In an article from our last print issue, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger argue that liberals will not succeed in making dirty energy expensive, and should instead focus their effors on making clean energy cheap:

What happened next was indeed a dress rehearsal, just not the one the environmental movement had expected. During the debate, Senate Democrats spoke of the urgent threat to civilization and displayed pictures of melting ice. Republicans presented graphs of rising gasoline prices. Democrats held up economic models showing that cap-and-trade would cause only modest increases to gas and electricity prices. Republicans warned of the effect higher energy prices would have on an increasingly fragile economy. It was as though the entire Senate had not moved an inch since 1997, when it voted 95 - 0 to reject the Kyoto treaty.

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--The Editors

Prospect alum Matt Duss and I talk piracy at Bloggingheads:

--Robert Farley

Despite their ideological dissimilarity, Stephen Harper seems to be emulating the parliamentary strategery of Joe Clark, which apparently will lead to Canada's left-leaning electoral majority retaking power. A couple notes:

• This was really an incredible blunder on Harper's part. Did he think that the opposition parties would just fail to notice the key triggering proposal -- an end to public party financing -- would have left them at a huge disadvantage? You can get away with that kind of thing in a typical Canadian majority government, but of course Harper didn't have one. It should also be noted that this policy was embedded in an idiotic neo-Hooverite budget package, which was as bad on the merits as it was bad politically.
• As Yglesias notes, this could represent a significant shift in Canadian politics, as, outside of wartime, Canada has not had European style coalition governments. Because there isn't a proportional representation system even plurality votes generally produce parliamentary majorities, and in the relatively rare cases of minority governments pluralities have governed through informal arrangements with other parties. Should the current fractured party system endure, however, coalition governments seem inevitable. (One would think that such a party system won't endure without PR, but Canadian federalism may provide an exception to the general rule.)
• Since the Conservatives had already withdrawn the policies must unacceptable to them, though, I wonder why the Liberals are choosing this particular time to bring down the government; it might seem more logical to wait until new leadership was in place. But I guess they saw the opportunity and took it, although perhaps they may decide at the last minute to bide their time. Let me just say: no Ignatieff.

Politico: "44's speeches not yet on par with 16's"

When it comes to words, Barack Obama is no Abraham Lincoln, at least according to Fred Kaplan, author of "Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer," which the president-elect has been spotted carrying in recent days.

Seriously?

--Tim Fernholz

There's already been a lot of commentary on the blockbuster New York Times article concerning former General Barry McCaffrey, his connections to various defense contractors, and the personal lobbying he does while being presented on NBC as an objective commentator on military affairs. The article documents how McCaffrey has advocated policy decisions that would have direct business ramifications to his various employers. NBC's president responded to these concerns by saying, "General McCaffrey was a man of honor and achievement who would never let business obligations color his analysis for NBC."

Hmmm. No doubt this is why NBC's various journalists are allowed to take money from business interests in the areas they cover, since they would never let those obligations color their reporting. Or, wait, it's the appearance of a conflict-of-interest that matters, and NBC doesn't let it's employees take money from business interests. I wonder what NBC's journalists think of the news about McCaffrey.

Anyways, the context for my disgust is that over Thanksgiving I had the chance to watch The Insider, a great film detailing CBS' bowing to corporate pressure from cigarette companies before revealing the truth about how they had knowingly marketed addictive products (old news now, of course, but at the time these disclosures helped lead to the landmark settlement of the various state medicaid lawsuits against Big Tobacco). It's a black mark on CBS' record, and I fail to see the material difference between NBC's decision to knowingly allow a corporate shill, no matter how sterling his record of public service, to market his product as an objective analyst, and CBS's decision to withhold damaging facts about a corporation due to fear of retribution. Am I wrong?

--Tim Fernholz

John Hinderaker doesn't think that the terrorist attacks in Mumbai could happen here:

I wondered earlier today how a mere ten terrorists could bring a city of 19 million to a standstill. Here in the U.S., I don't think it would happen. I think we have armed security guards who know how to use their weapons, supplemented by an unknown number of private citizens who are armed and capable of returning fire. The Indian experience shows it is vitally important that this continue to be the case. This is a matter of culture as much as, or more than, a matter of laws.

If only those weak willed Indians weren't further hampered by a culture of self-destructive liberalism, these attacks would never have occurred. In the end, can we really blame the terrorists who carried out the attacks? They were simply responding to the inherent weakness present in Indian society.

This is a really strange and immature coping mechanism that manifests on the right in times of high profile tragedy. Rather than contemplate being a victim of a terrorist attack, the subject imagines him or herself as the star of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. I'd say it's simple racism, but it really is fear masquerading as bravado, a cultural chauvanism that directs itself at other Americans as readily as it does at foreigners. It is the "short skirt" theory of violence. If it happened, you must have been asking for it.

For example, right after the Virginia Tech shootings, conservatives fell all over themselves insisting that the killings were not the result of a very disturbed person but a "culture of passivity," as Mark Steyn put it. Neil Boortz added of the victims, "It seems that standing in terror waiting for your turn to be executed was the right thing to do ... Surrender -- comply -- adjust. The doctrine of the left." But of course, a college campus, like the country of more than a billion Hinderaker reduces to a band of sniveling cowards, is an environment crippled by bed-wetting liberalism, and therefore not reflective of the Stallone-like nature of Real Americans. If only VT had gotten rid of those black literature courses. As for the Indian victims of the attacks in Mumbai, Brad at Sadly, No! surmises that it must be the chicken tikka masala. Get those Indians some steaks and they'll toughen right up. Either that or they could hire some right-wing pundits to protect them. From what I read on the Internet, those guys seem really tough.

On a vaguely related note, the folks at The Corner insist on referring to Mumbai as "Bombay," possibly because they are still struggling to cope with the end of colonialism. Imagine how odd it would seem if the Dutch sent their condolences regarding the attack on New Amsterdam on 9/11.

--A. Serwer

Looking over Obama's remarks at the announcement of the national security team, there is a lot of good news for progressives. First and foremost, U.N. Ambassador-nominee Susan Rice will be a member of the cabinet. This gives one of Obama's most progressive foreign policy advisers a serious platform for her views, which will be reassuring to those disappointed by Hillary Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State.

It's interesting to see Attorney General Eric Holder included on the national security team. It makes plenty of sense, considering the serious legal issues involved with many aspects of counter-terrorism, but it is an interesting linkage, especially considering that the last time a Democratic president nominated an attorney general, she was described as a "front-line crime fighter." Here's what Obama said about Holder today: "He is deeply familiar with the law enforcement challenges we face -- from terrorism to counter-intelligence; from white collar crime to public corruption. ... Eric also has the combination of toughness and independence that we need at the Justice Department. Let me be clear: the Attorney General serves the American people. And I have every expectation that Eric will protect our people, uphold the public trust, and adhere to our Constitution. " Essentially, he says, Holder will not let the the executive run amok like it has in the last eight years.

Another interesting fact: The Joe Biden quote for the day is, "It is an honor to be a part of this team." No surprise, but Biden is clearly staking out his turf as an important member of the national security operation.

On Robert Gates: "As I said throughout the campaign, I will be giving Secretary Gates and our military a new mission as soon as I take office: responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control." No timeline here, but, at least according to this recent piece, it's clear that the 16-month timeline is still the working expectation.

Napolitano's announcement makes me think that the her mandate is to get the Department of Homeland Security functioning efficiently and effectively -- expect, at least initially, administrative reform: "Janet Napolitano offers the experience and executive skill that we need in the next Secretary of Homeland Security. ... Janet assumes this critical role having learned the lessons -- some of them painful -- of the last several years, from 9/11 to Katrina. She insists on competence and accountability. She knows firsthand the need to have a partner in Washington that works well with state and local governments. ... And she will be a leader who can reform a sprawling Department while safeguarding our homeland."

The last interesting thing: As always, nominee bios accompany the announcement press release, and though we all have a pretty good idea of who Hillary Clinton is, it's interesting to see the way her background is spun:

Over nearly four decades in public service, as an attorney, First Lady, Senator, and presidential candidate, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has become one of the nation's foremost champions for children and families and advocates for women's rights and human rights. ... In November 2000, Senator Clinton became the first First Lady elected to public office and the first woman elected independently in New York State; she has since won reelection. In the Senate, she has continued to advocate for equal access to health care, education, and economic opportunity for women and girls around the world. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Clinton has fought for and secured in law improved health care for members of the National Guard and Reserves and worked to bring our troops home safely and responsibly from Iraq. She also serves as the only Senate member of the Transformation Advisory Group to the Joint Forces Command, working to modernize our military. ...Most recently, as a groundbreaking candidate for President of the United States, Senator Clinton became the first woman ever to win a presidential primary, receiving more than 18 million votes as an advocate for working families and a voice for millions of Americans who have felt invisible to their government.

Presumably Clinton's people vetted this bio, so it's interesting to see how much of it focuses on her work on women's and children's issues. Obviously this is important and Clinton is right to be proud of her record, but it seems a little strange that she only devoted a few sentences to her work on the Armed Services Committee, especially given her primary campaign's focus on her toughness and grasp of a wide range of foreign policy issues. This may be a clue indicating the content of Clinton's agenda in the new administration: She may have the most autonomy in places where she can work to make sure that women's rights are human rights, which has long been an issue close to her heart.

(Obama's speech after the jump).

--Tim Fernholz

MORE...

Later this morning, President-elect Barack Obama will announce his security team, which has already been prenounced by undenied rumor. In case you haven't been keeping up, expect Senator Hillary Clinton for State, retired General Jim Jones for National Security Adviser, Susan Rice for U.N. Ambassador, Eric Holder for Attorney General, Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security Secretary, and current Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on. It's a more centrist team than many had expected, but there are good reasons for these appointments, which is why it bothers me when people in the media write things like this:

What kind of news day will this be? A bit later this morning, Barack Obama -- the man who won the Democratic nomination and thus the presidency largely because of his opposition to the Iraq War -- will announce that he plans to keep President Bush's Defense Secretary in place.

Identifying Gates as "President Bush's Defense Secretary" makes Obama's decision seem ironic and troublesome, as long as you pretend not to know that Gates was a second term appointment whose job was to salvage the Iraq war and who is known as a pragmatic moderate, and that it has been made pretty clear that Gates' primary function will be easing the transition into withdrawal from Iraq. Only if you elide those facts does this seem earthshaking.

On the other hand, the Hillary Clinton appointment is much more troublesome to progressives, for reasons Ezra lays out here. In a somewhat sloppy piece for the Guardian, I make the argument that Obama's decision is a big move designed to broaden progressive foreign policy ideas in the wider Democratic/centrist establishment:

The foreign policy side is more opaque. During a primary campaign debate with Clinton, Obama explained: "I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place." Now the target of that barb will have the most high-profile foreign policy position in his presidency. There are any number of good political reasons for Obama to make this decision, but it's hard not wonder if he's substantively changing his programme. Without policy announcements or actual policy making, there is no way to know, but by choosing his chief intra-party rival as the spokesperson for the new foreign policy vision of the Democratic party, it's very possible that he is cementing his views as the conventional wisdom, and shifting the party's establishment to the left as he does it. The only real way to end the Iraq war mindset is convincing the leaders of his party to leave it by the wayside.

All this depends on several factors, not least important, how to pick the sub-cabinet and lower level staffers who do the bulk of the policy work and administration? If these positions are distributed with an eye to Obama's more progressive campaign advisers, the future of a liberal foreign policy will have been well seeded; turf battles could arise if lingering bitterness leads to a hiring preference for Clinton loyalists. Ultimately, the success of these appointees depends on Obama's effectiveness as a bureaucratic player and a strong leader: If he asserts his liberal policy vision, his administration will fall in line. With the political cover Obama can provide – and with their own ambitions in line – Clinton could be an effective administrator of an Obama doctrine that breaks sharply with the last eight years, withdrawing from Iraq, building alliances and restoring liberal internationalism.

The good news, as folks have noted in the past few days, is that a much broader list of Agency Review team members appeared on the Transition website a few weeks ago, and were only really picked up last week. Two members of the State Department team, Sam Power and Lee Feinstein, are the kind of progressives that really need to be at State. (Power was one of Clinton's harshest critics during the primary and was distanced from the campaign after calling her a "monster," which could make initial meetings awkward.) Working on the transition is no guarantee of a long term job, but both have the chance to shape the initial policy and hiring decisions. The national security policy working group also has some good names, not the least of which is CAP's Gayle Smith. And of course, there are reports that Jim Steinberg, an early (2004) proponent of Iraq withdrawal, will be Deputy Secretary of State.

Anyways, it's all kind of moot until we have announced policy statements, or see the results of policymaking. We'll have more on the national security team after it's announced.

--Tim Fernholz

Did you see the cover of The New York Times Magazine this weekend? The woman on the right is Alex Kuczynski, the Times style writer who, in her book Beauty Junkies, chronicled her addiction to youth-enhancing medical treatments and beauty products, which supposedly ended when she nearly missed a friend's funeral because she was having Restylane injected into her lips. The pregnant woman is Cathy Hilling, a mother of three and substitute teacher from Harleysville, Pa. Hilling carried to term the fetus of Kuczynski, 39, and her investor husband, Charles Stevenson, 59, after Kuczynski suffered from years of infertility and two miscarriages.

I don't exactly know what to make of Kuczynski's first person account of her experience with surrogacy. The fetus -- now her son Max -- was biologically hers and her husband's. Hilling carried the baby for $25,000, which she said she needed to help pay her kids' college tuition. Hilling's 20-year old daughter had actually already been an egg donor to raise tuition money, and this was Hilling's second surrogate pregnancy. Kuczynski is frank about the emotional strangeness of the situation, and the socioeconomics involved. She is relieved to learn, for example, that the attorney she worked with to plan the surrogate pregnancy -- which is illegal in many states -- does not accept women in poverty as surrogates.

Indeed, Kuczynski chooses Hilling because she and her husband are college educated, with white collar jobs. Yet there's no mistaking that Hilling and Kuczynski come from vastly different worlds. Hilling is small town America to Kuczynski's Manhattan; she is pink fleece to Kuczynski's little black dress. The divide between them is brought home by an accompanying photo of Kuczynski standing in the yard of her lavish colonial in Southampton, New York, holding her son. Behind her, standing at attention and wearing a uniform, is Margo Clements, whom the caption tells us is Kuczynski's "baby nurse."

Hilling, I'm sure, had no baby nurse to help raise her three kids. And while, at least according to Kuczynski's narrative, Hilling enters into surrogacy cheerfully, happy to help an infertile couple, it's hard to miss the underside to this story. Inequality and trouble paying for basics -- like a college education -- push some women to carry other women's pregnancies. Unless this inequality is addressed, bearing wealthy women's children (and the children of wealthy gay couples) will become some of the most financially rewarding work available to low and middle-income women, further cementing their identity as primarily reproductive. I believe surrogacy should be regulated and legal. But I don't want to live in a country where women turn to surrogacy in order to pay their own children's college bills.

--Dana Goldstein

David Axe:

The commando-style attacks that killed some 200 people in Mumbai, India, last week began with a small-scale amphibious invasion that bears uncanny resemblance to recent pirate attacks off the African coast.

--Robert Farley

Sometimes I enjoy what Stanley Crouch has to say, but rarely when it has anything to do with politics. His recent column attempts to remove Malcolm X from the context of the black rights movement, essentially acquiescing to Al Qaeda's interpretation of what he stood for:

Malcolm X was one of the naysayers to American possibility whose vision was permanently crushed beneath the heel of Obama's victory on Nov. 4. Though his ideas had nothing to do with the ultimate form of nonviolence - voting - those desperate to praise him will pretend now that he was actually a civil rights leader! This has been going on for an unforgivably long time, especially among black academics.

Malcolm X had nothing to do with Obama's accomplishment as did none of the other militants who preached their own version of separatism and gleefully attacked the civil rights movement as offering no more than pie in the sky and misleading black people.

Crouch's thoughts on Obama were once similarly obtuse, and it's quite clear that although his opinion on whether or not Obama is actually black has changed, it isn't because he took some time familiarizing himself with Obama and his story.

This is what President-Elect Barack Obama said about Malcolm X in his best-selling autobiography, via David Remnick:

In every page of every book, in Bigger Thomas and invisible men, I kept finding the same anguish, the same doubt; a self-contempt that neither irony nor intellect seemed able to deflect. Even Du Bois’ learning and Baldwin’s love and Langston’s humor eventually succumbed to its corrosive force, each man finally forced to doubt art’s redemptive power, each man finally forced to withdraw, one to Africa, one to Europe, one deeper into the bowels of Harlem, but all of them in the same weary flight, all of them exhausted, bitter men, the devil at their heels. Only Malcolm X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me.

By Obama's own admission, Malcolm X was one of the biggest influences in his intellectual and cultural development. In other words, it would be quite impossible for Crouch to be more mistaken in his assessment of Malcolm X's influence on our next president than he currently is. You'd think Crouch, who has written about Obama extensively over the past year, would have at least taken a moment to avail himself of the man's bestselling autobiography. Imagine what the belligerent Mr. Crouch, a jazz critic, would say about someone who wrote column after column about John Coltrane without ever having heard A Love Supreme.

--A. Serwer

• As Barack Obama is fond of saying, there can only be one president at a time. And right now, that might as well be Obama himself. While the president-elect is successfully injecting some confidence into the financial markets with a series of well-timed press conferences and leaks designed to unveil his economic team piece by piece, George W. Bush is pardoning turkeys, installing cronies in the federal bureaucracy, and making it easier for polluters to pollute and enrich themselves. Heckuvajob. I don't know why Bush hates our country, but he's certainly letting us know how he truly feels in his final days in office.
• Obama and Joe Biden are heading to Philly next week for a National Governors Association-sponsored event where the president-elect and vice president-elect will meet with governors from both parties and address the effect the economic crisis is having on state budgets. The Wall Street Journal notes that Sarah Palin and Obama will meet for the first time at the event.
• The Minnesota state Canvassing Board has denied a request by the Franken campaign that rejected absentee ballots be included in the recount, even as Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has expressed concern over the sheer volume of challenged ballots by both candidates.
• Sam takes a look at the internal politics of filling Barack Obama's Senate seat in Illinois and navigating the Daley machine.
  
• This weird op-ed in The Washington Post that argues Bill Clinton should take Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. John Quincy Adams went to Congress with lasting effect after losing his presidential reelection bid, the authors insist, so, ipso facto, Clinton could have the same success! It's airtight!
• I hope Newt Gingrich isn't just jerking me around about a 2012 presidential run.
  
• This conservative obsession with the supposed dominance of "The Historic Victimhood Narrative" in public schools (and rewriting history) is both bizarre and morbidly compelling. Yglesias is similarly fascinated, but puts our chosen national heroes in the proper historical context: "Similarly, the much-bemoaned-by-rightwingers greater attention given in recent decades to the contributions of women and ethnic minority groups is about trying to expand the circle of people who feel invested in the national narrative."

--Mori Dinauer

The New York Times is reporting that Mumbai was rocked by a series of terror attacks coordinated over a space of several hours:

NEW DELHI — Coordinated terror attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, Wednesday evening, targeting at least two five-star hotels, the city’s largest commuter train station, a historic movie theater and a hospital.

The state’s highest ranking police official, A.N. Roy, said the attackers, armed with machine guns and grenades, opened fire and disappeared. Local television reported a death toll of 18 at 1 a.m., local time, but some reports estimated the number of deaths to be higher.

No one has claimed responsibility yet, but recently militant groups located in Pakistan have staged attacks in India. Tensions between the two countries have serious implication for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, which has basically been the site of a proxy war between the two nations. Both Pakistan and India are concerned about the consequences of sharing a border with another hostile power. The death toll from the attacks seems to be increasing, with 58 dead according to a report cited from the Agence France-Presse.

--A. Serwer

The results of former South African President Thabo Mbeki's AIDS denialism have been nothing short of devastating to South African citizens, resulting in hundreds of thousands avoiding the kind of treatment that could have kept them alive longer or prevented mothers from passing HIV onto their children:

A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.

The Harvard study concluded that the policies grew out of President Thabo Mbeki’s denial of the well-established scientific consensus about the viral cause of AIDS and the essential role of antiretroviral drugs in treating it.

It's hard to figure out whether to be angry or despondent over something like this, especially since it was only two months ago that Mbeki's health minister, who recommended "garlic, lemon juice and beetroot" as treatments for AIDS, was fired. Mbeki claims that, despite overwhelming scientific proof, the HIV Virus does not cause AIDS. Mbeki's designated successor, Jacob Zuma, appears to accept reality, although he's made some questionable comments himself in the past, suggesting that taking a shower after sex reduces the chances of catching the virus (it doesn't).

In this country though, we have another strain of AIDS denialism exemplified by Dennis Prager. This denialism holds that AIDS is a "gay" problem, and so heterosexuals don't have to worry about it. Prager explains that science, like "the media," is subject to a pervasive liberal bias:

Even the natural sciences are increasingly subject to being rendered a means to a “progressive” end. There was the pseudo-threat of heterosexual AIDS in America -- science manipulated in order to de-stigmatize AIDS as primarily a gay man’s disease and to increase funding for AIDS research.

According to the CDC, nearly a third of HIV/AIDS cases diagnosed in 2006 were from high risk heterosexual contact. That is not, by any definition, a "pseudo-threat." The CDC also specifically lists "homophobia" as one of the obstacles to AIDS prevention, and it's easy to see why. If, like Prager, you believe AIDS is something that happens to gay people, then you're more likely to engage in reckless sexual behavior if you're not gay, because, after all, it can't happen to you! It's also easy to see how this kind of thing could result in a denial of one's status and refusal to seek treatment.

As Jesse Taylor pointed out, the desperate need to contradict whatever "liberals" say defies all sense of self-preservation:

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the explanation for every single thing movement conservatives haven’t liked since Reagan. Global warming? Check. Evolution? Check. Labor unions? Check. Underage sex not causing your junk to wither off and die? Check. The Constitution? Check.

-- A. Serwer

Rep. Luis Gutierrez said yesterday that he was asked by Gov. Blagojevich if he'd like to be appointed to Obama's Senate seat, but declined because the governor wanted someone who would run for reelection in 2010. If that's true, it probably rules out Emil Jones as a candidate. Valerie Jarett also seems to have taken herself out of contention. It also probably means Jesse Jackson Jr. has a better shot at the seat than I might have thought. That's because, if Blagojevich did want to pick Guttierrez, it suggests he's looking to shore up support among non-white Democrats for a reelection bid -- support he certainly would need given his abysmal approval ratings (and there aren't any other plausible Latino picks that I know of). For more on the other potential picks, see Adam Doster's piece on the main site.

On an related note, Guttierrez's willingness to serve for two years but no longer is curious, until you consider that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is up for reelection in 2011. Gutierrez, who is only 54, was, along with Jackson, thought to be a potential mayoral candidate the last time around (2007), but declined to run. If Gutierrez is turning down a seat in the Senate, that seems like pretty good evidence to me that he has already made up his mind to run next time around. A serious challenger would have to make a decision relatively soon given how many candidates for city council he or she would need to recruit. The city council's 50 aldermen currently support Daley almost unanimously, and so, in order to govern effectively, a mayoral candidate would need to recruit and help fund a slate of candidates to run with him. Otherwise, Daley allies would do their best to destroy the new mayor -- even if Daley lost, the Daley machine would remain enormously powerful. Harold Washington, for example, had famously epic fights with the city council.

--Sam Boyd

At Slate, Melinda Henneberger worries that Barack Obama and national Democrats will lose the support of Catholics if they move quickly to pass the Freedom of Choice Act. Catholic hospitals, many of which are located in underserved areas, shouldn't be forced to perform abortions, Henneberger writes, because most of them would rather go out of business. That's a fair enough position to take, and yet there is no evidence that FOCA, as currently written, would do that. The law would simply enshrine Roe v. Wade legislatively, and could coexist with "conscience clauses." Check out Emily Douglas' reporting at RH Reality Check:

Would FOCA do as Hennenberger says - force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions?

Unequivocally no, says Jill Morrison, senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center. Federal conscience clause law, such as the Church Amendment, states that simply receiving public funding does not turn a hospital into a "state actor," Morrison explains. "FOCA must be read consistently with existing federal law, unless the new law explicitly provides that it is intended to repeal existing law."

What's more, there is no evidence that lay Catholics are as incensed about Obama's pro-choice stance as the all-male priesthood and church leadership is. Polls show that, like most Americans, a majority of Catholics believe abortion should remain generally legal. Only about a quarter of Catholics agree with the bishops that all abortions should be outlawed. And 52 percent of Catholic women -- the voters who swung from George W. Bush to Obama -- say they prefer a hospital that provides abortion to one that doesn't.

I think Henneberger has overstated the potential political fall-out of Obama signing FOCA into law. Undoubtedly, religious conservatives and hardened abortion opponents will be outraged. But those aren't the folks who brought Obama to power, and they aren't the folks who'll keep him there if he wins reelection in four years. The only other thing I'd add is that controversy over Catholic hospitals isn't limited to their refusal to perform abortions, which I actually believe is legitimate. Many also do not provide emergency contraception, even to rape victims. Imagine being raped, arriving at the local hospital, and then being told you'll have to go elsewhere if you want pregnancy prevention to be part of your treatment.

--Dana Goldstein

A messy Politico article on the challenge that Russia presents to the Obama administration includes this delightful selection:

But Medvedev's first, hostile move may actually have backed Obama into a corner on the missile system, which is set to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic, said Gary Schmitt, a Russia scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who said he's concerned Russia will take advantage of Obama if he backs away from supporting the system.

"If you decide you're going to pull out of [the missile defense] agreement in any fashion, it won't be seen for policy reasons, it will be seen as a sign of backing down from Moscow," he said. "What's going to matter is how Moscow reads that."

Yes, policy reasons don't matter. The only thing that matters is getting into a pissing contest with Russia. That's how we won, um, the Iraq war? Wait, has that strategy ever been successful? But indeed the initial negative Russian response has blown over and it's likely there will be some positive ground to make up through work on other issues like Iran's nuclear weapons program.

One other great thing about this article: "Obama enters office signaling that he will continue the policies of President Bush's late second term in Iraq." No, he doesn't. Indeed, he's entering promising to withdraw from Iraq within something like16 months, a choice the current president vehemently opposes. If there are any similarities between Obama's policies and Bush's, it will only be because actors like the Iraqi government forced Bush into certain deals, like the Status of Forces Agreement, in part because of signals received from Obama.

--Tim Fernholz

Apparently, the central strategy of the Obama transition team is to simply continue having press conferences dribbling out economic appointees and watching the markets bounce. He's either going to be hitting Dow 36,000 in two weeks with the Deputy Assistant Undersecretary of the Treasury or make a gaffe that ends in post-depression dystopia. Well, actually, he's going to announce his national security team after the holidays, but a man can dream, right?

More seriously, I had been feeling a little sorry for Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama's earliest and most impressive economic advisers, Canada-related gaffes not withstanding. He hadn't yet landed any of the high-profile economic advisory positions that many expected him to step into. Today, we learn that he's getting a whole council! Sort of. The president-elect announced the creation of a President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which will be chaired by former Fed Chair Paul Volcker and have Goolsbee as it's staff director and Chief Economist. Goolsbee will also be one of Obama's three nominees to the Council of Economic Advisers. Volcker, who is 81, will likely present the public face of the council while Goolsbee handles the heavy lifting.

Why a new council? Cue the president-elect's remarks...

[T]his Board is modeled on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board created by President Eisenhower to provide rigorous analysis and vigorous oversight of our intelligence community by individuals outside of government – individuals who would be candid and unsparing in their assessment. This new board will perform a similar function for my Administration as we formulate our economic policy.

The Board will be composed of distinguished individuals from diverse backgrounds outside of government – from business, labor, academia and other areas – who will bring to bear their wisdom and expertise on the formulation, implementation and evaluation of my Administration’s economic recovery plan. The Board will report regularly to me, Vice President-Elect Biden and our economic team as we seek to jump-start economic growth, create jobs, raise wages, address our housing crisis and stabilize our financial markets.

The reality is that sometimes policymaking in Washington can become too insular. The walls of the echo chamber can sometimes keep out fresh voices and new ways of thinking – and those who serve in Washington don’t always have a ground-level sense of which programs and policies are working for people, and which aren’t. This board will provide that perspective to me and my Administration, with an infusion of ideas from across the country and from all sectors of our economy – input that will be informed by members’ first-hand observations of how our efforts are impacting the daily lives of our families.

I'm skeptical of the need for another advisory council within the White House, especially one that already has a policy-coordinating council (Larry Summer's National Economics Council) and an advisory economics council (Christina Romer's Council of Economic Advisors). On the other hand, getting more intelligent people involved in the policy conversation is on balance a good idea. But I've also understood that the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board as kind of a late-career holding pen for officials in need of a little perk. For instance, did you know Iraq war opponent Brent Scowcroft chaired the board during the launch of the Iraq war, or that the current occupant is someone named Stephen Friedman? So if this new institution is modeled on the current FIAB, I hope it's given some more teeth.

--Tim Fernholz

Spencer takes a look at five sub-cabinet positions that will exercise important influence on the Obama administration's foreign policy. From the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities to the director for the Middle East on the National Security Council, these are the people who will have great behind-the-scenes influences on foreign policy decision making. Consider the position of ambassador to Iraq, the on-the-ground manager for the political process that will underlie the president-elect's plan to withdraw from Iraq:

[T]here isn’t a stable national or sectarian consensus about the composition of the Iraqi government. Crucial -- even existential -- questions remain about how much power should be concentrated in Baghdad; whether and how the Shiite-led government could absorb tens of thousands of the mostly-Sunni militiamen known as the Sons of Iraq, and who will govern large areas in northern Iraq claimed by both Arabs and Kurds. If that isn’t enough, the so-called Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and Iraqi governments demands that the U.S. military withdraw from cities and large towns by mid-2009 and gives the Iraqi government wide latitude over U.S. military operations.

All of which means that whomever succeeds Amb. Ryan Crocker at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad will have a task unlike any of his or her predecessors. The next ambassador has to “assess the situation accurately to let withdrawal proceed as expeditiously as possible without causing more problems than it solves,” said Daniel Serwer, a former State Dept. official who is now a scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Thanks to the SOFA, the U.S.’s strategic mission in Iraq has been recast from victory to extrication. Managing withdrawal in all its dimensions -- coordination with the military, with the Iraqi government, with the region and with the White House -- has to be job No. 1.

“There are so many different directions this person need be superb in,” Serwer said. “Handling the military, assessing the situation in Iraq and developing good rapport with the Iraqis, see[ing] around the next corner if things are going off the rails. It’s a tremendous challenge.”

That’s especially true if the Obama administration tries to broker a pan-sectarian compact for a post-U.S. Iraq. If that’s the case, the next ambassador might look like an imperial viceroy — even as the U.S. exits the country.

Go read the whole thing.

-- Tim Fernholz

P.S. Daniel Serwer? Where have I heard that last name before ...

Brentin Mock talks to the Rev. Lennox Yearwood about race, the environment, and politics:

You presented at this year's Green Festivals. Did you expect many from the hip-hop generation to be there?

I expected to see some people from the hip-hop generation. I don't think it's going to be the majority of the crowd. What's been disheartening is over the past four years, I would go to the immigration rallies, and there'd be all brown people there. I'd go to police-brutality rallies, and it'd be all black people. I'd go to green or environmental or climate rallies, and it'd be all white.

Matthew Yglesias explains how to repair our relationship with Europe:

What's more, though, to some pundits like Robert Kagan, Europe is defined primarily by its military weakness. But the reality is that two of the top five, and four of the top 10 military spenders in the world are in Western Europe. By the same token, two of the world's eight nuclear powers and two of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are in Europe. To be sure, these two are, in both cases, the United Kingdom and France. Still, that reflects that, aside from the United States itself, the only countries with real capacity to project military power at a distance are not erstwhile rivals like Russia and China or pseudo-menaces like Iran but are the U.K. and France. This, combined with America's historic ties to these powers, makes our position in the world secure. Plus, the sheer weight of the U.S. and the EU means that the U.S.-European relationship sets the tone for our bilateral relationships with other advanced democracies, including Japan, Canada, South Korea, and Australia

And Sarah Posner looks back at the biggest stories she has covered since the beginning of her FundamentaList column last year:

The FundamentaList launched in September 2007 with a question that would recur throughout the presidential campaign: Out of the field of GOP presidential hopefuls, whom would James Dobson endorse?

As always, subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our articles as soon as they are published.

--The Editors

Under the Bush administration, record numbers of gay and lesbian service members have been discharged due to their sexual identity, even those in crucial jobs such as translating Arabic into English. Considering the discrimination inherent to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the pressing military and intelligence needs of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, shouldn't DADT be quickly repealed by the Obama administration?

That's Andrew Sullivan's position, and I'd certainly like to believe that an immediate DADT repeal would be politically feasible. Sure, the issue was a disaster for Bill Clinton in 1993, but today's America is quite different when it comes to acceptance of homosexuality; according to one poll, 75 percent of Americans now support the rights of gays to serve in the military.

Yet tackling the issue in the midst of two wars will be delicate, and there are conflicting reports on whether the Obama team plans on delaying the repeal of DADT until 2010, as the Washington Times reported last week. Yesterday the Washington Blade, a gay and lesbian paper, reported that the transition team was downplaying the Washington Times piece and saying no decision will be made on DADT until a full defense team is in place. But even Rep. Barney Frank, who is gay, is urging caution, telling the Blade that it would be wiser to put off dealing with DADT until after the troops return from Iraq.

That may be pragmatic, but it'll be little comfort to the LGBT troops risking their lives in the field right now. Just a reminder of the many tensions that are sure to play out between the incoming administration and various progressive interest groups.

--Dana Goldstein

• We now have a price tag to go along with Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats' economic stimulus package: $500 billion over two years. Not to be outdone on the policy front, John Boehner wants to eliminate the capital gains tax, John Taylor wants to make tax-cutting a "permanent" policy, and Grover Norquist believes that "the economy is in the present state because when the Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006 you knew those tax increases were going to come in 2010." Oh, and remember that $350 billion Hank Paulson was going to leave for the incoming Obama administration? Turns out ol' Hank wants it back. Now that's some leadership!
• While most of the Republican party remains mired in supply-side fantasyland, some conservatives are at least attempting to move on. James Joyner recommends that the Right needs new public intellectuals, John Derbyshire starts up a "Secular Right" blog, and Jose Antonio Vargas profiles the efforts of Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn to build up the "rightroots."
• Hillary Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State could be barred by the Constitution's explicit ban on Senators or Representatives being appointed to civil office if that office's emoluments (salary) was increased during the Senator or Representative's time in Congress. The traditional "Saxbe fix," however, is simply to reduce the compensation for the civil office to its previous amount.
• I think Karl Rove missed his true calling as a groundbreaking stand-up comic when he decided to cash in on the pundits' talking heads circuit: "Well, at least in the White House I was in, policy won out, but you had to be aware of the political fallout of what you were going to do in order to contain it and deal with it. You bet. But to -- but first and foremost if -- the president I worked for, George W. Bush said, you know what, let’s do right, and the politics will take care of itself."
• Whatever small steps conservatives are taking to retool are hardly being replicated by libertarians, however. Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch spend 3757 words -- half of which is focused on the 1970s -- arguing that America now stands at the precipice of a new libertarian era of "hyper-individualized" freedom. Not to be a wet blanket on these utopian dreams, but aren't a lot of our public policy problems the very product of hyper-individualism?
• George Bush issued 14 pardons and commuted the sentences of two individuals yesterday, though none are controversial. Slate has a handy list of other possible contenders for the liberating power of Bush's pen.
• Freedom's Watch, the conservative advocacy group that was all bark and no bite this election season, is closing up shop after spending $30 million on television and radio ads in the general election. I tell you, they sure don't make billionaire right-wing philanthropists the way they used to.
• And finally, the Campaign Finance Institute takes a look at Barack Obama's fundraising and concludes that "After a more thorough analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), it has become clear that repeaters and large donors were even more important for Obama than we or other analysts had fully appreciated." In other words, Obama mastered the art of getting people to repeatedly open their wallets for successively bigger amounts.

--Mori Dinauer

Three new appointments for Joe Biden's office. To anyone who thinks these folks won't be important, I have two words: David Addington. To wit:

Counselor to the Vice President: Mike Donilon

Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President: Terrell McSweeny

Assistant to the Vice President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison: Evan Ryan

Donilon is a long-time political adviser to Biden and numerous other Democratic candidates; it seems his role will be providing communications and strategy suggestions to the Veep's team. McSweeny has done policy work for Biden on both the campaign trail and in the Senate, and previously worked on domestic issues for Wes Clark and Al Gore. Ryan was Hillary Clinton's scheduler in the White House and her first Senate campaign; she has since gone on to work for Biden and John Kerry as well as at the Clinton Gobal Initiative.

--Tim Fernholz

Jennifer Senior has an interesting New York feature on cities and "loneliness" -- or why new social science research shows that urban dwellers are less likely to be lonely than people living in suburban, exurban, or rural areas. Cities, Senior writes, foster friendships by allowing individuals to meet more new people and giving them more interesting activities to do. Similarly, urban living helps marriages by providing couples with new stimuli -- essentially preventing them from "falling into a rut." This is all despite that fact that far more people live alone in cities; in New York, an astounding one in three households contains just one individual.

Senior sets up her piece as a foil to Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, the 2000 book that argued Americans are more socially atomized than ever before, eschewing clubs, games, church groups, and other activities that once defined adult social life. To be sure, Putnam, a Harvard sociologist, is a pessimist, and his conceptions of social activity in Bowling Alone were limited. But Senior ignores Putnam's more recent work, which raises, I think, a much more pressing concern about urban life. In a study of 30,000 people across the country, Putnam found that Americans living in more diverse communities -- cities, in most cases -- are far more likely to have negative views of people racially and socioeconomically different from themselves. So while urban dwellers may be less lonely and have a larger social circle, they are, in many cases, distrustful of difference, and so are choosing to socialize with people much like themselves.

We saw the effects of this trend during the Democratic party, when white voters in some heavily white states, such as Iowa and Minnesota, were far more sympathetic to Barack Obama than white voters in states with larger black populations, such as Missouri and Pennsylvania. Many of those same voters turned around and voted for Obama in the general election, but the trend is disturbing nonetheless, and worthy of further study.

--Dana Goldstein