Musing's musings

"Depart, I say, and let us have done with you!"*

Roland Burris is turning into Rod Blagojevich's gift that keeps on giving--whether or not we want it to. Virtually every leading Democrat in Illinois--and not a few from other states as well--has asked him politely to consider stepping down, but he steadfastly refuses to do so. Even when Dick Durbin, his fellow Illinois senator, urged him to quit, he announced his intention to stay put.

Fine. We'll just have to wait for the Senate to expel him, or for a competent authority to remove him. Or, in the worst-case scenario, we'll just have to wait out the end of his term, which has only a little more than a year and a half left in it. Burris did seem to hint, after his meeting with Durbin yesterday, that he was not considering running for re-election in 2010--which is just as well, given that everyone in Illinois (except, possibly, Roland Burris) knows that he'd get absolutely trounced in the Democratic primary and if, by some miracle, he managed to pull off a victory in the primary, he'd get his ass handed to him in the general.

At this point, I'm less annoyed with Burris (he's just doing what he's always done) than I am with some of his more clueless supporters. The local NPR station this morning ran a story, which I only heard in bits and pieces as I was shaving, about a group of black ministers who are insisting that Burris has done nothing wrong and that he shouldn't have to quit anything. And then there's Danny Davis, who seems to have become Burris's BFF after losing the Senate appointment to him, who seems to feel that the Senate seat formerly held by President Obama is now somehow the property of Illinois's African-Americans. And, since I seem to be on a Brit-quoting kick in this post, I'll borrow from a later British politician (Sir Winston Churchill) and say that's nonsense up with which I will not put.

There are no quotas for Senate seats--or for any other political appointments, for that matter. The idea is unconstitutional on its face, and it's simply ludicrous thereafter. If we're going to divvy up our representation according to the race of Illinoisans, then we need to have 1.422 white senators, 0.294 black senator, 0.292 Latino senator, 0.084 Asian senator, 0.04 Native American senator, 0.164 "other" senator, and 0.03 biracial senator. I won't even attempt to do the parallel calculations for our House delegation, since I'd have to do it by the racial makeup of the various legislative districts. Davis should content himself with getting another Democrat in Obama's old seat--and leave race out of it.

(*Oliver Cromwell, dismissing the Rump Parliament, 1653: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!")

Small wonder

Future historians of American politics in the early twenty-first century who are hunting for the causes of the utter collapse of the Republican Party need look no farther, I think, than that party's colossal (and growing) disconnect from reality, as evidenced by the California assemblyman I heard on NPR yesterday morning. I was getting ready for work at the time, so I was unable to hear all of his remarks clearly, but the gist of them was that since businesses throughout the private sector were having to lay off thousands and thousands of workers, how dare the state of California not offer to lay off even one in the face of a $42 billion budget deficit?

Excuse me? Perhaps I was wrong, but I was under the impression that we wanted people to keep their jobs. The point isn't just to spread the misery around so it affects everyone more or less equally; the point is to keep as many people working as possible, and to put as many of them who are now out of work back into jobs, so that they will then be able to spend some of their wages to support the rest of the economy, thereby putting even more people back to work and enabling more people to keep their jobs. A rising tide floats all boats, whereas an ebbing tide leaves all boats stranded in the muck at the bottom of the harbor, going nowhere. I may not be clairvoyant, but I think I can safely state that I'm on firm ground in believing that most normal and rational people think the latter example is something to be avoided, not hoped for.

But you'd never be able to tell that from the present-day Republican Party. What's important to them, it seems, isn't jobs--unless it's their own, that is. What's important is that the Republican Party hews to its ideological line firmly, come hell or high water, and never mind the consequences. In fairness to them, I will say that I think they've been very effective at that particular strategy--though I can't say that I believe it's done them all that much good or that it will enable them to perform any better in next year's elections than it did in those we had last year. But then again, silly me, I actually thought the point of having an election was to be the party that won the most seats in it. Apparently the Republicans are working from a different playbook, given that they've lost positions in both of the last two election cycles--and that those losses are largely attributable to their dogged unwillingness (or inability) to interact constructively with reality.

Sorry, Roland

The best possible spin I can put on the mess that is rising up around Roland Burris's neck is that perhaps he thought that he could "revise and extend" sworn testimony in just the same way that legislators can do with their remarks on the floor of Congress. It's a fairly common tactic in legislative debate, where time is usually pretty strictly rationed--to the extent that most of what any given legislator wants to say exceeds the time in which she has to say it by about a factor of five.

As the man I am at least temporarily forced to call my junior senator is finding out, however, the same privilege does not extend to sworn testimony. Doesn't matter whether the testimony was taken (or involved) a court of law, a legislative body, or whatever. Once you raise your right hand to God and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that's what you do--or else you're subject at the very least to legal penalties for your lack of honesty. My faith teaches me that there are other consequences to worry about as well, but I'll leave those for the competent Court.

As for me, I'm with the editorial boards of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post. Roland Burris should resign from the Senate seat that I and others argued he should neither have been offered nor accepted in the first place.

I readily concede the possibility that Mr. Burris is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing in this matter whatsoever. That is irrelevant outside of a court of law. In the court of public opinion, and in the game of politics as it is played on this level in this country, perception is the only thing that matters. Burris's appointment was smelly, his acceptance of that appointment was smelly, and his insistence on defying the sound advice that was given to him by everyone in the Democratic Party from President Obama on down was smelly. That stench has now been magnified and amplified by the revelation that Burris was apparently less than fully truthful in his testimony before the committee in the Illinois General Assembly that was debating whether or not to impeach former Governor Blagojevich. That's at least two strikes against Burris, and in politics, unlike baseball, it only takes one before you're out.

It is certainly within the realm of possibility (and, given the size of Roland Burris's ego, I'd have to say I consider it quite likely) that Burris will absolutely refuse to do the honorable thing and resign quietly. And, given the political tenor at the moment, neither can I exclude from the realm of possibility the chance that the General Assembly, the U.S. Senate, or some other competent body will do to Roland Burris exactly what the Illinois legislature did to the man that appointed him to the office, and kick him out if he won't go of his own volition.

That would be an unfortunate eventuality for all concerned. It would absolutely doom Roland Burris, for the rest of his life, to being a late-night talk show joke. It would strip from him his dignity and, perhaps more importantly to Burris, any chance whatsoever of his being able to re-enter Illinois politics. As things stood before these latest revelations came out, it was looking increasingly likely that Burris would be primaried in 2010 and that he would lose. That's looking more and more like a certainty now.

And while I'm not a lawyer and I don't even play one on TV, I don't like Burris's chances of making this "it's OK as long as I didn't actually raise any money" schtick stick. I'm pretty sure that acts in furtherance of a crime or a criminal conspiracy are, themselves, still criminal. And I'm also pretty sure that the applicable Illinois law makes it a crime even to offer to exchange something of value (such as campaign contributions) in return for a political favor from a state official, even if the exchange of considerations never actually takes place. In fact, unless I totally miss my guess, that's one of the provisions of one of the first (and perhaps the only) good laws that Rod Blagojevich managed to get through the legislature during his first term in office: the State Officials and Employees Ethics Act.

Among the growing number of things that Roland Burris and Rod Blagojevich have in common is that neither one of them seems to be familiar with that particular piece of legislation. Not that that will in any way protect them from being prosecuted under its terms, if the facts warrant.

"Go and make disciples of all nations"

That's not an exact quote from Al Gore's address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting this evening, but that's the take-home message I'm distilling from his remarks.

This will be a short post, as I'm meeting friends for dinner in half an hour, but I'll either come back and update it later or do another one. I'm going to make one brief remark about politics and history, and then it's on to Gore's address. That remark is this: If he had been able to display the level of conviction and engagement during the 2000 presidential campaign that he displayed in front of this audience tonight, the last eight years would have looked considerably different. Quel dommage!

The gist of Gore's remarks is that we are facing a historic moment: not just for our nation, not just for a coalition of allies, but rather for the whole human race. We have three interconnected and interrelated crises going on at the moment: one is economic, one involves national security, and one involves the environment. That's the bad news. The good news is, we have three interconnected and interrelated crises going on at the moment: economic, national security, and environment.

(Again, those weren't Gore's exact words, that's my spin on them.) We have, to quote The American President, serious problems and we need serious people to solve them. But the magnitude of the crises facing us, and the literally global consequences of the decisions we make in response to those crises, are rapidly moving toward a critical mass such that we can find the political and social will to do the very hard things that need to be done very quickly if there is, literally, to be a tomorrow.

And that's where the "Go and make disciples" quote popped into my head, as Gore started his concluding remarks. The facts are known, by and large, and the science behind them is, again by and large, irreproachable and conclusive. What we need now is for scientists, and people who work with scientists, to blend their working lives and their social lives more effectively and completely. There can't be an "office mentality" and a "home" or "cocktail party mentality" that are virtually wholly separate and distinct from one another. Gore quoted an African proverb that says if you want to go quickly, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together. And the problem, as Gore himself pointed out, is that we have to go very far very quickly. So all of us who work in or around science have got to do our part to get the word out and to help combat the propaganda (my word) coming from those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

An interesting tidbit from Gore's remarks, made as he was showing a slide of one of the Apollo 11 astronauts standing on the surface of the moon facing an American flag. Cheers went up, he said, in Mission Control in Houston when that image was beamed back from the moon's surface. But the average age of the engineers in that control room in Houston in 1969 was 26. That means that when President Kennedy issued his call to put a man in that very position within a decade, the average age of those engineers was 18. That's a hell of a lot of talent developed and deployed in not a long period of time. Surely we can do it again, even given that the world is a far more complex place, and the state of knowledge is both greater and far more complex and interconnected than it was in 1961.

I think we can. And I'm going to do what I can to help that happen.

Does somebody have a scorecard I could borrow?

OK, so I left the office about three and a half hours ago after a busy day, got on the train, took a cab to the hotel, checked in, registered for the conference, and then went back to my room to check e-mail, check in with friends and family, and see what was going on in the world. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there's been yet another startling development in the As The Obama Cabinet Turns drama, namely, that President Obama is now 0-for-2 on nominees for the Department of Commerce, soon-to-be-ex-New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg having abruptly withdrawn his name from consideration today.

The ostensible reason for his withdrawal was that he had come to realize, apparently never having considered the possibility before lobbying to get the nomination in the first place, that he had irreconcilable differences with the Obama administration on policy matters directly relevant to the department which he had been nominated to lead. While I applaud his decision not to stand in the way of the president's agenda, I must say that it strikes me as more than a little odd that the fact that Senator Gregg, being a Republican, might have some issues with a Democratic administration and the way it wanted to run things, seems not to have ruffled the edges of Senator Gregg's beautiful mind even a little before now. In fact, I'd have thought that he'd have thought that possibility through quite thoroughly before ever asking to be nominated to the position in the first place, much less accepting the nomination once it had been offered.

And while I understand that President Obama campaigned on the idea of ending the partisan political divide and reaching out to qualified people with good ideas who wanted to serve their country, I've got to say that so far, that idea doesn't seem to be working too well for him in practice. I'd suggest he try appointing a Democrat this time, and preferably someone who has never even had to pay a late fee to the Internal Revenue Service.

Meanwhile, now that I'm here, I'm going to spend most of the next several days immersed in science and science policy. My itinerary of sessions I'd like to see at least part of over the next four days stretches to a dozen pages. Chances are good that I won't even get the opportunity to check my e-mail other than first thing in the morning and after the last session of the day is done.

One session I am definitely trying to get into, however, is the invited address tomorrow night by a certain Mr. Gore. Yes, that Mr. Gore. He of the Nobel Peace Prize and former vice president. It's all I've heard anyone talking about since I checked in here this afternoon. I'm hoping that whatever is on my schedule just before his address lets out early so I can be in line in plenty of time to have at least a shot at getting a decent seat for that talk tomorrow night, after which I'm going to go out for dinner with some friends.

Were all these reporters at the same event?

Vice President Biden flew to Germany yesterday as the U.S. representative at the annual Munich Security Conference. He gave a speech there early this morning (U.S. time). Thus far, I have been unable to find an official transcript of his remarks on the White House's site.

This is something of a problem, given that, depending on which media outlet you read, Biden either ratcheted up the pressure on Moscow by insisting that the United States will continue working on the controversial missile shield in eastern Europe that has the Kremlin seeing red, or else he backed down from that position and offered an olive branch. I should think that, while the details of the coverage might vary slightly, all media outlets actually present for the speech would be able to agree upon whether the vice president argued for a continuation of the previous administration's policies (which seems prima facie unlikely) or offered to make a change in some new direction.

You would be wrong in thinking that, however. According to The Guardian, Biden offered an "olive branch to Russia" and will put its European missile-shield plans on hold. The New York Times begs to differ, saying that Biden said the U.S. "will pursue missile plan Russia opposes." The Beeb temporizes, saying in its lede that Biden called for striking a new tone in U.S. foreign relations and noting that he called for "press[ing] the 'reset button' in ties with Russia," but also asserting, further down in the article, that the U.S. "would continue with its plans for a missile defence shield in Central Europe." Le Monde was vague, perhaps deliberately, noting that Biden said the U.S. was determined to set a new tone in its foreign relations, also citing the "reset button" remark, and then adding, with regard to the missile shield, that Biden "restated the prudent position adopted by Barack Obama" and quoting him as saying that "We will continue to develop our anti-missile defenses to counter the growing capabilities of Iran, as long as the technology works and the benefits outweigh the costs. We will do this in consultation with you, our NATO allies, and with Russia." Agence France Presse quoted that last sentence, but said nothing about whether or not Biden called for a continuation of the work on the missile shield or offered to stop it altogether. The WaPo claims that Biden said the technology would go forward only if the administration is confident that it will work, and "only in consultation with Europe and Russia."

So there you have it. Our vice president either did, or did not, offer to back away from a bone of contention with Russia, and either did, or did not, offer to work more closely with them on a serious sticking point.

Is it any wonder that fewer and fewer people are paying attention to the news?

Update: The New York Times has now changed its headline on the linked story. It now reads "Biden Signals U.S. is Open to Deal with Russia on Missiles."

I'm not getting it

As I was driving along various interstate highways this afternoon, traveling from home to the conference where I'll be spending the next couple of days, I noticed small signs placed along the roads at infrequent intervals. Alongside the usual "Eisenhower Interstate System" plaques, there are now plaques commemorating the 50th anniversary of the system--which took place in 2006, though I don't remember seeing the signs at all until this trip--and thus far, I haven't seen any similar signs anywhere but Illinois. It'll be interesting to see if I see any of them when I cross the river into Missouri on Tuesday for the second day of the conference.It isn't the anniversary that's confusing me, though, or even the fact that the signs don't seem to have gotten put up in time for it. It's the caption that's on them that's got me scratching my head: "A Symbol of Freedom." Huh?

When I think of symbols of freedom, I think of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Statue of Liberty, the Magna Charta, the Liberty Bell, the Emancipation Proclamation. Stuff like that. A system of highways, not so much. I'll wager I'm not alone in that, either. It would be interesting to see the polling results on what the phrase "symbols of freedom" conjures up in people's minds, both here and around the world. I'd frankly be amazed if the interstate highway system even made it into the top thousand responses.

Perhaps, in the mind of whoever it was that designed the signage I saw today, the interstates represent the freedom of U.S. citizens to travel around the country without restrictions. That was the only associational link I could come up with between freedom and the interstate system--and it's quite a stretch. Or maybe they were just looking for something quasi-inspirational to put on the signs they'd already ordered for the 50th anniversary, and some lame-brain in the Department of Transportation thought maybe linking it to patriotism would work. (That does seem like the sort of thought you might expect a Bu$hevik appointee to have, doesn't it?)