My new year would be somewhat happier if President Bush became a magnanimous leader who committed himself to doing whatever it took to build national and global trust and to decrease fear in the world. Probably won't happen. We have seen the world slip into a high fear/low trust dynamic that is very hard to turn around. . .and too many of George Bush's friends and fellow travelers benefit from a high fear/low trust world.

I'd also manage to be happier if Tom DeLay was indicted and removed from his leadership position in the Republican Party and House of Representatives. Nearly every policy area I care about would improve with his departure. Congress might begin behaving again as the founding fathers envisioned -- as a check on the naturally expansive powers of the Chief Executive.

2005 would be better if we withdrew from Iraq and replaced our unfortunate engagement there with a more enlightened foreign policy that brought allies to our side in fighting those who are real enemies -- and at the same time finally became a credible and concerned partner with citizens in developing nations who actually do aspire to the benefits of modernity. We are doing very little to demonstrate to the rest of the world that those beyond our borders matter to us; this is one of Bush's largest mistakes.

There is a lot I could add -- but I am going to go spend the evening with at least one influential Member of Congress and other friends talking about what we should do in 2005 to bring down the neoconservative-driven foreign policy of this country and replace it with an international agenda more englightened and more befitting the 21st century than the 12th.

My entire 2005 will be dedicated to finding others who want to take the foreign policy helm back from those now in control. We will be high-minded and offer alternatives to what the administration has delivered to this nation and world.

But we will also embarrass them every chance we get. To win this battle of ideas, some of the fights will be in the op-ed pages and via conferences -- and other fights will be in the courts, in the scandal pages, and in the gutter.

I have to run now, but I'll be writing more about a road map I and others have conceived to get American foreign policy back on a healthy track.

As best you can, given all of the trauma in the world right now, have a good new year -- and think of those who just can't and never will again.

-- Steve Clemons

Since Christmas night, when I first heard of the massive earthquake off of Indonesia and that several hundred people might have been killed by a massive tsunami, I have watched the numbers climb. The numbers killed have worn me down and somewhat numbed me in a way that I can only think about this tragedy and very little about what is happening in normal, day to day life.

This must be one of the worst natural disasters of all time, and George Bush decided to stay home clearing brush on his land and enjoying good, safe times with his family. George Bush has me beat on religion, particularly in the clever ways he publicly displays his faith, but I am drawn to what he said in one of the presidential debates with Al Gore when Bush said that Jesus was his favorite philosopher.

What would Jesus do now, Mr. President? Would he have gone about his normal day and routine, waiting to hear news about just how big this whole thing was, before he uttered a word about one of the most horrific natural disasters of all time?

I wrote something on the day of the quake -- but I have been unable to write about this tragic situation since and haven't wanted to address other public policy questions I have been working on. Everything seems so small compared to what everyone is seeing on television now. And what we are seeing in Phuket is the manageable, relatively ordered side of this debacle. The worst are in those places in Indonesia where tens of thousands died, but without the networks of support and media that Thailand has been able to muster.

Phuket was bad, but it's clear to me that there are places that were several orders of magnitude worse and we aren't seeing much of that on television.

It sickens me that Fox News is wrapped up in whether it was appropriate or not for a United Nations official to call American aid levels stingy. I admire Jan Egeland who made the comment because his job is to get aid to those people and places hit by this quake and tsunami -- and his comments shamed American policymakers into immediately doubling what we had previously offered.

And still, this paltry commitment of official U.S. dollars is less than the cost of the parties of next month's inauguration for President Bush's second term.

I have two short thoughts on this.

First, before the first Gulf War, Japan was ridiculed by many for not doing more to contribute to the world's coming collision with Saddam Hussein. Richard Solomon, then Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific and now President of the U.S. Institute of Peace, admitted that he had prodded Japan publicly for not putting its soldiers on the line in the Gulf War -- and shamed them into contributing $13 billion in cash for the effort. The Japanese people were the only citizens on the planet to impose a tax on themselves to pay for that war. Japan actually did a great number of things proactively before the Gulf War went hot -- offered desalinization facilities and gas masks as well as conducted a huge global survey of supplies and sources for materials needed in desert combat.

But the bottom line is that Richard Solomon wanted money from Japan, not soldiers, not gas masks, not desalinization facilities -- he wanted the cash. By publicly embarrassing Japan, Solomon got what he wanted. Jan Egeland did the same.

Secondly, America is supposedly great at complex systems integration. We have financial resources to offer, as do many other countries, but the skill set that this country has to offer is managing the integration of many processes into one powerful effort that can produce a sum far, far greater than its parts. Why are we not in the center of this massive response and recovery effort, acting as the systems integrator for the world's contributions to the region?

We are not there because our President does not understand or fathom the technical competencies of this nation that he leads. We should be out in front ferociously and vigorously helping these people. It cannot be allowed to stand that the American president can act indifferently to 116,000 plus dead, many more injured, in one of the greatest natural disasters of our time. What was he thinking?

When the much more minor earthquakes hit Los Angeles, splitting my living room wall, killing many in a Northridge apartment complex, and causing part of the Santa Monica Freeway to collapse, Japanese firms cancelled many of their parties and donated the funds to local charities helping those who had been harmed by that earthquake. This was a good idea -- and I want my Japanese friends to know that I and many others remember well their generosity.

George Bush has been anointed and sworn in once already. Some great parties were had in this town. We don't need a second round.

President Bush, ask those who have raised the $50 million for your inauguration to add it to that which individuals and taxpayers have put forward to help those who have had their lives, families, and homes destroyed.

Cancel your parties and demonstrate for the entire world what compassionate conservatism, and a compassionate America, really are.

That kind of gesture would be a far more successful stabilizer of global affairs than the next $50 BILLION your request from Congress for our war in Iraq.

-- Steve Clemons

Here is an interesting write-up by Hamid Mir, a well-known Pakistani journalist and editor who has interviewed Osama bin Laden four times. Mir was also speaker at the Al Qaeda 2.0 Conference that I recently helped organize with colleague Peter Bergen and Karen Greenberg, Executive Director of the NYU Center on Law & Security.

Read the whole thing, but here is a quick roster of statements Hamid Mir thought were important from the conference:

. . .Michael Scheuer (AKA, "Anonymous") believes there is a need to build pressure on Al Qaeda inside Afghanistan, and not in Pakistan because Islamabad is already doing a lot in the war against terrorism. He thinks the Al Qaeda leadership is still planning new attacks in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia while hiding in Afghanistan. Many areas in southern and eastern Afghanistan, he added, are not under the Hamid Karzai administration's control.

. . .Yosri Fouda of Al Jazeera told the conference that the United States should declare war on illiteracy, hunger and disease instead of terrorism. He demanded that the US stop supporting undemocratic governments in the Muslim world. These governments are not popular among Muslim youth, and when bin Laden criticises these corrupt governments, angry young Muslims view him as their hero, Fouda added.

For those of you who follow Al Qaeda and the issue of radical Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Hamid Mir writes must read commentary.

-- Steve Clemons

I have been through a number of scary earthquakes, including two relatively big ones in Los Angeles, a couple in Tokyo and one in Alaska.

But nothing compares to a 9.0 quake. These quakes I experienced were scary to me -- but I can't even imagine the devastation that is now being reported in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Somalia, and other places around the rim of countries surrounding the Sumatran region of Indonesia and the Andaman Islands.

It is also a bit eery to note that the devastating earthquake that hit the ancient Iranian city of Bam hit on December 26, 2003 -- exactly one year after yesterday's quake off of Indonesia.

I have a good friend, a former public relations genius for AT&T and citizen activist, who lives in Phuket, Thailand -- and this note came in from him yesterday:

In case you are Wondering.......................

M.

America's Gulf region has devastating hurricanes, and there are many disasters of incredible scale around the world. Bad stuff happens, and it's at these times that magnanimity and humanity are measured.

I hope that Americans help lead aid efforts and generously help rebuild and assist those mostly impoverished communities who have been destroyed by this natural disaster.

I'll never forget hearing conservative California-based journalist and former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Bruce Herschensohn say that communities that suffer "act of God" natural disasters should help themselves and reject federal government assistance and help from other outsiders. He said this after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida and Louisiana hard and also after the 7.3 magnitude Landers, California earthquake in June 1992.

Bruce Herschensohn further clarified that he felt that the federal government ought not to aid communities devastated by earthquakes, hurricanes, mudslides, tornadoes, fires, tidal waves, and other natural disasters. Bruce was a very popular conservative in California politics -- but let's hope that his brand of compassion is out of style.

Politically speaking, my gut tells me that China is going to further advance its interests in the region by pouring aid and support into all of those communities that have been hit. Francis Fukuyama skeptically outlined China's thus far successful charm offensive in Asia, and I think he gets it mostly right.

The question is whether America is going to allow the distractions at hand in the Middle East distract from global engagement elsewhere.

-- Steve Clemons

This was taken tonight on the back lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The tree is magnificent and from Virginia.

Speaking of Virginia, some are projecting a 2008 presidential battle between George Allen and Mark Warner. That would be interesting.

I stopped by the White House Christmas Tree scene as well. I saw all the little Christmas trees from every part of the country -- even American Samoa, plus the big one that the Bush family lit.

I saw the manger scene, the official menorah. and a big pit with burning yule logs. Next to the yule log fire was a sign noting that in pre-Christian days, there was a "gay festival honoring the mythical god Thor" which was later merged by early English Christians into the celebration of Christmas.

It gave me a good chuckle, and the fire warmed me up on what is a very, very cold night here in Washington.

All the best to you, your friends, and family.

-- Steve Clemons

I got an email today allegedly from John Kerry -- but clearly from what's left of his "Friends of John Kerry" staff -- that makes the case that Americans need to support the needs of soldiers with phone cards and other donations. Here is his letter.

While Paul Wolfowitz is pushing anthrax vaccinations which rightly or wrongly have aggravated the mistrust between soldiers and those in control of the Pentagon helm, progressives addressing this war's shocks on soldiers and their families is the right thing to do -- and good politics.

I have just returned from a trip and was surprised to find several hundred letters with checks to the Walter Reed Society, the USO, and other support organizations that are trying to address the needs of returning soldiers, particularly those who are casualties of America's operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The support has been overwhelming in emails and the mail I have received.

One Chinese-American network generated nearly a year's worth of phone card minutes (for a single person if talking 24 hours a day) and donated those to Walter Reed for soldier use.

I have now heard from Walter Reed Medical Center that they now have had had such a surge in phone cards sent to soldiers that they estimate that they have enough phone minutes for all of their convalescing soldiers through June 2005. This does not preclude the need for phone cards for other troops in other hospitals, but it does speak to some of the success of this effort at one of the better known military hospitals.

I am pleased to say that many people chose to financially contribute in ways that allow support organizations to acquire books, special support pillows, and provide other support to soldiers and their families. I will be listing soon the amounts donated by TWN readers that I have managed, but in my discussions with the organizations I have been dealing with, I can tell that many sent donations directly -- which is terrific.

Because Walter Reed has had its phone needs met by donations, I am going to look at other options for people who have acquired phone cards and want to mail them in. John Kerry recommends the USO -- but that organization seemingly wants cash to purchase the minutes rather than phone cards.

For those of you who have written about this, I will find a different set of military hospitals to send these cards to and will report back.

But I want to make a larger point here -- beyond the considerable and moving level of charity by Republican and Democratic Americans for those fighting and carrying the real burden of this war.

Donald Rumsfeld & Co. made these soldiers greater victims than they already were. Out of a $450 billion defense budget, it seems outrageous to me that someone in the Pentagon hierarchy didn't work to get the long distance block removed for those who are casualties of this conflict and recovering.

Rumsfeld's continuing distance from the real world circumstances of people he has sent to die for this country is an embarrassment and tragedy for everyone.

Rumsfeld is now scrambling to get armor on the Humvees, promising to sign his own name on condolence letters (rather than the auto-signature), and seems to be holding steady in his job despite increasing evidence that he and Bush were both complicit in encouraging prison-interrogation techniques that amount to torture.

But he is still not doing right by these soldiers (whom I believe are in the wrong war, at the wrong time, in the wrong place) -- and progressives should be rubbing his nose in this, as well as George Bush's.

Kerry's letter is a small step in the right direction.

-- Steve Clemons

There is a remarkable recount story unfolding in Washington State. When so many stories of misdeeds and voter system mismanagement that favored Republicans appeared elsewhere in the nation, it is interesting to see the Republicans making similar statements as Dems in this Washington State race.

The $750,000 the Dems needed to raise to force this hand recount looks like it might get a big payoff.

Speaking of payoffs, I'm still in Las Vegas having fun. I head home tonight on the red eye flight after seeing Cirque du Soleil's "O". There is a lot wrong with Vegas, the largest city in the United States founded in the 20th century, but there is also a lot right.

It's a city based on crass consumerism, sex, gambling, shows -- but it also has amazing sights, some of the most beautiful shopping malls I've ever seen -- like the one at Caesar's Palace that seems to stretch for several football fields. I can understand now why so many from around the world are drawn here despite the inexpensive sin packages.

It's all artificial, but it somehow works. Kind of like Singapore. If you speak to staff here, they have all had FBI background checks on them, even the janitorial staff supposedly. There is freedom here, but also a very heavy lurking authoritarianism just under the surface. Again, just like Singapore.

More later, particularly after I get back to Washington.

-- Steve Clemons

There is an increasing pool of cases of active duty military whose nervous systems have responded negatively to the anthrax vaccines ordered by the Department of Defense. When I wrote 'A Soldier's Story' at the end of October, the person with whom I conversed told me that he had a deal with his sergeant that he and those who worked for him would not take the vaccine. He reported that one soldier from his section had responded very negatively to the vaccine and had had his nervous system "messed up" by the vaccine.

John Files of the New York Times reports that the Pentagon is now asking for authority to start readministering the vaccine. Files writes that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is leading the charge, citing a classified intelligence assessment:

"There is a significant potential for a military emergency involving a heightened risk to United States military forces of attack with anthrax," Mr. Wolfowitz wrote. He cited a classified intelligence assessment from last month to support his concern, adding that it was the basis for continuing to vaccinate troops serving in South Korea and the Middle East.

More from the report:

Anthrax vaccinations for armed forces personnel were suspended in October, when a federal judge ordered the military to stop requiring troops to be vaccinated without their consent. The judge, Emmet G. Sullivan of Federal District Court here, found that in approving the vaccine, the F.D.A. had not followed its procedures, which require it to seek public comment on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines before approving them.

Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who is chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, sent letters Thursday to Mr. Thompson and to Porter J. Goss, the director of central intelligence. Mr. Shays asked Mr. Goss to allow members of his subcommittee to review the intelligence report cited by Mr. Wolfowitz.

All I know is that Rumsfeld's comment that the "anthrax vaccine is safe and effective" is easily falsified by the increasing number of victims of this vaccine. Some other reporting on this vaccine is available here, here, here, and here.

I think there is a problem with this vaccine, but I'm not an expert on such things.

However, what is clear is that the bonds of trust between those in the military and those commanding them and making decisions has become dangerously and irresponsibly frayed.

Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld have done little to rebuild trust with their troops, and from my perspective, Wolfowitz's anthrax vaccine holiday gift to his soldiers is just going to make things worse.

-- Steve Clemons

Remember Lt. General William "Jerry" Boykin? He's the bible-belting general who described America's campaign in Iraq as a crusade against Satan.

Here is a report on some other gems:

. . .the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian. . .and the enemy is a guy named Satan."

Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

"We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this," Boykin said last year.

On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there."

Today, the New York Times reports that Boykin, who is Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, is "drawing up a plan that would give the military a more prominent role in intelligence-collection operations that have traditionally been the province of the Central Intelligence Agency, including missions aimed at terrorist groups and those involved in weapons proliferation."

Apparently, the key new idea in the Pentagon report is the notion of "fighting for intelligence." In other words, "the Pentagon would commence combat operations chiefly to obtain intelligence."

Boykin's "crusade for intelligence" sounds pretty much like standard operating procedure to me, particularly an administration that seems to care little about empirical reality or feedback from its policies. Now, the Pentagon wants to make intelligence an after-the-fact item, not something that ought to precede combat operations.

To all of those who argued that the neocons had no place to go because the messy war in Iraq would constrain them and their future choices, let me remind you that Boykin seems to be thriving in his job. Douglas Feith has his. Wolfowitz seems to be holding on just fine.

The Pentagon's mission and budgetary creep is out of hand.

I will be in Las Vegas for the next several days and will be posting from there. If any of you know good wifi spots on the strip, let me know.

Last evening's holiday party at my place was packed with interesting people and will be sharing some thoughts about some of the issues discussed, as well as some of the gossip dropped as people drank a bit.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I have had a surprisingly strong reaction to what I wrote yesterday about a very anti-competition decision from the FCC that allows Baby Bells to choke off fair access to local facilities under their control.

I thought these kinds of competition and telecom issues would not generate much interest -- but I have already had more than 100 emails in reaction.

These facilities were once part of the AT&T telecommunications monopoly -- arguably bought and paid for by U.S. consumers paying monopolistically determined rates for those facilities now under the control of these Baby Bells. To ensure competition, the Congress passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act to compel those controlling these facilities to provide wholesale access to competitors -- so as to promote competition and in order to benefit the consumer.

Well, because of the FCC's decision yesterday and other recent FCC rulings, America is back in the pre-1996 era, and consumers are screwed.

I argued yesterday that the pattern of decisions that Michael Powell and his cabal have pursued make no sense because they so blatantly fly in the face of the public interest. Whose interests are being served?

All I can figure at this point, until someone makes a better case to me, is that Michael Powell is serving his own interest as well as, perhaps, the economic interests of his staff.

This note came in today from an informed TWN reader:

Steve -- Apropos of your speculation on Michael Powell's future career plans, I wanted to draw your attention (anonymously, if you don't mind) to the fact that News Corp hired two Powell aides -- Susan Eid and Paul Jackson -- as lobbyists not long after Powell released a set of media ownership rules that would have benefited Fox and other big station groups. (Check out Broadcasting & Cable, "Capital Watch," 3/1/2004 -- it's in Lexis/Nexis.)

It's particularly curious that News Corp would have hired Jackson, formerly the FCC's congressional lobbyist, considering the FCC had horribly bungled its relationship with Congress and received one of its strongest rebukes ever in the form of various votes against Powell's ownership rules. Only the administration stepping in at the last minute allowed the ownership cap to be lifted as a matter of law.

What corporate boards is Michael Powell going to be invited on?

I think that the action plan here is to get the administration to reverse its rule relaxation on employment and lobbying by senior officials leaving government. As reported December 5th in the Washington Post:

. . .the Office of Government Ethics declared that it was relaxing prohibitions on lobbying by former Cabinet secretaries and other top officials.

Until now, senior officials at Cabinet departments and agencies had not been allowed to lobby former colleagues for a full year after leaving office -- a rule designed to prevent an obvious conflict of interest. But, in a notice in the Federal Register, the ethics office issued a new rule invoking its power to declare that "a former senior employee who served in a 'parent' department or agency is not barred . . . from making communications to or appearances before any employee of any designated component of that parent."

Before 9/11, the Enron fiasco looked as if it was going to take the Bush administration down. John McCain was licking his chops and planning to challenge Bush who had done little to curtail the collusiveness and corruption that had penetrated many of America's blue chip firms.

This relaxation of ethics rules is a big deal, and I will be writing more about this soon. I would enjoy hearing from any in appropriate positions how best to compel the administration to reverse this decision.

In the mean time, The Washington Note is going to pay close attention to the job and consulting relationships of Michael Powell, his fellow anti-competition FCC commissioners, and other FCC staff.

-- Steve Clemons

True to President Bush's odd celebration of people and policies seemingly at odds with his own administration, Bush has often celebrated Teddy Roosevelt, who broke up America's big trusts and monopolies -- while Bush and his team build them up.

Today, the FCC ruled in a contentious battle to deny wholesale rate access to competitors of regionally monopolistic Baby Bell firms, like Verizon. Why is this important?

Because we are going to see rates to businesses and household consumers rise. We are going to see incumbents entrench themselves in old technologies with slower rates of innovation. The powerful forces that were driving costs down while at the same time generating new and bold innovations in information technology are being strangled.

The problem is that collusive interests are undermining the will of the U.S. Congress which tried to make absolutely sure that facilities that the Baby Bells inherited after the break-up of AT&T were made available at fair rates to competitors who could not be expected to create massive new regional and national facilities to reach consumers.

Since the facilities provided both a windfall to the Baby Bells as well as a potential choke point to strangle competition -- Congress decided in the 1996 Telecommunications Act to force open access to these Baby Bell controlled facilities to ensure competition as well as new investment in rival technologies.

This regime has been collapsing for some time. The bottom line, in my view, is that Michael Powell knows his days are numbered at the FCC and he's going to need a job soon.

Not only is Powell not protecting the country from the nefarious consequences of concentrated media power, he is driving it. He has exploited Janet Jackson's boob-stunt to create fear throughout the broadcast media on the viability of provocative educational and political content. And now, he is stifling America's broadband-rich potential and taking us back to a time of oligopolies in technology firms.

He wants to work for one of these telecom firms, maybe be on a few boards. But if he ends up on the Board of Directors of Verizon, Bell South, or any of the other Baby Bells; or perhaps on the board of News Corp -- lawyers of the world unite because it will cap off an incredibly corrupt game of self-dealing by Powell that has at the same time ripped off consumers and businesses in this nation, dramatically harmed the spread of broadband, and helped take us into an era of concentration of power in media and telecom firms that undermines democracy and working markets in this country.

Verizon just sent me a really nice, official 2004 White House Christmas Ornament. I like it and bet this post gets me taken off the firm's Christmas gift list, but curtailing competition is not good for Verizon or any of the other players in this industry, and government has abandoned its crucial responsibilities in this sector.

Teddy Roosevelt would be incredibly pissed off at you, Michael Powell.

And George Bush does nothing.

-- Steve Clemons

I really enjoy the White House pool reports.

Wonkette (AKA, Ana Marie Cox) posts many of these for the public to enjoy, but the ones she selects make it to the top of her list if they have sexual innuendo or intrigue.

I'm going to share one pool report here written by Gannett News' Greg Wright.

Just for fun, juxtapose what Greg Wright reports here:

Berlusconi praised Bush, saying he is "direct," "straightforward," "full of truth," and says yes when he means yes and no when he means no. These qualities were likely a major factor in Bush's reelection, Berlusconi said through an interpreter.

with this statement by Bush in the same meeting:

"The policy of my government is a strong dollar policy," Bush said. "We believe that the market should make the decisions about the relationship between the dollar and the euro."

Does anyone out there think America is pursuing a strong dollar policy?

It seems to me that America has a weak dollar policy that screws Europe, helps some U.S. exporters, but has China with an equally weak currency able to keep American consumers happy with cheap products -- and has Japan scrambling for currency balance.

If Bush is telling the truth -- then why aren't any journalists or commentators challenging him on the fact that his so-called strong dollar policy is failing? Who is getting fired because we have a weak dollar and the president is not getting what he wants?

Up is down, black is white, lies are truth.

Here is the full passage:

TO: White House print reporters
FROM: Greg Wright, Gannett News Service
DATE: December 15, 2004
SUBJECT: Pool report on Bush-Berlusconi meeting

Bush said by spring the United States an Italy should agree on a joint helicopter construction venture by spring.

Don't you love the last line?

Let's be sure to do a joint helicopter project next year? And have lunch. . .

Can you say: C O R R U P T I O N? I knew you could.

-- Steve Clemons

. . .a provision buried in the Bush administration's tax reform plans.

According to a very well-connected economist who is meeting just about every one with the word "economic" in his or her administration title, the administration is planning to disallow the exemption on federal taxes allowed now for state income taxes paid.

This is a brilliantly devious way for the Bush crowd to punish blue state taxpayers because tax rates in blue states are higher than red -- and the financial burden will be carried by those in the northeast and on the west coast far more than all of those who put George Bush back into the White House for another four years.

I am hopeful that even though red state tax payers will see their blue state brethren carrying a disproportionate share of new federal tax burden, those in the red will still see that they too will be paying higher taxes under this provision as their own state tax payments will be disallowed as a deduction.

Happiness (or its alternative) is a function of relative deprivation -- even if red state relative deprivation is less than blue state.

I can't and won't mention the source of this information as I hope he/she continues to have White House access and feeds me more such info.

-- Steve Clemons

Oops, I meant the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This highest civilian award in the U.S. recognizes individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, or to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

Today, L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer III, General Tommy Franks, and CIA Director George Tenet (who is reportedly asking $5 million for his ghost-written memoirs) all get this distinction to add to their trove of mementos recognizing their service to the empire.

Jerry Bremer failed to pacify and rebuild Iraq. Tommy Franks failed to think about the after-war war. George Tenet has miserably low standards for what he thinks is a slam dunk and duped his country and fellow citizens on Saddam Hussein's WMDs.

Others who got this award -- Katherine Hepburn (was a tireless campaigner for UNICEF), Lady Bird Johnson (beautified the nation's highways), Doris Day, Bob Hope, Cesar Chavez, David Brinkley, NY Fire Department Rev. Mychal Judge, Walter Wriston, Beverly Sills, Arnold Palmer, Estee Lauder, Paul Nitze, Pope John Paul II, National Geographic Chairman Gilbert Grosvenor, Douglas MacArthur, Billy Graham.

There are many who have received this medal -- initiated by Truman, pumped back to life by Kennedy, and then awarded semi-prolifically since.

But the three awardees today are flacks and spear-carriers for George Bush's failed enterprise in the Middle East today, and the perceived stock value of this highest of all civilian awards just fell to historical lows today.

-- Steve Clemons

First of all, democracy via the ballet box in this country is fragile. Look at this mess in Washington State.

A friend caught this on NPR this morning. Some King County election official disqualified a number of ballots because their local computer did not have electonic copies of signatures for all those voting stored. This was apparently figured out by the local Democratic party chief who found his own vote among those disqualified.

According to a local news report, "A King County election official says his board takes 'full responsibility' for mistakenly rejecting 561 absentee ballots in the Washington governor's race. Elections Director Dean Logan says it happened because signatures on the ballots weren't on file in the county's computer system. He says they'll be counted soon."

What does that mean? Is he resigning and checking himself into jail? If it's just 561 signatures, why isn't he sitting down right now and counting them? This is criminal idiocy.

What is really interesting is that before the recount, Republican Dino Rossi led Democrat Christine Gregoire by 42 votes. This report says that Rossi has picked up 46 votes in the recount thus far, giving him a potential 88 vote lead in the race.

According to National Public Radio this morning (transcript not yet available), Christine Gregoire has an 89 point net lead over Rossi among the disputed King County ballots (so someone apparently counted them).

If things stayed the same -- and there were no more shenannigans discovered -- Christine Gregoire would beat Dino Rossi by one vote.

Anyone for mandatory sentencing for ballot tampering?

-- Steve Clemons

From my perspective, Donald Rumsfeld had some good ideas on technology and modern war at one time -- and his and other's notions on modernization and the revolution in military affairs made some sense to me.

But I also believe that the Pentagon has become the least accountable, powerful bureacracy in the history of the planet -- and Rumsfeld has worsened the problem by an order of magnitude.

Just to be fair, I thought that for a 'nano-second' in time Rumsfeld demonstrated uncharacteristic honesty (at least in the introspective questions he posed) about the wrong-headed direction the administration had taken in the so-called war on terror. Cem Oezdemir and I wrote about this in a piece about the famous Rumsfeld memo.

However, there were many points before and during the Iraq War when it became clear to me that Rumsfeld had to go. Frankly, many others should go as well -- but I strongly feel that the top guy has got to accept responsibility for this mess we are in, for the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and now for his impromptu interaction with the troops this past week.

The New Republic's Peter Scoblic puts America's Rumsfeld problem quite nicely here. And even John McCain, whom I no longer think is pursuing the Department of Defense job, says he has "no confidence in Rumsfeld."

I had a long talk tonight with a friend whose name I won't mention who thinks that the best thing to hope for now is that everything gets much worse. He thinks we should stop trying to buffer the American public, the nation, and the world from the errors the Bush administrati