by Paul Gottfried

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA- While the European and American media are celebrating with equal fervor the election of Obama, no other group seems as jubilant as the American "conservative movement" (please note the quotations!).  

For several weeks, such self-identified conservative personalities as Max Boot, Peggy Noonan, Mona Charen, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, and Richard Perle have been praising the president-elect as someone whose victory has been a plus for all of us. They have rejoiced that Obama's election has shattered racial barriers. More recently, they have extolled his choice of Bob Gates as defense secretary, General James Jones as national security adviser, and even Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. 

Such picks apparently reveal a hopeful continuity with Bush's administration, and they suggest that Obama is not about to bring home all the troops in the next few weeks from Iraq. The New York Times conservative David Brooks assures us that "he's off to a start that justifies the hype." David's friend, Max Boot, at The Wall Street Journal, claims to be "gobsmacked by his appointments."

  There have also been commentaries by the anti-PC gadfly David Horowitz on the Frontpage website, warning Republicans not to criticize Obama and the Democrats for the sub-prime rate mortgage loans for those who cannot otherwise afford to buy houses. Horowitz insists that critics are exhibiting post-electoral bitterness, as when they ask whether Obama was born on American territory and is constitutionally qualified to be president.

Those who think this rallying to Obama on the part of "movement conservatives" has resulted simply from the fact that he won last month should look a bit deeper. Even before the election was over, "conservative" personalities were rushing into the Democratic camp. Foreign policy expert Ken Adelman, historian Ann Applebaum, and several apparent renegades from National Review were the most prominent jumpers. Others from the same group, like David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and an early propagandist for the war in Iraq, happily justified the abandonment of McCain when the GOP candidate began to falter. Most of these Obamaites happen to be neoconservatives, a group that swings with the wind on domestic issues while pushing a belligerent form of American internationalism. 

Bush and McCain adopted their rhetoric without qualifications, even to the extent of alienating some core voters. However, the neoconservatives, who control most "conservative" PR assets with generous financial assistance from Australian press magnate Rupert Murdoch, have no particular regard for the useful idiots who carry their spears. Frum, in particular, has attacked the Religious Right for losing the election for the GOP. It is of course no secret that the evangelicals provide the neoconservatives with their most reliable foot-soldiers. Like the neoconservatives, the evangelicals have usually allied themselves with the Israeli far right, while at home pushing a global democratic foreign policy. Both positions that have become neoconservative trademarks. 

This reaching out to the president-elect on the part of the neoconservatives has entered a second stage. On December 6, a commentary appeared in Murdoch's New York Post (not to be confused with Murdoch's FOX News or his Weekly Standard ) by former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, exhorting the newly elected president to stand tall for world democracy. Sharansky, who received a Medal of Freedom from the outgoing president for his global democratic crusade, is anything but an uncomplicated idealist. He combines a warlike commitment to spreading democratic values, including getting the United States to employ military force on behalf of his ideals, with a very hard line in dealing with the "non-democratic" Palestinian population. 

In Israel, Sharansky has been a darling of the ultranationalist right, and he has expressed the desire to expel Palestinians from East Jerusalem. Sharansky's concern about "democratic dissidents" has always been highly selective. Even if that were not the case, who or what gives him the right to speak for dissidents everywhere in addressing the incoming president? If Bush made the dubious decision to celebrate his oratory and to add it to his speeches, why should Sharansky expect the same honor, and even more, from Obama? 

Yet, like his neoconservative sponsors, Sharansky complains that the previous administration did not give him enough. Sharansky writes that the president's efforts to support democracy "were not widely supported within his own administration." But now there is hope with the new president, "who shows no signs that he would not support robust dialogue with democratic dissidents throughout the world. On the contrary, his speeches, books, and campaigns, as well as a meeting I had with him on that topic in 2007, suggest Obama sees real change coming." 

Perhaps this change for Sharansky and his friends on FOX News and at the New York Post includes the opportunity to launch new wars of choice for democratic ends. The present war that they worked so hard to push, and the one in Iran that they would like to start, are the sorts of adventures the incoming administration could use to provide employment for neoconservatives. With a little luck, Sharansky may soon be back at the White House.  

*My neighbor Barack*

By Rabbi Arnold J. Wolf (03/28/2008)

Not everyone can claim to be the neighbor of a Presidential candidate- I can, though, because I am Barack Obama's Chicago home is across the street from KAM Isaiah Israel, the Hyde Park synagogue at which I've served for 27 years. He spoke to our congregation as an Illinois state senator; more recently, his Secret Service agents have made use of our, shall we say, facilities. But it's not neighborly instinct that's led me to support the Obama candidacy: I support Barack Obama because he stands for what I believe, what our tradition demands.

We sometimes forget, but an integral part of that tradition is dialogue and a willingness to disagree. Certainly many who call me their rabbi have taken political positions far from mine - just as Barack Obama's opinions have differed from those of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

On March 18, the candidate gave a speech that made abundantly clear that he and Wright often disagree. Obama condemned Wright's "incendiary language," and "views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but... that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation."

Of course, race is only one issue on which Wright has stepped beyond the bounds of civil discourse. He's frequently made statements regarding Israel and the Jewish community that I find troubling. But to limit our understanding of Obama to the ill-conceived comments of the man who once led his church is dishonest and self-defeating.

Obama's strong positions on poverty and the climate, his early and consistent opposition to the Iraq War, his commitment to ending the Darfur genocide - all these speak directly to Jewish concerns. If we're sidetracked by Wright's words, we'll be working against these interests. After all, a preacher speaks to a congregation, not for the congregation.

Many people remain concerned that Obama isn'tcommitted to Israel. Some want him to fall in line behind the intransigent, conservative thinking that has silenced Jewish debate on Israeli policy and enabled the Bush Administration's criminal neglect of the diplomatic process. Clearly, though, anyone who thinks Obama waffles on Israel hasn't been paying attention. In 2007, he spoke to AIPAC about "a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel." Today, his website states clearly that America's "first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel."

For my part, I've sometimes found Obama too cautious on Israel. He, like all our politicians, knows he mustn't stray too far from the conventional line, and that can be disappointing. But unlike anyone else on the stump, Obama has also made it clear that he'll broaden the dialogue. He knows what peace entails.

Speaking recently before a Jewish audience in Cleveland, Obama did the unthinkable - he challenged the room. He talked about the need to ask "difficult questions" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "I sat down with the head of Israeli security forces," he said "and his view of the Palestinians was incredibly nuanced.... There's good and there's bad, and he was willing to say sometimes we make mistakes... and if we're just pressing down on these folks constantly, without giving them some prospects for hope, that's not good for our security."

Yet, in spite of all of Obama's strengths, we've been loathe to admit a difficult truth: Among some American Jews, race plays a key role in the hesitation to support the Obama candidacy. We've forgotten that Black and Jewish America once shared a common vision. In the civil rights era, I and many in our community stood shoulder to shoulder with the giants of our generation, demanding freedom for all Americans.

Obama himself doesn't share our amnesia, however. "I would not be sitting here," he said in Cleveland, "if it were not for a whole host of Jewish Americans." That was literal truth, but not everyone remembers it.

I've worked with Obama for more than a decade, as has my son, alawyer who represents children and people with disabilities. He has admired Obama's dedication and skill as he worked on issues affecting our most vulnerable citizens.

Obama is no anti-Semite. He is not anti-Israel. He is one of our own, the one figure on the political scene who remembers our past, and has a real vision for repairing our present. Barack Obama is brilliant and open-hearted; he is wiser and more thoughtful than his former minister. He offers what America, Israel, and the Jewish community need: a US President willing to ask hard questions, and grapple with difficult answers. I am very proud to be his neighbor. I hope someday to visit him in the White House.

Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf is rabbi emeritus at Chicago's KAM Isaiah

Israel, Illinois's oldest Jewish congregation.

By Cristina Page

New research reveals that female students in programs that promote abstinence exclusively are more likely to get pregnant than those in programs that teach about the full range of contraceptives as well as abstinence. The news, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, is just the latest proof that the $1.5 billion dollar “just say no to sex” experiment on our teens has failed. And while Christian conservatives defend their approach even in the face of this latest devastating news, it’s time to ask them one simple question: Shouldn’t the results matter?

At current rates, half of all teenagers will have sex before graduating high school and 95 percent will before marrying. These statistics infuriate the abstinence-until-marriage proponents. Their hope is that, by keeping teens in the dark about protection, ignorance will somehow lead to temperance. Those most committed to the abstinence approach seem to have paid most dearly though. Earlier findings by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities revealed that teens taking part in virginity pledge programs (they pledge to stay virgins until marriage) are more likely than their non-pledging peers to engage in risky unprotected sex. The study also showed virgin pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex and male “virgins” are four times more likely to have anal sex than those who do not take the pledge. These “virgins” had the same rate of STDs as other teens but were much less likely to be treated for them.

Southern school districts, which are five times more likely to use the abstinence-only approach than northeast schools, have much to show for investing in the abstinence-only. Today, southern states lead the nation in the acquisition of STDs, are home to the highest rate of new HIV/AIDS cases, and have the highest percentage of teen mothers in the country. The damage is so staggering that 19 states have opted to reject federal funding for abstinence only. In the long term, they concluded, the costs of their failure outweigh any benefits.

Abstinence is not the only policy that Christian conservatives pursue despite evidence that it doesn’t work. In fact, much of the movement’s policies have, even by their own standards, led to perverse outcomes. Consider the drive to outlaw abortion. Last year, 14 states moved to ban abortion immediately and create a case to test Roe vs. Wade in the Supreme Court. But, if ending abortion is the goal, banning abortion is quite possibly the worst strategy. The countries with the highest abortion rates in the world are those that have banned abortion. Take Latin America, where most countries have outlawed abortion yet have the same rate or- as in the case of Peru, Chile, and Brazil -- rates twice as high as the United States. And where on earth have the lowest abortion rates been achieved? In countries with the strongest pro-choice policies; like the Netherlands, Germany and Italy where abortion is not only legal, but in several cases available free of charge. This pro-choice policy/lower abortion rate trend has been true in our country as well. We witnessed the most dramatic decline in abortion in the history of our country under our first pro-choice president, Bill Clinton. These declines continue today and notably where it is falling sharpest is where the strongest pro-choice policies, namely prevention through wider access to contraception, have been adopted.

And while banning abortion has failed to stop abortions, limiting abortion rights has also produced undesired outcomes. A favorite tactic of the “right to life” movement is to impose mandatory delay policies on abortion. A woman must receive information about her right to an abortion and then must wait 24 to 48 hours before receiving a procedure. Sounds harmless enough. However, while these policies have had little effect on the frequency of abortion they have dramatically increased late term abortions. In the year after Mississippi passed a mandatory delay law, second trimester abortion increased statewide by 53 percent. Nearly half the number of women presenting for an abortion late in pregnancy these days cite pro-life restrictions as the cause.

The danger of policies guided by ideology is that the means often are the end. There is no better example of the deleterious effects of policies based on wishful thinking than in the reproductive rights debate. We need to respect people’s ability to make their own life decisions and not impose our values and views upon them. If Americans were to set aside the catchy sound bites and suspiciously simplistic reasoning and instead judge by results, most would find the pro-choice movement is a more comfortable home for their stated values.

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Page is the author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex and spokesperson for BirthControlWatch.org

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Copyright (C) 2007 by the American Forum. 4/08

By Jean Hardisty

 Romance and marriage proposals are in the air on Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, cupid isn’t the only matchmaker hard at work this season. An increasing number of low-income women find themselves pushed to the altar -- not by their relations or suitors, but by the federal government.

 “The Department of Health and Human Services is not going to run a dating service,” declared Wade Horn in the early days of the George W. Bush administration. But Horn, a leader of the rightist “fatherhood movement” during the 1990s, introduced policies promoting marriage as a cure for poverty while running HHS’ Administration for Children and Families from 2001 to 2007. Despite his “dating service” denial, Horn saw to it that government grants powered a multimillion-dollar marriage industry made up of secular and faith-based groups which encourage low-income women -- especially welfare recipients -- to marry and bring a father into their families. Needless to say, the administration applies only the most narrow and traditional definition of “family”.

 Grants made to marriage promotion programs have ballooned while at the same time federal benefits have been cut for all low-income families and those unable to meet their own needs

 The scale of government funding for this inane and completely unproven bit of social experimentation is alarming. The 2005 Deficit Reduction Act allocated $100 million annually for marriage promotion programs and $50 million for fatherhood programs over fiscal years 2006 - 2010, or a total of $750 million. The administration’s Charitable Choice Fund -- which in 2004 had a budget of $2 billion -- also makes grants to promote marriage, as does its $30 million Compassion Capital Fund. Many of these millions serve to fuel the expansion of conservative evangelical organizations.

 Why is HHS in the marriage business? The conservatives who run administration policy falsely imply that welfare recipients are young African American women of loose sexual morals, who can be saved from their poverty and sin only through the restoration of the traditional father-headed nuclear family. Given the inaccurate and offensive stereotypes that undergird these policies, it should perhaps come as no surprise that there is no solid evidence from the social sciences that marriage results in a higher income for poor women. Indeed, contrary to the administration’s assumptions, marriage is not a magic bullet that will raise a low-income woman and her children out of poverty. Given the individual circumstances of their lives, marriage may actually be an unwise choice for many poor women. That is why most of the programs funded by government grants fail to produce the desired results; they are based on ideology rather than sound social policy.

 When it comes to Bush marriage promotion programs, reducing poverty is just a smokescreen for constructing conservative -- and anti-feminist -- family structures. The administration has worked hard to eliminate those few anti-poverty programs that remain standing after the conservative revolution that began with Ronald Reagan. Proven methods, such as subsidized housing, education stipends, health care, day care, and job training programs, have all been cut under the Bush administration. Even the federal implementation of the Violence Against Women Act would be cut by $120 million under President George W. Bush’s 2009 budget proposal.

 Marriage is a highly personal decision, not the business of government. Would middle class women and men tolerate this kind of government interference in their personal lives? Not for a minute. Do you solemnly swear to resist this illegitimate intrusion into the intimate lives of our fellow citizens? I do.

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Copyright (C) 2008 by the American Forum. 2/08

Abortion Stakes Are Personal For Reporter

By Allison Stevens

 I'm a lucky woman. Today I hold in my arms my newborn son, born in good health - both his and mine. As the Washington bureau chief for a news site that covers issues important to women, I often cover the ideological warfare over reproductive rights.

 A frightening moment at the beginning of my pregnancy gave me an almost visceral perspective on the most recent Supreme Court battle over abortion, one that has already inspired lawmakers in a number of states to enact or contemplate action to further limit a woman's right to make decisions about her reproductive life based on the best medical option for her particular circumstances.

 My pregnancy officially began the way many end: with a late-night trip to the hospital. Last October, before I was able to confirm with my doctor the positive results of an at-home pregnancy test, I headed to the emergency room after I experienced some bleeding, a sign of possible miscarriage.

 When, during my emergency ultrasound, I first laid eyes on that tiny white egg, I had the kind of reaction that opponents of abortion say often accompanies ultrasounds: a deeper connection to the growing life within me.

 With a good report, I quickly resumed my work schedule, covering a Supreme Court case challenging a ban passed by Congress on the abortion procedure known to doctors as "dilation and extraction."

 The 2003 law banning the "D&X" abortion procedure does not include an exception for the health of the woman, which the justices who decided Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, deemed a necessary caveat in the limitations they put on legalized abortion -- and one retained in subsequent decisions by the high court in later laws concerning abortion.

 I listened as the justices gamely debated the merits of protecting women's health during pregnancy, a condition only one--Ruth Bader Ginsburg--had ever experienced.

 That debate was, for me, a different kind of ultrasound, a look into the minds of those who have the ultimate say over my reproductive life. Like its medical counterpart, this inside look intensified my feelings about my

pregnancy: I became more acutely aware of my health--and my vulnerability--as a pregnant woman.

 In the first pregnancy book I read, the classic "What to Expect When You're Expecting," I encountered a long list what could go wrong with the fetus, and me. Scariest was the chapter on possible complications, which covered everything from such relatively benign problems as gestational diabetes to pregnancy-related cancer, comas and seizures, as well as a disease that can cause permanent damage to a pregnant woman's nervous system and other organs. Women over 35 are more likely to have problematic pregnancies, and the results of prenatal tests such as amniocentesis are generally not released until mid-pregnancy.

 During the banned procedure, also known as an "intact dilation and evacuation" abortion, the fetus is partly brought out of the uterus before it is aborted. In her dissent to the 5-4 decision, Ginsburg noted that this procedure is safer for many women because it reduces the number of times a physician must insert medical instruments into the uterus, which can damage or puncture the uterine lining. It also decreases the likelihood that fetal remains will be left in the uterus, which can cause infection, hemorrhage, and infertility, and it is faster to complete than other procedures, potentially reducing bleeding, the risk of infection and complications due to anesthesia, she said.

 Moreover, the procedure's ban "saves not a single fetus from destruction, for it targets only a method of performing abortion," Ginsburg said.

 The decision has implications even beyond its immediate scope. Doctors may be more reluctant to perform other, legal procedures for fear they will be perceived as violating the law. And it paves the way for anti-choice legislators to pursue more restrictions to abortion that lack exceptions for women's health.

 Louisiana just passed a new law banning an abortion procedure, and conservatives in the Kansas legislature have commissioned a study of how the court's decision could impact the practice of abortion in that state.

 My ultrasound may have served to make my pregnancy real for me. But the decision of five men to disregard its possible impact on my health, while the only woman on the bench took assessed in real terms the physical risks involved with pregnancy made real for me the power men still hold over my body and my health.

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Stevens is Washington bureau chief at Women's eNews, a nonprofit independent news agency that covers issues of particular concern to women and provides women's perspectives on public policy. Stevens gave birth to her son, on July 18.

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Copyright (C) 2007 by the American Forum. 9/07

Putting Women Back in the Debate

By Martha Burk

 August 26 is Women’s Equality Day. Most Americans don’t even know what it is, and aside from commemorations by a few female leaders on Capitol Hill, it is hardly noticed. But it marks one of the most important days of the last century for women -- the day the final state ratified the 19th Amendment in 1920 -- and women were granted the vote.

 That year also marked what suffragists of the time thought would soon be another constitutional milestone, the Equal Rights Amendment. With their newfound franchise, women believed they could convince legislators to put women on equal footing in the Constitution with men (white men from the beginning, black men since passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868). The ERA was penned by Alice Paul, the suffragist jailed for picketing the White House and nearly starved in Occoquan prison outside Washington.

 But it was not to be. Here we are, 87 years later – a lifetime in anyone’s book – and women still haven’t achieved equal constitutional status. First introduced in Congress in 1923, the ERA was not passed and sent to the states for ratification until 1972, with an artificial time limit of only seven years for approval by the states. In that brief time it was ratified by 35 states, but was stopped three states short by millions of corporate dollars backing Phyllis Schlafly's anti-woman storm troopers, who feared unisex toilets more than they valued freedom from discrimination.

 Most U.S. citizens don’t remember that fight, and many believe the ERA was ratified. The reality is that the legal rights women currently enjoy are not rooted in the Constitution, but in a series of statutes like the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, executive orders like affirmative action, and various rules interpreting laws such as Title IX, guaranteeing equal educational opportunity. Because we don’t have an ERA, depending on their origin, all of these can be revoked in the dead of night by any simple majority of Congress, bureaucrats in a hostile administration, or the president himself.

 George W. Bush and company know this very well. They have been systematically eroding the gains women have made since they took office. They have weakened Title IX through rule changes. A major one now allows schools to force girls, but not boys, to prove they are interested in participating in sports before they are given the chance to play, and so-called “separate but equal” single sex public schools are allowed for the first time since 1972.

 With the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, the assaults on women’s employment rights and legal abortions have begun in earnest. Wasting no time, the Court has already upheld the first federal abortion ban since Roe v. Wade, and severely limited women’s right to sue in cases where they’ve experienced pay discrimination.

 Recently renamed the Women's Equality Amendment by its chief sponsor, Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the ERA is the essence of brevity: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." That’s the whole thing. A simple concept that had the blessing of both political parties until the Republicans struck it from their platform in 1980 and the Democrats followed suit in 2004.

 It’s high time the ERA was put back in the center of public debate, and this long election season is the perfect opportunity.

 Office seekers not remembering that right to vote we’re celebrating on the 26th do so at their peril. Women are now the majority of the electorate, and can control any election. Close to 80 percent of the public, both female and male, favor an Equal Rights Amendment. Candidates of both parties for the Congress and the presidency ought to be listening.

Burk is the director for the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women’s Organizations.

Copyright (C) 2007 by the American Forum. 8/07

Courts and Education Policy

Many years ago local New York City politicians and educators complained that upstate school districts got New York State education funds at a higher rate per-student than the funds that New York City got. There is little dispute of those facts.

Are state funds for local education best spent only by equal per-student amounts across all school districts? What local resources does a rural upstate school district have for funding education? What local resources does New York City have to fund education? Does anyone think that the local financial resources of New York City do not far exceed the local resources of many upstate school districts? Should New York State ignore those disparities?

The differences in the amount of state funds sent to local schools come from funding formulas set in law by the legislature and budgets set by the governor. The jobs of the Governor and the legislators are subject to the voters' approval every so often. Politicians make arguments on all sides of the education funding issue in their election campaigns. Yet, a majority of voters never voted for a distinct legislative majority and a new governor on a mandate to radically change the education funding policy.

After many electoral and legislative defeats, some politicians who fought to change state funding for education decided to abandon democratic principals. They had not achieved their objectives through the democratic process. In pure elitist fashion, they decided they spoke for "the people" anyway. Working with others they decided to seek what many before them have sought. When you can't get elected majorities to take your position then find judges who will. Just declare some aspect of what you want as a "right" and convince judges they have the authority to declare that your right exists. It need not be enshrined in a constitution, as a historically accepted meaning of the language of that constitution. Just convince judges to give 200-year-old words new meaning. Then convince the judges they have a legal mandate they do not have - to dictate that new meaning on their own, without the people democratically placing that new meaning in their, the people's, constitution. Now, the education elitists and their political promoters found willing judges in New York who gave themselves the right to set New York State education funding policy, by judicial fiat. Does the judiciary have the constitutional authority over tax rates or the state budget? No. Can they raise revenue on their own and disperse it to the schools on their own? No. They simply demand that New York's governor and legislators, elected by the people, take actions to fulfill the dictate of the courts, not the dictates of those who elected them.

What is their presumptive basis for this? The New York State constitution says the state will give all its children the "opportunity for a basic education". It does not define "basic education". It does not define what constitutes an "opportunity" nor does it redefine opportunity into "insured result". Those definitions have been answered historically by the electoral and legislative processes from which the popular will for them is supplied. Constitutionally, that is where they belong. If a chief executive blatantly dictated a policy that no clear majority desired and that executive could insure it could ignore any majority forever, where would be our democracy? Yet, the courts impose their own mandate through judicial fiat, taking sides in a political dispute, and we must accept it with no recourse?

You think it is more than a political dispute? The judges simply mandated that New Yorkers spend billions more on education. They did not stay with equal protection and due process concepts to limit their judgement on the equity of the different levels of state funds sent to local schools. If what local districts got proved to be arbitrary and unreasonable for a general state funding scheme, the judges could have asked for a "more equitable" distribution and promised to keep the case open until they thought a better distribution was set. I am not saying that that argument should have found constitutional grounds, only that the judges did not limit their decisions in that way. The term "equitable" has political considerations but at least the judges would not have strayed so far from their mandate. Instead they ruled that New York taxpayers must spend billions more than they already spend on education, but the governor and the legislature will decide how funds are raised and allocated - which they would be doing anyway!

How does this settle the argument that launched this issue years ago - that the state spends moreper-capita on upstate school kids than it does on New York City kids? It doesn't. State funds may still be allocated on a higher per-student basis in poor, resource limited upstate districts than what will be allocated to New York City. The only education "concept" that won was that New Yorkers do not spend enough on education. Is that true? You be the judge.

A published study last year found that education performance in New York's local school districts' had little to do with differences in total funding per-student. There are districts with total funding above the state average that ranked below average in education results. There are districts with below average total funding that ranked above average in education results. The differences in education performance, whether with above average funds or with below average funds, were so diverse it was clear that dollars alone do not solve education's problems.

New York City has the second highest education budget in the nation, behind only Washington, D.C. Public education expenses in New York City grew 300% in the last twenty years, from $3.8 billion to $14.8 billion. Inflation averaged 2.8% annually over that period, for a cumulative inflation factor of only 69%. Maybe New York City has more students than twenty years ago; 300% more? New York City public education cost about $4,165 per-student in 1982 and grew to $11,474 per-student in the 2000-2001 fiscal year; a 175% increase per-student.

New York State spends about 50% more per student than California and educates half as manychildren. And California has similar issues - large population, large numbers of immigrants and a mix of dense urban-suburban districts and rural districts.

Teachers in public education are on average only 52% of the public school personnel, while teachers in private schools represent an average of 80% of school personnel (according to the National Center for Education Statistics).

More money will not solve New York's education problems. There is no provable basis to say that it will and much history that says the only obvious change will be the increased size and cost of the public education industry.

New Yorkers have two problems. An argument that cannot be substantiated based on the facts - New York taxpayers are stingy on their education dollars - has received the stamp of legitimacy from New York's courts. It is bad enough that that illegitimate argument gets so much traction in spite of the facts. Now New York's courts want to usurp their legal mandate and make state policy without any democratic check on that policy. If you want to tax New Yorkers more for education, you should succeed only if you convince the voters, not the judges.

There is room for arguments about education policy. They need to be resolved by elected officials, and elections if needed, not the courts. Governor Pataki is right to question the courts' decisions on this issue. He is not questioning their decisions enough. Neither he nor the state legislature do enough to protect their own constitutional mandates from the usurpation of power by an elitist judiciary. In their political weakness, they are refusing to defend democracy itself. Shame on them. Will future generations of New Yorkers forgive them?

Tom Painter 02-05

The claim that the Bush administration policy prohibits embryonic stem cell research is a lie. That policy provides federal funding for embryonic stem cell research for the first time ever. It has one limitation. The only embryonic stem cells that federally funded research can use are cells from previously harvested human embryos. Federally funded research is moving ahead with those stem cell lines.

The claim that federal limits inhibit all embryonic stem cell research is another lie. Research labs of private companies, research funded by states and research at private colleges all can use embryonic stem cell lines beyond those under the federal limits.

The claim that stem cell cures will not happen without embryonic stem cells is another lie. The only stem cell research efforts that have any current success, towards possible medical cures, use mature stem cells, found in places like bone marrow or stem cells from umbilical cords. That research continues to advance without federal restrictions. Research on embryonic stem cells is in its infancy - no pun intended. That research, federally funded and otherwise, is still learning how to initiate and control the growth of embryonic stem cells. Until that basic question is answered, there is no starting point for attempts to direct embryonic stem cell research to specific cures for specific problems. Most scientists familiar with this issue do not see any lack in the research that is now addressing the basic questions about embryonic stem cells.

The claim that stem cell research is at a point where a cure for spinal cord injuries is just around the corner is a pure and simple lie. It will be years, if not decades before we know that such a cure is possible, much less see that knowledge turned into an effective cure - and Mr. Kerry knows it. He also knows that that cure may just as well be found with ongoing research using mature stem cells, or umbilical cord stem cells or other approaches besides embryonic stem cells.

All of Mr. Kerry's claims about stem cell research hide a simple truth involving 1) basic bio-medical research in the U.S., 2) the political and economic culture of our universities, 3) the built-in connections between our federal bureaucracies and our public and private research labs and 4) the federal budget. No matter how much federally funded research is taking place, research labs around the country will complain that they are not getting any, or enough of the federal budget for research that they want a piece of. And, each and every research lab in the country thinks it has rights to federal funds to help it be the lab that makes some research breakthrough. In some cases, a lab's very survival, in competition with other labs, depends on being able to make such a breakthrough. When you understand all this and you understand the nexus of the universities and the Democrats, then you realize Kerry's need to demagogue this issue. He wants to promise to supply every constituent lab in the country with federal funds for their duplicate scientific efforts.

Tom Painter
October 12, 2004

The following is fiction:

"An anonymous source on the 9-11 Commission has revealed that the President's National Security Advisor, Condoleesa Rice, has been the subject of a months-old federal Justice Department investigation into classified documents she removed from the national archives."

"The anonymous source from the 9-11 Commission staff said that the documents pertained to an 'after action' report and early drafts of that report, prepared after the 9-11 events and discussing known gaps in the nations security at the time of those events."

"Ms Rice said she had visited the national archives at the request of the president to do research prior to his testifying before the 9-11 commission. She says that she took notes during her visit to the national archives and inadvertently stuffed some of those notes into her clothes. The staff of the national archives has acknowledged that they observed Ms. Rice stuffing some documents into her clothes and reported that fact to their superiors, leading to the investigation. The national archives told the Justice Department that copies of some of the classified documents Ms. Rice had reviewed were now missing. Ms. Rice has claimed that she mistakenly left those leather bound archive documents in her personal files that she put back in her briefcase. Investigators sent to Ms. Rice's house reported that they could not obtain from her all the missing documents. Ms. Rice said the documents that are still missing must have mistakenly been discarded."

"Democrats and members of the 9-11 Commission are outraged and many suspect Ms. Rice performed a clumsy effort of hiding classified information that the President did not what to be asked about."

"Republicans support Ms. Rice as an honest and loyal public servant who would never knowingly hide or destroy classified material and are outraged at what they consider a deliberate leak of this story as a plot to discredit the President's standing after the 9-11 Commission's report is released."

That was the fiction. Re-read that fictional story again. Then tell yourself, honestly, how many pages of print in The New York Times and other major national daily papers that story would get as well as how many hours it would take up on CNN and the major broadcast channels.

Now ask yourself why the real non-fiction story of Sandy Berger, Clinton's former national security advisor, doing exactly what my fictional story has Ms. Rice doing, is buried in a small article on page 17 of The New York Times and has been either breezed over or ignored by the major networks.

Will anyone ever be able to find out or even prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what was in the classified documents Mr. Berger took and "inadvertently" discarded? Yet where, in the national media, will we see the journalistic outrage over Mr. Berger's actions that would now be heaped from all quarters on the Bush administration, if they were "reporting" my fictional story above.

The major media print and broadcast outlets proclaim their political independence while practicing a liberal bias that leaves no pretense about it.

Tom Painter

July 21, 2004

Guest Editorial # G33

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They got a very conservative foreign policy.

Bush kept his promises to religious conservatives. He appointed a very religious attorney general. He continued strong anti-abortion policies. He lifted up the cause of religious fundamentalists by upping the volume on anti-gay themes. He tried to blur some traditional lines in the wall of separation between church and state. He nominated some strong non-activist judicial candidates. He spent no political capital to secure those nominations, yet the religious right has much to be grateful for with Bush.

Most law-and-order conservatives praised Bush for the Patriot Act. Then Bush turned and made a naked bid for the U.S. Hispanic vote in 2004. He proposed an immigration policy that is a thinly disguised amnesty plan for current illegal immigrants. That policy when joined with historic lax enforcement of U.S. immigration laws will only encourage more illegal immigration and increase the millions of permanent illegal U.S. residents.

Bush opposed free-trade conservatives with import quotas on foreign steel. Those quotas cost more manufacturing jobs than the steel jobs they temporarily saved. He continues our free-trade busting taxpayer subsidies to the industrial farm empires. He also seems intent on keeping out foreign sugar, at seven cents a pound. Sugar from U.S. protected cartels gets twenty cents a pound. American candy makers might be next to move their plants out of the U.S. How do you spell "Snickers" in Chinese?

Libertarian conservatives fight for small government and individual liberty. They watched the size of the federal government grow more in the last three years than it did in eight years under Clinton. Our attorney general spends more time running after medical marijuana users than he does prosecuting corporate stock and tax cheats. As the new election cycle opens, Bush promises to demean the constitution by placing federal power over civil policies like marriage that, in a truly conservative and federalist world, belong to the states. He signed a campaign finance law that tramples on the freedom of speech. That won him praise from some liberals, while he prayed the Supreme Court would shoot it down. It didn't.

For fiscal conservatives, Bush made one of the largest federal tax cuts ever but made no major spending reductions. With growing deficits and in spite of having the line-item veto, he never cut or vetoed a single spending item from congress. On the entitlement side, he enacted a universal prescription drug benefit for all retired senior citizens. It will cost $400 billion (oops make that $535 billion and counting). He starts that program knowing that currently only one third of retired seniors lack either some drug benefits or sufficient means to buy their drugs. What is fiscally conservative about making sure that wealthy Ted Kennedy will get his drugs at taxpayers expense when he retires?

In January he signed a spending bill that contains thousands of pork-barrel items. Then he proposed millions more for the National Endowment for the Arts. Is that an example of fiscal conservatism and public sacrifice during a time of war?

Many old-line conservatives are conservationists and believe in protecting the environment. The Republican Teddy Roosevelt started our national park system and Republican Richard Nixon started the Environmental Protection Agency. Bush started with a pro-environment Republican to head the EPA, former governor Christine Todd Whitman. She left the job already.

Does George W. Bush think that he belongs to the conservative movement or does he think that the conservative movement belongs to him? Are secular conservatives the latest political group that understands what it means to be taken for granted by their own party?

What are Bush's domestic policies that will excite conservatives in November? Is George W. Bush deflating the conservative movement enough to cause too many conservatives to sit out the presidential election? I am not talking about the party activists. I'm talking about the people those activists need to motivate. Will Karl Rove, the architect of the Bush policy agenda, get a pink slip before the Republican convention, or will he leave next January - with Bush? It seems like an either or situation doesn't it?

You don't think so? Outside of foreign policy, and religious concerns about marriage, where is the "conservative" message in Bush's policies? With Afghanistan and Iraq on the mend, with Saddam and Ossama in handcuffs (hopefully), with no WMDs in Iraq, with the economy doing O.K., and with no major terrorist events, what is it that is going to energize secular conservatives to vote in November. Bush you say? I don't think so, at least not for a broad spectrum of some not-so-religious conservatives.

At election time, "it's the excitement stupid" and right now conservatives need their own cause for excitement. Conservatives who cannot get too excited about Bush will have to create their own excitement by the way that they campaign for congress. The best way would be for them to campaign on their own agenda, like they did in 1994, as if they are not the party in power because, with Karl Rove writing Bush's script, they're not.

What is most important to the conservative's long run interest - the vibrancy of their movement or the office of the president?

Tom Painter
February 2, 2004

Guest Editorial # G32

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