Obama oratory

Dems and Repubs alike rave about Barack Obama's speechmaking. People ought not get carried away because it's dangerous. Nearly every despot in the last half century is or was a spellbinding speaker, from Hugo Chavez to Fidel Castro to Benito Mussolini to Adolph Hitler.

LAT tries to resurrect looney healthcare plan

In an editorial labeled "Never say die" the LAT tries to keep the California healthcare pot boiling, praying that the proposal dropped by the California senate this week be resurrected. Never try to confuse the LAT with facts, such as the people don't want it, there's no way to pay for it, etc.

Marines work to save sick child

The LAT's Tony Perry, who regularly covers Marines, writes today about attempts by Marines in Iraq to save the life of a two-year old Iraqi girl who was born with a heart ailment that would have killed her within a year. Marine Sgt. Bryan Velazques took an interest in saving the girl and others helped with the result that she is to have life-saving heart surgery at Vanderbilt University. It's a wonderful story and shouldn't be missed.

LAT on earmarks

The LAT editorializes this morning on earmarks, almost agreeing with President Bush's decisions, announced in the SOU, to veto spending bills that don't reduce earmarks and to instruct administration officials to ignore earmarks that are not in the legislation that Congress passes and he signs -- in other words to ignore earmarks that appear only in committee reports. But then the LAT pulls back, as if it's out of their nature to agree with President Bush on anything.

LAT's two themes

The LAT's news coverage lately seems to have two themes, neither of which is accurate. The first is that the Republican party is divided. It is, but no more so than Democrats. The second is that the economy is in terrible shape. There's no evidence it is, only that growth has slowed. So far as the stock market is concerned, it's down, but only to the level it was at in April 2007. Do reporters sit around newsrooms discussing these things and concluding they are "facts" without hearing dissenting opinions?

Waterboarding

According to the LAT, AG Michael Mukasey has told the Senate Judiciary Committee, or its chairman, that "I do not believe it is advisable to address difficult legal questions, about which reasonable minds can differ, in the absence of concrete facts and circumstances." It seems reasonable. He's saying, essentially, that he doesn't want to answer a hypothetical. The chairman is being unreasonable to demand an unequivocal answer to a hypothetical question.

Lexington disappointed with Bill

The Economist's Lexington columnist this week seems surprised, puzzled and disappointed by the behavior of Bill Clinton on the campaign trail. Disappointed yes, but why surprised or puzzled? This is what should have been expected of Bill Clinton. His behavior in the White House revealed him to be amoral, unprincipled and absorbed by self-interest. 

LAT not good with figures

Last month, in an editorial, the LAT said that 60 million Americans live on $7 a day. Their source was a left-wing Canadian website. It's source was an even less reliable World Socialist Website, which got the assertion from a 2006 NYT piece by David Cay Johnston, who can't now explain how he derived the statistic. The point of mentioning this is that it proves the LAT does not check the reliability of its sources.

Today, the LAT argues that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will cost $3 trillion. Further, the LAT suggests that the economy would be in the tank already if it were not for the pump-priming effect of military spending since 2003. This, of course, is not more reliable than the $7 a day was.

LAT v Bush

The LAT chastises President Bush in an editorial today for saying in last night's SOU speech that Washington politicians ought to trust the people. The LAT argues that the people can't be trusted because they don't know what they need, which is more government. That, at least, clarifies the difference between the two points of view. One wants more government, the other less.

Happy day! Governator health care defeated

The LAT's arguments didn't carry much weight for the proposed California health care plan. Funny, it was killed by Democrats. Happy day, but Arnie says he'll keep fighting, that he's not a quitter. But he's clearly that after switching sides following defeat of his propositions in 2005.

LAT promotes government health care

In an editorial today, the LAT argues for the state run health care plan that has been proposed by California's governator and the Democrat legislature. The LAT says the plan is no panacea but it would stop people from visiting emergency rooms for routine care and it would make healthy people pay some of the cost of caring for old and sick people. If you're young and healthy that may not sound like such a hot deal.

What this plan is all about is force. It forces nearly everyone to do something they probably wouldn't do if they weren't forced. And it will cost $14 billion annually or more. If you like government, if you like force, you'll like this plan.

Petruno

The market was down yesterday; Petruno is in the LAT this morning.

LAT against the Navy

They don't call it the left coast for nothing. This morning a LAT editorial argues that the Navy and President Bush are wrong to insist on the right to hold training exercises off the California coast that utilize new, more powerful sonar that sailors need to learn to use in order to find and identify new, quieter-running submarines. Environmentalists and a District Court judge have tried to prevent the Navy from going ahead with the training but President Bush has granted a waiver on national emergency grounds.

Naturally, the LAT sides with the environmentalists. No surprise, the judge does too. (Left coast judges are not always unbiased.) No surprise, the LAT opposes President Bush and the military.

Christian communal living

The LAT has a piece this morning by Stephanie Simon describing the life of a group of people who joined together to live communally in a house in Billings, Montana. The life isn't for everyone and Simon pulls no punches describing it. Likewise, she doesn't judge it. It's an interesting, well written piece.

Senate Dems attack EPA head

The LAT's Richard Simon today describes a Senate hearing yesterday in which Barbara Boxer and allies attacked the EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, relentlessly, apparently without convincing evidence, over his decision to deny California permission to implement its own global warming law. We've seen Boxer in action before, irrational, emotional and dead wrong.

Recession expectations

The LAT conducted a poll and found that 79 percent of those polled are pessimistic about the country's finances -- the LAT says Americans expect a recession. Why wouldn't they? The media have told them we're in a recession since last summer, despite lacking evidence of same.

Petruno appears

Though the market was up yesterday, the LAT's Tom Petruno made an appearance today, something he normally reserves for market down days. It must be because the market was down before it was up.

LAT favors "feebates"

Arguing in an editorial today that it's a no-brainer, the LAT chastises the California legislature for failure so far to authorize "feebates." It's a complicated scheme to reward some new car buyers while penalizing others for their choice of car. People who buy "environmentally friendly" cars would get a "feebate" while people who buy gas-eaters would be charged a penalty. There would be exemptions for people who "need" gas-eaters and guess who would decide who qualifies for an exemption. It's one of those social engineering schemes that liberals and socialists love.

LAT betting on failure

A heading to a news article by the LAT's Peter Gosselin today suggests that efforts to boost the economy, meaning Fed rate cuts and a stimulus package, may fail. Why take that point of view? It's more likely they will succeed. Why does the LAT bet on failure?

LAT on stimulus

The LAT today has a surprisingly sensible editorial on economic stimulus, once called pump priming. Their views are very close to the views expressed yesterday on Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume by Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer. Wonder who wrote it.

LAT loses another editor

Judging from a piece by Emily Steel in today's WSJ, the LAT's newsroom is in revolt. The evidence: A fired editor gets to address newsroom employees on why he's right and management is wrong, sewing seeds of further discord. In a real business, a fired high-level manager would be shown the door immediately and not allowed back in.

The LAT's future is not promising unless it gets a blood transfusion. Trouble-makers and muckrakers in the newsroom and on the editorial staff ought to be replaced by people whose only agenda is to do excellent work and get paid for it. Such people will not be hired if trouble-makers and muckrakers do the interviews.

On the other hand

The LAT editorializes today in favor of abortion rights, justifying it's position with the tired old argument that back alley abortions would replace "clean and safe clinics" if abortion were left up to the states. And then arguing that Roe v Wade shouldn't be overturned because it's been around so long. LAT editorial writers do not address the central issue, which is that abortion kills babies.

LAT against abortion?

In a surprising front page piece in today's LAT, reporter Stephanie Simon writes about a new phase in the abortion wars. She reports that many young people are opposed to abortion and have formed clubs on high school and college campuses to oppose it, some even spiritually adopting unborn children growing in the wombs of unknown women. It's an amazing development and it's more amazing that the LAT would publish the story.

LAT ghouls make the front page

Seemingly hopeful for a market crash like the ones in 1929 and 1987, LAT reporters Tom Petruno and Walter Hamilton appear in print on the front page this morning. Perhaps their predictions of the past six years finally will turn out to be accurate. They can always hope.

LAT on Bush foreign policy

In a front page piece today, the LAT's Paul Richter argues that the Bush administration will be managing crises and tidying up messes during its final year in office rather than reaching legacy milestones, "as officials recently had hoped." How does he know? Did someone tell him that, and if so why does he not credit that person? Or is it a figment of Richter's imagination? If only reporters would stick to reporting.

Living on $7 a day, redux

Following Annie Jacobsen's post on Pajamasmedia concerning the LAT's claim that 60 million Americans live on $7 a day, the source of that claim, David Cay Johnston, frantically sought to defend his claim by posting several comments to Jacobsen's post on Pajamasmedia and one to a post here on Doddering Old Fool.

In defending his claim, Johnston first said that he had provided specific guidance on how he arrived at his assertion. He said he calculated the figures from IRS tables and Tax Foundation tables. He neither identified which tables he used (both IRS and Tax Foundation have published many tables) nor which specific figures he pulled from those tables. He says he used a formula and further says he provided the formula to readers of his comments. But nothing in his comments could properly be called a formula, presuming that to mean something like an equation.

Next, Johnston said that reporters (like himself, presumably) take great care with facts, although they are not perfect (and presumably sometimes make mistakes.) This seems a recognition that Johnston was mistaken in claiming 60 million Americans live on $7 a day.

Then he suggested that his claim is unimportant because it appeared in the 15th paragraph of his November 28, 2006 piece, published by the NYT. But others have relied on his claim and published it as fact. The LAT stated it as fact in a December editorial. When two of America's supposedly leading newspapers publish bogus "facts" it's important.

So far, apparently no one has been able to replicate Johnston's calculations despite his "guidance." If they can't be replicated then they deserve no credence.

Lexington's one-track mind

This week, The Economist's Lexington column takes more swipes at Bush, Cheney, et al, while offering backhanded praise to snake oil salesman Al Gore. It seems an irresistible impulse: Lexington can't write a piece without trashing Bushies. While writing about oil, Lexington departs from the subject to attack Dick Cheney, offering the typically liberal observation that Cheney "subcontracted America's energy policy to his pals in the energy business and then fought like a demon to keep proceedings secret." If memory serves, Cheney was vindicated in a court of law.

Lexington says two "Bush presidents in a row have gone to war with the same oil-rich country." Isn't "in a row" redundant? There have only been two Bush presidents.

Finally, according to Lexington, President Bush (George Junior to Lexington though GWB isn't a junior) "smirked at the problem of global warming ." When and where, Lexington doesn't say. And who says global warning is a problem? Gore and Lexington? The "problem" needs more credible representation than these two.

LAT: Surge success "apparent"

To LAT editorial writers, the success of the "surge" in Iraq is "apparent" if nothing else. They still have doubts? They have reporters in Iraq but they still aren't sure? What will convince them?

LAT: CIA tapes showed waterboarding

The LAT's Greg Miller makes the following unequivocal statement in today's newspaper: "Among the methods [of torture] recorded on the tapes was waterboarding, or simulated drowning."

How does he know? Did he see the tapes before they were destroyed? Did someone tell him that, and if so, why doesn't he say who it was?

Dow drops, Petruno returns

The LAT's Tom Petruno is back this morning, as he always is following a bad day for the stock market.

David Cay Johnston responds

In a comment on yesterday's post titled "Living on $7 a day," David Cay Johnston claims the figures he used in his original NYT piece published in November 2006 are correct. All anybody needs to do to see that is go to the IRS and Tax Foundation tables, he says. But Johnston's figures don't appear in the tables and he fails to say which specific table he's referring to and where on that table we can find the figures he used.

This should be easy. Johnston has only to be specific if he wants to be believed. So far he has not been.

Living on $7 a day

The LAT started something when it said in a December editorial that 60 million people in America survive on $7 a day. This was questioned in an earlier post here and the issue has now been taken up by others, especially Annie Jacobsen, in a post on Pajamasmedia. The source of the statistic has been identified by Jacobsen as David Cay Johnston, from a piece he wrote for the New York Times, published November 28, 2006.

Johnston responded to Jacobsen's post on the Pajamasmedia website, arguing that the figures he cited came directly from tables published by IRS, available on their website. He also cited tables prepared by Tax Foundation based on those IRS tables.

The trouble with Johnston's response is that the figures he cites in his response and in his 2006 NYT piece do not correspond to any figures appearing in the IRS or Tax Foundation tables. If he isn't merely blowing smoke, he should be able to specifically identify where in the tables his figures came from. Instead, he merely says we can look it up for ourselves. Well, this old fool has and the figures do not match. It's incumbent on Johnston, if he wants us to believe him, to specifically tell us how he got to his statistic.

Obviously, the NYT and the LAT should have insisted on that before they published the statistic.

The bubble-prone economy

LAT economics writer Peter Gosselin today calls the American Enterprise Institute conservative and the Brookings Institution centrist. He's wrong on both. AEI is centrist and the Brookings is liberal.

And, Gosselin has a theory: that the U.S. has a bubble-prone economy, apparently because we had a tech bubble in the late 1990s and a housing bubble in 2005-2007. Twice in two decades doesn't seem a pattern yet. And what if it is? What should be done about it? By whom? Gosselin has a solution: more government intervention. His solution will be more painful than the disease. You expect more from a supposed expert like Gosselin.

Lexington bashes Bush

The Lexington column in The Economist issue dated today is in substance a diatribe against George W. Bush. The theme repeated throughout is that Bush screwed everything up and is incompetent. Despite that, according to Lexington, the GOP is not in disarray, as some suggest, and should not cut loose any element of the Republican coalition. Instead, Lexington says, Republicans ought to do some deep thinking.

There's nothing new in Lexington's words. The opinions expressed are sort of pundit dogma, mainstream pablum. History may be kinder to GWB than Lexington and those sharing Lexington's views. We'll see.

Rutten writes on Agee

On the LAT opinion pages today, Tim Rutten writes that the death of traitor Phillip Agee reminds him that torture is wrong. The connection between Agee and torture is a stretch. Agee exposed thousands of CIA agents causing some deaths and he joined Che Guevara and Fidel Castro and finally died in a Cuban hospital. There is nothing heroic about Agee.

There is nothing good about torture but not everything unpleasant or disappointing is torture. Rutten says the CIA has tortured and he apparently knows it when he sees it. Chances are, he has never seen torture and has no direct knowledge that the CIA has tortured.

Bush's visit to Middle East

The LAT's James Gerstenzang writes today of President Bush's visit to Israel and Palestine, including his visits to Israel's Holocaust memorial and the Sea of Galilee. It's a moving, well written piece.

LAT aflutter over BofA move

The LAT this morning says BofA's acquisition of Countrywide may ease the credit crunch. Who knew it would be that easy? Realistically, BofA went bottom fishing. Why make more of it?

LAT badmouths the economy

No surprise, since the LAT has been preaching doom and gloom for years -- this morning the LAT's Stephanie Simon reports that things are getting worse. As proof, she cites the case of a heavy equipment salesman in Colorado who was doing fabulously well, judging from the fact he owned a Corvette, and now can't pay his bills. On the facts presented in the article, the guy overspent when the money was rolling in, probably went in to debt in a big way and now can't adjust. It's an old story. Seemingly, people never learn that you must save and invest when you have extra income. Instead, people spend, spend, spend. This has little or nothing to do with the economy.

The economist says Bush may leave office a broken man

What that's based on The Economist doesn't say. Evidently it's some body's opinion. The magazine, or newspaper, as it calls itself, goes on to say that Bush will be powerless in his final year and will concentrate on foreign policy but not achieve anything.

It's probably true that Bush will concentrate on foreign policy. Whether he will accomplish anything remains to be seen. Bush will not be powerless so long as he has veto power, which is granted to him by the Constitution.

Who writes this stuff for The Economist? What are his or her qualifications for predicting such things?

LAT jumps the gun with Hill

The LAT says today that in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton "became the first female candidate ever to win a major party primary and took a significant step toward becoming the nation's first female president." Well, she must first become a nominee.

McGovern at 85

George McGovern at 85 embarrasses himself further in today's WaPo. WaPo used poor judgment in publishing his ravings. Even if everything McGovern says is true, which it isn't, Bush and Cheney could not be impeached before their term expires. McGovern admits that in his piece. So why write or publish the piece?

The writings are of a bitter old man who has always had poor judgment. The newspaper must have thought it would sell newspapers.

LAT covers Dem NH race

The LAT this morning devotes lots of ink to the Democratic candidates in New Hampshire, especially Hillary, and very little to Republicans. Clearly, the LAT is a Democrat's newspaper.

Petruno emerges

With the Dow dropping more than 250 points yesterday, it was inevitable that the LAT's resident market whiz, Tom Petruno, would appear in print today.

Gosselin on the economy

Even when GDP growth exceeded 5 percent, the LAT's economics reporter Peter Gosselin never wrote about it. When unemployment declined to 4.4 percent, Gosselin never wrote about it. But yesterday the Labor Department reported that unemployment climbed to 5 percent in December -- and Gosselin wrote about it and said it was a signal of a recession. Understandably, newspapers don't report routine events, but a record low unemployment rate or outstanding GDP growth is as much news as a .3 percent increase in the unemployment rate. Incidentally, a 5 percent unemployment rate is far from high -- 6 percent was long considered full employment.

Huffington on Iowa results

According to the Orange County Register, Ariana Huffington, in a post last night on her website, referred to the "last seven years" as a regrettable time in American political life (not her words but her apparent sentiment.) It was a regrettable time and Huffington deserves credit for bringing it up.

But those years were not regrettable because of anything George W. Bush did or didn't do, as Huffington may have been suggesting. Instead, they were regrettable because of a sort of soft rebellion orchestrated by the Democratic party and its sympathizers, who have always felt that they were cheated in Florida in the 2000 election and that George W. Bush is an illegitimate president.

Iowa reporting

The LAT devotes a lot of ink this morning to the Iowa caucuses, mostly to the Democrats. Without measuring column inches, it appears to be about 5 to 1 Democratic.

The tapes investigation

The crack LAT investigative reporting team has come across a letter that Congresswoman Jane Harman wrote to CIA officials in 2003 recommending they preserve the subject tapes. The significance of that is what?

On the editorial page, LAT editors recommend to Congressional committees that they not call as witnesses people who may testify in future criminal cases, so as not to gum up the works. Good advice. Congress ought to wait until the criminal investigation is finished. It shouldn't take long. We already know who ordered the destruction of the tapes.

Washington loves investigations and this is like most of the others: a waste of time and money. This one ought to be finished fast so as to consume as little as possible of those valuable resources. But it probably won't.

Edwards solves economic problems

In an opinion piece in today's WSJ, John Edwards argues for compulsive British-style health care, compulsive universal retirement plans that survive corporate bankruptcy and compulsive corporate governance rules. He's a compulsive kind of guy who wants America more like Europe, more compulsive and more socialistic.

LAT: Experts on Pakistan

The LAT editorializes today on Pakistan, twice. It laments the death of Bhutto but blames her for failing to promote back-up leadership in her party and for having a corrupt husband. It blames the Bush administration for an "ignominious plan" to keep Musharraf "while ushering in" Bhutto as prime minister. And it urges that U.S. aid to Pakistan be cut off if Musharraf doesn't allow free and fair elections. Then it writes a presumptuous letter to Bhutto's son telling him to get an education and run for parliament.

At long distance from an office in downtown L.A., LAT editors are experts on Pakistan, able to analyze events there and prescribe solutions, all while accepting no responsibility if their analysis turns out wrong and their solutions don't work. Better to have a little humility. Pakistan is complicated and probably only Pakistanis understand the situation, if anybody does.

Wishful thinking

On today's front page, LAT reporters Janet Hook and Michael Finnegan describe the GOP as a splintered party, unlikely to come together and back the party's eventual presidential nominee. Why this theme on the front page instead of the opinion pages? Why publish wishful thinking as news?

The Dems have three leading candidates in a virtual tie in Iowa while the GOP has two. Which party is fractured? Is MoveOn.org more likely to lie down with Democrat free-traders than social conservatives are with economic conservatives? Either both parties are fractured or neither is.

The reporters say the party that chooses its presidential nominee first has the advantage. Both parties are likely to have named their nominee by early spring. Is a few weeks or a month likely to make a difference?