be directed to new roles, and the increasingly competent Europeans should become more responsible for their parochial and regional security.

There is no reason why this development must be perceived to be a net negative in transatlantic relations. In fact, greater European military capacity and competency partnered with American capabilities and objectives elsewhere may make the world a more stable place.

The "generations of soldiers and diplomats" that Ron Asmus is referring to were fighting the Cold War. Today, we are dealing with two sorts of threats. The first is the long term concern of a peer competitor (perhaps China) or a league of other countries arising to balance or challenge American power in the world. The second is a blurred threat from transnational terrorist networks. Both of these sets of challenges require a re-ordering and new calibration of America's base assets overseas.

Asmus and others -- including many who wrote to me yesterday -- argue that this election season is no time to discuss foreign policy and basing issues. Some have written that our allies are being undermined yet again by unilateral pronouncements by the Bush administration that were not informed by strategic coordination with allies.

This may be true -- but I have several responses. First, America's global deployment strategy is anachronistic and has been for a long time. A smart strategy would consider what kinds of force structure and assets the United States would prefer to maintain abroad as the so-called "revolution in military affairs" evolves. I have long assumed that naval and air assets seem to be quite important for maintaining power projection capacity abroad. On the other hand, the utility of the manpower part of the equation has diminishing returns over time -- particularly when American transportion capacity of troops to hot spots all over the world is so robust and makes the home base siting of these troops irrelevant.

With regard to my long debate with colleagues and friends over U.S. bases in Okinawa who tended to skew the debate towards a shallow and simple-minded, hegelian choice between keeping all U.S. troops there now or removing everything America has on that island, there are many other preferable choices. America should remove and negotiate away those parts of its oversease base structure which carry high costs (including the costs of eroding local support)and which have diminishing utility to American security needs in the future. The Marines on Okinawa fit this equation in my view.

Secondly, we should have started this discussion during Bill Clinton's tenure and didn't. I had hoped that when Bill Clinton and the G8 leaders were driven around Okinawa for the 1998 G8 Leaders Summite and saw U.S. military installations in every nook and cranny of that island that there might have been some enlightened consideration of this after the summit.

Thirdly, we should have seen a foreshock of this debate years ago when then Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen instigated hot debates in South Korea, Quatar, and Saudi Arabia by modifying the rhetoric by which we referred to our bases in these respective countries. In South Korea, Cohen (perhaps inadvertently) caused an uproar and student protests by arguing that U.S. bases would remain permanently in Korea even after a reunification of the South and North. Perhaps this is logical -- but this strategic commitment was made without consultations with the U.S. Congress or with our ally, South Korea.

In Saudi Arabia and Qater, Cohen stopped referring to our bases in the region as "temporary bases," and instead called them "semi-permanent bases." After watching several years of civil protest in Okinawa, Japan; also seeing a lot of local frustration around American bases in South Korea; and then watching the normally docile press organs of Saudi Arabia and Qatar convulse over Cohen's comments, I began to see that America just didn't have a good sense of how potentially destablizing its base deployments could be, particularly when the original rationale for the bases had been eroded over long periods of time.

I don't particularly like criticizing my progressive friends on this issue, but their own critiques of Bush would be enhanced if they got out of the mindset that ALL U.S. assets abroad are useful and began to build into their arguments the importance of doing new deals with host nation citizens to resecure support of American troops if we are going to keep them there.

Bush's motivations are wrong -- I agree. But can't Democrats embarrass him on the merits of the argument and then put a better global engagement strategy on the table?

-- Steve Clemons