Cluebats Wanted

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George Will wonders when Democrats will admit that George Bush’s economic policies — especially those tax cuts — are responsible for our sparkling, robust economy.

No, I’m not kidding.

Regarding the robust economy: If you ever want to catch up on the latest economic hiccups and twitches, I recommend The Bonddad Blog. This past week’s posts indicate the economy at the moment is so-so. Could be better, could be worse. Over the past several weeks job growth has been tepid, the markets have been up and down, some industries show some growth and some don’t. Consumer confidence is down, but we’re probably not heading into a recession at the moment.

And why not? As Bonddad explained a few days ago, “With a cheap dollar and the rest of the world’s growth picking up, the US may be able to export enough to keep growth barely positive for the next quarter or so.”

Yes, that’s so … not robust.

But in George Will world, the Bush Economy is a wonder to behold.

Early in George W. Bush’s presidency, liberal critics said: The economy is not growing. Which was true. He inherited the debris of the 1990s’ irrational exuberances. A brief (eight months) and mild (the mildest since World War II) recession began in March 2001, before any of his policies were implemented. It ended in November 2001.

In 2002, when his tax cuts kicked in and the economy began 65 months — so far — of uninterrupted growth, critics said: But it is a “jobless recovery.” When the unemployment rate steadily declined — today it is 4.5 percent; time was, 6 percent was considered full employment — critics said: Well, all right, the economy is growing and creating jobs and wealth, but the wealth is not being distributed in accordance with the laws of God or Nature or liberalism or something.

Yeah, those wage slaves working their asses off to prop up the value of Will’s portfolio should quit whining.

Will is certain the Democrats have “a problem” with George Bush’s economy, because it’s so wonderful they can’t possibly run against it.

How do you exclaim, as Hillary Clinton does, that today’s economy is “like going back to the era of the robber barons” and insist that the nation urgently needs substantial tax increases, in the face of these facts:

In the 102 quarters since Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts went into effect more than 25 years ago, there have been 96 quarters of growth. Since the Bush tax cuts and the current expansion began, the economy’s growth has averaged 3 percent per quarter, and more than 8 million jobs have been created. The deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product is below the post-World War II average.

This miracle was brought to you by means of some “innovative” accountlng standards, which hide a big chunk of our growing national debt.

Twenty-three months after the next president is inaugurated, the Bush tax cuts expire. The winner of the 2008 election and her or his congressional allies will determine what is done about the fact that, unless action is taken, in 2011 the economy will be walloped.

Translation: The tax rates will go back to where they were in the late 1990s, a time that I don’t recall was all that awful, economy-wise. Although Will’s taxes will go up, I ‘spect.

Still, I’m touched that Will is so concerned about how the poor Democrats can run against Bush’s economy and expect to win elections in 2008. I just want to assure him that I believe they will manage, somehow.

Update: See also Ezra Klein and No More Mr. Nice Blog.

Raised in a Barn

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I dare say all the contenders at Belmont Park today have better manners than this creature.

Update: You’ll like this — John Hooper writes for The Observer:

He really is priceless. Other world leaders see the Pope with their advisers and the Vatican’s peerlessly punctilious protocol experts, making sure they do not commit the slightest gaffe. But George W. Bush can outwit them all. On the plane to Rome, he was already struggling.

The Pope is addressed as ‘Your Holiness’. Roman Catholics refer to him as ‘The Holy Father’. But somewhere in the tumble dryer that is the part of the US President’s brain set aside for words, the two concepts got tangled and he told Associated Press: ‘I think His Holy Father will be pleased to know that much of our foreign policy is based on the admonition to whom much is given, much is required.’

No doubt Pope Benedict, whom Bush later described as ‘very smart’, was able to deconstruct the rest of the sentence. But before he got down to cases with Bush, the Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles and Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church had the unusual experience of being called ‘sir’. ‘It’s good to be with you, sir,’ said Bush as he sat down. But it was just one of those days for George W. Even the car broke down.

His visit to Rome had been preceded by the biggest security operation this bodyguard’s nightmare of a city had ever seen. The Tiber was dragged. The sewers were searched. Squares were cleared and roofs occupied. Yesterday the presidential cavalcade hurtled along its route preceded by a swarm of more than a dozen motorcycles, scooters and even motorised three-wheelers carrying tough-looking armed police riding pillion.

But when it got to Largo Poli, near the Trevi fountain, Bush’s car ground to a halt. It remained perilously immobile for a minute and half. The President and Laura Bush were hustled into another car. That was denied by a White House official, who said the reasons for the breakdown were ‘unclear’. Just as unclear was how the wide presidential limo could get through the gates of the US embassy. It couldn’t. The presidential couple had to walk in.

Another Belmont Stakes Post

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[Update: The filly won! Whoopee!]

One filly, Rags to Riches, will be running in the Belmont Stakes today. A filly hasn’t won the race in over a century. Rags to Riches is a daughter of A.P. Indy, who won the Belmont Stakes in 1992. A.P. Indy was sired by Seattle Slew. His dam was Morning Surprise, a daughter of Secretariat.

Rags to Riches is one of the favorites, after Curlin and Hard Spun. Hard Spun is a descendant of Man o’ War and War Admiral, through his grandma Pas de Nom. He is also a grandson of Northern Dancer (winner of the 1964 Kentucky Derby and Preakness) and a great-grandson of Alydar, famous for running second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown. Curlin is a great-great grandson of Northern Dancer, as is Rags to Riches on her ma’s side.

Update: Rags to Riches’s ancestry also goes back to Man o’ War, through her great-grandpa Buckpasser.

Once Upon a Time

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So we know there won’t be a Triple Crown winner this year, but thanks to video we can watch a Triple Crown Belmont Stakes victory anyway.

First, a story. Once upon a time, two thoroughbred breeders made a deal. They agreed that the owner of pedigree brood mares would send two mares to the champion stud owned by the other owner. They flipped a coin, and the winner of the coin toss got first choice of the two foals. Then the same two mares made the same trip the next year, and the loser of the coin toss got the first choice of the second two foals, except one of the two mares failed to produce a foal the second year.

So, the winner of the coin toss took home one foal, a filly that proved to be unexceptional. The loser got the second choice from the first year — a colt, also unexceptional — and the only foal born the second year. That foal was Secretariat.

If you saw the videos of the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, you might remember that in both those races Secretariat was in last place early in the race. Then he moved up to take the lead in the stretch. According to William Nack in Secretariat: The Making of a Champion, this was how the big horse ran most of his races. Jockey Ron Turcotte felt Secretariat usually needed to settle into his stride early in a race. But once he was in his stride, he kept accelerating. For example, in the 1 1/4 mile Derby he ran each quarter mile faster than the last one. This is unusual.

Beside Secretariat, there were only four other horses in the Belmont Stakes — Pvt. Smiles, Twice a Prince, My Gallant, and Sham. Only Sham’s owner admitted to thinking his horse could beat Secretariat. Sham had run great races in the Derby and Preakness and might well have won any other year. In fact, in the Derby he would have beat the track record had not Secretariat just set a new track record.

The Belmont Stakes is the longest of the three Triple Crown races — 1 1/2 miles. Sham’s owner instructed the jockey, Laffit Pincay, to go to the lead at the beginning of the race and to try to keep the pace moderate. They probably expected Secretariat to hang back at the beginning of the race, as he usually did. But Ron Turcotte decided that if no other horse set a strong pace he’d let the big horse go to the front and set his own pace.

So, in the video below (there’s a bigger version here) you see Sham and Secretariat both going to the front at the beginning, and they pull away from the other three horses. As they go into the first turn, they both pick up the pace. Pretty soon the two of them are running as if they were in a sprint, not a 1 1/2 mile race. Pincay knows that Sham is running too hard, but he had been ordered not to let Secretariat get ahead. Turcotte, meanwhile, feels the big horse running easily and figures he can keep it up for a while. So the two horses sprint, and reach the half-mile pole at 0:46 1/5, which was the fastest opening half mile in the history of the race.

By now Secretariat’s owners and his trainer are tearing out their hair, convinced that Ron Turcotte has gone out of his mind and will cause the horse to collapse of exhaustion before he gets to the wire. But because Secretariat is running so easily, Turcotte doesn’t realize how fast the horse is going.

At about five-eighths of a mile, Sham begins to fall apart. They’re still running at a faster pace than Man o’ War, Count Fleet, or Citation had run at that same point in the race. Over the next eighth of a mile Sham struggles, and Secretariat just glides along. At three quarters of a mile into the race, Sham is done. He drifts back and eventually finishes last. But Secretariat maintains the same sprint speed. His owners and trainer still think the horse will break down any minute. But Turcotte hasn’t taken out his whip or pushed the big horse; he is just letting him run, still not realizing they’re going at a record clip.

Now Secretariat opens the lead. On the video, you can hear the announcer Chick Anderson:

“Secretariat is blazing along! The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 4/5. Secretariat is widening now. He is moving like a tremendous machine!”

Secretariat pulls further and further away from the rest of the horses. His frantic owners watch for any sign the horse is hurting or stressed. There is no such sign. As he turns into the home stretch, Secretariat is running faster than he ran past the half-mile pole. The lead widens. The horse maintains his record pace. At about the point Secretariat is 26 lengths in front — I’m sorry you can’t make this out in the video — Turcotte glanced behind and saw the rest of the field in another county. Then he glanced at the timer and realized he was ahead of record pace. So at the very end of the race, you can make out that he is pumping his arms — for the first time since early in the race — to be sure Secretariat doesn’t slow down at the end and blow the record.

Secretariat goes under the wire at 2:24, 31 lengths in the lead (the announcers says 29 lengths, but the horse was so far out in front it was hard to count). The previous record had been Gallant Man’s 2:26.6, set in 1957.

Since then, the second-fastest clocking is shared by Easy Goer (1989) and A. P. Indy (1992) at 2:26, while Risen Star (1988) and Point Given (2001) hold the fourth-fastest time at 2:26 2/5, it says here.

OK, now you can watch the race. (Or click here.)

You can read about the rest of Secretariat’s life here. In short, the big horse was retired to stud at the end of the 1973 racing reason and euthanized in 1983 after developing laminitis. On the whole his offspring were not exceptional, but his daughters have an outstanding record as brood mares. The fillies got all his good genes, it seems.

Sham was also retired to stud in 1973, after a leg fracture ended his racing career, and died in 1993. In 1978, Ron Turcotte fell from a mount during a race and was paralyzed from the waist down.

To this day, many people still consider Secretariat’s 1973 Belmont Stakes race to be the greatest single performance by a running horse. Certainly, it’s the best performance ever captured on film.

Paternity Tests

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First, if by chance any journalists drop by here, I have a complaint. I’ve been surfing around this morning looking for a news story that explains the main provisions of the immigration bill, in its current form, and the various amendments the Republicans want to attach to it. Haven’t found one.

This is news reporting 101, people. Yes, the lead grafs should be about how the bill was killed in the Senate and how there’s this big political fight over it, but at some point the story should move into an explanation of what’s in the bleeping bill.

The Dallas Morning News offers a sentence:

The legislation would tighten borders and institute a new system to prevent employers from hiring undocumented workers, in addition to giving up to 12 million illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status.

Somehow, I think there’s more to it than that.

Here’s the text of the actual bill if you want to slog through it. I’m a bit short of time this morning and cannot, which is why I was looking for a news story that digested it for me. And then there are the several amendments, which include one sponsored by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) to “declare English as the national language of the Government of the United States, and for other purposes,” one from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) requiring that voters must present a photo ID before they’re allowed into the voting booth, and one from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) preventing some temporary workers and the former illegals receiving amnesty from claiming an earned income tax credit.

I haven’t heard from anyone who actually likes this bill. I’m told by other liberals that the bill’s guest worker program would have instituted a new class of worker with virtually no bargaining powers, and that this almost certainly would suppress the wages of many citizens. Conservatives don’t like the bill because the notion of amnesty for illegal aliens sticks in their craw, and of course they want big fences along the Rio Grande.

The fence issue illustrates how the damnfool politicians can’t even agree on the stuff they agree on. Everyone wants more secure borders. Some on the extreme right claim the Democrats and President Bush are tools of the Open Borders Lobby, but in fact, no one in Congress — not even Ted Kennedy — is in favor of open borders.

The argument is not whether the borders should be more secure, but how to go about making them more secure. My understandng is that the Dems in general favor making smarter use of surveillance technologies. But that will not do for conservatives; they want a fence. I’m sure you already know how that would turn out. We’d spend billions on the bleeping fence, and then in a few months’ time the coyotes will have figured out how to get through it. Then we’d need the surveillance technologies to look for holes in the fence. The fence obviously represents something in rightie minds — something primitive and hostile, of course — that eludes the rest of us.

But President Bush had made a Big Bleeping Deal about immigration reform. So a bipartisan group of a dozen Senators got together a few months ago and wrote a bill that sort of satisfied what Bush wanted and also had a shot, they thought, at passing.

Carl Hulse and Robert Pear write for the New York Times:

The compromise legislation was announced on May 17 by authors who hailed it as a “grand bargain.” It held together through much of the debate because the negotiators — embodied on the right by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, a Republican, and on the left by Mr. Kennedy — agreed to block proposals they thought would sink the measure. That led to such odd moments as when Mr. Kyl on Wednesday opposed an amendment he had helped write for last year’s unsuccessful immigration measure.

But the legislation began running into problems late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning as the Senate approved a Democratic proposal to limit a guest-worker program sought by business interests and backed by Republicans. Backers of the bill hoped to reverse that result if the measure moved forward. …

… Democrats were growing increasingly uneasy.

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said the bill had become “more punitive and more onerous” because of amendments adopted in the last few days. Mr. Menendez pointed, for example, to one that denied the earned-income tax credit to illegal immigrants who gain legal status under the bill.

Republicans kept throwing nastier and more punitive amendments at the bill, and Harry Reid thought if the thing had any chance at all of passing he’d better cut off more amendments and try to get the bill voted on. What happened yesterday was that the bill flunked a procedural test that would have allowed it to move forward toward a vote.

After a day of tension and fruitless maneuvering, senators rejected a Democratic call to move toward a final vote on the compromise legislation after Republicans complained that they had not been given enough opportunity to reshape the sprawling bill. Supporters of cutting off debate got only 45 of the 60 votes they needed; 50 senators opposed the cutoff.

“We are finished with this for the time being,” said Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the majority leader, as he turned the Senate to work on energy legislation.

An “inside story” post by rightie blogger John Hawkins suggests that conservative Republicans were trying deliberately to “gum up the works,” and it seems they succeeded.

It gets weirder. This bill was Bush’s baby. But apparently neither he nor anyone else in the White House tried to help it get passed. This week Harry Reid sent all kinds of signals to Bush that if he wanted his bill passed he had better put some pressure on Republican senators. But Bush is in Europe and the G8 summit, and apparently he doesn’t know that you can make overseas phone calls these days.

Some righties, meanwhile, interpreted Reid’s messages to Bush as pleas to help Reid get the bill passed, and yesterday I bounced into all manner of rightie bloggers who referred to the measure as “Reid’s bill.” The other allegations of paternity were made about Ted Kennedy, who is the Author of All Evil, and since Kennedy was one of the senators who worked on the original bill it must have been his fault. In fact, Little Lulu is now referring to Senator Ted as Bush’s “pal.” This is sort of like saying the President is in league with the Devil.

The righties really don’t like Bush any more.

Why I Dropped My Subscription to The New Republic

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This is why. Editor-In-Chief Martin Peretz thinks it’s just awful that poor Scooter Libby has to spend 30 months in jail. Why, all he did was perjure himself and obstruct a federal investigation. What’s the big deal?

TNR is supposed to be a liberal magazine. It hasn’t been for a long time, but it pretends. I did subscribe, briefly, once upon a time, ca. 2003. Lately the new owners have been trumpeting the “new” TNR. I’ve gotten two sample issues. See? It has a new format. It’s so much prettier.

The only change that would tempt me to renew is a complete overhaul of the masthead.

Getting Up With Fleas

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I know I spend way too much time reading rightie blogs than is good for me. But I did get a kick out of this post at the rightie blog Jawa Report.

On May 29, in Glynco, Georgia, George W. Bush made the following statement, hammering hard against the opponents of his immigration bill, most of whom are on the Republican side of the aisle:

    “If you want to kill the bill, if you don’t want to do what’s right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it, you can use it to frighten people. Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all.”

These words and sentences are not complicated. The inferences are pretty clear. Let’s break it down:

    …if you don’t want to do what’s right for America…

The logic: The President’s way is what’s right for America. If you Republicans and Democrats do not agree with the President’s way, you are personally against what’s right for America.

The inference: No matter who you are, Republican or Democrat, if you are against the President’s way, you are against the best interests of this country (or maybe this continent).

Well yes, exactly. But the thing is, m’love, he’s been doing this same song and dance for almost six years now. You’re just now noticing?

There’s an old saying, Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. I’d say the entire Republican Party needs a good soak in Frontline Plus.

Those of us who criticized the President’s other policies were shouted down and called haters, weasels, even traitors. Our concerns were dismissed as lunatic ravings; our expressions of dismay and disgust were considered proof that we hated America. (See, for example, this vintage Ted Barlow post, “Since the beginning of time, liberals have yearned to destroy the sun.”)

So now some of you are getting the same treatment you’ve been shoveling on us, and you don’t like it. Boo bleeping hoo.

Glenn Greenwald writes,

It is vital to emphasize repeatedly that the havoc wreaked on this country by George W. Bush is, first and foremost, the work of America’s so-called “conservative” movement, which venerated Bush to a degree unseen in the modern presidential era. Here was not a mere President, but “our” Commander-in-Chief during a Time of War, and to criticize him was to criticize America. There were multiple culprits-in-arms along the way — principally the news media — but the right-wing movement now seeking to re-invent itself as dissatisfied victims of the Bush presidency in search of a “Real Conservative” to lead it are the ones who bear full responsibility for the devastation this presidency has wreaked on the country.

In times past, there was a general understanding between the two major parties that everyone wanted what was best for America. Our disagreements were over what that best thing was and how to go about obtaining it. But for the past few years — predating the Bush presidency, actually — Republicans have taken the attitude that they were America, and everyone else was apostate.

The idea that someone could sincerely love America and, for example, be opposed to the war in Iraq was utterly outside the rightie conceptual universe. We couldn’t even get righties to see the inherent contradiction in warrantless wiretapping to preserve “freedom.” Those with concerns about violation of the Fourth Amendment were painted as terrorist sympathizers.

But now righties who criticize Bush’s immigration policy are getting just a little taste of what they’ve been dishing out to us lo these many years, and they don’t like it. And Bush himself, accustomed as he is to his security blanket of absolute sycophant-ism, is astonished that Republicans don’t like it.

President Bush did not intend to single out his conservative supporters for criticism in a speech on immigration reform last week and was “surprised” that his remarks angered Republicans, White House spokesman Tony Snow said today.

“He was surprised by the reaction,” Mr. Snow said of Mr. Bush’s speech in Glynco, Ga., last week. “The speech in Georgia was, ‘We’ve got a serious problem and we need to fix it.’ It was not in any way designed to be pointed at Republicans.” …

… Some Republicans on Capitol Hill said that Mr. Bush seemed to be questioning their patriotism, and several conservative activists said the president was splitting the Republican Party by insulting those who have been his most loyal supporters.

Mr. Snow yesterday said the immigration dispute between the president and conservatives “does not mark a point of disjunction,” and emphasized that the White House recognizes and is responding to conservative opposition to the measure.

“We understand if you’re going to get this thing done, you’re gonna need Republicans,” Mr. Snow said. “It’s important to build a large coalition, including our conservative base.”

But Bush’s idea of coalition building is to expect everyone to fall in line behind whatever he wants. Otherwise, you are being “partisan.” He does cave in occasionally — Harriet Miers’s SCOTUS nomination comes to mind — but don’t expect him to compromise. Bush doesn’t do compromise. He either gets his way, or he takes his ball and goes home.

Hey, righties — itching, much?