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September 24, 2002
Vol. 5 No. 39
In this
issue:
1. Insulate for Protection
2. Student Affairs
3. Creep Creep
4. Quick
Hits
5. Seoul: Another Enemy Capitol -
and other highlights from Reason Online
6. Reason's print
edition
7. News and
Events
Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group, manufacturers of affordable, high-performance mainframe systems and productivity software.
It looks like that great Washington tradition of the "independent commission," convened to find out why things went very, very wrong, finally will be applied to the matter of 9/11.
Like virtually all it predecessors--Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts’ long-winded look at Pearl Harbor, which settled essentially nothing; the Warren Commission, which either hid JFK's brain or didn't have one of its own, depending on whom you ask; and the recent terrorism commissions, Aspin-Brown (1996) and Hart-Rudman (2000)--this commission will serve primarily as another layer of bureaucratic cover between decision makers and the effects of their decisions.
Such commissions do not so much cover up as insulate. They remove potentially contentious issues from the hurly burly of public, partisan politics to the cozy confines of well-known faces and old hands who all agree to take a little hit in exchange for ducking the haymaker heading their way.
In this case the big punch is the plausible charge that 9/11 could have been prevented if the feds had worried about their fellow citizens as much as they did about turf, procedure, and looking good in the eyes of fellow agents. The families of the victims are just now beginning to grasp the meaning of the past year’s news stories, which were punctuated by congressional hearings last week.
At a minimum, the CIA dithered in asking other federal agencies to be on the lookout for the terrorists who would later take part in the attacks. The prospect of a truly independent investigation into such things would have top CIA officials resigning in droves just to get it all over with. That no such thing has happened speaks to the power of an old Washington tradition.
http://www.rand.org/nsrd/terrpanel/
9/11 anniversary coverage from REASON: http://www.reason.com/0210/911.shtml
Let's hope the upcoming mid-term elections in the U.S. get better coverage overseas than the German elections received in the U.S. Stories about Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's narrow, come-from-behind victory largely have ignored how he got in the hole in the first place.
Yes, Schröder's questioning of the U.S.-led movement to get Saddam did tap into German unease about the project. But Schröder played the Iraq card against Edmund Stoiber's center-right coalition to distract attention from domestic issues, where he was getting walloped. Stoiber proposed substantial cuts in taxes and regulations, promising to align Germany more closely with the more market-friendly regimes that have come to power across the continent.
Schröder did not have an effective answer to Stoiber’s platform, so he changed the subject. George W. Bush and the Republicans are doing something similar, although they are coming at the question of Iraq from the other side.
If the November elections turned solely on domestic concerns--weak economic growth, a plunging stock market, sluggish job creation, a ballooning federal deficit, and nonexistent corporate profits--Democrats would be on the offensive. But even though the bulk of Senate and gubernatorial races look good for the Dems, there is no sense that the GOP is in full retreat. At least not yet. The lack of anything like a pro-growth economic plan means Bush and the Republicans have placed their faith in the continued ability of mortgage refinancings to keep the national economy afloat.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=335774
The Drug Enforcement Administration's recent raid on a medical pot club in Santa Cruz is fast becoming a public relations nightmare for drug warriors. It has moved beyond a West Coast story and fodder for the hemp-loving alternative press and into the comfy, sensible Midwest. Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom has blasted the raid.
For years Albom was Detroit's impish but tough sports columnist of record. He parsed the NBA, the NFL, major league baseball, and the college beat for who was up or down, in or out, with a particular nose for hypocrisy done in the course of doing business and filling the stands.
Then Albom went very mainstream with the best-selling book Tuesdays With Morrie, a moving account of the time he spent with his old professor and mentor as he succumbed to Lou Gehrig's disease. Oprah Winfrey turned the short book into a TV movie starring Jack Lemmon in 1999.
So Albom is not exactly a fringe kook and is more familiar than most with living through the last days of a close friend or loved one. That is why Albom's final lines about the Santa Cruz raid should fill federal drug warriors with shame.
"Mornings, when you're sick and dying, are tough enough," he writes. "You don't need guns pointed at your head."
http://www.freep.com/sports/albom/mitch22_20020922.htm
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=48729
Quote of the Week
"I love my country, I fear my government." -- Placard carried by one of the 400,000 protesters who thronged London to express disapproval for Tony Blair's "anti-country" policies, which might include a ban on fox hunting.
Catch and Release
Trendy chefs join the boycott of engineered seafood, but Long John Silver and Red Lobster turn down greenie requests to swear off biotech fish.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/1585688
Danger Blog
Blogging staffers make lawyers for big media companies very nervous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/23/technology/23BLOG.html
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