[/QUOTE] 1) The polls at the times in question don't back up your hypothesis. Support didn't rise until the government started railing about WMDs...not even the initial 9-11 connections they floated garnered much support. And whatever theory you want to espouse, the fact is that one group, the non-Republicans showed in this action, and in the Afghanisatnian action, that they can decide issues irrespective of partisan loyalty, while one group, the Reoublican supporters have consistently followed the party line, and continue to do so. "Is it really a surprise to you that objectivity can be suspended when the stakes are murder and terrorism? I'm not at all surprised. When the intensity of feelings have waned, all you are left with is a good example of partisanship-- attitudes about the war have settled upon party lines." A surprise? No...at the time I predicted that the emotional wave caused by 9-11 could be ridden exactly as has come to pass...but are you seriously suggesting that you prefer that kind of emotional subjective support to objectivity? And as the non-Republican supporters have shown their ability to think along non-partisan lines, why do you assume that the division we now see is merely a return to partisanship on both sides? Would not a more consistent approach, considering the recent past, be that the non-Republicans have again reacted to the situation as they deem appropriate, while the Republican supporters continue to stay hard and true to the dictates of the party without consideration of the facts presented? 2) Amazing. So first you say that we shouldn't question the administration at all, as they are dealing with uncertainties and we do not share their burden...and now you have somehow suspended that distinction, but only once every four years, and the rest of the time we should be seen and not heard? What happened to the first rationale, that we cannot possibly evaluate their actions, irrespective of how they turn out, because we cannot share their experince? Why is that suspended every four years? And do you honestly think that aside from elections the administration should recieve the carte blanche that you suggest aside from at the voting booths? That would, of course, preclude actions like the Watergate investigations, the anti-Nam protests, Clinton's impeachment, and many other mid term questions of authority we have practiced in the past. You cannot escape the fact that you sited their accountability while condeming those who hold them to it. "As some have said, war is fluid and when it doesn't go by the book, it is not time to cackle about the sky falling. It's about adjusting and pressing on.... " Ok, again you state an absolute. Are you going to temper this one when it's flaws are shown as you did with the "we cannot judge short of certainty: maxim you preached earlier? We'll see...So now we cannot even question war activities except at election time. We were told pre-war that that wasn't the time; nothing had happened yet. We were told during the war that that wasn't the time, support the troops. We were told just after the war that that wasn't the time, because it was a done deal. Now that the done deal has been shown to be somewhat underdone, we are told that now isn't the time because it's not an election year...If no criticism is allowed, if all criticism is consistently shot down as treason, socialist, partisan and inappropriate, and the people can only make their feelings felt by voting, how do you expect the government to ever be held accountable? What will people vote on if no one can criticize the administration? Two questions: 1) Did you feel this way, that any criticism is just partisan opportunism and should wait until the election time when Clinton was being impeached? 2) How is any adminstration ever held responsible for anything by your theorum in it's second term? Clearly this adaptation of your earlier idea is not practical. 3) You are being too literal. The analogy wasn't saying that the war is as easy to predict as a dog in the road, that wasn't the line being drawn. The comparative illustration was between 'Jeff' and you. When someone has been saying that something won't work for a long time, and been dismissed, ignored, and ridiculed, and when what they said would happen comes to pass, for those who ignored, ridiculed, and dismissed them previously to now claim that their current condemnations are merely said with the benefit of hindsight is a ridiculous position, and that was what the story illustrated. I doubt anyone but yourself and those wanting to ignore that obvious connection took it to mean " War is as simple to evaluate as a dog in the road." No, we can't agree that he is 1 for 2...The war itself was a foregone conclusion, and I don't know anyone who thought that we would lose a conventional engagement. It was an elephant and a fly. To have brought off the defeat of the fly is nothing to write home about from a political administration point of view. And it didn't require any administrative competence in terms of policy or supervision, aside from the avoidance of the possibility of the Turks getting involved, which was well handled as far as I know. Bush has the greatest arsenal on the planet at his disposal, and used it to take down a lightweight. What was in his hands was the manner in which we rushed to war, the manner in which we alienated our allies, the manner in which we evaluated and gathered intel to formulate a picture of the reception we would get in-country, the policy of post war administration, the manner in which we determined and sold the urgency needed for the operation, etc. All have been failures. All have contributed to the present situation. Hardly 1 for 2. 4) "This is subtle, no doubt. My complaint with you guys is the constancy of your criticism. Nothing is ever done right by this Administration. You act like a bunch of know-it-alls who would have us believe that you could run this country better than our experienced, elected officials. That's the epitome of arm-chairing." No, it's not. It's a reflection of the govt.'s actions. Remember, giddy, before the war I supported Bush. Many did. You didn't get this kind of bashing in Afghanistan...why not? Why do you consistently look for the cause of the criticism in the camp of the critics, ignore the fact that they didn't do this previously, and overlook the issues leading to the criticism? Remember that the rest of the world, the world who supported us post 9-11 and in Afghanistan, also reversed course because of the exact same actions of this administration. Why do you insist on always saying that everyone else is biased, and only the govt. and the vast global minority who support their actions are the ones who are being objective, when the former has shown an ability to shift it's opinion while the latter is the one who has staunchly refused to budge an inch or consider the alternatives? And Jefferson's point was not subtle; it was a direct call to oppose the kind of unquestioning support of authority that you are advocating. It was the backbone of representative and responsible government, which is not something which hybernates and comes to life once every four years, but an animal which must live each day in accordance with it's principles or lose itself in the wilderness of power politics.
considering the nonstop guffaws from Republicans because Clinton allegedly bombed an asprin factory, Bush has gotten off easy on his inability to find Saddam or WMD. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity mention the asprin factory at least once a week, but have nothing but praise for Commander AWOL. the country was not behind this. the administration actively used deception to get public approval. central to that was the claim of a nuclear WMD program. Bush used it at every stop, in every public appearance. he reads his lines well. I'll give him that.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this - being that I'm relatively new to the bbs (at least in posting), that what I'm about to ask will not represent an 'outside the box mentality' to some, and like T_J has pointed out that conservative posting has waned for the moment - but here goes nothing. Would someone please explain why GWB is receiving so much grief from the good people here in the Hangout regarding the blackouts? He's only been in office two and half years, correct? The previous administration had eight years to do something; I've yet to read any post in this thread which even begins to spotlight this facet...
you ask a valid question, and one which deserves a serious answer. It was covered in part by the original poster. I quote from the AP quote which he used:
The tax cuts are so the president can fix an economy he supposedly has no control over. Batman, that was wicked. No wonder TJ is asking the moderators for help.
Originally posted by MacBeth 1) The polls at the times in question don't back up your hypothesis. Support didn't rise until the government started railing about WMDs...not even the initial 9-11 connections they floated garnered much support. <B>Can you support this assertion? My recollection is that there was great support right after the 2003 SOTUA which was "fair and balanced" (oh, that will get a rise) on the nuclear WMD issue and pretty factual about other WMDs. WMDs (especially chemical and biological) are continuosly linked with Saddam because of the Kurds.</b> And whatever theory you want to espouse, the fact is that one group, the non-Republicans showed in this action, and in the Afghanisatnian action, that they can decide issues irrespective of partisan loyalty, while one group, the Reoublican supporters have consistently followed the party line, and continue to do so. A surprise? No...at the time I predicted that the emotional wave caused by 9-11 could be ridden exactly as has come to pass...but are you seriously suggesting that you prefer that kind of emotional subjective support to objectivity? And as the non-Republican supporters have shown their ability to think along non-partisan lines, why do you assume that the division we now see is merely a return to partisanship on both sides? Would not a more consistent approach, considering the recent past, be that the non-Republicans have again reacted to the situation as they deem appropriate, while the Republican supporters continue to stay hard and true to the dictates of the party without consideration of the facts presented? <b>Another way of putting it: the Dems were swayed by the emotions while the Republicans exhibiting a high order of character stayed to the path of ridding the world of Saddam. That it is a party line (but remember there are Republicans against the war, too) may be a product of the thinking not the rudder.</b> 2) Amazing. So first you say that we shouldn't question the administration at all, as they are dealing with uncertainties and we do not share their burden...and now you have somehow suspended that distinction, but only once every four years, and the rest of the time we should be seen and not heard? What happened to the first rationale, that we cannot possibly evaluate their actions, irrespective of how they turn out, because we cannot share their experince? Why is that suspended every four years? And do you honestly think that aside from elections the administration should recieve the carte blanche that you suggest aside from at the voting booths? That would, of course, preclude actions like the Watergate investigations, the anti-Nam protests, Clinton's impeachment, and many other mid term questions of authority we have practiced in the past. You cannot escape the fact that you sited their accountability while condeming those who hold them to it. Ok, again you state an absolute. Are you going to temper this one when it's flaws are shown as you did with the "we cannot judge short of certainty: maxim you preached earlier? We'll see...So now we cannot even question war activities except at election time. We were told pre-war that that wasn't the time; nothing had happened yet. We were told during the war that that wasn't the time, support the troops. We were told just after the war that that wasn't the time, because it was a done deal. Now that the done deal has been shown to be somewhat underdone, we are told that now isn't the time because it's not an election year...If no criticism is allowed, if all criticism is consistently shot down as treason, socialist, partisan and inappropriate, and the people can only make their feelings felt by voting, how do you expect the government to ever be held accountable? What will people vote on if no one can criticize the administration? <b> What's amazing is the way you reduce and distort what I say. First off, I said it was complex. My complaint was and is with the constant carping. I never said that no criticism was allowed; I called for more statesmanship. The Administration, with all their experience and wisdom, never does anything right in your estimation. Remember, though, there is an enemy who is doing everything in their power to confound our American military. The other side of this coin is that you and your lot are never wrong... never, never wrong about anything... from the comfort of your armchairs and keyboards, of course!</b> Two questions: 1) Did you feel this way, that any criticism is just partisan opportunism and should wait until the election time when Clinton was being impeached? <b>Well, Clinton pretty obviously lied before a Grand Jury. Being the highest officer in the land, that is not tolerable.</b> 2) How is any adminstration ever held responsible for anything by your theorum in it's second term? Clearly this adaptation of your earlier idea is not practical. <b>By History, I guess. Isn't that your area? That's a good question, though and I re-assert that I am not calling for thorazine-induced limp hand-clapping approval of just everything. You and your fellow crew here have absolutely no balance about any of this. That is my objection. Remember, my "I'm Tired of Being a Republican" thread. I realize that mistakes are made but it is a viscious dynamic that they operate in not a virtual world. The constant, all-out assault on the Administration eggs me into putting on rose-colored glasses while you wear night-vision goggles to detect every little slip-up for your own "profiteering."</b> 3) You are being too literal. The analogy wasn't saying that the war is as easy to predict as a dog in the road, that wasn't the line being drawn. The comparative illustration was between 'Jeff' and you. When someone has been saying that something won't work for a long time, and been dismissed, ignored, and ridiculed, and when what they said would happen comes to pass, for those who ignored, ridiculed, and dismissed them previously to now claim that their current condemnations are merely said with the benefit of hindsight is a ridiculous position, and that was what the story illustrated. I doubt anyone but yourself and those wanting to ignore that obvious connection took it to mean " War is as simple to evaluate as a dog in the road." <b>Not working? We whipped Iraq's ass in a fairly short time. Yes, re-organization is taking longer and is more dangerous than hoped for. Who "dismissed, ignored, and ridiculed" you? I just didn't agree. Your opposition had nothing to do with likelihood of success or anticipation of troubles to be found. You were just against the war period, weren't you?</b> No, we can't agree that he is 1 for 2...The war itself was a foregone conclusion, and I don't know anyone who thought that we would lose a conventional engagement. It was an elephant and a fly. To have brought off the defeat of the fly is nothing to write home about from a political administration point of view. And it didn't require any administrative competence in terms of policy or supervision, aside from the avoidance of the possibility of the Turks getting involved, which was well handled as far as I know. Bush has the greatest arsenal on the planet at his disposal, and used it to take down a lightweight. What was in his hands was the manner in which we rushed to war, the manner in which we alienated our allies, the manner in which we evaluated and gathered intel to formulate a picture of the reception we would get in-country, the policy of post war administration, the manner in which we determined and sold the urgency needed for the operation, etc. All have been failures. All have contributed to the present situation. Hardly 1 for 2. <b>Saddam and the world were given at least 90 days to make up for a long dozen years of abusing the system.</b> No, it's not. It's a reflection of the govt.'s actions. Remember, giddy, before the war I supported Bush. Many did. You didn't get this kind of bashing in Afghanistan...why not? Why do you consistently look for the cause of the criticism in the camp of the critics, ignore the fact that they didn't do this previously, and overlook the issues leading to the criticism? Remember that the rest of the world, the world who supported us post 9-11 and in Afghanistan, also reversed course because of the exact same actions of this administration. Why do you insist on always saying that everyone else is biased, and only the govt. and the vast global minority who support their actions are the ones who are being objective, when the former has shown an ability to shift it's opinion while the latter is the one who has staunchly refused to budge an inch or consider the alternatives? <b>I've always liked that definition of character which talks about doing what has to be done when the mood to do so is long gone. I prefer that POV to your's of "objectivity." I'm somewhat baffled by any distinctions drawn between The Taliban and Saddam. Both regimes brutalized their people. The Taliban was fresher in our minds, though. Is that the reason so many people felt they deserved what they got while going limp on Saddam?</b> And Jefferson's point was not subtle; it was a direct call to oppose the kind of unquestioning support of authority that you are advocating. It was the backbone of representative and responsible government, which is not something which hybernates and comes to life once every four years, but an animal which must live each day in accordance with it's principles or lose itself in the wilderness of power politics. <b>I never asserted any such thing. I called for statesmanship which is a call to both sides of the issue. We spend so much time and energy pitted against one another rather than our common foe.</b>
I don't have the time to dissect the following article at any length, but I'll leave it up to the resident brainiacs to have a go at it. Blackout delivers jolt to Congress Stalled energy bill now likely to move forward in autumn By Edward Walsh THE WASHINGTON POST Aug. 16 — The massive power failure that struck the Northeast and parts of the Midwest this week also delivered a jolt to Congress, where energy legislation has been stalled amid deep regional differences over how best to upgrade the nation’s aging electric power transmission system. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS and Republican lobbyists said yesterday they believed the power outage, experienced in a large part of the country and watched on television in the rest of the country, make it more likely that the energy bill logjam will be broken when Congress returns after Labor Day. “Nothing shines light on an issue like a blackout,” said Ron Eidshaug, a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Congress who has worked on the energy legislation. Before members of Congress left for the August recess, both the House and the Senate passed separate energy bills that must be reconciled by a conference committee. Both measures contain provisions meant to strengthen the transmission system, including stronger reliability standards. But there are sharp differences on another key issue involving a proposal by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that would put control of transmission lines in the hands of several regional transmission organizations, nudging the country toward a national transmission system. Lawmakers from the South and the Pacific Northwest, which generally enjoy cheaper electricity than other parts of the country, oppose the FERC plan and are maneuvering to block or delay its implementation. A KEY BUSH CONCERN The blackout of 2003 underscored the urgency of the task, administration officials said. “This particular incident has made it abundantly clear to the American people that we’ve got an antiquated system, and now we’ve got to figure out what went wrong and how to address it,” President Bush said in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Bush had made comprehensive energy legislation a key priority at the beginning of his administration. But two attempts to pass a package of energy measures — including tax incentives for oil and gas drilling, support for nuclear power and provisions for the electricity grid — have been stymied by partisan divisions in Congress. Members of Congress reacted swiftly to the blackout, the most extensive in U.S. history. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman W. J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.) said his committee will hold a hearing on the power outage in September. Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) said his panel will use the blackout as a vehicle to explore the vulnerability of the nation’s power supply and distribution systems. But while the blackout may provide momentum for energy legislation, deep differences remain among key participants in the debate. FERC Chairman Patrick H. Wood III, pushing his agency’s proposal to put the transmission lines under the control of regional transmission organizations, said, “The cascading nature of this blackout offers an object lesson of how the electricity grid requires regional coordination and planning, a challenge the nation is still striving to meet.” But Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), a leading opponent of the FERC plan, drew an opposite lesson from the blackout. “It appears that the cascading power outages throughout the Northeast only reinforce our need to focus on reliability and transmission infrastructure development rather than creation of a new national market system,” he said. “The power grid system was built to provide electricity to local customers, and a national market system is not feasible without significant infrastructure additions.” The only way that the Senate was able to pass any energy bill before the August recess was an unusual agreement to accept a measure that was crafted last year by Senate Democrats to get the legislation to a conference committee with the House. But Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) said the conference committee will produce “a completely different bill” than the one that passed the Senate. Shelby has said he has been given assurances by Domenici that a final bill will include a provision to delay implementation of any FERC plan on regional transmission organizations until 2005; House leaders have not agreed to this, aides said. CHANGES SINCE DEREGULATION The regional differences over the legislation are rooted in the evolution of electric utilities as the industry began to deregulate in the 1990s. Utilities in the Northeast and Midwest underwent extensive deregulation that separated power generation from its transmission over the power grid. But that was not the case in much of the South and the Pacific Northwest, with its abundant sources of hydroelectric power. “In the South in particular, where you still have large, multistate utilities, there is a huge incentive to operate the transmission system in a way that favors their own generation,” one energy expert said. “The regional transmission agencies would operate the transmission lines independently, and the utilities would no longer control access to the marketplace. They see that as a threat to low cost power." Christine Tezak, an electricity-energy analyst with Charles Schwab & Co., said that a lack of a political consensus on how to upgrade the transmission system has dampened the willingness of investors to put up the tens of millions of dollars necessary to improve the system. “The problem is a lack of projects,” she said. “No utility is clear. If they want to do something that is an economic enhancement over several service areas, they don’t know where to go. If Congress wants to see regional transmission organizations developed, if Congress says that’s what we want, that’s the first step” toward consensus. In April, FERC backed down from its original proposal, made last year, and said it would allow different regions of the country to move toward regional transmission organizations at their own pace. Tezak said that was the approach that she expected to emerge from Congress in a final version of the bill. “Clearly the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and the Northeast must go forward sooner rather than later,” she said. “If the South and the West want to go slower, that’s up to them.” Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report. © 2003 The Washington Post Company http://www.msnbc.com/news/952711.asp?0cl=c3
Prediction: the Republicans will insert a provision in the bill about drilling in the Alaskan Nat'l Wildlife Refuge and blame the Democrats for opposing it. It's really too bad that the blackout didn't hit DC, so maybe congress would stop putting bad riders on bills for political points at the expense of the country. In a related note: you know one of the reasons why the southeast generally has cheaper electricity, and thus fewer complaints, as the article notes? Easy, they never bothered with deregulation. Yup, the republican South practices communist energy policies, chock full of regulation: and it is working.
WRONG. The reason the southeast has cheaper power is due to the fact that their generation is overwhelmingly coal fired, instead of natural gas or oil-based, which is much more expensive.
First, before you start gloating, read the post, I said, "one of the reasons", not THE reason. Here's a source making this arguement, not the greatest, but more than you provided. Or do you have one trader texx? August 16, 2003 An Industry Trapped by a Theory By ROBERT KUTTNER n the search for the source of Thursday's blackout, the underlying cause has been all but ignored: deregulation. In principle, deregulation of the power industry was supposed to use the discipline of free markets to generate just the right amount of electricity at the right price. But electric power, it turns out, is not like ordinary commodities. Electricity can't be stored in large quantities, and the system needs a lot of spare generating and transmission capacity for periods of peak demand like hot days in August. The power system also requires a great deal of planning and coordination, and it needs incentives for somebody to maintain and upgrade transmission lines. Deregulation has failed on all these grounds. Yet it has few critics. Evidently, even calamities like the Enron scandal and now the most serious blackout in American history are not enough to shake faith in the theory. Ten years ago, most public utilities were regulated monopolies. They were guaranteed a fair rate of return, based on their capital investment and costs. So the government compensated them for building spare generating capacity and maintaining transmission lines. Regulators, of course, sometimes made mistakes and the industry oversold technologies like nuclear power. Even so, in the half-century before deregulation, productivity in the electric power industry increased at about triple the rate of the economy as a whole. However, the wave of deregulation that culminated in the late 1990's broke up the integrated utilities like Con Ed that once generated power in its own plants, transmitted it and sold it retail. It ushered in a new breed of entrepreneurial generating and trading companies. However, the prices the local utility companies could charge consumers remained partly regulated. The theory was that local utilities, no longer producing their own power, could negotiate among competing suppliers for the best price and pass the savings along to the consumer. But deregulation hasn't worked, for three basic reasons. First, there is a fairly fixed demand for electricity and generating capacity is tight, so companies that produce it enjoy a good deal of power to manipulate prices. The Enron scandal, which soaked Californians for tens of billions of dollars, was only the most extreme example. California authorities calculated that a generating company needed to control just 3 percent of the state's supply to set a monopoly price. Second, the idea of creating large national markets to buy and sell electricity makes more sense as economic theory than as physics, because it consumes power to transmit power. "It's only efficient to transmit electricity for a few hundred miles at most," says Dr. Richard Rosen, a physicist at the Tellus Institute, a nonprofit research group. Third, under deregulation the local utilities no longer have an economic incentive to invest in keeping up transmission lines. Antiquated power lines are operating too close to their capacity. The more power that is shipped long distances in the new deregulated markets, the more power those lines must carry. In addition, in the old days of regulation, a utility like Con Ed would be required to regularly submit a resource plan to a state's public service commission. The two organizations would forecast demand and decide how much money should be invested in power plants and transmission lines. Rates would be adjusted to cover costs. Under deregulation, however, nobody plays that crucial planning role. Much of the Southeast, by contrast, has retained traditional regulation — and cheap, reliable electricity. When the blackout hit on Thursday, many of us first thought of terrorists. What hit us may be equally dangerous. We are hostage to a delusional view of economics that allowed much of the Northeast to go dark without an enemy lifting a finger. Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and author of "Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets."
