From the Rocky Mountains

Our regular readers (!) may be wondering why we haven't posted anything on this blog for awhile. Well, at least part of the explanation may be that three of us are currently up in the Rocky Mountains enjoying some camping and hiking. So sorry for the lack of new entries. I don't have time to write much now, but I did find one thing worth recommending while I was browsing recent magazines in the library the other day. Bill McKibben has a nice article in the latest issue of Harper's Magazine. You can read a lengthy excerpt here. For the whole article, look here. Given the recent (and justifiable) uproar over Pat Robertson's insane remarks about killing the democratically elected leader of Venezuela, it is refreshing to read something from a fellow Christian that makes sense!

Bush Meets the Moms

From the Eric Boehlert post linked in the title above, a glimpse of President Bush in his interactions with two mothers of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Dolores Kesterson told White House staff that she wanted to have a private talk with the president so that she could share her belief that her son died in an unnecessary war. She was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly:

Kesterson: So actually, you know, it did come about. They put me into a cubicle by myself, took everything away from me. I also came prepared with a letter to give to the president about how I felt about the war and, you know, the loss of my son, my only child for a cause that I thought, you know, was not worthwhile at that point in time.

And so president Bush came marching in, to make a long story short, came marching in to the room, got right in my face, eyeball-to-eyeball, nose-to-nose this close, toe-to-toe and he said, "I'm George Bush, President of the United States, and I understand you have something to say to me privately.' And I said, 'Yes, I do respect the office of the presidency of the United States, but I want to tell you how it feels to lose your only child in a cause that you don't believe in, in an unnecessary war. And, you know, we talked about it from there just like you and I are talking about.

O'Reilly: Was he respectful to you?

Kesterson: Yes, yes was. But he did, you know, come at me a few times with trotting out, 'Delores, do you realize we've been attacked on 9/11?' Who doesn't [realize that]?

O'Reilly: He hugged you at the end, did he not?

Kesterson: Well, yes, he asked if he could hug me and I said, 'Well, that's a human thing, you know, I'm human.' And I agreed to it. But my personal feeling is that he really doesn't have a conscience about all this death and destruction. That was the essence I took away after looking him in the eyes and meeting with him—there's just no conscience there.

Cindy Sheehan, who has made headlines by camping out outstide of Bush's Crawford ranch in an attempt to meet with the president, described her first brief encounter with him at the White House during an interview with Wolf Blitzer:

He wouldn't look at the pictures of [my son] Casey. He didn't even know Casey's name. He came in the room and the very first thing he said is, 'So who are we honoring here?' He didn't even know Casey's name. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear anything about Casey. He wouldn't even call him 'him' or 'he.' He called him 'your loved one.' Every time we tried to talk about Casey and how much we missed him, he would change the subject. And he acted like it was a party.

Good Economic News?

After several pessimistic posts on the economic prospects of the country, I would be remiss to not note the recent trend of better economic news: US consumer spending and income up slightly, inflation not increasing appreciably, durable goods and factory orders up. All this is nicely recapped in this post from Macroblog, along w/ links to some more pessimistic readings of the data, such as this from Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture. In a nutshell, the pessimistic view is that yes, the economy seems to be moving out of 'soft patch,' but the better monthly and quarterly numbers can't hide continuing huge structural problems that will ultimately have to be reckoned with. Still, at the macro level, the economy seems to be doing better lately.

Random Thoughts on the Roberts Nomination

I've been on the road a lot over the past week, and so I heard a lot of radio news reports during the time of the Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court and the days afterwards. Listening to several different interviews with people who know Roberts (many of them self-described "liberals"), it became increasingly clear that there was a well-planned campaign with clear talking points for friends of Roberts. The agreed line is: he's exceptionally smart, nice, and fair. The strategic craftiness of the Bush Administration thus also became clear. They confused the media all day long beforehand with clever leaks focusing on someone else, then hit everyone unprepared with a white male insider. The Roberts supporters were much better prepared, and his potential opponents were left grasping for some way to dent a juggernaut of framing and conventional wisdom that had already become established.

Of course, I realize that the chances of defeating Roberts in the Senate are pretty hopeless. However, I still think it is worth it for Democrats to mount a fierce fight, as much as they can, by asking him as many questions as possible in an attempt to pin him down. My impression is that he is a pretty far-right guy with lots of elite business connections and some scary social issue and civil liberties positions as well. I am not convinced by the line that he is as good as we can expect from the Bush Administration. It is utterly predictable for this Administration that the first nomination would be quite conservative...they will only back down and nominate someone more reasonable/moderate under exceptional pressure, which looks unlikely. But I think it is worth a struggle at least. After all, this is a lifetime appointment to the Court.

For what it's worth, I heard an interesting theory from a conservative Republican friend of mine back in Nebraska...this friend has some pretty substantial connections and experience in the state party structure. He speculates that Bush may have nominated Roberts with the intention of making him Chief Justice when Rehnquist retires, which may not be too long from now. Vetting him so easily through the current process will make it a breeze for his later confirmation as Chief Justice, thus installing a young far right conservative for a very long time. It sounds like a plausible idea to me, and I fear my friend may be right about this...

Shop Costco

The NY Times today reports that Costco treats its people way better than Sam's Club (a subsidiary of the Wal-Mart empire). It's not the first time journalists have pointed this out: last year I heard an NPR report about Costco's good labor policies (no union busting, good wages and benefits). That report, too, mostly took the form of grousing by Wall Street analysts about how foolhardy it was to pay so much and to charge so little, keeping Costco's profit margins smaller than what was possible.

Well, I say good going, Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco! Ignore the critics and pay for your employees' health insurance. It's the right thing to do.

On the same topic, the recent Frontline documentary "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" is worth checking out, even though I'll bet you already know the answer. What made this documentary interesting to me was that it focused on Wal-Mart's role in squeezing suppliers and in sending American jobs overseas-- and said virtually nothing about the notorious labor abuses that many people talk about when they discuss Wal-Mart. The most striking part of the documentary is when the narrator goes to Long Beach, a major port in California, and asks the communications director what's coming in (from China) and being shipped out. Coming in: every manufactured good you can think of, from toys to clothes to electronics. Going out: raw materials, like cotton. Said the communications director: "We export cotton; we bring in clothing. We export hides; we bring in shoes. We export scrap metal; we bring back machinery." Is this 2005 or 1705?