Political Psychology

Bill Clinton turns 60

2006-08-15T16:33:00.000-04:00

Mortality is life's rebuke to narcissism.

Is Jonathan Chait Too Shallow to be a Los Angles Times Pundit? No

2006-07-17T01:41:00.000-04:00

One difference between a commentator and a pundit is that the former focus on analysis, Michael Barone comes to mind, while a pundit is person of quick and often repetitious views-like Jonathan Chait.

His latest punditry returns to his favorite theme- that the President is stupid. How does he know that? Easy. You look for someone who has proved to be a certified Bush basher, then quote from that person’s latest snide and inaccurate characterizations of the president, and presto! Your point is proven.

Mr. Chait relies on characterizations contained in David Suskind’s new book. The old attacks are dusted off and thrust forward. Bush does not like to read and prefers briefing to policy papers. So what? Presidents differ in how they get information and reading long policy papers has not proved a superior source of policy wisdom, think Jimmy Carter.

What’s new in Suskind’s undocumented assertion that Mr. Bush based his assessment s of the information he was getting his (Bush’s) judgment “on how confident his briefer seemed in what he was saying.” This assertion is not only factual wrong; it is ridiculous.

Most people who make policy recommendations to the president are quite convinced that their analysis is sound and their advice ought to be followed. Washington is literally filled with such persons, which is why an assessment based on the presenter’s confidence would leave the president little based on which to make any choice.

Mr. Bush is well known to reach judgments about people as they debate the issues in front of him. But his judgments are based on how well they have thought through their case, and their ability to provide cogent answers to the questions that are raised about their analysis.

Beyond the cogency of the analysis, it is not the level of their confidence that interests Mr. Bush, but the practicality and feasibility of their suggestions. Mr. Chait derides this as “horse sense,” but practicality and feasibility are crucial elements to consider for any policy decision.

Yes, Mr. Bush has taken large policy risks. Yet these must be understood in the context of assessments about the risk involved in not taking action. Moreover, even when Mr. Bush has taken large risks, as in Iraq, he has been focused on achieving results and what works. In this Mr. Bush is a very unusual president. He is both transformational in what he is trying to accomplish, but keenly interested in what works. Ordinarily presidents who stress the former neglect the latter, and those who stress the latter aren’t ambitious or visionary enough to pursue the former.

The Bush administration has had a number of very strong debates over a range of issues—Iraq, North Korea, Iran and a host of others. They are a function both of the difficulty of the problems, and the fact that the president has chosen to surround himself with knowledgeable, experienced people who are hardly likely to agree on all these difficult matters. But they are also a function of the fact that Bush doesn’t shy away from internal policy debate; he embraces it and learns from it.

This is more than one can say of Mr. Chair, whose punditry is molecule deep, tendentious, and ultimately useless as a guide to understanding the subjects he opinionates on.

Iran's "Dignity" and the Bomb

2006-05-31T20:53:00.000-04:00

Reading through the recent SPIGEL interview with Iran's President Ahmadinejad the theme of being humiliated and melting out humiliation is invoked several times. There are echoes of this theme in his development, and certainly in Iran’s modern history, but it is the implications of these themes for Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons that is my focus here.

David Ignatius recently raised an interesting question about why the Iranian government wanted to develop a nuclear arsenal. He noted their “implacability” and attributed it to three sources: divisions in the ruling elite, their theocratic view that mandates from God can’t be negotiated, and their elevation of “dignity” as an irreducible essential of the regime’s goals.

The first provides an opening for negotiations as it implies that there is a range of views on this issue, some of which might be the basis for some kind of agreement. That of course depends on the real range of those views and the relative importance of those who hold them.

The second and third elements provide much less room for optimism. Religious fervor and conviction are not generally associated with willingness to compromise. Moreover, when religious fervor and conviction are coupled with the strong strategic advantages that nuclear weapons would bring to Iran, the chances of compromise seem small.

Finally, the issue of “dignity” raises a wholly new element in this debate. International relations theorists talk a great deal about “reassurance,” the idea that aggressive powers are really, underneath, insecure and only need to be comforted by declarations and demonstrations of good intentions. The questions that some ask of this view is whether insecurity can exist along side aggressiveness or hostility without necessarily being their sole cause. Moreover, tyrannical leaders tend to view reassurance as either cynical or a sign of weakness.

Dignity, however, is another matter entirely. It’s opposite is humiliation and disrespect. Ignatius thinks this “is not a political demand, nor can it be achieved through negotiation.” If he is right, the United States and its allies are in big trouble, not only with Iran but also in the rest of the Middle East. There, a witches’ brew of real trauma (colonialism), lack of political and economic development, and cynical exploitation by the regions’ many corrupt leaders have made “humiliation” a common and easy frame to keep power and stir up the masses.

Certainly no country likes to be publicly humiliated, which is why discussions of conflict resolution so often involve “face saving” or not backing advisories into a corner from which war is the only means of extraction. The difficult line to navigate is how to address dignity without giving up legitimate policy concerns in order to do so. The idea that my concerns with dignity require that you allow me to do what I want is hardly conducive to genuine negotiation. Moreover, that position is an obvious attempt to stack the deck in one’s favor. After all, who could be against a country maintaining its “dignity?”

In truth, negotiation as an equal is also a sign of respect. Being able to build and operate nuclear power plants is a sign of national accomplishment and a source of well-deserved national pride.

The development of missiles capable of hitting Israel, parts of Europe and eventually parts of the United States, coupled with the push to develop nuclear war heads, along with aggressive rhetoric has little to do with dignity and everything to do with threat. The Iranians frame their military quest as a matter of dignity at their own risk with an administration seared by 9/11

Critics of American national security policy assert that the United States often fails to see itself as others see it. Presumably, to do so would lead to a more understanding, less assertive set of policies. Perhaps. However, no country can respond reassuringly to all the misperceptions that others have of it, especially if that country is the object of many conflicted and ambivalent feelings.

Doesn’t this apply to Iran as well? Yes, to some degree although Iran doesn’t hold the iconic stature or worldwide responsibilities that the United States does. Still, Iran has every right to consider whether American and European concerns are well founded. Yet, to do so, it must first give those concerns real attention and weight.

Dismissive proclamations that it ”won’t give a dam” about U.N. Council votes, threats of ”harm and pain” against the United States, and extremely Ill-considered promises to ”wipe Israel off the map”may be meant to serve a strategic purpose, but one only can only hope that behind the scenes messianic religious fervor, nationalist pride, and a view that negotiation equals humiliation will not trump a sober appraisals of the risks that Iran’s behavior is escalating.

America is moving toward direct negotiations with Iran, as it must if it is to secure any measure of international or domestic high ground. The administration is doing so in the hope that our allies will back us with tough measures if talks fail. This will indeed be a test for the multilateralists who have argued since Mr. Bush took office that if we just had more consultation, the world would be a safer happier place.

Well, to date there has been an enormous amount of consultation with allies and many others on the question of Iranian nuclear weapons and to date no one but the Iranians seems happier on this matter. After all, the bidding has just really begun (I’ll see your nuclear reactor and raise you a security treaty that allows the Mullahs to rule indefinitely).

If Iran continues in their quest to gain the bomb, it will be hard to argue the world is safer.

How to tell an Amnesty from a Banana

2006-05-25T09:22:00.000-04:00

"You all know it's not amnesty." Said McCain, addressing Vitter, "Call it a banana if you want to ... to call the process that we require under this legislation amnesty frankly distorts the debate and it's an unfair interpretation of it."
-----------------------------------------------------------

The immigration debate taking place in Congress has more than its share of attempted sophistry, avoidance, and outright misrepresentations. Nowhere is this confluence of debased debate more readily observable than in the controversy over whether “earned citizenship” is, in fact, a not so hidden amnesty.

Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary defines amnesty, “as the act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals.” Similarly the Fifth Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as, “an act of forgetfulness; an intention overlooking; a general pardon, especially for a political offense.”

If dictionary definitions were policy, it would be crystal clear that the provisions for dealing with illegal immigrants already in the country would amount to a “forgetting,” an “overlooking,” and indeed a “pardon” which is, after all, an official forgiveness for a committed offense. Regretfully, those seeking honesty in the debate will find no solace in their dictionaries.

That is because both the president and his backers insist they are against an “amnesty. “ How is it possible to both grant a “forgetting,” and a “pardon” for a past offense—breaking our immigration and numerous other laws (social security and document fraud, etc.), without by so doing granting an amnesty? Well, apparently it depends on what you mean by amnesty.

Mr. Bush says, “We must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. “The core of Mr. Bush’s position is that illegal immigrants will have to pay a price for their law breaking and only then will they be granted a “forgiving” or “pardon.”

It is therefore the balance of the price exacted to the gains conferred by breaking the law that is critical to the president’s case that “earned citizenship” does not amount to amnesty. If illegal immigrants gain much more from having broken the law than they will in “paying a price “ to become regularized, they can easily consider the “price” they pay as a “transaction cost” much like parking tickets in New York City for truck deliveries.

Moreover, if the transaction costs are minimal they result in two other substantial consequences to the country. First, if the benefits of illegal immigration far outweigh an “transaction costs incurred in getting the benefits, they become an inducement to others. Second, if the benefits outweigh the costs, there will be tremendous political costs to the majorities of American citizens who do not want to reward illegal immigration. The major cost here will be a widespread feeling of public betrayal and alienation.

President Bush recognizes the cost-benefit calculation and its political implications. That’s why he argues that the advantages of “earned citizenship” will not be given “automatically.” Rather than simply being “pardoned” (clearly an amnesty) illegal immigrants will have to pay a price in return. The question is: What is that price?

According to Mr. Bush, illegal immigrants will have to, ”to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law -- to pay their taxes, to learn English and to work in a job for a number of years.” In other words, aside from the “meaningful” penalty pegged at about two thousand dollars paid over eight years, illegal immigrants would have to do exactly what they are already doing here illegally. They will live here, work, and learn some English while they wait their turn in line.

About that line Mr. Bush says, “But approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law.” That sounds fair, except when you realize that there are two different lines of immigrants—those waiting outside the country to get in, and those inside the country waiting for their green cards and citizenship applications.

Those waiting in the country have immense prize over those waiting outside of it. Primary, they live in the United States with all of the rewards that living here entails. That list includes: electricity, adequate housing, paved roads, higher wages, and free education—the list is long. Secondly, they will enjoy all the civil and political rights that come with having a legal status and living on American soil. Third, they will be working and earning more money than ever possible at home. Fourth, their children will become American citizens-itself an enormous advantage, and they will then have standing to bring their extended families. Fifth they would be bring their wives, children, brother, sisters, aunts and uncles, who in turn will be able to sponsor other relatives. Seventh, they would enjoy the benefits of the social security benefits earned through fraudulent social security numbers and fake identification. Eighth, they would be eligible for all the advantages built into the new bill for “guest workers.”

Over all, the balance of advantages gained for illegality vs. the “costs” of becoming legal are decidedly one sided—in the direction of benefiting illegal immigrants. The problem with this is that it undercuts any sense of fairness and erodes compassion. It is as if a person illegally gained the possession of a furnished house and was told that in order to gain legal ownership, we asked them to return a chair. Nor is compassion satisfied by a deal in which the offending party has to do very little to make amends while being offered copious compensation. Many Americans will come to believe that their interests have not been taken into account and their legitimate concerns disparaged.

On the other hand, future illegal immigrants will think the trade off well worth it, and this adjustment, like the seven before it, will result in new waves of illegal immigration. That is an extremely undesirable result, but it is not the worst one.

The bill, as it is now written, not only contains many provisions that substantially increase the benefits to illegal immigrants; it also dramatically raises the number of legal immigrants that will be allowed into the country. Both of these results are exactly contrary to what a majority of Americans want.

Mickey Klaus quotes Immigration bill sponsor Republican Charles Hegal sneering condescendingly at "the political lowest common denominator." I guess he means people like me.

Self-proclaimed “straight shooter” John McCain accusing critics of “distorting the debate” even he claims that words and actual immigration bill content have no meaning beyond that he will grant them.

Then there is the puzzling and upsetting behavior of the president. Mr. Bush has apparently been thinking a lot recently about his legacy. He also recently told an interviewer from the German newspaper BILD that “I want to leave this office with my integrity intact.” His stance in the immigration debate, to date, is helping with neither.

This president with the most searing appraisal of our national security circumstances, has already reneged on his public commitment to make “temporary workers” return home at the conclusion of their stay. Nor has he helped his cause by drawing a false distinction between “amnesty” and mass deportation while not pointing out the true middle ground--border and workplace enforcement‡ illegal immigration attrition.

The bill, as it stands is a lemon, not a banana, but if it were the latter, it would be a rotten one.

Dick Morris’ Idiotic Advice to President Bush: Become Bill Clinton

2006-05-22T12:03:00.000-04:00

Dick Morris has suggested a full proof plan for rescuing the Bush presidency and destroying it at the same time—an all out assault on America’s biggest problem—high gas prices.

We know this is America’s biggest problem because asked to describe in their own words what issues they hear people talking, about 29% of the American public mention high gas prices.

Iraq? Forget Iraq. Only 13% of the sample mention it. Morris concludes that this means that “It has faded as a public issue.” He seems not to have considered that Iraq is a difficult, but ever-present piece of knowledge whose existence you must reluctantly resign yourself to, but on which you would prefer not to dwell.

Immigration? No, that’s not an issue in spite of the mass marches and the conservative abandonment of the president over his handling of this issue. After all, only 9% reported hearing about immigration around the water cooler or discussing it at the kitchen table.

Having confused the American penchant for complaining about things that adversely affect them immediately and economically, with the things that really worry them, Mr. Morris is now ready to suggest his master plan—a national crusade against gasoline. In Mr. Morris’s words Mr. Bush , “should declare the equivalent of the bomb-building Manhattan Project and embark on a crash course to switch us from gasoline to alcohol- and hydrogen-based fuels.”

Mr. Morris hopes for quick results, since “But Bush must get on top of the issue - particularly if there is a chance to show progress before November, 2006, he must stake out his program so he can crow about how well it worked.” It’s possible that the announcement of a “Manhattan project” to switch from gasoline to alcohol- and hydrogen-based fuels might not be seen for what it is, a cynical move to divert attention from the issues on which Americans have legitimate and important questions—like Iraq and immigration.

I use the word cynical because even Mr. Morris admits, “There is a very good chance that the market will come back to reality and that prices will settle down again, regardless of long-term changes in demand or supply.”

A move toward economically viable alternative fuels is an important policy to pursue. However, it is a policy that must be pursued carefully. Oil, and the many industries that depend on it are critical parts of the American economy and not to be tickered with carelessly. And that is exactly what Mr. Morris’ proposal is—a slapdash effort to a gain short- term public bump in approval regardless of the political or economic costs. Were his advice to be taken, Mr. Morris would have accomplished the molst amazing transformation of a president ever seen--from a George W. Bush to a Bill Clinton.

Mr. Bush’s psychological persona—his competence, empathy, and even his integrity have been damaged by the relentless attacks of his partisan enemies. They have been aided by the president’s own mistakes and those of his administration. Mr. Bush would be foolish indeed to compound his troubles by allowing the charge of desparate political expedience to be added to the list.

A Truly Obnoxious Immigration Op Ed in the Washington Post

2006-05-13T20:32:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post has published an opinion piece on immigration that precisely defines the phase “adding insult to injury.” The piece entitled Waving the Star-Spanglish Banner is a full-throated defense of translating our national anthem into and singing it Spanish, but that is not its major offense.

Like many defenses of the Spanish translation of the American national anthem this one too, overlooks some facts to reach its conclusions. It calls the Spanish translation “a loving rendition,” but fails to mention that the translated lyrics add some lines ("My people fight on..the march toward liberty..The time has come to break the chains”) that are more pointedly critical of the United States than loving. It also fails to mention that another version due out soon is even depriciating, with lyrics like:” Let's not start a war. With all these hard workers..They can't help where they were born.” The author, Mr. Dorfman, himself an immigrant enjoying the fruits of this country , apparently believes that it is perfectly appropriate to use the iconic American national anthem to trash the concerns of a large majority of the people in the country in which he now lives.

But the author’s sin is not ingratitude, it is rude arrogance. His view is that,” “Spanish is a language that has come to stay,” and the United States had just better get used to it. His theory is that Americans were upset with the Spanish translation of the anthem because, “It has inadvertently announced something many Americans have dreaded for years: that their country is on its way to becoming a bilingual nation.”

Americans, he lectures us, must embrace this fact. Otherwise, “the democratic ideals at the heart of American identity are truly in danger of being sacrificed on the altar of false security.” The alternative to this “tolerance” and “diversity” is "a nativist backlash, with more vigilante Minutemen swilling beer in the Arizona sun, more calls for deporting all illegal workers, more demands that an impenetrable wall be built against the foreign hordes, more attempts to dismantle bilingual education in U.S. schools.” How smug.

As it happens Mr. Dorfman is a Professor at Duke and an accomplished playwright, but when it comes to understanding his new home, his civic ignorance is profound. He doesn’t consider that one of the most important means that has helped America integrate hundreds of millions of immigrants over the years expecting and helping immigrants learn our language and culture, not insist that they impose theirs on us. One wonders what people like Mr. Dorfman would do if an large group of immigrants in his home country, Chile, demanded that its citizens learn another language to converse with each other or carry on public life. Perhaps, being an “intellectual cosmopolitan” he would welcome it; but I doubt it.

Assimilation Nation?

2006-05-11T21:29:00.000-04:00

Peter Salins wants to solve the problem of illegal immigration by adding another 300, 000 to 400, 000 places to the 850,000-1,000,000 legal immigrants the United States already takes in each year.

Why stop there? If we remove the cap on permanent visas entirely, then presto, there will be no such thing as an illegal immigrant. We can then avoid the hard work of protecting our borders, enforcing our immigration laws, making choices about how many immigrants, realistically, this country can integrate into our national community, whom we invite to become members of our community, and the policies we enact to help integrate immigrants into our society beyond offering eased access to citizenship.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s Mindset: A Strategic Diagnosis

2006-05-10T20:45:00.000-04:00

Reading Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s missive to President Bush is like popping several of those Alice- in- Wonderland pills, diving head first down the rabbit hole and emerging in world where words float like wispy clouds high above and beyond their ordinary meaning.

It’s not only that the letter is framed in large religious and political terms like “needs of humanity,” “rational behavior, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, progress, property, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity,” and calls on Mr. Bush to “follow the teaching of divine prophets.” Words like peace; justice, progress and prosperity have many meanings of course. However, in Mr. Ahmadinejad’s view they all lead in one direction—that Mr. Bush and the United States have, by their behavior both at home and abroad strayed from the path of virtue as defined by Mr. Ahmadinejad and reaped the just rewards of world hated as a result.

The letter is long and rambling. And, along with the grand but vague terms noted above the letter is riddled with misinformation, misunderstanding and disingenuousness that makes it hard to follow much less fully understand.

Mr. Ahmadinejad asserts, “European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe”. No, quite the contrary, in spite of a parliamentary inquiry they found no such evidence.

Mr. Ahmadinejad notes that after 9/11 Americans lived in fear of another attack and asks, incredibly, “Why did [American media] instead of conveying a sense of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity.” Most certainly they did so because they did and do have fears of another attack and those fears are, regrettably, very legitimate.

And lastly Mr. Ahmadinejad cites the historical importance of technological and scientific achievements and asks, disingenuously “at what point has scientific progress become a crime.” “Can," he continues,” the possibility of scientific achievements can be utlilised for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology all together? If such a proposition is true, then all scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. must be opposed.” Well, not quite. The issue is not the virtue of scientific progress in history, but Iran’s apparent quest to develop nuclear weapons.

I take Mr. Ahmadinejad’s letter and views as sincere and that is precisely the problem. His list of grievances is laid at the door of a single villain—the United States. His motives and those of his country are pure, without guile, artifice, or self-interest. He speaks only in the service of the larger good, whose sole definition he abrogates to himself.

Thus is the rhetoric of altruism put in the service of the most fundamental certainly about the virtue of his views and the villainy of ours. What room is there for compromise with a country guilty of all the crimes against justice, peace, progress, respect for human dignity and so on that Mr. Ahmadinejad accuses Mr. Bush and the United States of instigating? His letter is an invitation to examine our behavior, see the error of our ways, and change accordingly.

No similar self-reflection is evident, or apparently seen as necessary, on Iran's part or his.

The letter is presumptuous and, because of its lecturing without any hint of real humility or perspective, insulting. But its real importance lies elsewhere.

The letter is a window into a mindset of a man whose piety easily slides into sanctimony. It is the mindset of a man who, in spite of the high-minded appeal to religious aspirations, treats the real world in decidedly black or white terms in which his word is the final judgment.

The question is not whether he is “crazy,” a word the Wall Street Journal used in the title of an editorial about him. In the clinical sense, he is a sane as the leadership he represents, and that is our problem.

Governor Schwarzenegger Psychoanalyzes the Immigration Protest Marches

2006-05-07T22:18:00.000-04:00

The quintessential immigration straddle and new policy alchemy by which politicians of every stripe can turn difficult choices into easy solutions is now in plain view: tough talk about border security and couple that with a support of a “guest worker” program. Liberal Democrats like Hillary Clinton and liberal Republicans like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger agree that it seems like an ideal solution. Tap into American anxiety and anger over porous borders, and at the same time American friendliness and hospitality. But every one in a while politicians overplay what they think is their winning hand.

Consider the recent press conference during which Governor Schwarzenegger lashed at out the federal government, “In some of the harshest terms he has used to date” for leaving the nation’s borders vulnerable and failing to come up with “a sensible approach to immigration.”

He has criticized federal policy makers for letting immigration, “hang out there for 20 years and not do anything about it, when they knew this is a problem." He said at this press conference that, “to have a border that is not secure is to me staggering."

Fair enough, but on many immigration matters the governor had little to say. Does he support eventual citizenship for the estimated eleven million plus illegal immigrants now in the country? He didn’t say. Does he support strict enforcement of workplace immigration laws? If he does, perhaps he could tell us more about what he has done about this in California. Does he believe that all the illegal immigrants in California are doing jobs that “American’s won’t do”? As the saying goes, “inquiring minds want to know.”

Perhaps the governor’s his most surprising comment was that the protest marches in Los Angeles, Chicago, and other cities were the Bush Administration and the federal government’s fault. How is that? Well, according to the governor, the demonstrations were,” an expression of frustration. People want to send a message to Washington that they're not happy with certain bills….” Certain bills? What bills are they?

The governor doesn’t say, but we can guess he is not referring to border security measures since he cannot logically both criticize the government failure to provide border security while siding with illegal immigrants who oppose making it harder both to gain entry and citizenship. Those “certain bills” are clearly the ones dealing with the nature of a guest worker program and its relationship to legalization and citizenship.

So according to the governor, the demonstrations rather than being a meticulously planned effort to pressure Congress as it was considering new immigration legislation was simply the spontaneous outplay of collective frustration. If so, it was self- induced frustration since the eleven million plus illegal immigrants came here of their own free will and for their own self-interested purposes. The governor need not have cloaked their massive breaking of immigration laws with the thin veneer of victim hood.

The marches and boycott are more accurately seen as an orchestrated attempt by people with no legal standing in American politics and their allies to shout over and drown out the views that Americans have been expressing about illegal immigration with increasing strength in the last twenty years: Stop illegal immigration and stop offering incentives, like eased paths to citizenship, that fuel it. No amount of artifice or straddle will turn that lead into gold.

How many American citizens marched in favor of easier paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants? March supporters don’t say. How many of those who marched were actually American citizens? March supporters didn’t count. I am willing to bet that both those numbers are extremely small. That means that the demonstrations and the boycott were carried out by those who have broken our immigration laws and who are attempting to pressure Congress into excusing, and then rewarding, their behavior. Does that seem like something a governor ought to legitimize by providing misplaced psychological excuses?

Mr. Schwarzenegger has his psychological analysis and his priorities reversed. It is the American people who have become increasing frustrated with the government’s unwillingness or inability to stem the flow of illegal immigration. It is the American people who are not happy with “certain bills,” Which bills are they? Easy, those bills that reward illegal immigrants with the most precious award this country can give, citizenship.

What to do about Illegal Immigration? Support Mexico!

2006-05-04T19:38:00.000-04:00

Steven Hauer asks in the Wall Street Journal [Note: subscription required] what we should do about illegal immigrants from Mexico and gives a novel reason for doing nothing. In his view, “our immigration policy is more consequential for what happens to Mexico's political and social stability than it is for America's economy or cultural integrity.”

Why? He thinks that while poor uneducated immigrants do depress the wages of low skill, low education Americans, the children of immigrants do gain educational ground over time, thus balancing out their impact on the United States. Since this is true, he thinks, we should then be free to consider his major concern—the stability of Mexico.

Actually, the fact that children of immigrants may progress educationally and economically is little comfort to the workers whose wages will continue to be pressured downward by an estimated 500,000 plus illegal immigrant population arriving every year.

Economic and education advancement while certainly desirable, are primarily instrumental. They allow immigrants purchase what this country has to offer. But they neglect the core of what is central to the immigration debate—attachment. Primary attachment to this country and not to immigrants’ “home” countries is the linchpin of the agreement that has made immigration historically successful. American has traditionally bet that it could leverage immigrant ambition and self-interest over time into genuine, not instrumental attachment.

The emotional integration of immigrants into the American national community never was a “given,” it worked because many institutions—schools, government at all levels, civic groups—worked hard to bring it about. Yet, there is a segment of the immigrant community and an even larger segment among American political, religious, educational and civic leaders that now view that arrangement with suspicion and sometime outright hostility. Encouraging immigrants to keep their home allegiances is said to be “welcoming.” Encouraging Americans to get past their parochial national identities is a major project for some in our major political and cultural institutions.

Mr. Hauer is correct to worry that if illegal immigration were drastically reduced “Unemployment and underemployment, already major problems, would increase dramatically. Remissions from immigrants, which total some $18 billion per year and are the lifeblood of many rural communities, would dry up.” True enough, but more foreign aid could help make up the financial gap while we secured our borders. That would at least have the advantage of being able to attach some economic reform strings to it.

Other countries too have severe economic problems that would be alleviated by allowing an open door to their illegal immigrants too. Does that sound like a sensible policy for their economic development and our country’s national cultural and political integrity?

As to immigrant remittances to Mexico, they are certainly understandable and I sympathize with the reasons for sending them, but it would represent a step ahead in immigrants’ attachment to this country if they could earmark that money to support their fellow countrymen here. Even better would be a future time when Mexicans would routinely contribute to organizations like the Red Cross or American Cancer society that benefit all Americans.

On Being a "Bush Apologist": The Case of Immigration

2006-05-03T07:56:00.000-04:00

Anyone who publicly supports a Bush Administration policy soon encounters the accusation that he is a “Bush apologist.” The term is an interesting one. It is, of course, dismissive and meant to be. It both downgrades the integrity of the supporter and relieves the accuser of any obligation to consider the facts of a particular debate. But there is more to it than that.

Being an “apologist” really means you are an excuser-- either of a deficient policy, a deficient president, or a deficit administration—most usually all three. In any case, the premise of the accusation is that you, the apologist, are either misguided, at best, or more likely willfully in denial of views that any reasonable person would hold. In short, you are either a fool or a shill.

The world looks more complicated to someone on the relieving end of that accusation. It is a world in which administration decisions reflect mixtures of motives and neither presidents nor policies are perfect. It is a world in which you agree with some presidential policies and not others. And it is a world where you might well find yourself in agreement with some, but not all, elements of the same policy.

Consider the case of immigration. Congress is now in the middle of long delayed and much needed debate about American immigration policy. It is finally doing so because present policy has become intolerable.

The focus of our current debate is illegal immigration. The United States has become the home of somewhere between 8 and 12 million illegal immigrations with more arriving at the rate of over 500, 000 every year. Successive administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have basically ignored the problem, while public dismay at the government’s inability or unwillingness to control our borders has grown and become clearly evident in just about every public opinion poll that asks a question about it.

The focus on illegal immigration does not mean that the rest of American immigration policy is either coherent or functional. The hidden core of American immigration policy is how well we integrate immigrants into our national community, and unlike the past when government, business and community groups joined forces to help immigrations become Americans, we now do little or nothing to help facilitate this core civic responsibility. So, the first problem for a “Bush apologist” with interests in the viability of American nation identity is that the current immigration debate almost wholly ignores a question of vital consequence to this country.

Still, illegal immigration is a very serious problem. A country that is targeted by terrorists who would like to destroy it that looses control of its borders is in serious trouble. A country that welcomes people that violate its immigrations laws with numerous incentives (financial, heath and education benefits to name a few), while its president declares at an immigration ceremony that we are nation of laws, sends seriously mixed signals. So what is a “Bush apologist” to do?

The wish to make a better life is understandable, and in this the president’s empathy is well placed. On the other hand, the president’s chief responsibility is to this county’s citizens, and illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. It is leads to a sense of pervasive unwanted, and uninvited violation of national and civic boundaries. It spawns crime, corruption, and political malfeasance. Mayors make their cities “sanctuary” havens where immigration law is not enforced. Legislatures debate in-state tuition levels for illegal immigrants and pass resolutions supporting boycotts meant to pressure Congress for more liberal legalization policies, while laws requiring employers to verify the immigration status of those they hire are not enforced and as written, are unenforceable,

And what does the president propose to do about this? He wants to match a willing worker with employers having trouble “filling jobs that Americans won’t do.” And he wants to create a pathway for illegal immigrants toward “earned legalization.”

The problem for a Bush apologist with the first proposal is that it seems to be premised on a repeal of the laws of supply and demand. The larger the pool of low skill, low education illegal immigrants willing to work at sub-subsistence wages, the more likely it is that wages will not rise to make the jobs attractive to Americans who want to do them. Less supply of cheap labor coupled with continuing demand (we need workers) should lead to a rise in the wages offered and as well to the number of Americans who would consider these jobs.

The informed Bush apologist also knows that “earned legalization” is designed as a comforting euphemism to cover up an inconvenient fact. Illegal immigrants can, even now, “earn” their legalization by the simple expedient and leaving the county and applying for a green card like every other legal immigrant does. This of course is not going to happen and many of the current proposals before Congress are expressly designed to make sure that it doesn’t.

So when the president says that he is against “automatic citizenship,” a Bush apologist is still forced to ask: Who suggested that? When the president says he wants illegal immigrants to go “to the back of the line,” and then ads if Congress wants to shorten the line by increasing the number legal immigrants admitted to this country each year (850,000 plus) it can do so, even a Bush apologist realizes this is an invitation to an immigration green card bidding war. (Democrats: I’ll see your 200,000 new green cards, and raise you 200,000 more.) This of course assumes that whatever law is passed is not riddled with hidden loopholes that cripple enforcement mechanisms and ease citizenship requirements as the proposals that the Senate considered before its just completed recess were.

So what is a Bush apologist to do? Yes, the president is courageous for facing this problem directly, as he has done with social security reform and national security. Yes, if there is a true need to a more workers, let us design a program to accomplish that, but we should first test by enforcement, just how critical that need is.

Yes, the president is generally a compassionate man although that is not the only or the most central aspect of his psychology. Yes, illegal immigration is a human problem, but it is also a national, cultural and community problem. However, presidential compassion should not be extended solely to those who break our laws to have a better life. It should also be extended to the many citizens whose sense of violation and frustration because of dishonest euphuisms, failures of political will, and crass pandering for political advantage in the immigration debate are palpable.

Where does all this leave a “Bush apologist?” Why, against the president’s stated policy preferences on these matters of course.

Being Rude to the President and his Wife is no Joke

2006-05-01T18:10:00.000-04:00

In a venue historically given to gentle humor at the expense of political figures of all parties, Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert delivered a "blistering tribute" at the White House Correspondent's dinner that President Bush and his wife attended. It was certainly no "tribute" and definitely no joke.

Instead, the Bush material was egregiously harsh, partisan, and tasteless.

It is a testament to Mr. Colbert's lack of perspective that he could even consider making such remarks. It is also a testament to the view, that he apparently shares, that when it comes to Mr. Bush, no level of crass rudeness is inappropriate.

He owes the President and Mrs. Bush an apology.

The Bush Bubble Myth

2006-04-24T00:20:00.000-04:00

The latest trend in Bush Administration criticism is the reemergence of the Bush bubble myth. This myth, originating in the earliest stereotypes of Mr. Bush, views the president passing his days in a comfortable womb of like-minded people cut off from and uninterested in the world at large, going about his imperious ways with no clue or concern with the suffering his policies are causing.

Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes, “We have seen this phenomenon before - a cloistered president, fixed in his views and averse to compromise, often at odds with political reality.” Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe write writein Newsweek that “Bush may be the most isolated president in modern history, at least since the late-stage Richard Nixon.” David Ignatius bluntly asserts “Bush and Cheney are in the bunker.”

The din of conventional wisdom echoing the media became so strong that NBC’s Brian William used precious time in an interview with the President at the end of last year to ask about it:

WILLIAMS: I brought some visual aids. I have Newsweek and Time. Cover of Newsweek, look what they've done to you. "Bush's World: The isolated president, can he change?" And inside Time, it says "Bush's search for his new groove." Time magazine says you're out there talking to people. Newsweek says you're in here not talking to people. So what is truth, Mr. President?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I'm talking to you. You're a person.

WILLIAMS: This says you're in a bubble. You have a very small circle of advisors now. Is that true? Do you feel in a bubble?

PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I don't feel in a bubble. I mean, you feel in a bubble in the sense that I can't go walking out the front gate and, you know, go shopping, like I'd love to do for my wife…I feel like I'm getting really good advice from very capable people and that people from all walks of life have informed me and informed those who advise me. And I feel very comfortable that I'm very aware of what's going on.

Mr. Williams seems like a decent person, but this is truly an inane question. What does he expect Mr. Bush to say: Yes, I’m in a bubble just like these magazines say. Yes, I have a very small circle of advisors who tell only what I want to hear. Yes, I don’t care how my policies are really doing in the real world so long as Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and maybe Donald Rumsfeld assure me that I’m right.

Anyone who has spent more than a moment examining Mr. Bush’s presidency and psychology would know how far from reality these characterizations are. Like most caricatures, they provide a mental detour around the need to consider facts, thus allowing effortless conformation of biases.

Tellingly, Bush critics point to different evidence as proof of the bubble. Some evidence put forward in defense of this argument is simply silly. The normally sensible Fareed Zakaria was moved to write of an “Imperial Presidency.” Why? Because, “Bush's travel schedule seems calculated to involve as little contact as possible with the country he is in.” Presumably, if Mr. Bush spends more time on touring and less on substantive discussions his presidency will revert to acceptable size.

A possible more serious and widespread criticism is raised by Ruth Marcus writing in the Washington Post says "the notion that this is an insular White House headed by an incurious president isn't exactly administration-bites-dog news.” Her view, seconded by many critics is that in the Bush administration there is too much agreement and too little debate, a recipe for groupthink.

Those who persist in repeating this view overlook or ignore a great deal of evidence to the contrary. During the 2000 presidential campaign a number of reporters including Frank Bruni and Eric Schmidt looked into Mr. Bush’s decision-making style. They wrote in a November 19, 1999 article entitled "Bush Rehearsing for the World Stage," that in getting information, Bush prefers “discussions to in-depth reading, although he has been known to needle his advisors when something they say diverges from something they wrote.” Hardly the humor of an uniformed man. Elizabeth Mitchell who wrote a badly titled, but informative biographical book about Mr. Bush’s development, wrote (p.333) "He likes to hear different views on the same policy problems. During his 1990 campaign for governor, “ George W. took great glee in assembling the most diverse group he could find and then let the discussion fly for several hours. He would ask hundreds of specific questions, demonstrating the same intense curiosity he displayed on the back roads of Texas.”

Has this style carried over to his presidency? The evidence is that it has. Bob Woodward’s look inside the debates that began after 9/11 within the administration makes this clear.

Don’t believe Woodward? Is he to close to Bush? Ok, then how about WP reporters Peter Baker and Robin Wright who wrote that a, “powerful debate was raging, officials now acknowledge, among the president's top advisers over postponing the Jan. 30 interim election in hopes of first tamping down the flaring insurgency and bringing disaffected factions to the table.”

Supporters of Mr. Bush’s policies have every reason to be concerned about the state of his presidency. But they will help neither the president or his policies by buying into the ill-considered and erroneous view that Mr. Bush’s comfortable cocoon must be breached, if his presidency is to be saved. Appearing this week on Fox News Sunday, Ken Duberstein had this to say:

WALLACE: And, finally, Mr. Duberstein, how unvarnished was the message that you were able to give to Ronald Reagan in 1987-88, and what does Bolten need to do with Bush?

DUBERSTEIN: I think Josh Bolten is well equipped to be a reality therapist to President Bush the same way walking into the Oval Office I had to tell the president not what he wanted to hear, but what he needed to hear.

The implication of this is quite clear. Mr. Duberstein thinks Mr. Bush needs some “reality therapy,” because no one is telling him what he “needs to hear,” as opposed to what he “wanted to hear.”

Contrary to his critics, Mr. Bush is quite able to discern the difference between reality and hype. It was Mr. Bush who framed the 9/11 attack as an act of war and not an attack requiring a limited response, a UN resolution, or better police work. It was Mr. Bush who said of Yasser Arafat, publicly, "He can't close the front door of his prisons and let prisoners out the back…Arafat criticized us. He urged us to put more pressure on Israel. Who is he kidding?," or “here’s a man who says he’s signed on to Oslo, that he was going to fight off terrorism. We thought a couple of month ago that we thought we had an agreement. The next thing we know he’s ordering a shipment of arms from Iran." And it was a skeptical Mr. Bush who responded to George Tenet’s presentation about Iraqi WMDs “Is that all you’ve got?”

No, Mr. Bush is a clear-eyed realist when it comes to his circumstances, and ours. He is not in political trouble because he inhabits a bubble. He is on trouble because he has undertaken a difficult war against a relentless enemy and is determined to see it though despite the public’s fatigue and doubt. He is in trouble because from the start of his administration he has faced relentless domestic political enemies who are determined to cripple and, if possible, ruin his presidency. And he is in trouble because some allies he should be able to count upon appear to have adopted the fallacious arguments of his enemies or in the case of Congress are afraid to directly address them.

David Gergen’s Advice

2006-04-23T16:51:00.000-04:00

David Gergen begins his advice to President Bush in an op ed column today with a Freudian joke: “Question: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change. It's a punch line that comes to mind these days as President Bush fights the darkness by rearranging his team.”

With due respect, the question is not whether Mr. Bush wants to change but whether he thinks it prudent to do so. And in any event, Mr. Gergen’s advice to President Bush to ‘rebuild his presidency” by changing his policies on Iraq, energy, secrecy is hard to evaluate given the lack of specifics. Should the president wind down our commitments in Iraq regardless of the timing or consequences? Should he raise taxes, veto spending bills, cut the growth of entitlements or of defense appropriations? Should he discuss more widely with Congress our most critical national security programs and hope for their discretion? Should he waive executive privilege so that Congress can be privy to his private advice? And if changing his Chief of Staff and others won’t do, who will? Donald Rumsfeld? Karl Rove? Perhaps Dick Cheney. As to the president’s base, he has bucked them repeatedly, most recently with his guest worker program.

The line between conviction and stubbornness is a thin one, and Mr. Bush certainly seems to think that his own political losses are worth the price of policies he sees as critical to American national security.

Where have all the Flowers Gone? Part II: Appreciation, Ambivalence, and Nationalism

2006-04-19T20:53:00.000-04:00

The expectation that American soldiers would be greeted as “liberators,” with flowers and sweets was reasonable enough. After all, Iraqis had been savagely brutalized by Saddam’s domestic rein of torture, terror and sadism. Robert Kaplan recently wrote that, “Iraq in the 1980s was so terrifying that going to Damascus from Baghdad was like coming up for liberal humanist air. People talked furtively in Syria; in Iraq, nobody breathed a syllable of opposition. The whole country was like an illuminated prison yard. I was emotionally affected. Recent events make it easy to forget just how bad Iraq was back then. “

Still, the question remains: What happened? If Americans were truly viewed as liberators, why is it now struggling against a ferocious insurgency? Why did the good will that Americans expected seem to turn so suddenly into suspicion and resentment? These are very important questions whose answers go to the heart of American efforts in Iraq and the public’s assessment of them.

Critics of the administration have already answered these questions to their self-satisfaction. They are convinced that the administration’s expressed expectations were “one of the biggest frauds of the Iraqi debacle,” and “None of that happened.”.

Were these expectations a “fraud?” No. Were Americans greeted as liberators? Yes. Christopher Hitchens, who was embedded with the invasion force recalled in an interview [HT: Neo-Neocon],

“..there are people who say that that never happened… Well I saw it happen with my own eyes and no one's going to tell me that I didn't. I saw it with--months after the invasion, people still lining the roads, especially in the south…still lining the roads and waving and the children waving which is always the sign because if the parents don't want them to, they don't. I'll never forget, you know, I will not allow it to be said that that did not happen. And in the marshes too--the marsh area of the country which was drained and burned out by poison by Saddam Hussein. Again, almost hysterical welcome and in Kurdistan in the north..”

Well, if Americans were greeted as liberators then what happened? That is the more complicated and poorly understood part of the story. The answer to that critical question requires a deeper understanding of the psychology and state of the Iraqi people than has been in evidence.

A basic, obvious and overlooked point about the Iraqi people is that they were severely traumatized by the brutal tyranny of Saddam Hussein. They had lived in abject terror for almost a quarter of a century. George Packer, whose well-received book The Assassins’ Gate contains a chapter entitled, “Psychological Demolition” that ought to be mandatory reading for anyone trying to understand what happened in Iraq. Think Mel Gibson's Road Warrior series set in a “post-apocalyptic wasteland.”

The monumental psychological barrier faced by American forces was well summed up by Aquila al-Hashemi, one of the three women who became members of the Interim Governing Council (p.165-66):“We are still under the shock, we are still afraid. We are still living in the same-I was15 in ’68, now I’m 50. You see? You can imagine-can I change in two days, in two moths, in two years? We need to be re-educated, rehabilitated.”

Administration plans to “empower” Iraqis apparently never considered that the psychological foundation of human initiative had been severely eroded under Saddam’s barbarous rule.

The psychological and spiritual damaged inflicted in Iraqis is one part of the answer to the question: What happened? But it cannot by itself fully account for our difficulties. To understand that more fully we must look more closely at Iraqi attitudes toward the invasion and what they reveal.

One way in which to do this is a by looking at some of the polls conducted in Iraq. There are by now a number of them. Face to face polls in Iraq suffer from many drawbacks among them the difficulty of drawing random samples, and the dangers and reticence of personal interviews. Still they are useful if you are careful. However, in the hands of breathless critics however they can be misused.

Consider the wholesale indictment of the Iraqi invasion by Ted Carpenter of the CATO Institute based on a selective and shallow reading of a few poll questions.

Mr. Carpenter begins by boldly asserting: “A new, extensive survey of Iraqi public opinion conducted by Gallup and other groups discredits numerous cherished beliefs that hawks have held about Iraq. For months, the Bush administration and its supporters have argued that there is a silent majority of Iraqis who regard coalition forces as liberators, want those forces to stay for a prolonged period, oppose insurgent attacks on coalition troops, and are enthusiastic about creating a Western style democracy for their country. The poll results contradict every one of those assumptions.”

Not Quite. Mr. Carpenter relies on a poll conducted by USATODAY in conjunction with CNN and Gallup from March 22-April 2, 2004 and reported in USATODAY on April 30, 2004.

He accurately reports that 19% in this sample view Americans as liberators, and makes much of it. But had he done any research or read beyond USATODAY, he would have found a number of surveys with different numbers.For example, an ABC news poll conducted at about the same time and released on March 15, 2004 found 48% of the respondents thought the invasion “was right,” and 39% said that it “was wrong.”

The survey goes on to ask “about any hardships you might have suffered since the US/British invasion, do you personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it or not? (Q:22) 61% said it was and that included large majorities of Baghdad, Shi’ite, and Kurdish, but not Sunni areas).

Mr. Carpenter then goes on to “discredit” another “cherished belief,” namely that “that a majority of Iraqis want U.S. and British troops to stay on for an extended period.” I know of no administration official for whom this was a cherished belief, Nonetheless, it is true that the USATODAY /Gallup survey reports that 57% of the sample would like the United States to leave “immediately” (in the next few months) and the percentages favoring departure are even higher in Baghdad, Shi’ite and Sunni areas.

Yet, a BBC Poll reported in February of 2004, found that 59.9 % wanted Coalition forces to stay for more than a year, or until security was restored, or until an Iraqi government was in place or never.

However, this is by no means the end of the story. Mr. Carpenter does not report it, but when asked (Q:16) whether they would feel safer if the “Coalition left today,” 53% said they wouldn’t and that included pluralities in the Baghdad, Shi’ite and Sunni areas. He never asks the obvious question: Why would Iraqi want Coalition forces to leave, if it would make them feel less safe?

It is true that when asked whether they considered Americans occupiers or liberators at the time of the invasion (Q: 15) the sample was almost even split overall with 43% choosing each option. It is also true that by the time of the survey that sentiment had moved decisively toward viewing collation forces as occupiers—71% versus 19%.

He inquires no further. He should have because at the heart of Iraqi attitudes toward the collation forces was and remains ambivalence. That term simply means mixed feelings and Iraqis had many of them.

Yes, Iraqis increasing saw the coalition forces as “occupiers,” but why? One important clue is found in another question he overlooks (Q:17), “Would Saddam Hussein have been removed from power by Iraqis if US/British forces had not taken direct military action?” Eight-nine percent said that he would have remained in power and that included 85% of all groups asked (Baghdad, Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurds).

Another import clue comes from a question asked by the ABC Poll: Apart from being right or wrong, do you feel the U.S. led coalition (humiliated Iraq) or (liberated Iraq). The respondents were about even split between humiliation (41%) and liberated (42%). Only one-third of Arab respondents picked liberated. An absolutely parallel result was obtained from the February 2004 BBC poll reported the sample was split 41.2 vs.41.8 on the liberation/humiliation question.

A final clue come from a survey conducted by the Department of State that found (Table 8) that 79% of their sample felt that “transferring all authority to an Iraqi government” would be a very effective way to increase security. Shia (78%) and Sunni (81%) respondents overwhelmingly shared this goal Only 20% of the sample thought the immediate departure of collation forces would aid that goal.

The post-war psychology of the Iraqi people reflects a profound case of ambivalence. Ambivalence reflects conflicted feelings, views that pull emotionally in opposite directions. When the pulls are roughly equal, as they were in the liberation/humiliation question it means that most people felt some of both. The central issue for Iraqis was the split between Iraqi nationalism and relief and appreciation of being out from under the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. Each of those strong emotional currents pulled in direct directions.

On one hand Iraqis did feel “liberated,” yet they also recognized that their liberation wasn’t by their own hand but rather by an outsider about whom they felt ambivalent feelings, at best. The fact that they were not the authors of their own liberation produced a sense of shame and “humiliation.” They were both relieved and aggrieved.

Add to that a lack of understanding about why the world’s greatest superpower could not immediately reverse the fifty year decline of Iran’s infrastructure. And, couple that with the development of a ranging insurgency that made life extremely precarious and you can begin to understand why Iraqis fervently want us to stay, leave, fix their country and not humiliate them again by doing so.

Who Said American Soldiers would be Greeted in Iraq with Flowers? The CIA

2006-04-17T00:41:00.000-04:00

One of the advantages of the passage of time is the emergence of new information that can lead to a deepening of, or occasionally a change in, perspective. That kind of information is now emerging about the planning for the war in Iraq and its aftermath. Among the best of a recent spate of such books is Cobra II by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor. Mr. Gordon is a New York Times reporter who was embedded with the invasion force and has been covering the war for the Times. Mr. Trainor is a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general.

The authors talked to many of the people involved in planning and carrying out the invasion, had access to many of the planning documents, and minutes of important meetings. The result is a wealth of new information that sheds light on a number of issues that have vexed American domestic and international discussion and understanding of this controversial war. In the process some of the facile assertions that accompanied such discussions will need to be revised, at least among those open to evidence.

A case in point is the Iraqi response to the American invasion. The standard line is that the Bush Administration believed that Americans would be greeted with flowers. The standard criticisms are that, “None of that happened.” that such views are, ”clap trap” “or that it is “one of the biggest frauds of the Iraqi debacle.”

Critics point to the flowers assumption as reflecting the arrogance, wishful thinking and gullibility of the Bush Administration. It was arrogant because the administration assumed Iraqis would see us as we saw ourselves rather than as they truly felt. How did they truly feel? That is where the wishful thinking comes in, because the raging insurgency proves just how out of touch the Bush Administration was (and remains). And it showed Bush’s hubris and gullibility because he was traduced into the invading Iraq by wily exiles that gave false information designed to tell the administration what it wanted to hear.

The truth, as always, is more complicated.

Yes, on September 14, 2003 Vice President Cheney said to Tim Russert on Meet the Press that, “I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators.” And yes, he also said that:“I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with various groups and individuals, people who’ve devoted their lives from the outside to try and change things inside of Iraq.”

Among the exiles he talked to was Kanan Makiya an Iraqi whose seminal book Republic of Fear laid bare the danger and brutality of the Saddam regime when few understood its true nature.

At the National Press Club event the day after Mr. Cheney spoke Meet the Press, Mr. Makiya was asked the following question [Thanks to Neo-Neocon]:

(QUESTIONER): Vice President Cheney yesterday said that he expects that American forces will be greeted as liberators and I wonder if you could tell us if you agree with that and how you think they'll be greeted and also what you meant you said before that some Iraqi opposition groups might be in Baghdad even before American forces?

KANAN MAKIYA: I most certainly do agree with that. As I told the President on January 10th, I think they will be greeted with sweets and flowers in the first months and simply have very, very little doubts that that is the case (emphasis mine).

Mr. Makiya was not the only exile to make this case, but notice that he confines his prediction to “the first months.” The importance of that qualification is clearer now in retrospect.

Why did Mr. Cheney and those exiles expect Americans to be greeted as liberators? Mr. Cheney made the basis of views quite clear to Mr. Russert: “The read we get on the people of Iraq is there’s no question but what they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.”

Critics assume that “the read we get on the people of Iraq” comes from the administration’s wishful thinking, arrogance, and listening only to the people the gave the answers it wanted to hear, like Kanan Mikaya. Well, it turns when Mr. Cheney referred to “the read we get on the people of Iraq,” he was referring to a great deal more than the critic’s litany.

This is where Mr. Gordon and General Trainors’ new book is so instructive. They report the following:

“Throughout the winter of 2002-2003, CIA agents had been operating in Southern Iraq and were convinced that U.S. forces would not face determined resistance but would actually receive active cooperation.” (p.136)

The most upbeat assessment was provided by a [CIA] team who met with [General] McKiernan and his aides at Camp Doha in early 2003. The CIA was so sure that American soldiers would be greeted warmly when they pushed into Southern Iraq that a CIA operative suggested sneaking hundreds of small American flags into the country for grateful Iraqis to wave at their liberators.”(p.137).

In retrospect, the view that Iraqis (with the exception of the Sunnis), having suffered enormously under the murderous Saddam Hussein regime would welcome the end of his tyranny was not at all far fetched and made good psychological sense. The customary response to having been saved from the everyday threat of torture and death is relief and gratitude, and indeed those feelings were present. However, if that is true, then what happened?

Next: Who said American Soldiers would be Greeted in Iraq with Flowers? Part II: Appreciation, Ambivalence, and Nationalism

Charles Krauthammer’s Immigration Errors

2006-04-15T10:10:00.000-04:00

Charles Krauthammer is in a generous mood, at least regarding illegal immigrants. He wants them, and their leaders to choose between amnesty and continued illegal immigration. Concerning the various illegal immigration legalization measures before Congress he asks of them: Is it a precedent or a one-time -- last-time -- exception? Are they seeking open-ended immigration, or do they agree that they should be the last wave?

Who is he asking? The estimated eight to eleven million illegal immigrants already here? The Pew Hispanic Center found ” that about four of every ten adults in the Mexican population say they would migrate to the United States if they had the means and opportunity and that two of every ten are inclined to live and work here without legal authorization. The willingness to migrate, even illegally, is evident in all sectors of Mexican society including the middle class and the well-educated as well as those who are poor and who only completed low-levels of schooling.”

Most new immigrants retain strong emotional connections to their home countries. That is a normal stage in the process of integrating new immigrations into the American national community over time, if and when that happens (a subject for another day). Would these newly- minted green card holders deny the benefits of American opportunity and freedom to their relatives, friends and their fellow countrymen and women back home? Unlikely.

Mr. Krauthammer also addressees his question to those in charge of the mass marches though these organizations are “young,” and lack “unified leadership.” Yes, some groups like La Raza, founded in 1968, are young. But other groups like those connected with the Catholic Church and related religious groups who supported the march and advocate on behalf of illegal immigrants are not. Yet young or old what distinguishes these organizations on the question of illegal immigration is their focus, insistence, and effectives. They speak loudly, with one voice and have many allies in the public and private sectors. The great majority of other Americans speak only though national polls which repeatedly report that they want illegal immigration stopped and not by granting amnesties. Mr. Krauthammer might consider that he is asking the wrong people.

He closes his essay by asserting that, “ The politically mobilized millions need to tell America where they stand: Are they ready to be welcomed into the American family as the last illegals -- or only as the first of many millions more?’ Even if those mobilized millions were to agree that they were the “last” illegal immigrants, how much confidence could Americans have? Not much really.

The fact that eight to eleven million illegal immigrants will make the transition to green card holders is an inducement, not a deterrent to future illegal immigration. Counties that benefit economically and politically from sending their nationals to the United States will be encouraged to continue to do so. Amnesty allies in the Democratic Party, while savoring the millions of likely new recruits to their party, will no doubt be receptive to adding to those numbers at a future date. Their paradoxical allies in the GOP will always be pushing for more immigrants to do the “jobs that American’s won’t do,” or alternatively increasingly afraid, given the large numbers of new immigrants, to be do anything that could be construed or characterized as “anti-immigrant.” The churches will continue to help those who are marginalized by their lack of legal immigration status. The La Razas of the country will continue to advocate for the “rights” of those want to come here, legally or not.

Worse, a large majority of Americans will become further demoralized by the failure of their government to take their views on immigration seriously. Leaders need not slavishly follow public opinion, but on this matter public views have a great deal of legitimacy on their side. Continued illegal immigration in the face of the government’s inability or disinclination to do anything effective about it, is deeply corrosive to the fabric of the American national community. Matters are made worse, much worse, when leaders of both parties try to mask what they are doing behind rhetorical euphemisms like “earned legalization” that bear little relationship to what Senators from both parties are doing behind closed doors. As Senator Jeff Sessions points out in a Senate speech [Thanks to: Mickey Kraus] the Senate compromise bill contains numerous amnesty loopholes. This is egregiously duplicitous.

Charles Krauthammer, whose sharp intelligence I deeply respect, errs here. He is asking the wrong questions of the wrong people. Instead of asking illegal immigrants whether they can guarantee the future migration patterns of their countrymen, which they can’t, he might consider asking political leaders from both parties why they can’t be honest with us, and why they can’t do something to stop the hemorrhaging of the public’s sense of border and national security and, along with it, our civic fabric and national identity.

Fitzgerald Needs to Make a Second Correction

2006-04-12T15:06:00.000-04:00

Josh Gerstein of The Sun reports that the special prosecutor investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity Patrick Fitzgerald retreated yesterday from an assertion that news outlets and critics of the administration seized on as evidence that President Bush and Vice President Cheney deliberately distorted a crucial intelligence summary on Iraq.

The erroneous assertion was that, “Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium." As several news reports have observed, this was not a “key finding,” a term that denotes high probability and consensus by the intelligence analysts.

The corrected sentence now reads: "Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, some of the key judgments of the NIE, and that the NIE stated that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium." So obviously, Mr. Libby did not misrepresent a judgment as a “key finding in an attempt to hype the information.

But there is another matter of significance here, so far not examined. Mr. Gerstein reports that the prosecutor is,” investigating whether White House officials deliberately leaked the name of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, to retaliate against her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who challenged Mr. Bush's public assessment of Iraqi nuclear weapons efforts.”

The investigation, as I understand it, is not to investigate the motives of Mr. Libby or anyone else, but whether a crime has been committed. Mr. Fitzgerald has not alleged the underlying crime of revealing the name of a covert intelligence agent, he has charged with Mr. Libby only with lying in his grand jury testimony.

Yet, in doing so he has entered into the speculative swamp of motive. In his filing before the court he has alleged, a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq, as the Washington Post article put it.

When information is put into public play that is untruthful and others set the record straight with correct information, the original misinformation and those who peddled it are certainly discredited. This is what happened to Joseph Wilson, who misrepresented both his trip and his findings in a New York Times Op Ed and later lied about being responsible for uncovering forged documents.

Given how much was at stake, including public confidence in an administration fighting a war in Iraq and more generally against terrorism, correcting damaging, but inaccurate misrepresentations by a clearly partisan and anti-Bush zealot was not only politically necessary, but a public responsibility.

As to punishing or seeking revenge, on what basis does Mr.Fitzgerald make this claim? Was it because the administration was angry at lies directed at it and the public about a subject of the most serious consequences? He doesn’t say.

My guess is that the administration was upset, and appropriately so. But does this support the prosecutor’s view that the administration wanted “revenge” or to “punish” Mr. Wilson.

What they no doubt wanted more than anything else was to present the facts as they were, not as Mr. Wilson had misrepresented them.

This is not punishment. Mr. Wilson’s clear hatred of the administration and its policies apparently protects him from the shame of having been publicly caught red-handed lying. Nor is revenge, by itself, a high priority motive since “getting even” is small consolation if the public believes the misinformation it gets and policies you think are crucial to national security suffer as a result.

Exposing Mr. Wilson as a liar with correct information addresses that main concern but clearly reflects poorly on him at the same time. That’s too bad for Mr. Wislon, but that is not "revenge," it is the price that truth exacts from lies.

WELCOME

2006-02-09T02:16:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Political Psychology blog. I hope your time here is both interesting and informative.

I am a professor of political science at the City University of New York, and a practicing psychoanalyst. My substantive interests over the past four decades have been at the intersection of psychology, politics, and policy. My work in these areas has focused on presidential leadership and psychology, public psychology, and most recently the psychology of immigration and American national identity. I am now at work on the strategic psychology of the Bush Doctrine.

You are welcome to look at my profile for more information about these matters.

What kinds of posts can you expect on this blog? Mostly, commentary and analysis of the range of issues that are associated with the matters that interest me and also responses to particularly egregious punditry that needs correction.

I don’t intend or aspire in this blog to “psychoanalyze” every public issue, or to reduce every political or policy issue to some elementary psychological essence. Often policy and political issues are just that and must be analyzed in the terms that suit them best.

On the other hand, there is an great deal of psychology in public life, and it is often misunderstood and frequently mischaracterized. For evidence of that you need look no further than the shallow psychological caricatures of our current president, Mr. Bush. I have always thought that before you spout psychology you ought to be trained in it—a view clearly not shared by the Maureen Dowds and Jonathan Alters of the world.

At any rate, welcome. I hope you find the postings informative and helpful in your thinking about the many critical issues this country faces.