Category Archives: Bush Administration

Bad Times in the Book Biz

Posted on by

Karl Rove is having a hard time selling his memoirs. He’d been hoping for a $3 million advance, but apparently publishers are balking. Poor baby.

I remember when Simon and Schuster paid $8.5 million for Ronald Reagan’s personal memoirs. This was shortly after the Gipper had left office but before his Alzheimer’s had been announced. After the announcement, some of us in the book production department of an S&S subsidiary got out our calculators and guesstimated what an initial print run would cost S&S, how much of a markup such a book could bear, and how many copies would have to be sold to earn back the $8.5 million.

And there was no way those numbers would crunch. The suits in the penthouse office should have asked us worker bees about this before they made the advance offer.

By the time the book was published everyone knew about the Alzheimer’s and figured Reagan couldn’t have written much. Fewer than 20,000 copies were sold, probably mostly to libraries.

My understanding is that Bill Clinton’s memoirs, for which Knopf paid $10 million, did slightly better but still didn’t come close to earning what Knopf paid for it.

[Update: I am corrected; Clinton’s book did a lot better.]

Big, splashy publishing extravaganzas like the memoirs of a former politician or a big business executive like GE’s Jack Welch tend to generate more buzz than sales. When I was working in the book publishing industry, news stories of some mega-million book advance tended to be followed by memos to the staff about wage freezes. This is not to say such books are always disasters. Lee Iacocca’s autobiography, published in the 1980s, was a mega-best seller. But Iacocca was the exception, not the rule.

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf received an advance of more than $5 million from Bertlesmann; Gen. Colin Powell got $6.5 million from Newhouse, Former O.J. pall Paula Barbieri got $3.5 million from Time Warner. Simon & Schuster, Random House, and Penguin Putnam wrote off at least $100 million in unearned advances in 1996.
–Bookselling This Week, October 6, 1997.

Large advances for books that flopped: Journey to Justice by Johnnie Cochran, Ballantine paid a reported $3.5 million; Behind the Oval Office by Dick Morris, Random House paid an estimated $2.5 million; Leading with my Chin by Jay Leno, HarperCollins paid a reported $4 million.
–The Wall Street Journal, May 29, 1997.

The fact is, most of the time such books are a pile of self-serving bullshit. Readers know this. Rove himself is a pile of self-serving bullshit, and the snake oil he sold America — President George W. Bush — isn’t selling any more. He probably could have gotten a fat advance four years ago. Not now. Even the suits in the penthouse offices, idiots though they may be, have figured out that Rove’s career as Boy Genius is over.

Update: Sadly, No! reviews another stellar publishing accomplishment.

Telecom Immunity Showdown

Posted on by

Senator Chris Dodd plans to begin a filibuster today. He will try to stop the Senate from granting retroactive immunity to telecoms that violated their customers’ privacy rights by sending billions of private domestic internet and telephone communications to the NSA. The vote on the bill that would grant immunity is scheduled for today. You can help out by contacting your senators to let them know what you think.

See also: Taylor Marsh, Jane Hamsher, Glenn Greenwald, Nicole Belle, the Anonymous Liberal.

Meanwhile, righties are hollering about fascism because a senior fellow emeritus at the Policy Studies Institute believes carbon rationing must be imposed to save the planet. Wholesale violation of the Fourth Amendment by Big Government and Big Corporation, however, is no big deal.

Control Freaks

Posted on by

Charlie Savage writes in today’s Boston Globe:

The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House’s policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.

The administration has proposed a regulation requiring “coordination” with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps – the military’s 4,000-member uniformed legal force – can be promoted. …

… Retired Major General Thomas Romig, the Army’s top JAG from 2001 to 2005, called the proposal an attempt “to control the military JAGs” by sending a message that if they want to be promoted, they should be “team players” who “bow to their political masters on legal advice.”

It “would certainly have a chilling effect on the JAGs’ advice to commanders,” Romig said. “The implication is clear: without [the administration’s] approval the officer will not be promoted.”

Some familiar names crop up:

The JAG rule would give new leverage over the JAGs to the Pentagon’s general counsel, William “Jim” Haynes, who was appointed by President Bush. Haynes has been the Pentagon’s point man in the disputes with the JAGs who disagreed with the administration’s assertion that the president has the right to bypass the Geneva Conventions and other legal protections for wartime detainees. …

… One of Haynes’ allies on the Bush administration legal team, former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, recently coauthored a law review article sharply critical of the JAGs’ unwillingness to endorse the legality of the administration’s treatment of wartime detainees.

Yoo, who wrote a series of controversial legal opinions about the president’s power to bypass the Geneva Conventions and antitorture laws before leaving government in 2003, called for some kind of “corrective measures” that would “punish” JAGs who undermine the president’s policy preferences.

Yoo’s law review article did not specifically discuss injecting political appointees into the JAG promotions process, and Yoo said in an e-mail that he did not know anything about the new Pentagon proposal. But several retired JAGs said they think the proposed change is an attempt by the Bush administration to turn Yoo’s idea into a reality.

Meanwhile, Bush is threatening to veto a bill that would ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other forms of torture, all the while claiming that the U.S. doesn’t torture people. A former employee of a Boeing subsidiary says an executive bragged “We do all the extraordinary rendition flights … the torture flights.” And the Justice Department is stonewalling Congress over the destruction of CIA videotapes.

BTW, Bush is claiming ignorance of those tapes; Larry Johnson argues persuasively that Bush probably was treated to a personal screening.

And I’m not exactly holding my breath waiting for Congress to act.

See also: Mark Benjamin, “Inside the CIA’s notorious ‘black sites.'”

Transparently Bogus

Posted on by

Dan Eggen writes at WaPo:

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey today sharply rebuffed congressional demands for details about the Justice Department’s inquiry into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, saying that providing such information would make it appear that the department was “subject to political influence.”

So stonewalling Congress makes them look all principled and aboveboard?

Several Democrats have raised questions about the propriety of having the inquiry run by the Justice Department, whose lawyers were involved in offering legal advice about the tapes, and the CIA inspector general, whose office reviewed the tapes before they were destroyed.

If you haven’t been watching MSNBC’s Dan Abrams, who comes on after Olbermann, do check out this week’s “Bush League Justice” series, which you can watch online:

Episode 1: Civil Rights

Episode 2: Signing Statements

Episode 3: Political Prosecutions

Episode 4: Alabama Outrage

Much of the information in these episodes has already been covered in this blog. Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to see the evil libruhl MSM take on the Bushies this directly.

Also at WaPo, Dan Froomkin writes,

President Bush’s repeated insistence that “we don’t torture” appeared even more transparently bogus yesterday as the White House threatened to veto a House bill that would explicitly ban a variety of abhorrent practices.

The bill would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow interrogation rules adopted by the armed forces last year.

What does that mean? As Pamela Hess writes for the Associated Press, those rules explicitly prohibit “forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over detainees’ heads or duct tape over their eyes; beating, shocking, or burning detainees; threatening them with military dogs; exposing them to extreme heat or cold; conducting mock executions; depriving them of food, water, or medical care; and waterboarding.”

Andy Sullivan:

Bush is now fully owning Abu Ghraib. That, I guess, is one helpful result of flushing out what this president has done. At the time, of course, he expressed shock at the techniques exposed by the photographs at Abu Ghraib. Now he is declaring them legal and necessary.

At this point, I’m too tired of this bleep to be outraged.

Straw Dogs

Posted on by

In today’s New York Times, Paul Krugman explains the Bush mortgage bailout plan, announced last week by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

The plan is, as a Times editorial put it yesterday, “too little, too late and too voluntary.” But from the administration’s point of view these failings aren’t bugs, they’re features.

In fact, there’s a growing consensus among financial observers that the Paulson plan isn’t mainly intended to achieve real results. The point is, instead, to create the appearance of action, thereby undercutting political support for actual attempts to help families in trouble.

In particular, the Paulson plan is probably an attempt to take the wind out of Barney Frank’s sails. Mr. Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has sponsored legislation that would give judges in bankruptcy cases the ability to rewrite mortgage loan terms. But “Bankers Hope Bush Subprime Plan Will Scuttle House Bill,” as a headline in CongressDaily put it.

As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard bankruptcy expert, puts it, “The administration’s subprime mortgage plan is the bank lobby’s dream.” Given the Bush record, that should come as no surprise.

The plan has so many conditions that Barclays Capital estimated only about 12 percent of all subprime borrowers, or 240,000 homeowners, would qualify for relief. For example, people already delinquent on their payments, or anyone the mortgage lender decides ought to be able to pay the subprime mortgage, are excluded.

Krugman says there are three problems with the plan. First, banks and other financial institutions will take huge losses. Second, hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of American will lose their homes. And third, there is injustice, since many of the people stuck with subprime loans were victims of predatory sales practices.

Free-market culties tsk-tsk any mortgage relief program as short-sighted. Robert Murphy wrote at Townhall:

Lenders will learn the lesson that their contracts aren’t safe; contrary to popular belief, the government will not serve to enforce the law. (Or rather, the “law” can change on a dime, depending on the public’s mood.) Lenders won’t simply shrug their shoulders, say “aww shucks,” and continue with business as usual.

No, lenders will rationally respond to the new environment, by being much pickier in giving new loans. After all, it becomes much riskier to grant a mortgage to a young couple with little job experience, if the government will shield them from the consequences of default on the loan. Many people say that “the American dream” involves homeownership, yet this will be harder to achieve if the government introduces yet another uncertainty for lenders.

Another cultie named Peter Schiff thinks the problems lies with borrowers who simply aren’t taking big enough risks:

Lost in current discussion is the fact that few subprime borrowers have any skin in the game in the first place. Having put nothing down or having extracted equity in previous refinances, most subprime borrowers will lose nothing if their homes go into foreclosure. In some cases the teaser rates were so low that borrowers actually paid less than what they might otherwise have paid in rent. In fact, those who have already extracted equity have received huge windfalls from their homes and will leave their lenders holding the bag.

Talk about lucky duckies! However, according to Krugman,

Relief is restricted to borrowers whose mortgage debt is at least 97 percent of the house’s value — which means that in many, perhaps most, cases those who get debt relief will be borrowers who owe more than their house is worth. These people would be nearly as well off in financial terms if they simply walked away.

So, no equity “windfalls.” But let’s go back to Murphy, who explains the beauty of the capitalist system:

The reason borrowers agree to adjustable rates (which have the possibility of skyrocketing) and to pledging their home or other assets as collateral, is that this allows them to receive concessions from the bank—in particular, it allows them to borrow a great deal more money than would otherwise be possible. Very few people would persuade a bank to lend them money to buy a house, if the bank didn’t ultimately have the right to take ownership of the house in the event that the borrower couldn’t make the mortgage payments. Yes, borrowers would prefer that they get a $300,000 mortgage with no strings attached, but lenders wouldn’t be too happy with this arrangement. The beauty of a capitalist system is that property owners must compromise to reach mutually beneficial arrangements, since private transactions are voluntary.

He acknowledges that there are some “shysters and shady characters” in the home loan biz, but for the most part “the politicians want to grant a mulligan to hundreds of thousands who bought homes they couldn’t afford.”

But Krugman wrote,

The Wall Street Journal found that more than 55 percent of subprime loans made at the height of the housing bubble “went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms.”

And at Newsweek, Daniel McGinn wrote of a borrower who didn’t know a $300 property tax bill would be added to her monthly mortgage bill. I suspect this happens a lot, especially to first-time buyers. In my own home-buying experiences I learned you sometimes have to threaten the mortgage broker with bodily injury — or close to it, anyway — to get a straight answer to the question “what will be my total monthly payment?” In my book, a transaction is not “voluntary” if one of the two parties is withholding information from the other to maintain an advantage.

McGinn has more sympathy for the borrowers than Schiff and Murphy:

My own view is more sympathetic, for two reasons. The first, frankly, is self-interest. As a homeowner I’m concerned about the value of my own home. Studies show that anytime a house is foreclosed, the value of nearby properties tends to drop. Last month I spotted a “public auction” sign in front of a house two blocks from mine. I hope it’s not the first of many. My own mortgage is a conservative, fixed-rate loan, so I won’t directly benefit from the subprime bailout—but if it keeps some of my neighbors from losing their homes, I’ll benefit because it will help my house retain more of its value. (I will, of course, also be happy to avoid watching neighbors traumatized by foreclosure, but in this column I’m weighing the pros and cons economically, not emotionally.)

The other reason for my sympathy is that I’m aware of how hideously complicated mortgages have become over the last two decades. I have absurdly well-educated friends who don’t really understand how mortgages work. Even though I write about this stuff for a living, at times I’ve agonized over whether to pay points or whether my mortgage broker’s fees are legit.

But the Bushie plan offers little for most subprime borrowers, but at the same time does little to reduce investor losses. So what’s the point? I think Krugman called it exactly — it was created to undercut any attempt by Congress to actually help people holding subprime mortgages in danger of foreclosure. Free market culties like Schiff and Murphy may not like it, but in this case government is being used to prop up “free markets.”

In ancient times the Chinese made dogs and other animals of straw to be offered in sacrifice. Before the ritual a straw dog would be wrapped in embroidered cloth and handled with great care, but once the offering was made the straw dog was trampled and burned. “Straw dog” became a metaphor for something utterly expendable. “Free market,” unregulated capitalism makes straw dogs of us all.

Spoilsports

Posted on by

This Wall Street Journal editorial is hysterical — starting with the title —

Iran Curveball
This latest intelligence fiasco is Mr. Bush’s fault.

President Bush has been scrambling to rescue his Iran policy after this week’s intelligence switcheroo, but the fact that the White House has had to spin so furiously is a sign of how badly it has bungled this episode.

At this point I was wondering if I were really reading the Wall Street Journal. Since when had the WSJ editorial page actually owned up to reality? But the next sentence put my mind at ease.

In sum, Mr. Bush and his staff have allowed the intelligence bureaucracy to frame a new judgment in a way that has undermined four years of U.S. effort to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Yep; this is the WSJ editorial page we know and love to snark at.

This kind of national security mismanagement has bedeviled the Bush Presidency. Recall the internal disputes over post-invasion Iraq, the smearing of Ahmad Chalabi by the State Department and CIA, hanging Scooter Libby out to dry after bungling the response to Joseph Wilson’s bogus accusations, and so on. Mr. Bush has too often failed to settle internal disputes and enforce the results.

It’s sad, really. The Warmongering Right really did get away with creating its own reality, for a while. With the help of compulsive pleasers like George Tenet they created a world in which no one told them anything they didn’t want to hear. Now they want to believe the intelligence agencies deceived the Bush Administration with false intelligence on Iraq, but the truth is that the Bush Administration made it clear that the only products they would accept from Intelligence were those that confirmed their beliefs. Intelligence complied, and gave the Bushies what they wanted, and then took the blame when it all turned out wrong.

Oddly, after this some of them decided the Bushies’ games were no fun, and they would not play them any more.

Today the righties are taking comfort in a Rasmussen Poll that says only 18 percent of American voters believe Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons programs. The Dream (of bombing “the daylights out of Iran’s nuclear facilities and terrorism-supporting infrastructure“) is not dead! The American People are still with them!

Maybe not. A USA Today/Gallup Poll taken November 2-4 says that only 18 percent of Americans support military action against Iran. I assume we’re not looking at the same 18 percent.

The Wall Street Journal remains gloomy:

We reported earlier this week that the authors of this Iran NIE include former State Department officials who have a history of hostility to Mr. Bush’s foreign policy. But the ultimate responsibility for this fiasco lies with Mr. Bush. Too often he has appointed, or tolerated, officials who oppose his agenda, and failed to discipline them even when they have worked against his policies. Instead of being candid this week about the problems with the NIE, Mr. Bush and his National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, tried to spin it as a victory for their policy. They simply weren’t believable.

It’s a sign of the Bush Administration’s flagging authority that even many of its natural allies wondered this week if the NIE was really an attempt to back down from its own Iran policy. We only wish it were that competent.

Clearly, the Washington bureaucracy is running short of toadies willing to sell out their country for the sake of an unpopular Administration that will be gone in 13 months. How odd.

See also Ewen MacAskill, “Intelligence expert who rewrote book on Iran” in today’s Guardian.