Frank’s Case Book

Politics can be about principled differences fought out verbally in public. Politics can represent our noblest aspirations for creating a free and orderly society. Sometimes, politics can also resemble middle-schoolers calling names in the school yard. Perhaps it is not surprising that such behavior can be found in California, that seems to lead the country in so many regards.

San Francisco assemblyman Tom Ammiano in an emotional outburst disagreed with California Arnold Schwarzenegger shouting, “You lie,” as Schwarzenegger began to speak at a Left-of-center group. Ammiano further suggested that the governor, “kiss my gay ass?” The incident certainly did not resemble the civility of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Apparently, the Governor’s office is not above subtle slights of its own. The Governor vetoed  Ammiano’s bill  for financing for the Port of San Francisco. The curt letter explaining the veto apparently contained a hidden message. If you carefully examine the letter reproduced below,

you might notice that the first letters of the lines in the body of the text spell out “I f— you.”This is so silly, that one might believe that the whole story is apocryphal, but is was reported, presumably seriously by the San Francisco Chronicle.  No one  believes that the hidden message is the “weird coincidence” press secretary Aaron McLear argued it was, but there is a interesting statistical question as to how likely is it that message would have appeared randomly.If Pw(i) is the probability that a word in the English language begins with the letter i, and Pw(f) is that a word begins with f, etc., then the probability of this curious sequence isPw= Pw(i) Pw(f) Pw(u) Pw(c) Pw(k) Pw(y) Pw(o) Pw(u).

Unfortunately, those probabilities about word beginnings were not easily found. A less direct means to estimate the likelihood of the letter sequence is to use the probabilities of the letters occurring in the English language. These values can be obtained from Wikipedia. The probability of this “weird coincidence” would then be:

P= P(i) P(f) P(u) P(c) P(k) P(y) P(o) P(u)

or

P=  (0.0697) (0.0223) ( 0.0276) ( 0.0278) ( 0.0077) (0.0197) ( 0.0751) (0.0276)

or

P=   3.74971 x 10^(-13)

or one chance in 2.7 trillion.

We thank the Governor Schwarzenegger and Assemblyman Ammiano for the entertainment and an opportunity to make an interesting calculation.

“So soon? Too early. He [Obama] has no contribution so far.”  — Lech Walesa, dissent who opposed Soviet occupation of the Poland and 1983 Peace Prize winner.

In basketball, the sport that Barack Obama and many others enjoy, a key statistic is the “assist.” Many times an easy basket is scored because a player, typically a point guard, makes an quick astute pass to an open player.  Former President George Bush can now be safely said to be the most accomplished Nobel point guard, assisting many in scoring a Nobel. The latest beneficiary of this is President Barack Obama who was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Even the most ardent Obama supporters recognize that, at best, any such award is premature. Indeed, he was formally nominated just after reaching office. The Nobel Committee selected Obama because: “Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.” This is a clear slap at Bush, whose foreign policy was caricatured as being unilateral. The London Times observed as much: “Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration.” Assist Bush.

This assist was not Bush’s latest, not his first. In 2001, one month after the attack of September 11, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded Kofi Annan and the United Nations the Peace Prize. The US was formulating its reaction to these attacks, and there was concern that the US might act without specific UN authorization, the Nobel Committee used the award to boost the moral authority, such as it is, of the UN. Of course, we would later come to realize that the UN was implicated in a corrupt Food for Oil program that undermined sanctions against  Iraq and enriched intermediaries associated with the UN. Assist Bush.

In 2002, in the lead up to the liberation of Iraq, former President Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Carter’s record is at best mixed: Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviets during his watch and Americans were held hostage by the Iranians after the Shah, a US ally was overthrown. However, Carter was instrumental in providing a forum for Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin to workout a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1978. The Nobel Committee overlooked this for two and half decades until is was convenient to use Carter as a bludgeon against Bush. Indeed, the Nobel Prize Committee Chairman, Gunnar Berge, openly explained the Prize “should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the [Bush] administration has taken…  It’s a kick in the leg to all that follow the same…” Assist Bush.

The former Vice-President Al Gore case is roughly similar to the Carter case. There could be an argument made that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should be recognized by the Nobel Committee. Al Gore had been burning fuel  proselytizing the necessity of eschewing carbon use to avert global climate change. But giving the same PowerPoint presentation in many venues, does not quite seem to rise to the level of a Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, Al Gore was involved in a close a election with George Bush, which many used to routinely dispute Bush’s legitimacy — even after a clear Bush re-election in 2004. By this time, Gore had turned angry, shouting that Bush: “… played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.” That was good enough for the Nobel Committee in 2007. Assist Bush.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee is not the only  one to play political games. There is a plausible argument that Dr. Paul Krugman of Princeton University should win the Nobel Prize in economics based on his trade studies early his career. However, Krugman had spent most the Bush term as a  regular, relentless, and often rabid critic of the Bush Administration. Awarding Krugman the prize was just too tempting in this context. Assist Bush

It is not as if there are too few potential recipients that the Nobel Peace Prize can be awarded frivolously to score political points. The Weekly Standard cites Sima Samar, an activist who has pursued women’s rights in Afghanistan at personal risk; or Hu Jia, a human rights activist jailed by the Chinese; or Dr. Denis Mukwege, who has “dedicated his life to helping Congolese women and girls who are victims of gang rape and brutal sexual violence” as those who could have be recognized. The award could have gone to the dissidents in the streets of Iran for protesting a stolen election.

It appears that Obama has a tin ear, as he doesn’t appear to realize that he will be easy to mock for accepting a prize he doesn’t deserved. He could demonstrate integrity, mute criticism by political opponents, and provide counter evidence to the charge that he is self-aggrandizing by respectfully declining the prize. Better yet, he could accept the prize as Commander and Chief on behalf of the US military, particularly General David Petraeus, for their heroic  efforts to bring freedom and security to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Consider that advice that will not likely be followed.

It used to be the conventional wisdom that an African-American  would find it impossible to become president. The analysis held that an African-American person who was not threatening to whites would not be appear sufficiently authentic to the African-American community.  The more a potential black candidate modulated his persona to make white America comfortable, the less support he or she would likely garner from African-American community. Shelbe Steele was the most persuasive proponent of this view.

President Barak Obama shattered this analysis in November 2008. Whether through his personal charm, intellect, oratory skills, or political organization, Obama has manged to remain a hip celebrity while energizing white Americans on his behalf. In many ways, Obama’s greatest contribution is to demonstrate America’s movement past preoccupation with race. Obama made Americans proud that they could support an African-American candidate.

The current argument offered by former President Jimmy Carter and even the usually level-headed Bill Cosby is that much of the opposition to Obama’s health care plan is rooted in  racism. This does not make statistical sense since Obama entered office with nearly 70% approval and now his medical care plan has less than majority support. Clearly some people who were sufficient unbiased to approve of Obama’s presidential performance at one time now disagree with Obama’s medical care policies. The casual broad brush of racism is pernicious and toxic, and ultimately undermines the historic importance of the Obama presidency.

Long after the results of the medical care controversy are resolved, the nation’s psyche will either overcome these racism charges or the notion of perpetual American racism will ingrain further itself among some. If the racism charge is allowed to gain currency, the nation will be become more polarized on racial grounds. Many Americans who fancy themselves as unprejudiced  are  likely be insulted by the charge.

The time is now for President Obama to exercise leadership before charges of racial animosity are allowed to undermine any potential unity in the country. It is incumbent on Obama to speak out against such a path in an unequivocal way. Obama must devote an public speech to making clear that there is room for disagreement with him outside the scope of racism. He should marshal his considerable rhetorical skills to calm the racial waters. He should warn that he will not allow charges of racism to undermine his presidency or his goals.

When Obama’s candidacy was jeopardized by his 20-year association with the radical minister Jeremiah Wright, Obama quickly delivered a special speech to explain his views on race and cauterize the Wright’s wound on this reputation. At this point, people like Jimmy Carter, who destroyed his own presidency, are undermining the transformative nature of the Obama presidency. Now is a time for an Obama leadership moment.

I am not sure what is more amusing, watching middle class Americans marching for Conservative principles in the Nation’s capital or Liberals (at least the Liberal blogs) becoming apoplectic in reaction.

On September 12,  some thousands of Americans exercised their right to freely assemble and petition their government for redress of grievances. Estimates on the numbers who came vary by orders of magnitude. The Washington Post reported that 30,000 registered with FreedomWorks, but that was only one of the organizers. The New York Times reports a “sea of protesters” composed of “tens of thousands” that far exceeded the expectations of authorities. The tens of thousands figure is also carried by the Washington Post and Washington Times. It is safe to say that the tens of thousands value really means a “a lot of people and we really don’t know how many.”

Matthew Hemingway of National Review on the scene believes the numbers were in the hundreds of thousands. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin headlines a 2 million crowd estimate, based on a barrage of tweets and posts but apparently no authoritative sources. Many crowd estimates cross-referenced each other in a information-lacking echo chamber. Inflating crowd estimates from supporters and minimizing estimates from those opposed to a demonstration are a traditional Washington DC sport. Here is a link to a time lapse movie of the march taking from a high building, documenting that there was quite a crowd.

Like any crowd, there are a few at the fringes. Both the NY Times, Huffington Post, and Think Progress  found what thety were looking for and noticed several tasteless pre-printed signs that read “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy.”  This is milk toast tasteless compared to the vicious anti-Bush attacks during antiwar rallies.  The Washington Post noted that most signs were hand printed and from the pictures posted by the Washington Post, most people appeared to be hard working middle class people for whom public protests were a new experience. The NY Times notes that, “many came on their own and were not part of an organization or group.”

However, the Huffington Post and Think Progress feel necessary to demonize the protesters by focusing on a few oddballs . These sites  cannot even acknowledge that the honest concerns of the protesters. Even if you believe, as the Huffington Post and Think Progress that these protesters are wrong, confused or used, only the angriest and most partisan perspective would group  all  the demonstrators together and assign the worst motives.

We should perhaps forgive the Left. The seem to be a bit disoriented, unaccustomed to the fact that there is a President and Congress sympathetic to their views. Public protests and marches are their preferred tactics. Shouting chants is a Left wing sword wheeled in service of the people. How dare Conservatives usurp the means of the Left? They are for the exclusive use of the Left, the true representatives of the people. Perhaps, in a couple of years the Left will grow acclimated to dissent — but don’t bet on it.

It is an old political ploy to associate political adversaries with extremists at the ends of the political spectrum. Mainstream political persons should not be appropriately held hostage to the rantings of those who happen to reside the same side of the political divide. Indeed, the political space is composed of more than one dimension. Although similar people cluster in local  regions of political space, there are occasions when people find themselves close to those they might normally disagree with.

While no one is responsible for the behavior of others, we are responsible for our reaction to the behavior of others. Are we willing to excuse or at least ignore outrageous behavior on the part of political allies. In some measure, the people we directly choose to associate with says something important about who we are.

This brings us to the interesting case of  Van Jones, the Obama Administration appointment  as Green Jobs Czar.  Unfortunately, Jones is a person who is burdened with noxious baggage, offensive to most Americans.

• Although he claims ignorance now , jones signed the 9//1 1 “Truth Statement” asserting that the Bush Administration “had foreknowledge of impending 9/11 attacks and `consciously failed’ to act”
• Jones participated in a recording complaining about “Israeli occupation,” asserting the Palestinian “right of return” which would end Israeli as a Jewish state. Jones argues that “This is now a global struggle against a U.S.-led security apparatus and military agenda.”
• Jones believes that “the true terrorists are made in the U.S.”
• Jones’s political erudite political assessments can be summarized by the statement: Republicans are “assholes.”

The reaction of the Obama Administration has been interesting and perhaps illuminating. When Jones’s radical past came to light, the Obama Administration did not immediately request Jones’s resignation. They seemed reluctant to do anything in the hopes that the issue would fade. After all they have managed to keep a tax scofflaw as Treasury Secretary. Certainly, there has not been the same press pressure as would have been applied to George Bush if his Administration have appointed a similarly radical individual. This morning, Jones finally resigned without repudiating his past and painting a picture of himself as the victim of a smear campaign.

There are several possible explanations with regard to this failed appointment.

1. It was a major vetting mistake, where the Administration was sloppy in its selection. If this were true, one would expect that Jones would have been gone at the first hint of this embarrassment. It has taken too long for the Administration to dump Jones.
2. The Administration is generally sympathetic with Jones’s views, pretends to be more moderate than it really is, and was reluctant to dismiss a like-minded soul. It finally allowed Jones to resign when the political costs grew too large.
3. The Administration does not have a particular affinity  with Jones or his positions (though not a visceral aversion them either), but the appointment was jobs patronage for Jones and a political payoff for the far-Left. Like possibility (2), Jones was dumped when the costs were no longer worth any possible benefit.

Possibility (1) is the most benign signifying only incompetence on the part of some. Possibility (3) is slightly more damning, suggesting only Machiavellian political manipulations. Possibility (2) is the most damning. If true, itsuggests radicals in power, with a habit of mendacity.

Like all groups, the Left is sustained by its myths. These myths serve a crucible into which all facts are grounded and  the resulting powder is rendered into the appropriate narrative. Consider just a couple of these myths.

The Left believes that President Bush was not elected in 2000, but rather “appointed” by a partisan Supreme Court. According to this myth, the re-count that was proceeding at the time should have been allowed to continue. What is often forgotten is that under the re-count rules then issued by the Florida Supreme Court, in a count conducted by Florida newspapers, Bush still won. However, evidence is often insufficient to overcome stubborn myths.

The Left believes that Senator John Kerry lost his bid for the presidency in 2004  because of “lies” told by the Swift Boat Veterans about his Vietnam service. However, the election was really lost when John Kerry stood up before the Democratic National Convention and “report[ed] for duty” with a smart salute to a cheering partisan crowd. The gesture was meant to overcome the perception that Democrats were anti-military, but the salute made the details of Kerry’s service a legitimate subject for scrutiny. This, coupled with the clumsy effort of Dan Rather and 60 Minutes to run a story critical of Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard based on apparently forged documents, discredited much of the pro-Kerry national media and actually made the Swift Boat Veterans appear more credible.

A new myth is emerging now. If President Barack Obama is unable to create a medical care plan with a “public  option,” we will be told that the proposal was buried under the weight of Republican lies. While there is a lot of misinformation floating around — some of it perpetuated by Obama himself — the political hurtles impeding the Obama health care plan were erected early in the year.

The stimulus package passed early in 2009 exploded the long-term deficit prospects making any new initiatives suspect. Moreover, Obama’s original, ostensible reason for a new health care arrangement was to reduce health care costs that he described as economically “unsustainable.” When the history is written of this time, the death blow to ambitious health care reform may have come from the Congressional Budget Office. This non-partisan arm of Congress scored the cost (not savings) of the plan to be over $1 trillion. If previous spending is unsustainable, adding more costs seems less sustainable.

Facts are unimportant in the face of myth. Expect that the myth of the Republican lies to sustain the Left in their cold nights of discontent.

Whole Foods Market is one of those stores that conscientious and affluent liberals shop to maintain their health and  assuage their collective guilt. The store offers organically-grown vegetables, biodegradable washing agents, as well as catering to those who prefer specialized diets from diary-free to vegetarian to gluten-free. It would be unfair to assume anything about all Whole Foods Shoppers, but it is not unreasonable to assert that on average they are further to the Left than the average shopper.

Recently, Whole Foods CEO. John Mackey, wrote a op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare,” opposing the Obama health care plan and the socialization of health care provision. The article offered a list of mostly free-market policy options that he believes could mitigate health care concerns. Interestingly, he notes that when given a choice, Whole Foods employees in Canada and the UK, models of health care policy often held up  by the Left, prefer:

“…supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments.”

Mackey’s particular recommendations can and ought to be debated. What it is interesting in this case is the response of some on the Left. Rather than engaging the issues raised in the the op-ed piece directly, the reaction was to boycott Whole Foods.  Of course, no one is or ought to be forced to patronize Whole Foods. Anyone can decide to not shop there for any reason and even try to persuade others not to. What makes this case relatively unique is that no one is arguing about Whole Food practices.  Those who are want to boycott Whole Foods want to punish the company for the expression of an honest opinion. Mackey’s op-ed was thoughtful and not mean-spirited, descriptions that do not apply to all those who are trying to boycott Whole Foods.

The next time, we hear complaints about town hall participants shouting others down,  remember those who use their dollars to punish those who have different ideas.