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When the NBA scandal hit the front pages I have to say I wasn’t surprised. Any hoops junkie who has followed the pros for some time has to admit they have had their doubts about the officiating. I even heard someone say it was getting like the WWF. I say this as a hoops junkie whose creds include coaching plus having a son who was co-captain of his college team and is now directing hoops camps in the DC area.

The bigger picture is how this scandal fits like a puzzle piece with other sports scandals and what is being revealed as one of the more scandal-ridden administrations in quite awhile. George Bush, the Republican Party and David Stern share something in common, something that reveals much about why our country’s international standing has plummeted in everything from Olympic basketball to world diplomacy.

Let’s start with the NBA. In it interesting that the scandal of one referee’s problems has eclipsed an earlier, more serious scandal. In May of this year, Joseph Price of the Department of Economics at Cornell University and Justin Wolfers of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania issued a study that found racial bias in NBA referees:

We find that—even conditioning on player and referee fixed effects (and specific game fixed effects)—that more personal fouls are awarded against players when they are officiated by an opposite-race officiating crew
than when officiated by an own-race refereeing crew. These biases are sufficiently large that we find appreciable differences in whether predominantly black teams are more likely to win or lose, according to the racial composition of the refereeing crew.

The two noted:

Fouls are less likely to be awarded against white players officiated by predominantly white than with predominantly black refereeing crews.

The study was quickly reputed by NBA officials who said their own data showed otherwise. Three experts hired by the New York Times agreed the Wolfers and Price paper was “more sound.”

It has been an open secret for years that the refereeing of professional games leaves something to be desired. There have been a few attempts to demonstrate an actual policy condoning some of these questionable practices but nothing has been proven.

Yet you don’t have to be a coach or scout to see there are some serious issues. For example, there is what some coaches I know refer to as the “NBA extra step,” meaning the additional step beyond what the rules allow routinely given to pro players driving towards the basket. In high school or college games the “NBA extra step” would draw a whistle, but in the “Showtime” atmosphere Stern has cultivated in the NBA not allowing the extra step means cutting down on those spectacular dunks by the likes of LeBron James, Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant that make the ESPN highlights and enthrall even the most casual fan.

The there is the “NBA carry.” For the uninitiated a carry is literally what it says: instead of bouncing the ball the player cups it in his hands. This can provide a great advantage when making cuts or executing a cross-over. Pro players get away with this as much as they do with the extra step. In a Sports Illustrated story on the sports scandals an NBA assistant remarked:

Every player in this league carries, [Officials] just choose not to call it.

Again in the world that is “Showtime” penalizing carrying cuts down on the moves players like Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade or Tony Parker can make to get them open to make those gravity-defying dunks. Sometimes you have two violations on the same play.

Finally there is the widely recognized “Superstar dividend.” Basketball is the only major sport where a player can foul out of a game. When “Showtime” rules you do not want your star attractions on the bench. The 2006 NBA finals generated much talk about this when it appeared all you had to do was breathe on Dwyane Wade and the whistle would blow. What to do with Shaquille O’Neal has been a subject of conversation ever since he entered the league.

Unfortunately “Showtime” has not fared well in international competition, managing to eke out a bronze medal in the last Olympics where they lost three games–more than in the previous 68 years. For the forthcoming Peking Olympics what was once known as the “Dream Team” has been forced to qualify. Various explanations and excuses have been offered for our poor performance, so let me add one more–the NBA’s refereeing.

A great case study is the performance of superstar Tim Duncan in the last Olympics. Few would argue that Duncan is one of the greatest players to ever put on a uniform, but he struggled badly without friendly league officials. He ended up spending an undue amount of time on the bench because of foul trouble. Ditto for players called for the extra step and carrying. Showtime became Notime. As for Duncan he had enough. After the Olympics he said:

I am about 95 percent sure my FIBA [acronym for international basketball association] career is over. I’ll try not to share my experiences with anyone.

The leap from professional basketball to the Capitol dome does not require a forty-inch vertical. All you have to do is say the magic word, “Abramoff.” This convicted lobbyist and former buddy of anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, was given the equivalent of the “NBA extra step.” Then like the NBA referee scandal his life began to unravel along with the lives of Congressional pals he had wined and dined and flown on various junkets.

Now the biggest scandal of all is unraveling–the Iraq War. We now know the evidence presented to justify the War was as flimsy as the extra step in a rim-rattling dunk. The NBA carry became Cash’N'Carry as contractors operating in Iraq took the ball and ran with it. As for the “Siperstar dividend,” George Bush, Dick Cheney and company still feel they have some executive privilege which allows them to get away with illegal moves.

Like our basketball team in international competition, the Bush Administration has not fared well in the international diplomatic arena. The latest to express doubts about the administration are none other than George I Bush’s favorite clients–the Saudis.

Lastly there is the elephant in the room, race. The study of NBA official’s racial bias curiously echoes the attempts that have been made to suppress and challenge the votes of people of color in the last two presidential elections. The crowning moment came last summer when Republicans tried to block the renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

Greg Palast has probably done the most investigative work in the area of minority voter suppression. In a recent report “Masscre of the Buffalo Soldiers” he charges:

A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts.

Both the NBA and the Bush Administration symbolize the larger ethos of the last eight years, an ethos I term the Counterrevolution. The Counterrevolution’s central aim is to roll back the programs and regulations of the New Deal, programs and regulations designed to keep the playing field level. In the view of the Counterrevolution the referees–in this case the government–are the problem because they inhibit the domestic and international equivalents of Showtime.

With the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan, Republican control of the White House and Congress, the feeling grew that the equivalents of the extra step, the carry, and the superstar dividend were good for the country just as they were good for the NBA. Those who had seats in Congress or on Wall Street began behaving like sports superstars. America began behaving internationally as it was domestically.

Now people have begun to see how far the Counterrevolution has tilted the playing field. It will now be up to us to insure it tilts no further. Then comes the difficult task of restoring integrity to the game. One of the experts hired by the New York Times to study the referee bias study had the best final words:

It’s not about basketball — it’s about what happens in the world.

Tagged with: Abramoff • African_Americans • Allen_Iverson • black_voter_supression • Bush_administration • david_stern • Dean • Dick_Cheney • dream_team • dwyane_wade • ESPN • grover_norquist • Iraq_War • Iraq_war_profiteering • kobe_bryant • Latino_voters • LeBron_James • level_playing_field • NBA • nba_referee_scandal • New_York_Times • racial_bias_nba_referees • Ralph_Reed • Republican_Counterrevolution • Saddam_Hussein • shaquille_oneal • tim_duncan • tony_parker • United_States_Supreme_Court • voting_rights • voting_rights_act

The previous post outlined the intellectual bankruptcy of some of America’s billionaires along with “the back to the 1890s” philosophy of the Republican Counterrevolution. What that post did not tell you is what the consequences haven been of the New Gilded Hypocrites. These were notes in a previous post which cited a study by Emmanual Saez and Thomas Picketty.

What they found is best explained in their letter to the Wall Street Journal.

Our work has shown the top 1% income share has increased dramatically in recent decades and has reached levels which had not been seen since before World War II and even since before the Great Depression when including capital gains.

The letter estimates:

the top 1% disposable income share has most likely more than doubled since 1980.

And we all know who became president in 1980, marking the beginning of the GOP Counterrevolution.

This leads to the teaser question for this Tuesday: What is the major factor the two believe “mechanically exacerbated the discrepancy in disposable income between the rich and the rest of us?”

A hint: the answer is in a previous post.

Another hint: The Democrats have wimped out on this issue for two decades.

As last week, the first winning answer gets a free post.

BTW, no citation, that would make it too easy. It’s in the post also.

Have fun researching.

LAST WEEK’S ANSWER: Last week’s question asked about the connection between Bill Clinton, Andrew Carnegie, FDR and Sanford Weill. That answer appeared in yesterday’s post. No one even took a shot at it.

Tagged with: Andrew_Carnegie • billionaires • Bill_Clinton • capital_gains • discrepancy • disposable_income • FDR • Great_Depression • income_share • intellectual_bankruptcy • more_than_doubled_since • Sanford_Weill • Wall_Street_Journal

“The Brains” Thomas Nast

Recently Louis Uchitelle, one of the New York Times’ best writers, ran a story on America’s super rich. For me the story opened a window into the minds of those who run some of our largest corporations, a window few Americans have ever looked into. A glance through the clouded pane reveals the dim outlines of Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt, the Glass-Steagall Act and a revealing glimpse of the Republican Counterrevolution. But to truly understand what is revealed requires a journey into the past to meet a tycoon from an earlier age, Andrew Carnegie.

The story coyly begins with a walk down the “Wall of Fame” of one of these billionaires, Sanford I. Weill, who according to Uchitelle made “Citigroup into the most powerful financial institution since the House of Morgan a century ago.”

The carpeted hallway leading to Weill’s office is lined with tributes to him, including a dozen framed magazine covers. The major trophy is the pen Bill Clinton used to sign the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a move which allowed Weill to create Citigroup. More on that in a bit.

From his description of Weill’s office, Uchitelle’s story goes on to cunningly let today’s tycoons hang themselves with their own words. Those words reveal three major contradictions in their justifications for their wealth, contradictions which make our current tycoons Gilded Hypocrites.

HYPOCRISY # 1: I DID IT BY MYSELF (WITH THE PRESIDENT’S HELP)

One theme the billionaire’s echo stresses that everything they earned they earned because of their own efforts. Here is Weill:

People can look at the last 25 years and say this is an incredibly unique period of time. We didn’t rely on somebody else to build what we built, and we shouldn’t rely on somebody else to provide all the services our society needs.

Weill conveniently forgets that pen hanging on his Wall of Me. Bill Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagall wiped out one of the most important pieces of New Deal legislation. In the 1930s, many believed that runaway banks helped cause the Great Depression. Glass-Steagall forbid banks from getting into the investment business.

Clinton’s pen illustrates a tremendous shift in the Democratic Party from Franklin Roosevelt’s party of the “forgotten man” to the New Democrats who wobble down the middle of a constantly shifting road, from a party that believed in a level playing field to one that worships “triangulation.”

It also symbolizes a shift in the Republican Party which in the 1980s took a hard turn to the right driven by a Counterrevolution designed to wipe out the New Deal and legislation like Glass-Steagall. While Counterrevolutionary strategists like Karl Rove view the McKinley years as a golden age, today’s billionaires have a different perspective than the plutocrats of the 1890s.

Where the tycoons of the 1890s disdained most government aid (Carnegie and others did use it to bust unions), today’s CEOs have a different view. Far from being self-made man, Weill was revealed in a Frontline report on the repeal of Glass-Steagall as someone not averse to pleading for help from none other than the President of the United States.

Frontline pointed to an October 21, 1999 deadlock of the House-Senate conference committee charged with working out the final details of the legislation.

Sandy Weill calls President Clinton in the evening to try to break the deadlock after Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, warned Citigroup lobbyist Roger Levy that Weill has to get White House moving on the bill or he would shut down the House-Senate conference. Serious negotiations resume, and a deal is announced at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 22. Whether Weill made any difference in precipitating a deal is unclear.

So the owner of the Hall of Me made a personal call to the President of the United States to ask for his help in passing legislation that would enable his company to become the largest financial institution in the world.

Could you or I do that? Could the poor people still suffering from Katrina? Or what about people suffering in the home mortgage scandals?

As for many of the other billionaires, former Federal reserve Chairman Paul Volcker told Uchitelle far from earning their money:

The great fortunes today are largely a result of the long bull market in stocks.

That bull market enabled CEOs to make huge fortunes on stock options, fortunes that had nothing to do with their performance.

HYPOCRISY #2: I WORK FOR THE FUN OF IT (AS LONG AS I GET PAID A LOT)

The second line the billionaires fed Uchitelle was:

I worked because I loved what I was doing.

Kenneth C. Griffin, who received more than $1 billion last year as chairman of a hedge fund, the Citadel Investment Group, declared:

The money is a byproduct of a passionate endeavor.

Later on when asked about the income tax Griffin squelched that idea with a curious defense:

I am proud to be an American. But if the tax became too high, as a matter of principle I would not be working this hard.

HYPOCRISY 3#: I AM THE BEST IN THE WORLD AT WHAT I DO (BECAUSE I GET PAID THE MOST)

Today’s Gilded Hypocrites like to analogize their feats to those of professional athletes. One told Uchitelle that he was a unique talent like “Derek Jeter.” James D. Sinegal, chief executive of Costco, the discount retailer, has a different perspective:

Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company. ‘The message is that all brilliance emanates from the top; that the worker on the floor of the store or the factory is insignificant.

HANGING THEMSELVES

By their own accounts today’s CEOs are among Ameerica’s best and brightest. Yet a clever veteran reporter who recently completed a major book on corporate layoffs hands them the strands which they use to knit a rope that ends up hanging them. Their egos and arrogance cover even the inconsistencies in their own words.

I doubt they even see them as inconsistent. If these CEOs are the equivalent of Derek Jeter then they seem to have a talent for putting their feet in their mouths. It makes you wonder how many people they knifed in the back or used and then threw away to get where they are.

They remind me of one of Shakespeare’s classic stock characters–the half-braggart, half-buffoon, who appears in comedy and tragedy alike to provide comic relief. Fittingly one is turned into an ass in Midsummer Nights Dream and another is hanged in Henry V.

If this is what it takes to run a major corporation these days then a very manipulative caveman could do it! Rather than convince us they are indispensable,these men convince us they are indefensible. The meaning of the Wall of Me becomes clearer for deep down these are insecure people whose insecurities come from knowing they are indefensible.

THE REAL GILDED AGE TYCOONS

The plutocrats of the Gilded Age are often falsely stereotyped as men of action who cared little for anything intellectual. Yet what some at the time called “the captains of industry” seem veritable fonts of ideas and culture when placed next Weill and company.

While I deeply disagree with the ideas of men like Rockefeller and Carnegie, they at least mounted an intellectual defense of their actions and had a commitment to education, culture and philanthropy that shames the Gilded Hypocrites.

Many of Gilded Age plutocrats started out poor and uneducated. This engendered in them a deep appreciation for culture and education. Most Americans today know of Carnegie’s endowment of libraries and Henry Clay Frick’s support for the arts, but can you name any charitable achievements of today’s Gilded Hypocrites, other than the work of the Gates Foundation? Where are the Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Frick Foundations of our current billionaires? Why doesn’t Weill’s Wall of Me include anything about his philanthropy?

Perhaps the most famous justification of the 19th century tycoons is Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth,” an essay he published in the North American Review under the title “Wealth.” The intellectual foundation for “Wealth” is today referred to as Spencerism, after the British philosopher Herbert Spencer who popularized what became known as “survival of the fittest” Social Darwinism. Carnegie’s most-quoted exposition of this comes about one-third of the way into his essay:

The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great;but the advantage of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. But, whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred : It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department.

Even more famous is the phrase “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced,” which concludes his essay. Before that he precisely outlines how the rich should contribute to the community:

The best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.

His list includes, parks for recreation, works of art and public institutions to “improve the general condition of the people.”

Less known are the portions of “Wealth” that would probably cause today’s Gilded Hypocrites to choke on the contents of their Walls of Me. The first is a long paragraph about the kind of life the wealthy should lead. Carnegie believed the first duty of the wealthy was:

To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him.

Even less known is Carnegie’s enthusiastic support for estate taxes:

The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion.

COMPARING TYCOONS AND CEOS

Comparing “Wealth” to the stunted intellectual and moral development of today’s Gilded Hypocrites reveals that while Carnegie felt the rich had an obligation to help those less fortunate, this sentiment never escaped the lips of those Uchitelle interviewed. Today’s super rich apparently have less social conscience than the so-called Robber Barons.

The only justification the Gilded Hypocrites can muster is to point out that the global economy demands people like them. Weill even says we need to be more like India and China, two rising economic powers. The Gilded Hypocrites openly threaten to take their billions and go elsewhere if we ever raise their taxes, a move most associated with Third World autocrats who put their money in Swiss banks and, if they are lucky, end up in exile in some island paradise.

While the economic achievements of China and India are prodigious, I do not think the average America worker has any desire to lead the life of a Chinese or Indian worker. That step backward would return us to piece work, sweatshops, and slave-like work environments.

The Republican Counterrevolution has made little secret of its desire to roll back the programs and policies of the New Deal, but until reading the words of today’s CEOs , I had little idea that turning back the clock meant turning it back not to the 1890s, but to the 1840s.

If this is the vision of the future the Gilded Hypocrites and the GOP have for America I want nothing of it. The question then becomes what do the Democrats want? Does Hillary Clinton support her husband’s repeal of Glass-Steagall? What is the position of the rest of the field on how to deal with the Gilded Hypocrites? Do they agree with Carnegie about the estate tax?

Currently only John Edwards seems to be making the outrages of the Gilded Hypocrites a campaign issue. Yet the public’s anger at the salaries of sports superstars seems to suggest they also have an anger for the out-of-control salaries of the Gilded Hypocrites. The Democrats would do well to remember this.

Tagged with: Andrew_Carnegie • banking_regulation • Bill_Clinton • Bill_Gates • Citigroup • derek_jeter • FDR • Frick • Gilded_Age • Glass_Steagall_Act • gospel_of_wealth • Great_Depression • Hillary_Clinton • John_D_Rockefeller • John_Edwards • New_Deal • Republican_Counterrevolution • rush_limbaugh • thomas_nast • Tiger_Woods

Undoubtedly one of the most celebrated films about Washington politics is Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Some people may find the story of a naive young man who wants to start a boys’ camp and ends up a United States Senator dated and a bit sentimental, but to me it is still one of America’s greatest films and this comes from someone who in another incarnation was in the first group of American Film Institute fellows. To properly set the scene for what is one of the great sequences and speeches in American cinema requires a brief plot synopsis.

Jefferson Smith (played by James Stewart who would later star in Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life) finds himself appointed to replace a senator who died suddenly. A local hero for singlehandedly putting out a forest fire and the state head of the Boy Rangers, Smith (note the symbolic first name) wants to found a boys’ camp that will teach the values of citizenship. The Tammany Hall-like political machine that controls the state thinks his boyish idealism will make him easy to manipulate.

The machine, which is under control of one Boss Taylor, who pulls the strings of most of the elected puppets in his state, wants only one thing out of Smith: that he will vote to pass a Deficiency Bill that contains funds for a pork barrel dam that will enrich Taylor and his cronies, a dam that will be on the same site Smith has chosen for his camp.

Smith naively has no clue about the ticking time bomb in the Deficiency Bill, until his loyal legislative aide Saunders, played by Jean Arthur in one of her best roles, informs him that he is being played for a sucker. Smith is so disillusioned that he decides to leave Washington. On his way out of town he stops at the Lincoln Memorial where Saunders convinces him to stay and fight Taylor, plotting what she calls a “forty foot dive into a tub of water.” When the bill comes to the floor, Smith will filibuster it.

Capra’s direction of the filibuster sequence, which lasts almost half the movie, is generally recognized by film experts as one of the great sequences ever to come out of Hollywood. Capra’s cutting back and forth between Stewart’s seemingly quixotic struggle (one reporter in the movie even says Smith is tilting at windmills) and the reactions of the rest of the country remains a textbook example of the power of great editing. As for Stewart and Arthur, this sequence will establish them as two of Hollywood’s greats as they play off one of Hollywood’s premier character actors, Thomas Mitchell, who would win an Oscar that year for his role in Stagecoach. Often using high angle shots from the Senate gallery as if the camera were sitting there with the press and other visitors, Capra pulls out all the stops as Stewart’s eloquence increases even as his voice deteriorates to an elemental croak and his eyes seem to sink into his skull like a man already in the shadows.

Everyone who had anything to do with this scene knows the tightrope they are walking on, for if they play it too broad they are liable to lose balance and if they play it too casually the drama will drain from this titanic struggle. Capra forces his audience to walk the same tightrope, for as you watch Smith passionately defend the ideals of American democracy, you too must decide whether you have become too cynical to be moved by the speech. Do those values seem quaint, even irrelevant, or do they still hold the power to move you? Is Smith as naive and simplistic as the Taylor minions think he is? Who is more realistic, Paine or Smith?

You decide:

[After reading the Declaration of Independence] Now, you’re not gonna have a country that can make these kind of rules work, if you haven’t got men that have learned to tell human rights from a punch in the nose. [The Senate applauds] It’s a funny thing about men, you know. They all start life being boys. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if some of these Senators were boys once. And that’s why it seemed like a pretty good idea for me to get boys out of crowded cities and stuffy basements for a couple of months out of the year. And build their bodies and minds for a man-sized job, because those boys are gonna be behind these desks some of these days. And it seemed like a pretty good idea, getting boys from all over the country, boys of all nationalities and ways of living. Getting them together. Let them find out what makes different people tick the way they do. Because I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a - a little lookin’ out for the other fella, too…

That’s pretty important, all that. It’s just the blood and bone and sinew of this democracy that some great men handed down to the human race, that’s all. But of course, if you’ve got to build a dam where that boys camp ought to be, to get some graft to pay off some political army or something, well that’s a different thing. Oh no! If you think I’m going back there and tell those boys in my state and say: ‘Look. Now fellas. Forget about it. Forget all this stuff I’ve been tellin’ you about this land you live in is a lot of hooey. This isn’t your country. It belongs to a lot of James Taylors.’ Oh no! Not me! And anybody here that thinks I’m gonna do that, they’ve got another thing comin’… I hate to stand here and try your patience like this, but EITHER I’M DEAD RIGHT OR I’M CRAZY.

His voice very hoarse, from his filibuster] Just get up off the ground, that’s all I ask. Get up there with that lady that’s up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won’t just see scenery; you’ll see the whole parade of what Man’s carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so’s he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That’s what you’d see. There’s no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. And, uh, if that’s what the grownups have done with this world that was given to them, then we’d better get those boys’ camps started fast and see what the kids can do. And it’s not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light. They’re right here; you just have to see them again!

I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don’t know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them. Because of just one plain, simple rule: “Love thy neighbor.”

Tagged with: American_democracy • American_justice • Capitol_dome • Declaration_of_Independence • filibuster • Frank_Capra • human_rights • James_Stewart • Jean_Arthur • liberty • lost_causes • mr_smith_goes_to_Washington • principle

When I wrote my investigative report on Iraq war suicides, I did not expect that the issue would suddenly become very personal, but it has. A reader wrote me about his brother’s suicide. His brother was an Iraq War veteran suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

I did not sleep much that night, finally awakening as one day became another, moved by the impulse to write. This death asked me to try to put its meaning into words, because this soldier and his family deserved as much.

I finished writing to the chirping of birds as the sun came through my window. Then I sat for awhile and thought about what I had done. Last fall one of my son’s closest friends came home from Iraq and in the essay “Veterans Day Reflections” I wrote about how at first I was tempted to publish what I had written about his return, but then did not. At that time I wrote:

We have had too many people appropriating the lives of servicemen and women in Iraq to make points that maybe those people themselves would not want to make. Clint Eastwood got it about right in Flags of Our Fathers, his film about the Medal of Honor winners who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. If you’ve served in a war there are those who think they own you.

I had a similar ambivalence about this death. I knew that family, friends, and those who served with this soldier were all trying to find an answer to the why of it all. That why also gnawed at me, but I wondered if my words were true to what I had written in November.

I decided to put the piece away. But the why would not let go of me, especially after midnight, when it would call to me as I lay awake because the pain of my own disability would not let me sleep. I would turn on the computer, its multicolored glow penetrating the darkness, and reread the essay, then start rewriting it again and again. Finding words that might help the family and others to sort out PTSD obsessed me, perhaps because I felt a sense of guilt that the report came out too late to help this soldier.

Finally the insight that unlocked it all came from an unexpected source so intensely my body shook uncontrollably from everything that had been pent up. Wet circles formed on the keyboard. I sent the draft to the brother who had written me and he answered that he thought the essay might help others and bring some attention to PTSD.

The insight that had come that night came from a place near where I live: a memorial to Medal of Honor winners in World War II. I used to take my son there when he was little, in part because he liked to play on the old Sherman tank they placed nearby. It was covered with graffiti and smelled of stale beer because people had stuck beer cans down the gun barrel, but to him it was great to climb on.

One day when I thought he was old enough to understand, we walked over to the Memorial and I tried to explain it to him. Four of the six men who had earned our nation’s highest decoration made the ultimate sacrifice, throwing themselves on live grenades to save the lives of their fellow soldiers. What research I have done tells me there is no other instance of four men who lived within miles of each other all sacrificing themselves like that. I always have wondered not only if I would have had the courage to do what they did, but whether I would have done it quickly and instinctively enough to have saved lives.

My home town has an admirable record of citizens serving their country in time of war. With that service comes a code that every soldier absorbs into the very wiring of their brain, so that when the time comes they don’t even need to think about what to do. Those men who threw themselves on live grenades did not have time to ponder anything. They had to act in a split second.

Although the code is most familiarly associated with the famous Marine Corps imperative, “Leave no one behind,” it means something to every branch of the military. Everyone who goes into battle knows what that code demands of them and also what it promises them.

This code is more than a military imperative, it reflects the most basic values of our society, for America as a country has always striven to make sure that everyone could expect that someone would come to their aid, just as the Marines would come to the aid of a comrade. We have not always lived up to that ideal, but it continues to stand as a commandment to honor. I’m not a military historian, but offhand I know of no country whose soldiers carry that imperative with them into battle.

Because of that commandment people can draw meaning from death in war because those who died, died to preserve the lives of others. As everyone knows, this tradition extends even to the dead. That is why almost half a century after Vietnam and long after World War II, we seek to bring our soldiers home to a proper and honored final resting place.

But who goes for the suicides? And who comes for those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Right now there are no easy answers to those questions. But there is a greater understanding than we had a few decades ago.

We know that for some soldiers the battles never end. Over and over they replay the awful nightmares of scenes no human being should have to see or be a part of. These soldiers remain unable to leave those battlefields, as if they had to perform some unending mission with no relief, without any hope that someone would come for them.

Those with PTSD served in battles that put a bullet in their brain that defies the attempts of even the most expert of physicians to remove it and the most skilled of counselors to help the victims to cope. It lodges in a place that impacts synapses and pathways so their minds replay those moments over and over, the synapses crackling and sparking the way a high tension wire severed by a severe storm jerks and twists. Like bolts of lightning those sparks can jolt unexpectedly, even in quiet moments or in times that for most of us would bring smiles and laughter.

In some ways the victims of PTSD have internalized the code so deeply that they cannot let go of it even when they are out of harm’s way. In this sense they represent the best of the military and the best of America.

That is why to me the victims of PTSD–especially the suicides–represent true heroes because that part of them that is always in battle is always striving to uphold the code. Those for whom the code is strongest and the battles the roughest can suffer mortal wounds, fighting to the last.

Our country needs to ask, “Who comes for them?” Until we realize that the minds of some veterans will always remain on a battlefield which they never can leave, especially at night, especially as they dream, then some of us will get letters like the one I received.

The only way to stop those letters is for each one of us to also honor the code, for in it there is an implicit understanding that the country that has sent its citizens into war will come for all combat soldiers. We need to do a better job of bringing all of them home, especially those whose minds still are on the battlefield. Above all, we must never forget them.

You can help: This essay is dedicated to that soldier who died. I gave his family my promise I would work to bring more attention to PTSD. This is a bipartisan issue all Americans can and should support. Volunteer to work with veterans who have PTSD. Contribute to any veteran’s organizations working with military service personnel suffering from PTSD. Make others aware of PTSD. Write your Senators and Representatives to better fund PTSD services.

Tagged with: Clint_Eastwood • Iraq • Iraq_troops • Iraq_War • Iwo_Jima • leave_no_one_behind • marines • Medal_of_Honor • Post-Traumatic_Stress_Disorder • ptsd • PTSD_Iraq_war • suicides_in_Iraq_War • war_hero

The question that has long puzzled Bush watchers is “Why does he smirk?” The Online Dictionary defines “smirk” as:

To smile in an affected, often offensively self-satisfied manner.

The dictionary’s thesaurus adds further to the term’s meaning:

A smile expressing smugness or scorn instead of pleasure.

Smile affectedly or derisively.

The negative connotations of these definitions are obvious. The Smirking Chimp blog has created a very good audience for jibes at the man they call “the Smirk.” So you would expect that only liberals and Democrats would use the word in connection with the President. Not so. A quick Google search turned up an astounding 469,000 hits for “Bush’s smirk.” Among them were some conservative heavy hitters. Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

The smirk is sometimes real; he can be full of himself.

On C-Span, Bill Kristol remarked about Bush’s:

Funny little grin, almost a smirk, that comes across his face occasionally at inappropriate times.

Everyone from Slate to the Wall Street Journal have speculated about Bush’s smirk. The number of websites with pictures of it or that have pasted it on other faces is an indication either of a lot of people having nothing to do or a pathological obsession with smirking. Yet no one has seen fit to conduct a genuine academic, by-the-numbers study of Bush’s smirking.

But you can bet that deep in the bowels of the Kremlin, apparatchiks have poured over hours of videotapes to unravel the mystery of the smirk. That’s why Putin agreed to go fishing with the President even though his advisors warned him he was taking his life in his hands if Dubya drove the boat–which almost came true when Bush ran it aground. As any fisherperson can tell you, fishing is a great opportunity to study smirks.

Since we don’t have an in with the Kremlin we are left with the psychological literature and that too is surprisingly thin. You’d think such a universal activity would be better studied, but apparently psychologists have stayed away from smirking–perhaps because they are prone to do it. So if you are a budding young graduate student looking for a PhD dissertation topic consider smirking. It would certainly get you an appearance on the Daily Show.

Timothy Noah of Salon.com tried to do a story on the smirk. He even called up a gentleman reputed to be the nation’s “leading smile researcher,” Paul Ekman, professor of psychology at the University of California at San Francisco. Ekman’s no dummy. He wouldn’t bite on this one:

I watch George W. and have many thoughts about it. But I have a policy about never talking about anyone who is in office or running for office, or is in litigation. So I can’t help you. I don’t know anyone responsible and knowledgeable who can.

Where academics fear to tread the amateurs rush in. Many of those 486,000 some entries try to explain the smirk, so here for your edification and amusement are a few of them.

From WashingtonPost.com comes Pittsburgh:

He attempts to answer — or more likely attempts to dodge — a serious question, then at the end he gets a wry grin or even a smirk on his face and chuckles. It is odd — he can’t even fake looking properly concerned.”

I think he does this when he is uncomfortable. It’s like when someone starts to laugh when they hear bad news, or if they say or do something they know is embarrassing. It’s their own personal defense mechanism. Most of the time, the person isn’t even aware they are doing it, and it’s hard for them to stop, even when you tell them about it. That, my BA in Psychology, and $3 will get you a cup of coffee from Starbucks.

Next is Margaret Carlson of CNN who called Bush the “Cheshire Candidate”:

No matter how remote Bush’s answer to the question at hand, he thinks he’s pulled the wool over the teacher’s eyes, that with his innate smarts and abundant charm, he will not flunk History 101. After all, it’s been arranged. He’s going to be President. The smirk may be a manifestation of an inner lightness that protects Bush from feeling inadequate.

Of course the medical profession has to get its two cents in. A vascular surgeon noted:

In observing our president’s expressions over the years, I became aware of a feature of George Bush’s face that revealed more about his inner self than anything issuing forth from his mouth.

President Bush has a disconnect between the right side and the left side of his face. While the right side of his mouth and the corner of his right eyes portray a smile, the left side of his mouth and the corners of his left eye convey a scowl.

Finally there is Ted Lang:

Take for example Bush’s beguiling, insidious smirk. It can be ascribed as the doofus expression of a truly stupid and uneducated moron, and is easily superimposed upon the visage of a chimpanzee, monkey or the cartoon personage of Alfred E. Newman.

So readers give me your theories on Bush’s smirk and I will print them.

NOTE: The Thursday Tweaker is another new feature. It will tweak various topics in a serious and not-to-serious manner, inviting your reactions. Who or what should we tweak next?

Tagged with: Bush • bush_smirk • cnn • George_W_Bush • Kristol • leading_smile_researcher • Peggy_Noonan • putin • smirking-chimp • Wall_Street_Journal • Washington_Post

Photo: Washington Post

An epic battle rages through the House of Representatives. It pits one of the greatest to ever hold a House seat against the most powerful member of the House. It also pits two key regions and two key Democratic Party constituencies against each other. The battle’s outcome will play a role in determining the future of the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee. Most of all, on the line is one of the most important problems facing the world.

Michigan Representative John Dingell could be described as an old dragon, but this dragon is more known for crafting legislative solutions than for terrorizing people, although he can breathe fire when pressed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made her boldest move yet by pulling the dragon’s tail. The issue: vehicle fuel standards.

Dingell is known as the “Dean of the House” for his leadership and for having served the longest tenure in the 435-member body. Now 81, Dingell is regarded by some as another Congressman who has stayed on too long. The New York Times describes him in terms usually reserved for someone who should be in a nursing home:

His voice has become frail and his hands often shake uncontrollably.

MoveOn.org recently called him a “dinosaur” — a “dingellsaurus”–in a radio ad. A web page highlighting the ad is accompanied by a caricature showing a creature that looks like it escaped from Jurassic Park. Yet unless Dingell has deteriorated considerably since my son worked for his committee last year, he has energy and mental agility that put those half his age to shame. My son was impressed by both Dingell’s work schedule and by his understanding of the nuances of issues.

The Times also admits Dingell:

Has probably fought more fights, intimidated more adversaries and pushed through more legislation than any other Democrat in the House.

As speaker, Nancy Pelosi has taken on a daunting job akin to herding cats, for the House Democrats are splintered into contentious factions including the notorious Blue Dogs, whose habit of sometimes voting with the Republicans would turn any speaker blue. By all accounts Pelosi has handled her job well. One sign of this is that most of the Party infighting has been kept behind closed doors. Another sign is that criticism of her from both sides of the aisle has largely been muted. Once she seemed somewhat ill-at-ease in front of the cameras, but now she has blossomed into a major voice for her party. Other than a few bumps in the road, Pelosi seemed to be cruising.

Until now. Every speaker at some time faces an issue that is of supreme importance to the people back home, putting the speaker in the difficult role of appeasing those the voters while at the same time keeping the cats from running wild. For Pelosi and her California constituents automobile safety, fuel economy and pollution rank right at the top of important issues.

Nowhere in America has the car culture been stronger than in California. The Beach Boys seemed to write as many car songs as they did songs about surfing. According to 2005 National Highway Statistics it is also leads the nation in annual urban vehicle miles traveled with 266,725, over 100,000 more than number two Florida with 164, 644. That also is 13.6% of the total for the entire country.

Dingell comes from the place where many of those California cars are built, a place whose name has been synonymous with automobile manufacturing since long before Dingell was first elected to Congress in 1955. Detroit has a long history of opposing increasing what are known as CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. This intransigence has sometimes proven disastrous as it did in the 1970s when the big auto makers insisted on making gas-guzzling behemoths only to be out-maneuvered by the Japanese when the first gas crisis hit this country.

For several years now, Detroit has been losing ground. Huge factories that stretched for so long you could not see from one end of the shop floor to the other, now sit empty, looking for all the world like extinct dinosaurs. The so-called Big Three–Ford, Chrysler and General Motors–even did what would have been unthinkable a quarter century ago, seeking partnerships with foreign companies to help turn the tide. With gas prices hitting over $3 a gallon and Detroit heavily committed to gas-eating SUV’s and pickups, this year, for the first time in history, a Japanese company–Toyota–became the world’s leading auto manufacturer.

Despite representing the home of the American auto industry, Dingell has a surprisingly strong environmental record. He helped secure passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act. He currently is opposing the Defense Department’s attempts to exempt itself from environmental laws. Still, everyone in Washington has long known that on the issue of CAFE standards, Dingell sides with Detroit. Like Pelosi, he must still serve his constituents and with Michigan having the highest unemployment rate of any other state, he cannot afford to hurt Detroit. The Bureau of Labor Statistics table for the Michigan economy unintentionally has little dinosaurs filling the column labeled “back data.”

Knowing Dingell’s position, Pelosi decided early in this new session to make a bold and controversial move. In an attempt to outmaneuver Dingell, Pelosi formed a new select committee on global warming. Pelosi has tried to deflect talk that she was trying to end-run Dingell, but the press called the play as they saw it. Dingell made clear his anger at this attempt to usurp his power calling it an “embarrassment” and “as useful as feathers on a fish.” Since then the two have been in a barely-concealed war as the stakes rise higher and higher. The Hill observes:

And there have been clear indications recently that the tension between the two high-profile lawmakers is escalating.

In a recent C-SPAN interview Dingell was even more feisty.

If I were on that committee, I would have long since asked for the privilege of being removed from it, because, quite frankly, I think it’s an embarrassment to everybody…I sincerely doubt that the American people are willing to pay what this is really going to cost them

They say all politics is local and certainly this dispute seems to support that observation. Yet caught in the middle of this is America and the Democratic Party. Al Gore pulled one of the great political moves of the past few years when he decided to go Hollywood and produce a film about global warming. Anyone who has seen the film knows what could happen not only to America, but the world if this country continues its profligate ways.

As for the Democrats, they cannot afford to lose either Michigan or California in 2008. The conflict is also the latest in a long-running battle two Party forces–labor and environmentalists. If one of them were to defect or offer only lukewarm support or even worse sit out the 2008 campaign it would severely cripple the Party’s chances to regain the White House. “Jobs vs the environment” is a conflict that stretches back at least three decades, but in recent years labor and environmentalists have managed to work together largely because both deeply detested the Bush Administration.

What is not generally recognized is the elephant in the room. That elephant is health care. Currently Detroit and the United Auto Workers are engaged in contract discussions in which the sticking point is health care. The International Business Times reports:

GM alone spent $4.8 billion on health care in 2006. For the same amount, the company estimates it could have built four new plants or launched six new vehicles.

The Akron Beacon Journal observes:

Health-care costs contributed to a combined loss of $15 billion for the U.S. automakers last year. Toyota posted a $14 billion profit.

From a systems perspective, if Detroit’s health care problem could be solved–along with that of the rest of this country–the issue of fuel economy would also be easier to resolve. Those four new plants or six new models could be producing more fuel-efficient cars that would help narrow the lead the Japanese now hold–a lead that has made the Prius a symbol for environmental consciousness and the Hummer the symbol for American excess. Dingell himself pointed to the health care issue in a 2005 speech:

The employer-based health care system is slowly strangling American industry. Universal health care is no longer an issue of morality; it is one of economic competitiveness and quite possibly survival. Companies in other major industrial countries, all of which cover everyone by a system of national health insurance, do not have the burden of health care costs in their competition with our industries.

Dingell seems to imply that if some solution could be found for Detroit’s health care problems that perhaps an accommodation could be reached on fuel economy.

Should the battle escalate further it will be tragic. The first loser could be Pelosi herself, for if she makes an enemy of John Dingell, she has crossed swords with someone who could make her life very difficult. The second loser would be the Democratic Party. If Pelosi splits with Dingell she could split the Party and perhaps cost it the blue-collar support it will need to win in 2006. The split could also lose Michigan. The United Auto Workers may not be the power it once was, but it and other unions helped the Democrats win Michigan and Ohio in 2006.

The final loser would be America. For at least a generation the argument has raged between “jobs and the environment.” With the Democrats controlling Congress, they have a chance to move beyond this false dichotomy by putting forward imaginative, “break-the-mold” proposals. By linking health care and the environment they would not only demonstrate that we need to start looking at the interrelatedness of seemingly discrete issues but also create a twenty-first century vision of systemic leadership. Think globally, goes the saying, and linking health care and the environment would not only be a stellar example of that but what an old boss of mine used to call a two-fer–two wins for the price of one.

There is still time to resolve this dispute. Both Pelosi and Dingell are too shrewd to engage in a winner-take-all struggle in which both they and their Party would lose. I believe they can because they must.

Note: Let me add a journalist’s disclosure: last summer my son served as an intern for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He was an Iowa college student and applied for the job. It was not a political appointment. Our home state is Minnesota not Michigan.

Tagged with: African_American_health_care • Al_Gore • automakers_health_care_costs • Beach_Boys • Blue_Dogs • Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics • Bush • Bush_tax_cuts • CAFE_standards • California • Congress • Democratic_Party • Democratic_presidential_campaign • Democrats • Detroit • fuel_stamdards • future_of_the_Democratic_Party • gas_guzzlers • George_Bush • global_warming • GM • health_care • Hillary_Rodham_Clinton • Hummer • Iowa_caucuses • jobs_vs_the_environment • John_Dingell • Michigan • Nancy_Pelosi • New_York_Times • No_Child_Left_Behind_Act • Prius • SUVs • Toyota • unions • union_voters • United_Auto_Workers • Washington_Post • White_House