Deinonychus antirrhopus

Trent Telenko on the Berger Follies

Trent Telenko has a devastating post on Berger and his breaches of the national security.

Scary thought for the day: What if Berger's cell phone was also one of those oh so popular digital cameras, with which Berger took photos of codeword level documents and e-mailed them to whomever? All on an unsecured wireless line.

Second scary thought for the day: "Washington D.C. is the capitol of the most powerful nation-state on the face of the planet. Every embassy in the D.C. area has a roof filled with antennas that are not there for satellite dish television. They are there to listen to our telephones, computers and other data transmissions. If Democratic operatives can bug then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's cell phone and have one of their House members give their recordings to the media. It is a certainty that hostile foreign powers are monitoring every cell phone call Sandy Berger makes on the off-chance of "striking it rich."

Nice eh? This Berger thing is no big deal right?

Read the whole thing.

More Thoughts on Kerry's Speech

Roger Simon reminded me of this part of the speech,

I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military.

I felt the same way Roger did. I was quite disappointed and even angry. The tone of that comment suggests that Kerry is going to sit on his patrician backside wait for an attack then respond. I think rejecting pre-emptive attacks is a huge mistake. If we see an enemy moving to attack us we only respond with force once the attack occurs?

Of course, there was the issue of defending the country in Vietnam. Did Vietnam attack the U.S.? Was it planning to attack the U.S.? No and no. I suppose one could make a similar argument about Iraq, but I don't think Vietnam ever had a history of trying to develop let alone using WMDs. The war in Vietnam was about containing Communism, not defending the U.S. Yet, Kerry is complaining about the country being mislead into war. I dunno I just feel that if Bush can't, according to Kerry and the Democrats, claim that he was defending the U.S. in Iraq then Kerry can't make the same claim about his service in Vietnam. It strikes me as hypocritical and misleading.

Kerry's Speech

Well I listened to a big chunk of it and for me it was horrid. I thought it was an amalgamation of platitudes, bullshit, and outright nonsense. When Kerry said,

...health care is not a privilege for the wealthy, the connected, and the elected – it is a right for all Americans.

I just about rolled my eyes out of the left side of my head. When I hear this I think, Marxist claptrap. Commodities that are private goods are not rights to me. Promising somebody a right to a private good is a recipe for disaster. When everybody has a right to a Porsche then soon you either run out of Porsche's or the quality of Prosche's goes right down the toilet.

The problems with health care are numerous. There is the tax benefits to recieving health care through one's employer vs. using after tax dollars to buy it outright. Plus there is the demand for the latest and greatest treatment, procedure, drug, etc. Also, is the insitutional set up where anybody who shows up at an emergency room is treated irrespective of ability to pay. Now this might be the right thing to do, but we also have to accept the fact that this is going to push health care costs up dramatically. Many young people will opt for no insurance because the risks for them are low. Since they have no insurance (and likely few assets) they are collection proof for the most part. If they run a large bill it is up to the rest of us to pick up the tab. It shouldn't take a great deal of effort to see that this is going to drive up health care costs.

Are the above problems the result of failed Republican policies? No. Anybody who says otherwise is a fool (either that or they are a mendacious politician seeking office). So to take this one step further and say it is a right means that the situation is likely to get worse not better. Sure costs might stop rising as quickly as they currently are with more government interference, but it will likely come a decrease in quality. And the decrease in quality does not have to mean a decrease below what we have today.

For example in another part of the speech Kerry talked about the potential benefits of stem cell research. What if government intervention ends up preventing that (in the name of cost containment). Suddenly all those possible benefits are gone. Apply such an effect on a broad scale and you have stagnation in quality improvments in health care. Is that a cost? Sure sounds like it to me.¹

This comment also was highly annoying,

We believe in the value of doing what's right for everyone in the American family.

Government tends to do things that for the most part are redistribution of income. Subsidy for this, subsidy for that. Social Security and Medicare are the two biggest and best examples of this. Money is taken from one group and given to another. As such you cannot "do what is right for everyone in the American Family." Kerry was right that elections are about choices, and when you make a choice either individually or collectively it means other choices are not selected. A choice to help seniors means you have also chosen to reduce the incomes of other Americans. Is it right to prop up a system that continuously faces bankruptcy and requires higher and hgiher taxes to sustain it? Is that doing right by the younger generations? Is Kerry doing right by refusing to consider any and all privatization schemes for Social Security and Medicare.

All in all I thought the speech was dull. It was a tired repetition of the same old Democratic policies proposals and plans. After listening to these warmed up leftovers from previous Democratic conventions I can't see any reason to vote for Kerry other than gridlock and there are good arguments to still not vote for him such as appointing judges to the Supreme Court. Now the only issue is who to vote for...or to even vote at all.
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¹The idea of re-insuring the insurance companies isn't bad, but I still have reservations as it could be just the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps if there was some sort of super-majority requirement for changing the levels of re-insurance.

Kerry's Silly Energy Policy

I know I've blogged on this before (see here), but with oil prices heading up again it might be a good idea to cover it again.

Kerry's plan has two main parts:

1. Alternative energy sources.
2. More fuel efficient cars.

There are some problems with these policies. Currently there are alternative fuels to fossil fuels. The problem is that these alternatives suffer from being both expensive and incapable of producing enough energy to sustain U.S. energy needs. Further, the connection between oil prices and say solar power are not clear to me. Alot of electricity generation in the U.S. is either coal, natural gas, or nuclear. I don't think very many places still use crude oil to generate electricity. So I'm not sure how having alternative sources of electricity.¹

Second, even if there is some big connection, if the current high prices (which are not record breaking despite what the newspapers say) are not enough to induce changes to these alternatives it suggests that forcing such changes would end up costing U.S. consumers more than they would save.²

The other part of the plan is inducing people to switch to more fuel efficient cars. The argument above applies here as well. If the current prices are not high enough to induce people to change to energy efficient on their own, then chances are they will come out worse in the end. This is further supported by Kerry policy which plans on using tax incentives to induce people to change their behavior. In other words, we are changing higher fuel prices for higher taxes. Not only does this not help the situation, it could make it worse in that taxes come with a deadweight loss.

Hence Kerry's claims that this will "grow the economy" is misleading at best. We are trading one type of cost for another type of cost, and one that comes with possible additional costs in the form of inefficiencies. There is the benefit to the environment, but that is hard to quanitfy and may not be large enough to offset the additional costs.
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¹We do import natural gas, but about 90% of these imports come from Canada (based on the data I have seen)
²Of course, this is a bit simplistic. If people think the current high prices are temporary and switching to alternatives entails some subtantial costs then people might hold off till they view the high prices as more permanent.

Why Conservatives Might Be Happier With Kerry

Kevin expounds on a piece in the L.A. Times which tries to argue why Conservatives might, in the end, be happier with Kerry for the next four years. Kevin writes,

This list is, to say the least, unconvincing. But they might be right anyway for a reason that they only fleetingly allude to in their fifth bullet: Bush has dug the country into such a godawful hole that the next four years are going to be hell no matter who's president.

The economy is the most obvious example. The fiscal reality is that we can't keep running enormous deficits forever, and the only way to get rid of the deficit is to raise taxes. Wouldn't it be nice if it were a Democrat who was forced to do that? And Social Security and Medicare need reforming, but any real reform is almost certain to enrage a significant number of people. How about letting a Democrat catch some of that grief?

Kevin argues the list is unconvincing, and I don't disagree too much here. It is with the second paragraph that I disagree with. Kevin writes as if all of this is going to be possible while Kerry is President, despite the fact that he notes that gridlock would be one of the pluses (for conservatives--personally I'd say deficit/spending hawks). But if things like raising taxes and reforming Medicare and Social Security are so wildly unpopular what makes Kevin think it will get done. Mabye "significant" is still too small to prevent such policies from being enacted...but if that is the case, then why would doing these things be bad for the Democrats and Kerry's chances of re-election?

This is just simplistic tripe. The single best reason, and it may not be that good a reason, for a spending/deficit hawk to vote for Kerry is gridlock. I'm not sure I think that is a good enough reason, but it is the only good reason I can see right now.

I Agree With Dan Drezner

Dan Drezner looks at Arnold Kling's Tech Central Station column and disagrees with Arnold's conclusion. So do I. I think the difference can be summed up by Dan's closing comment,

In the war against radical Islam, Kling is correct that we need hard power. But we do need soft power as well.

This fits in with what I have read about much of Asian martial arts. When you need to be hard (punch, kick, cut with your sword), then be hard. When you need to be soft (turn, move aside, etc.) then be soft. Being one or the other provides a weakness or opening for your opponent. Being soft does not mean being weak.

Kerry's Budget Doesn't Add Up

Well somebody finally figured out what I've been posting for quite awhile now.

Economists and policy analysts from across the political spectrum say that even if Kerry can pay for most of his spending proposals by increasing taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, the current record deficit of $477 billion will not get smaller.

Gee, you think the Democrats will rant and rave if Kerry has budgets of about the same size as Bush? I doubt it, they'll just blame it all on Bush. In a sense they'll become just like many Republicans who blame the last recession on Clinton.

I don't get where the authors get there $890 billion dollars from for Kerry's plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts for those making $200,000/year or more. The Tax Policy Center's analysis Comes up much lower (and lest you think that is a "conservative source" the Tax Policy Center is a joint venture between the Brookings Institute and the Urban Institute).

So at best, this article is a best case scenario. The more likely scenario is if Kerry gets his policies passed then it would likely increase the budget deficits, not decrease or keep them constant.

Defict to Hit Record High?

In a trivial sense, yes. In a non-trivial sense, hardly. In simple absolute dollars, sure the deficit has hit an all time high. But so has GDP. Why isn't the GDP figure being covered by newspapers, news programs, and so forth? Becuase the idea of deficits hitting an all time high in terms of absolute dollars is misleading, IMO. Yes the deficits are large. Yes that can be bad. Yes it means that somebody will likely have to pay higher taxes in the future (and no not the poor, most likely the rich). But, the way to look at the deficit is as a percentage of GDP.

Think about this for a minute: suppose you learn a person has increased his debt $1,000,000. Is that a lot? Before you say yes, shouldn't you look at the person's assests? Suppose the person has $10,000,000 in assests and is in debt only $4.5 million? Now is it "bad"? Not so clear cut now is it?

The simplistic claim that large deficits is bad is just that simplistic. Now if the additional spending is "bad" spending then one could make a case that the deficits are bad, but the reason they are bad isn't simply because they are large. They are bad because what is being bought. Running up your credit card calling phone sex numbers would probably fit the notion of "bad" debt. Running up your credit card because of an emergency (say your car is broken down and you are cash poor at the moment and you need your car to get to and from work) might not be so bad. The simplistic rhetoric makes no attempt at a distinction here. It is just bad because the deficit is higher. Nevermind the recession, nevermind soft labor market, nevermind the war in Iraq and against terror.

The Democratic mantra of "record breaking deficits" is misleading, pure and simple. This of course, should not be seen as justification for the high deficits. The recession is over. Growth predictions are strong. Now is the time to really work at reducing the deficit. Cutting spending on some domestic programs would be a good start.

Update: Here is an interesting article from the Cato Institute on the Budget/Deficit Estimating Cycle.

Budget forecasting errors follow an obvious cyclical pattern -- much too optimistic near cyclical peaks (such as 2000) and much too pessimistic in the early stages of recovery (such as 1984, 1994 and 2004). The error at cycle peaks is to project good times too far ahead. When that proves wildly incorrect (as in early 2001), there is a natural bureaucratic inclination to overcompensate by marking down the future "as far as the eye can see" (which is not far, actually).

Kerry, His Policies, and Gridlock

As I noted in this post Andrew Sullivan has tried to make the "conservative" case for supporting Kerry. He failed miserably. Sullivan is a one trick pony (of late): gay rights. Anything that deviates from his prescribed course on that issue and he doesn't like it. Now that is his right, and I'm not complaining about that. What I am complaining about is his weak case for voting for Kerry.

The strongest case I can see for somebody who is a deficit hawk to vote for Kerry is gridlock. It is likely the case that the Republicans will retain control of the Senate and House after 2004 irrespective of what happens in the Presidential election. Given this Kerry will face tough battles for just about every single one of his policies that he wants to enact. Given this it seems reasonable that a deficit hawk could vote for Kerry, not because of Kerry's policies, but because Kerry will not be able to fulfill some of his more grandiose policies thuse reducing government spendig.

Sullivan, as I noted, doesn't make this case. He actually is pretending that Kerry is a fiscal conservative. As I have noted for sometime, the spending proposals of the Democrats will actually increase the deficit not decrease it (see here, here, here). Now there is a slight ray of sunshine, but it is one I discount a great deal. Kerry has said that if his spending would mean increasing the deficit he'd curtail his new spending. I discount this because campaign rhetoric strikes me as cheap talk--i.e., something that is unenforcable, but that can affect the play of a game (and yes both sides engage in cheap talk). The reason I discount Kerry's comment here so much is because Kerry is going to raise taxes a little bit by increasing taxes on those who make $200,000/year or more. At the same time Kerry is going to cut taxes for the middle class. then on top of all this Kerry is promising lots of new spending and I mean lots. So Kerry will raise reveneu $150 billion and is going to spend at least another $358 billion for Kerry's health care plan alone and you have a higher deficit (all numbers are for four years--i.e., Kerry's first term). Nevermind education, the college tuition subsidy, and his grand plan to revive American manufacturing. Now, if the economy stays strong and continues to expand this will cut the deficit by itself, but that isn't the point. We are talking about fiscal discipline, and letting economic growth do it isn't discipline at all.

So I can't take Kerry seriously when he says he wants to cut the deficit. If he does become President and the budget deficit does shrink I think it will be for two reasons.

1. The economy continued to grow.
2. Gridlock on some of Kerry's major proposals.

Add on top of this the fact that I just think many of Kerry's policies are wrong headed. I think expanding government's role in health care the way Kerry is advocating is just bad. Granted there is some compelling logic to the re-insurance argument Kerry has put forward, but I don't see it as a final step, but as a first step.

Of course, Bush isn't that attractive an option either. Bush could very well get into the White House and figure, "Hey, I'm a lame duck so I'll just ignore this deficit thing." Factor in that Cheney is too old and too hated to make a run for the presidency and the incentive to reign in spending is going to be quite weak at best.

Update: In case it wasn't perfectly clear in the introduction, I really don't have a problem with single issue voters. If gay marriage is a deal breaker for you, that's fine with me. I may or may not disagree with you (depending on which side of the gay marriage issue your are on), but I don't have a problem with single issue voters. As for Sullivan, I find his "support" (he is now saying he doesn't really endorse Kerry) for Kerry is based on things other than the gay marriage issue. I don't buy this. I don't buy it because the argument is weak and laughable. I'd have more respect for Sullivan if he said, "I'm favoring Kerry because his views are less offensive when it comes to gay marriage." Or if he made the gridlock argument. Instead we have this amazingly contorted argument that just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Two Can Play This Game

Al Gore:

Did you expect, for example, the largest deficits in history? One after another? And the loss of more than a million jobs?--source

Well we also have the highest GDP of all times too. In fact Bush has a better economic track record than Clinton since GDP is about $1.5 trillion dollars higher than it was under Clinton.

Now if you found the above rather hard to believe you aren't alone. I agree completely. I sure wish these Democratic nimrods would stop with this kind of idiotic nonsense. Are the current deficits large? Yes. Are they record breakers? Sure if you look at just the deficit in absolute terms. Looking at it in relative terms--i.e., as a percentage of GDP and the claim doesn't hold. In 1943 FDR had a deficit that was about 30% of GDP. In 1983 Reagan had a deficit that was 6% of GDP. With GDP now at $11.4 trillion dollars to get to Reagan's deficit the 2004 deficit would have to be $684 billion and that still would not make it the largest.

Is Andrew Sullivan Insane?

I am just amazed that he thinks anybody who is "conservative" should consider John Kerry for President. Okay, Sullivan does have some good points about Bush failing on some fronts, but voting for Kerry? As I noted below Kerry's policies have the whiff of Marxism in them.

And in making his points does Sullivan have to be so misleading?

At home, Bush has been just as radical. He has essentially junked two decades of conservative attempts to restrain government and pushed federal spending to record levels.

Sure Bush's spending is bad, but it isn't that bad. Check out some of the deficits and the debt under FDR (hint: also look at things as a percentage of GDP). This could have been a perfectly good point, but Sullivan had to embellish it with a falsehood.

He has poured money into agricultural subsidies; he famously put tariffs on foreign steel; he has expanded the biggest entitlement healthcare program; and dramatically increased the role of the central government in the matter of education.

These are all true. However, what can we expect from Kerry? Less spending? Not if we actually look to Boston and trust the Senator to follow through on his campaign rhetoric. Now maybe Sullivan is hoping that the Rpublicans will retain control of both houses of Congress and this split in the government will result in more gridlock and less spending. However, as far as I can tell Sullivan is not making this argument at all. Instead he seems to have bought into the idea that Kerry is a fiscal conservative.

In fact, Sullivan is quite aware of Kerry's actions,

Yes, Kerry's record on spending, defense and social policy has been liberal. But that is not the theme of his campaign so far.

But Sullivan is quite willing to ignore all of Kerry's past actions in favor of flowery campaign rhetoric. It is simply amazing that someboyd who purports to be a conservative can make such arguments in support of an obvious liberal. I agree there is much to be unhappy about with Bush, the problem is I don't see Kerry addressing many of those issues that would result in an improvement.

Via Michelle Malkin.

John Kerry's Marxism-Lite

I was bored and thought I'd troll around Kerry's website to see if I could find anything that perked up my blogging interest and sure enough I did. It was one of the articles/press releases on Kerry's health care proposals. The section in question is this one here,

Pass a Real Patients' Bill of Rights

Ensuring that all Americans receive the care they need means creating a real Patient's Bill of Rights. It's time that doctors and nurses are put in charge of making medical decisions with their patients - instead of allowing HMO bureaucrats to determine the care Americans receive. Americans deserve the right to choose their own doctor and have access to the specialists they wish to see.

The Bush administration has continued blocking bipartisan efforts to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights in Congress. Worse yet, the Bush administration sent their lawyers to the Supreme Court to stand with the HMOs and argue against giving patients the right to sue HMOs.

John Kerry and John Edwards believe that the time is overdue for a real Patients' Bill of Rights - one that puts patients ahead of HMO profits. They will push Congress to pass a real Patients' Bill of Rights that allows Americans to hold HMOs accountable for decisions that harm patients by denying necessary medical care. Other critical patient protections John Kerry and John Edwards will support include:

1. A right to see the specialists they need
   
2. A right to real emergency protections
   
3. A real external appeals process that allows patients to appeal a HMO decision
   
4. Whistleblower protections that allow health care workers to report quality problems without fear of retaliation

I've emphasized the section that caught my interest. It is only a small section, but it struck me as an important point. It struck me as a sounding very much like Marxist rhetoric. You have a need, so therefore you must also have a right to have that need fulfilled. Further, it is on a topic where it is oh so easy and tempting to demonize one's opponents. For example, if I were to bring up the issue of ability to pay for seeing this specialisty, insurance covereage and so forth anybody who wants to argue against me can say, "You just want people to die Steve!" Instead of taking on the argument seriously the usual and easy way out will be to claim the other person is a monster who wants people to suffer and die.

There is no attempt to discuss the problem of allocating scarce resources (e.g. the specialist) in a rational manner (e.g. the market, rationing, etc.). There is no attempt to rebut the point that this sounds very similar to Marxist rhetoric, "From each according to his ability to each according to his need."

Anyhow I just thought it was interesting to note this "Lite" version of Marxism showing up in Kerry's policies.

Carnival of the Capitalists

Check out this weeks carnival. All kinds of interesting posts on economics and business.

So What About Berger?

Since we can't expect Kevin Drum to go after Berger with the same gusto he has the Plame Affair and Bush's Military Records, we'll have to look for stuff ourselves.

First up is this article from Time with this title, "The Berger Caper: What The 9/11 Report Says". The bad part, for Berger, is this,

The report managed to move Berger's troubles off the front page, but it contained some passages that could surely make him uncomfortable. It describes several instances in which the Clinton adviser was presented with plans of action to hit al-Qaeda in Afghanistan — and balked. In the margin next to a suggestion from Richard Clarke, Berger's counterterrorism czar, to attack al-Qaeda facilities in late 1999, Berger wrote "No." The report also says Berger nixed at least two plans to go after Osama bin Laden in the three years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The bad part for the rest of us is that it really does look like Berger is a complete idiot when it comes to security.

So how to explain what Berger called an "honest mistake"? He says that in gathering up papers, he must have accidentally taken some Archives documents along with his notes. Those who have worked with him find that plausible. Berger could get wrapped up in his work, they say, and his desk was piled high with documents and notes. "He always kept a lot of paper," says a former assistant.

What a fool. This kind of absent mindedness is not something you want in a National Security Advisor. Berger should never be put in charge of anything more sensitive than a tub of margarine, IMO.

Now, the Time magazing does note that the 9/11 Commission was able to look at all the reports about getting Bin Laden, but Newsmax has an article that claims Berger did manage to destroy most of the existing drafts of the Millennium Plot Review.

Most of the existing drafts of the White House's After-Action Millennium Plot Review were stolen from the National Archives and destroyed by former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger at least six months before the Sept. 11 Commission dealt with Millennium issues in interim staff conclusions and public hearings.

[snip]

Those same officials told the Post that they had five or six drafts of the Millennium after-action review in their files, all of which were eventually stolen by Berger. Only two copies were returned, the Post said, noting, "other drafts of the after-action document, [Archives officials] said, were apparently discarded."

I don't know but this sure looks like a cover up to me. Berger inadvertently took the copies home and then he inadvertently destroyed all but two of the drafts. Either Sandy Berger was lobotomized sometime after January 2001 or he is up to something that looks particularly stinky.

And as for Josh Marshall and the idea it was just copies looks more and more suspicious,

While Democrats have argued that the Millennium reports destroyed by Berger were copies, the New York Post reported on Friday, "Officials say it is possible he also got some unique documents directly from the files" - an apparent reference to oringinal handwritten notes made by senior Clinton officials on the draft copies.

Of course, we have this article where the Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, claims the Commission has seen all the relevant documents. It seems an easy way to check that would be to check the records at the National Archives. When did the people from the 9/11 Commission get the documents, and when was Berger stuffing his pants and then going home and cranking up the shredder (or starting the fire, or whatever).

All in all, I'd say it still looks bad, very bad. Of course, who knows everybody will probably just shrug and move on. And some day idiot boy Berger will probably be something like Secretary of State, or in some other position looking at highly classified documents and losing them all over the world.

More changes at the Kerry Website

A followup to Steve's post. The Joseph Wilson pangyric at RestoreHonesty.com has also vaporized. (Here is a preserved copy).

"We're just saving bandwidth." Uh-huh.

Shootout?

You know, after reading a post like this I can't help but wonder how Kevin has managed to get through life.

First up we have Kevin completely messing up the time line. Here are the relevant paragraphs from the story,

After Berger's previous visit, in September, Archives officials believed documents were missing. This time, they specially coded the papers to more easily tell whether some disappeared, said government officials and legal sources familiar with the case.

The notion of one of Washington's most respected foreign policy figures being subjected to treatment that had at least a faint odor of a sting operation is a strange one. But the peculiarities -- and conflicting versions of events and possible motives -- were just then beginning in a case that this week bucked Berger out of an esteemed position as a leader of the Democratic government-in-waiting that had assembled around presidential nominee John F. Kerry.

As his attorneys tell it, Berger had no idea in October that documents were missing from the Archives, or that archivists suspected him in the disappearance. It was not until two days later, on Saturday, Oct. 4, that he was contacted by Archives employees who said that they were concerned about missing files, from his September and October visits. This call -- in Berger's version of the chronology, which is disputed in essential respects by a government official with knowledge of the investigation -- was made with a tone of concern, but not accusation.

Berger, his attorney Lanny Breuer said, checked his office and realized for the first time that he had walked out -- unintentionally, he says -- with important papers relating to the Clinton administration's efforts to combat terrorism.

Lets run through it really slowly here.

1. Berger visits the National Archives and looks at classified documents.
2. National Archive employees note that some material seems to be missing.
3. They then go ahead and start coding the documents they pull for Berger to determine if things are "going missing".
4. Documents do turn up missing.
5. Berger is contacted on Oct. 4th. Two days after his last visit.

Inexplicably Kevin decides to spin all these facts thusly,

According to this odd story in the Washington Post — attributed to "government sources" and denied by Sandy Berger's lawyer — Berger removed copies of some documents from the National Archives during a visit in September, was caught, and subsequently returned them. However, employees were suspicious he might try to do it a second time, so they set up a special sting operation to catch him if he showed up again. And he did:

Is Kevin stupid, deliberately trying to spin this, or both?

Then Kevin coyly poses this question at the end of his post:

But they let him walk out the door without challenging him. Why?

This only looks funny if you accept Kevin's altered timeline. Going by the actual timeline it looks like the National Archives employees were basically making sure of what they suspected before they brought in the FBI and leveled accusations at an important and respected figure inside and outside the Beltway. Is this so hard to grasp? I don't think so, so what is Kevin's explanation?

Further, do the National Archives employees actually have any authority to stop anybody? I don't know, but it would seem quite relevant to Kevin's question. If they have no authority then waiting and calling in the guys who do have the authority is probably a really smart thing to do.

What makes this even more baffling, if we accept that Kevin is a thoughtful guy and not a partisan jackass, is how he can quote this part fo the story,

At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said.

And not be disturbed by it. What this is indicating is that Berger may have absconded with all copies of the drafts of the millenium review. And recall Kevin banged on the Valerie Plame drum relentlessly for months. This scandal pops up and not only does it take him hours (a full day?) to post on it, he has devoted only a few desultry posts on this topic. Oh wait...the Plame thing hurts Bush and may help Democrats, and Berger hurts Democrats and may help Bush. Gee, wouldn't be nice if Kevin was honest with us that he is going to put partisanship before National Security?

Bush's "Destroyed" Military Records Found

The payroll records covering the time Bush was in Alabama have been found. The initial response was that the records had been destroyed. This caused a great deal of speculation by many on the Left that it was a cover up.

Update: This story (via Kevin Drum), indicates that the released documents provide no new data on where Bush was during the time in question.

Kerry Removes Anti-Terror Plan from Website

Kerry's plan for fighting terrorism, should he be elected President, were removed from his website. Of course, I'm not convinced that this means that Kerry was using information contained in the stolen reports in formulating his anti-terror policy. It could even be a hopeful sign that the Kerry campaign has realized what a waterhead Berger is, and is now reviewing the plan. Or course, that doesn't mean they'll come up with anything better or different (or even worse). After all the material in the plan was pretty much common sense stuff.

Via Debunkers.

When Elephants Fly

Despite all the news stories about intelligence overhaul and so forth that have accompanied the release of the 9/11 Report, I think that there will be literally zero overhauls, changes, improvements and so forth. We are dealing with government after all and why should some stupid report provide more incentive for overhauls, changes and improvements than the death of 3,000 people, destruction of two skyscrapers, and the damage to the Pentagon would have provided. Nope, I think precisely nothing will be done.

Hazel O'Leary

In trouble with the law. Makes you wonder what is going on as this is the second Clinton Administration official to get in hot water with the Feds. This incident is not as news worthy as Sandy Berger's voluminous pants, but sheesh, the Clinton folks sure seem used to acting like royalty.

Nine days after being named president of Fisk University, Hazel O'Leary found herself being questioned by the FBI last night after being escorted off a commercial airplane.

O'Leary wanted to get off the plane as it waited on the tarmac for more than an hour after being diverted to Richmond, Va., yesterday evening because of storms, said Cpl. Frank Donkle of the Richmond International Airport Police.

Some might remember O'Leary as the Clinton official who got into a bit of trouble for the frequent and expensive trips overseas.

The Latest on Sandy Berger

Check out Glenn Reynolds. His post on the New York Sun article has some pretty devastating stuff in it.

In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times — Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action. Had he been a little less reluctant to act, a little more open to taking pre-emptive action, maybe the 2,973 killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be alive today.

The fact that the Kerry Campaign had anything to do with Berger at all should be a huge warning sign about how serious a Kerry Administration would be on terrorism. Pretty scary, IMO. And as Glenn also notes, lets not forget about the problems with the Chinese during the Clinton Administration. This should, IMO, be seen as a serious blow to Kerry on the issue of National Security.

Quickie Post: Nonsense

I want to respond to some nonsense that Daniel Drezner of all people has written. It is in regards to profiling. I mentioned in this post that if profiling lowers the probability of a terrorist attack then the government's prohibition against profiling actually puts people at risk. In his post titled, "The Trouble With Profiling" Dan links to an Iranian woman's article, and quotes the closing paragraph,

I, an Iranian, born in Tehran have green eyes, light skin and light brown hair. You would never “profile” me under anything except maybe a wasp from the Upper West Side. I know plenty of Italians, Spaniards, Irish, Serbs, Croatians, Greeks, Portuguese, French, and Russians who have black hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. And even within the Arab community, should there not be a difference between a Saudi, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Kuwaiti, or an Iraqi? How do we “profile” them? Instead of trying to make the world a Mickey Mouse Park where things fit neatly into boxes and security agents can pick and choose “terrorists” with color-coded instructions from the government, shouldn’t we put some real brains behind the plethora of terrorist networks that continue to terrorize our daily activities all over the world? The question then is not would I mind “racial profiling” as a “Middle-Easterner” but rather would do you mind, if they ask you a few relevant questions at the airport the next time you board a plane.

There is no problem I see here with profiling. The general reaction to profiling seems to be:

By itself it wont work.

Which is true, and while some dopes might have suggested profiling by itself is sufficient, this does not have to be the case. Profiling could be one of many ways of approaching this problem. Further, it doesn't have to be a stupid approach to profiling either. If we can work on Bayesian Spam filters that can actually learn which e-mails are spam and which ones are not, it seems to me we can come up with a smart way of profiling. Clearly Safeed's objection of relying solely on appearance is insufficient, but that does not have to be all that profiling is about.

Just because profiling might not work perfectly by itself does not mean it should be summarily rejected. In the rush to reject a decidedly unPC approach to airport security, people might be rejecting a very good method of improving airport security.

Update: Wow it is even worse than I thought. One of Daniel Drezner's earlier posts has this paragraph,

This transparency is the Achilles’ Heel of CAPS; the fact that individuals know their CAPS status enables the system to be reverse engineered. You... know if you’re carryons have been manually inspected. You know if you’ve been questioned. You know if you’re asked to stand in a special line. You know if you’ve been frisked. All of this open scrutiny makes it possible to learn an anti-profile to defeat CAPS, even if the profile itself is always kept secret. We call this the “Carnival Booth Effect” since, like a carnie, it entices terrorists to “Step Right Up! See if you’re a winner!” In this case, the terrorist can step right up and see if he’s been flagged.

That was taken from this paper.

As I noted profiling does not have to simply be a computer program with a bunch of simplistic "if/then" statements. Further, Prof. Drezner doesn't tell us the paper is a bit misleading. A little bit further into the paper than the above quote we find this,

We will now present an algorithm that a terrorist cell can employ to increase their probability of mounting a successful attack under the CAPS system as opposed to an airport security system that employs only random searches.

Can anybody say "Mixed Strategy"? Sure we can and it is quite simple. You use both profiling and random searches. This isn't an either/or situation and indeed presenting it like this falls right into the either/or fallacy. How does Carnival Booth work against a security program that utilizes both profiling and random searches? The authors do actually incorporate random searches, but a low number of random searches. In one case there are 8% who are randomly searched and in the other case 2% are randomly searched and 6% are profiled. The authors assume that the airport has only enough resources to give 8% of the passengers special screening. The problem here is that this is also a decision variable and is not fixed. Also, with a profiling system that learns the distribution of profiling scores itself is not fixed. Over time the distribution will change as more information is learned. Further information that can change the distribution need not come only from airline passanger data. This could be tied into various intelligence agencies as well. Also, the paper has a third approach where better administrative searches are done. This has a very high probability of success. The thing is, this could be used to feed into a profiling system that also has the capacity to learn. For example, what would happen to the results if there was some way of incorporating the Carnival Booth effect into the profiling process. That is, as the number of flags increases in the presence of a profiling process, the higher the probability that the terrorists are trying to find those people who defeat the profile. That in itself is information that could be valuable.

One thing to consider, lets return to the spam example. I recently got a piece of spam that was just filled with spelling errors. In the subject line, in the text itself. You can see the text here. Here is a quick sample,

_Dear Citibank-Online _Members_,

Thiss letter was _sent_ by_the_ CITI_bank server to
veerify your E_MAIL addres.

The point is that the spammer has to resort to such a ridiculous ruse to circumvent the spam filters.

Now with spam we have a lot more trials and both successes and errors to go by, but I'm not sure all the conclusions of the paper linked above hold with profiling system that is capable of learning.

Government Extortion

Over at Corner Solution (cool name) is the story.

Berger Round Up

First up is this post from the Belgravia Dispatch. The NY Times is mind boggling in its partisanship. The headline is amazing,

White House Knew of Inquiry on Aide; Kerry Camp Irked

Of course the White House is going to know about a former National Security Advisor knowingly pilfering documents. But then again, who knows maybe the Kerry campaign is irked the didn't know...sort of hoping for a good talking point.

James Lileks is definitely worth a read if you want some grim humor with this story.

This story discusses how Berger persuaded employees at the National Archives to violate security procedures.

• Guards were persuaded to leave the room.
• Made private calls from the secure room he was reviewing documents from.
• Took many bathroom breaks (maybe the files were giving him a wedgy).

This article about how the employees of the National Archives were suspicious of Berger.

After Berger's previous visit, in September, Archives officials believed documents were missing. This time, they specially coded the papers to more easily tell whether some disappeared, said government officials and legal sources familiar with the case.

The House Government Reform Committee is going to look into this issue as well.

Even though the matter already is the subject of a Justice Department criminal probe, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis said the panel has ``a constitutional responsibility to find out what happened and why.''

Later in the article we get this about the what level the documents were classified,

The documents in the Berger case originated with the White House National Security Council and dealt with actions and recommendations stemming from the threat in 1999 of a terrorist attack during the 2000 millennium celebrations. The documents, written by former NSC aide Richard Clarke, were classified at the extremely sensitive ``codeword'' level, which is above the classification level for the nation's nuclear secrets.--emphasis added

Here is an article that has more on the socks part of hte story.

The same archives monitors told the FBI that Berger was observed stuffing his socks with handwritten notes about files he reviewed that were going to the 9/11 panel. It is prohibited to make notes about the secret files and leave with them without special approval.

"Stuffed socks and pockets is real," the senior law enforcement official said. "The [theft] was reported by the guards."

Sandy Berger stuffs classified documents in his cheeks.

"The documents just slipped into my mouth by mistake." Stated Sandy Berger, "I understand that taking documents out of the National Archive is illegal, but they slipped in there. I don't know how that happened. Some even jumped out of the table and got into my socks as well. I was amazed, when I came out of the building, and found all these documents all over my body. I had no clue what to do!"

Okay, just kidding (for those who are sarcasm impaired).

Private Firms, Security, and Externalities

I found this interesting article by Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institute. In the article Orszag argues the the level of security provided by private firms to protect their property is insufficient. The reasons for this are several, here are the first two:

1. A terrorist attack is a "national" negative externality.
2. There is a second more specific negative externality in that lax security can provide terrorists with the material they need for such an attack.

I have a problem with the first claim. The first claim in more detail is,

Most broadly, a significant terrorist attack undermines the nation’s sovereignty, just as an invasion of the nation’s territory by enemy armed forces would. The costs associated with a reduction in the nation’s sovereignty or standing in the world may be difficult to quantify, but are nonetheless real. In other words, the costs of the terrorist attack extend well beyond the immediate areas and people affected; the attack imposes costs on the entire nation. In the terminology of economists, such an attack imposes a “negative externality.” The presence of this negative externality means that private markets will undertake less investment in security than would be socially desirable: Individuals or firms deciding how best to protect themselves against terrorism are unlikely to take the external costs of an attack fully into account, and therefore will generally provide an inefficiently low level of security against terrorism on their own. 3 Without government involvement, private markets will thus typically under- invest in anti-terrorism measures.⁴

For completeness here is footnote 4,

⁴ The Coase theorem shows that under very restrictive conditions, the negative externality can be corrected by voluntary private actions even if the role of government is limited to enforcing property rights. But the Coase theorem requires that all affected parties are able to negotiate at sufficiently low cost with each other. Since virtually the entire nation could be affected indirectly by a terrorist attack, the costs of negotiation are prohibitive, making the Coase theorem essentially irrelevant in the terrorism context.

My problem is exactly how is it a negative externality? Sure, it is bad, but the direct effect on me when the World Trade Center and Pentagon were hit was rather minimal. Yes, the stock market shut down for a few days, and I suppose you could argue I lost an opportunity to make money (say via my 401k), but I also lost an opportunity to lose money as well. I'm not sure I buy the "national externality" argument because this sounds more like a public good argument. I especially don't buy the argument that it has much to do with sovereignty. In looking at the four entries for the definition I'm not sure how a terrorist attack factors in,

1. Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign state.
2. Royal rank, authority, or power.
3. Complete independence and self-government.
4. A territory existing as an independent state.

In looking at number 2 I think we can reject that one straight away. I'm not sure how a terrorist attack would affect numbers 3 and 4. I suppose one could argue that a terrorist attack makes it more costly for a nation to take certain actions. Thus a state is now less independent. Still I'm not sure I see how the security of private firms comes into this. This strikes me as a public goods problem and not an externality problem.

Now the second argument about the negative externality at a private firm in terms of providing the inputs for an attack is I think much better. Clearly this was indeed the case during 9/11. As such a subsidy for security for such firms could provide a solution to the problem.

However, there is another externality here, a legal one. By not allowing private firms to take certain security steps the government imposes costs on the rest of us. For example, profiling. It is a fact that all of the hijackers were of a given religion, were all male, from a given part of the world, and in fact many came from the same country. So would extra security measures imposed on those who fit a profile of the hijackers reduce the probability of an attack? If the answer is yes, but current laws prohibit this the government is not only failing to protect its citizens, but is putting its citizens at greater risk.

The third reason deals with network externalities.

Third, a related type of externality involves “contamination effects.” Contamination effects arise when a catastrophic risk faced by one firm is determined in part by the behavior of others, and the behavior of these others affects the incentives of the first firm to reduce its exposure to the risk. Such interdependent security problems can arise, for example, in network settings. The problem in these settings is that the risk to any member of a network depends not only on its own security precautions but also on those taken by others. Poor security at one establishment can affect security at others. The result can often be weakened incentives for security precautions.

Orszag uses a computer network as an example, and it isn't a bad example, but a better one, at least in terms of impact, is the electricity grid. There is indeed a network, and if one firm is lax in its security then it could concievably induce other firms to reduce their security measures. As we saw not too long ago the removal of some transmission capacity took out the entire Northeast U.S. and parts of Canada for several days. Infecting a companies computer network is bad, but taking down all the computer networks in a multi-state region is even worse.

Of course, this problem does not necessitate that there is an under-provision of security for these types of goods. For example, there are not that many electricity companies and sometimes it is possible for the efficient outcome to obtain (see this post of mine).

Orszag also covers the issue of information. The basic point is that accumulating information can be costly. Suppose there were no building codes. Finding out how sound a building was would thus require more resources. Building codes reduce the amount of resources needed to determine if a building is sound. Of course, the problem with building codes is that they also act as a barrier to entry and raises prices. So there is a potential gain in efficiency that could be made here.

Additionally firms are limited in their liability for underprovision of security. Suppose a firm suffers an attack. If the costs are high enough the firms will simply declare bankruptcy and use that to limit the losses the firm faces. This means that beyond a certain point providing additional security is less likely even if the additional security is inexpensive. A related problem is a government bailout. If the government is going to bailout a firm that is attacked or its property is used in an attack (as with the airlines on 9/11) then it is not profit maximizing to take additional security measures.

There is also the problem with incomplete markets. Reasonable security measures may require large scale co-operation that is more difficult between private parties. Think of a prisoner's dilemma game where there are n players. With more players co-operation may become problematic (i.e., obtaining the best or even simply good outcome).

Most of these reasons, can also be seen as a reply to the critique of many Austrians and/or anarcho-capitalists to the private provision of national defense. For example, the last objection is one I have felt weakens the argument for pure private provision of national defense. But also note that government is itself not a cure all. In several cases we can see where government actions have a direct impact on security issues in a detrimental way. Since our government does not seem interested in addressing these issues, it seems clear that those in government are not serious about national security.

A Possible Berger scenario

Another Washington Post article about the Sandy Berger scandal.

The documents that Berger has acknowledged taking -- some of which remain missing -- are different drafts of a January 2000 "after-action review" of how the government responded to terrorism plots at the turn of the millennium. The document was written by White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke, at Berger's direction when he was in government.

[Engage wild speculation mode]

1. Someone on Clarke's staff drafts an after-action memo. (Revision 0)

2. Clarke reviews the memo, and makes handwritten notes on the draft about both content and style.

3. Staffer updates the memo based on Clarke's comments. (Rev 1)

4. Clarke's office distributes Rev 1 to a few others (let's say 5 people) for comments, including Berger. They also mark it up and return comments to Clark's office. (Revs 1A-1E).

5. Clarke's office incorporates the comments (probably after some discussion), and issues the final memo (Rev 2).

6. In September of last year, while leafing through the various hand-marked drafts, Berger realizes that some of the comments are embarassing (i.e., they might show their cavalier approach to the terrorism threat was), so he decides get rid of the evidence. He goes back in October to make sure he's eliminated the embarassing drafts.

[/wild speculation]

I've simplified a bit, since steps 2-4 were probably repeated a couple of times. This scenario fits the available facts, and doesn't require a massive conspiracy.

Brookings' Loathsome Worm

I am speaking of course about Shibley Telhami. The title of this post is reflective of the idiotic drivel we get from the likes of Kevin Drum.

Shibley, like Ashcroft, thinks that if Al Qaida attacks sometime prior to the election the goal will be to further Al Qaida's goals. This is pretty much what Ashcroft said. Where is Kevin Drum's indignation, his righteous anger? Nowhere because Kevin Drum was wrong when he attacked Ashcroft for that statement. Drum is blinded by his own partisan hatred of Ashcroft that even a reasonable statement from Ashcroft must be seen as something despicable.

The trackbacks show that apostropher gulps down this bile with relish. It is rather sad, as I have enjoyed some discussion here with apostropher.

Tencity at The Good Night also drinks the bile with gusto. Never once stopping to think that, hey, maybe Bin Laden wants Bush to win, which is precisely the case that Telhami makes.

Greenspan Notes Softness in Economy

Alan Greenspan noted that there was a decrease in consumer spending due to inflation. However, he said the decrease should be short lived and indicated that interest rates will continue to rise at a "measured" pace.

"The expansion has become more broad-based and has produced notable gains in employment," Greenspan said. "If economic developments are such that monetary policy neutrality can be restored at a measured pace, a relatively smooth adjustment of businesses and households to a more typical level of interest rates seems likely."

A Large Grain of Salt?

No, try a shovel full of salt. Sheesh, we have Allawi driving around Baghdad shooting would be carjackers dead in one story. Summarily executing a criminal in another story. And we top it off Allawi getting revenge in the Shiite Muslim Holy city of Najaf.

I can't help but get the feeling Kevin is hoping it turns out that Allawi is a monster.

Berger's Statement

So there I am in the car on the way home when Berger makes his statement about this fiasco. I haven't found a transcript yet (funny the NY Times is taking its time on this one...must be a glitch in the matrix or something). However, there is this quote,

"Last year, when I was in the archives reviewing documents, I made an honest mistake. It's one that I deeply regret."--link

Why does one deeply regret an honest mistake? For that matter how is stuffing classified documents into your socks and pants and honest mistake? I don't think I've ever mistakenly stuffed something into my socks. Then again, I'm not the former National Security Adviser.

Basically I get the impression that Berger is annoyed by all this. What annoys me is this meat head was the National Security Advisor, doesn't seem to be at all remorseful about what he knowingly did (it is complete bunk that this is a mistake, it is a lie), and from the sounds of it is planning on returning to the Kerry campaign when this is over.

It will be a complete joke if the Kerry campaign and Presidency (assuming Kerry wins) has anything to do with Berger. I'll know my worst fears about Kerry are true: Kerry doesn't take National Security and the War on Terror seriously.

Update: Looks like Bill Clinton is out of touch with reality or something.

"We were all laughing about it," Clinton said about the investigation into Sandy Berger for taking classified terrorism documents from the National Archives. "People who don't know him might find it hard to believe. But ... all of us who've been in his office have always found him buried beneath papers."

Let me see, first Clinton thinks this is funny. Second, he seems to think stuffing one's socks with classified documents is the natural result of a messy desk. I have a messy desk, yet I don't stuff my socks with classified documents (data) (while some the data I work with isn't classified national security documents some of it could be valuable to the right people). Maybe there were so many papers that Berger was looking through that they fell on him and some of papers "inadvertently" got into his socks. I know I hate it when that happens.

Update II: Kevin Drum isn't sure what to make of this situation,

Beyond that, though, I can't really think of anything else to say about this bizarre story except the obvious: what on God's green earth was he thinking? Crikey.

How about this Kevin, Sandy Berger was thinking he'd take home some of these classified documents, which he knew perfectly well was illegal, otherwise he wouldn't have hidden the documents about his person.

That wasn't hard was it?

Berg(l)er Steps Down as Kerry Adviser

No big shock with the news that Berg(l)er is stepping down.

"Mr. Berger does not want any issue surrounding the 9/11 commission to be used for partisan purposes. With that in mind he has decided to step aside as an informal adviser to the Kerry campaign until this matter is resolved," said Lanny Breuer, Berger's attorney.

Translation: Berg(l)er doesn't want this to be used for partisan purposes by the Republicans against the Democrats.

What Kerry isn't telling us is that before he let Berg(l)er step down he had his shoes and socks checked. Okay just kidding on that one.

Subject line partially stolen (shamelessly I might add) from the redoubtable Michelle Malkin.

Posted by Steve at 04:14 PM | Comments (0)

FTC Kicks MoveOn.org and Common Cause in the Nuts

MoveOn.org and Common Cause wanted the FTC to force Fox News to remove its slogan "Fair and Balanced". The argument was that Fox News is clearly biased towards Republicans. Well the FTC just shut that notion down.

I am not aware of any instance in which the Federal Trade Commission has investigated the slogan of a news organization. There is no way to evaluate this petition without evaluating the content of the news at issue. That is a task the First Amendment leaves to the American people, not a government agency.

Apparently the First Amendment doesn't mean anything to the people at MoveOn.org and Common Cause. Don't forget Common Cause is supposedly the non-partisan organization...with Directors who contribute solely to Democratic candidates.

FTC link via Henry Hanks.

Naaaw, This Doesn't Look Suspicious

Nope, not at all.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has conducted searches of Berger's home and office, but some of the documents hereviewed are still missing, the officials were quoted as saying.

Some of the documents involved the Clinton administration's handling of intelligence surrounding terrorist plots to disrupt millennium celebrations in 1999 and identification of America's vulnerabilities at airports and seaports.

You know, if I did something like "inadvertently" pick up some documents, chances are you'd find them right quick in searching my house. They'd probably be inside a folder or something of the like I use to hold pieces of paper. Of course, I'm a bit of pack rat, so maybe there is nothing strange with not being able to find these documents.

Of course, stories of Bush operatives destroying/hiding incriminating evidence are true by definition.

Update: Well, this just took a turn for the weird,

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

Socks, pants and jacket? Sloppiness? As Kevin Drum would say, "These guys aren't even pretending to be honest are they?"

How do classified documents wind up in one's socks?

Update II: Hmmm, reading Dave's link to Josh Marshall I have to wonder about this statement,

As far as I can tell, my comments from last night stand. Notes taken from classified documents are themselves classified, unless and until they are cleared as containing no classified information. That at least appears to be the standard procedure

Is interesting. The part "...notes taken from...." Josh seems to think it means that Berger took handwritten notes on the documents and spirited away the notes. The thing is, who uses that type of wording. I take notes on things like lectures, books, articles, etc. I don't take notes from. At least that is what I'd write. Notes taken from makes me wonder if Berger was removing handwritten notes that were included in the documents. Throw in this bit from the Fox News article (linked above),

Breuer said Berger believed he was looking at copies of the classified documents, not originals.

And I'm not 100% that this concerns just copies of documents and handwritten notes written at the time Berger was reviewing the documents in question.

Update III: This article points out that Josh Marshall is correct that handwritten notes are considered classified. However, it looks like on the "copies" issue, Marshall may be wrong. It looks like while there were copies, the copies were different versions of a draft and hence are to some extent unique although the differences might be very slight.

They said the drafts were written by Clinton counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and had been changed somewhat, as is customary, as the drafts were circulated among relevant agencies and officials.

But the sources close to Berger said there were other copies of the drafts, that the commission had the final version of the report and that Clarke had said there were not significant changes during the drafting process.

Update IV: Josh Marshall is arguing that this leak is because the Bushies want to draw attention away from the release of the 9/11 Commissions Report, which I suppose it might be. However, InstaPundit has a couple of other observations.

• The Lefty Conspiracy: To draw fire away from Joe Wilson.
• The Righty Conspiracy: This makes it harder for Kerry to criticize Bush on National Security.

So we have three possible explanations/conspiracies for this leak. I don't know which one is true, but you sure can see Josh Marshall's bias by his leaping to a conclusion prior to having all the facts.

Update V: Here is a round up of links on this,

• Bird Dog at Tacitus
• Roger Simon
• VodkaPundit--quite hilarious
• Daniel Drezner
• Powerline

Now I did try some of the Lefty blogs (i.e., the ones on my blogroll), but none of them have posted on this yet.

Captain Ed rips the WaPo

Captain Ed dissects the spin in this Washington Post article on Sandy Berger's "inadvertent removal" of classified documents.

...it's difficult to see how anyone could "inadvertently" mix up handwritten notes with classified documents, especially when sticking them into one's jacket and pants. Furthermore, as Clinton's NSA, Berger would have been one of the people responsible for enforcing these regimens, not simply subject to them. The DOD makes these rules crystal clear during the clearance process at each level of access, and security officers (which Berger clearly was) undergo even further training and assessment on security procedures. "Inadvertent" and "sloppiness", in the real context of secured documentation, not only don't qualify as an excuse but don't even register as a possibility.

I agree with his assessment that it would be virtually impossible to inadvertently remove classified material, and Sandy Berger would definitely know the rules. I imagine that his attitude is that the rules don't matter to someone in his position. "I'm one of the people who determines how classified a document is [whether that's true or not], so the rules don't apply to me".

Josh Marshall smells a sinister plot.

However, it seems equally clear that the surfacing of this matter is the product of a malicious leak intended to distract attention from the release of the 9/11 commission report.

{snip}

The most obvious, and probably the only, explanation of this leak is that it is intended to distract attention from the release of the 9/11 report due later this week. That would be yet another example of this administration's common practice of using the levers of executive power (law enforcement, declassification, etc.) for partisan purposes.

How long until he clamors for a congressional investigation to get to the bottom of this dastardly leak? Afterall, getting to the bottom of a leak is more important than the contents of the leak itself.

Minimum Wage Update

Eric Rasmusen has an interesting post looking at the Landsburg article. I particularly like this part,

A second, bigger, problem with point (1) is the claim that a study which found no effect could not be published. The conventional wisdom is that the minimum wage does reduce employment, so we'd actually expect selection bias *the other way*. "The minimum wage reduces employment" is a "Dog bites man" story. "The minimum wage does not affect employment" is "Man bites dog". Card and Krueger got a lot of mileage out of their study precisely because the results were so counter to theory.

Which is a good point. A well done paper that debunks the conventional wisdom has some "shock" value and it might be more likely to be published. The rest of the post is well worth the read.

Senator Kerry...

...we'd like you to attend an intelligence briefing on terrorism. Hello Mr. Kerry?

Mr. Kerry, the Senate Sub-Committee report on intelligence is finished. Would you like a copy? Hello, Mr. Kerry...anybody there?

Consumption or Income?

When looking at the welfare for people which is the better measure? Right now there is quite a bit of talk about wages, income and so forth. The problem is that wages and income can give misleading results. Wages and income are at best a proxy for an individual's welfare. This notion is the topic of Arnold Kling's latest Tech Central Station article (via Daniel Drezner). Arnold notes that compared to the 1970's people are definitely better off even though incomes/wages might not have risen as much. How can this be? Well, prices change over time. Suppose your VCR breaks should you get it fixed or simply buy a new one? The price of VCRs is so low now you'll probably have a bit of trouble finding a repair shop. It the wage is constant (in real terms) and the price of goods either is the same or declines (in real terms) then consumers are strictly better off. It could even be the case that wages/income declines in real terms, but that welfare increases. This would be possible if the real prices decrease at a faster rate than wages/incomes decline.

So why use income? It is often rather easy to obtain income data vs. consumption data. If income increases then if prices are unchanged then welfare increases. But, just as people can be better off with declining prices and incomes, they can be worse off with increasing inomes and prices. If prices increase faster than income then people are worse off.

One of the problems with income is that it tends to be correlated with the business cycle. During a recession an individuals income could decline, but during that time consumption may not decline by as much. That is, consumers will try to smooth out the changes in income cause to consumption by saving and drawing down savings when necessary. So, the question isn't simply are incomes up or down, but are you better off. Income by itself may not answer that question. Something to keep in mind when listening to campaign rhetoric this election.

Irreproducible Economics

I promised David Tufte I'd link to this earlier...but then failed to do so. It is a very interesting post about the dismal state economics is in in terms of reproducing results. Often times data used in an empirical analysis is not even submitted. Sometimes the data is submitted, but the code used to generate the results is not. Sometimes the data isn't readable. Sometimes the software and OS are not noted. In short, only about 10% of published articles had results that were reproduced. I recommend reading the whole thing, especially if you are into economics.

Ricky West's Endorsement

Ricky is supporting President Bush for re-election and has chosen a unique way of doing it. He has made his first movie, and if you can download it by going to his site and following the instructions.

Carnival of the Capitalists

Check out all the business/economics posts at this weeks Carnival of the Capitalists.

Hans Herman-Hoppe on Monopoly

Well I finally started reading the chapter on production and monopoly in Hoppe's text A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. In particular I was interested in how Hoppe treats monopoly. As I feared, fairly early on Hoppe starts out the section on monopoly with a false claim,

Now it is fairly certain that someone will argue that while one would not doubt what has been stated so far, things would in fact be different and the deficiency of a pure market system would come to light as soon as one paid attention to the special case of monopolistic production. And by necessity, monopolistic production would have to arise under capitalism, at least in the long run. Not only Marxist critics but orthodox economic theorists as well make much of this alleged counter-argument.

Really? Not only Marxist critics, but orthodox economists? There is that time warp effect again. I don't know of too many orthodox economists who would argue that monopolies are a long run problem. In fact, most that I know would probably argue the opposite.

The next problem I have is really bizarre,

Monopolization means that some specific factor of production is withdrawn from the market sphere.

Uhhh, okay. If you want to define the problem of monopoly so stupidly that's fine with me, but at this point people like Hoppe, and guys like me are basically talking right past each other. To me a monopolist is a firm that is the sole supplier for some good. The good could be a factor of production in some other good, or it might be a consumer good. Thus, there is no need for this strange statement by Hoppe,

There is no trading of the factor, but there is only the owner of this factor engaging in restraint of trade. Now if this is so, then no market price exists for this monopolized production factor.

Basically it sounds to me like Hoppe is restricting himself to a special case of the problem where the firm in question has total control over one of its factors of production. This isn't really a monopoly problem as the firm could very well face a competitive market in whatever good(s) it is producing. The only way for there to be a monopoly problem is for the factor of production to be a necessary factor of production, i.e., you can't make the final good without this factor of production. In this case then there is a problem of monopoly in the final good(s) market. The rest of the paragraph strikes me as almost irrelevant ramblings. Hoppe seems to be trying to set up what sounds like a ludicrious situation. The monopolist has no way of valuing this factor of production save by offering it for sale on the market, but by offering it for sale on the market the monopolist undercuts his monopoly position. The reason this is irrelevant is because we don't see firms engaging in either type of behavior, but we do see firms monopolizing factors of production. Look at the music industry. A band is a factor of production in producing songs and albums. No band, no songs, and no album, and thus no money. Yet firms in the music industry routinely sign bands to exclusive contracts (i.e., monopolizing the bands) and thus enabling the firm to gain some control over the prices of things like CDs, concert tickets and so forth. Presumably these firms are profit maximizing.

The next paragraph is rather painful to read, but there is something in there that stands out. Hoppe is using a hypothetical to illustrate the point that even if there was a single super-monopolist (i.e., this monopolist owned all factors of production (and this super-monopolist is also monopsonist--i.e., sole buyer, with regards to labor) this isn't a bad thing. The reason it isn't a bad thing is because the monopolist clearly cannot make himself better off by selling off some or all of the factors of productiong because he would have done so (actually this is suspect as noted above). No other individual in the economy can make themselves better off by becoming a competitor to the monopolist because...and this is where it gets weird, because they would have done so. The problem is that there is no way to become a producer in this economy. The monopolist owns all factors of production save labor. Hence unless you are talking about something where labor can be the sole factor of production, then you cannot really engage in production. So this claim sounds dubious and so does the final claim, that this super-monopolist really isn't a bad thing.

Then in discussing monopoly price Hoppe makes reference to the above chain of reasoning,

Doesn’t a monopoly price imply a sub-optimal supply of goods to consumers, and isn’t there then an important exception from the generally superior economic working of capitalism to be found here? In a way this question has already been answered by the above explanation that even a super-monopolist establishing itself in the market cannot be considered harmful for consumers.

The problem is that the above chain of reasoning says nothing about the monopoly price and whether or not it would be lower or higher than the competitive price. Further, we have several reasons to suspect the chain of reasoning above.

Hoppe then goes on for several paragraphs talking about how the monopoly price cannot be observed or differentiated from a competitive price. Then miracuously Hoppe concludes that because we cannot differentiate a monopoly price from a competitive price (i.e., there is no way to claim a given price is a monopoly price) monopoly prices must therefore not be a bad thing. In other words, it looks very much like the absence of evidence has been transformed into evidence of absence.

Now it should be pointed out that in orthodox economic theory market power is indeed a hard thing to demonstrate. The problem is that demand curves and cost functions are not observable (to researchers or the businessmen). Hence there is no easy rule for determining when a firm is exercising market power and raising its price. Still, this does not mean that it does not happen. However, if it does happen it is likely to be a short term problem unless there is some barrier to entry, which is usually put in place by the government.

One example of this is intellectual property. Intellectual property is a good example of the government setting up a barrier to entry. For example, if I were to take a book by Hoppe, and copy it and then start mass producing it and selling it, I'd be in quite a bit of legal trouble. In short, there is no way for me to compete against Mr. Hoppe in selling his books. This leaves me wondering what the Austrian position is on intellectual property and the various lagal issues that create so many monopolies. Oh yeah, that's right they'd say the price is competitive. Sure, the price wouldn't decrease if suddenly the legal protections for these pieces of intellectual property were removed. Now...would you like to buy this bridge? I can give you a great deal....

Is This True

During the 9/11 hearings last April, 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman stated that ...it was the policy (before 9/11) and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory.--link

If this is true, then the bureaucrats responsible should be flogged publicly. All the while all bureaucrats in the Department of Transportation should be forced to watch the event. Afterwards the Laws of Probability are explained to these nimrods.

ECRI Weekly Leading Index

Is down again. After a slight reprieve last week, this week the index is down again.

"Despite the optimism of a rebound, this index is telling us that the current deceleration is likely to continue," the group's managing director Lakshman Achuthan told Reuters.

More on Public Goods and Externalities

There is still discussion on whether or not Hans Herman-Hoppe's treatment of public goods is legitimate or not (see this post). The issue seems to be is it legitimate to call private goods with a positive externality a public good (I suppose we can also include negative externalities and the policies to address such externalities). I have not seen an argument that makes a good case for this.

First, just because politicians are dishonest and use a sleight of hand to refer to private goods with external effects public goods is not justifcation for Hoppe using the same sleight of hand. The reason I say this is because, Hoppe isn't pointing out the sleight of hand, but is relying on himself to try and discredit the notion of public goods.

The other argument is that some public goods aren't public goods because one's utility form consuming the good declines as more people consume the good. The problem here is that this is another sleight of hand. The definition is not a decrease in utility, but a decrease in the good. When a good is a rival good, it means that when I consume it, somebody else cannot. A candybar is a rival good. When I consume it nobody else can. Roads do not have this quality. While I am driving on the road another person can still drive on the road as well. Granted the new driver might have to slow down, drive more cautiously, and due to increased wear and tear have a slightly more bumpy ride, but they are still consuming the good.

Another issue with roads is that the addition of another drive has a very, very low marginal impact. That is suppose I build a road from home to work. Now I get the benefit of driving on that road to and from work at a higher rate of speed than if there was no road. What is the cost of adding an additional driver on the road? The additional cost is quite low.

Another issue is the question of monopoly. Suppose a corporation buys all the roads in southern California. They are now a monopoly. Further, lets assume we've gotten rid of the Justice department and there are no more anti-trust laws. Now everybody will have to pay the monopoly price. Unless there is a competitor. However, this begs the question of will there be a competitor? I'm not convinced there will be. Get out a map and try to construct a road system that does not intersect any of the existing roads. Tough isn't it? Welcome to the world of natural monopolies with subadditive cost functions. Could roads be a natural monopoly? Maybe. Will the provision of roads be competitive? Unlikely. Go outside to your property where you house is. How many places can a road come up to your property? If you live out in the middle of the sticks you could probably have a few roads accessing your property. In an urband setting one...if your lucky.

Overall, I am not convinced that "privatizing all roads" will be a good thing in that it will not result in welfare improvements for most people. At the very least the transition to an anarcho-capitalist world is going to be a fairly lengthy one where such issues of what to do with roads is figured out. Now all that being said, it is quite possible that some roads can be privatized. Freeways are a prime example. There is only limited access to excluding others from consuming such goods is fairly easy. Also, in many areas there is a significant congestion problem suggesting that a positive price would be quite feasible. In fact, the revenues raised from such toll charges could be sufficient to cover the maintenance costs of the freeways.

Talk About Self-Parody

Former (thank God) Ambassador Wilson's website, RestoreHonest.com, is one the best examples of self-parody I've seen in a long time. That it appears completely unintentional makes it even better. The cherry on top of all this is the note at the bottom that the site is paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc.

Mr. Blonde's Garage

Jay Caruso is back blogging on his own with Mr. Blonde's Garage. Jay has closed down Classless Warfare, so update your links and so forth. Drop by and check out his new blog.

The CIA's Maximin Strategy

The International Herald Tribune has an interesting article on how the CIA liks to play it safe. Basically when in doubt play up the negative consequences of something. If it turns out there really is a problem, then the right people will be prepared to better deal with the issue. If it turns out there is no threat, then everybody can relax.

Or maybe not. The problem here is that there is a risk of putting people in harms way for no good reason at all. This part of the problem with Iraq. The war in Iraq was sold on the supposedly sound intelligence that there were weapons of mass destruction, but it now looks like hardly anything will be found.¹ Now while there were other good reasons for invading Iraq, such as establishing a democracy in the middle of the Middle East, getting rid of tyrant--a tryant who was killing his own people and could conceivably work with al Qa'ida. It is not clear that these reason would have been enough to justify going to war. But toss in the weapons of mass destruction and...well it becomes a different thing altogether. Going in and taking out a tyrant who has such weapons, has been known to take weird and risky gambles, and is a factor in the unstable nature of that region and for many people (myself included) the answer to the question of invasion changes.

Now the problem for me (and I'm sure others) is that all of this has left the current President vulnerable to an opposition candidate who strikes me as being much softer not only on the war in Iraq, but also the war on terror in general. Kerry spends a great deal of time talking about first responders. Which is fine, but it strikes me as being overly defensive. In any combat situation, you don't want to focus too much on defense, or too much on offense. You need both. Lapses in your defense present openings the opponent can exploit and regain the initiative. Too little offense and the opponent takes the initiative and attacks. What will Kerry do in terms of offense? Shore up alliances? Uhhh, okay, but that strikes me as rather vague. Talk about using the military abroad? Gee willikers, that sounds good, but how exactly? I don't need gory details, but something besides campaign sloganeering would be nice.

We get statements like this from the candidate,

"And as we protect America from danger at home - we will protect this country from danger abroad. I do not believe George Bush has done too much in the war on terror. I believe he's done too little. He has failed to maintain our post-9/11 global coalition, left our troops unprotected, and thought too little about the challenges we face. As President, I will use every tool at our disposal -- not only a strong military, but renewed alliances, vigorous law enforcement, reliable intelligence, and unremitting effort to shut down the flow of terrorist funds -- to fight the war on terror."--link

Yet this is the candidate who can't be bothered to read intelligence reports. This is not the first time something like this has come up either.

"If we're talking about the same intelligence that got us into this war in Iraq, why would we listen to them?" asks a Kerry campaign source. "The Senator has his own intelligence and security advisers who brief him regularly. This is just more political gamesmanship, and we aren't going to play."--Link

Granted it is an un-named source, but I find it rather...disquieting.

Then we have Kerry calling for a new strategy with regards to both the War on Terrorism and Iraq. After a long list of Bush's failures we are finally treated to what Kerry sees as the primary focus in the War on Terror,

John Kerry This Morning: “An Intelligent War on Terror” Necessitates Investment in Intelligence Gathering, Law Enforcement, Diplomacy, and Effective Use of the Military. MR. RUSSERT: “The war on terror is a law enforcement, not military...” SEN. KERRY: “No. I said ‘primarily.’ And here's why. If you don't know – if you're going to fight an intelligent war on terror, you don't want to fight it here in America. You do want to fight it abroad. You want to fight it where the cells are originating. And in order to know who they are, where they are, what they're planning and be able to go get them before they get us, you need the best intelligence, best law enforcement cooperation in the world. Now, I've always said once you know where they are, will you use the Delta Force or SEALs or Rangers or Special Forces of some kind? Absolutely. And I will not hesitate to use those forces effectively.… I think that I can fight a far more effective war on terror. I will build alliances and cooperation. I will make America safer. But I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation. It's an intelligence gathering, law enforcement, public diplomacy effort, and we're putting far more money into the war on the battlefield than we are into the war of ideas. We need to get it straight.” [John Kerry on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” 4/18/04]--emphasis added

So there it is. It isn't a War on Terror, it is a Diplomacy & Cops Sorta Thing Against Terrorists...kinda, sorta maybe.

In the end, I don't want a candidate who will take an overly defensive posture, consider terrorism a law enforcement issue, and doesn't take intelligence matters seriously.
______
¹Before anybody blows a gasket and says that reports such as David Kay's says there is nothing to find, please recall that Kay's report indicated there is unlikely to be any large stockpiles of WMDs found in Iraq.

Outrage Over Hillary Not Speaking

First he got into trouble by not having enough blacks at senior levels in his campaign staff. Now Kerry is enraging women by not giving Senator Clinton a speaking slot at the Democratic convention.

"It's a slap in the face, not personally for Hillary Clinton, but for every woman in the Democratic Party and every woman in America," said Judith Hope, a major party fund-raiser.

My guess is the thinking on this goes as follows.

1. New York is in the bag for Kerry, and
2. Democratic women are unlikely to switch to Bush this election, so who cares if they gat a little steamed about this.

If you aren't going to go vote for another candidate then your vote is taken for granted and you get treated less favorably than if you are a constituency that could swing either way.

Is This Hypocrisy Or What?

Okay, lets take the Lefties at their word and Bush is an idiot who knowingly led us down the primrose path to war based on bad intelligence...how can we take their candidate seriously when he does stuff like this?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic candidate John Kerry , whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush read a key Iraq intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.

How are we to know that Kerry isn't going to rely on the one page reports/summaries himself. As a Senator he can't even bring himself to read the report so he can vote intelligently on various bills that come before him. You'd almost think you were reading the Onion.

Senate Vote on FMA

I just heard it reported on the radio, the cloture vote to end debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment failed, 50 to 48. Sixty votes were needed to end debate and bring it to a final vote, which would have required 67 votes to pass.

Good.

The Instapundit has an interesting observation:

I wonder if people are thinking this through. If the amendment fails, as expected, isn't that going to be read as a defeat for the anti-gay-marriage folks, and as implicit permission for states to go ahead? It seems to me that it will be (which is fine with me, since I'm okay on gay marriage), but that makes me wonder why anti-gay-marriage folks are doing this. Am I missing something, or are they being played for suckers?

I dunno. The battle for / against gay marriage is being fought on the state level too, and might energize the opponents.

For example, Missouri has a constitutional amendment "protecting" marriage on the ballot, and I imagine that its proponents will use the senate vote as a rallying point. "The federal government isn't going to do anything about this, so we must act on the state level!" -- something like that.

UPDATE:

This CNN news article says that the vote was 48 in favor, which contradicts what I heard on ABC radio.

Nathan Newman Likes Stephen Roach

I found this post over at Nathan Newman's blog. Nathan has found an opinion piece where Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley is complaining about the quality of recent job growth. And since this can be spun badly for Bush, this is a good thing for Nathan. The gist of the article is what some in my comments section have been predicting for a few months now. That with fairly decent job growth int he payroll survey (last month excepted) the complaint would switch from "Where are the jobs?" to "What a bunch of McJobs!" But is this right? It is hard to say since there are lots of data series at places like BLS and one can go out and find data that supports one position fairly easily.

This point is made by one of Nathan's commenters who also points to this article at FactCheck.org.

Also, another thing to consider is this: When the job market finally turns around what jobs tend to show that turn around first? Could it be that the low pay/low skill jobs show the turn around first? If this is the case then isn't it a good thing for people in that part of the labor market? So much for Nathan being a man of the little people.

Anyhow, I went and looked at the payroll survey data and looked at the last recession. I looked for when there were 10 months of consistent positive job growth in the data. For the last recession this would be the from March of 1992 to December of 1992. The total number of jobs created in this time period was 1.117 million and the number of leisure and hospitality jobs (i.e., the McJobs) was 0.217 million. Looking for the same time period for the 2001 recession means looking at the dates September 2003 to June of 2004. The relevant numbers are 1.512 million jobs and 0.223 million Leisure and Hospitality jobs. The ratios for the two time periods of Labor and Hospitality jobs to total jobs are about 19% and 15% respectively.

Now the reason I picked 10 months of consistent job growth in the payroll survey is that after the last recession the job markets were very weak for a considerable stretch afterwards. Only the last 10 months of data has shown positive numbers. Still in looking at the data following the recession that ended in 1991 the data indicate that initially a large part of the job growth i