contrapositive

I mean, how are private bookstores supposed to compete when the government just goes around loaning books to people for free?

// posted by Contrapositive @ 10:27 PM |

I myself was warned twice by PBS producers, in advance of appearances on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, that I could use the word "torture" in the abstract but that I was to refrain from applying it to the administration's policies.

And after an interview with CNN in which I spoke of the administration's torture policy, I was told by the producer, "That's okay for CNN International, but we can't use it on the domestic feed."

// posted by Contrapositive @ 1:33 PM |

“I think that you have to use the noncoercive standard to the greatest extent possible.”

// posted by Contrapositive @ 12:18 PM |

Does anyone honestly believe that if Congress comes up with a bailout plan--any bailout plan at all--clocking in at several hundred billion dollars, President Bush is going to veto it?

What Paulson thinks is (thankfully) irrelevant. Congress should figure out if passing a plan would be a good idea; if so, what plan would be best; and then Congress should pass that plan.

Looking at it any other way makes no sense.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 3:14 PM |

The question, now, is if Dodd and others will be willing to hold the line.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 2:14 PM |

Doesn't Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) need to speak more clearly and forcefully against the Bush administration's bailout plan?

And if he won't, doesn't he need a primary challenge in 2010?

// posted by Contrapositive @ 3:32 PM |

Thus far, the Administration has only offered a concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan.

Even if the Treasury recovers some or most of its investment over time, this initial outlay of up to $700 billion is sobering. And in return for their support, the American people must be assured that the deal reflects some basic principles.

But will he have the courage to stick his neck out on this? Even as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seem to be bowing down before Hank Paulson as some sort of savior?

We can only hope.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 3:27 PM |

That's not to say federal intervention isn't needed. It sounds like it is. But putting the former head of Goldman Sachs in charge of the mother of all taxpayer sponsored slush funds--for him to dole out to his old Wall Street friends in whatever way he likes--is worse than crazy.

Calling it "crazy" doesn't even begin to capture how crazy it is.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 3:14 PM |

The decisions that will be made this weekend matter not just to the prospects of the U.S. economy in the year to come; they will shape the type of capitalism we will live in for the next fifty years.

Do we want to live in a system where profits are private, but losses are socialized? Where taxpayer money is used to prop up failed firms?

Or do we want to live in a system where people are held responsible for their decisions, where imprudent behavior is penalized and prudent behavior rewarded? For somebody like me who believes strongly in the free market system, the most serious risk of the current situation is that the interest of few financiers will undermine the fundamental workings of the capitalist system.

The time has come to save capitalism from the capitalists.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 9:01 PM |

John McCain wants to nominate his friend Joe Lieberman for vice president, is told that he cannot, and so he backs down and instead nominates somebody who takes their children to a church where they teach that suicide bombers in Tel Aviv are righteously executing God's vengeance on Israel for rejecting Jesus Christ.

Do I have it right?

I must say I am confused.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 10:39 AM |

The conceit of the piece, titled, "President Obama: The Preview?" is this:

There may not be two politicians on the national stage more alike than Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Both went to Harvard Law, are African-American politicians with mass appeal, and use soaring rhetoric to promise a bold new postpartisan politics.

But plenty of politicians in this country--former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) come immediately to mind--went to Harvard Law School.

And literally dozens of pols on the national scene "use soaring rhetoric and promise bold new postpartisan politics."

So how does Keller reach the conclusion that Obama and Patrick are political twins? And that Patrick's record is a preview of what an Obama presidency would look like? Clearly, the decisive factor is that they're both "African-American politicians with mass appeal." (Although it's not clear how "mass appeal" figures into the equation.)

So, would editors at the WSJ allow a writer to lump together as near-facsimiles two Jewish politicians on the basis of their Jewishness? Would they allow this kind of guilt-by-ethnicity smear with two Catholic candidates or two Americans of Polish descent?

Of course not. Disgusting.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 8:46 PM |

But this is apples and oranges.

The problem with conservatives cozying up to the Pat Robertsons and John Hagees of the world is that Republicans go to these people specifically seeking their political imprimatur. A Robertson endorsement is coveted not in spite of but because of the controversial things he's said, and the fact that a constituency exists which endorses his political views.

Whatever you think about the Wright-Obama relationship, it's clearly never been about that.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 11:24 AM |