David Axelrod: Iraq War Worth It

David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Obama, on Face the Nation:

SMITH: Were the lives, American lives, lost in Iraq worth it? Were the Iraqi lives worth it?

AXELROD: Harry, I think any time someone serves their country it — it is an honorable thing, a worthwhile thing. And the president said in the speech that Iraq is better without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. So, yes, the answer to that is yes.

Was that the right choice to make at the time given all the factors involved? The president’s spoken on this. This has been a heated debate in our country, and I suspect it will be debated for some time.

How can one argue that the Iraq war was worth the cost, but that it wasn’t the right thing to do?

The Limits of Freedom

As my state considers a state-wide smoking ban in restaurants, bars, and the like, I’ve been considering when it is appropriate to restrict freedom. I don’t smoke, and I don’t particularly like second-hand smoke either, so it’s very tempting to me to stay on the sidelines. After all, it’s not my choices that are being restricted.

But I also am reminded of the fact that we live in the “land of the free”. What exactly does that mean? In this country, we take freedom very seriously. Let’s start with what I hope everyone can agree on: Freedom is not limited by what the majority feels is the right thing to do. It is a contradiction to say, “Yes, we are free in this country, so long as you do use your freedom to choose good things and not things we think are stupid.” The point of the right to “freedom” is that we have a right to make our own choices, even if others would view them as poor choices. Anything less is not truly freedom.

However, there are also times when our freedom is, and should be, restricted. I cannot do anything I want and defend my actions by saying, “It’s a free country, ain’t it?” I can’t steal something that doesn’t belong to me, or yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater. So there are limitations to my freedom, and rightly so.

So, as I contemplate the pending smoking ban, and my own apathy towards it, I’m prompted to consider the question: when it is OK for my freedom to be restricted? The default position should be that my freedom should not be restricted, and the burden is on those who wish to restrict freedom to argue that it is worth it.

There are two arguments for why a particular choice should be restricted. The first may be obvious, although I think it has some subtleties. The second is less obvious.

1) My freedom to do something may be restricted when that choice is harmful to other people who are not willingly participating. The harm may come upon them directly or indirectly (I don’t understand why some people argue that indirect harm is any less valid than direct harm.) However, the question should also be asked: can the harm on other person be avoided by some other means that doesn’t restrict the freedom of either party?

2) My freedom to do something may be restricted if the decision is too complex for the common person to make it on their own. That’s a statement that most freedom-loving people would scoff at, but I hope you consider it carefully. Do you oppose regulation that says that poison should not be put in cereal? What if companies could do it without even indicating it on the label? If we consider only #1 above, one could argue that the companies are free to do so, because those who buy the cereal are willingly participating in the consumption of that cereal. Consumers are free to abstain. However, clearly this is going too far. We accept the fact that our government protects us from our own ignorance at times. It would be impractical for everyone to be an expert in every field so that we can make good decisions in all aspects of our life. I don’t have the expertise or equipment to test the breakfast cereal that I buy for poisons, so I trust the FDA will do it’s job and restrict food companies from putting such things in my food. I also trust that the government will ensure the safety of the planes that I board, because I am incapable of doing so myself. So I want the government to restrict the airlines from choosing to neglect passenger safety.

So, returning to the smoking ban, we must first define which freedom we are restricting (and, to be clear, every law can be defined as a restriction of freedom). In this case, the freedom being restricting is the freedom of business owners to determine whether smoking will be allowed in their business. As much as I like eating in smoke-free restaurants, I have to say that I can’t justify the restriction of that freedom, based on the criteria above.

For one thing, no one is forced to enter the business, and therefore no one is harmed except for those who willingly participate. Clearly, customers are not forced to enter a particular business. And even employees can choose to quit. One might argue that the right of the employee to choose where they will work is being infringed. However, that right doesn’t really exist. A person does not have the right to choose any workplace and determine the conditions of their employment. The employer decides who is hired and who is not, and the employer also has the right to set the conditions of employment. That’s not to say that the employer holds all of the cards. If an employee does not like the working conditions, the employee can choose the leave. If enough other employees follow, this can cause problems for the employer as well. The employer will have to look harder and pay more to find people willing to work in sub-par conditions.

Secondly, the decision to smoke or not to smoke, or to frequent a business that caters to smokers, is not too complex for the average consumer. There is no need for the government to protect us from our ignorance, since the negative health effects of smoking are well-known.

And yet, the smoking ban will likely pass without much challenge. So, am I missing another key reason why freedoms can and should be restricted? I’m not opposed to seat-belt laws, but that also doesn’t qualify under either of the conditions mentioned above. So, is there another condition I am missing? Or should we be accept a government that restricts our freedom to make bad choices?

What If It Were Bush?

I’m not fond of the the “What if it were Bush” syndrome–the perpetual need to point out how unfair the critics of Bush were, considering the praise for the Obama administration. But I couldn’t pass this one up.

Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on Meet the Press:

We’ve learned that he somehow shapes his own day. I mean, I think it’s great that he gets up in the morning, has breakfast with the kids before going to the Oval Office. Ronald Reagan did the same thing. He said–not with the kids, but he got to the Oval Office later. Somebody said, “There’ll be a national security adviser there at 7:15. You’ve got to be there, Mr. President.” He said, “That guy’s going to be waiting a long time. I’m going when I want to…. If you can find ways to sustain your spirit and maintain a sense of normalcy, the fact that he goes out and he has dinner in the White House–I mean, in the, in the Washington, D.C., area, that he goes on ESPN, all of that frees up, I think, your energies to replenish yourself and allow you to become a good president.

If Bush had been showing up at the office late and spending time “replenishing himself”, do you think he would have been praised for that? When it was Bush taking “vacations*”, he’s lazy. If it’s Obama taking some down-time, he’s struck a good work-life balance.

* (I put “vacations” in quotes becomes everyone except those with Bush-derangement syndrome would agree that presidents don’t go on vacation. They might be located in a different place and spending some time with family, but the idea that he was just chilling-out for days at a time is ludicrous.)

Worst Possible Sunday Interview

What was John Boehner thinking?

Here’s the “wha-what?” quote:

George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen, that it is harmful to our environment, is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.

George was kind to interrupt him before he dug the hole any deeper, but then he goes on to answer every “what is your plan?” question with “well what we can’t do is…”. SNL could pretty much repeat this word for word and get plenty of laughs.

I do believe that there is still scientific debate to be had in regards to how much climate change is caused by man’s activities, however the argument that carbon dioxide can’t be bad because cows emit it is insulting to our intelligence.

Obama: I’m Responsible, But It’s Not My Fault

Obama, on the AIG debacle:

So, he’ll take responsibility, but wants everyone to know it’s not his fault. That’s some new politics for you.

Meanwhile, Dodd says it is his fault:

Personally, I think this whole issue is way overblown. Yes, the bonuses are misplaced in these times, but a contract is a contract, and the government shouldn’t get in the business of overturning contracts, no matter how bad they are. This is why the provision was added to the bill. All that is reasonable. The part that bugs me is that politicians, especially the president, are falling over themselves to feign outrage over something that was already anticipated and accounted for in the bill. If it was not anticipated, why was the clause added?

The same candidate that criticized McCain because he made a big deal about earmarks which weren’t a significant part of the budget, and the same party that criticized Republicans for making a big deal out of a few million here and few billion there in the stimulus bill, are now apparently outraged over 150 million–a drop in the bucket.

That’s what you get when you don’t read the bill before you enact it.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Obama’s Healthcare Statistics

When Republicans tried to explain the size of the stimulus bill based on the amount of money it amounted to per day since the birth of Jesus, I objected: “I’ve never really thought these sorts of number analogies all that useful. I can make just about any number look large or small using some visualization.”

I had a similar reaction when Obama said that healthcare costs cause a bankruptcy every thirty seconds. But I have ever greater reason to be annoyed, because it turns out Obama’s number is not only a meaningless statistic, but is actually dead wrong:

“The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds,” Obama said at the opening of his White House forum on health care reform. The problem: That claim, based on a 2001 survey, is simply unsupportable.

The figure comes from a 2005 Harvard University study saying that 54 percent of bankruptcies in 2001 were caused by health expenses. We reviewed it internally and knocked it down at the time; an academic reviewer did the same in 2006. Recalculating Harvard’s own data, he came up with a far lower figure – 17 percent.

…

Himmelstein tells me that the reason for the difference is a change in federal law that sharply reduced the number of bankruptcies. In 2005, the year he and Warren wrote their op-ed, there were just over 2 million bankruptcies. Data out just today say that in 2008 there were 1.1 million (up sharply, by the way, over 2007). So this error in the White House claim stems simply from the fact that it’s using out-of-date information. The next question is whether the estimate of “medical bankruptcies” is reliable in the first place.

A good part of the problem is definitional. The Harvard report claims to measure the extent to which medical costs are “the cause” of bankruptcies. In reality its survey asked if these costs were “a reason” – potentially one of many – for such bankruptcies.

Beyond those who gave medical costs as “a reason,” the Harvard researchers chose to add in any bankruptcy filers who had at least $1,000 in unreimbursed medical expenses in the previous two years. Given deductibles and copays, that’s a heck of a lot of people.

Moreover, Harvard’s definition of “medical” expenses includes situations that aren’t necessarily medical in common parlance, e.g., a gambling problem, or the death of a family member. If your main wage-earning spouse gets hit by a bus and dies, and you have to file, that’s included as a “medical bankruptcy.”

You might think, “So what? Healthcare reform is important, so why so much fuss over a statistic?” I would agree that healthcare reform is important, as I’ve blogged about before. But to illustrate why I think this mischaracterization (and the many that take place every day in the world of politics) is important, let’s do a little thought experiment:

Imagine that you are an HR rep, and you come to your boss with a new brilliant idea to increase employee retention:

You: “Sir, I believe we should give away free soda in the break rooms.”

Boss: “Why’s that?”

You: “Well, did you know that someone quits every five days because there is no free soda in the break room?”

Boss: “Every five days? Wow, that’s a lot. Where did you get that number?”

You: “Well, in 2001, we gave everyone who quit a survey, and some said that no soda in the break room was a reason they quit. And actually it’s closer to one person every 9 days, but that’s not the point…”

Boss: “Wait, we’ve cut the number of people who quit in half since 2001 due to other policy changes. And just because someone says it’s a reason they quit, doesn’t mean it was the main reason. But even so, that number seems high.”

You: “Yes, well I also included people who said they liked soda even if they didn’t list it as a reason they quit. I assume that if we had free soda, they might not have quit.”

Boss: “I see. How much do we pay you again?”

I hope that makes it clear. We would never tolerate this sort of fudging in our real lives, but for some reason we tolerate it from our politicians. I don’t mean to single out Obama. Almost every politician does this. But of all the politicians that have come along, Obama was the one who had the most power to change the norms that we have come to accept. Looks like the opportunity will be wasted.

Obama’s Inheritance

When speaking to the nation about his budget, President Obama made sure we all remembered that he inherited the deficit. It was not of his own making. Of course this is true, except for the almost trillion dollar spending package, but even that can be argued was the necessary result of previous policies. So I don’t blame Obama for not wanting to take blame for the massive deficit we find ourselves in.

For a few years, the financial policies of the Bush administration seemed to be working. But the seeds of recession, planted long ago, were quietly being cultivated. Then, the weeds sprung up all at once. Now it’s up to Obama to clean it up, and he’s right to remind us that it was not his mess.

But fast forward to today, when President announced his plan to withdrawal troops from Iraq:

The situation in Iraq is the opposite of the situation with our economy. There is no doubt that the Bush administration made mistakes in Iraq. But then we changed course. Bush replaced the leadership and came up with a new plan, and had the audacity to urge us to have more patience with him, our troops, and the Iraqi people. Amid the apparent chaos in Iraq was being sown the seeds of freedom and peace that started to emerge as Bush’s time faded. While I wouldn’t go so far so say that the rose has bloomed, President Obama inherited that bud just as much as he inherited the thorns in the economy.

But did Obama go out of his way to thank President Bush for this inheritance? Did he thank him for sticking up for the plan he knew was best for the nation–the plan that Obama opposed? If he did, wouldn’t that have been a refreshing change from the politics of the past?

He didn’t, but I will. Thank you, President Bush, for giving our troops and the Iraqi people a chance. You left us with plenty of problems to deal with, but I’ll give credit where credit is due.

Rare Disease Day 2009

Saturday, February 28th, is Rare Disease Day 2009. Some might wonder why we need a day to recognize rare diseases. I would have wondered the same thing myself about two years ago. But as a parent of a child with Eosinophilic Esophagitis, I now understand that patients with rare diseases face a unique challenge. For more common diseases, research and investment dollars are much easier to come by. This is for good reason, because each dollar carries more bang for the buck because of the economy of scale. If you could help save 1000 kids for the same amount of money as it would take to save 1, which would you choose?

Last year American Express hosted a competition, of sorts, between charitable initiatives. The idea was to have people present ideas that needed funding, and then narrow it down to 25, based partially on public voting. The project named “EE – Save Sick Children”, aimed to raise money for APFED, finished second in the overall vote count. However, American Express decided to exclude the project from the final 25 projects. Am I angry about that? No. I don’t really blame them. I don’t know that the project was really more deserving than other projects. Still, this illustrates the difficulty those with rare diseases have in getting the research attention needed to help them.

It’s important that our society does not forget about those of us who have the double-challenge of not only having a chronic disease, but one that is not well known, understood, or researched. That is why I’m grateful that organizations like The National Organization for Rare Disorders have fought for people like me long before I knew I would care. Please watch this video and take a moment this Saturday to think how you can help those who are sick for no fault of their own, especially those struggling not only with their disease, but fighting a lonely battle:

Thanks to The Moderate Voice for bring this day to my attention.

Cross posted to DaddEE

Unilateral Bipartisanship

David Axerlrod on Meet the Press (my emphasis added):

MR. GREGORY: All right, so how was [the Republican party's] influence felt [in the stimulus bill]?

MR. AXELROD: Well, I think in tax–in terms of tax cuts. I think the tax cuts reflect some of their, their thinking. I mean, we agreed with them in terms of tax cuts to help small businesses get through this. They–their–the AMT is now added. The AMT fix is now added to this. The, the, the Web site recovery.gov was suggested by Representative Cantor, the leader of the opposition in the House.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I don’t think so. Notice the words he struggles with. He wants to portray the tax cuts as concessions to Republicans, but at the same time does not way to give away the credit for their inclusion from the Democrats. The worst thing Democrats could do right now is concede the point that Republicans have been making for a long time: that Democrats are against tax cuts. But at the same time they want to be able to point to the tax cuts as evidence of concessions to the Republicans. They’re walking a fine line and getting away with it for the most part.

My impression of the Democratic view of bipartisanship: “We welcome ideas from across the isle, as long as they are also our ideas.”

I don’t blame Democrats for wanting to limit the Republican influence on this bill. Let’s face it: they won that right in November. But don’t try to portray it as bipartisan because a Republican suggested a website. Because, you know, clearly the success or failure of the stimulus package hinges on recovery.gov.

The Economic Surge

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” — Mark Twain

Rewind to a few years ago, and the buzzword was “surge”. The president was pushing for a surge in troops to stabilize Iraq. The Democrats, including the then-senator Obama, opposed opposed it feverishly. Republicans were saying that they were voting for defeat in Iraq. Fast-forward to a few months ago, after things had improved in Iraq, when Obama said this:

Katie, I have no idea what would have happened had we applied my approach, which was to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation. So this is all hypotheticals. What I can say is that there’s no doubt that our U.S. troops have contributed to a reduction of violence in Iraq. I said that– not just today, not just yesterday, but I’ve said that– previously. What that doesn’t change is that we’ve got to have a different strategic approach if we’re going to make America as safe as possible.

So, basically, the surge worked, but things might have been even better had they tried Obama’s approach. It’s a tough political tight-rope, but Obama overcame it because the war in Iraq in general was unpopular, so some people gave him the benefit of the doubt.

—

Today, Obama wants to execute an economic “surge” by injecting almost a trillion dollars into our economy (put on credit). Almost all Republicans oppose it, but it will be signed by the President shortly. Democrats say that Republicans are voting for America to fail (sound familiar?). Many pundits say that the Republicans have put themselves in a risky position. There are only two possibilities, they say:

1) The economy recovers, and the Republicans appear to have been trying to stop the economic recovery, and being against the American people.

2) The economy gets worse, and the Republicans are vindicated to opposing a bill that they correctly predicted would not help, and the “we have to do something” line is proven to be a nonsensical political argument.

But they ignore another possibility. I believe the economy will recover, but as any logician will tell you, just because Y follows X does not mean that X caused Y. It will be difficult to tell whether the stimulus package really helped or not, although Democrats will insist that it did. Republicans will find themselves in the position that Democrats did just a few months ago: defending the opposition to a policy that appeared to have succeeded. I can see them saying something like this:

“Yes, the stimulus might have helped, but think of how much it cost us. We didn’t get a chance to try our plan, which would have been less costly and helped get us out of the recession more quickly.”

Even if technically true, that is a difficult political argument to make. But, it worked for Obama on the Iraq surge, so will it work for Republicans?

No. The difference is: the people will not give the Republicans the benefit of the doubt as they gave Obama, since the Republicans are seen (rightly or not) as having caused the mess in the first place.

The bottom line: it’s tough to be a Republican these days. You lose when you win and lose when you lose.

(Note: Very rarely do I consider raw political analysis like this to be very worthwhile, but given the similarities of this situation and the Iraq surge situation, I found it interesting.)