Obama’s handling of the Afghanistan conundrum has been a spectacle of deliberation unlike anything seen in the White House in recent memory. The strategic review began in September. Again and again, the war council convened in the Situation Room. The president mulled an array of unappealing options. Next week, finally, he will tell the American public the outcome of all this strategizing.

“He’s establishing his decision-making process as being almost diametrically the opposite of the previous administration,” says Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s chief of staff. Wilkerson, who teaches national security decision-making at George Washington University, says the Bush-Cheney style was “cowboy-like, typical Texas, typical Wyoming, and extremely secretive.”

Stephen Wayne, who teaches about the presidency at Georgetown, said: “He’s not an instinctive decision-maker as Bush was. He doesn’t go with his gut, he thinks with his head, which I think is desirable.” Referring to the Afghanistan decision, Wayne said, “I don’t think he is an indecisive person, I just think this is a tough one.”

But to his critics, Obama’s prolonged Afghanistan review suggests weakness rather than wisdom. Former vice president Richard B. Cheney lobbed the “dithering” accusation last month. Then last week, former senator Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.) said on his radio show that Obama has waited so long to decide on an Afghanistan strategy that the war is now lost. “The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been,” Thompson said.

Obama’s style has been attacked from his left flank as well. Liberals have zinged him as being too cautious, too much of a compromiser. Some of his supporters would like to see him show more fire in the belly and recapture the energy that propelled him to victory last year.

“I think the Obama we’ve seen as president is a very different Obama than we saw during the campaign. He doesn’t seem to be connected, he doesn’t seem to have the passion, he doesn’t seem to be conveying the grand and inspiring vision,” says the progressive historian Allan Lichtman of American University. “If you want to be a transformational president, you’ve got to take the risks.”

Sean Wilentz, a history professor at Princeton, says Obama has suffered from unrealistic expectations among those who put him in office. “They kind of were sold Utopia, and they bought it, and it didn’t happen,” he says. “People were comparing the candidate to Abraham Lincoln before he served a day of his presidency. Nobody can live up to that.”

Many jobs, many crises

As commander in chief, economist in chief, diplomat in chief and figurehead in chief, the president has a job description nearly as long as the tax code. He is in the Situation Room one night, holding a state dinner in a South Lawn tent the next — and pardoning a turkey in the Rose Garden the following morning. His portfolio of responsibilities covers much of the planet; no president has seen so many countries so fast. But critics are not satisfied. The reaction to his recent trip to Asia was, in effect, that he went all the way to China and came back with only a lousy T-shirt.

With multiple crises on his docket, the president has much to contemplate as he enters the holiday season. The economy has shown signs of growth and the stock market is up, but it’s a jobless recovery, unemployment is at the highest rate since he was in college, and there are fears of a double-dip recession. The dollar is down. The national debt is oceanic. Obama’s health-care plan is imperiled by the whims of a handful of lawmakers. His approval rating has dipped below 50 percent. Even once-Obama-friendly “Saturday Night Live” has taken to mocking him as a do-nothing president. This follows historical patterns: New presidents always experience a drop in popularity as the romance of the campaign trail gives way to the mundane bill-paying and grocery shopping of governance.

The public debate over Afghanistan has focused on whether Obama should authorize more troops. The actual decision is vastly more complicated. Whatever the president chooses to do, he must bring on board as many allies as possible, which means getting a buy-in from Congress, his Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the bean counters who budget military action, NATO, various dyspeptic European leaders, the generals in the theater, the troops on the ground, the sketchy Afghan leadership, the Pakistanis and so on. He must also sell his plan to the American people, convincing the right that he’s tough enough to fight and the left that he knows where the exit is.

Obama told Chip Reid of CBS News, “I think the American people understand that my job here is to get it right, and I’m less concerned about perceptions, about process, than I am at making sure that once a decision is made everybody understands it, everybody is on the same page, and we’re able to move forward with the support of the American people.”

‘A lot of different layers’

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked Monday if the president had anguished over the Afghanistan decision.

“I don’t know if he’s anguished through this process,” Gibbs said. “I just think the president understands that there are a lot of different layers to our involvement in Afghanistan, how it relates to the region, what its impact is on our forces, what its impact is on our fiscal situation.”

Obama discussed his professorial leadership style in a recent interview with U.S. News & World Report. He said he is not afraid of doubt and is comfortable with uncertainty: “Because these are tough questions, you are always dealing to some degree with probabilities. You’re never 100 percent certain that the course of action you’re choosing is going to work. What you can have confidence in is that the probability of it working is higher than the other options available to you. But that still leaves some uncertainty, which I think can be stressful, and that’s part of the reason why it’s so important to be willing to constantly reevaluate decisions based on new information.”

This past spring, Obama was asked by “60 Minutes” to describe the toughest decision in his first few months of office. He quickly said that it was the decision to deploy 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The increase had been requested by military commanders during the previous administration. Obama signed off on it.

He noted the grave responsibility of sending young men and women into harm’s way. But he also expressed discomfort with the process.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “But it’s a weighty decision, because we actually had to make the decision prior to the completion of a strategic review that we were conducting.”

No one can accuse him of rushing the decision this time around.

“We (should) wrap him in bacon and deep fry him at a state fair while Lee Greenwood stabs him in the face.”

Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” on confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

And seriously now, who doesn’t agree?

You’d have to be defective in your humanity not to. Mohammed plotted the greatest act of mass murder in American history. Who among us wouldn’t like a piece of this guy?

Indeed, if critics of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try him and his terrorist confederates in a New York City courtroom would be honest with themselves, they’d admit that this is what drives their condemnation, not questions of security, fears of acquittal or other obfuscatory concerns they’ve raised.

No, the baseline here is the understandable belief that these thugs, these gangsters of Islam, have no right to a trial, that the American legal system, with all its protections for the accused, all its rights and procedures and niceties, is more than they deserve.

Americans have always been ambivalent about the ability of our justice system to give bad people what they’ve got coming. That’s why the action movie almost always ends with the bad guy shot, impaled or fed into a wood chipper: Seeing him led away in handcuffs simply doesn’t impart the same visceral sense of just deserts.

But you have to wonder: Are our emotional needs the most important consideration here?

It’s worth remembering that even the architects of the greatest barbarism in history had their day in court. After burning away 11 million lives, the leaders of the Nazi regime found themselves facing not summary execution, but a trial before a military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.

As prosecutor Robert Jackson put it: “That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.”

And when the trials were over and the verdicts delivered – death or imprisonment for most, three were acquitted – the New York Times editorialized as follows: “These sentences can neither atone for all the evil these men have brought into the world nor undo any part of it. But they help to assuage the conscience of mankind and to restore to honor the concept of the dignity of man which cannot be violated with impunity.”

Compare that with the Bush administration’s original, Supreme Court-rebuked vision of justice – minimal rights for the accused, torture allowed, the government’s thumb on justice’s scale – and maybe you’ll agree: we need this trial more than Mohammed does. For all its risks – and they are real – it offers a prize worth risking for: the promise of feeling like Americans again.

That feeling is arguably the most significant casualty of Sept. 11. On that day, we elevated a mob of stateless criminals, a mafia in cleric’s clothing, to the exalted level of rogue nation. But they were never that, never a threat to our national existence, lacked the forces to take even one square inch of American soil. What they could threaten – and take – was our sense of ourselves as a brave, reasonable and civilized people, inhabiting a nation of laws. They beckoned us into the mud with them, and we leapt.

It’s not the first time. Periodically, we have shed the burden of bravery, reason, civilization, laws. Always, it happens in moments of national stress, moments of overwhelming confusion, anger or fear, moments that make us prey to demons of expedience and moral compromise. Moments when we wonder if we can still afford to act like America.

But we face a band of bloodthirsty hoodlums whose dearest wish is to make us just like them. So maybe the better question is this:

Can we afford not to?

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald.

WASHINGTON — The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true.

But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer.

Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.

Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The potential for rapidly escalating interest payouts is just one of the wrenching challenges facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means.

The surge in borrowing over the last year or two is widely judged to have been a necessary response to the financial crisis and the deep recession, and there is still a raging debate over how aggressively to bring down deficits over the next few years. But there is little doubt that the United States’ long-term budget crisis is becoming too big to postpone.

Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.

The competing demands could deepen political battles over the size and role of the government, the trade-offs between taxes and spending, the choices between helping older generations versus younger ones, and the bottom-line questions about who should ultimately shoulder the burden.

“The government is on teaser rates,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates lower deficits. “We’re taking out a huge mortgage right now, but we won’t feel the pain until later.”

So far, the demand for Treasury securities from investors and other governments around the world has remained strong enough to hold down the interest rates that the United States must offer to sell them. Indeed, the government paid less interest on its debt this year than in 2008, even though it added almost $2 trillion in debt.

The government’s average interest rate on new borrowing last year fell below 1 percent. For short-term i.o.u.’s like one-month Treasury bills, its average rate was only sixteen-hundredths of a percent.

“All of the auction results have been solid,” said Matthew Rutherford, the Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary in charge of finance operations. “Investor demand has been very broad, and it’s been increasing in the last couple of years.”

The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.

“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter,” said William H. Gross, managing director of the Pimco Group, the giant bond-management firm. “The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

The current low rates on the country’s debt were caused by temporary factors that are already beginning to fade. One factor was the economic crisis itself, which caused panicked investors around the world to plow their money into the comparative safety of Treasury bills and notes. Even though the United States was the epicenter of the global crisis, investors viewed Treasury securities as the least dangerous place to park their money.

On top of that, the Fed used almost every tool in its arsenal to push interest rates down even further. It cut the overnight federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend reserves to one another, to almost zero. And to reduce longer-term rates, it bought more than $1.5 trillion worth of Treasury bonds and government-guaranteed securities linked to mortgages.

Those conditions are already beginning to change. Global investors are shifting money into riskier investments like stocks and corporate bonds, and they have been pouring money into fast-growing countries like Brazil and China.

The Fed, meanwhile, is already halting its efforts at tamping down long-term interest rates. Fed officials ended their $300 billion program to buy up Treasury bonds last month, and they have announced plans to stop buying mortgage-backed securities by the end of next March.

Eventually, though probably not until at least mid-2010, the Fed will also start raising its benchmark interest rate back to more historically normal levels.

The United States will not be the only government competing to refinance huge debt. Japan, Germany, Britain and other industrialized countries have even higher government debt loads, measured as a share of their gross domestic product, and they too borrowed heavily to combat the financial crisis and economic downturn. As the global economy recovers and businesses raise capital to finance their growth, all that new government debt is likely to put more upward pressure on interest rates.

Even a small increase in interest rates has a big impact. An increase of one percentage point in the Treasury’s average cost of borrowing would cost American taxpayers an extra $80 billion this year — about equal to the combined budgets of the Department of Energy and the Department of Education.

But that could seem like a relatively modest pinch. Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, estimated that the Treasury’s tab for debt service this year would have been $221 billion higher if it had faced the same interest rates as it did last year.

The White House estimates that the government will have to borrow about $3.5 trillion more over the next three years. On top of that, the Treasury has to refinance, or roll over, a huge amount of short-term debt that was issued during the financial crisis. Treasury officials estimate that about 36 percent of the government’s marketable debt — about $1.6 trillion — is coming due in the months ahead.

To lock in low interest rates in the years ahead, Treasury officials are trying to replace one-month and three-month bills with 10-year and 30-year Treasury securities. That strategy will save taxpayers money in the long run. But it pushes up costs drastically in the short run, because interest rates are higher for long-term debt.

Adding to the pressure, the Fed is set to begin reversing some of the policies it has been using to prop up the economy. Wall Street firms advising the Treasury recently estimated that the Fed’s purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities pushed down long-term interest rates by about one-half of a percentage point. Removing that support could in itself add $40 billion to the government’s annual tab for debt service.

This month, the Treasury Department’s private-sector advisory committee on debt management warned of the risks ahead.

“Inflation, higher interest rate and rollover risk should be the primary concerns,” declared the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, a group of market experts that provide guidance to the government, on Nov. 4.

“Clever debt management strategy,” the group said, “can’t completely substitute for prudent fiscal policy.”

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Saturday to begin full debate on major health care legislation, propelling President Obama’s top domestic initiative over a crucial, preliminary hurdle in a formidable display of muscle-flexing by the Democratic majority.

“Tonight we have the opportunity, the historic opportunity to reform health care once and for all,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and a chief architect of the legislation. “History is knocking on the door. Let’s open it. Let’s begin the debate.”

The 60-to-39 vote, along party lines, clears the way for weeks of rowdy floor proceedings that will begin after Thanksgiving and last through much of December.

The Senate bill seeks to extend health benefits to roughly 31 million Americans who are now uninsured, at a cost of $848 billion over 10 years.

The House earlier this month approved its health care bill by 220 to 215, with just one Republican voting in favor. That measure is broadly similar to the Senate legislation, but there are some major differences that would have to be resolved before a bill could reach Mr. Obama, and that would almost surely push the process into next year.

As the Democrats succeeded Saturday in uniting their caucus by winning over the last two holdouts, big disagreements remained, making final approval of the bill far from certain.

Two reluctant Democratic senators, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, warned that their support for a motion to open debate did not guarantee that they would ultimately vote for the bill. Their remarks echoed previous comments by several other senators, including Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, and Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.

Those comments made clear that more horse-trading lies ahead and that major changes might be required if the bill is to be approved. And it suggested that the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, who relied only on members aligned with his party to bring the bill to the floor, may yet have to sway one or more Republicans to his side to get the bill adopted.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said his party’s opposition would persist. “The battle has just begun,” he said.

In a rare ceremonial gesture reserved for major votes, senators cast their yeas and nays from their desks in the chamber, each one rising to voice his or her position. Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, was not present and did not vote.

After the vote, Mr. Reid said he understood that Ms. Landrieu was already working with two other Democratic senators, Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Charles E. Schumer of New York, to see if they could devise a public insurance plan with broad appeal.

The White House issued a statement praising the vote. “The President is gratified that the Senate has acted to begin consideration of health insurance reform legislation,” his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said, adding that President Obama “looks forward to a thorough and productive debate.”

Mrs. Lincoln, who faces a tough re-election campaign next year and has in recent weeks been the target of millions of dollars in television advertising by both sides in the health care fight, said pointedly that she would not vote for the measure if it retained a government-run health insurance plan, known as the public option, to compete with private insurers. “Although I don’t agree with everything in this bill, I believe it is more important that we begin debate on how to improve the health care system for all Americans,” said Mrs. Lincoln, who was the last uncommitted Democrat, and whose speech, at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday, lifted a cloud of suspense that had hovered around the Capitol.

She added: “But let me be perfectly clear. I am opposed to a new government-administered health care plan as a part of comprehensive health insurance reform, and I will not vote in favor of the proposal that has been introduced by leader Reid as it is written.” But Senator Lieberman, who voted to take up the health care bill, said he was still staunchly opposed to a government-run plan. It is “a terrible idea,” he said.

Ms. Landrieu, whose support came after she won a provision that could be worth more than $100 million in additional federal aid for her financially troubled state, said, “I have decided there are enough significant reforms and safeguards in this bill to move forward, but much more work needs to be done.”

A parade of Democrats and Republicans spent Saturday laying out their arguments for and against the bill in floor speeches.

Mr. Reid, in a rousing closing speech given at his customary volume, which is barely audible, likened the health care bill to some of the most profound issues confronted by the Senate across history.

“Imagine if instead of debating either of the historic G.I. Bills — legislation that has given so many brave Americans the chance to brave college — if this body had stood silent,” Mr. Reid said. “Imagine if instead of debating the bills that created Social Security or Medicare, the Senate’s voices had been stilled. Imagine if instead of debating whether to abolish slavery, instead of debating whether giving women and minorities a right to vote, those who disagreed were muted, discussion was killed.”

With the Democrats nominally controlling 60 votes — the precise number needed to overcome the Republican attempt to stop the bill — the vote on Saturday evening was the biggest test yet of the Democrats’ resolve and of Mr. Reid’s ability to unite his fragile caucus. Mr. Reid faces a tough re-election fight next year.

The bill would expand health benefits by broadly expanding Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for low-income people, and by providing subsidies to help moderate-income people buy either private insurance or coverage under a new government-run plan, the public option. And it would impose a requirement that nearly all Americans obtain insurance or pay monetary penalties for failing to do so.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the legislation would be more than offset by new taxes and fees and reductions in government spending, so that the bill would reduce future federal budget deficits by $130 billion through 2019.

Mr. Reid accused Republicans who opposed the legislation of “living in a different world.” He and several other Democrats also used their speeches to assail perceived abuses by private insurers. “The health insurance industry has an insatiable appetite for more profit,” Mr. Reid said.

Senate Republicans countered with an impassioned denunciation of the measure as an ill-conceived budget-busting expansion of government and a threat to the health and economic security of all Americans, especially the elderly.

The Republicans sought to portray the vote on Saturday — on whether to end debate on a motion to bring up the health bill — as tantamount to a vote on the bill itself, and to shake the confidence of Democrats who had wavered in recent days.

In his closing argument, just ahead of the vote, Mr. McConnell implored at least a single Democrat to vote no. “If we don’t stop this bill tonight,” he said, “the only debate we’ll be having is about higher premiums, not savings for the American people, higher taxes instead of lower costs, and cuts to Medicare rather than improving seniors’ care.”

“The American people are looking at the Senate tonight; they’re hoping we say no to this bill,” Mr. McConnell added moments later, holding up a single index finger. “All it would take,” he said, “is just one member of the other side of the aisle, just one, to give us an opportunity not to end the debate but to change the debate in the direction the American people would like us to go.”

Mr. McConnell warned of the political consequences for senators who voted to move ahead. “Senators who support this bill have a lot of explaining to do,” he said. “Americans know that a vote to proceed on this bill, to get on this bill, is a vote for higher premiums, higher taxes and massive cuts to Medicare.”

Republicans also said that the vote was a proxy for a larger dispute over abortion, because they said the bill did not sufficiently restrict the use of federal money for insurance covering abortions. Senator Mike Johanns, Republican of Nebraska, described the vote as “the key vote on abortion in the health care debate.”

Saturday night’s vote was required because Senate rules and precedent have long granted a right of virtually unlimited debate, or filibuster, to the minority that can be curtailed only by a supermajority vote of 60 senators to move ahead. Currently, there are 58 Democrats in the Senate and two independents who routinely align with them. If the Democrats had lost the vote, they could have tried again, presumably after changing the bill to try to attract more votes.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont assailed the Republicans as obstructionists on Saturday morning. “I will vote today to end the filibuster so the Senate can begin the historic debate to improve and reform our nation’s health insurance system,” he said. “Let’s not duck the debate, let the debate begin. Let’s not hide from the votes.”

While Democrats generally agree on the broad goals of the legislation, to cover the uninsured and to slow the growth in health care spending, there are potentially serious disagreements over any number of provisions that could sink the bill.

Ms. Landrieu, in her speech, methodically cataloged provisions of the bill that she liked and those that she said needed improvement.

Under the bill, she said, owners of small businesses would no longer face “volatile costs” for health insurance. In addition, she said, the bill would “encourage employers to move away from high-cost benefit plans” and shift some compensation to wages.

But more needed to be done to improve the bill, she argued, particularly to help small businesses and the self-employed. And she issued a stern warning about the public option, one of the most contentious features of the sweeping health care legislation.

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

It will take a significant change in policy for this nation to overcome its appalling school dropout problem, but maybe the place to start is coming up with a good slogan.

Something along the lines of “Buckle Up!” or “Don’t Drink and Drive.” What’s needed is a pitch that fundamentally changes our perception of dropping out, that highlights what it really is: a drain on society.

We tend to regard dropping out as a personal failing – or as an individual tragedy, depending on your point of view. The victim is often a low-income kid stuck in a bad school with parents not engaged enough to do anything about it.

We can argue about who’s to blame for high dropout rates. But it might be more productive to focus on who loses out. The answer is the entire community where dropouts live.

The dismal earning prospects a high school dropout faces are well known. In 2005, dropouts could expect to earn about $17,300, compared with $26,900 for those with only a high school diploma and $52,600 for those with a four-year college degree. The less money people make because they dropped out, the less they spend at local businesses. The less they contribute to productivity. And the less they pay in sales taxes and property taxes, not to mention income taxes. By failing to live up to their potential, dropouts cost their communities.

But what if a city knew how many fewer cars were bought in a year, how much was never added to the tax base, how many fewer homes were bought and sold because of its dropout rate? Would it be more likely to do something about its education system? A nonprofit group called the Alliance for Excellent Education has tallied up such costs for the 50 largest metropolitan areas.

It found that in those areas combined, some 600,000 students failed to graduate in 2008. The alliance estimates that if only half of those dropouts had gone on to earn their diplomas, they would have earned an estimated $4 billion more in wages in a typical year. Had they done so, their state and local tax coffers could have seen an additional $536 million in revenue. A surprising number would have probably continued on toward even higher educational attainment, which would have boosted their earning potential even more.

How’s that for a stimulus? In fact, the Alliance for Excellent Education has made that point with a pitch that just might be the one I’m looking for: “The best economic stimulus is a high school diploma.” That may seem like a little overstatement, given that in the deep recession we’re currently in, a lot of educated people can’t seem to find work. The point is that better-educated employees make and spend more money, which makes the economy grow. At least, that’s what happens in normal economic times.

The Alliance for Excellent Education based its estimates on data from the U.S. Census and the Labor Department, along with dropout statistics reported by school districts.

Dropout rates are notoriously skewed, with districts often using dubious criteria to tweak results. By 2011 all states will be required to calculate and report the rates in comparable ways. That will make the kind of analysis the alliance has done even more telling and valuable.

Some will protest that this emphasis on “cost” is another way of demonizing troubled students. But a nurturing, understanding approach to the problem isn’t likely to cut much ice in American politics. This is a nation that continues to fund school districts largely by local property taxes, despite the well-known fact that this perpetuates inequalities between suburban and urban districts.

But costs and tax losses – now those are motivators the American public understands.

For years, one of the best marketing campaigns around education prompted us to accept that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” What if people could be convinced that wasting that mind was also wasting their money?

Mary Sanchez is an opinion page columnist for the Kansas City Star. She can be reached at msanchez@kcstar.com.

As a liberal, and an avid news consumer, there is no cable news channel that warms my heart more than MSNBC.

Why do I find MSNBC so appealing? The network made a business decision in recent years that it was good for ratings to move to the political left. With a few exceptions, strong liberal commentators like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and Chris Matthews have become the face of MSNBC.

The same trend is taking place on the opposite side of the cable divide. We’ve known for years that Fox News’ “Fair and Balanced” act was a charade, but since Obama’s election, they’ve taken it to a whole new level.

Fox was instrumental in relentlessly promoting the right-wing “tea parties,” even going so far as to inform its viewers of their times and locations. Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has been given his own talk show. Glenn Beck has also joined Fox and has seen his ratings skyrocket after labeling the president a racist.

While Fox and MSNBC have shifted further away from the center, CNN has largely stuck to simply covering the news.

Anchors Larry King, Wolf Blitzer, and Anderson Cooper rarely promote a politically slanted agenda on their shows. What’s been their reward? Declining ratings.

The trend toward more partisan news is clear. Cable stations are transitioning to more and more commentary, less and less hard news.

I’m not trying to argue that opinions are bad. Heck, I’d be out of a job if we didn’t have opinions in the media. But this trend seems to indicate that news stations are increasingly going to have to “pick sides” or suffer lower ratings, and citizens are getting more news from one-sided sources.

Simultaneously, high-profile stories of late have demonstrated the mainstream media’s obsession with the political angle over substantive discussion and debate.

A perfect example is coverage of the health care issue. Until several weeks ago, the phrase, “the public option is dead” was spouted on cable news, oh, about 10,231 times, by my count. We’ve seen endless stories about the “fate” of this proposal, but it’s hard to remember if there was even a serious and thorough discussion of its merits.

While partisan news sources are on the rise, we are seeing less and less debate of key issues. News channels obsess over the politics of health care — Will it pass? Are there enough votes? Obama’s approval rating is down! — without paying much attention to the actual components of reform.

It’s no wonder then, that less than half of Americans, 47 percent, say they are very or somewhat familiar with the details of the health-care legislation, according to a recent Washington Post survey. While Congress is on the verge of passing the most important reform in decades, most people don’t even know what is in the bill.

Thanks a lot, news media.

As we strive to be informed citizens, it is important that we make extra effort to get a range of perspectives instead of merely “picking a team.” One-sided news is becoming increasingly prevalent. So next time you’re watching MSNBC, consider switching over to Fox during the commercial break (I know it’s painful) just to see what they’re saying, or seek out conservative opinions elsewhere. The same idea applies if Fox News is the channel that warms your heart: Seek out other views.

As far as a robust debate in the news media goes, we can only hope that the recent trend reverses itself and consumers start to reward those programs that go truly in depth on the issues.

Reach columnist Chris Jordan at opinion@dailyuw.com.

BEIJING — In six hours of meetings, at two dinners and during a stilted 30-minute news conference in which President Hu Jintao did not allow questions, President Obama was confronted, on his first visit, with a fast-rising China more willing to say no to the United States.

On topics like Iran (Mr. Hu did not publicly discuss the possibility of sanctions), China’s currency (he made no nod toward changing its value) and human rights (a joint statement bluntly acknowledged that the two countries “have differences”), China held firm against most American demands.

With China’s micro-management of Mr. Obama’s appearances in the country, the trip did more to showcase China’s ability to push back against outside pressure than it did to advance the main issues on Mr. Obama’s agenda, analysts said.

“China effectively stage-managed President Obama’s public appearances, got him to make statements endorsing Chinese positions of political importance to them and effectively squelched discussions of contentious issues such as human rights and China’s currency policy,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a China specialist at Cornell University. “In a masterstroke, they shifted the public discussion from the global risks posed by Chinese currency policy to the dangers of loose monetary policy and protectionist tendencies in the U.S.”

White House officials maintained they got what they came for — the beginning of a needed give-and-take with a surging economic giant. With a civilization as ancient as China’s, they argued, it would be counterproductive — and reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s style — for Mr. Obama to confront Beijing with loud chest-beating that might alienate the Chinese. Mr. Obama, the officials insisted, had made his points during private meetings and one-on-one sessions.

“I do not expect, and I can speak authoritatively for the president on this, that we thought the waters would part and everything would change over the course of our almost two-and-a-half-day trip to China,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman. “We understand there’s a lot of work to do and that we’ll continue to work hard at making more progress.”

Several China experts noted that Mr. Obama was not leaving Beijing empty-handed. The two countries put out a five-point joint statement pledging to work together on a variety of issues. The statement calls for regular exchanges between Mr. Obama and Mr. Hu, and asks that each side pay more attention to the strategic concerns of the other. The statement also pledges that they will work as partners on economic issues, Iran and climate change.

But despite a conciliatory tone that began weeks ago when Mr. Obama declined to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, before visiting China to avoid offending China’s leaders, it remains unclear whether Mr. Obama made progress on the most pressing policy matters on the American agenda in China or elsewhere in Asia.

The president has had to fend off criticism from American conservatives that he appeared to soften the American stance on the positioning of troops on the Japanese island of Okinawa, and for bowing to Japan’s emperor.

At a regional conference in Singapore, Mr. Obama announced a setback on another top foreign policy priority, climate change, acknowledging that comprehensive agreement to fight global warming was no longer within reach this year.

Past American presidents have usually insisted in advance on some concrete achievements from their trips overseas. President Bush received vigorous endorsements of his top foreign policy priority, the global war on terrorism, during his visits to Beijing, and President Bill Clinton guided China toward joining the World Trade Organization after prolonged negotiations. When either of those presidents visited the country, China often made a modest concession on human rights as well.

This time, Mr. Hu declined to follow the lead of President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, who, after months of massaging by the Obama administration, now says that he is open to tougher sanctions against Iran if negotiations fail to curb Iran’s nuclear program. The administration needs China’s support if tougher sanctions are to be approved by the United Nations Security Council. But during the joint appearance in Beijing on Tuesday, Mr. Hu made no mention of sanctions.

Rather, he said, it was “very important” to “appropriately resolve the Iranian nuclear regime through dialogue and negotiations.” And then, as if to drive home that point, Mr. Hu added, “During the talks, I underlined to President Obama that given our differences in national conditions, it is only normal that our two sides may disagree on some issues.”

White House officials acknowledged that they did not get what they wanted from Mr. Hu on Iran but said that Mr. Obama’s method would yield more in the long term. “We’re not looking for them to lead or change course, we’re looking for them to not be obstructionist,” one administration official said.

In a meeting in Beijing with a senior Chinese official on Wednesday morning, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton again pressed China on Iran. She told the official, Dai Bingguo, that even if China had not decided what sanctions on Iran it would accept, “you need to send a signal,” said a senior American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity so he could describe the exchange.

Mr. Obama did not appear to move the Chinese on currency issues, either. China has come under heavy pressure, not only from the United States but also from Europe and several Asian countries, to revise its policy of keeping its currency, the renminbi, pegged at an artificially low value against the dollar to help promote its exports. Some economists say China must take that step to prevent the return of large trade and financial imbalances that may have contributed to the recent financial crisis.

Mr. Obama on Tuesday could only cite China’s “past statements” in support of shifting toward market-oriented exchange rates, implying that he had not extracted a fresh commitment from Beijing to move in that direction soon.

There are many reasons the White House may have heeded China’s clear desire for a visit free of the polemics that often accompany meetings between leaders of the two countries. Mr. Obama’s foreign policy is rooted in recasting the United States as a thoughtful listener to friends and rivals alike. “No we haven’t made China a democracy in three days — maybe if we pounded our chest a lot that would work,” Mr. Gibbs said in an e-mail message on Tuesday night. “But it hasn’t in the last 16 years.”

Kenneth Lieberthal, a Brookings Institution scholar who oversaw China issues in President Clinton’s White House, agreed. “The United States actually has enormous influence on popular thinking in China, but it is primarily by example,” he said. “If you go to the next step and say, ‘You guys ought to be like us,’ you lose the impact of who you are.”

The National Security Council’s spokesman, Michael A. Hammer, added, “What we did come to do is speak bluntly about the issues which are important to us, not in an unnecessarily offensive manner, but rather in the Obama style of showing respect.”

Mr. Obama, even as he projected a softer image, did nudge the Chinese on some delicate issues.

On Tuesday, standing next to Mr. Hu, Mr. Obama brought up Tibet, where Beijing-backed authorities have clamped down on religious freedom. “While we recognize that Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China, the United States supports the early resumption of dialogue between the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama to resolve any concerns and differences that the two sides may have,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Sharon LaFraniere, Edward Wong, Michael Wines and Mark Landler.

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 17, 2009

When the Senate begins floor debate on a health-care reform package this week, the outcome is almost certain to rest on decisions made by a handful of moderate Democrats.

None of those Democrats is feeling the heat as intensely as Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), who has become emblematic of the improbable distance that health-care reform has traveled, and how far it still must go before becoming law.

Her vote and that of two other Democrats expressing serious reservations about the legislation — Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Mary Landrieu (La.) — will determine whether it will garner the 60 needed to break an all-but-certain Republican filibuster.

There are 60 members of the Democratic caucus but one, independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), has threatened to join a GOP filibuster if the final bill contains a government insurance plan, or “public option.” With only a single Republican, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, even considering backing the final product on the floor, the trio of Democratic centrists could make or break the reform effort.

And of those three, only Lincoln must face voters next year.

Hundreds of thousands of Lincoln’s constituents are low-income and lack insurance, the very kind of voters expected to benefit under the Senate bill. Lincoln, a second-term senator, helped write some of the legislation’s key provisions as a member of the Finance Committee, and her sometimes uncomfortable role near the center of the debate could cost her in culturally conservative Arkansas. Despite the potential benefits for many in her state, polls show her support weakening, and constituents are expressing doubts about the proposed overhaul.

The low-profile centrist is being pressed by both sides. Democratic activists are incensed that she has turned against the public option, an idea she once supported. Republicans are casting her cautious approach to the health-care debate in starkly political terms, saying that she is unwilling to put local interests above those of a president who lost the state by a resounding 20 percentage points.

“I want to be a check and balance on Barack Obama’s extreme agenda,” state Sen. Gilbert Baker, a front-runner for the GOP nomination, told reporters last week.

An Arkansas Poll published Nov. 5 found that Lincoln’s job-approval rating had dropped to 43 percent, from 54 percent a year ago. At least seven Republicans are vying to challenge her bid for a third term; Baker raised $500,000 in his first month as a candidate. And if she does not embrace the party line on the health issue, Lincoln could also face a Democratic primary challenger, along with a Green Party opponent in the general election.

“In some ways, there’s not a good vote on this,” said Sen. Mark Pryor (D), Arkansas’s junior senator, who coasted to reelection last year. “You’re going to have detractors on either side, no matter what you do. So I think in the end you have to what you think is right. And I think that’s what we’re all going to have to do.”

The first test for Lincoln could come as early as Friday, when the Senate will vote on whether to bring the bill to the floor. Lincoln told party leaders she would study the final product before committing either way.

“What people want is for us to take our time and not rush into something that we haven’t thought completely through,” she said, shrugging off the pressure as she hurried back to her office after a Senate vote last week.

Although Pryor supports the reform effort, another prominent Arkansan, Rep. Mike Ross (D), voted against the House bill.

“Most people support the need for health-insurance reform; they just think we can do it for less,” Ross said. “They really, as I do, support more choices. They’re just skeptical of a bill that takes 2,000 pages to accomplish that.”

Ross was reluctant to offer Lincoln advice, but acknowledged her predicament. “She represents the whole state. I just represent one-fourth of the state. I’d just be guessing.” But he added: “I think people fear the unintended consequences in a bill this massive.”

Democratic leaders expect Lincoln to stick with them on key procedural votes, but are less confident about winning her support on critical amendments — particularly on the contentious public option.

Lincoln’s record on a government insurance plan has drawn detractors on both sides. In July, she wrote in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: “Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan.”

By Sept. 1, she had changed her mind. “I would not support a solely government-funded public option,” Lincoln said at an event in Little Rock. “We can’t afford that.”

In recent weeks, she also has raised concerns about both potential compromise approaches — one that would allow states to “opt out” of a public plan that Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is expected to include in the Senate bill, and a proposal by Snowe, the only Republican still at the negotiating table, to create a public option as a fallback if private insurers do not offer reasonable rates.

In the process, Lincoln has riled liberal groups including MoveOn.org, which is targeting her with radio ads, direct mail and rallies outside two of her Arkansas offices. Perhaps more ominously, MoveOn — working with the liberal group Democracy for America — has amassed $3.5 million in pledges to fund primary challenges against any Democratic senator who sides with Republicans to block an up-or-down vote on a bill with a public option.

“We think it’s really important for her to see there are negative political consequences to being on the wrong side of this issue,” said Ilyse Hogue, MoveOn’s campaign director. “There’s no arguing she’s in a conservative state, but she’s going to face a tough election no matter what, and she can’t do it without the base. These are the activists, the people who knock on doors, and she is really running the risk of alienating them.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is also documenting each of Lincoln’s comments on health care to build a case against her. The Republican National Committee released a Web video this week that compares her public-option remarks to Sen. John F. Kerry’s “I actually voted for it before I voted against it” line about Iraq war funding.

For GOP leaders, the best strategy for defeating the Senate bill is to sow doubts among vulnerable Democrats, convincing them that Reid is leading them off a political cliff.

“There’s a great effort under way here to convince their members to ignore public opinion” on health-care reform, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters last week. “I hope it will not be lost on our Democratic friends where the public is, how the public feels about this measure. They’re speaking increasingly loudly that they do not think it ought to pass.”

Recent polls suggest that reform is a difficult sell in Lincoln’s home state. The Arkansas Poll, conducted in mid-October by the University of Arkansas’s Survey Research Center, found that 39 percent of voters support a public option and 48 percent oppose the idea. And respondents split about evenly on the question of whether reform would improve or hurt their quality of care.

“It’s hard to draw firm conclusions,” said Arkansas Poll Director Janine Parry. “People are dissatisfied, but they haven’t signed on with an alternative.” Lincoln, said Parry, appears to be “right with her constituents — convinced that we need to do something, and not convinced it’s this.”

Senior Senate aides said Lincoln helped to shape measures aimed at reducing the cost of such procedures as MRIs and at better coordinating care among doctors, hospitals and nursing homes. And she was the primary sponsor, along with Snowe, of a provision aimed at giving small businesses more health-care choices for employees.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, of the nearly 473,000 Arkansas residents who lacked coverage as of 2008, virtually all would be eligible for federal assistance under the Senate bill — either through Medicaid or through tax credits that would subsidize the purchase of private plans.

“There’s a lot in the bill that will be good for Arkansas,” Pryor said. “But there are a lot of people in our state who are against this bill. Some have very legitimate concerns and ask very good questions. But also some is based on bad information. We have to try to talk to those people.”

If Lincoln supports the Senate bill, she will have to sell it to constituents before they see many of the legislation’s benefits. But she says she is well aware of the challenge. “I have no doubt that I’ll be held accountable on this,” she said. “We’re going to be held accountable on a lot of things.”

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 17, 2009

As the Senate prepares to take up legislation aimed at overhauling the nation’s health-care system, President Obama and the Democrats are still struggling to win the battle for public opinion. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Americans deeply divided over the proposals under consideration and majorities predicting higher costs ahead.

But Republican opponents have done little better in rallying the public opposition to kill the reform effort. Americans continue to support key elements of the legislation, including a mandate that employers provide health insurance to their workers and access to a government-sponsored insurance plan for those people without insurance.

Over the past few months, public opinion has solidified, leaving Obama and the Democrats with the political challenge of enacting one of the most ambitious pieces of domestic legislation in decades in the face of a nation split over the wisdom of doing so. In the new poll, 48 percent say they support the proposed changes; 49 percent are opposed.

With the bill through the House, Senate Democrats are now looking for the votes to enact their version of the legislation and keep the reform effort moving forward. Whatever the outcome of the health-care debate, it will have a powerful influence in shaping the political climate for next year’s midterm elections.

The House bill contains a highly controversial provision prohibiting abortion coverage for those insured under a new public insurance plan as well as those who received federal subsidies to purchase private insurance. In the poll, 61 percent say they support barring coverage for abortions for those receiving public subsidies, but if private funds were used to pay for abortion expenses, the numbers flipped. With segregated private money used to cover abortion procedures, 56 percent say insurance offered to those using government assistance should be able to include such coverage.

The new poll provides ammunition for both advocates and opponents of reform. For opponents, a clear area of public concern centers on cost — 52 percent say an altered system would probably make their own care more expensive, and 56 percent see the overall cost of health care in the country going up as a result.

Few see clear benefits in exchange for higher expenses. Rather, there has been a small but significant increase in the number (now 37 percent) who anticipate their care deteriorating under a revamped system, putting that number in line with opinion in July 1994, just before President Bill Clinton’s health-care reform efforts fizzled.

Among those with insurance, three times as many continue to see worse rather than better coverage options ahead (39 to 13 percent), and fewer than half of those who lack insurance see better options under a changed system. Six in 10 see it as “very” or “somewhat” likely that many private insurers would be forced out of business by a government-sponsored insurance plan, a potential result that GOP leaders frequently warn about.

But reform proponents have other findings to bolster their case. Two-thirds of those surveyed support one of the basic tenets of the reform plan, a new requirement that all employers with payrolls of $500,000 or more provide health insurance coverage for their employees or face fines.

As in previous polls, a majority supports a government-sponsored heath insurance plan to compete with private insurers, although the percentage supporting the general idea has slipped slightly over the past month to 53 percent. Support for the scheme jumps to 72 percent when the public plan is limited to those who lack access to coverage through an employer or the Medicare or Medicaid systems.

While Americans overall are divided on reform legislation, the Democrats have made some progress among at least one key group. Support among senior citizens, while still broadly negative, is up 13 points since September to 44 percent.

Seniors have also tilted back toward Obama when matched head to head with congressional Republicans on dealing with health-care reform, helping the president to a 13-point advantage over the GOP on this issue.

Republicans appear to be hampered by a widespread perception that they have not offered clear choices: 61 percent of those polled say the GOP is “mainly criticizing” without presenting alternatives to Democratic proposals.

Looking toward next year’s midterm elections, 25 percent say they more apt to back a candidate who supports the proposed health-care changes; 29 percent are less likely to do so. More, 45 percent, say the vote will not make much of a difference. Independents are nearly twice as likely to be swayed away from rather than toward a candidate who supports the changes (31 percent to 17 percent).

Beyond health care, Obama continues to garner broadly positive ratings from the public. His overall approval rating stands at 56 percent, holding steady in Post-ABC polls since the late summer. More, 61 percent, say they have an overall favorable impression of him, and a slim majority continues to see him as “about right” ideologically (four in 10 consider him “too liberal.”

The president, who is on a 10-day visit to Asia, gets his top mark on handling international affairs, and also picks up majority approval on dealing with the threat of terrorism. But Americans are more divided over his performance on other key issues, with nearly even splits in satisfaction with his work on health care, the economy and the situation in Afghanistan. On each of these three issues, intensity runs against the president, with significantly higher numbers expressing “strong” disapproval as strident approval. Obama receives generally negative reviews on his handling of the federal budget deficit, with 53 percent disapproving of his actions on that front.

Obama continues to be lifted by weakness in the opposition. In addition to his double-digit lead over congressional Republicans on health care, the president has a 15-point advantage on handling the nation’s still-struggling economy. More broadly, Democrats continue to have the edge as the party more trusted to deal with the country’s main problems over the next few years and when it comes to being more empathetic and more in tune with people’s values.

But there are also evident signs of an anti-incumbent mood in the new survey, which would disproportionately hurt the majority Democrats next fall should they hold. Most see the country as headed pretty seriously off on the wrong track and half of all Americans say they are inclined to look around for someone new to support for Congress; just 38 percent are inclined to reelect their member of Congress. These numbers are similar to those from November 1993, one year before Republicans took back control of the House and Senate and close to those from May 2006, six months before Democrats re-captured the Congress.

Among independents, nearly two-thirds say they are inclined to seek new representatives. Independents also about evenly divided over which party better represents their personal values and give Democrats a narrow advantage on being more in tune with “needs of people like you.” More than a quarter of independents do not trust either party to adequately deal with the country’s primary concerns in the coming years.

The poll was conducted Nov. 12-15 by conventional and cellular telephone among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

VIENNA, Austria – Iranian construction of a previously secret uranium enrichment site is at an advanced stage, with high-tech equipment already in place at the fortified facility ahead of its 2011 startup, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report Monday.

The revelation of the existence of the underground plant known as Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, has heightened concerns of other possible undeclared Iranian facilities that are not subject to IAEA oversight and therefore could be used for military purposes.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the IAEA report “underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations.”

The IAEA report offered no estimate of Fordo’s capabilities, but a senior international official familiar with the U.N. agency’s work in Iran said it appeared designed to produce about a ton of enriched uranium a year.

The official, as well as analysts, said that would be enough for a nuclear warhead but too little for Iran’s civilian reactors that have yet to come online, including the still unfinished plant at the southern port of Bushehr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information he was citing was confidential.

“It won’t (even) be able to produce a reactor’s worth of fuel every 90 years, but it will be able to produce one bomb a year,” said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program of the Federation of American Scientists. “It does look strange.”

The IAEA also said production at Iran’s main enrichment site at Natanz – revealed by dissidents in 2002 and under IAEA monitoring – was stagnating at mid-2009 levels.

The report did not offer a reason. But the official suggested that experts who used to work at Natanz could be preoccupied with finishing the Fordo site.

As early as three years ago, Iran had said immediate plans for Natanz were to install about 8,000 enriching centrifuges, and Monday’s report suggested Tehran had reached that goal.

The IAEA summary said that as of Nov. 2, about 8,600 centrifuges had been set up, but only about 4,000 were enriching – or 600 fewer than in September. Still, the official said output had been steady since June with about 220 pounds of enriched uranium being produced a month.

The report said Natanz had churned out nearly 4,000 pounds of uranium by Nov. 2 – close to what experts consider to be needed for two nuclear weapons. But for use as warhead material it would have to enriched further – it is now low-enriched uranium suitable only for fueling nuclear plants.

Iran insists it only wants to enrich uranium to make fuel to power nuclear reactors for civilian purposes, but fears that it could at some point use the technology to make weapons has resulted in three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions meant to pressure Tehran into freezing the activity.

The restricted document, which was obtained by the Associated Press, also noted that “for well over a year,” Iran had stonewalled IAEA efforts to investigate allegations it actively worked on a nuclear weapons program.

Unless Tehran has a change of heart, the IAEA “will not be in a position to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities.”

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A nearly two-decade legal challenge by Native American activists to the nickname of the Washington Redskins came to a close Monday when the Supreme Court declined to review the group’s last loss in federal courts.

The justices declined without comment to reconsider a lower court’s ruling that the activists waited too long to bring their assertion that the nickname is so racially offensive that it does not deserve trademark protection.

“Obviously, we’re quite pleased; it’s been a long road,” said Robert Raskopf, a lawyer for the team since the suit was first filed in 1992. “We’re not surprised the court didn’t see any issue worthy of review.”

Philip Mause, who represented the challengers, said the activists were “disappointed” by the court’s decision but not yet resigned to accept defeat. A new group of challengers has filed the same trademark cancellation suit in hopes that their slightly different circumstances can avoid the procedural bar that halted this case.

Raskopf said the team is not worried about the new complaint. “I think we’re very confident with our likelihood of success,” he said.

Through the years, the team has steadfastly defended the use of the Redskins nickname as honoring Native Americans, not disparaging them. When based in Boston, the team was known as the Boston Braves and was renamed in 1933 as the Redskins. The team said in its brief to the court that the new name was “in honor of the team’s head coach, William ‘Lone Star’ Dietz, who was a Native American.”

The team became the Washington Redskins in 1937, when it moved south.

Native American groups have persuaded scores of high school and college teams to rename their mascots. The National Congress of American Indians told the justices in a friend of the court brief that the name is “patently offensive, disparaging, and demeaning and perpetrates a centuries-old stereotype.”

But despite vociferous protests, Washington has not budged. Under both former owner Jack Kent Cooke and current owner Daniel Snyder, Raskopf said, there has never been “even a whisper” about changing the nickname.

For the most part, though, the battle has been fought on the more mundane grounds of legal procedure, and even a victory by the activists would have cost the team only trademark protection and would not have forced it to abandon the name.

The battle began in 1992, when seven activists, led by Suzan S. Harjo, challenged Redskins trademarks issued in 1967. They won a decision seven years later from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, which said the name could be interpreted as offensive to Native Americans.

Trademark law prohibits registration of a name that “may disparage . . . persons, living or dead, . . . or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”

Pro-Football Inc., the team’s corporate owner, appealed to federal court.

In 2003, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sided with the team, ruling that the activists had not produced enough evidence to show the name was so insulting that it could not be protected by a trademark. She also said the trademark-cancellation claim was barred by the doctrine of laches, which serves as a defense against claims that should have been made long ago.

She revisited the issue after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia returned it to her, saying the youngest of the plaintiffs might have standing to pursue the case. But Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the challenger, Mateo Romero, waited eight years after he reached the age of majority to file the complaint. She said the delay unfairly penalized the Redskins, who invested millions of dollars marketing the team during that eight-year span.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court agreed that eight years was too long to bring the claim.

The Supreme Court was being asked only to review whether the claim was brought too late, not whether the nickname was offensive.

Mause had argued that the justices should take the case to decide whether disparaging trademarks can be challenged at any time. He cited a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which was written by then-judge, now-Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., that he said supported that view.

The case the court declined to hear is Harjo v. Pro-Football, Inc.

By Yuval Levin | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 7, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 16, 2009

All year, leading Democrats from the president on down have argued that the Republican Party is in the midst of a catastrophic civil war. You know the story. Successive election defeats have narrowed the GOP’s ideological range, and now an open struggle is afoot for control of its voice and agenda. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, it seems, are out to destroy Republican moderates and commit the party to a radical course sure to relegate it to irrelevance. Only a move to the left can save the Republicans.

And, in fact, the new president and Congress had a real opportunity to divide the Republican Party. A moderate stimulus bill that offered a short-term boost and included a meaningful tax-cut component, for instance, might have won a very significant number of Republican votes in Congress last winter and launched a damaging internal GOP battle over the proper role of the opposition. Some restraint on taxes and spending in general, and on health care and energy policy in particular, would also have divided congressional Republicans and left the direction of the party in doubt.

But Washington Democrats chose a different route. While they have been peddling the story of Republican self-immolation, they have actually been creating the conditions for a Republican resurgence. President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid have launched the country on a course of massive spending, a dramatic expansion of government, and a slew of new taxes in the midst of a recession. Finding themselves in control of Congress and the White House and so possessed of an unusual opportunity to pursue their ideological agenda, they have sought to make the most of it. But they have misjudged just how far to the left of the country as a whole the Democratic base now resides—and so, rather than strengthen their own brand, they have inadvertently done wonders to build and unify the Republican Party.

In Congress, Republicans now march nearly as one, to a degree not seen in 15 years. Rather than split on the stimulus, conservative and moderate Republicans easily agreed that it went much too far to the left. The bill received zero Republican votes in the House and just three in the Senate. On many crucial votes since, and in the ongoing health-care and cap-and-trade debates, Republicans have stood together almost unanimously.

Around the country, the party seems to be regaining its balance. Last Tuesday’s election results were an extraordinary boost for Republicans. They showed that it is not necessary to run away from the party’s conservative brand to win elections. On the contrary, Republicans running as Republicans seem to succeed in the age of Obama, and to attract independent voters in droves.

In Virginia—which went for Obama last year, and elected Democratic -senators in the last two cycles and Democratic governors throughout this decade—-Republican Bob McDonnell ran as a practical conservative with an extensive policy agenda and was elected governor by an enormous 18-point margin. He produced concrete proposals on transportation and education but was also forthright about his conservative views on taxes and his opposition to abortion and gun control. In deeply blue New Jersey, which Obama won last year by double digits, Republican Chris Christie let the incumbent Democrat embrace Obama, refused to run away from his own party, and won the governorship decisively. He, too, is pro-life; he opposed gay marriage and even associated himself with several GOP governors who had refused to accept stimulus funds. Both Republicans won independent voters by roughly a 2-to-1 margin.

In the special election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District, Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman a few days after the liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava (who had run to the left of the Democrat on key issues) dropped out of the race. The peculiar circumstances of that contest, with prominent conservatives supporting Hoffman over Scozzafava, have been taken by Democrats eager for good news as proof of a Republican breakdown. The day after the election, White House political adviser David Axelrod even went so far as to say that the victory “should be reassuring to Democrats.”

But, in fact, the message of that race was largely the same as those of New Jersey and Virginia: in this political climate, Republicans can win by nominating an identifiably Republican right-of-center candidate in tune with local voters. It seems clear that had they done so from the outset in upstate New York they would have won there, even though Obama won the district comfortably last year. For decades, almost no New York Republicans have been elected without the endorsement of the state’s long-established Conservative Party—that dynamic in this case hardly indicates new divisions on the right—and Republican leaders this year clearly erred by choosing (without a primary) a candidate well to the left of the district. Even so, Owens defeated Hoffman by a mere 4,218 votes, while Scozzafava, who withdrew at the last minute but still appeared on the ballot, received 6,986 votes. And every poll of the district in recent weeks suggested that the same uneasy mood prevailed there as in New Jersey and Virginia.

That mood is the crucial fact of this moment in our politics. It does not signify a mass migration into Republican ranks, only deep anxiety regarding what the Democrats are up to, and a renewed openness to hear what Republicans have to say. It means that Bush fatigue is in the past, early signs of Obama fatigue are emerging, and Republicans have an opportunity to win independents again if they can speak to their concerns.

Last week’s elections won’t fundamentally transform our politics, but they will likely help the GOP continue to build its strength. They will persuade some serious Republicans around the country to run for Congress next year, now that it’s clear that serious Republicans can win. That is just what happened in the first midterm elections of the last Democratic president’s term: most of the winning candidates in the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress decided to run only after seeing Christine Todd Whitman and George Allen win the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia in 1993.

The results will also make some moderate Democrats very nervous about the health-care and cap-and-trade bills being pursued by their leaders. Both bills are political risks—support for the health-care bill hovers around 40 percent in recent polls and a small majority opposes it, and the higher utility costs that would follow cap-and-trade legislation would surely be deeply unpopular in much of the country. Both would have to be passed on essentially party-line votes, leaving Democrats answerable to voters for their consequences. In both cases, too, last week’s elections will reinforce Republican unity.

The fact is, we remain a two-party nation. Republicans are not in the midst of a destructive civil war, any more than the Democrats were when they kicked out Joe Lieberman in 2006. When it comes to the major debates of the moment—health care, energy, the budget, even most social issues—the Democratic Party is far more divided than the GOP. Republican Party identification remains low (about 25 percent, compared with the Democrats’ 35 percent), but in a country where 40 percent of voters identify as conservative and only 20 percent as liberal (according to a Gallup poll released last month), the more conservative party isn’t going anywhere.

Rather than a civil war, we appear to be witnessing the beginnings of a significant Republican revival. The Grand Old Party is finding its footing again in Congress and the states, and behind the scenes there is a growing intellectual effort to develop the next conservative agenda—focused in particular on easing the burdens faced by middle-class parents and contending with the bleak long-term federal budget outlook. Much work remains on that front, but early indications suggest that this work—substantive policy development, seeking to apply conservative principles to the enormous problems of the moment—not only will help Republicans speak more effectively to middle-class voters, but will also help the party’s conservatives and moderates hone their common voice. Issue by issue, it turns out they don’t disagree all that much.

None of this means that President Obama has lost all his appeal, or that the Democrats don’t have an opportunity to advance their agenda in the coming year. It does mean, however, that liberals in Washington would do well to let go of the Republican breakdown narrative, take a real look at the mood of the country and the state of their own party’s prospects, and pull back to the center—or suffer the consequences.

Levin is the editor of National Affairs and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.

From the magazine issue dated Nov 16, 2009

Stanley Karnow is the author of Vietnam: A History, generally regarded as the standard popular account of the Vietnam War. This past summer, Karnow, 84, picked up the phone to hear the voice of an old friend, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. The two men had first met when Holbrooke was a young Foreign Service officer in Vietnam in the mid-1960s and Karnow was a reporter covering the war. Holbrooke, who is now the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was calling from Kabul. The two friends chatted for a while, then Holbrooke said, “Let me pass you to General McChrystal.” Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, came on the line. His question was simple but pregnant: “Is there anything we learned in Vietnam that we can apply to Afghanistan?” Karnow’s reply was just as simple: “The main thing I learned is that we never should have been there in the first place.”

Words of wisdom, but not all that useful to General McChrystal. Like it or not, he is already in Afghanistan, along with roughly 68,000 American and 35,000 European troops. McChrystal has been charged by President Obama with presenting a strategy for victory, generally defined as standing up the Afghan Army to beat back the Taliban and deny sanctuary to Al Qaeda. An avid reader of history, McChrystal has read Karnow’s book, but he has also read many others. One that he has read—and reread—is a 1999 book called A Better War, written by Lewis Sorley, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. Sorley argues that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the United States could have won in Vietnam—if only the U.S. Congress hadn’t cut off military aid to South Vietnam.

Not surprisingly, the Sorley book is getting a lot of attention at the upper levels of the Pentagon and at McChrystal’s headquarters in Kabul. Told that NEWSWEEK was looking into the parallels between the Sorley book and General McChrystal’s situation in Afghanistan, a senior Marine general exclaimed, “You’re on to something there!” (Like other senior military officials contacted by NEWSWEEK, the general declined to be quoted praising a book that argues, though not in so many words, that the military was stabbed in the back by its civilian leaders.)

As he decides how to respond to McChrystal’s request for at least another 40,000 troops, President Obama has been reading some books, too. One that has caught the attention of some top advisers is Lessons in Disaster, by Gordon Goldstein, recounting how Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were not well advised on Vietnam. The very title of Goldstein’s book captures the conventional wisdom (at least at the center and left of the political spectrum) that Vietnam was a hopeless, unwinnable war.

But was it? The lessons of Vietnam are not necessarily the ones we glibly assume—chief among them that Afghanistan, like Vietnam, is a quagmire, and that achieving some sort of victory is out of reach. Vietnam has become code for American hubris and inevitable military defeat. “What ifs” are always a risky exercise, but some good historians have suggested that there were two moments when victory—or at least a semblance of victory—was possible in America’s long war in Southeast Asia. The first came early, in 1965. Had Lyndon Johnson moved aggressively into Vietnam then—taking the war to the enemy and cutting off its supply routes into South Vietnam—the North Vietnamese might have backed off. The second fell five years later, when the military was finally having success with a new counterinsurgency strategy. Would more resources and more fighting later in the war have resulted in South Vietnam remaining independent of the communist North, leaving Vietnam divided in the manner of Korea? Some historians now say yes; many others still say no.

What makes the conversation about Sorley’s thesis especially interesting now, of course, is, as McChrystal asked Karnow, whether there is anything to be learned from Vietnam that would illuminate the way forward in Afghanistan. To be clear: there is no precise parallel to draw between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Every war is different. But the revisionists’ view of Vietnam does shed some light on the issues facing Obama about war leadership. The most surprising guidance Vietnam may have to offer is not that wars of this kind are unwinnable—which is clearly the common wisdom in America—but that they can produce victories if presidents resist the temptation to fight wars halfway or on the cheap. As President Eisenhower liked to say, if you fight, “you must fight to win.”

With their natural tendency to wage the last war, armies learn slowly. In World War II, American armed forces fought badly in Africa in 1942–43 and not so well in Italy in 1943–44 before getting it right in France and Germany in 1944–45. In Vietnam in 1965–67, the Americans pursued a misbegotten strategy of “search and destroy,” trying to fight an unconventional war with conventional forces that focused on “body counts” while the North Vietnamese more shrewdly infiltrated into towns and villages. Not until Gen. Creighton Abrams replaced Gen. William Westmoreland as U.S. commander in 1968 did the Americans smarten up and begin to fight a true counterinsurgency, focusing on protecting the population by a strategy of “clear and hold.” Instead of shoving aside the South Vietnamese Army, Abrams built up the local forces until they could stand and fight largely on their own—as they did in 1972, repulsing North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive with the aid of American airstrikes.

But by then, as Sorley laments in A Better War, it was too late. American public opinion had turned. In 1973, President Nixon and the North Vietnamese signed a peace treaty that allowed Hanoi to keep 150,000 troops in South Vietnam, just waiting on orders to march. In 1974, breaking Nixon’s promises of continued support to Saigon, the U.S. Congress cut off all aid to South Vietnam. Without logistical support or air cover, the South Vietnamese Army collapsed in 1975 and the communists swept into Saigon. Sorley quotes one of General Abrams’s closest colleagues, Gen. Bruce Palmer, as saying that Abrams “died [of cancer in 1974] feeling that we could have won the war. He felt we were on top of it in 1971, then lost our way.” Ellsworth Bunker, the U.S. ambassador to Saigon who worked with Abrams to turn the war around, felt the same: “We eventually defeated ourselves,” Bunker said.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, American forces have also been slow learners. Ever since the Civil War, the American way of war was to overwhelm the enemy with superior firepower. Against the better-led but materially weaker Confederate Army, a war of attrition finally brought results for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant—who had been made commander by President Lincoln only after much trial and error by the Union Army. In Iraq, the learning curve again stretched out for years. After Vietnam, the Army adopted an approach known as the Powell doctrine that called for overwhelming force and a quick exit strategy. Forgotten was how to fight a counterinsurgency. At the outset of the Iraq War, U.S. forces overwhelmed the pitiful Iraqi Army—but then got bogged down in a guerrilla struggle. At last realizing the futility of superior “kinetics”—roughly speaking, putting a lot of metal in the air—American forces belatedly adopted a counterinsurgency strategy. Using a new field manual—FM 3-24, written under the supervision of Gen. David Petraeus—U.S. forces began to focus on protecting civilians while ruthlessly targeting jihadist leaders. The so-called surge, along with a vigorous effort to negotiate with Sunni enemies and bring them over to our side, worked. It bought the shaky Iraqi government breathing room to establish itself in relative peace. Still marred by violence, Iraq is nowhere near the all-out civil war that had long been predicted.

Now, in Afghanistan, McChrystal is implementing a strategy that draws on the lessons of Iraq—and looks an awful lot like the “pacification” program adopted by General Abrams in Vietnam in 1968. By ratcheting back the heavy use (and overuse) of firepower, McChrystal has reduced civilian casualties, which alienate the locals and breed more jihadists. At the same time, U.S. Special Operations Forces use the intelligence gleaned from friendly civilians to find and kill Taliban leaders. That is precisely what the Phoenix Program was designed to do 40 years ago in Vietnam: target and assassinate Viet Cong leaders. McChrystal is focusing on recruiting and training Afghan Army and police so they can take over the job of securing Afghanistan as soon as possible. “Afghanization” of the war is much the same as “Vietnamization,” the strategy adopted—successfully, Sorley argues—before Congress voted an end to aid to the South.

If it was working in Vietnam, will it work in Afghanistan? Contacted by NEWSWEEK, even Sorley wouldn’t predict. He would say only that if Obama and his advisers are to study the lessons of Vietnam, they should at least be informed by the right ones. With smarter generals and a “population-centric strategy”—to use the counterinsurgency term now in vogue—the United States could have enabled South Vietnam to beat back the North.

Or so Sorley contends. Vietnam remains a toxic subject for historians, and Sorley’s book has inspired no shortage of critics. George Herring, a highly respected historian whose study of Vietnam, America’s Longest War, is a standard text, told NEWSWEEK that he is “rather appalled that Sorley’s book is being taken so seriously.” He acknowledges that the United States and its South Vietnamese allies were doing better by 1971, but notes that Hanoi wanted to prevail more than Saigon or Washington did—and was prepared to pay whatever price, in human terms, was necessary. “The war could not have been won at a price we were willing to pay,” he says. A more immediate observer, NEWSWEEK correspondent Ron Moreau, recalls patrolling with South Vietnamese infantry in 1973. The South Vietnamese troops, Moreau says, had become utterly dependent on U.S. air power. Without it, they were reluctant to venture forth against the enemy. Moreau, who now covers the war in Afghanistan for NEWSWEEK, sees the same rickety, corrupt power structure in Kabul that he recalls from Saigon and doubts that America can prop it up indefinitely.

America’s best chance to win in Vietnam may have come earlier in the war. In 1964–65, the top military leadership understood that to defeat the North, it was necessary to go all-out. As historian Mark Moyar points out in his groundbreaking work, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War 1954–1965, that would have meant a massive bombing campaign, mining Hanoi’s port, and sending troops into Laos and Cambodia to cut off the North’s all-important sanctuaries and resupply route, the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But LBJ’s advisers were reluctant—fearful, in part, of dragging China and the Soviet Union into a larger war. The military pressed—but not very hard. As Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster shows in Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam, the top brass made the classic mistake of telling their political masters what they wanted to hear.

Johnson was horribly conflicted. One of his advisers, Douglass Cater, recalled the president’s angst: “I’d never seen the man in as dejected a mood—he said, ‘I don’t know what to do. If I send more boys in, there’s going to be killin’. If I take them out, there’s going to be more killin’ ‘ … And he never put a ‘g’ on the ‘killin’,’ it was Texas ‘killin’.’ Then he got up and walked out of the room, leaving us in a somewhat shattered state.” Despite these melodramas, Johnson’s heart was never in the Vietnam War. He was much more concerned with getting his Great Society legislation through Congress. To avoid a fractious public debate over Vietnam, he tried to slide by without leveling with the American people about the commitment required to win. Inevitably, he just got sucked in deeper, an agony he captured in his colorful way: “I knew from the start if I left the woman I really loved—the Great Society—in order to fight this bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home,” he told historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. “All my programs. All my hopes … all my dreams.”

History may not repeat itself, but, as Mark Twain said, it does have a tendency to rhyme. Interviewed by NEWSWEEK in September as his secret 66-page analysis of the mess in Afghanistan was leaking out, General McChrystal said it was his “duty,” his “sacred duty,” to tell the president exactly what the military required to win there. McChrystal was clearly mindful of the cautionary tale told by McMaster in Dereliction of Duty. But duty is not a simple notion, and it’s possible that the range of options presented to the president by McChrystal—to dispatch 40,000 more troops? Or 20,000? Or 80,000?—has been massaged for political effect. The formula used by General Petraeus’s own counterinsurgency manual—one soldier for every 50 square miles—suggests America would need far more troops, something like a half million all told, to pacify the whole country. An aide to McChrystal, who would not speak for attribution on this sensitive subject, told NEWSWEEK that there’s “a bit of a Goldilocks scenario—too hot, too cold, just right”—in the general’s recommendation. McChrystal is sensitive to the need to make do with whatever he gets, though if he gets “the lower number” (roughly 10,000 to 20,000 troops), says this aide, he will have to “rethink strategy.” (Article continued below)

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The Vietnam Wall: What We Left Behind

Just as Afghanistan is not Vietnam, President Obama is not President Johnson. LBJ’s heart truly did belong to his dream of a Great Society. It’s not clear what Obama’s heart belongs to—he is a much more dispassionate figure. Nonetheless, he is undoubtedly thinking about how history will judge him. He may want to show that he is decisive, that he did not just kick the problem down the road. If he decides that Afghanistan is winnable—i.e., that the Afghans can find some lasting measure of security against the Taliban—he will need to give the war his wholehearted backing. It may be true, as Sorley’s detractors suggest, that by 1972 Vietnam was already lost. But that does not mean it’s too late to win in Afghanistan. The Taliban are not the North-Vietnamese. When the Americans and Saigon finally found an effective counter-insurgency strategy and took control of the countryside from the Viet Cong, Hanoi responded by sending in whole divisions of battle-tested troops. The Taliban are much weaker and far less organized. They do not have waves of combat troops and armor.

Or Obama may decide that Afghanistan is too hard, that the country’s leadership is too corrupt; that too many Afghans will forever regard American soldiers as alien occupiers; that a big influx of troops will only fuel the insurgency and make the Afghan military more dependent; that America will not indefinitely tolerate a war that costs more than $40 billion a year and bleeds off hundreds or thousands of young American soldiers. But if that is the case, Obama needs to start preparing for an orderly withdrawal—and explaining to America and the world why it’s necessary.

Obama’s pronounced tendency is to try to find a middle ground, a compromise. He may try to find a way to send, say, 20,000 troops and ask McChrystal to make do. If so, he runs the real risk of repeating Johnson’s mistake of incrementalism—of doing just enough (or so he hoped) to get the enemy to the bargaining table and to keep the hawks at home off his back. Hoping to muddle through only got LBJ stuck deeper in the mud. Afghanistan may not be Vietnam, but Obama risks repeating Johnson’s mistake.

The more President Barack Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees. But, as the old saying goes, to govern is to choose – and he has stretched the internal debate to the breaking point.

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision – whether or not it is right.

The cost of indecision is growing every day. The United States and its people, the allies who have contributed their own troops to the struggle against al-Qaida and the Taliban, and the Afghans and their government are waiting impatiently, while the challenge is getting worse.

When Obama became commander in chief, his course of action seemed clear. He was bent on early withdrawal from Iraq and an increase in resources and emphasis on winning in Afghanistan – the struggle he repeatedly called “a war of necessity.”

He sent 21,000 more troops to hold it together through the Afghan election, and named two new generals: Stanley McChrystal to run the war and Karl Eikenberry to manage the politics and reconstruction from the ambassador’s office in Kabul.

McChrystal came up with a new plan of battle, emphasizing protection of population centers and requiring up to 40,000 more troops. Eikenberry, we now know, balked, giving voice to the widespread fear that Hamid Karzai, the carry-over winner of the election the ambassador helped arrange, was too weak and corrupt to govern the country effectively, even with an enlarged American force keeping order.

Their disagreement was echoed and amplified throughout the Obama administration. The secretaries of defense and state came down on McChrystal’s side; the vice president and many on the White House political staff with Eikenberry.

The president, notwithstanding his earlier rhetoric and actions, has hesitated to resolve the issue. Obama needs to remember what Clark Clifford said about the president he served, Harry Truman. Clifford, one of Truman’s closest advisers, said the president “believed that even a wrong decision was better than no decision at all.”

While Obama deliberates, his party in Congress shows increasing reluctance to make an all-out commitment to the war effort. The chairmen of two key Senate committees, Foreign Relations and Armed Services, are arguing for retraining Afghan troops – if they can even be found – and turning over more of the burden of fighting to them.

Meanwhile, events in Afghanistan support McChrystal’s prediction that delay in expanding the American troop commitment will almost certainly lead to gains for the Taliban and greater risk for U.S. and allied troops.

In all this dithering, it’s easy to forget a few fundamentals. Why are we in Afghanistan? Not because of its own claim on us but because the Taliban rulers welcomed the al-Qaida plotters who hatched the destruction of 9/11. The Taliban also oppressed their own people, especially women, but we sent troops because Afghanistan was the hide-out for the terrorists that attacked our country.

We knew governing Afghanistan would never be easy. It had resisted outside forces through the ages, and its geography, its tribal structure, its absence of a democratic tradition and its poverty all argued that once we went in, it would be hard to get out.

But George W. Bush said – and Obama seemed to agree – that withdrawal was not and is not an option.

That imperative is reinforced by the presence of Pakistan, a shaky nuclear-armed power across a porous mountain border. If the Taliban comes back in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida cells already in Pakistan will operate even more freely – and nuclear weapons could fall into the most dangerous hands.

Given all of this, I don’t see how Obama can refuse to back up the commander he picked and the strategy he is recommending. It may not work if the country truly is ungovernable. But I think we have to gamble that security will bring political progress – as it has done in Iraq.

Obama did not believe that could happen there. But given what he inherited, and given what he has done himself so far, I think he has no choice but to play out that hand. If we can’t afford to lose, then play to win.

David S. Broder is a columnist for the Washington Post. His e-mail address is davidbroder@washpost.com.

Growing concern about incivility is one of America’s more appealing trends. Increasingly, individuals and institutions are seeking ways to burnish the golden rule.

The concern isn’t new – professor P.M. Forni started the Johns Hopkins Civility Project 12 years ago and published a book in 2002: “Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct.”

Civility even has a Facebook page called “The Civility Initiative,” where Forni and visitors exchange thoughts on the subject.

But recent events and trends – from rowdy town hall meetings to sideshow rants on television to the outburst of South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson – have brought vague unease about manners into sharper focus.

In Wilson’s home state, University of South Carolina President Harris Pastides has made civility a focal point of the institution’s goals. And an Atlanta public relations executive, Mark DeMoss, has organized a coalition of conservatives and liberals, religious and secular, in his own Civility Project to promote a grass-roots, voluntary effort toward renewed civility.

His Web site ( www.civilityproject.org) urges a voluntary pledge to be civil in discourse and behavior, and to stand against incivility.

President Barack Obama addressed civility directly in his commencement address to Notre Dame earlier this year, and recently said, “One of the things I’m trying to figure out is, how can we make sure that civility is interesting.”

That’s more than enough evidence to declare a trend. But do Americans really want to be civil?

Our nostalgia for civility, some say, is misplaced or at least exaggerated by wishful thinking. Americans have never been exemplars of manners in politics. Often cited are the anti-federalists, though the federalists were hardly rearranging the doilies. In one case, when federalist legislators needed a quorum for a key vote, they dragged anti-federalists from their rooms and locked them in the statehouse.

Imagine the fun we’d have if Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi decided to lock their moderate colleagues in the Capitol until they agreed to sign off on health care reform.

During the Andrew Jackson-John Quincy Adams election of 1828, the former general was called a murderer and a cannibal; his wife was accused of being a harlot. Closer to Joe Wilson’s stomping grounds, politics has always been a blood sport and most natives are proud of it. In the election of 1832, mobs assaulted candidates. Not very civil, that.

Nonetheless, something has changed – and what has changed is media. I don’t mean traditional media, the so-called mainstream media everyone loves to hate these days. In fact, old media have strict standards about civility and appropriate language in the public sphere. Such concerns prevented me recently from publishing the obscenity uttered in the Washington Post newsroom that provoked an editor to punch a writer.

Most crucial in the viral growth of incivility are new media – the Internet, the blogosphere and all the social applications, from Facebook to Twitter, and whatever else may have developed since I began typing this page.

Whereas in previous eras an uncivil exchange might be confined to a room, a building or a public square, today’s media technology means that it is captured, amplified, replayed and distributed – perpetually.

There are now Joe Wilson “You Lie” T-shirts and bumper stickers. Meanwhile, a recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that three-quarters of those surveyed were not “outraged” by Wilson’s outburst.

Incivility may be bad form, but it can be good politics. Susan Herbst, a public policy professor at Georgia Tech, is finishing a book on civility in politics in which she argues that civility and incivility are both timeless strategic rhetorical assets. Some people are just more effective at using them.

The real challenge for the civility-minded is that incivility is more exciting. Human beings are drawn to spectacle, as the bookers of Rome’s Colosseum understood. Glenn Beck is proof of the constancy of human nature.

Herbst insists that if we really want civility to prevail, we have to find a way to make it exciting and interesting to young people, and she urges the teaching of debating skills to high school and college students.

“We will never see the sort of civil, thoughtful, inventive debate that enables good public-policy-making until we inspire the young adults in our midst how to pursue it themselves,” she wrote recently for the online publication Inside Higher Ed.

Making debate cool is a challenge, not least because clear thinking is hard work that requires skill and discipline. Perhaps a few Hollywood celebrities might help lead the way? Civility, after all, is nothing but great acting.

Kathleen Parker is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.

By George F. Will | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 7, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 16, 2009

In last week’s NEWSWEEK, the cover story was a hymn to “The Thinking Man’s Thinking Man.” Beneath the story’s headline (”The Evolution of an Eco-Prophet”) was this subhead: “Al Gore’s views on climate change are advancing as rapidly as the phenomenon itself.” Which was rather rude because, if true, his views have not advanced for 11 years.

There is much debate about the reasons for, and the importance of, the fact that global warming has not increased for that long. What we know is that computer models did not predict this. Which matters, a lot, because we are incessantly exhorted to wager trillions of dollars and diminished freedom on the proposition that computer models are correctly projecting catastrophic global warming. On Nov. 2, The Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey Ball reported some inconvenient data. Soon after the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—it shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Thinking Man’s Thinking Man—reported that global warming is “unequivocal,” there came evidence that the planet’s temperature is beginning to cool. “That,” Ball writes, “has led to one point of agreement: The models are imperfect.”

Models are no better or worse than their assumptions, and Ball notes how dicey these assumptions can be: “The effects of clouds, for example, are unclear. Depending on their shape and altitude, clouds can either trap heat, warming the earth, or reflect it, cooling the planet.” It gets worse: “The way that greenhouse gases affect cloud formation—and how clouds in turn affect temperature—remains a subject of debate. Different models treat these factors differently.”

Some scientists say the cooling is a product of what Ball calls “the enigmatic ocean currents.” Others say that even if the cooling continues for several decades, as some scientists think it might, warming will resume.

And if it does not? A story in the April 28, 1975, edition of NEWSWEEK was “The Cooling World.” NEWSWEEK can recycle that article, and recycling is a planet-saving virtue.

Meanwhile, however, the crusade against warming will brook no interference from information. With the Waxman-Markey bill, the House of Representatives has endorsed reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 83 per-cent below 2005 levels by 2050. This is surely the most preposterous legislation ever hatched in the House. Using Energy Department historical statistics, Kenneth P. Green and Steven F. Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute have calculated this:

Waxman-Markey’s goal is just slightly more than 1 billion tons of greenhouse-gas emissions in 2050. The last time this nation had that small an amount was 1910, when there were only 92 million Americans, 328 million fewer than the 420 million projected for 2050. To meet the 83 percent reduction target in a nation of 420 million, per capita carbon-dioxide emissions would have to be no more than 2.4 tons per person, which is one quarter the per capita emissions of 1910, a level probably last seen when the population was 45 million—in 1875.

Such nonsense is rare, but nonsensical fears are not. In their new book, SuperFreakonomics, Steven D. -Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner revisit the great shark panic of the summer of 2001. Eight-year-old Jessie Arbogast was playing in the surf near Pensacola, Fla., when a bull shark bit off his right arm and gouged a piece of his thigh. The country, with an assist from the media, became fixated on the shark menace. Time’s cover proclaimed “The Summer of the Shark”; Time’s story began:

“Sharks come silently, without warning. There are three ways they strike: the hit-and-run, the bump-and-bite and the sneak attack. The hit-and-run is the most common. The shark may see the sole of a swimmer’s foot, think it’s a fish and take a bite before realizing this isn’t its usual prey.”

Jeepers. Everyone out of the water!

Or not. Time, to its credit, let the air out of its story by noting that the numbers of shark attacks “remain minuscule.” They were small during all of 2001, all over the globe. That year there were 64 shark attacks, only four of them fatal. Between 1995 and 2005, shark attacks worldwide varied between a high of 79 in a year and a low of 46, averaging 60.3. Fatalities averaged 5.9, about 50 percent higher than in 2001. The unfortunate Jessie Arbogast became an occasion for the fun of experiencing a frisson of synthetic fear. The real thing arrived in late summer 2001, on September 11.

George Will is also the author of One Man’s America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation and With a Happy Eye But . . .: America and the World, 1997—2002 .

By Jacob Weisberg | NEWSWEEK
Published Oct 31, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 9, 2009

“I think this would be a good time for a beer,” Franklin D. Roosevelt said upon signing a bill that made 3.2 percent lager legal, ahead of the full repeal of Prohibition. I hope Barack Obama will come up with some comparably witty remarks as he presides over the dismantling of our contemporary forms of prohibition—laws that prevent gay marriage, restrict cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance, and ban travel to Cuba. “You may now kiss the groom,” perhaps, or a version of the comment he once made about smoking pot: “I inhaled—that was the point.” (Click here to follow Jacob Weisberg)

Prohibition now is different from Prohibition then. When the 18th Amendment went into effect in 1920, it was a radical social experiment challenging a custom as old as civilization. A predictable failure—the insult to individual rights, the impossibility of enforcement, the spawning of organized crime—it came to an end in 1933. Today it is a byword for futile attempts to legislate morality and remake human nature.

Our forms of prohibition are more sins of omission than commission. Rather than trying to take away longstanding rights, they’re instances of conservative laws failing to keep pace with a liberalizing society. But like Prohibition in the ’20s, these restrictions have become indefensible as well as impractical, and as a result are fading fast. Within 10 years, it seems a reasonable guess that Americans will travel freely to Cuba, that all states will recognize gay unions, and that few will retain criminal penalties for marijuana use by individuals. These reforms are inevitable—not because politics has changed, but because society has.

A few reference points: in April, Obama lifted restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban-Americans. Last month the Justice Department announced that it would no longer prosecute cases involving medical marijuana. Same-sex marriages are recognized in six states and counting. In a larger frame, loosening restrictions and lax enforcement reflect evolving social norms. Gay unions have been celebrated on the New York Times weddings page since 2002. Since George W. Bush left office, American tourists no longer worry about being prosecuted for visiting Havana without a Treasury license. In L.A., you need only tell an on-site doctor at a walk-in pot emporium that you feel anxious to walk out with a legal bag of Captain Kush.

The chief reason these prohibitions are falling away is the evolving definition of the pursuit of happiness. What’s driving the legalization of gay marriage is not so much the moral argument, but the pressures from couples who want to sanctify their relationships, obtain legal benefits, and raise children in a stable environment. What’s advancing the decriminalization of marijuana is not just the demand for pot as medicine but the number of adults—more than 23 million in the past year, according to the most recent government survey—who use it and don’t believe they should face legal jeopardy. What’s bringing the change on Cuba is not the epic failure of the 49-year-old U.S. embargo, but the demand on the part of Americans who want to go there—whether to visit relatives, prospect for post-Castro business opportunities, or sip rum drinks on the beach.

For similar reasons, there isn’t likely to be any retreat on the right to have an abortion or own a gun. Popular demand for an individual right is simply too powerful to overcome. The Internet has been a crucial amplifier of all such claims. With pornography and gambling, the Web itself became an irrepressible distribution tool. When it comes to gay marriage, it has accelerated the recognition of a new civil right by serving as an organizing tool and information clearinghouse. More broadly, the freest communications medium the world has ever known has raised expectations of personal liberty. In a world where everyone has his own printing press, restrictions on personal behavior become increasingly untenable.

Politicians will continue to lag, rather than lead, these changes. Republicans face a risk in resisting the new realities. If the GOP remains the party of prohibition, it will increasingly alienate libertarian leaners and the young. Democrats face a different danger in embracing cultural transformations too eagerly. Nearly four decades after George McGovern became known as the candidate of amnesty, abortion, and acid, cultural issues are still treacherous territory for them. Why get in front of change when you can follow from a safe distance and end up with the same result?

Jacob Weisberg is also the author of The Bush Tragedy and In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington .

BOISE – After Washington this year became the fifth state to endorse a big change in how the nation elects presidents – letting whoever wins the popular vote take the office – Idaho is poised to debate the same question.

Nothing changes until enough states sign on to represent a majority of electoral votes; only about a quarter of them are on board so far. “We’re just waiting to see if there are additional states that decide to join in,” said Glenn Kuper, spokesman for Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, who backs the move and signed the Legislature-passed bill into law in April.

It may be a tougher sell in Idaho, the very last state to see the measure introduced. But state Rep. Donna Boe, D-Pocatello, who plans to introduce the bill in January, is enthusiastic about it. “Under this national popular vote, everyone’s vote will go to the total,” Boe said. “So all of us will have our vote count – that was the appeal to me.”

Currently, Idaho’s four electoral votes are something of a foregone conclusion: They’ve gone to the GOP candidate for president in every election since 1964.

But when the California-based National Popular Vote group, which is pushing for the measure in all 50 states, polled 800 registered Idaho voters in May, it found that 77 percent favored a switch to electing the president by popular vote – 84 percent of Democrats, and 75 percent of Republicans.

“We don’t see this to be a partisan issue,” said Pat Rosenstiel, a consultant who’s worked for GOP campaigns and now serves as the National Popular Vote lobbyist for five states, including Idaho.

Backers of the change argue that it’ll force presidential candidates to address issues important to voters everywhere, not just in key battleground states. Opponents say the current Electoral College system forces candidates to pay attention to small rural states, such as Idaho, rather than just a handful of large metropolitan cities.

“It’s certainly an issue of federalism, in terms of state role in the presidential vote,” said Boise State University political scientist emeritus Jim Weatherby.

Said Kuper, Gregoire’s spokesman, “Her perspective is that it’s a national election, and that the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationally ought to be elected president.” He added, “As a state that has a moderately large population, I think we would still receive the same kind of attention that we have in the past, just based on the number of popular votes we would have to deliver to either candidate.”

Four times in U.S. history, including the Bush-Gore race in 2000, the Electoral College selected a president who had lost the national popular vote.

WASHINGTON – Confronted with the stark reality of a 13-year-old boy sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, the Supreme Court justices signaled Monday that they were inclined to limit, or perhaps abolish, the use of life terms for teenagers whose crimes do not involve murder.

The court often has invoked the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” to restrict the death penalty. On Monday, the justices also sounded ready to rule that some states, in particular Florida, had gone too far by sentencing children to life in prison without a chance for a parole.

“To say to any child of 13 that you are only fit to die in prison is cruel,” attorney Bryan Stevenson told the court. “It cannot be reconciled with what we know about the nature of children. It cannot be reconciled with our standards of decency.”

Stevenson is representing Joe Sullivan, who at age 13 was convicted of raping a 72-year-old woman and given a life prison term. Stevenson said rapists in Florida are sentenced, on average, to 10 years in prison. Yet, Sullivan, who already has served 20 years, will die in prison unless the Supreme Court intervenes.

A second case heard Monday involved Terrance Graham, who at 17 was given a life term for his part in an armed robbery of a restaurant and a later home invasion robbery.

Sullivan and Graham are among 109 inmates nationwide who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for nonhomicide crimes.

During oral arguments, most of the justices sounded as though they were inclined to overturn at least some of these sentences as too extreme. However, they differed on how to do it. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. offered a middle-ground approach that could overturn prison terms in some cases if the state judges failed to weigh the youthful age of the offender. Roberts said this “case-by-case approach” was wiser than setting a single rule.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said he agreed.

But most of the liberal justices hinted they would go further and rule it was always cruel and unusual punishment to impose a life term for an offender who is under age 18 and who did not commit a murder.

“Every state recognizes the difference between an adult and a minor. And you have to make a line. We have it at 18,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. “The teenager can’t drink, can’t drive, can’t marry. There are many (legal) limitations on children just because they are children.”

Only Justice Antonin Scalia defended Florida’s policy, saying the court should look to history.

“When the ‘cruel and unusual’ clause was adopted (in 1791), 12 years was viewed as the year when a person reaches maturity,” Scalia said. “And then all felonies (were subject to) the death penalty.”

WASHINGTON – Furious liberals on Monday threatened to derail the massive health care overhaul bill to protest a last-minute deal over insurance coverage of abortions that had secured passage of the legislation in the House.

At least 40 House members pledged not to vote for a final health care bill if the abortion provision survives – endangering the exceptionally fragile Democratic coalition that has kept the bill afloat.

At issue are the insurance policies offered in a new “exchange,” or insurance marketplace, that the legislation would create to help consumers purchase health plans, many using newly created federal subsidies.

The House measure says the federal subsidies cannot be used to buy health policies that cover elective abortion. But abortion rights supporters say this would affect a broad set of consumers, because insurers would likely abandon abortion coverage in all policies offered in the exchange.

The provision “represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women’s ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled,” the House members wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

It was a tougher line than they had adopted less than 48 hours earlier, when they had, almost to a member, voted to pass the health legislation. The bill cleared the chamber late Saturday night by a mere five votes.

The tumult over abortion now travels to the Senate, where it promises to cause headaches for Democrats still wrestling with fundamental issues of cost, coverage and revenues in its version of the health legislation.

Legislation before the Senate contains looser restrictions on abortion coverage than was approved by the House. But, already, at least one Senate Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, appears willing to work with abortion rights opponents on language similar to that from the House.

President Barack Obama suggested Monday the House measure might be altered as the legislation moves through Congress, though he did not say he would push for changes himself.

Obama told ABC News the bill should uphold the principle that federal money may not be used to subsidize abortions.

“And I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test – that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” he said. “Because one of the pledges I made in that same speech was to say that if you’re happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, that it’s not going to change.”

The House amendment would allow people buying insurance in the exchange to purchase separate “riders” that would cover abortions. Abortion-rights advocates say few would do so, because few women anticipate an unplanned pregnancy and few insurers are likely to offer such a separate service.

“No one counts on getting an abortion,” said Rachel Laser, a lawyer with Third Way, a Washington think tank that advocates centrist policies.

In 2001, 13 percent of abortions were billed directly to insurance companies, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health. That figure, however, may understate insurance payments for abortion, because it does not include cases where women paid for the procedure out of pocket and later asked for reimbursement from their insurers.

Dr. Willie Parker, a board member at Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, said the amendment could have the greatest impact on women whose underlying health conditions require hospitalization in order for a safe abortion to be performed.

Parker cited an example of a woman with a pregnancy that involves abnormal attachment of the placenta. While a standard abortion may cost just $350, the cost in that situation would range between $3,000 and $4,000.

At a glance:

Only 9 people in the country are serving life sentences for crimes committed when they were 13. The number rises to 73 when 14-year-olds are added in. No other country allows life sentences for young offenders.

WASHINGTON – Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and judged incorrigible though he was only 13 at the time of the attack.

Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told the teenager he threw his life away.

They didn’t kill anyone, but they effectively were sentenced to die in prison.

Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.

Now the Supreme Court is being asked to say that locking up juveniles and throwing away the key is cruel and unusual – and thus, unconstitutional. Other than in death penalty cases, the justices never before have found that a penalty crossed the cruel-and-unusual line. They will hear arguments today.

Graham, now 22, and Sullivan, now 33, are in Florida prisons, which hold more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for life for nonhomicide crimes. Although their lawyers deny their clients are guilty, the court will consider only whether the sentences are permitted by the Constitution.

The Supreme Court’s latest look at how to punish young criminals flows directly from its four-year-old decision to rule out the death penalty for anyone younger than 18.

In that 2005 case decided by a 5-4 vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion talked about “the lesser culpability of the juvenile offender.”

“From a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed,” Kennedy said.

Yet Kennedy also acknowledged the possibility that for the worst crimes and the worst offenders, “the punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is itself a severe sanction, in particular for a young person.”

Both sides point to the same basic facts – the rare imposition of Draconian prison terms on people so young – to make their point.

The state of Florida, backed by 19 other states, argues it should retain flexibility in sentencing so that “particularly heinous acts that stop short of causing death” can be punished vigorously.

Life without parole “is appropriately rare and reserved only for the worst of the worst offenders,” crime victims groups said in court papers.

Most victims of juvenile violence also are young, the victims groups said, citing Justice Department statistics. “Softening sentences for juvenile offenders puts actual children in harm’s way – innocent ones, not those who have committed violent crimes,” the victims groups said.

Opponents of such sentences said, however, that most states have in practice rejected life terms for juveniles when no one was killed. The 109 juveniles serving terms of life without parole are in Florida and seven other states – California, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska and South Carolina – according to a Florida State University study. More than 2,000 other juveniles are serving life without parole for killing someone.

Beyond the infrequency of such punishment, lawyers for Graham and Sullivan argue that it is a bad idea to render a final judgment about people so young.

“They are unfinished products, works in progress,” said Bryan Stevenson, who will argue Sullivan’s case at the high court.

Actor Charles Dutton, former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson and others who committed crimes as teenagers have weighed in against life-without-parole sentences. Corrections officials, psychologists, educators and even some victims also have taken Graham and Sullivan’s side.

Simpson, a Wyoming Republican, served 18 years in the Senate, but as a teenager, he pleaded guilty to setting fire to an abandoned building on federal property and later spent a night in jail for slugging a police officer.

Simpson said he sees no good argument for refusing even to review their sentences after the passage of time.

“When they get to be 30 or 40 and they been in the clink for 20 years or 30 or 40 and they have learned how to read and how to do things, why not?”

If a prisoner shows he is not fit to be released, “throw him back in,” he said. “That’s better than saying ‘Sorry, we can’t look at that file because you were sent here for life.’ ”

We don’t know why Faleh Hassan Almaleki came to this country in the mid-’90s, and it’s unlikely he’ll be able to tell us anytime soon. He’s in jail in Maricopa County, Ariz., at this writing, in lieu of a $5 million cash bond. It hardly seems far-fetched, however, to suppose he emigrated from his native Iraq for the same reason immigrants typically seek these shores: America promises opportunity and freedom.

But one wonders if he truly knew the meaning of the words.

Almaleki is the 48-year-old Glendale, Ariz., man who stands accused of using his Jeep Cherokee to run down his 20-year-old daughter, Noor, and another woman, Amal Edan Khalaf. Khalaf, said to be the mother of Noor’s boyfriend, is expected to survive the Oct. 20 attack in the parking lot of a state government building. Noor was less fortunate. She died last Monday.

About her, we know only a few things: She had a page on Facebook and another on MySpace. She was interested in modeling. And at some point she either went to Iraq and got married – or went there and rejected the suitor her family had arranged for her. Police are still trying to determine which of those stories, both in circulation, is true. Either way, she returned to the States, where she moved in with her boyfriend and his mother.

Something else we know: Almaleki felt his Facebook-using, husband-rejecting daughter had become too “Westernized.” His son, Peter-Ali, told a local TV news station that tensions ran high between father and daughter. Noor, he said, went “out of her way” to disrespect their conservative Muslim father.

And where Almaleki comes from, it is standard practice that the daughter who disrespects or brings shame upon her family is subject to what they call an honor killing. Repeating for emphasis: Almaleki is alleged to have run down two defenseless women as a matter of “honor.”

While you absorb that, let me tell you a few things I believe:

I believe that in most cases, I have no right to judge your culture by the standards of mine.

I believe what seems exotic to me might be enlightened to you.

I believe no culture has a monopoly on morality.

But I also believe you don’t run down your daughter because she has a page on Facebook and won’t marry the guy you choose.

That is not honor. It is, in fact, the opposite – an act of appalling cowardice suggestive not simply of religious extremism but of a people in fear of the sexuality and independence of women. It tells you something about a culture’s lack of faith in its own mores any time it feels compelled to use violence to enforce those mores upon its people. And it tells you something about Almaleki’s “honor” that he bolted like a scared rabbit after allegedly running the women down. It took over a week for authorities to capture him.

The U.N. Population Fund estimates that more than 5,000 women a year die in “honor” killings for such “crimes” as speaking to unrelated men or being raped. Take it as brutal evidence of the way half the human race continues to oppress the other half.

It is disgraceful that such a thing happens anywhere, but it is especially galling that it has happened here. Not just because this is home soil and such things are alien to most of us, but because it suggests, poignantly, that Faleh Hassan Almaleki did not truly understand the vastness of the hope that brings immigrants like him here. If America promised him freedom and opportunity to remake his life as he saw fit, he was apparently too short-sighted and concretized in old ways to see the obvious corollary.

It promised his daughter the same.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. His e-mail address is lpitts@miamiherald.com.

1.) Do you think that every American should have the right to universal health-care coverage or just to the coverage they can properly afford?
• 784 Total Votes
o Universal. o 354 votes 45%
o What they can afford. o 364 votes 46%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum. o 66 votes 8%

2.)
• Should the United States increase social security payroll taxes by 2% in order for the federal government to ensure income security for future generations of senior citizens?
• 771 Total Votes
o Yea. o 359 votes 47%
o Nay. o 298 votes 38%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum. o 114 votes 15%

3.)
• Should the Selective Service System, which would most likely be the basis for a modern military draft, be expanded to include women?
• 772 Total Votes
o Yea. o 328 votes 43%
o Nay. o 348 votes 45%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum. o 96 votes 12%

4.)
• Should laws such as the Equal Protection Clause, which states: “No state shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” apply to illegal aliens? • 775 Total Votes
o Yea. o 229 votes 30%
o Nay. o 444 votes 57%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum. o 102 votes 13%

5.)
• Referendum 71: • 776 Total Votes
“The legislature passed Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5688 concerning right and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners… This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.” Should this bill be:
o Approved. o 345 votes 44%
o Rejected. o 280 votes 36%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum. o 151 votes 20%

6.)
• When considering the United States’ responsibilities concerning the war in Afghanistan which option do you prefer?
• 781 Total Votes
o Decrease Troop Number: train, equip, and advise Afghan Security forces to better protect themselves. o 315 votes 40%
o Maintain Troop Number: American troops should conduct the counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban. o 183 votes 23%
o Increase Troop Number: Follow General McCrystal’s plan of providing an additional 40,000 troops to escalate the removal of terrorist networks. o 139 votes 18%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum. o 144 votes 19%

7.)
• Should the government ensure a guaranteed college education to those who desire to pursue it by raising federal taxes in some areas?
• 768 Total Votes
o Yea. o 314 votes 41%
o Nay. o 364 votes 47%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum o 90 votes 12%

8.)
• “The U.S. government’s $6.4 billion swine flu vaccination program is likely to put the American public health sector under unprecedented strain and expose serious shortcomings, experts say.”
• 764 Total Votes
o Our health-care sector should continue to focus solely on the swine flu epidemic.
o 103 votes 13%
o Our health-care sector should reconfigure the resource distribution to over multiple threats simultaneously. o 532 votes 70%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum. o 129 votes 17%

9.)
• Do you feel things in this country are generally going in the right direction or do you feel things are heading in the wrong direction?
• 794 Total Votes
o Right direction. o 100 votes 12%
o Wrong direction. o 403 votes 51%
o Holding steady. o 180 votes 23%
o I choose not to vote on this referendum. o 111 votes 14%

In September, the U.S. Senate began deliberations on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, following passage of a comprehensive climate and energy bill by the House of Representatives in June. Regional energy experts led by Sen. Maria Cantwell and people I trust from Avista and Itron have convinced me that now is the time for the Inland Northwest to stand up for a clean energy economy. We have the resources and technology; we just need the national leadership to do what is right and begin a transition to a clean energy economy.

For those of us in Eastern Washington, the need for this legislation is clear. Temperatures in Washington are expected to rise 5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050, which will result in snowmelt occurring earlier and faster each year. Early snowmelt means more water resource problems for our dry region, including limited water supplies for drinking, agriculture and forest fire mitigation. Given these damaging consequences, we need to make sure that we’re at the forefront of the conversation to shift our nation to a clean energy economy.

Not only do we stand to gain by mitigating the impacts of climate change, we also stand to benefit significantly from investments in a new clean energy economy. Washington has what it takes to be the future powerhouse for clean energy. We currently rank fifth nationally in wind power and fourth nationally in clean energy venture capital investments. Under the national legislation we would receive $680 million for expanded energy efficiency investments.

Eastern Washington is home to some of the most dynamic leaders in clean energy innovation, and some of the nation’s foremost clean technology research and development capabilities are at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Our universities are joining smart researchers together with free enterprise leaders to find workable solutions. We have an abundance of renewable resources here: sun, water, wind and, most of all, the human resources to lead the way.

A strong national commitment to a bold clean energy transition will spur a flurry of investments that will accelerate economic recovery and drive solutions that pay dividends for years to come. Arguing against clean energy will shortchange our community’s future.

It’s also an argument against our national security. Our foreign affairs and defense are linked to our energy policy through our dependence on foreign oil. There is no doubt we as Americans rely on foreign oil reserves controlled by countries whose interests are at odds with our own; currently, we are sending billions of dollars overseas to pay for oil, leaving us and our military personnel vulnerable to unstable or hostile regimes.

It’s not just the threats to our national security. In these tough times, families are clipping coupons, buying in bulk and pinching pennies any way they can. As costs for everything from groceries to gasoline climb, the costs of not solving our economic crisis grow. However, if the Clean Energy Jobs bill passes, the average family in Washington is estimated to save over $5 per month on their energy bills and nearly $10 per month on vehicle fuel costs. Nationally, the legislation would create 1.7 million new clean energy jobs, of which at least 34,000 would be right here in Washington. The Clean Energy Jobs bill will help revive our nation’s struggling economy while protecting our planet; now is our moment to seize that opportunity.

Here in Washington state, we have the opportunity to help our nation lead. Our senators are both accomplished leaders. Sen. Cantwell has established herself as a clean energy champion and Sen. Patty Murray is an influential member of the Senate’s leadership. Now it’s up to these senators to ensure that the U.S. Senate passes the Clean Energy Jobs Act this year. We need them to do more than vote for the bill; they must speak loudly for the people of Washington and actively work to advance the bill.

In these challenging times, we need immediate action by the Senate to create jobs. We need the Senate to put us on a path to a clean energy economy and shift away from the carbon-based fuels that threaten our environment, our economy and our national security. We need Sens. Cantwell and Murray to take on their leadership roles to advance this legislation so that Washington state will reap the benefits of energy independence and building a clean energy economy. The future will be much brighter when Congress steps up to this enormous opportunity.

Don Barbieri is chairman of the board for Red Lion Hotels Corp.

Coalition forces in Afghanistan now total 67,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 troops from other countries.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy Newspapers.

As it now stands, the administration’s plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.

Another 7,000 troops would man and support a new division headquarters for the international force’s Regional Command South in Kandahar, the Taliban birthplace where the U.S. is due to take command in 2010. Some 4,000 additional U.S. trainers are likely to be sent as well, the officials said.

The first additional combat brigade probably would arrive in Afghanistan next March, the officials said, with the other three following at roughly three-month intervals, meaning that all the additional U.S. troops probably wouldn’t be deployed until the end of next year. Army brigades number 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers; a Marine brigade has about 8,000 troops.

The plan would fall well short of the 80,000 troops that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, suggested as a “low-risk option” that would offer the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan.

It splits the difference between two other McChrystal options: a “high-risk” one that called for 20,000 additional troops and a “medium-risk” one that would add 40,000 to 45,000 troops.

The officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss internal administration planning, cautioned that Obama’s decision isn’t final, and won’t be until after administration officials discuss it with NATO allies at a Nov. 23 meeting of the alliance’s North Atlantic Council and its Military Committee.

Coalition forces now total 67,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 troops from other countries. The Army’s counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan’s population would require about 600,000 troops.

Although the administration privately is holding out little hope of persuading Canada or the Netherlands to abandon their plans to withdraw combat troops, much less getting additional allied troops, it wants to avoid creating the impression – at home and abroad – that the U.S. “is going it alone” in Afghanistan, said one military official.

Administration officials also want time to launch a public relations offensive to convince an increasingly skeptical public and a wary Democratic Congress that the war, now in its ninth year and inflicting rising casualties, is one of “necessity,” as Obama said earlier this year.

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives on Saturday passed, by a 220-215 vote, historic health care overhaul legislation that would require nearly all Americans to obtain health insurance and create a government-run health insurance plan to help them do so.

If passed by the Senate, the bill would bring about the most sweeping changes in the American health care system since Medicare was created 44 years ago.

Supporters of the measure burst into cheers and applause on the House floor as it became clear the measure had won, but the vote was excruciatingly close, passing by just two votes more than the bare minimum needed. One Republican, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted for the bill; 39 Democrats, including Idaho’s Walt Minnick, voted against.

President Barack Obama made a personal plea for passage before the all-day debate began.

“Now is the time to finish the job,” Obama said in brief remarks in the White House Rose Garden after meeting with House Democrats.

The job is far from finished. The Senate hopes to act by the end of the year, and if successful, the two Houses would then craft a compromise that would need approval of each chamber.

The House vote came with a warning: Getting enough votes later this year or early in 2010 will not be easy. Thirty-nine Democrats, most from conservative districts or freshmen who narrowly won their 2008 elections, voted against the House bill, joining 176 Republicans. In the Senate, eight to 12 moderates have expressed reservations about that chamber’s proposal.

In addition to creating the public option government-run insurance program, the House-passed bill would bar insurers from denying people coverage because of pre-existing conditions and set up health care “exchanges,” or marketplaces, where consumers could easily shop for coverage.

The changes are expected to mean that by 2019, 96 percent of eligible Americans would have health insurance, up from the current 83 percent.

During his half-hour appearance on Capitol Hill, Obama took no questions from lawmakers, but his presence was a vivid reminder that the president has put health care overhaul at the top of his domestic agenda – a change that has eluded presidents for nearly a century.

“He came here to say, ‘This is what we said we would do in the campaign. Let’s do it,’ ” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

On the House floor, Democratic leaders appealed to members’ sense of history, reminding them this was one of the most significant votes, short of war, that they were likely to take.

“There are few moments when we have the opportunity to do so much good with one vote. This is one of those moments,” said Hoyer.

Republicans countered with arguments that the health care plan did little to improve coverage or affordability.

“Astoundingly, Democrats are bringing to the floor a bill today that will not reduce the costs of health insurance; it will grow the size of government,” said GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence, R-Ind.

The bill may have gotten a boost from a deal to bar coverage by government-subsidized insurance policies of elective abortions.

As originally written, the measure would have required insurers to separate public and private money, so that only private funds could be used for elective abortions. Abortion opponents were concerned that such a policy would effectively expand the government’s role in improving access to abortion, and as many as 40 Democrats threatened to withhold support from the health care bill unless changes were made.

After tense negotiations Friday night – with White House officials and representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as key Democratic members of Congress – House Democratic leaders agreed to allow a vote Saturday on sweeping changes to the abortion provision.

The measure was approved, 240-194, as 64 Democrats joined 176 Republicans to back the change.

The change would permit abortion coverage for people receiving federal aid for their insurance only in the case of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is endangered, consistent with a 1970s-era federal law governing public funding of abortion. Under the new provision, only people buying private insurance with their own funds would have an elective abortion covered.

Many abortion rights advocates were angry, and the brief debate often pitted Democrat against Democrat. “This amendment is government interference in the decision between a woman and her physician,” said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif. “Unnecessary and reprehensible,” added Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

“Today we’re on the brink of passing health care reform that honors and respects life in every state,” countered Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind.

Republicans tried throughout the day to create more doubt and delay, shouting objections to routine parliamentary requests by objecting when Democratic women tried to discuss their concerns on the House floor.

GOP members then pushed their own plan, which would make it easier for small businesses to band together to purchase competitively priced coverage, allow consumers to buy policies across state lines, and effect strong medical malpractice reforms.

It was easily defeated on a largely party line vote, 258-176.

In the Senate, where moderates’ concerns have stalled progress, Democratic leaders are hoping for a debate and vote before the end of the year.

“My vote is not an endorsement of all the provisions of the bill, because I find much of the bill to be deeply flawed,” said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., a Blue Dog who backed the measure. “My reason for voting ‘yes’ is to advance the cause … by forcing the Senate to act.”

10 ways the House bill would change health care

1 Creates a government-run “public option” to offer coverage.

2 Sets up insurance “exchanges” where consumers can easily compare plans.

3 Requires nearly everyone to obtain health insurance by 2013.

4 Requires health plans to allow children to remain on parents’ policies until their 27th birthday.

5 Provides federal financial help for lower- and middle-income consumers to obtain coverage.

6 Bars insurers from denying or limiting coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

7 Bars insurers from imposing lifetime limits on coverage.

8 Expands Medicaid coverage.

9 Imposes 5.4 percent surcharge on adjusted gross incomes of more than $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for joint filers.

10 Imposes penalties on people and businesses who fail to comply.

McClatchy-Tribune

Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday’s elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.

In the aftermath of last year’s Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics – most prominently, rising minorities and the young – would bury the GOP far into the future. One book proclaimed “The Death of Conservatism,” while the more modest merely predicted the terminal decline of the Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party of marginalized angry white men.

This was all ridiculous from the beginning. 2008 was a historical anomaly. A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points.

Exactly a year later comes the empirical validation of that skepticism. Virginia – presumed harbinger of the new realignment, having gone Democratic in ’08 for the first time in 44 years – went red again. With a vengeance. Barack Obama had carried it by six points. The Republican gubernatorial candidate won by 17 – a 23-point swing. New Jersey went from plus 15 Democratic in 2008 to minus 4 in 2009. A 19-point swing.

What happened? The vaunted Obama realignment vanished. In 2009 in Virginia, the black vote was down by 20 percent; the under-30 vote by 50 percent. And as for independents, the ultimate prize of any realignment, they bolted. In both Virginia and New Jersey they’d gone narrowly for Obama in ’08. This year they went Republican by a staggering 33 points in Virginia and by an equally shocking 30 points in New Jersey.

White House apologists will say the Virginia Democrat was weak. If the difference between Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds was so great, how come when the same two men ran against each other statewide for attorney general four years ago the race was a virtual dead heat? Which made the ’09 McDonnell-Deeds rematch the closest you get in politics to a laboratory experiment for measuring the change in external conditions. Run them against each other again when it’s Obamaism in action and see what happens. What happened was a Republican landslide.

The Obama coattails of 2008 are gone. The expansion of the electorate, the excitement of the young, came in uniquely propitious Democratic circumstances and amid unparalleled enthusiasm for electing the first African-American president.

November ’08 was one-shot, one-time, never to be replicated. Nor was November ’09 a realignment. It was a return to the norm – and definitive confirmation that 2008 was one of the great flukes in American political history.

The irony of 2009 is that the anti-Democratic tide overshot the norm – deeply blue New Jersey, for example, elected a Republican governor for the first time in 12 years – because Democrats so thoroughly misread 2008 and the mandate they assumed it bestowed. Obama saw himself as anointed by a watershed victory to remake American life. Not letting the cup pass from his lips, he declared to Congress only five weeks after his swearing-in his “New Foundation” for America – from remaking the one-sixth of the American economy that is health care to massive government regulation of the economic lifeblood that is energy.

Moreover, the same conventional wisdom that proclaimed the dawning of a new age last November dismissed the inevitable popular reaction to Obama’s hubristic expansion of government, taxation, spending and debt – the Tea Party demonstrators, the town hall protesters – as a raging rabble of resentful reactionaries, AstroTurf-phony and Fox News-deranged.

Some rump. Just last month Gallup found that conservatives outnumber liberals by 2 to 1 (40 percent to 20 percent) and even outnumber moderates (at 36 percent). So on Tuesday, the “rump” rebelled. It’s the natural reaction of a center-right country to a governing party seeking to rush through a left-wing agenda using temporary majorities created by the one-shot election of 2008. The misreading of that election – and of the mandate it allegedly bestowed – is the fundamental cause of the Democratic debacle of 2009.

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

WASHINGTON – The jump in the unemployment rate to 10.2 percent, reported Friday, suggests that the job market could take longer than expected to recover and deepens the pressure on President Barack Obama to come up with more immediate solutions.

The jobless rate crossed into double digits last month, from 9.8 percent in September, the Labor Department reported. That is the highest level since 1983 and evidence that the economy, though expanding, has not yet grown enough to end the brutal conditions facing American workers.

A broader measure of joblessness that includes people working part time for lack of full-time positions and those who have given up looking for work out of frustration rose to 17.5 percent from 17 percent.

Economists have been projecting that job growth would resume early in 2010, and the unemployment rate would start coming down by the middle of the year. But that forecast is in doubt because job losses in the last few months are only decelerating very slowly. Typically after a recession, the jobless rate keeps increasing for a few months, but at a more gradual rate. That tapering off hasn’t happened yet.

“This is the worst labor market most of us have ever seen,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo.

Even the good news in the report wasn’t all that good: Employers slashed 190,000 jobs in the month, the sort of cuts found in a run-of-the-mill recession. That figure seems encouraging only when compared to job losses that ran at several times that rate earlier in the year.

The weak numbers confront the Obama administration with a difficult situation. The economy grew at a 3.5 percent rate in the third quarter, as measured by gross domestic product, and the president and his advisers have presented this as evidence that their policies to arrest the downturn are working.

But 15.7 million Americans were unemployed last month. And in mid-October, a majority of adults viewed Obama’s policies as either making the economy either worse (22 percent) or having no effect (35 percent), according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The administration is pursuing policies that, while less ambitious than the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February, provide targeted help for the economy. On Friday, Obama signed legislation that extends unemployment insurance benefits for up to 20 weeks more and renews an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers while expanding eligibility.

But rather than offering a short-term fix for joblessness, the White House is now more focused on a longer-term strategy for fueling the economic recovery. Speaking in the Rose Garden on Friday, Obama said his economic advisers are weighing additional measures to create jobs, including new infrastructure spending, renovations to make buildings more energy efficient, and additional support for U.S. exports.

Private economists said those initiatives are likely to have little immediate effect. “The impact will be pretty minimal,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “They are good things to do. We should be spending more money weatherizing. It will employ some people.”

Critics, especially on the left, are calling on the president to move faster and take initiatives that pay off sooner.

“Every day, it becomes more urgent that the federal government step up to the plate with bold actions to boost job creation,” said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. “Those actions should include urgently needed fiscal relief to state and local governments, community jobs programs, additional investments in infrastructure and green jobs and credit relief to small and medium-sized businesses.”

“Extraordinary rendition” is White House-speak for kidnapping. Just ask Maher Arar. He’s a Canadian citizen who was “rendered” by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year. Just this week, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in New York City, dismissed Arar’s case against the government officials (including FBI Director Robert Mueller, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former Attorney General John Ashcroft) who allegedly conspired to have him kidnapped and tortured.

Arar is safe now, recovering in Canada with his family. But the decision sends a signal to the Obama administration that there will be no judicial intervention to halt the cruel excesses of the Bush-era “Global War on Terror,” including extraordinary rendition, torture and the use of the “state secrets privilege” to hide these crimes.

Arar’s life-altering odyssey is one of the best-known and best-investigated of those victimized by U.S. extraordinary rendition. After vacationing with his family in Tunisia, Arar attempted to fly home to Canada. On Sept. 26, 2002, while changing planes at JFK Airport, Arar was pulled aside for questioning. He was fingerprinted and searched by the FBI and the New York Police Department. He asked for a lawyer and was told he had no rights.

He was then taken to another location and subjected to two days of aggressive interrogations, with no access to phone, food or a lawyer. He was asked about his membership with various terrorist groups, about Osama bin Laden, Iraq, Palestine and more. Shackled, he was moved to a maximum-security federal detention center in Brooklyn, strip-searched and threatened with deportation to Syria.

Arar was born in Syria and told his captors that if he returned there, he would be tortured. As Arar’s lawyers would later argue, however, that is exactly what they hoped would happen. Arar was eventually allowed a call – he got through to his mother-in-law, who got him a lawyer – and a visit from a Canadian Consulate official.

For nearly two weeks, the U.S. authorities held the Syria threat over his head. Still, he denied any involvement with terrorism. So in the middle of the night, over a weekend, without normal immigration proceedings – without anyone telling his lawyer or the Canadian Consulate – he was dragged in chains to a private jet contracted by the CIA and flown to Jordan, where he was handed over to the Syrians.

For 10 months and 10 days, Maher was held in a dark, damp, cold cell, measuring 6 feet by 3 feet by 7 feet high, the size of a grave. He was beaten repeatedly with a thick electrical cable all over his body, punched, made to listen to the torture of others, denied food and threatened with electrical shock and an array of more horrors. To stop the torture, he falsely confessed to attending terrorist training in Afghanistan. Then, after nearly a year, he was abruptly released to Canada, 40 pounds lighter and emotionally destroyed.

The Canadian government, under conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, investigated, found its own culpability in relaying unreliable information to the FBI and settled with Arar, giving him an apology and $10 million. The U.S. government, on the other hand, has offered no apology and has kept Arar on a terrorist watch list. He is not allowed to enter the U.S. Two years ago, he had to testify before Congress via video conference.

He said: “These past few years have been a nightmare for me. Since my return to Canada, my physical pain has slowly healed, but the cognitive and psychological scars from my ordeal remain with me on a daily basis. I still have nightmares and recurring flashbacks. I am not the same person that I was. I also hope to convey how fragile our human rights have become and how easily they can be taken from us by the same governments that have sworn to protect them.”

Given the excesses of the Bush administration and Barack Obama’s promise of change, it has surprised many that these policies are continuing and that Congress and the courts have not closed this chapter of U.S. history. President Obama has never once condemned extraordinary rendition.

Arar’s lawyer, Maria LaHood, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, calls the court decision against Arar “an outrage.” In his dissent, Judge Guido Calabresi wrote, “I believe that when the history of this distinguished court is written, today’s majority decision will be viewed with dismay.” Given the torture that Arar suffered, his own response was remarkably measured: “If anything, this decision is a loss to all Americans and to the rule of law.”

Amy Goodman hosts a daily international TV and radio news hour called “Democracy Now!” that airs on more than 800 stations in North America. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

OLYMPIA – Washington voters have approved the state’s new “everything but marriage” law, expanding rights for domestic partners and marking the first time any state’s voters have approved a gay equality measure at the ballot box.

With about 72 percent of the expected vote counted Thursday in unofficial returns, Referendum 71 was leading 52 percent to 48 percent, with a margin of about 60,000 votes.

Sen. Ed Murray, a Seattle Democrat who spearheaded the law, called it “a great step forward for equality in Washington state.”

The measure asked voters to approve or reject the latest expansion of the state’s domestic partnership law, granting registered domestic partners additional state rights previously given only to married couples.

Full-fledged gay marriage is still not allowed under Washington law.

Gary Randall of Protect Marriage Washington, which opposed the law and pushed to get the referendum on the ballot, said they weren’t ready to concede.

“We’re just going to wait and watch it play out,” he said.

Two national gay rights groups – the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Family Equality Council – say that voter approval of such a measure was a first. Gay equality laws in other states, ranging from civil rights to gay marriage, have either been implemented by the courts or legislative process. Voters have rejected gay marriage 31 states, most recently in Maine, where voters repealed a gay marriage law on Tuesday.

“Our state made history today,” said Anne Levinson, chairwoman of Washington Families Standing Together, which fought to keep the law on the books. “This is a day for which we can all look back with pride.”

The expanded law in Washington state adds benefits, such as the right to use sick leave to care for a domestic partner, and rights related to adoption, child custody and child support.

During the campaign, opponents argued the law is a stepping-stone to gay marriage. Gay rights activists countered that while the marriage debate was for another day, same-sex couples need additional legal protections and rights in the meantime.

The law will take effect Dec. 3, according to the secretary of state’s office.

The underlying domestic partnership law, which the Legislature passed in 2007, provided hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and inheritance rights when there is no will.

Last year, lawmakers expanded the law to give domestic partners standing under laws covering probate and trusts, community property and guardianship.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surprised political observers everywhere with his announcement that the Senate’s health-reform bill would include a public-insurance option.

Despite polls showing strong public support for the proposal, TV pundits declared the public option dead due to a lack of support among moderate democrats.

Why would these democrats be so antsy about an idea that was backed by strong majority of voters? Insurance companies have been fighting the public option tooth-and-nail and have been lining the pockets of politicians in the process.

Take for example, Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee. He almost single-handedly killed the public option when his influential committee passed a bill replacing it with weaker “co-ops.” Not surprisingly, he has received almost $500,000 in campaign contributions from insurance and other health industry lobbyists and their clients.

Baucus may well be a totally honest guy who simply ignores these hundreds of thousands of dollars when deciding how to vote. It’s possible.

But examples like this help explain Congress’ recent approval rating of 21 percent. While giant corporations shell out millions in lobbying and campaign contributions, average citizens feel ignored. Congressmen and -women, in order to win re-election, spend enormous amounts of time raising money when that time should be spent at town halls getting input from the people they represent.

In order to end special interest dominance of our political process, it’s time Americans consider public financing of federal campaigns.

No existing reform laws have changed the fundamental reality that politicians rely on big donors and spend far too much time raising funds for the next election. One practical solution is the optional Clean Elections system being used in Maine and Arizona.

Under this system, candidates who gather a sufficient number of small contributions from citizens in their district qualify for a grant of public funds to run their campaign. Instead of spending months building connections among wealthy donors, candidates seeking office must go directly to the voters at a grassroots level for support in order to secure funding for their campaigns.

Clean Elections means election outcomes will be increasingly determined by the appeal of a candidate’s message, rather than how much money he or she is able to raise.

One persistent challenge to these sorts of public finance systems has been the Supreme Court. It has ruled that private donations amount to political speech protected by the First Amendment and that “rescue money” provisions are unconstitutional.

Regardless, it’s still possible to set up a public system that is so attractive an option to candidates that it effectively eliminates the incentive for private funding.

Clean Elections has proved to be a successful alternative funding method in Arizona. In 2008, 65 percent of candidates in the state ran as “clean” candidates. While cheaters have occasionally been able to game the system, some tweaks here and there should overcome the issue.

Following the example of Arizona and making improvements over time, Americans should embrace the Clean Elections model as superior to one dominated by the wealthy and special interest groups. Public financing offers great hope of diluting the influence of money in politics and making politicians more connected to their constituents.

Reach columnist Chris Jordan at opinion@dailyuw.com.

Republicans swept contests for governor in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday as voters went to the polls filled with economic uncertainty, dealing President Obama a setback and building momentum for a Republican comeback attempt in next year’s midterm Congressional elections.

But in a closely watched Congressional race in upstate New York, a Democrat who received a late push from the White House triumphed over a conservative candidate who attracted national backers ranging from Rush Limbaugh to Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor.

In New Jersey, a former federal prosecutor, Christopher J. Christie, became the first Republican to win statewide in 12 years by vowing to attack the state’s fiscal problems with the same aggressiveness he used to lock up corrupt politicians.

He overcame a huge Democratic voter advantage and a relentless barrage of negative commercials to defeat Jon S. Corzine, an unpopular incumbent who outspent him by more than two to one and drew heavily on political help from the White House, including three visits to the state from President Obama.

“We are in a crisis; the times are extraordinarily difficult, but I stand here tonight full of hope for the future,” said Mr. Christie, 47, who will become New Jersey’s 55th governor. “Tomorrow begins the task of fixing a broken state.”

Mr. Corzine, 62, who entered politics a decade ago after a career at Goldman Sachs, conceded at 10:55 p.m. “It has been quite a journey,” he said. “There’s a bright future ahead for New Jersey if we stay focused on people’s lives, and I’m telling you, I’m going to do that for the rest of my life.”

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. Christie had 49 percent of the vote, Mr. Corzine 44 percent.

In Virginia, where Mr. Obama was the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state since 1964, Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican and former state attorney general, rolled to victory over R. Creigh Deeds, a veteran state senator.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. McDonnell had 59 percent and Mr. Deeds 41 percent. Mr. McDonnell’s victory, along with Republican victories in the races for attorney general and lieutenant governor, ended eight years of Democratic control in Richmond.

In New York’s 23rd Congressional District, Douglas L. Hoffman, a little known accountant running on the Conservative Party line, conceded after midnight to his Democratic rival, Bill Owens, after driving a moderate Republican from the race.

The three races marked the first major elections since the country plunged into the worst recession in decades, and basic economic issues — job losses, foreclosures, taxes — were front and center.

In Virginia, Mr. McDonnell, avoided divisive social issues, concentrating instead on his plans to create jobs, improve the economy and fix the state’s transportation problems.

In New Jersey, Mr. Christie held Mr. Corzine, a onetime Goldman Sachs chief executive, accountable for rising unemployment, persistent budget deficits, and his failure to gain control over skyrocketing property taxes, the nation’s highest. Voters embraced Mr. Christie even though he offered little detail about how he would fix the state’s chronic financial problems and instead appealed to voters hungry for change.

Voters in both states remained strongly supportive of President Obama, exit polls conducted by Edison Research showed, though they said that was not a factor in their decisions. But independent voters, who in New Jersey favored the president in 2008 and in Virginia split between Mr. Obama and John McCain, delivered strong margins for both Mr. Christie and Mr. McDonnell, the surveys showed.

In New Jersey, a sprawling corruption case begun by Mr. Christie, which culminated in July with the arrests of dozens of politicians and others, appeared to have taken its toll on the Democratic get-out-the-vote machinery. In Hudson County, a party bastion where a number of Democratic officials were charged, only 39 percent of registered voters cast their ballots, county officials said.

The races in New Jersey, Virginia and New York attracted intense interest because they provided the first test of President Obama’s ability to transfer the excitement he unleashed last year to other Democratic candidates.

The White House, to varying degrees, became involved in all three races, worried that defeats would undermine the public’s perceptions of the president’s political clout and his ability to pass major legislation.

With polls of the Virginia race showing Mr. Deeds falling further behind, the White House refrained from an all-out effort on his behalf, though Mr. Obama campaigned with Mr. Deeds twice.

In New York, however, the president’s aides played a pivotal role in helping Mr. Owens over the weekend, engineering a surprise endorsement from the moderate Republican who had abandoned the race under pressure from conservatives.

And in New Jersey, the White House took a firm hand in guiding Mr. Corzine’s re-election campaign, culminating in rallies featuring the president campaigning with the governor in Newark and Camden on Sunday.

The victor in Virginia, Mr. McDonnell, 55, is a social and fiscal conservative, but ran on a more moderate platform that appealed to voters in the suburbs in Fairfax County, where he was raised. By contrast, Mr. Deeds, 51, had a difficult time introducing himself to densely populated Northern Virginia.

Mr. Deeds sought to portray Mr. McDonnell as a radical conservative by publicizing his 20-year-old master’s thesis, which criticized working women and single mothers. But polls showed voters found Mr. Deeds’s commercials too negative.

The New York race emerged in the national spotlight after President Obama appointed the district’s long-serving congressman, John M. McHugh, a Republican, as secretary of the Army. Almost immediately after local Republican leaders chose Dede Scozzafava, a supporter of gay rights and abortion rights who embraced the federal stimulus package, she came under attack by conservatives as heretical.

Leading conservative voices lined up behind Mr. Hoffman, of Lake Placid, and opponents of same-sex marriage and abortion flooded the district with volunteers from across the country.

In the final days of the campaign, Ms. Scozzafava stunned her party by withdrawing from the race and then backing Mr. Owens. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. traveled to Watertown on Monday to rally Democrats and disgruntled Republicans, but the event drew only about 200 people.

In New Jersey, Mr. Christie attacked Mr. Corzine’s economic leadership, saying he had driven jobs and residents from the state. The governor countered that Mr. Christie offered no viable plan for digging New Jersey out of its enormous financial hole.

Christopher J. Daggett, a former state and federal environmental official, made a splash with a plan to cut property taxes and a strong debate performance, but was hobbled by weak fund-raising. After reaching 20 percent in one public-opinion poll, he failed to break out of the double digits.

New Jersey was a deep-blue state, and Mr. Obama’s election boosted Democratic registration, giving the party a 700,000-vote advantage. Mr. Corzine assailed Mr. Christie, who was named United States attorney by President George W. Bush in 2001, as a philosophical clone of Mr. Bush.

The White House, viewing New Jersey as its best hope for victory, poured resources into the race. The president’s pollster overhauled the campaign’s message, White House aides reviewed Corzine commercials and attended strategy sessions, and cabinet officials lined up to appear at Mr. Corzine’s side.

But Mr. Corzine’s abiding unpopularity — his highest approval rating followed his 2007 car accident and was chalked up to pity — suggested that even “Obama surge” voters who voted for the first time last year could not tilt the outcome in the governor’s favor.

No issue loomed larger in New Jersey than the economy, which Mr. Corzine assured residents in January ranked as his No. 1, 2 and 3 priorities. But Mr. Christie never wavered from a simple strategy: making the vote a referendum on Mr. Corzine and highlighting how his supposed Wall Street financial skills had been a bust for the state.

David Kocieniewski and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pulled out a narrow re-election victory on Tuesday, as voters angry over his maneuver to undo the city’s term limits law and his extravagant campaign spending provided an unexpected lift to his vastly underfinanced challenger, William C. Thompson Jr.

Unofficial returns showed Mr. Bloomberg with 51 percent and Mr. Thompson with 46 percent. The result will make Mr. Bloomberg only the fourth three-term mayor in the last century.

“Conventional wisdom says historically third terms haven’t been too successful,” the mayor told supporters at the Sheraton New York Hotel in Midtown Manhattan around midnight after a tense night of watching returns. “But we’ve spent the last eight years defying conventional wisdom.”

Still, the margin seemed to startle Mr. Bloomberg’s aides and the city’s political establishment, which had predicted a blowout. Published polls in the days leading up to the election suggested that the mayor would win by as many as 18 percentage points; four years ago, he cruised to re-election with a 20 percent margin.

The billionaire mayor had poured $90 million of his own fortune into the race, a sum without equal in the history of municipal politics that gave him a 14-to-1 advantage in campaign spending.

But the turnout appeared to be on track to be among the lowest in modern New York history as the mayor’s vaunted campaign machinery failed to deliver the surge of supporters his aides had predicted.

“Everybody was shocked,” a Bloomberg aide said.

Mr. Bloomberg had based his third-term campaign largely on the argument that the city has been better run since he ushered in an era of corporate efficiency and nonpartisan leadership at City Hall. He also pointed to his accomplishments in education, crime reduction and public health.

But voters from Park Slope in Brooklyn to Morrisania in the Bronx seemed torn.

While they praised his competence and intelligence, many were put off by what they saw as Mr. Bloomberg’s heavy-handed move to rewrite the law that would have limited him to two consecutive terms, saying it was obviously self-serving. The mayor had previously opposed any undoing of term limits, which voters had approved twice.

“The main reason I didn’t vote for Bloomberg was the term limits,” said Katherine Krase, a 34-year-old professor, voting at her local school in Park Slope.

At the same school, Gerni Oster, 34, said: “I think that Mayor Bloomberg is too egotistical and arrogant for me to vote for at this point.”

Exit polls indicated that 45 percent of voters said that Mr. Bloomberg’s handling of term limits was a factor in their decision not to vote for him, and roughly the same number said the mayor’s spending on the race was an important factor. Nearly 7 of 10 approved of his job performance.

Bill de Blasio and John C. Liu, both Democrats, were elected public advocate and comptroller, respectively.

The results in the mayor’s race are likely to be personally bruising to Mr. Bloomberg, a man of no small ego who told the public last fall that his financial acumen made him uniquely qualified to pull the city out of a deep economic funk.

Already, Democrats seemed emboldened by the outcome.

“We learned tonight that people do not forget easily,” said Representative Anthony D. Weiner, the Queens Democrat who considered, but then decided against, challenging the mayor. “A lot of people, whether they said it to pollsters or not, were offended by the term limits fight.”

And, addressing a crowd at the New York Hilton in Midtown, Mr. Thompson sounded like a man who was planning another campaign.

“The work we started during this campaign doesn’t end tonight, in fact, it’s just beginning,” he said.

Even those who backed the mayor seemed to do so reluctantly.

Stav Brinbaum, 37, a Web producer from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, described his own vote for the mayor as “unfortunate.”

“I feel he bought himself the election,” Mr. Brinbaum said, and “ran a smear campaign against a nonexistent opponent.” But, he added, “He’s doing a really good job.”

“If there were somebody stronger running against him, I would have happily voted for them,” said Paul Ranson, 56, a designer also from Prospect Heights. “But there’s not, so I unhappily voted for Bloomberg.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign managers prided themselves on the their communications strategy, which flooded mailboxes, e-mail inboxes and television screens.

But for some on the receiving end, it was just too much. Ken Ficara, 40, a Web developer from the same neighborhood, remained undecided until the day before the election, when he received six automated telephone calls from the Bloomberg campaign.

He updated his Facebook page, writing: “Mike, the more you call me, the less likely I am to vote for you.”

Still, according to exit polls, Mr. Bloomberg tapped into his historic sources of strength: Staten Island and Queens backed him by comfortable margins, as did Jews, white Catholics and those earning more than $200,000.

Mr. Thompson did best in the Bronx, and ran even with Mr. Bloomberg among voters aged 18 to 29.

Though he drew 46 percent of the vote, residents expressed striking unfamiliarity with him, even after a yearlong campaign.

The son a prominent judge, and a product of the Brooklyn Democratic machine, Mr. Thompson seemed to run a conventional municipal campaign designed for a previous decade, and rarely radiated political hunger. Those who backed the mayor pointed to the qualities that first won them over eight years ago, as he moved from the financial services empire he founded, Bloomberg L.P., to elective office: independence from campaign donors and a no-nonsense management style.

“I thing he’s doing a good job,” Luke Geissbuhler, 39, a cinematographer in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, said. “It gives me great comfort that he’s less prone to be corrupt by way of his wealth.”

A little more than a year ago, the mayoral field was crowded with ambitious Democrats from City Hall to Congress. But once Mr. Bloomberg engineered the bid to overturn term limits, only Mr. Thompson remained, and for that act of political grit, he earned admiration, though not much public support, from the Democratic establishment.

Yet Mr. Thompson struggled to raise money, pulling in less than $6 million, and failed to communicate his central critique of the mayor: That Mr. Bloomberg had circumvented the will of the voters, who twice approved term limits, and ignored the welfare of working-class New Yorkers, favoring his wealthy friends and developers.

But Mr. Bloomberg was often more adept at framing the debate. He put Mr. Thompson on the defensive early on, challenging his record at the Board of Education and at the comptroller’s office. But what some voters seemed to really remember from the campaign was his spending; the mayor poured some $15,000 an hour into the race in the final months.

“The Yankees buy pennants and we buy mayoralties,” said Mr. Ficara, the Web developer from Prospect Heights.

Reporting was contributed by Flora Fair, Joel Stonington, Mathew R. Warren and Karen Zraick.

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

The Framers created a limited government, thus ensuring individuals would have the opportunity to become all that their talents and persistence would allow. The Left has put aside the original Constitution in favor of a “living document” that they believe allows them to do whatever they want and demand more tax dollars with which to do it.

Can they be stopped? Some constitutional scholars think the Tenth Amendment offers the best opportunity. The Tenth Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In 1939, the Supreme Court began to dilute constitutional language so that it became open to broader interpretation. Rob Natelson, professor of Constitutional Law and Legal History at the University of Montana, has written that even before Franklin Roosevelt’s court-packing scheme, it was changing the way the Constitution was interpreted, especially “how the commerce and taxing powers were turned upside-down, the necessary and proper clauses and incidental powers, the false claim that the Supreme Court is conservative, how bad precedent leads to more bad court rulings, state elections as critical for constitutional activists, and more.”

While during the past seven decades the court has tolerated the federal welfare state, Natelson says it has never, except in wartime, “authorized an expansion of the federal scope quite as large as what is being proposed now. And in recent years, both the Court and individual justices – even ‘liberal’ justices – have said repeatedly that there are boundaries beyond which Congress may not go.” … “Chief Justice John Marshall once wrote that if Congress were to use its legitimate powers as a ‘pretext’ for assuming an unauthorized power, ‘it would become the painful duty’ of the Court ‘to say that such an act was not the law of the land.’ ”

It would be nice to know now what those boundaries are and whether Congress is exceeding its powers as it prepares to alter one-sixth of our economy and change how we access health insurance and health care.

Natelson makes a fascinating argument in his essay, “Is ObamaCare Constitutional?” (www.tenthamend mentcenter.com/2009/08/18/is-obama care-constitutional), using the court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. In Roe, he writes, the court struck down state abortion laws that “intruded into the doctor-patient relationship. But the intrusion invalidated in Roe was insignificant compared to the massive intervention contemplated by schemes such as HB3200. ‘Global budgeting’ and ‘single-payer’ plans go even further, and seem clearly to violate the Supreme Court’s Substantive Due Process rules.”

Constitutional attorney John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, tells me, “Although the states surrendered many of their powers to the new federal government, they retained a residuary and inviolable sovereignty that is reflected throughout the Constitution’s text. The Framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the states, and instead designed a system in which the state and federal governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people. The court’s jurisprudence makes clear that the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.”

Lawyers are busy writing language only they can understand that seeks to circumvent the intentions of the Founders. But it will be difficult to circumvent the last four words of the Tenth Amendment, which state unambiguously where ultimate power lies: “… or to the people.”

Americans who believe their government should not be a giant ATM, dispensing money and benefits to people who have not earned them, and who want their country returned to its founding principles, must now exercise that power before it is taken from them. The Tenth Amendment is one place to begin. The streets are another. It worked for the Left.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.

WASHINGTON – Small businesses would have an easier time banding together to offer insurance to employees. Consumers could cross state lines to buy coverage. There’d be no big government expansion.

Those are among the ideas that Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to push later this week, as lawmakers expect to begin debating how to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

One longtime favorite Republican proposal apparently will be absent: The Republican plan will contain no tax incentives for consumers who buy insurance individually, said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

“Cost,” he said, was the reason for the omission.

Chances are that little or none of the Republican plan will become law, since the House has 177 Republicans and 256 Democrats and Democrats control 60 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

The Republican strategy has two missions: Illustrate what the party stands for, and try to demonize and defeat Democratic initiatives.

House Democrats have proposed a 1,990-page bill that includes a government-run insurance plan, or “public option,” that would compete with private insurers. Savings in Medicare and a tax on the wealthy largely would pay for the legislation, which has been estimated to cost a net $894 billion over 10 years. The tax surcharge would apply to adjusted gross incomes of more than $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for joint filers.

Debate on that plan could begin late this week, with final votes late this week or early next week. The Republican plan would be offered as an alternative.

In the House, Republican leaders began mounting an offensive last week built around four key principles, as Boehner outlined Monday:

•Giving states more flexibility to “create their own innovative reforms.”

•Making it easier for employers, individuals and small businesses to set up risk pools.

Under one scenario, a small business that operates in different states could draw customers – and thus pool risks – from all states where it conducts business. Currently, such pools are subject to the rules and regulations of each state, which critics see as burdensome.

CHICAGO – Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.

The estimate comes from an analysis of 30 years of national data, and it bolsters other recent evidence on the pervasiveness of youngsters at economic risk. It suggests that almost everyone knows a family who has received food stamps, or will in the future, said lead author Mark Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Your neighbor may be using some of these programs, but it’s not the kind of thing people want to talk about,” Rank said.

The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors say it’s a medical issue pediatricians need to be aware of because children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty.

“This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children,” Rank said.

Food stamps are a Department of Agriculture program for low-income individuals and families, covering most foods although not prepared hot foods or alcohol. For a family of four to be eligible, their annual take-home pay can’t exceed about $22,000.

According to a USDA report released last month, 28.4 million Americans received food stamps in an average month in 2008, and about half were younger than age 18. The average monthly benefit per household totaled $222.

Rank and Cornell University sociologist Thomas Hirschl studied data from a nationally representative survey of 4,800 American households interviewed annually from 1968 through 1997 by the University of Michigan. About 18,000 adults and children were involved.

Overall, about 49 percent of all children were on food stamps at some point by the age of 20, the analysis found. That includes 90 percent of black children and 37 percent of whites. The analysis didn’t include other ethnic groups.

The time span included typical economic ups and downs, including the early 1980s recession. That means similar portions of children now and in the future will live in families receiving food stamps, although ongoing economic turmoil may increase the numbers, Rank said.

An editorial in the medical journal agreed.

“The current recession is likely to generate for children in the United States the greatest level of material deprivation that we will see in our professional lifetimes,” Stanford pediatrician Dr. Paul Wise wrote.

Wise said the Archives study estimate is believable.

“I find it terribly sad, but not surprising,” Wise said.

James Weill, president of Food Research and Action Center, a Washington-based advocacy group, said the analysis underscores that “there are just very large numbers of people who rely on this program for a month, six months, a year.”

“What I hope comes out of this study is an understanding that food stamp beneficiaries aren’t them – they’re us,” Weill said.

The analysis is in line with other recent research suggesting that more than 40 percent of U.S. children will live in poverty or near-poverty by age 17; and that half will live at some point in a single-parent family. Also, other researchers have estimated that slightly more than half of adults will use food stamps at some point by age 65.

Voters seemed wary Tuesday of ballot measures that would cost them money or mandate too much more change.

Kootenai County voters shot down a pair of ballot measures would have increased the sales tax for 10 years to pay for a jail expansion and provide property tax relief.

In Washington, voters turned thumbs down to Initiative 1033, new spending limits on state, county and city governments that elected officials had said were so radical they’d wind up hamstringing services. Voters were narrowly passing Referendum 71, a measure to ratify expanded rights to domestic partnerships, but the final decision might not be known for days.

Spokane city voters were narrowly rejecting a new $33 million bond issue for city fire equipment and stations, but fire officials were trying to remain “cautiously optimistic” that they would gain enough votes in counts in the coming weeks.

There’s no such wait for a proposed change to Spokane’s City Charter: Voters soundly rejected a package of amendments that would have set new rules for wages, workplaces, neighborhood development and environmental protection.

Here’s a rundown of some of the top ballot measures:

Initiative 1033

This was the latest in a long line of attempts by Tim Eyman to put restrictions on government. It tried to attack the ability of the state, counties and cities to spend money, allowing their expenses to go up each year only by a formula that accounts for inflation and population growth. Any money collected above that level would be set aside, and returned the following year as rebates to property taxes.

It drew support from small business coalitions, many Republicans and the populist conservative Tea Party movement. It was blasted by government officials of both political parties in state and local jurisdictions as a dangerous formula in the midst of a recession.

Eyman seemed to acknowledge defeat before the first ballot results were in, e-mailing a copy of his statement to supporters that the campaign was “proud of all our heroic supporters” whatever happened, and listing previous victories at the ballot box. The measure failed decisively in Spokane, Whitman, Garfield and Asotin counties as well as those surrounding the Puget Sound.

Referendum 71

Social conservatives sought to block expanded legal protections for domestic partnerships that the Legislature approved last spring for same-sex couples and seniors who want to live together without getting married. Those rights were labeled “everything but marriage” in the legislation, but opponents said it essentially allows marriage for same-sex couples.

Approving the referendum meant allowing the law to go into effect, while rejecting the referendum rejected the changes.

Supporters of R-71 raised more than $2 million, which fueled a television ad blitz in the month before the election. Opponents of the measure, who had put it on the ballot, raised about $275,000, and concentrated on yard signs and mailings.

The measure was narrowly passing at press time, but sharply dividing the state. Most counties around the Puget Sound were approving the measure, while the remainder of the state’s counties were heavily rejecting it.

Spokane Proposition 4

Named the Community Bill of Rights by supporters, this proposal offered voters the chance to add nine amendments to the Spokane City Charter. It was drafted in a series of meetings sponsored by Envision Spokane with neighborhood groups, labor unions and environmental organizations, and fine tuned through town hall style meetings.

But the breadth of the amendments, which either had to be approved or rejected as a group, prompted criticism from city officials and business organizations. They said it could saddle the city with costs of guaranteeing health care or make businesses uncompetitive. Most of all, they said, it would spawn lawsuits because many of the concepts were untested.

It failed, nearly 3-to-1 in votes counted Tuesday.

“We think the voters of Spokane realized this is a bad idea,” Brian Murray, a campaign manager for one of the opposition groups, said Tuesday night. Spokane Mayor Mary Verner and business leaders have said they’d be willing to sit down with Envision Spokane to discuss other ways to accomplish some of their goals, he added.

But Brad Read of Envision Spokane said the outcome wasn’t surprising considering opponents heavily outspent them and used dire predictions like “Spokane would cease to exist” if the measure passed. Whether the group would accept an offer to discuss other ways to make changes is unclear, Read added, and there is some skepticism that opponents are willing to negotiate seriously.

Spokane Proposition 1

City voters were also asked to approve a $33 million bond issue for new fire engines, equipment and stations. The 10-year bond issue would cost a homeowner $27 for every $100,000 of assessed value of property; it’s designed to replace a bond issue passed in 1999, but raises the cost by about $10 per $100,000. It needed a 60 percent supermajority, and in Tuesday’s tally had collected only 58.6 percent.

Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer said supporters hoped to close the gap in upcoming ballot counts. If that doesn’t work, the Fire Department will try again, but not before meeting with voters and asking them if the department should take a different direction.

ALBANY, N.Y. – In a Republican Party struggling to find its identity, the surprise withdrawal of the chosen GOP candidate for a New York congressional race – forced by a rising conservative upstart – renews a lingering national debate: Are moderates welcome in today’s Grand Old Party?

The question became even more relevant Sunday when the ex-candidate, state Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava, threw her support behind the Democrat in the race rather than the Conservative Party candidate favored by fellow Republicans.

The GOP leadership insisted on Sunday political TV talk shows the party is strong and inclusive while Democrats described a Republican party out of touch with the people.

“We accept moderates in our party, and we want moderates in our party. We cover a wide range of Americans,” Republican House Leader John Boehner said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

But in New York’s rural 23rd Congressional District, the message was clear early: Scozzafava was too moderate; some even used the dreaded “L” word – liberal. Her endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens over Conservative Doug Hoffman only reinforced that perception – even her former campaign spokesman, Matt Burns, said it was a mistake and urged Republicans to back Hoffman.

During the campaign she failed to connect with voters, party officials or, perhaps most important, campaign donors, largely because of her support for abortion rights, same-sex marriage and union rights. That opened the door for Hoffman, who took every opportunity to remind people that Scozzafava was not the kind of Republican they wanted representing their interests in a Democratic-led Congress.

Scozzafava’s husband, local labor leader Ron McDougall, said his wife had been treated “harshly.”

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama isn’t on the ballot. Neither are all members of Congress, nor most governors.

But to varying degrees, the outcome of a few disparate elections Tuesday could provide clues about how people – particularly independents, who typically determine a winner – feel about their country, their president and the party in power one year after Democrats won the White House.

The results also could provide important lessons for Democrats and Republicans a year before the first major electoral test of Obama’s strength: 2010, when there are 37 races for governor, at least 36 in the Senate and all 435 in the House.

This year, Virginia and New Jersey are choosing governors, voters in upstate New York and Northern California are deciding who should fill two vacant congressional seats, and New York City and Atlanta are picking mayors. Maine will vote on whether to permit gay marriage while Ohio will choose whether to allow casinos.

To be sure, these races are hardly bellwethers; people are voting on local issues and personalities. Most voters in Virginia and New Jersey, for example, say their like or dislike of Obama won’t drive their decision. Still, national forces such as the recession are having an effect.

This much is clear: Tuesday will give a picture of public attitudes in certain places and measure which party has energy on its side heading into a high-stakes election year. Some questions will be at least answered partially.

Here’s what to look for:
Obama’s coalition

The president in 2008 won by cobbling together new voters from traditional Democratic base demographics, particularly blacks, youth and Hispanics, along with disaffected Republicans and self-identified independents nationwide and in traditionally GOP-leaning states such as Virginia.

The unknown is whether those voters will stay with Democrats or turn out at all if Obama isn’t on the ballot.

Both embattled Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey and Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds in Virginia desperately need party loyalists and Obama 2008 voters to swamp the polls.

Obama went in big in both states, campaigning on the Democrats’ behalf and allowing his image to be used in TV ads for them, linking himself to their fate.

He didn’t really have a choice. The Democratic base would have chafed at the party standard-bearer turning his back on the rank and file, and Obama’s influence will be questioned regardless of whether Democrats win or lose the races.
Independents

Independents always have heft, but frustration across the country with both Republicans and Democrats is adding to it. How that anger manifests itself could signal anti-incumbent sentiment among a group that leaned left last year. Do independents stay home? Do they vote against the party in power?

Regardless, Democrats and Republicans almost certainly will have to revamp their strategies to ensure they’re attracting both independents and base voters next fall.

Virginia may offer the best measure of independent voters’ sentiments.

This longtime Republican stronghold has become a new swing state in presidential elections largely because of the swiftly growing far-flung suburbs outside Washington that are filled with independent-minded voters. Obama targeted such areas to become the first Democrat to win the state since 1964, and they will determine who wins Tuesday.

Till it’s gone” – Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”

Some conservatives are prematurely salivating over President Obama’s declining poll numbers. According to a recent Gallup daily tracking poll, “the nine-point drop in the most recent quarter is the largest Gallup has ever measured for an elected president between the second and third quarters of his term, dating back to 1953.” That may comfort some Obama opponents, but three years is a long time until the next presidential election, so conservatives and Republicans (not always the same) had better think of a long-range strategy if they want to save the country from the long-term consequences of what many call “socialism.”

Matthew Spalding, of the Heritage Foundation, offers one component of that strategy in his new book, “We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future.” Spalding believes, “America is unique in that universal principles of liberty are the foundation of its particular system of government and its political culture.” He lists them and explains their history: liberty, private property, consent of the governed, equality, natural rights, religious freedom, rule of law, constitutionalism.

Middle-age and older Americans recall that these subjects were part of their high school and college curricula. Younger Americans may be less familiar with them, as the public schools no longer seem to emphasize what once held us together, preferring to teach “diversity” instead.

Six years ago, Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, introduced a bill to require a greater emphasis on American history and civics in public school classrooms. Alexander quoted federal Judge Aleta Trauger, who spoke at a swearing-in ceremony for 77 new citizens in Nashville: “We are Americans because we also share certain fundamental beliefs. We are bound together by the unique set of principles set forth in documents that created and continue to define this nation. We find our heritage and inspiration in the profound words of the Declaration of Independence: ‘All people are created equal and endowed with unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ We pledge allegiance to the Republic as one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. But the greatest expression of our national identity is the Constitution of the United States, which established the responsibilities and rights that go with citizenship.”

All true in the past, but what if today’s schools no longer teach those principles and the Constitution is not supreme? What then?

Last week in New York City, the Children’s Scholarship Fund held a dinner in honor of Eva Moskowitz, who runs the Success Charter Network, which operates four charter schools serving about 1,500 students in Harlem. One of the speakers was Jaime Martinez, an eighth-grader who was rescued, along with his sister, Ashley, from a failing public school where he says he experienced bullying and fighting. Jaime’s grades are up at his Catholic private school; he sings in a choir and takes ballroom dancing lessons. (See his remarks at www.scholarshipfund.org.)

Children’s Scholarship Fund President Darla Romfo wants the education conversation to go “beyond arguments about vouchers, charter schools, and test scores into the newer territory of empowering parents and children with real information about how to choose schools and demand excellence, with the ultimate aim of expanding good options for every child.”

It is this objective that should be embraced by those wishing to “reclaim America,” not only for ourselves, but also for future generations.

If conservatives and Republicans support an exodus from public schools as a strategic goal, they will strike at the heart of liberalism, while simultaneously liberating minorities trapped in failed government schools. To free them and teach them about America and its promise of hope will produce everything they are looking for but can’t find in politics. It will also pay political dividends as children and their parents see which party and persuasion cares about them enough to bring real change to their lives.

It’s either this approach, with results, or continuing to put faith in politicians, who have proved themselves unworthy of such faith. If parents fail to act, they won’t know what they had till it’s gone.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court’s conservative bloc sounded poised Wednesday to strike down on free speech grounds a 100-year-old ban against corporations spending large amounts of money to elect or defeat congressional and presidential candidates.

If the justices were to issue such a ruling in the next few months, it could reshape American politics, beginning with the congressional campaign in 2010. Big companies and industries – and possibly unions as well – could fund campaign ads to support or defeat members of Congress.

Since 1907, federal law has prohibited corporations from giving money to candidates. And since 1947, corporations and unions have been barred from spending money on their own to urge voters to elect or defeat federal candidates. Corporate executives, as individuals, can contribute money to a corporate political action committee or PAC, but these amounts are relatively modest compared to the funds available to the corporate treasury.
At least 24 states have similar bans on corporate spending in state races.
All those spending limits have come under growing legal attack from conservatives and libertarians who say the government should not be allowed to set limits on campaign spending and electioneering, even when corporate or union money is in play.

Three justices – Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas – have already said they would overrule past decisions that had upheld federal and state restrictions on corporate election spending. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also have said they favor free speech over the campaign funding limits. But they have not yet said whether they would go along and give corporations a free speech right to spend on campaign ads.

That was the issue before the court Wednesday. It was a rare re-argument in a seemingly narrow case of a small nonprofit group called Citizens United. It had produced a video called “Hillary: The Movie,” which was designed to undercut Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 campaign for the presidency. However, it got tied up in a legal battle with the Federal Election Commission.

Because Citizens United is incorporated and received a small amount of corporate money, the group and its movie came under FEC regulation. Any amount of corporate money can trigger regulatory action under the election laws.
In March, the justices debated whether the law should apply to a nonprofit group that produced a campaign-related video. But rather than decide that narrow question, the justices said in June they would focus instead on whether to say that all corporations, like individuals, have a right to spend freely to elect or defeat candidates.

Washington lawyer Ted Olson, the former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, pressed the justices to rule broadly. “Corporations are persons entitled to protection under the First Amendment,” said Olson, who represented Citizens United.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., co-sponsors of the 2002 campaign funding law, were in the courtroom and listened intently to the 90-minute argument. The ruling could strike down part of the McCain-Feingold Act that restricted corporate and union-funded election ads in the months before the election.

The court will meet behind closed doors later this week to vote on the case. A decision could come within a few months.

Social Security is a glossy piece of paper on which nearly every politician wants to finger-paint an agenda. But Social Security has no need of ornament. It is a very grown-up program. Put some other toy into the political playpen.

Come January, for the first time since 1975, Social Security payments will not be ratcheted upward for inflation. The reason is simple: no inflation.

But now President Barack Obama is pushing Congress to send every senior a $250 check to compensate for … for … for what? For the fact that some Social Security recipients expect a “raise” every year, whether or not it is warranted? They saw a 6 percent hike in their benefits last year. But that was not a “raise.” It was a cost-of-living adjustment to maintain (not increase) the buying power of their monthly checks.

If the president wants to hand out checks to stimulate the economy, why make them age-specific? Money sent to low-income people, whether young or old, would make far more sense. And the still better stimulus is government spending on roads and other worthy projects. That money gets shot right into the economy.

Sending an extra check to Social Security beneficiaries is also about pandering to older voters. But politicians should first ask themselves, “How many other Americans got 6 percent ‘raises’ last year?”

There is another proposal to cut payroll taxes. The plan is foolish and reckless – and has drawn bipartisan support. These taxes pay for Social Security and Medicare. Cutting payroll taxes puts those programs in jeopardy, which is why some liberal economists, such as Robert Reich, should hang their heads in shame for wanting to monkey with them.

On the right, meanwhile, there is growing affection for the idea. First off, many conservatives hold that cutting taxes solves all problems. (That did wonders for the deficit, didn’t it?) Secondly, fooling with payroll taxes could undermine the public’s faith in Social Security by lending ammo to the false charge that the program’s trust fund is all a fraud.

You see, the Social Security taxes now paid by workers and their employers support current beneficiaries. What’s left over goes into the trust fund to be tapped in future years, when a surge in retirees puts pressure on the program. It’s been a conservative talking point that the Social Security trust fund doesn’t exist; the government has spent the money.

Not quite. The Treasury bonds in the trust fund are real IOUs representing real money taken from real workers for more than 25 years. No matter what the federal government did with that borrowed money, it still has to pay it back.

Make the argument, if you must, that the Treasuries sitting in the trust fund’s file cabinets are not like the super-safe government securities traded around the world – that the Treasury doesn’t have to make good on them. The truth is that these special Treasury bonds are different, but they still cannot be defaulted upon without a vote by Congress.

So here’s an assignment for anyone who calls the trust fund’s Treasuries “worthless pieces of paper”: Find me one member of Congress, Republican or Democrat, who vows to vote against Washington’s promise to honor them. I’ll buy lunch.

According to the Social Security trustees’ latest report, payroll taxes will cover all of the retirees’ promised benefits until 2016. After that, the trust fund can make up for any shortfall until 2039. That is 30 years from now. We can worry about Social Security’s finances in 20 years.

You know what children with paint want to do with a clean sheet of paper? They want to mess it up. Social Security is a clean program. Let’s keep it that way.

Froma Harrop is a columnist for the Providence Journal.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Defense ministers from NATO on Friday endorsed the ambitious counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan proposed by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, giving new impetus to his recommendation to pour more troops into the eight-year-old war.

General McChrystal, the senior American and allied commander in Afghanistan, made an unannounced appearance here on Friday to brief the defense ministers on his strategic review of a war in which the American-led campaign has lost momentum to a tenacious Taliban insurgency.

“What we did today was to discuss General McChrystal’s overall assessment, his overall approach, and I have noted a broad support from all ministers of this overall counterinsurgency approach,” said NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

The acceptance by NATO defense ministers of General McChrystal’s approach did not include a decision on new troops, and it was not clear that their judgment would translate into increased willingness by their governments, many of which have been seeking to reduce their military presence in Afghanistan, to contribute further forces to the war.

But it was another in a series of judgments that success there could not be achieved by a narrower effort that did not increase troop levels in Afghanistan substantially and focused more on capturing and killing terrorists linked to Al Qaeda — a counterterrorism strategy identified with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The NATO briefing, though held privately, thrusts General McChrystal back into the debate over what President Obama should do about Afghanistan — a role that has raised tensions between the general and the White House in the past, and even drawn a rebuke from his boss, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

NATO’s support got no official reaction from the White House. But an administration official noted that an endorsement by defense ministers was not the same as an endorsement by the alliance’s political leadership. Other officials were emphatic that Mr. Obama would not be stampeded in his deliberations and suggested that the NATO statement should not be taken as evidence that the White House had made a decision about how to proceed.

“In no way, shape or form are the president’s options constrained,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, speaking to reporters at the State Department.

General McChrystal’s review calls for adopting a full-scale counterinsurgency strategy that would protect population centers and accelerate training of Afghan Army and police units — both of which would require significant numbers of fresh troops. NATO diplomats noted that it was difficult to see how an acceptance of this broad strategy could be viewed as anything but an endorsement of the need to increase both military and civilian contributions.

Mr. Gates, who has kept his views about additional troops close to his vest and has discouraged his commanders from lobbying too publicly for their positions, declined to be drawn out on this assessment.

“For this meeting, I am here mainly in listening mode,” Mr. Gates said in Bratislava after the NATO briefing, although he noted that “many allies spoke positively about General McChrystal’s assessment.”

Mr. Gates said the administration’s decision on Afghanistan was still two or three weeks away, and he cautioned that it was “vastly premature” to draw conclusions now about whether the president would deploy more troops. He said that allied defense ministers had not voiced concerns about the administration’s decision-making process.

Although NATO will not meet until next month to decide whether to commit more resources to Afghanistan, Mr. Gates did reveal that he had received indications that some allies were prepared to increase their contributions of civilian experts or troops, or both.

Britain and other NATO members have had their own fractious political debates over troop levels. A retired top general in Britain recently said that the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown had rebuffed his requests for more troops, a charge Mr. Brown denied.

Separate from his strategic review, General McChrystal has submitted a request for forces, which is now working its way through both the American and NATO chains of command.

The options submitted by General McChrystal range to a maximum of 85,000 more troops, although his leading option calls for increasing forces by about 40,000, according to officials familiar with the proposal.

The pressure for more troops was a theme throughout the day at the NATO meeting, as other senior international representatives told defense ministers of the need to increase their commitments in order to succeed in Afghanistan.

The United Nations special representative for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, who also flew to the Slovakian capital to meet the ministers, stressed that “additional international troops are required.” He also told the allies, “This cannot be a U.S.-only enterprise.”

Mr. Eide acknowledged that it might be difficult to rally public support for force contributions while allegations of election fraud continued to taint the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Senior American military officers have already endorsed General McChrystal’s overall strategy, including Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in the Middle East.

Senior NATO officials made clear that additional commitments should go beyond combat forces to include trainers for the Afghan Army and police force, as well as civilians to help rebuild the economy and restore confidence in the government.

“What we need is a much broader strategy, which stabilizes the whole of Afghan society, and this is the essence in the recommendations presented by General McChrystal,” said Mr. Rasmussen, the NATO secretary general. “This won’t happen just because of a good plan. It will also need resources — people and money.”

General McChrystal was not scheduled to make any public comments here. The general’s reticence was not unexpected, as some administration officials have criticized his recent statements as an attempt to press the White House to act.

The general and his aides have denied they were playing politics. General McChrystal said in a recent interview that success required a unified, government-wide strategy.

NATO officials assessing the potential for allied troop contributions said that delicate negotiations were under way, and that NATO capitals were watching the Obama administration for signals even while they sent signals of their own.

Thom Shanker reported from Bratislava, and Mark Landler from Washington.

Michael R. Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York’s City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office.

Newly released campaign records show the mayor, as of Friday, had spent $85 million on his latest re-election campaign, and is on pace to spend between $110 million and $140 million before the election on Nov. 3.

That means Mr. Bloomberg, in his three bids for mayor, will have easily burned through more than $250 million — the equivalent of what Warner Brothers spent on the latest Harry Potter movie.

The sum easily surpasses what other titans of business have spent to seek state or federal office. New Jersey’s Jon S. Corzine has plunked down a total of $130 million in two races for governor and one for United States Senate. Steve Forbes poured $114 million into his two bids for president. And Ross Perot spent $65 million in his quest for the White House in 1992 and $10 million four years later.

“I have never seen anything like this — it’s off the charts,” said Jennifer A. Steen, a lecturer in political science at Yale who has studied self-financed candidates for the last decade. “He’s in a league of his own.”

Mr. Bloomberg has used his wealth, estimated at $16 billion, to establish what appears to be insurmountable financial dominance in the race.

He has spent at least 14 times what his Democratic rival in the race, William C. Thompson Jr., has: $6 million. A Thompson campaign spokeswoman on Friday called the mayor’s spending “obscene.”

Since late September, the pace of Mr. Bloomberg’s spending has drastically accelerated: He is now sending nearly $1 million a day into the city’s economy. The bulk of the money is devoted to advertising on television, radio and the Web, but much of it bankrol ls a first-class approach to parties, snacks and travel.

The campaign has spent $322,521 on food, $293,953 on transportation, $176,066 on furniture and $39,858 on parking.

His lavish spending has confounded political consultants and campaign finance experts, who said that his popularity with New Yorkers, and his built-in advantages as a two-term incumbent, should be sufficient to win him re-election. (Compare/Contrast this with The Doctrine of Sufficiency – Kautzman)

“The main thing money does is allow you to get name recognition,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group in Washington. “But in this case, with Bloomberg, because he’s so well known, it’s more like, he can do it, so why not?”

With more than 100 employees, his campaign now has a staff larger than 97 percent of all businesses in New York City. And his political operation has become a one-man economic stimulus program, buying $8,892 worth of pizza from Goodfellas Brick Oven Pizza on Staten Island and in the Bronx. The company had suffered a big drop in business since the start of the recession.

“It’s a huge help,” said Marc Cosentino, one of the owners of Goodfellas. “They don’t have to economize like everyone else.”

Squier Knapp Dunn, the media company responsible for the mayor’s television ads, has taken in $48,313,776. While most of that money pays for TV time, media companies typically receive fees of about 15 percent.

“A number of firms are practically living off of this,” said Steve Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

The spending has drawn howls of protest from good-government groups and advocates of campaign finance reform. In interviews, several said, angrily, that the mayor’s decisions to rewrite New York City’s term limits law and then spend wildly to secure re-election, have undermined democratic principles.

“Whether Bloomberg wins or loses, the toxic combination of mega-spending and crass use of his office to bypass the voters on term limits will always be a stain on his mayoralty,” said Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

“These twin assaults on municipal democracy will undermine his political clout in a third term and sadly fuel public skepticism about elections and elected officials,” Mr. Russianoff said.

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign, Howard Wolfson, defended the spending, saying, “Voters in this race have a choice between one candidate who is independent and doesn’t take a dime from special interests and another who practices politics as usual.”

Mr. Thompson, a Democrat, has had the unenviable task of trying to raise money in the middle of a deep recession, when many voters already assume that Mr. Bloomberg will prevail. Their lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Thompson’s candidacy was reflected in his latest campaign finance disclosure, which showed he had raised $270,000 over the last three weeks.

While donations came in at a much brisker pace than in the previous three-week reporting period, when he raised $114,000, that is unlikely to make a dent in Mr. Bloomberg’s advantage. Factoring in public matching funds, Mr. Thompson will have $3 million in the final week and a half of the race.

“This is a clear indication that the momentum of the mayoral race continues to shift towards Bill Thompson,” said Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the Thompson campaign.

But Mr. Thompson’s fund-raising still badly trails that of the two last Democrats who lost to Mr. Bloomberg: the former public advocate, Mark Green, and Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president.

The newly released records show that Mr. Bloomberg is handsomely rewarding top aides who take leaves from their City Hall posts to join the campaign. His first deputy mayor, Patricia E. Harris, is earning about $28,000 a month. It is a healthy raise: At City Hall, she made about $21,000 a month.

The mayor also typically showers the aides with additional bonuses after Election Day.

All that money shows how far Mr. Bloomberg has come, wealth-wise. His campaign spending this year will nearly equal what his boyhood hometown of Medford, Mass., population 55,000, devotes to its annual budget.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency and empowered his health secretary to suspend federal requirements and speed treatment for thousands of infected people.

The declaration that Obama signed late Friday authorized Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to bypass federal rules so health officials can respond more quickly to the outbreak, which has killed more than 1,000 people in the United States.

The goal is to remove bureaucratic roadblocks and make it easier for sick people to seek treatment and medical providers to provide it immediately. That could mean fewer hurdles involving Medicare, Medicaid or health privacy regulations.

“As a nation, we have prepared at all levels of government, and as individuals and communities, taking unprecedented steps to counter the emerging pandemic,” Obama wrote in the declaration, which the White House announced Saturday.

He said the pandemic keeps evolving, the rates of illness are rising rapidly in many areas and there’s a potential “to overburden health care resources.”

Because of vaccine production delays, the government has backed off initial, optimistic estimates that as many as 120 million doses would be available by mid-October. As of Wednesday, only 11 million doses had been shipped to health departments, doctor’s offices and other providers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said.

The government now hopes to have about 50 million doses of swine flu vaccine out by mid-November and 150 million in December.

The flu virus has to be grown in chicken eggs, and the yield hasn’t been as high as was initially hoped, officials explained.

Swine flu is more widespread now than it’s ever been. Health authorities say almost 100 children have died from the flu, known as H1N1, and 46 states now have widespread flu activity.

Worldwide, more than 5,000 people have reportedly died from swine flu since it emerged this year and developed into a global epidemic, the World Health Organization said Friday. Since most countries have stopped counting individual swine flu cases, the figure is considered an underestimate.

Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster.

Now he’s put a horse’s head in Roger Ailes’ bed.

Not very subtle. And not very smart. Ailes doesn’t scare easily.

The White House has declared war on Fox News. White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Fox is “opinion journalism masquerading as news.” Patting rival networks on the head for their authenticity (read: docility), senior adviser David Axelrod declared Fox “not really a news station.” And Chief of Staff Emanuel told (warned?) the other networks not to “be led (by) and following Fox.”

Meaning? If Fox runs a story critical of the administration – from exposing White House czar Van Jones as a loony Sept. 11 “truther” to exhaustively examining the mathematical chicanery and hidden loopholes in proposed health care legislation – the other news organizations should think twice before following the lead.

The signal to corporations is equally clear: You might have dealings with a federal behemoth that not only disburses more than $3 trillion every year but is extending its reach ever deeper into private industry – finance, autos, soon health care and energy. Think twice before you run an ad on Fox.

At first, there was little reaction from other media. Then on Thursday, the administration tried to make them complicit in an actual boycott of Fox. The Treasury Department made available Ken Feinberg, the executive pay czar, for interviews with the White House “pool” news organizations – except Fox. The other networks admirably refused, saying they would not interview Feinberg unless Fox was permitted to as well. The administration backed down.

This was an important defeat because there’s a principle at stake here. While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they’re engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

There’s nothing illegal about such search-and-destroy tactics. Nor unconstitutional. But our politics are defined not just by limits of legality or constitutionality. We have norms, Madisonian norms.

Madison argued that the safety of a great republic, its defense against tyranny, requires the contest between factions or interests. His insight was to understand “the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties.” They would help guarantee liberty by checking and balancing and restraining each other – and an otherwise imperious government.

Factions (political parties, interest groups etc. . . ) should compete, but also recognize the legitimacy of other factions and, indeed, their necessity for a vigorous self-regulating democracy. Seeking to deliberately undermine, delegitimize and destroy is not Madisonian. It is Nixonian.

But didn’t Teddy Roosevelt try to destroy the trusts? Of course, but what he took down was monopoly power that was extinguishing smaller independent competing interests. Fox News is no monopoly. It is a singular minority in a sea of liberal media. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC vs. Fox. The lineup is so unbalanced as to be comical – and that doesn’t even include the other commanding heights of the culture that are firmly, flagrantly liberal: Hollywood, the foundations, the universities, the elite newspapers.

Fox and its viewers (numbering more than CNN’s and MSNBC’s combined) need no defense. Defend Fox compared to whom? To CNN – which recently unleashed its fact-checkers on a “Saturday Night Live” skit mildly critical of President Barack Obama, but did no checking of a grotesquely racist remark CNN falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh?

Defend Fox from whom? Fox’s flagship 6 o’clock evening news out of Washington (hosted by Bret Baier, formerly by Brit Hume) is, to my mind, the best hour of news on television. (Definitive evidence: My mother watches it even on the odd night when I’m not on.) Defend Fox from the likes of Anita Dunn? She’s been attacked for extolling Mao’s political philosophy in a speech at a high school graduation.

But the critics miss the surpassing stupidity of her larger point: She was invoking Mao as support and authority for her impassioned plea for individuality and trusting one’s own choices. Mao as champion of individuality? Mao, the greatest imposer of mass uniformity in modern history, creator of a slave society of a near-billion worker bees wearing Mao suits and waving the Little Red Book?

The White House communications director cannot be trusted to address high schoolers without uttering inanities. She and her cohorts are now to instruct the country on truth and objectivity?

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

We’ve got a problem, people.

We’ve got a big, trillion-dollar problem. It’s no secret that our federal budget is in trouble, and “in trouble” is probably an understatement.

The economic crisis has forced the government to spend billions in unforeseen expenditures in order to rescue the financial system from disaster and stimulate the economy. As a result, the budget deficit has skyrocketed.

Recessions suck.

In order to begin to tackle this problem and bring things back into balance, it’s time we raised taxes on the rich. Yep, I said it.

Why, you ask, don’t we just cut unnecessary spending instead of burdening people with new taxes? This is a valid point, but if we’re honest about the scope of the problem, we’re going to need both approaches. We should be raising taxes on those at the top while cutting waste.

Raising taxes can be a touchy subject, especially during tough economic times. Hence, I’ve come armed with statistics.

One of the reasons I believe the rich should pay more is that, in recent history, their incomes have ballooned while the rest of us have been stuck in a rut. Despite increases in worker productivity, middle-class wages have remained stagnant. In fact, according to The Wall Street Journal, since 1970, the average CEO income has increased a whopping 730 percent, while worker income has decreased 13 percent ­­­— all this in 2008 dollars.

This growing disparity is dangerous. When an entire generation of workers is worse off than their parents, the American dream is fundamentally threatened.

Today, our federal income tax rate on the highest bracket is 35 percent. Under Clinton in the 1990s, when CEO incomes doubled, it was 39.6 percent. Is President Obama really a “socialist” for suggesting we return to those 1990s levels? A little historical perspective ought to clear things up.

It might shock you that between 1932 and 1981, income tax rates on the highest tax bracket fluctuated between an astonishingly high 63 percent and 92 percent. President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, oversaw the highest income tax rates in history and opposed efforts to lower them.

Evan Adam Smith, philosophical father of the free-market system and author of Wealth of Nations, argued for progressive taxation. In that very book, he stated, “It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”

I am not one who believes the rich to be bad or evil. Clearly, executives who would give themselves outrageous bonuses using taxpayer money lack a sound, moral conscience, but I don’t believe they are the norm. Many wealthy Americans are hard working and brilliant people, who deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

But getting rich is not a one-way street. You don’t become wealthy in a vacuum. You live in a country that supports free enterprise, protects your property rights, allows your wealth to be passed down from generations, and invests in the infrastructure and education that makes this economy, and thus your wealth, possible.

To say the rich owe nothing back to society is absurd. They benefit the most from our system and should, hence, pay the most to ensure its continued strength.

Estimates are that restoring tax rates on the wealthy to levels from the 1990s could generate roughly $400 billion in revenue over 10 years.

I am by no means advocating a return to the days of 92 percent, but increasing that top bracket rate by a couple percentage points could go a long way towards getting our budget crisis under control.

Reach columnist Chris Jordan at opinion@dailyuw.com.

“That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change …” (Bruce Hornsby song lyric)

The Washington Post headline sounds as if a comedy writer, or someone fluent in George Orwell’s “Newspeak” wrote it: “Record-High Deficit May Dash Big Plans,” it said.

As if a contributing factor to the projected record-high deficit of $1.4 trillion has nothing to do with big spending by this and previous administrations. Is there no end? Will we ever reach a limit where government says, “no more, we’ve done enough; you’re on your own now”? Apparently not. The “greatest generation” mostly lived within their means. They knew what it meant to go without all but essentials. Today, we think the sky is the limit when it comes to spending and that if we can conceive it, then we are entitled to it.

This is partly because of how dysfunctional Washington has become and partly due to our own sense of “what we are owed.” Government can spend, tax and do whatever it wishes. If you oppose what it does, you are a selfish, greedy, rich elitist who cares nothing about people less fortunate than yourself. But wait. Did we have fewer poor people before government stepped in to “cure” poverty? Do we have fewer now? We aren’t sure if the war in Afghanistan can be won, but we know the war on poverty was lost. Once, the prospect of an empty stomach motivated most people to get up and start chasing opportunity. Today, people can do whatever they want and government will bail them out with a welfare check (for the poor) or a corporate welfare check (for the rich). Bad decisions? No problem. Failure is no longer an option.

Thomas, you are such a racist and an uncaring person. You’ve been lucky and should have to pony up for the less fortunate.

How about showing the “less fortunate” the way to become fortunate? Does anyone hear a politician in either party encouraging people to do for themselves, instead of relying on government? And that goes for big corporations, too.

People who play by the rules, stay in school, refuse to take drugs, marry before having children, and stay married, are no longer considered worthy role models by government, which has no intention of making them the norm. These norms have disappeared in a cloud of diversity and political correctness. Government now proposes to transform health insurance and tax responsible citizens at increased rates to pay for the votes, uh, benefits of others who are more content to take slices of other people’s pies rather than learn to bake their own.

If you have been an honest businessperson and give money to your church and charities to help others who want to succeed but are having difficulty doing so through no fault of their own, that no longer matters. In fact, government proposes to reduce the deductibility of your charitable giving because government sees itself as more capable of charity than you.

That’s what the Obama administration’s proposal to send a $250 check to every senior citizen is about. Seniors won’t get a cost of living adjustment in their Social Security checks next year because the cost of living hasn’t gone up. But because seniors have become accustomed to an annual raise, the president apparently thinks by giving it to them anyway, he can buy their support for health care legislation that is not in their interest.

Washington’s attitude toward those who make right decisions for themselves so as not to become a burden to government seems to be, “Good for you, but because you made all those right decisions (‘right’ being a relative term, so the government will say they were right FOR YOU), we will penalize your decisions and your success and take the money you earned and give it to others who didn’t earn it because we want their votes so we can preserve our political careers.”

“Well they passed a law in ’64,

To give those who ain’t got a little more,

But it only goes so far.”

For government, it’s never far enough.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.
Get more news and information at Spokesman.com

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public.

Americans remain sharply divided about the overall packages moving closer to votes in Congress and President Obama’s leadership on the issue, reflecting the partisan battle that has raged for months over the administration’s top legislative priority. But sizable majorities back two key and controversial provisions: both the so-called public option and a new mandate that would require all Americans to carry health insurance.

Independents and senior citizens, two groups crucial to the debate, have warmed to the idea of a public option, and are particularly supportive if it would be administered by the states and limited to those without access to affordable private coverage.

But in a sign of the fragile coalition politics that influence the negotiations in Congress, Obama’s approval ratings on health-care reform are slipping among his fellow Democrats even as they are solidifying among independents and seniors. Among Democrats, strong approval of his handling of the issue has dropped 15 percentage points since mid-September.

These numbers underscore the challenges ahead for the president and Democratic leaders in Congress as they attempt to maintain support among liberals and moderates in their own party while continuing to win over at least a few Republican lawmakers.

Overall, 45 percent of Americans favor the broad outlines of the proposals now moving in Congress, while 48 percent are opposed, about the same division that existed in August, at the height of angry town hall meetings over health-care reform. Seven in 10 Democrats back the plan, while almost nine in 10 Republicans oppose it. Independents divide 52 percent against, 42 percent in favor of the legislation.

There are also deep splits in the new poll over whether the proposed changes would go too far or not far enough in expanding coverage and controlling costs. Twice as many see the plan as leaning toward too much government involvement, but since last month there has been a nine-point increase in the number who say government should be more involved.

On the issue that has been perhaps the most pronounced flash point in the national debate, 57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent oppose it. Support has risen since mid-August, when a bare majority, 52 percent, said they favored it. (In a June Post-ABC poll, support was 62 percent.)

If a public plan were run by the states and available only to those who lack affordable private options, support for it jumps to 76 percent. Under those circumstances, even a majority of Republicans, 56 percent, would be in favor of it, about double their level of support without such a limitation.

Fifty-six percent of those polled back a provision mandating that all Americans buy insurance, either through their employers or on their own or through Medicare or Medicaid. That number rises to 71 percent if the government were to provide subsidies for many lower-income Americans to help them buy coverage. With those qualifiers, a majority of Republicans say they support the mandate.
The public option

Faced with a basic choice that soon may confront the administration and Democratic congressional leaders, a slim majority of Americans, 51 percent, would prefer a plan that included some form of government insurance for people who cannot get affordable private coverage even if it had no GOP support in Congress. Thirty-seven percent would rather have a bipartisan plan that did not feature a public option. Republicans and Democrats are on opposite sides of this question, while independents prefer a bill that includes a public option but does not have Republican support, by 52 percent to 35 percent.

But if there is clear majority support for the public option and the mandate, there is broad opposition to one of the major mechanisms proposed to pay for the bill. The Senate Finance Committee suggested taxing the most costly private insurance plans to help offset the costs of extending coverage to millions more people. Sixty-one percent oppose the idea, while 35 percent favor it.

Nearly seven in 10 say they think that any health-care measure would increase the federal budget deficit, a possible concern for Obama. But nearly half of those who see the legislation as growing the deficit also say the increase would be “worth it.”

Concerns about the implications for Medicare continue to cloud the debate. More than twice as many Americans (43 percent to 18 percent) say they think the legislation would weaken Medicare. Despite the dip in opposition to a health-care overhaul among seniors, most, 51 percent, still think reform would hurt the popular program.

Overall, 57 percent approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president and 40 percent disapprove. While those numbers have moved only marginally over the past few months, here, too, are fresh signs of restiveness among the party faithful: “Strong approval” among liberal Democrats is down 16 percentage points over the past month.

On the economy, 50 percent approve of Obama’s efforts, while 48 percent disapprove.

The president receives better marks from all Americans for his handling of international affairs and his performance as commander in chief (57 percent approval on each). Slim majorities also approve of how he is dealing the situation with Iran and his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. A majority disapprove of his work on the federal budget deficit.
Partisan divide

Despite those mixed reviews on domestic priorities, Obama continues to hold a big political advantage over Republicans.

Poll respondents are evenly divided when asked whether they have confidence in Obama to make the right decisions for the country’s future, but just 19 percent express confidence in the Republicans in Congress to do so. Even among Republicans, only 40 percent express confidence in the GOP congressional leadership to make good choices.

Only 20 percent of adults identify themselves as Republicans, little changed in recent months, but still the lowest single number in Post-ABC polls since 1983. Political independents continue to make up the largest group, at 42 percent of respondents; 33 percent call themselves Democrats.

The wide gap in partisan leanings and the lack of confidence in the GOP carries into early assessments of the November 2010 midterm elections: Fifty-one percent say they would back the Democratic candidate in their congressional district if the elections were held now, while 39 percent would vote for the Republican. Independents split 45 percent for the Democrat, 41 percent for the Republican.

The poll was conducted by conventional and cellular telephone from Oct. 15 to 19 among a random sample of 1,004 adults. The margin of sampling error for the full poll is plus or minus three percentage points.

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. directed federal prosecutors Monday to back away from pursuing cases against medical marijuana patients, signaling a broad policy shift that drug reform advocates interpret as the first step toward legalization of the drug.

The government’s top lawyer said that in 14 states with some provisions for medical marijuana use, federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher-level drug traffickers, money launderers or people who use the state laws as a cover.

The Justice Department’s action came days after the Senate’s second-highest-ranking Democrat introduced a bill that would eradicate a two-decade-old sentencing disparity for people caught with cocaine in rock form instead of powder form. Taken together, experts say, the moves represent an approach favored by President Obama and Vice President Biden to put new emphasis on violent crime and the sale of illicit drugs to children. Legislation that would cover a third administration commitment, to support federal funding of needle exchanges, is moving through the House.

The announcement set off waves of support from advocacy groups that have long sought to relax the enforcement of marijuana laws. But some local police and Republican lawmakers criticized the change, saying it could exacerbate the flow of drug money to Mexican cartels, whose violence has spilled over the Southwestern border.

In a statement, Holder asserted that drug traffickers and people who use firearms will continue to be direct targets of federal prosecutors, but that, on his watch, “it will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana.”

The turnaround could pave the way for Rhode Island, New Mexico and Michigan to put together marijuana-distribution systems for residents of those states, according to Graham Boyd, director of the Drug Law Reform Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. Advocates say marijuana use can help alleviate pain and stimulate appetite in patients suffering from cancer, HIV-AIDS and other ailments. But the American Medical Association since 2001 has held firm to a policy opposing marijuana for medical purposes.

Under the Controlled Substances Act, which is more than three decades old, marijuana remains within the category of drugs most tightly restricted by the government. Donna Lambert, who is awaiting criminal trial in San Diego County Superior Court for allegedly providing medical marijuana to another patient, injected a note of skepticism into Holder’s announcement. In an interview, Lambert noted that senior administration officials had made public comments this year in line with the Justice Department policy, only to have law enforcement agents, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, take part in raids soon afterward.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said he and other advocates will watch closely whether federal agents refuse to participate in raids or send other signals to district attorneys in the states that allow some medical use of marijuana.

Americans for Safe Access, which supports medical marijuana programs nationwide, estimated that during the Bush administration federal authorities conducted 200 raids in California alone. A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case made clear that the federal government has the discretion to enforce federal drug laws even in states that had approved some relaxation of marijuana statutes for sick patients.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, at a daily briefing in Washington, declined to address “what states should do” in response to the Justice Department guidance. But Gibbs said that the president since January had outlined his medical marijuana policy and that the Justice Department memo, signed by Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, helped to fill in the details.

The administration stopped far short Monday of endorsing wholesale marijuana legalization, frustrating some activists. At the libertarian Cato Institute, official Tim Lynch described the war on drugs as a “grand failure.” He exhorted the White House to take “much bolder steps to stop the criminalization of drug use more generally.”

In the three-page memo, Ogden made clear that the department is not creating a new legal defense for people who may have violated the Controlled Substances Act. Instead, the memo is intended to guide prosecutors on where to train their scarce investigative resources.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police “strongly believes that the federal government must continue to play a central role in the investigation and prosecution of . . . traffickers, dispensary operators, and growers,” said Meredith Mays, a spokeswoman for the group.

Rep. Lamar Smith (Tex.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said the Justice Department guidelines “fly in the face of Supreme Court precedent and undermine federal laws that prohibit the distribution and use of marijuana.”

He added: “We cannot hope to eradicate the drug trade if we do not first address the cash cow for most drug-trafficking organizations — marijuana.”

The cocaine bill is still pending in the Senate, although advocates say its prospects are stronger now than over the past decade. The sponsor, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), said in an interview last week that he was working to enlist GOP co-sponsors to ease the bill’s passage.