Daily Archives: Nov. 12, 2007

Curveball told Bush administration what it wanted to hear

Nov. 12, 20071:26 p.m.

Curveball "Drogin’s account of the search for weapons of mass destruction after Baghdad fell would be hilarious were the facts not scandalous and the implications not tragic," George Will wrote about Bob Drogin’s new book, "Curveball," about the Iraqi defector who lied about weapons of mass destruction. "That missile spotted by analysts of satellite imagery? It was a rotating steel drum for drying corn. The missile photographed from the air? Chickens in Iraq are raised in long, low half-cylinder coops. Some weapons searchers finally had T-shirts printed with the U.N. symbol and the words ‘Ballistic Chicken Farm Inspection Team.’ In the middle of the night in Baghdad, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, was calling from Washington with precise geographic coordinates to guide searchers to Iraq’s hidden WMDs. The supposed hiding place was in Lebanon."
Will notes how, at the time, many people didn’t believe Curveball, including the intelligence agencies in Britain and Germany. But key people in the Bush administration did. As a result, Will wrote, "he greased the slide to war by nourishing the certitudes of people whose confidence made them blind to his implausibility."
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Iraq | Comments (44)

Brownback has not given up on message

Nov. 12, 20071:23 p.m.

Brownbackraisedhand "The future of the conservative movement in our country will be strong if we can be moved by genuine faith and love for mankind, but not by political power," Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., wrote in a Washington Post commentary. Brownback criticized the GOP primary process for focusing more on electability than message. He argued that the winning message is "whole-life," which goes beyond abortion. "It embraces the child in Darfur, the woman struggling in poverty, the child born with Down syndrome, the man in prison and even the immigrant," he wrote.
But did Brownback’s presidential campaign fail because Republicans thought he was unelectable or because not enough of them agreed with his message, particularly his compassion for illegal immigrants?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Presidential race | Comments (7)

Open thread 11/12

Nov. 12, 20071:05 a.m.

Thread_3

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Open thread | Comments (256)

Reform cotton subsidies

Nov. 12, 20071:04 a.m.

Cottonfield The real market price of cotton isn’t great, but government subsidies of almost 20 cents a pound have turned cotton into a gold mine for about 20,000 farmers in the South who make, on average, $125,000 a year.
The problem lies in the fact that overproduction of cotton in America lowers the global price of the product, hurting the livelihoods of millions of African cotton growers who earn roughly a dollar a day with which to support their families.
The World Trade Organization has found the subsidies to be illegal, yet congressional agricultural policy continues to widen the margins of global inequality.
Michael Gerson wrote in the Washington Post, “The cost to America of reforming cotton subsidies is low — a mite from a billionaire. The benefit to the world’s poorest people is great. As is often the case, bad economics turns out to be bad morality.”
Posted by Kristin Mehler

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Congress | Comments (55)

Bribing students with cell phones

Nov. 12, 20071:02 a.m.

Cellphoneteen New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a new plan for raising the grades of public school students: Give them cell phones. Bloomberg is suggesting the school district use the phones (including minutes) as an incentive to motivate students to excel above and beyond in their schoolwork.
The suggestion has raised the eyebrows of many purists who would rather kids excel for the love of learning or out of ambition. However, in reality, many students need an additional pull.
Posted by Kristin Mehler

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Education | Comments (21)

Kansas not so big on self-promotion

Nov. 12, 20071:01 a.m.

Kansasgreetings When it comes to marketing to potential tourists, Kansas’ spending is about as big as you’d think: 44th among states for funding of its tourism office ($4.5 million last year) and 48th among states for marketing and promotion ($1.1 million). All agree the Sunflower State can do better. At a legislative meeting last week, the question was how. One idea: a new semi-independent tourism authority, patterned after the Kansas Bioscience Authority.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Kansas news | Comments (34)

Private bucks come with strings

Nov. 12, 20071:00 a.m.

Bloomberg News reports that because Democrats have joined Republicans in declining public campaign funding, 2008 could be the “first election since Richard Nixon won his second term in 1972 in which both parties’ nominees will have been completely financed by private sources.” The good news is the 2008 campaigns will end up costing taxpayers less — up front, at least. But what about all the expectations bundled up in all those private dollars?
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Presidential race | Comments (10)