Joe R. McCray

Did you see that Marion Jones - described as a former Olympic star - turned herself in to start a sentence in Federal prison in Texas? SHe was convicted of lying to Federal investigators about her use of "performance-enhancing drugs" at the time she was winning gold medals and setting sprint records, as well as for having knoweldge of her boyfriend's scheme to cash millions worth of stolen and forged checks. She will do six months and suffer the ignominy of losing her Olympic medals. Does anyone know where Scooter Libby is? We know where he isn't, don't we? He isn't in a federal prison or serviing any sort of sentence for lying to investigators about his knowledge of who disclosed the identity of a Governmemt secret agent to the press. Such a disclosure is a felony under Federal law, isn't it? Do we know who it was that in fact did disclose Ms. Plame's job to the press? Was it Vice President Cheney, for whom Libby worked as chief of staff? Or, was it the president's chief political advisor, Karl Rove? Didn't Rove admit it? How come right wing columnist Robert Novak didn't get asked under oath to tell who gave him the information on Plame - wasn't he the first person to publish the fact? Novak didn't go to jail for failing to reveal his source because, on the record at least, he was never asked. Is there anyone that sees the unfairness of this situation? What would you say if I invited Marion Jones to dinner?

I am looking at an opinion piece published yesterday, February 27, by someone described as a "respected military analyst". It is similar in style to the many "candid assessments" of US military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The author, Anthony Cordesman, believes that the battles in both countries are "winnable", but that in both the United States has to make a more serious and long term commitment. If that doesn't happen, the author predicts we will lose in each. I will not dispute the reasoning of the piece for now, but I will pose these questions: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOSE IN IRAQ? In answering that one, someone should really decide what it means to WIN in Iraq? Cordesman does not answer either of these questions and neither has anyone else who talks about winning or losing in Iraq. Does winning mean some sort of Government that is friendly enough to the US to sell our companies all their oil? Conversely, does losing mean an Iraqis Government that is not friendly enough to sell US companies any of its oil? Is it necessary to rebuild Iraq in order to gain the friendship of a future government? Does winning in Iraq mean that the US Military may establish permanent bases there? If that is true, why do we want permanent bases? Will continued war in Iraq do anything to encourage peace between the Palestinians and the Jews? Can the US afford to win in Iraq? Would the definition of winning or losing in Iraq change if the US substantially reduced its dependence on foreign oil? Who dies for this victory? Who lives for this loss?

Having spent a large chunk of my life in and around collective bargaining, I am concerned about the proposals afloat about "universal healthcare" and the dismal recent history of wages. I am not expressing my preferences for either Democratic candidate for the nomination when I observe that Senator Obama's healthcare proposal is not acceptable to me and won't ultimately be acceptable to most people. It cannot achieve universal care and allows private insurance to have too much to say about who gets and who does not get medical care. Most importantly, unless health insurance premiums are removed from the collective bargaining arena, the American worker will likely never get a real wage increase - he/she will just conitnue to pay for ever increasing medical costs. Some sort of payment - whether one calls it a "premium" or a "tax" - may be a deduction from pay checks, but health care should not be negotiated with the employer. To the extent that it is, wages are reduced because the employer will ultimately pay only the total amount for a worker that allows him/her to make a profit. If healthcare is handled like - not identically like - Social Security or Medicare, the worker's compensation package is only indirectly impacted and to a far less degree than it is now. At least a portion of the money now allocated by the employer to pay for healthcare under negotiated plans can thus be redirected to the wage line.

The Bush administration has for years asserted it is making Americans safer through security policies and military operations. Public safety, however, would seem to encompass more than shoe removal in an airport security line or shooting people in Iraq. The Supreme Court just ruled that manufacturers of an allegedly defective medical device cannot be sued for the damages done by the defect if the FDA has certified it ( the device) as safe. If the FDA does a real bad job analyzing the safety of a device, then how secure may we now feel about medical devices? If you are a president that doesn't believe in regulating private enterprise, and opposes civil tort lawsuits, then haven't achieved your objectives by this Supreme Court ruling? Rather, as manufacturers have done for years, opposing review of your product by the FDA or the National Transportation Safety Administration or such, won't you now race to have the products reviewed and certified safe in order to immunize you from responsibility for dangerous products? If manufacturers are in this way absolved of responsibility, then how safe are we?

It seems there is a serious disconnect between the conduct of high government officials and what, at least, this writer would call the appearance of justice. The "appearance of justice" is most often actual justice, but it is always conduct by government leadership that appears to the average person "just conduct". Thus, when a Justice of the Supreme Court decides a case in which his son's law firm represetnts a litigant - particularly when that case decides who will be president of the United States, the averge guy might suspect the Justice was not completely unbias in the matter. When Government awards a multi-billion dollar contract to a firm for which the Vice President of the Country was recently the Chief Executive Officer and who still gets remuneration from that company, the average guy might think the vice president influenced the award of that contract for his own benefit. These things appear not to be just. There are many other examples with this Administration, but only a few days ago the previsouyl described and not named Justice of the Supreme Court shotoff his mouth publicly with sufficient gusto to mkake it clear - he really doesn't give a damn about the appearance of justice, nor, apparently, any recognizable form of justice. Justice Antonin Scalia told an interviewer from the BBC that torture in the face of imminent threat could not ber cruel and unusual punishment. It is not reported in the piece I read whether the justice thought that torture in the face of so-called imminent threat deprived the suspect of his right to due process of law, but it seems pretty clear the justice would not subscribe to that notion either. Quite aside from the barbarity of the opinion, it signals the Justice's decision on cases that are pending but not yet submitted to his court for decision. So, Mr. Justice Scalia, what was the point of the trial, the appeal and all that fuss with evidence and logic - you've made your decision and thereby dropped any notion of appearing to be just.

With every combination of justices, the Court needs new scrutiny. Toobin, best selling author of other political and legal tracts, provides our time with this one - bringing to the effort sound legal reasoning and more or less deft political insight. I am recommending this book highly because it is so clearly written, if occasionally in hedging prose.
Toobin reveals the warts of Sandra Day O'Conner and celebrates her valued role as the swing vote and recruitment by the Court's "left". He does the same with Stephen Breyer, David Souter and the late William Rehnquist. There's not a lot of good one can say about Justices Scalia, Thomas or Kennedy - and Toobin doesn't strain himself to find anything. The probing honesty of John Paul Stevens on the nation's most crucial issues that have come before the Court and the mental acuity of Ruth Bader Ginsburg are laid out sympathetically and prominently.
How the Court changed in what Toobin characrterizes "left' and "right"- politically speaking - is the course of the book. He dramatically recounts the almost lurid details of the Court's inteference with the electoral process of the 2000 presidential election - contrary to anything suggested by the Constitution, they chose a president and prevented the completion of the vote count.
How we will be, like how we were, is determined in important part by the Supreme Court. A book that should be read for that reason.

Having concluded some months ago that we Americans are not so stupid as to again vote for a Repiubican President, I embraced the assumption that the next president would be a Democrat. Are the Democrats about to blow up that assumption? Is either currently leading candidate capable of setting aside their vanity - with its tubular vision - and drop the attack on the other? What does it mean when Senator Clinton's campaign manager says they will take the fight all the way to the convention? It may be one thing if there is a good faith tie in the popularly voted delegates, but isn't it quite another when one side bashes the other side so as to unfairly influence that popular vote? Isn't it also another thing to threaten a popular majority with the personal judgment of the "automatic delegates"? Aren't there a number of ways the Democratic Party can assure a Republican victory - the most likely is a deep division within its ranks caused by personal vanity?

The revelations in Philip Shenon's book discussed here in the last blog ( and inadvertently not cited) are causing a stir. (The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission, 457pp, Twelve.) Dan Froomkin in Monday's Washington Post provides additional details both from the book and apparently his own investigation. There were stark clues of the Administration messing with the work of the Commission not long after it was appointed, so how come the press did not scrutinize? Wasn't this Commission opposed by the Administration? Why wasn't the media - TV, print press or radio - all over the known issues raised by the appointment of Zelikow? Was the Commission supposed to answer questions about the event that defined, at least, the decade? Thousands of American lives, billions ( and maybe trillions) of American dollars were spent on the impetus of the tragedy of 9/11, wasn't the answer about how that happened monumentally important to the nation? Why not push, dig or whatever verb that describes the effort to determine the integrity of the Commission's work? If the Report is less than truthful, if it fails to disclose the factgs of accountability, how can it be trusted for any purpose? Has there been any public interview with Keane, Hamilton or Bob Kerry? Shouldn't there be?

Apparently, a credible reporter has written a book that details the corruption of the vaunted 9/11 commission, charged with investigating and reporting on how the 9/11/01 attack happened. The Commission's report and recommendations has served as a blueprint for Congressional policy since it was made public. With this book, we discover that these Commission products were likely corrupted by the Administration's efforts to minimize the disclosure of its incompetence. Is this another instance of Congress being less than curious when the Commission co-chairs appeared before it? Weren't there plenty of clues available following the attack that the Administration was amazingly incompetent? As an example, why weren't the FBI reports of such ominous things as foreign Arab nationals getting training to fly large passenger aircraft taken seriously at the time? The Commission's report was not released until the fall of 2004 - too late to have an impact on the presidential election of that year. Why? Wouldn't that fact , by itself, have caused somebody with a modicum of intelligence to question the bona fides of the Commission? Apparently, this book details that a lot of people knew that Phillip Zelikow, the Executive Director of the Commission, was likely to be carrying the Administration's water while doing his duties for the Commission. Why wasn't that run to ground before the report

Everyone and his next of kin has reviewed this movie, but I thought I could add something as a retired trial lawyer who did work for victim's of dangerous products ( cars, trucks and tobacco). The essence of the story told here is an examination of the ethics of the people that run our modern world. George Clooney plays a "fixer" for a large law firm that represents an agricultural chemical manufacturer in a lawsuit claiming the client's products kill. The firm's star trial lawyer finds the smoking gun and its puts him over the top - spilling in an emotional breakdown that - unmedicated - makes him dangerous to everyone that counts in the slimey world of the American legally and economically powerful. Clayton ( Clooney) is dispatched to reign in the off-the-reservation star ( I know, mixed methaphors). Things get out of hand when a terribly anxious chief counsel for the client undertakes a felonious course to protect her employer and something I can't quite identify. This woman, Tilda Swinton, was magnificently persuasive in this role. Splaying Karen's guilt just outside the ballrooms lit with gawdy plastic lights in turns rips off the charade of respectability going on in a meeting of the Board of Directors.

Between Lou Dobbs of CNN and a PBS panel last night, I am moved to ask questions about immigration and. most particularly, illegal immigrants from Mexico. Does anyone seriously believe that we (USA) can prosecute all of the estimted 11 or 12 million illegal immigrants in this country? Does anyone believe that these are really bad people, rather than people looking for an honest way to make a living? Can we tell the difference between staying here in violation of USA immigration laws and honestly working to feed oneself and family? Don't these people who come here take harrowing chances with their lives in the process of leaving their home? Would the immigrant entering and staying in violation of USA immigration laws take such chances if they could make a decent living in their own country? What has the USA done to encourage substantial improvement in labor standards in, as an example, Mexico? Isn't the North American Free Trde Agreement devoid of any enforceable labor standards? If the USA told the Mexican Government that it would void NAFTA unless it agreed to much improved labor standards, wouldn't that go a long way toward reducing the flow of illegl immigrants into the USA? Wouldn't people who are here illegally return to their home in Mexico if they could have better jobs? Isn't this a better policy than criminalizing and wall building?

The announcement this morning that John Edwards is dropping his bid for the Democrtic nomination is very disturbing.  Is this a result of Edwards getting virtually no national media attention?  Did the press find it more attractive to report on inconsequential bickering between Clinton and Obama, than the substantive challenges that Edwards made to both of them and the system of political bribery?  Did Edwards - more than Clinton or Obama - threaten the established order of power?  If a credible presidential candidate refuses to take money from large corporations and lobbyists for the powerful,  to what extent will those people try to stop that candidate?   Will the twenty-first century in American politics see the honest and candid office seeker rise over the old-stsyle prevaricator that says what we want to hear but does what they pay for? 

All three leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for President seem to be having difficulty shedding the Imperialistic approach to foreign policy that GWB put over the top.  Is this because we Americans- as a society - have not given up on world domination?  Are the polls indicating a dim view of the war in Iraq effective only for Iraq?  Is there a way for us as a Nation to recognize that we evolved from devoted monarchists and slaveholders to the grandest democracy in history and others must be allowed to do the same thing? Can we adopt our notion of 'even break' to our foreign policy and otherwise stay out of the way of internal struggles for freedom?  Is it persuasive in a world forum to take the position that only America's allies can have nuclear weapons?   Can't we play a bigger role in Nuclear Disarmament other that threatening to blow up non-allies who acquire a nuclear capability?

Reflecting on Paul Krugman's column today in the NYT,  I am bothered by the apparent ascendancy of Barack Obama to the Democrtic nomination for President.  Did he overreact to the digs delivered by President Clinton and Senator Clinton? Does he have a thin skin such that the attacks by the Swift Boaters and mindless rightwingers will divert him from a substantive message?  If this tenderness of feelings does divert him,  doesn't that endanger his election?  If he loses the election,  doesn't that mean he won't be available to us as a seasoned and tougher leader in the future?  If he is elected President,  can he handle the desperate resisitance of the Republican Party?  Looking at what happened after Clinton was lected in 1992, is it really likely that a Washington first timer can get the cooperation of Republicans, pundits and the like to forge a substantive program? 

Although not prepared to sort out the entirety of the labyrinth that is CitiGroup,  it is clear that CitiBank is an investment bank and a bank-bank. Its Chief executive officer is Robert Rubin - President Clinton's former chief economic advisor and his Secretary of the Treasury in Clinton's second term.  Mr. Rubin is also apparently the chief economic advisor to Mrs. Clinton's candidacy for president.  Hasn't CitiBank suffered billions in losses ( write-offs) recently?  Doesn't the company attribute much of the reason for these losses to the failure of the "subprime' market?  Isn't Rubin responsible for that failure and those losses?  Given Mr. Rubin's record of a passion for the global economy and, in particular the North American Free Market Agreement,  can't we conclude that Mrs. Clinton would, if elected, lead us down pathes that have got us in such serious economic trouble now?