John Kay Is Shrill!

Writing in the Financial Times, he calls the Bush administration "despicable":

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Columnists - John Kay: Pension 'crisis' helps create one : Like most advanced economies, America faces demographic problems. The numerous baby boomers, the generation born in the 25 years after the second world war, will soon retire. Their fewer children and grandchildren will have to bake their bread and nurse their illnesses. The US is relatively well placed to deal with these problems. Population imbalances are less severe than in Japan and most of Europe. And the budgetary implications are less acute: although America spends a lot on medical care, the retirement income the state provides is relatively low. Moreover, bipartisan reform in the 1980s put America's social security system on a robust footing. Contributions were increased to build up surpluses to meet the growth in retirement benefits. These surpluses will continue to accumulate until around 2018 and then, on current projections, will be run down over the following 25 years. Since longevity continues to increase and America's growing income inequality means that the contribution base is growing less rapidly than national income, it will be necessary to reform the system to ensure its viability in the second half of the 21st century. But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the next 50 years the present system will receive contributions averaging 14.02 per cent of relevant income and pay out 14.29 per cent. So why does the second term Bush administration, which does not seem to care about the real and immediate budget deficit in its principal activities, regard the funding of social security as its most urgent economic problem? I have been poring over these figures wondering if, from a distance of several thousand miles, there is something I have missed. But there does not seem to be. The numbers are not controversial: the same ones are used by the people who say there is an urgent need for reform. The interesting question they raise is not: "What should be done about social security?" It is this: "Why is this minor and distant issue subject to such intense political attention?" There is a book on my shelves published in 1982, called The World Crisis in Social Security. I now feel slightly ashamed of my contribution to that volume. Not because of its content: my criticisms foreshadowed sensible reforms for Britain that were implemented soon after. Rather I feel ashamed for my youth and naivety and my failure to understand the game in which I was being asked to play. A retreat from public sector pension provision might create a large flow of money into the stock market. This prospect leaves financial institutions salivating. So it has always been easy to obtain funding for projects such as The World Crisis in Social Security and much of this funding has been channelled through America's rightwing think-tanks. Greed in the investment community is conjoined with the principled opposition of those for whom America's social security system, popular though it may be with voters, is the legacy of that detested socialist Franklin D. Roosevelt. Every pension system has weaknesses and there are always honest but simple scholars who can be encouraged to point them out. Hence my agreeable trip to Washington to debate "the world crisis in social security". I was joined by others who could tell of deficiencies in the pension systems of France, of Germany, and the public system of the US itself. After decades of this propaganda, it is not surprising that most people are convinced that there is indeed a world crisis in social security. It is like having a surveyor continually crawling over your house. Once every defect has been pointed out, repeatedly, even the most robust of occupiers will believe their home is on the point of collapse. The distasteful aspect of this campaign is not its effect on public debate. Politicians and policy analysts ought to be able to distinguish substance from puffery, and reality from misinformation, although there is a marked tendency for them to see only facts and figures to which they are ideologically predisposed. But the endless talk of crisis undermines the confidence of ordinary people in their security in old age and, most of all, in the ability of government to provide it. People who talk of the crisis in social security help create that very crisis. And, despicably, that is what some of these people intend.

Gary Farber Is Shrill!

So shrill that Dr. Mbogo needs to report to the Shoggoth Wing, stat, to deal with this exploding-head-case:

Amygdala: THE HEAD, IT DOTH EXPLODE. Sometimes all you need to do is just listen.

President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

This is because, boys and girls, elections are like magic beans. Once you have one, everything is magical and glowy and wonderful! All errors are magically wiped away, and everyone who committed any is either instantly killed and replaced by clone or made a member of the Cabinet. See, Bush secretly fired Rumsfeld and replaced him with an identical clone! Same for the other folks "staying on." Explains a lot, doesn't it? And it's a brilliant solution...

The Star-Tribune Is Shrill!

Fly, shrill horrors trapped in unholy madness, fly!

Editorial: Social Security/Blacks get more, not less, from it: Of all the lies -- let's call them by their right name -- that the Bush administration is spreading about Social Security, none is as vile as the canard Bush repeated last Tuesday, when he said, "African-American males die sooner than other males do, which means the [Social Security] system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people. And that needs to be fixed." That is an entirely phony assertion; it has been debunked by the Social Security Administration, by the Government Accountability Office and by other experts. Bush and those around him know that. For them to repeat what they know to be a blatant lie is despicable fear-mongering.

Bush didn't make up this phony line on his own; it comes from the Heritage Foundation, which a number of years ago did a study purporting to show that because African-Americans have a shorter life expectancy than whites, they get less in return for the taxes they pay into the Social Security system.

But when the Heritage study was examined by actuaries at the Social Security Administration and by the Government Accountability Office, serious methodological flaws and numerous bad assumptions were uncovered. For example:

• Heritage failed to factor in the progressivity of Social Security benefits; on a taxes-paid to benefits-received ratio, those with lower incomes get more back. Blacks tend to earn less than whites, and thus their Social Security benefits are larger in comparison to taxes they pay.

• Social Security is more than retirement benefits. It also includes survivor and disability benefits. Blacks benefit disproportionately from those programs. While blacks are 11 percent of the workforce, for example, they are 18 percent of those receiving disability benefits. Almost half the blacks receiving Social Security -- 47 percent -- are getting disability benefits or survivor benefits.

The Social Security actuaries found that Heritage had exaggerated substantially the amount blacks pay in Social Security taxes and low-balled the benefits they receive. "In fact," the actuaries said, "results from more careful research reflecting actual work histories for workers by race indicate that the non-white population actually enjoys the same or better expected rates of return from Social Security than for the white population."

The GAO reached the same conclusion. It said that, "In the aggregate, blacks and Hispanics have higher disability rates and lower lifetime earnings, and thus receive greater benefits relative to taxes [paid] than whites."

Andrew Sullivan Is Still Shrill

His shrillness has now spread to encompass his friends at National Review:

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: DENIAL, AGAIN: NRO's Denis Bowles says that the entire substance of the hundreds of cases of abuse and torture can be summarized thus:

Is there any substance to [Human Rights Watch's] complaints? Well, yes — you should not make terrorists stay up late listening to Ratt and you should not make Iraqi convicts get naked and then laugh at them. If you're an American soldier doing these kinds of things, you'll be punished, even as others also try to punish your fellow soldiers and your country.

The only word for this is denial. Please, Denis, read the reports. At least thirty inmates have died after "coercive techniques" in U.S. custody. The government itself has conceded that the U.S. has tortured five inmates to death. Hundreds more have been hospitalized or permanently physically scarred. Even if you radically restrict your analysis to the night shift in Abu Ghraib, the abuses far outstrip forcing people to listen to music or laughing at nakedness. What has happened to American conservatism when it is reduced to ridiculing genuine and important issues of human rights?

Turn it around: why would anyone ever think that torturing 30 people to death would disturb the National Review?

WaPo Goes WaCko

Harold Meyerson stared into the abyss, and discovered the abyss staring back at him. Today he's focusing on the mendacity and malevolence:

But when historians look back at the Bush presidency, they're more likely to note that what sets Bush apart is not the crises he managed but the crises he fabricated. The fabricated crisis is the hallmark of the Bush presidency. To attain goals that he had set for himself before he took office -- the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the privatization of Social Security -- he concocted crises where there were none.

...

In fact, Social Security is on a sounder footing now than it has been for most of its 70-year history. Without altering any of its particulars, its trustees say, it can pay full benefits straight through 2042. Over the next 75 years its shortfall will amount to just 0.7 percent of national income, according to the trustees, or 0.4 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That still amounts to a real chunk of change, but it pales alongside the 75-year cost of Bush's Medicare drug benefit, which is more than twice its size, or Bush's tax cuts if permanently extended, which would be nearly four times its size.

...

In short, Social Security is not facing a financial crisis at all. It is facing a need for some distinctly sub-cataclysmic adjustments over the next few decades that would increase its revenue and diminish its benefits.

Politically, however, Social Security is facing the gravest crisis it has ever known. For the first time in its history, it is confronted by a president, and just possibly by a working congressional majority, who are opposed to the program on ideological grounds, who view the New Deal as a repealable aberration in U.S. history, who would have voted against establishing the program had they been in Congress in 1935.

Frederick Kagan of the Weekly Standard Succumbs to Shrill Unholy Madness!

Writing from some strange Virtual Kishinev, Frederick Kagan succumbs to shrill unholy madness and denounces Donald Rumsfeld--the head of the cossacks--while still declaring his love for George W. Bush, the Little Father, Batiyushka, the friend of us all. Ah! If only the Czar knew what the cossacks were doing in his name! The Little Father would save us!

I don't know if there are enough free beds in the Shoggoth Wing to hold the entire Weekly Standard staff:

Fighting the Wrong War: [We] find fault with Rumsfeld precisely because we do support the president and the war.... Rumsfeld has much to answer for, as well. Claims that there are no serious problems with military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, or with the equipment our soldiers have, or with the number of troops available, are childish and damaging to efforts to identify and solve real problems....

[T]the most serious criticism... that he has refused to expand the American military.... Rumsfeld's defenders assure us he is not responsible. Only Congress can approve an increase in military end-strength; Rumsfeld has never opposed increasing the armed forces; more troops in Iraq wouldn't help anyway. These are the arguments deployed in behalf of the secretary of defense... they are evasions.... In no sense can Rumsfeld claim to have rushed aid to the Army in any way that is helpful in the current crisis. He has, in fact, consistently and vociferously opposed congressional attempts to offer such aid.... He has argued consistently that it would be better to "rearrange" the active and reserve components of the Army, and he has argued for increasing use of civilian contractors to free up soldiers for combat duties....

Congress has not been the problem here. Nor is it fair to blame Clinton entirely for this problem. Clinton downsized the military excessively, to be sure, and left an Army obviously too small for the missions it faced. But Rumsfeld has been in office for four years....

With more troops in Iraq during and immediately after the war, we would have been able to do the following things that we did not do: * Capture or kill thousands of Iraqi soldiers who were at that time still concentrated in combat units and had not yet melted back into the countryside with their weapons and their skills. * Guard the scores of enormous ammunition dumps from which the insurgents have drawn the vast majority of their weapons, ammunition, and explosives. * Secure critical oil and electrical infrastructure that the insurgents subsequently attacked, setting back the economic and political recovery of Iraq. * Prevent the development of insurgent safe havens in Najaf and Falluja, or at least disrupt them at a much earlier stage of formation. * Work to interdict the infiltration of foreign fighters across Iraq's borders.

If the U.S. Army had begun expanding in 2001, we would have been able to: * Establish reasonable rotation plans for our soldiers that did not require repeatedly extending tours of duty beyond one year. * Avoid the need to activate reservists involuntarily. * Dramatically reduce the frequency with which soldiers return from one year-long tour only to be sent immediately on another. * Let the troops that would still have been overstrained know that help really was on the way.

The U.S. military did not do these things because of Rumsfeld's choices.... [I]n no previous American war has the chief of the military administration refused to focus on the war at hand, preferring programs that could not help soldiers then in the fight to survive and win.... Rumsfeld's attitude has already led to a series of mistakes that have made a difficult situation more difficult. It has put the administration on the defensive about its conduct of a policy that is vital to America's national interest. It has distracted attention from the problem of winning the current war--our most important priority today bar none. These problems don't result from the liberal media or the antiwar crowd making a ruckus about nothing. They result from Rumsfeld's stubborn adherence to a wrongheaded policy. Surely, with the election safely over, there is no longer any need to protect the architect of these mistakes.

We must admit that the prognosis for Frederick Kagan is poor. Should he ever realize that what he is attacking are not *Rumsfeld's* but *Bush's* policies, he will never recover.

Raise Your Hand If You Didn't Expect Another Former Bush Administration Official To Write A Bitter Screed?

Shocked, Shocked! Christine Todd Whitman has the paperwork, we await her application to the order.

It's the Joint Chiefs of Shrill!

The Washington Post reports that the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and 11 other high ranking officers have been driven to sheer unholy madness by the possible appointment of an Attorney General who writes legal justifications for the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces sending our troops abroad to make "ass pyramids".

"Today, it is clear that these operations have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence gathering efforts and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world," the officers wrote, referring to the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies.

Although it stops short of directly opposing Gonzales's nomination, the three-page letter contains sharp criticism of his decisions related to military legal issues and argues that he is "on the wrong side of history."

"Repeatedly in our past, the United States has confronted foes that, at the time they emerged, posed threats of a scope or nature unlike any we had previously faced," the letter reads. "But we have been far more steadfast in the past in keeping faith with our national commitment to the rule of law."

Lew Rockwell is Shrill, and not just about Capitol Hill

Lew Rockwell takes time off from keeping 747's from falling apart in flight to point out that the emperor isn't the only one who is naked:
The Reality of Red-State Fascism

A positive agenda of liberty is the only way we might have been spared the blizzard of government controls that were fastened on this country after Bush used the events of 9-11 to increase central planning, invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and otherwise bring a form of statism to America that makes Clinton look laissez-faire by comparison. The Bush administration has not only faced no resistance from the bourgeoisie. it has received cheers. And they are not only cheering Bush's reelection; they have embraced tyrannical control of society as a means toward accomplishing their anti-leftist ends.

After September 11, even those whose ostensible purpose in life is to advocate less government changed their minds. Even after it was clear that 9-11 would be used as the biggest pretense for the expansion of government since the stock market crash of 1929, the Cato Institute said that libertarianism had to change its entire focus: "Libertarians usually enter public debates to call for restrictions on government activity. In the wake of September 11, we have all been reminded of the real purpose of government: to protect our life, liberty, and property from violence. This would be a good time for the federal government to do its job with vigor and determination."

The vigor and determination of the Bush administration has brought about a profound cultural change, so that the very people who once proclaimed hated of government now advocate its use against dissidents of all sorts, especially against those who would dare call for curbs in the totalitarian bureaucracy of the military, or suggest that Bush is something less than infallible in his foreign-policy decisions.

Yet More People Approach Shrillness...

Ex-CEA Chief Economist Andrew Samwick has accepted a visiting appointment this spring at Miskatonic University in picturesque Arkham, Massachusetts. Here he writes in theWall Street Journal:

WSJ.com - The Economic Crystal Ball: Cloudy, or Clearing?: My biggest question about economic policy in 2005 is whether the federal government will make tangible progress in putting its fiscal house in order. For example, if we are in a cyclical upturn, then why are our tax and spending policies such that we are running budget deficits (even including the Social Security surplus) in excess of $400 billion? Why have we settled for a rather timid goal of merely cutting that budget deficit in half over five years? Leaving aside the longer-term solvency issues of Social Security and especially Medicare for the moment, if the president and Congress cannot balance the budget with six quarters of growth at a 4.4% annual rate and steady growth in the economic forecast, then I will be considerably less optimistic next year that price changes will be mild and that economic growth will continue....

Cutting taxes isn't the rational way to make the government smaller, the one true purpose of a Republican administration's fiscal agenda. The way to do that is to reduce government spending so that tax rates can subsequently be lowered with the budget in balance over the business cycle. We are nowhere close to that scenario, and so discussions in Washington policy circles of yet more tax cuts are particularly unhelpful. Taxes may be "bad," but long-term deficits are surely much worse. The president needs to keep some of his tax cuts, rescind or sunset the others, rationalize the alternative minimum tax, and then move on to entitlement reform of Social Security and Medicare, which remain the long-term fiscal challenges....

Pat Buchanan and William Kristol Lead This Week's Shrill...

Salon reportes:

Salon.com Politics: Pat Buchanan asked President Bush to tell the American public the “Unvarnished Truth” about the current situation in Iraq. For starters, Buchanan would like the President to tell us why we are really there. Referring to “One of the greatest bait-and switches in the history of warfare," Buchanan again reminds us of the now-discredited reasons Bush and his neocon advisers at the Pentagon used as a pretext to war with Iraq: WMDs, ties to 9/11 and al-Qaida. Since the initial invasion, we have suffered over 1,300 servicemen and women killed, over 10,000 wounded, and enormous setbacks to our prestige and national reputation as a result of prisoner abuse scandals. Our risk of suffering another terrorist attack is greater than ever.

Buchanan has been critical of the Iraqi incursion for some time. But he uses some of his strongest language yet in urging Bush to abandon his neocon advisors and lose the spin control. And he's not alone. In the past week, several of our nation’s top military and civilian security officials have come out repeatedly against both the decision to invade Iraq and the Pentagon’s handling of the occupation. Even stalwart Bush supporter William Kristol has admonished Defense Secretary Rumsfeld for both his poor war planning and his handling of post-war Iraq. Rumsfeld’s exchange in Kuwait recently with the National Guard soldier over the continuing lack of armor for military vehicles seemed to even put some the last Republican diehards over the edge.

Has Donald Rumsfeld Joined the Shrill?

A claim that the latest Robert Novak column reveals the hidden secret that the latest shrill unbalanced critic of George W. Bush is... Donald Rumsfeld himself:

From AndrewSullivan.com:

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: Rummy's own self-defense is... revealing.... If you read Bob Novak's column today, it's hard not to see Rumsfeld's flunkies or Rummy himself doing some energetic spinning. Here's the key paragraph:

Rumsfeld is often bracketed with the neocons, but that is incorrect. In a long political career that dates back to his election to Congress in 1962, he has not even been associated with the traditional conservative movement. In the run-up to the attack on Iraq, he was not aggressively pressing intervention by force of arms, but instead was shaping a military response to fit President Bush's command.

Translation from Rummy: "This is Bush's war, not mine. I never really wanted it. I don't believe in the democratic transformation of the Middle East. I don't want to shift gears from my lean, mean fighting machine concept to one of a military that has to be big enough to impose a new order on societies where liberty has never had deep roots. I'm just taking orders." You can either see this as true (my view) - in which case, Rumsfeld really is the wrong man for the president's Wilsonian agenda. Or you can see this as disloyal spin: in which case, Rummy has lost confidence in the war he was obliged to run...

We Welcome James di Benedetto

We welcome James di Benedetto to the Order of the Shrill:

The Eleven Day Empire: These People Have Jobs Why, Again?: This is, of course, madness. The whole point of having plainclothes air marshalls is that they NOT be immediately recognizable. Sure, SOME of them probably should be wearing suits or sportcoats. And some of them should be in sweatpants, a dirty shirt, and generally look like they got about 5 minutes of sleep the night before. And some of them should be wearing jeans and a polo shirt. And... You'd think this wouldn't be a terribly difficult concept to grasp, but apparently the folks in charge of the program are none too bright. Fire them. Fire them now.

Lech Walesa Is Shrill! Of Europe Are Drawing Closer

Shrill screeds of Bush hatred from the founder of Solidarity:

WSJ.com - At Expense of U.S., NationsOf Europe Are Drawing Closer: "America failed its exam as a superpower," says Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity trade-union leader who became Poland's first post-Communist president. "They are a military and economic superpower but not morally or politically anymore. This is a tragedy for us."

Man, That's a Lott of Shrill Senators

Trent Lott, to be precise:

"I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld," Lott told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites) on Wednesday. "I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers."

Rumsfeld has under heavy criticism since a soldier asked him last week why the combat vehicles used in the war in Iraq (news - web sites) don't have the proper armor. Both Rumsfeld and President Bush (news - web sites) have said more vehicle armor will be shipped to Iraq.

Lott, speaking to the civic club Wednesday, said the United States needs more troops to help with the war and a plan to leave Iraq once elections take place in late January. The Mississippi Republican doesn't think Rumsfeld is the person to carry out that plan.

"I would like to see a change in that slot in the next year or so," Lott said. "I'm not calling for his resignation, but I think we do need a change at some point."

We asked the Magic Eight Ball to translate that last bit. It said:

Answer hazy. Why hasn't the President fired him?

We're also uncertain regarding the specific mention of uniformed officers. I mean, most officers are in uniform. Are there some other officers out there, commanders who don't wear a uniform and probably spend 40% of their time slacking off or something, yet have the ear of the Secretary of Defense?

New York Times Coverage of the Other Order

New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd checked into the Ward Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken saying nothing but "shills. shills.... aigh!" over and over. Dr. Hastur eventually realized she'd suffered a serious break at the thought of the number of members of the Order of the Shill who are fleeing to the Order Of The Shrill, driven to sheer unholy madness by the mendacity, incompetence, malevolence, incompetence, sheer disconnection from reality, and sheer connection to incompetence of the Donald "Why Do I Still Have A Job?" Rumsfeld defense department.

He has surrounded himself with so many sycophantic generals that it took a grunt from Tennessee to point out that the defense secretary has no clothes - or armor for his troops. He has taken the greatest military in the history of the world and pushed it to the breaking point.

Some people think he's toast, now that conservatives like John McCain, Chuck Hagel and Bill Kristol have turned on him - and now that the grumbles are getting louder in the military, from Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf and the TV generals to the rank-and-file reservists who have other jobs to go back to.

In her lithium inspired fervor, Dowd has a new plan for our troops abroad: branding*.

If the Olympics can attract top corporate sponsors, why can't Rummy's Global War on Terrorism? Bring it on, Bank One!

Picture this: a truck rumbling across the desert on the evening news, completely armored and emblazoned with golden arches. Or a fleet of Visa Humvees. You know Donald Trump would love to slap his name on a few Chinooks. The 82nd Trumpborne.

Now, we were usually the first ones seen running for the door after the marketing V.P. said "global brand strategy", but we're pretty sure that there are a few things that IBM would like to stick their name on more than the corpses of the sons of daughters of America, sent abroad for a fool's errand. But then, what do we know?

Nouriel Roubini Is Shrill!

And boy is he shrill! Worst case of shrillness this month!

Dr. Mbogo to the Shoggoth Wing, stat!

Nouriel Roubini's Global Economics Blog: December 2004 Archives: In another example of the economic brilliance of our MBA President (who taught him economics and when?) and of his economic team, Dubya just found out today the Holy Grail that will eliminate in an instant our trade deficits.

Bush told reporters that the trade deficit was "easy to resolve. People can buy more United States products if they're worried about the trade deficit."

Very deep and profound concept and idea...and altogether wrong on all matters of economic substance. As any freshman in Economics knows, the current account deficit is, by definition,equal the excess of the country's expenditure relative to its income; so if a country spends more than its income, it will have a current account deficit, regardless of its preferences for domestic or foreign goods. If we spend more than we earn, if we have lower savings (because of the huge budget defitics) than our real investment, the current account will be and remain in a large deficit. Also, the demand for imports depends mostly on relative growth rates across countries and relative prices of foreign goods relative to foreign goods (i.e. exchange rates). So, assuming the trade deficit will disappear will not change it by a iota. And too bad that the masses of red state evangelicals on their way to join the social and economic lumpenproletariat crave and can only afford the good and cheap Chinese goods that made the fortune of Wal Mart.

It is not surprising that Dubya displays a crass ignorance of Economics 101 ("let us assume we import less" is his basic solution to our trade problems). It is a little more shocking that no one in his economic team his giving him any parental guidance on basic economics. But maybe not that surprising. With Lame Duck Cheerleader-in-Chief Melting Snow still kept warm for a little while in sinking Treasury, with his Under Secretary for International Affairs (of "there is no problem with the current account deficit" fame) on the way out (as one would assume as the most lame U/S for Int. Affairs ever), with NEC being headless after stealthy & gagged Friedman kept his mouth shut for two years and finally exited, with CEA also headless as the smart Mankiw may wonder why the hell he risked his stellar academic reputation for becoming associated with such economic buffons at the White House, the Chief Ecomomic Strategists at the White House are now Mr. Rasputin Karl Rove and that Most Eminent Economist called Dick Cheney who, today, opened the White House economic summit by pushing again for making the tax cuts permanent and privatizing Social Security, two policies that will certainly lead us to fiscal bankruptcy in the next decade.

With this Motley Crew running our ecomomic non-policies in a time of falling dollar, massive fiscal and current account deficit, even the most conservative Wall Street Journal op-ed page was begging last week for a strong Treasury Secretary in the Rubin tradition and pleading the White House to dump Snow, only to be rebuffed the next day. As the hapless WSJ editors had to admit and beg under a "Stronger Treasury" headline:

"The larger issue is why the Bush Administration has settled for a weak Treasury...on economic policy he has preferred to run things out of the White House, and sometimes even Karl Rove's hip pocket....The financial world is a far more unsettled place, for starters...Inevitably, when interest rates rise, there are going to be financial casualties to be cleaned up. Mr. Rove knows a lot, but we doubt he knows how to work out the next Long Term Capital Management failure, much less handle a dollar crisis...."

Of course, the next day, the White House reconfirmed lame duck and lame non-leader snow-flaky Snow to the Treas job after letting him hang wet and dry for two weeks; take that WSJ Editorial Board for being real influential in your arch-conservative White House! They told you to get lost the same day you pleaded for a stronger Treasury.

The only solace is that, by the time a year from now these reckless policies - with dumb-wit economic nullities such as Rove and Cheney in charge and Snow cheerleading-in-tow - lead to a hard landing of the dollar, a bond market rout, a LTCM-style meltdwon, and a ugly economic slowdown, Greenspan will step down from his Fed job and may be chosen as Treasury Secretary when Dubya gets desperate enough.

Given that Alan is the smartest guy in town and knows better, one will hope that he will reverse his support of the Bush tax cuts (his worst call in 20 years at the Fed), he will emphasize that fiscal restraint must include not only controls on spending but also reversals of some of the reckless tax cuts on high incomes, dividends, capital gains and estate taxes and that he will suggest to reform Social Security along the lines of what he brilliantly did 20 years ago when he headed the Commission that rescued our Social Security system: i.e. raise a litte the payroll tax, lenghten the retirement age and control modestly benefits. I.e., real reform Social Security that maintains its Security and its Social element rather than the mother of all smoke and mirrors shell-games "privatization" that would create another $5 trillion of transition costs and lead us on the same path as Argentina that similarly bothched its social security privatization and ended up defaulting on its entire public debt.

William Kristol Is Shrill!

The latest shrill America-hating critic of George W. Bush and his administration is William Kristol:

The Defense Secretary We Have (washingtonpost.com): Decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort. Rumsfeld acknowledged this last week, after a fashion: "I mean, everyone likes to assign responsibility to the top person and I guess that's fine." Except he fails to take responsibility.

All defense secretaries in wartime have, needless to say, made misjudgments. Some have stubbornly persisted in their misjudgments. But have any so breezily dodged responsibility and so glibly passed the buck?

In Sunday's New York Times, John F. Burns quoted from the weekly letter to the families of his troops by Lt. Col. Mark A. Smith, an Indiana state trooper who now commands the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, stationed just south of Baghdad:

"Ask yourself, how in a land of extremes, during times of insanity, constantly barraged by violence, and living in conditions comparable to the stone ages, your marines can maintain their positive attitude, their high spirit, and their abundance of compassion?" Col. Smith's answer: "They defend a nation unique in all of history: One of principle, not personality; one of the rule of law, not landed gentry; one where rights matter, not privilege or religion or color or creed. . . . They are United States Marines, representing all that is best in soldierly virtues."

These soldiers deserve a better defense secretary than the one we have.

Norman Schwartzkopf Is Shrill!

Keening Blasphemy Kevin Drum modems in the details:

The Washington Monthly: RUMSFELD UNDER FIRE....We all know that John McCain isn't a big fan of Donald Rumsfeld, and Chuck Hagel isn't a surprise either. But Stormin' Norman? "I was angry by the words of the secretary of defense when he laid it all on the Army, as if he, as the secretary of defense, didn’t have anything to do with the Army and the Army was over there doing it themselves, screwing up." Good point. Plus there's the fact that Rumsfeld was lying through his teeth about armor production already being at capacity, and how there was nothing more he could do about it. That was bad too.

Senator McCain: Tell Us How You Really Feel!

With President George W. Bush's election in the bag, Senator McCain can go back to pointing out that the emperor is slightly naked. Today's target: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It seems the Senator might be displeased with the Secretary's performance, although he might be a bit murky about his exact feelings:

Asked about his confidence in the secretary's leadership, McCain recalled fielding a similar question a couple weeks ago.

"I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence," McCain said.

Yeah, we're not sure exactly what that's about. Does it involve an aiiigh! or a Ph'nglui. We aren't sure. We'll keep you posted.