Monday, November 15, 2010
Newsweek: Is the Presidency Too Big a Job?
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via American Power by Donald Douglas on 11/15/10
Is this a Tina Brown production? I wasn't holding my breath, but sheesh. This Daily Beast merger's got to do something for Newsweek (via Glenn Reynolds): On the spring day that Obama signed his health-care-reform law, for instance, he also had an economic briefing on unemployment, discussions about financial reform, a meeting at the Department of the Interior, a quick lunch, a meeting with senior advisers and then with Senate leaders on ratification of a new nuclear-nonproliferation treaty with Russia, and an Oval Office summit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on devising a model for Middle East peace. On cable TV, meanwhile, pundits offered nonstop analysis of the holes in the new reform package, while Sarah Palin renewed accusations of Obama's "government takeover" of health care. A new poll showed that, for the first time, more of the country disapproved than approved of his job performance. In an interview with 60 Minutes that week, the president joked, "If you had said to us a year ago that the least of my problems would be Iraq...I don't think anybody would have believed it." Then he laughed. Steve Kroft, the interviewer, asked if he was "punch-drunk."Interesting how the piece assumes that the crises of the '30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s were calkwalks compared to what Obama's facing today. Of course, we had a Great Depression, World War II, Korea, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in those days, and that's not counting Truman's seizure of the steel mills, Eishenower's intervention in Little Rock, and Kennedy's promise to "pay any price, bear any burden ... in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." I just don't think Obama's up for it, as Glenn points out, "Is the Presidency too big for one man? Nope. Just for the inexperienced guy with no management experience that we elected. As Jay Cost wrote a while back "America is not ungovernable. Her President has simply not been up to the job"..."
More often, Obama projects a demeanor of unruffled cool: he can handle the pressures and demands of the job just fine (how could he suggest otherwise?), and he didn't run for office "to pass on our problems to the next president or the next generation." But the issue is not Obama, it's the office. Aides to George W. Bush make similar complaints about the demands on the executive. "It was a much different place than even during the Bush Sr. administration," says Joe Hagin, Bush 43's deputy chief of staff, who also worked for Reagan and Bush 41. "There was much less time [under the second Bush] to catch your breath during the day." He recalls the constant juggling of issues—from the wars to Katrina—often all at the same time. "There's only so much bandwidth in the organization," he says.
Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency? Obama has looked to many models of leadership, including FDR and Abraham Lincoln, two transformative presidents who governed during times of upheaval. But what's lost in those historical comparisons is that both men ran slim bureaucracies rooted in relative simplicity. Neither had secretaries of education, transportation, health and human services, veterans' affairs, energy, or homeland security, nor czars for pollution or drug abuse, nor televisions in the West Wing constantly tuned to yammering pundits. They had bigger issues to grapple with, but far less managing to do. "Lincoln had time to think," says Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University. "That kind of downtime just doesn't exist anymore."
Among a handful of presidential historians NEWSWEEK contacted for this story, there was a general consensus that the modern presidency may have become too bloated. "The growth is exponential in these last 50 years, especially the number of things that are expected of the president," says presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, who had dinner with Obama and a handful of other historians last summer. Obama aides speaking on background say that the president's inner circle can become stretched by the constant number of things labeled "crises" that land on his desk—many of which, like the mistaken firing of Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod in Georgia or the intricacies of the oil cleanup in the gulf, could easily be handled by lower-level staff. "Some days around here, it can almost be hard to breathe," says one White House official who didn't want to go on the record portraying his boss as overwhelmed. Another senior adviser says that sometimes the only way to bring the president important news is to stake out his office and "walk and talk" through the hall.
The growth of the presidency has been a sort of Catch-22. Most presidents after Roosevelt, at least until the Vietnam era, got by with only a few dozen advisers. Ted Sorensen, the Kennedy speechwriter who died last month, was actually hired as a domestic-policy counselor, one of only a handful (he wrote speeches in his spare time). Today there are more than 35 staffers devoted to domestic policy, plus more who parachute in on particular issues, like health care or energy. Yet as the president's responsibilities have grown, the instinct has been to hire more people to help manage the work, including the flow of information. "That's wrong; the more people you have in the White House, the more problems are sucked into it," says James Pfiffner, a George Mason University professor of public policy whose 2007 book, The Modern Presidency, examined the enormous growth of the office. Other historians point to the changing role of cabinet secretaries. While Obama has more department leaders than ever before—15, compared with Gerald Ford's 11 and Lincoln's 7—many of them have less power and influence, which has required minor decisions about trade, energy, and economic strategy to be handled by White House staffers.
Political scientist Thomas Cronin once credited the period between World War II and Watergate as the "swelling of the presidency." It was during the Eisenhower administration that historians first asked if the president simply had too many demands. But those were far less cluttered times. "We had a lot to do, and many people were asking questions, but we were never overwhelmed," says Harry McPherson, who served as counsel, then special counsel, to Lyndon Johnson. Such memories sound quaint to current White House staffers. "There is never a day we come in and there are only a few things we need to do," says Bill Burton, Obama's deputy press secretary.
More at the link.
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Guantánamo Bay detainees to be paid compensation by UK government
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via World news: United States | guardian.co.uk by Patrick Wintour on 11/15/10
Millions to be paid in compensation for prisoners who alleged UK complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition
The government will announce today that it will pay millions of pounds in compensation to former Guantánamo Bay detainees following weeks of negotiations between lawyers for the government and the former prisoners.
Ministers appear to have decided on the advice of the security services that they could not afford to risk the exposure of thousands of documents in open court on how the US ,with the co-operation of the UK, undertook illegal acts such as extraordinary rendition to interrogate terrorist suspects, including some alleged to have links with the Afghan Taliban.
The high court, according to ITN, has been notified that a settlement had been reached between the lawyers, but the exact amounts may never be known. The government will announce today simply that the payments are to be made and that it is in the national interest that the cases are not brought to court so as to protect the security services methods from scrutiny.
Two independent QCs have been acting as arbiters between the two sides. At least one detainee is understood to be in line for a payout of more than £1m.
In July David Cameron paved the way for the payments by sanctioning the negotiations in a statement to MPs. Cameron had acted after the high court in the summer ruled that confidential documents would have to be released in any court hearings. Vetting such documents, possibly as many as 50,000 would take huge amounts of time for MI5 and MI6 Cameron said.
Today's payments pave the way for an independent inquiry into British involvement in torture and the degree to which MI6 knowingly took information extracted by torture by the Americans.
Cameron announced in July he believed there was no alternative but to roll up the many existing civil claims against the government taken by the alleged victims of torture. He said the settlement of the claims would allow an inquiry to be undertaken chaired Sir Peter Gibson, former senior court of appeal judge and currently the statutory commissioner for the intelligence services. The inquiry, ranging over alleged British complicity in torture, is due to report by the end of next year.
Earlier this month George Bush, the former US president had claimed that controversial interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, had protected the UK from further terrorist attacks. David Cameron rejected such sentiments.
Those detainees understood to be in line for settlements include Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga. One allegation is that the British government knew they were being illegally transferred to Guantánamo Bay but failed to prevent it.
The payments to the former prisoners will be extremely controversial with some claiming that the former prisoners are using the courts to extract cash from the British state that they intended to destroy. Others will praise the courts for forcing the UK government to either openly admit the methods it had sanctioned, or else pay a financial penalty through compensation.
The payout is bound to be seen as a blow to the reputation of the former foreign secretaries David Miliband, Margaret Beckett and Jack Straw for allegedly eroding civil liberties. Their reputations will turn more on the outcome of the inquiry.
Explaining the decision to open talks, Cameron said on 6 July to MPs: "Our services are paralysed by paperwork as they try to defend themselves in lengthy court cases with uncertain rules. Our reputation as a country that believes in human rights, justice, fairness and the rule of law – indeed, much of what the services exist to protect – risks being tarnished.
"Public confidence is being eroded, with people doubting the ability of our services to protect us and questioning the rules under which they operate. And terrorists and extremists are able to exploit those allegations for their own propaganda." The Cabinet Office said last night: "The prime minister set out clearly in his statement to the house on 6 July that we need to deal with the totally unsatisfactory situation where for 'the past few years, the reputation of our security services has been overshadowed by allegations about their involvement in the treatment of detainees held by other countries'.
"The government will lay a written ministerial statement, updating the house on progress, tomorrow morning."
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Chaos in Jury Deliberations of First GITMO Terrorist to Be Tried in Civilian...
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via Atlas Shrugs by Pamela Geller on 11/15/10
The hits keep on coming from a train wreck of a presidency.
Ahed Khalfan Ghailani is the first detainee who has been held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be tried in civilian court under Obama's treasonous policy of treating acts of war as law enforcement issues. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani faces charges of conspiracy and murder in the attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The bombings killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans, and wounded thousands of others.
"This is Ghailani, " Chernoff said last week, pointing at the defendant, who at times appeared to be joking and laughing with his attorneys when the jury was not present. "This is al Qaeda, this is a terrorist. This is a killer. I ask that you return a verdict of guilty on all counts."
Today the jury is deliberating and a verdict was expected but a note was sent to the judge by, presumably, the jury foreman. According to a FOX News broadcast, the note, written in broken English, asked the judge to replace her with an alternate. It seems this juror complained that the other members of the jury were giving her a hard time for "her opinions" and she didn't want to serve anymore.
If the jury is deadlocked it is unlikely the prosecution could assemble the witnesses that testified in this trial. The logistics involved in bringing a number of witnesses from Kenya and Tanzania to testify would be difficult if not impossible to repeat.
NY Times blog here:
A juror in the trial of the first former Guantánamo detainee tried in the civilian court system asked the judge during deliberations on Monday to take her off the case, saying she was alone in her views and felt she was being "attacked for my conclusion."
[...]
The note suggested that the jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan was split 11 to 1, although it was unclear whether the juror was alone in wanting to acquit or to convict Mr. Ghailani.
If the split is ultimately deadlocked, the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, could order a mistrial.
The juror who sent the note, which was somewhat ungrammatical, said she felt "secure and I have come to my conclusion but it doesn't agreed with the rest of the juror.
"My conclusion is not going to change," the juror wrote.
Saying she felt she was being attacked by the other jurors, she asked Judge Kaplan whether she could be excused or replaced by an alternate juror.
The judge, after reading the note aloud to the lawyers and prosecutors outside the presence of the jury, said he saw nothing in the note "to support the view that there is any kind of personal disharmony" among the jurors, "as opposed to a strenuous disagreement, perhaps."
But he added that it was hard to be certain.
With the agreement of both sides, Judge Kaplan called the jurors into the courtroom and reread part of the instructions he delivered last week when they began deliberations after four weeks of testimony in the case.
The section he read to the jurors said it was their duty "to consult with one another and to deliberate with a view to reaching an agreement.
"Each of you must decide the case for yourself," Judge Kaplan read, "but you should do so only after consideration of the case with your fellow jurors, and you should not hesitate to change an opinion when convinced that it is erroneous."
With that, the judge sent the jurors back to continue their deliberations.
The judge broke for lunch.
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In Response to Quantitative Easing Critique, Fed Claims ‘Delcining Inflation’
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via The Blaze - Stories by Jonathon M. Seidl on 11/15/10
A group of prominent economists and political strategists are joining the cacophony of voices concerned about President Obama's second round of "quantitative easing." On Monday, 23 economists, former government officials, and political strategists sent an open letter to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke telling him the stimulus-orientated policy "should be reconsidered and discontinued." The Fed responded by saying inflation is "declining."
Among the signers are former CBO director Doug Holtz-Eakin, Great Depression expert Amity Shales, and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.
The letter appeared in full in Monday's Wall Street Journal:
We believe the Federal Reserve's large-scale asset purchase plan (so-called "quantitative easing") should be reconsidered and discontinued. We do not believe such a plan is necessary or advisable under current circumstances. The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed's objective of promoting employment.
We subscribe to your statement in the Washington Post on November 4 that "the Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy's problems on its own." In this case, we think improvements in tax, spending and regulatory policies must take precedence in a national growth program, not further monetary stimulus.
We disagree with the view that inflation needs to be pushed higher, and worry that another round of asset purchases, with interest rates still near zero over a year into the recovery, will distort financial markets and greatly complicate future Fed efforts to normalize monetary policy.
The Fed's purchase program has also met broad opposition from other central banks and we share their concerns that quantitative easing by the Fed is neither warranted nor helpful in addressing either U.S. or global economic problems.
(Need a refresher course in "quantitative easing?" Watch the following video:)
The letter was met with an immediate response from the Fed — a response included in the Journal's story.
"The Federal Reserve has Congressionally-mandated objectives to help promote both increased employment and price stability," a spokeswoman said. "In light of persistently weak job creation and declining inflation, the Federal Open Market Committee's recent actions reflect those mandates." [Emphasis added]
A recent investigation reported by CNBC shows that "declining inflation," however, may be a figment of the Fed's imagination.
According to a new pricing survey of products sold at Wal-Mart, prices have increased by 0.6 percent in just the last two months, says MKM Partners. CNBC concludes: "At that rate, prices would be close to four percent higher a year from now, double the Fed's mandate."
"A moderate amount of inflation would be considered good for the economy," CNBC says. "The problem is that inflation is already running well above a healthy level, investors said, Bernanke is just not looking in the right place, like a Walmart."
Instead, the article says, he's focusing on real estate. But with the Fed keeping interest rates arbitrarily low, that may not be a good indicator.
"I suspect that when the Chairman thinks about reflation he has a difficult time seeing any other asset besides real estate," said Jim Iuorio of TJM Institutional Services to CNBC. "Somehow the Fed thinks that if its not 'wage driven' inflation that it is somehow unimportant. It's not unimportant to people who see everything they own (homes) going down in value and everything they need (food and energy) going up in price."
What exactly is "going up in price?"
"Prices of cotton, silver wheat, soybeans, corn are all up big this year," the article says. "Cotton futures are up the most, climbing 90 percent so far in 2010. The price of silver is up 63 percent."
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