[498] in peace2
NY Times Opinions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (felixauyeung@juno.com)
Sat Dec 16 12:02:27 2000
From: felixauyeung@juno.com
To: peace-list@mit.edu
Cc: papouse@hotmail.com, clayadler@hotmail.com, elder@sinosphere.com,
erika@public.bta.net.cn, jshulman@fas.harvard.edu,
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Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 01:04:16 +0800
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since i criticize paul krugman and his free market above all else
philosophy a lot, i thought i should be fair to him and point out
articles he writes that are _good_. although i question whether people
from wall street and stanford makes them qualified professionals, he
makes many good points from admitting there is no more liberal economics
academia to pointing out the conservative thinktank stronghold in us
politics. with bush in, we have a broader opportunity of aligning with
moderates to expose the insanity in the system that is further and
further out of reach from the people.
just for the part where he points out clarence thomas' wife is being
hired by the heritage foundation to screen resumes for bush appointments
is worth the read. and to contrast the other side, read gary bauer's
opinion following. as mcchesney and chomsky say, the media controls the
spectrum of what is liberal and what is conservative. i suppose the
trick is to gather as much support from the mainstream as possible while
creating a alternative view more progressive than the permitted spectrum,
which has been drifting toward the right for the past decade plus.
----
Bush Appointees: Proven Professionals or Divisive Ideologues?
Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Thursday, December 14, 2000
NEW YORK Even cynics were a bit startled by the revelation that Justice
Clarence Thomas's wife has been employed by the Heritage Foundation to
gather resume for appointments in a Bush administration.
.
To what extent will a Bush administration be staffed by people from
Heritage and its sister institutions? Is the United States about to enter
an era of government by professional ideologues?
.
Heritage describes itself as a think tank, a term originally applied to
nonpolitical institutions like the Rand Corp. Whether it is appropriate
for organizations like Heritage depends on what you mean by the word
"think." Most of Washington's so called think tanks don't have to ponder
the issues - they already know the answers.
.
The Heritage mission statement makes no bones about it. The institution's
purpose is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies."
.
Since the policy recommendations that come out of Heritage, or the Cato
Institute or even the American Enterprise Institute, are so predictable,
what purpose do these organizations serve? Good question.
.
The important think tanks are all very much institutions of the right.
Jon Corzine notwithstanding, left-wing multimillionaires are not exactly
the norm. So liberal think tanks don't have anything like the resources
or the influence of their right-wing counterparts.
.
Some might cite the Brookings Institution as an exception, but Brookings
is not liberal in the way the conservative think tanks are conservative.
Even AEI, the most moderate of the big right-wing think tanks, lists Newt
Gingrich among its "scholars."
.
The glory years of the think tanks were the 1970s, when they provided an
alternative to what was perceived, with some justice, as the liberal bias
of academia. They were places where neoconservative intellectuals could
think the unthinkable and say the unsayable. They provided a new element
in the national dialogue, to such an extent that Daniel Patrick Moynihan
famously declared that "the Republicans have become the party of ideas."
And of course the think tanks provided the intellectual shock troops for
the Reagan revolution.
.
But that was then. Neoconservative ideas are no longer radical; they are
trite.
.
In the field I know best, economics, academia no longer has a
recognizable liberal bias. Free markets command great respect, and many
of the best known professors are also committed Republicans.
.
Still, the think tanks are bigger and better financed than ever. What is
their purpose? Mainly they have become waiting rooms for the conservative
nomenklatura, a class of intellectuals among whom talent is much less
important than political reliability.
.
The people whose resume Mrs. Thomas has been working on are professional
ideologues who earn a living by repeating conservative slogans but hope
soon to be undersecretaries and assistant secretaries.
.
This hope does not have to be fulfilled. While a few Friends of Bill got
special consideration in the early years, the Clinton administration was
in general staffed by people notable more for their ability than for
their ideological fervor. In the economic area, the administration
attracted some very impressive talent, including at least one likely
Nobel laureate - Joseph Stiglitz, chief economic adviser from 1995 to
1997.
.
George W. Bush could do the same, staffing his administration with able
Republicans from the business and academic worlds. But will he?
.
If he becomes president, the thing to watch is who he appoints - not so
much to the glamorous cabinet positions as to the less visible but
crucial second and third tiers. If those slots are filled by people from
Wall Street and Stanford, people who have made their reputations
independent of their politics, good. If they are filled from Heritage and
Cato and AEI, forget the rhetoric - he's a divider, not a uniter.
----
Bush Should Move to the Right, Not to the Middle
Gary Bauer
The New York Times
Saturday, December 16, 2000
ARLINGTON, Virginia Now that George W. Bush has just prevailed over Al
Gore in a long, costly, vitriolic struggle over the presidency, he is
getting plenty of advice. Pundits, political consultants and Republican
advisers are telling the president-elect that he must go slow, run to the
middle, avoid controversial issues and share power. As is often the case
when there is a Washington consensus - the advice is wrong.
.
Certainly, the new president should be agreeable whenever possible and
try to rise above petty personality differences that poison Washington.
But when it comes to the fundamental policy differences between the two
parties - those cannot, and should not, be swept under the rug.
.
It is always political suicide to forsake your base and crush its hopes
and dreams. Mr. Bush will need the continued loyalty and passionate
support of millions of traditional conservative voters to weather the
inevitable political firestorms of the next four years. And conventional
wisdom notwithstanding, he could never move left enough for the liberals
to be satisfied. By taking the advice to do little and accomplish it
slowly, he would find himself leading no one, building nothing and
disappointing his best friends. It is a path destined to end in four
years.
.
Of course Mr. Bush will have to seek the support of Democrats in a
closely divided Congress. But the coalitions he should seek are not in
some mythical "center." Instead, Mr. Bush should move boldly ahead on a
conservative governing vision - the same one that he emphasized during
the better moments of his campaign. On each initiative he will find
significant numbers of Democrats willing to vote with him.
.
Even before taking office, Mr. Bush can send a strong message with his
appointments. He should name a pro-life attorney general who believes all
our children should be protected by the law. Mr. Bush should also
nominate Supreme Court justices who believe the same.
.
Once in office, Mr. Bush should immediately repeal a long list of
executive orders President Bill Clinton issued over eight years. These
fiats have hurt economic growth, by overregulating small businesses,
worsened our energy crises by stopping drilling for oil and natural gas,
and promoted a radical social agenda including financing international
family planning groups that provide abortions abroad. Will liberals
object? Of course they will. But Jesse Jackson, Barney Frank and Ted
Kennedy will never support him no matter what he does.
.
Next, Mr. Bush should send four bills to Capitol Hill: a tax cut that
combines marginal rate tax relief with an easing of the marriage penalty
and an increase in the child tax credit; an immediate ban on
partial-birth abortions; an education reform bill with a strong voucher
provision; a new budget that rebuilds the American military and speeds
work on a missile defense system. These initiatives will rally the people
who voted for him, and significant numbers of Democrats are likely to
support them as well.
.
Finally, Mr. Bush can surprise his critics by proposing campaign finance
reform equally tough on the big union and big business soft money
contributions that are corrupting our politics.
.
Liberals and special interest groups will resist these actions, and
pundits will criticize them. Yet sizable majorities of the American
people will support Mr. Bush. More importantly, Mr. Bush will show the
rest of the country that he is a man of his word and a man of action.
.
The writer, a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, sought
the Republican presidential nomination this year with the support of
Christian conservatives. He contributed this comment to The New York
Times.
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