For years, advocates of climate-change legislation have struggled to find a sales pitch that will sway even the most hardened of skeptics. Polar bears, green jobs, urgent pleas to think of the grandkids … none of them have quite done the trick. But recently, a new argument has come to the fore: the national security case for cutting carbon emissions. At a hearing in October, Senate Democrats invited military leaders and strategists to speak about both the dangers of America’s oil dependency and the potential for rising temperatures to create new security threats around the globe. Dennis McGinn, a retired Navy vice admiral, conjured up a not-too-distant future in which increased drought, flooding, and crop failures ravaged areas like sub-Saharan Africa or Bangladesh, fueling violent conflict. Meanwhile, he said, the U.S. military could find itself handcuffed by its over-reliance on oil if prices start spiking. “Continuing the United States’ pattern of energy usage in a business-as-usual manner,” McGinn warned, “creates an unacceptably high threat level.”

It’s a claim that resonates far and wide. In August, a poll by the American Security Project reported that most Americans agreed that global warming could “destabilize developing countries, creating the conditions for war and a breeding ground for terrorism.” A recent survey in Arkansas--hardly a hotbed of green sentiment--found that, when the security case was placed alongside the conservative mantra that capping carbon amounts to a giant tax, people favored cutting emissions 55 percent to 37 percent. The argument has even wooed conservatives who wouldn’t be caught dead at an Earth Day rally. Republican Lindsey Graham recently explained his interest in climate legislation by arguing that global warming could “make the world even a much more dangerous place. It’s not just me saying it. A bunch of generals are saying it.” The message is so effective that Democrats are counting on it to frame the climate debate: John Kerry, who has been working the security angle in private conversations with swing senators, was made lead sponsor of the Senate cap-and-trade bill for just this reason.

But even if climate-bill backers have finally found the potent argument they’ve been searching for, that still leaves the substantive issue: To what extent is global warming a national security concern for the United States? Right now, the Pentagon, the Armed Forces, and other security experts are trying to figure out just what dire consequences a warming planet might bring. And, as it turns out, the answers are more complex than the simple sales pitch might suggest.

 

The security argument comes in a variety of strains, but perhaps the one most commonly invoked has little to do with climate change per se--it involves oil. Military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, have become increasingly alarmed about their reliance on crude, not least because fuel convoys are ripe targets for attacks. “All the military departments are looking very specifically at how they take advantage of energy efficiency and lighten the burden of what our troops need to take to the front,” says Sherri Goodman, the former deputy under secretary of defense for environmental security during the Clinton administration. Then there’s the interrelated claim that America’s gas-guzzling ways help bankroll extremism in the Middle East. While this is a powerful reason to use less oil, it also only goes partway in making the case for tackling global warming--which, after all, requires an array of additional steps like zeroing out carbon emissions from coal plants and halting deforestation.

The more compelling climate-specific fear is the possibility that severe global-warming impacts could provoke conflicts around the world. In Sudan, there’s already evidence that warmer ocean temperatures have wreaked havoc on rainfall patterns, creating drought that pushed farmers in Darfur into competition for arable land with Arab pastoralists, with bloody results. That wasn’t the primary cause of the genocide there--the Khartoum government deserves the vast share of blame--but it’s an example of how ecological changes can tip tense situations over the brink. And climate science offers ample warning that similar disruptions could unfold across the globe. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global temperature rise of two degrees Celsius or more (which is precisely what climate campaigners are hoping to avert) would likely lead to more frequent droughts and crop failures across Africa, Asia, and Latin America; batter coastal regions with flooding and stronger storm surges; and aid the spread of infectious diseases. Glaciers in the Himalayas are expected to melt rapidly in the coming decades, shriveling up a key water source that Pakistan relies on for most of its crops, possibly setting the stage for conflict over rivers in Kashmir. And military experts have warned that greater resource scarcity could cause fragile governments to topple, pointing to events like the food shortages that helped lead to the fall of governments in Ethiopia and Niger in the 1970s. As a 2007 CNA report by a panel of retired military leaders describes, such failed states are ripe for terrorist havens and can succumb to the sort of anarchic violence that leads to calls for U.S. military intervention, as occurred in Somalia in the 1990s.

<!--pagebreak-->

These dystopian forecasts can sometimes get oversold--as they did in the ’90s, when Robert Kaplan’s influential Atlantic Monthly article, “The Coming Anarchy,” roiled Washington with its sensationalist vision of one African country after another disintegrating under the stress of dwindling water supplies and eroding cropland. In the years that followed Kaplan’s piece, many academics began poking holes in his thesis, pointing out that just as many, if not more, countries prove surprisingly resilient in the face of grave environmental stresses. And, as with Darfur, resources are only one risk factor; people themselves still have to decide to go to war. “You don’t want to frame it as a deterministic thing, that it’s all going to hell in a hand-basket,” says Geoff Dabelko, who directs the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center. Still, Dabelko says, it’s understandable why the Pentagon is uneasy. “Look at Bangladesh. If sea levels rise and forty percent of the country is lost to inundation, where do those millions go? They’re going to India. Now we can say that’s not our problem, but there are two nuclear-armed states in the region. So, from the military’s perspective of risk analysis, if there’s a prospect of trouble, they’ve got to pay attention.”

Of course, whether many of these constitute a direct threat to U.S. security interests all depends on one’s view of what, exactly, U.S. security interests are--and what one thinks the military’s role in the world should be. At the moment, Pentagon planners are operating on the assumption that the military, whether it likes it or not, will be called on frequently to assist in a wide variety of climate-related crises, even ones that are primarily humanitarian in nature--as was the case in 2004 after a tsunami struck Indonesia. Yet not all experts think the implications of global warming should be defined so narrowly. “When you start talking about environmental issues this way, it brings the idea that you’re talking primarily about military solutions,” says Daniel Deudney, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins. “And, when we’re talking about climate, that’s not really where the most important actions are.”

It’s also possible that, in a few places, the security implications of climate change have been exaggerated. It’s not uncommon to see news stories hyping the notion that melting Arctic ice could create a mad scramble between the United States, Russia, Norway, and Canada for minerals and shipping lanes. Yet, as a Carnegie study of the subject found, “Overblown press coverage of Arctic security issues appears to be in inverse relationship to security realities. There are no large geopolitical fault lines, and no resource wars are anticipated.”

Likewise, for years, politicians have cautioned that ebbing water supplies could lead to an outbreak of “water wars.” But, experts point out, states have rarely gone to war over water--it’s much more common for them to cooperate and figure out ways to share resources, as with the Nile Basin Initiative in Africa. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute points out that the bigger concern should be violence within nations over water, which erupts quite frequently--in Ethiopia, between herdsmen, or in China, between local farmers wielding bombs. “More attention has been paid to those international disputes, because everyone’s worried about war,” says Gleick. “Yet those sub-national conflicts are much harder to address--and fewer resources have gone toward them.”

So framing climate change strictly as a national security problem for the United States may be an overly cramped way to think about the issue--even if it sells politically. Unchecked global warming will likely produce a lot of human misery around the world, but not all of that misery will create military threats. Then again, as retired General Gordon Sullivan wrote in the CNA report, there are also too many plausible high-risk scenarios to dismiss entirely. “We never have 100 percent certainty,” he observed. “If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.” In other words, we’d be nuts to sit back, let carbon emissions keep rising, and hope it all turns out okay.

Bradford Plumer is an assistant editor of The New Republic.

“Iguana / Alligator footage by Werner Herzog.”

This tidbit of information appears in the closing credits of Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, but it might more usefully have been conveyed in the opening titles, if only to give audiences a better idea of what’s in store. Though it borrows the first half of its name from Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film, and likewise tells the story of an out-of-control, drug-addicted cop, the movie is neither a remake nor sequel; it’s a Herzogian exercise of another kind altogether. (Both directors have said they would have preferred the new film not be titled Bad Lieutenant at all, but Herzog was overridden by the producers, who envision a somewhat dubious franchise boost at the box office.)

In contrast to Ferrara’s pitiless redemption parable, Herzog offers dark comedy, an exaggerated exploration of what he calls “the bliss of evil.” The movie’s first shot, of a snake slithering sinuously through fetid water, is at once a metaphor for that evil and an inside joke, tweaking its own obviousness. You have to wait until later in the film for the alligator, which watches forlornly by the side of a highway where its mate has been run over, and the iguanas, which jitter on the screen to “Please Release Me.”

And then there are the bipedal reptiles. Central among these is New Orleans policeman Terence McDonagh, played with loopy intensity by Nicolas Cage. (Is it a coincidence that he essentially shares a surname with Cage’s inept stickup man in Raising Arizona? Another inside joke?) When we first encounter Terence, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he is a dutiful cop by the undemanding standards of the Big Easy. He and his partner (Val Kilmer) have been sent to check that all the prisoners are evacuated from a prison in which the flood waters continue to rise. When they find that one has been left behind, Terence, in contrast to said partner, chooses not to let him drown. This act of minimal heroism does not go unpunished, however: In addition to ruining his $50 Swiss underpants, Terence suffers a back injury he is assured will plague him for the rest of his life. Cue the Vicodin.

Flash forward six months, and Terence has moved on to harder stuff, which is to say pretty much anything he can get his hands on, whether through property-room larcenies or the shaking down of coke-addled clubbers. (Though he will later self-righteously declare, “Everything I take is prescription--except for the heroin,” this is not in fact true.) Throw in mounting gambling debts thanks to a bad eye for college football, a prostitute girlfriend being menaced by the mob (Eva Mendes), and a killer crack dealer he can’t seem to bring to justice (Xzibit), and our bad lieutenant is having a very bad week.

Herzog directs the film with ironic whimsy, mixing the understated and over-the-top in equal measure. Some scenes are filmed like a horror movie, with low angles and tracking shots that follow Cage as an organ thrums menacingly; others are more openly playful. But all teeter precariously--and by design--on the fence between awesome and awful. That the film tumbles frequently into the former category and rarely into the latter is a testament to Herzog’s dexterity: Making a bad movie this good is harder than it looks.

He is aided considerably by Cage, who mines the reservoir of repressed mania and offbeat charisma that made him such an interesting young actor in the 1980s and early 1990s. I would say this is his best performance since 2002’s Adaptation, if that didn’t seem like damning with faint praise: No star working today chooses his roles with such emphatic disregard for quality. Canting his shoulders at a stiff angle and pursing his lips, Cage offers a portrait of a man out of kilter physically as well as morally. And if, on occasion, he overdoes it, well, in this context overdoing it is essentially the point of doing it at all. His bad lieutenant is the twelve-vehicle pileup of human car wrecks, an invitation to cinematic rubberneckers everywhere.

Christopher Orr is a senior editor of The New Republic.

The absence of Barack Obama from Berlin on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall may be explained in many ways, and one of the explanations may be his view of the world. He is kein Berliner. No, he is not soft on communism, not least because there is no longer any communism, at least of the classical kind, to be soft on. In the video message that was broadcast to the commemoration--it allowed him once again to have the stage to himself, and to describe his own election as a climactic event in “human destiny”--Obama spoke all the right words for all the right sentiments. But his portrait of the Atlantic alliance was curiously passive, as if it defeated totalitarianism by example, by believing what it believes, and not also by challenging the Soviet Union, and blocking it, and deploying missiles, and supporting dissenters, in ways that many progressives found “destabilizing.” Obama declared that “the work of freedom is never finished,” which is true enough, but the urgent question is what he means by “work.” Consider an example. A few days before the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the wall in Berlin, there occurred the thirtieth anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The dictators’ commemoration of that happy day in the history of their dictatorship was ruined by rallies of democrats and dissidents. Obama’s response was to intone wanly that “the world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice.” So does “witness” count as “work”? Was the Soviet Union brought down by “witness”? We did not, on our own, bring the Soviet Union down--it collapsed, pathetically, on itself; but we assisted keenly in its collapse. Are we assisting in the mullahs’ collapse? I think not. Our Iran policy seems not to have discovered the connection between Iranian nuclearization and Iranian liberalization. The only sure solution to the former is the latter. It is no longer a fantasy to contemplate a new Iran. For this reason, American support for the democracy movement in Iran (he sounds like Bush! and he calls himself a liberal!) is not only a moral duty, it is also a strategic duty. Such support might indeed be “destabilizing,” but there is no stability in Iran anymore, there is only a vicious tyranny fighting for its life against a popular uprising that explains itself with principles that we, too, espouse. It makes sense that the man who takes no side in that fight did not make it to Berlin.

 

There are two ways of regarding the cold war. The first is to view it admiringly as a struggle between philosophies as they were embodied in states, so that the victory of the American idea over the Soviet idea was a victory of good (not innocence) over evil--a time of anxiety and grandeur, in which reason and courage defeated the most murderous political system in history and averted the greatest danger in history. The second is to view it condescendingly as a contest between two states swollen with power imposing their interests on a world that needed instead to be fed and clothed, each with its ideological excuses for its global ambitions, both on the verge of obsolescence of one sort or another--an era made mercifully archaic by globalization and hybridity and interdependence and connectivity, a low and useless era. I expect that Obama would concur with bits of both views. But his absence in Berlin makes me wonder whether a word need not be said for the pertinence of the legacy of anti-communism to the foundations of American foreign policy. Anti-communism, after all, was a doctrine of human rights. When it negotiated about nuclear weapons, it negotiated also about human rights. It was not embarrassed by the moral analysis of governments and movements, and it insisted that such an analysis has strategic implications. It preferred dissidents to regimes, even when it engaged with regimes. How can any of this be immaterial to our quandaries in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, and elsewhere? How can the totalitarians and authoritarians, religious and secular, in those crucial and hazardous regions be understood without a moral vocabulary? To be sure, a moral vocabulary may easily justify abuses; but not as easily as an amoral or an immoral one. Liberals no longer remember that anti-communism was once a glory of liberalism. The president is so busy breaking new ground in foreign policy that he may not see that the ground of his foreign policy is broken. His renunciation of idealism has brought none of the rewards of realism. Conflicts that were supposed to be transformed by his magic are immune to his magic. He has no magic. There is no magic. His trip to China, where the subject of human rights was “raised,” has shown this again. When he gets back, perhaps he will meet with the Dalai Lama, but not for the purpose of “strategic reassurance.” That blessing is reserved for Hu Jintao. It makes sense that the man who refused to meet with the Dalai Lama did not make it to Berlin.

 

If democracy had holy days, November 9 would be one of them. But on the morning of that day I awoke to find that the editors of the op-ed page of The New York Times, in their ceaseless quest for mental refreshment, had decided to correct the one-sided favorable press that 1989 has enjoyed for decades and invited a Leninist to explain the meaning of the occasion to their readers, who were hotly instructed by Slavoj Žižek not to fall for the illusion of progress, because capitalism does not provide the “life of sincerity and simplicity” that the rebels of 1989 sought, and that “socialism with a human face,” which was what they really desired, “deserves a second chance.” I ended the day watching Hillary Clinton, who represented us in Berlin, reflect for Charlie Rose on the “new walls” of our age, not “the visible of the concrete and the barbed wire,” but the “walls of ignorance and extremism,” of “oppression and impoverishment.” She was not wrong, but she was vaporous. Some of the ills that she noted are the result of walls, but some of them are the result of the lack of walls. When she mentioned “the walls that exist in the mindsets” of suicide bombers, I recalled the undeniably hideous but undeniably life-saving wall in Israel. Sometimes the only response to a mental wall is a physical wall. Walls protect. Walls confine and walls define. Walls exclude and walls include. In one of his notebooks, Frost scribbled a little epitome of his great poem about the versatility of such hindrances:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall

Something there is that does and after all

Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic.

WASHINGTON--Normal human beings--let's call them real Americans--cannot understand why, 10 months after President Obama's inauguration, Congress is still tied down in a procedural torture chamber trying to pass the health care bill Obama promised in his campaign.

Last year, the voters gave him the largest popular vote margin won by a presidential candidate in 20 years. They gave Democrats their largest Senate majority since 1976 and their largest House majority since 1992.

Obama didn't just offer bromides about hope and change. He made quite specific pledges. You'd think that the newly empowered Democrats would want to deliver quickly.

But what do real Americans see? On health care, they read about this or that Democratic senator prepared to bring action to a screeching halt out of displeasure with some aspect of the proposal. They first hear that a bill will pass by Thanksgiving, and then learn it might not get a final vote until after the New Year.

Is it any wonder that Congress has miserable approval ratings? Is it surprising that independents, who want their government to solve a few problems, are becoming impatient with the current majority?

Democrats in the Senate--the House is not the problem--need to have a long chat with themselves and decide whether they want to engage in an act of collective suicide.

But it's also time to start paying attention to how Republicans, with Machiavellian brilliance, have hit upon what might be called the Beltway-at-Rush-Hour Strategy, aimed at snarling legislative traffic to a standstill so Democrats have no hope of reaching the next exit.

We know what happens when drivers just sit there when they're supposed to be moving. They get grumpy, irascible and start turning on each other, which is exactly what Democrats are doing now.

Republicans know one other thing: Practically nobody is noticing their delay-to-kill strategy. Who wants to discuss legislative procedure when there's so much fun and profit in psychoanalyzing Sarah Palin?

<!--pagebreak-->

Yet there was a small break in the Curtain of Obstruction this week when Republican senators unashamedly ate every word they had spoken when George W. Bush was in power about the horrors of filibustering nominees for federal judgeships. On Tuesday, a majority of Republicans tried to block a vote on the appointment of David F. Hamilton, a rather moderate jurist, to a federal appeals court.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama explained the GOP's about-face by saying: "I think the rules have changed."

That was actually a helpful comment, because the Republicans have changed the rules on Senate action up and down the line. Hamilton's case is just the one instance that finally got a little play.

Thankfully, this filibuster failed because some Republicans were embarrassed by it. But Republican delaying tactics have made Obama far too wary about judicial nominations for fear of controversy. He is well behind his predecessor in filling vacancies, a shameful capitulation to obstruction. There's also the fact that the nomination of Christopher Schroeder as head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, which helps to vet judges, is snarled--guess where?--in the Senate.

Republicans are using the filibuster to stall action even on bills that most of them support. Remember: The rule is to keep Democrats from ever reaching the exit.

As of last Monday, the Senate majority had filed 58 cloture motions requiring 32 recorded votes. One of the more outrageous cases involved an extension in unemployment benefits, a no-brainer in light of the dismal economy. The bill ultimately cleared the Senate earlier this month by 98-0--yes, that is a zero.

The vote came only after the Republicans launched three filibusters against the bill and also tried to lard it with unrelated amendments, delaying passage by nearly a month. And you wonder why it's so hard to pass health care?

Defenders of the Senate always say the Founders envisioned it as a deliberative body that would cool the passions of the House. But Sessions unintentionally blew the whistle on how what's happening now has nothing to do with the Founders' design.

The rules have changed. The extra-constitutional filibuster is being used by the minority, with extraordinary success, to make the majority look foolish, ineffectual and incompetent. By using Republican obstructionism as a vehicle for forcing through their own narrow agendas, supposedly moderate Democratic senators will only make themselves complicit in this humiliation.

E.J. Dionne, Jr. is the author of the recently published Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. He is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University.

E.J. Dionne's e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.

(c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

Click here to read Steven A. Cook on why we should expect the Palestinians to launch a third intifada.

Israeli officials and experts were initially reacting to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's promise not to seek re-election in one of three ways: They believed him and didn’t really care; they believed him and worried about the possible vacuum following his disappearance from the political scene; or they didn’t believe him. Last week, the third option seemed to be the most common read in Jerusalem. Abbas is bluffing, the reasoning goes, in the hope of getting more sympathy from the international community, making Israel more prone to concessions, and forcing a nervous American administration to pressure Israel some more.

Despite contentions that his "decision is not for negotiation or maneuver," there were numerous signs that is precisely what he is doing. Abbas hasn’t said he is going to resign his role as chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization or as the head of the Fatah movement. If he keeps these positions for himself, the position of president becomes of less importance--even in the case that someone else gets it. And since Palestinian elections aren't likely to happen any time soon, Abbas doesn't have to be "re-elected" to stay in charge. It’s revealing that Fatah is not even looking for substitutes yet. "We won't search for replacements for President Abbas," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said last week.

But recent days’ events have caused some Israelis observers to scratch their heads. Can he seriously mean it? With every passing day, with every added combative statement, with every blow to his stated goal--not even Europe agreed to endorse the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state--they’ve realized that if Abbas didn’t initially mean it, he might be reaching a point where there’s no turning back.

Abbas has certainly succeeded in attracting sympathy. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Palestinian cities calling him to stay, as have dignitaries such as Quartet Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair and Israeli President Shimon Peres. Such pleas don’t come because Abbas is such a brilliant leader, but because of fear of the expected void in the unlikely case he really goes. It’s a serious concern: The collapse of the Palestinian Authority would definitely pose a problem to Israel and the international community.

But Abbas’s promise not to run is unlikely to solve his underlying challenges--and he largely has himself to blame. While the Americans and Israelis were finally reaching an agreement on a partial settlement freeze at the trilateral meeting this past September in New York, Abbas refused to admit that a total freeze was no longer a viable option. He continued his intransigence in a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton two weeks ago in Abu Dhabi. And this past Wednesday, in a public appearance marking the five years that have passed since the death of Yasser Arafat, Abbas vowed, yet again, that he will not go back to negotiating with Israel "without a full cessation of settlement construction, including Jerusalem and natural growth."

That is one tall tree he has climbed. Abbas is now committed to a stance that cannot be acceptable to an American administration that prides itself on engagement with friend and foe, and dialogue without preconditions. If Obama is willing to negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, how can Abbas get away with refusing to talk to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu? On the other hand, with every bombastic statement, Abbas seems to be limiting his domestic options. How can he go back to negotiations while saving face with his own people after repeatedly promising not to do so unless Israel freezes all settlement construction?

He can't--and the frustrated Obama administration has finally realized that the negotiations are unlikely to happen any time soon. Netanyahu, quick to sense the changing mood in the Obama administration, has turned to an old Israeli trick: When Palestinians stumble, rekindle negotiations with Syria. Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin did the same thing in the early '90s, as he was "not averse to the notion of playing Syria and the Palestinians against each other," as Efraim Inbar explained in his book on Rabin and Israel's national security. Now Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak--another master of zigzagging between the two tracks--are playing the same game, with rumblings emerging over the past few days from the supposedly deep-freezed Israeli-Syrian negotiations. 

All this presents Abbas with new challenges and few options. He can cave and return to the negotiating table--but this will weaken him domestically even more than he is now. He can try the unilateral course proposed by his prime minister, Salam Fayyad--or go even further, as some statements this past week seem to suggest--and establish a state without the benefit of Israeli-Palestinian agreements, hoping that the “world” will come around to recognizing it. Or he can disappoint all the cynics and actually quit with his tail between his legs, with very little to show, having lost Gaza to Hamas and gained nothing through negotiations.

When Abbas was first appointed in 2004, Israeli expert Danny Rubinstein described him as "the default leader, the person one dates on the rebound, a 'consolation lover' for a time after a hard separation, until true love appears." Five years later, not much has changed. And until a more nimble paramour enters the dating pool, Israel will be relegated to spinsterhood for the foreseeable future.

Shmuel Rosner, an editor and columnist based in Tel Aviv, blogs daily at Rosner’s Domain.

Exclusive: Click here to see slides from the McKinsey report. 

Ask doctors, hospitals, drugmakers, or insurers for their opinion of President Obama’s health care proposals, and you’ll likely get an earful about how reform will severely hurt their bottom line. Ask many liberals, and you’ll hear the opposite complaint: that the current incarnation of reform won’t affect these industries enough to significantly alter their behavior.

Now there’s a document that suggests both sides are wrong: The medical-care industry would need to make significant, and socially beneficial, changes in response to the bills currently moving through Congress; but such changes won’t come remotely close to destroying the industry’s profitability. Of course, reports on health care come out all the time. But this one deserves special attention--because it was prepared by the nation’s most famous consulting firm and was never meant to see the light of day.

Sometime in August, McKinsey & Company created a PowerPoint document called “Health Care Reform and Implications for Key Stakeholders: What this Could Mean for Client X.” Over the course of 44 slides full of charts and graphs, the firm examines the potential impact of reform on insurers, doctors, hospitals, and the drug industry. McKinsey tells Client X that the presentation’s purpose is to “help inform your understanding of the broader healthcare system impact and what this might mean for your key customers and Client X going forward.” After a source supplied me with the document--which is marked “confidential”--I contacted McKinsey. A spokesperson told me that “Client X” is not a particular company. Instead, he explained, the document is a broad overview of how McKinsey expects health care reform to play out. (It also appears to be a presentation that McKinsey consultants could adapt based on a client’s particular situation.)

Although legislation has evolved, McKinsey’s predictions about reform’s basic design and scope seem right on target, which is no small achievement. Remember that, in August, it seemed entirely possible Congress would pass no health care reform at all. But McKinsey identifies as the “most probable outcome” passage of a bill with somewhere between $750 billion and $1.05 trillion in federal outlays, a functional insurance exchange, a possible cap on the employer tax benefit, some cuts in reimbursements, and a severely watered-down public option. That outline describes, with uncanny precision, the bill Congress will probably pass sometime in the next two months.

But it’s the forecasts about what reform will mean afterward that matter to McKinsey’s clients. And perhaps the most surprising element of McKinsey’s analysis is its prediction that legislation really will force the medical-care industry to change its ways.

The bills moving through Congress use a number of strategies to induce such change. On the one hand, there are relatively heavy-handed efforts that would simply cut (or attempt to cut) the sheer volume of cash flowing into health care: reduced fees to insurance companies that offer private coverage to Medicare enrollees, a tax on the most expensive health insurance plans that would prod employers and individuals to buy cheaper coverage, and a dramatic strengthening of the commission that recommends changes in Medicare payments.

At the same time, the bills include more narrowly focused reforms. There would be bonuses for doctors who organize into integrated group practices, which tend to foster better care. There would be penalties for hospitals that have high rates of avoidable readmissions. And there would be funding for studies of which drugs work better than others, so that Medicare and insurers could stop paying for the less effective alternatives.

<!--pagebreak-->

McKinsey seems convinced that this entire package of reforms will influence behavior. Over and over again, it tells Client X that the world is changing. Hospitals, McKinsey says, will face “increased requirements to coordinate care across system/care continuum,” “significantly more value-conscious consumer decision-making,” and “intensified focus on performance measurement and improvement.” It has even starker warnings for the drug industry: “Big Pharma faces the largest potential revenue risk,” the document predicts. Partly that’s because of existing trends in the drug industry. But it’s also because studies of comparative effectiveness are sure to reduce the sale of drugs that don’t work as well. McKinsey suggests that the drug industry can survive and even thrive in this environment “by focusing on ‘productive’ innovation (supported by strong evidence), collaborating with payors and providers in new ways, and revamping commercial and R&D models to significantly improve effectiveness and efficiency.” 

These are precisely the sorts of changes that the architects of reform want the drug industry--and, more broadly, the entire health care sector--to make. “One generally comes away with the sense that [McKinsey] sees reform as changing incentives, first more modestly and then, potentially, in a more fundamental way in later years,” says Larry Levitt, vice president for special projects at the Kaiser Family Foundation, who reviewed the document at TNR’s request. “That’s a good sign.”

Meanwhile, McKinsey’s analysis suggests that--as long as they adjust to the new incentives--doctors, hospitals, and insurers will be just fine. While predictions carry uncertainty, McKinsey states, “it appears that providers overall (both hospitals and doctors) and payors may be largely unharmed (but with lots of variation across them).” “One comes away with the impression that this is also very manageable for the various sectors and, at least in the case of hospitals, maybe a net positive,” Levitt says.

 

To be sure, McKinsey’s recommendations track closely with the firm’s self-interest. As a consultant that sells strategic advice on how to adapt to changing markets, McKinsey wants companies to believe, on the one hand, that dramatic changes are coming--but, on the other hand, that they can still prosper if they follow McKinsey’s advice.

Still, McKinsey’s report struck me as well-reasoned, and the conclusions themselves are hardly outlandish. Moreover, everyone--from McKinsey to the Congressional Budget Office to think tanks--has biases, and no one is operating with perfect information. So I don’t think McKinsey’s conclusions can be dismissed out of hand. And if they’re right? Then it’s decent news for Client X, and better news for the rest of us.

Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor of The New Republic.

In the weeks ahead, Congress may finally provide American families with a seat at the financial regulatory table in Washington, D.C. If Congress passes the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) Act of 2009, on which the House Financial Services recently reported favorably, it will establish, for the first time, a federal agency whose sole mandate is to evaluate financial products through the lens of consumer fairness. By putting the tools to evaluate loans in the hands of borrowers, it would also give families the chance, as well as the responsibility, to protect themselves.

For years, the consumer credit market has been broken. Healthy markets depend on full information between parties to contracts, but lenders have systematically hidden the costs and risks of consumer credit products while burying a wide assortment of tricks and traps in the fine print. The result is that consumers can’t compare the costs of different products or distinguish safe lenders from risky lenders. Because the costs and risks are so well-hidden, the broken market undermines real consumer choice, inhibits consumer-oriented innovation, and leads many borrowers to over-consume credit, putting themselves--and our whole economy--at risk.

This broken credit market results largely from the fact that consumers lack the same sorts of basic safety protections that they enjoy in markets for virtually every product we touch, taste, or smell. While several federal agencies exist to regulate banks, the regulators themselves are competing for the banks’ business. Today, financial institutions can “shop” for the regulator that regulates least, picking their regulatory agency by changing their charter. When a financial institution changes its charter and leaves a regulator, it takes substantial fees with it--paying them instead to the new regulator. Not surprisingly, the regulators understand the competitive environment they face. They have been quick to race to the bottom, offering the lightest touch in order to maximize fees and budgets. Even if they ignored these pressures, the regulators have other missions that take a higher priority. Banking examiners tend to focus on things like balance sheets and capital adequacy requirements, while the Chairman of the Federal Reserve focuses on monetary policy. For both, consumer protection is far down the list of priorities.

For proof, just look at the record of the agencies over the past generation. The Federal Reserve had the power to outlaw the most egregious subprime practices, but it chose repeatedly not to enact stronger rules and not to enforce existing consumer protection laws. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has been more vigorous in its enforcement--but on the side of the banks instead of consumers. The agency worked hard to ensure that certain banks under its protective umbrella were shielded from state laws that might have averted some of the worst financial pain.

The current crisis offers a case study for the need for change.

In the years leading up to it, a huge industry thrived on a model of selling unsustainable loans to persons barely qualified, if at all, to pay the loan for a short term--typically two or three years. The business logic of the model relied on the high fees produced by serial refinancing, before the ARM “exploded” or the “Pay Option” Loan “recast.” Over the long run, serial refinancing was a losing game for the borrowers; it was staggeringly expensive, and it required perpetual increases in property value to provide the equity necessary to fund the next refinance. If the market flattened, and refinancing was impossible, the homeowners could lose everything they had invested.

As the signs of the coming crisis became clearer, federal agencies turned a blind eye to these practices. Despite calls from state attorneys general, housing experts, and academics, regulatory agencies took little interest in the ways the risks underlying these loans were repackaged and resold through mortgage-backed securities, derivatives tied to those securities, and credit default swaps of the type that ultimately swamped AIG.

At no point did regulatory agencies consider whether the harm to borrowers of highly leveraged, unsustainable loan products outweighed the benefit of short-term home ownership, nor did they ask whether refinancing was used to move people out of affordable mortgages and, eventually, out of their homes. At no point did any federal regulatory agency consider the predictable harm to our communities and their tax bases if unsustainable loans began to fail en masse, as lenders knew they would if home values leveled off. And at no point, as tricks and traps pricing became a prominent part of large banks’ revenue plans, did any regulatory agency consider how fee-gouging exacerbated the ongoing consumer debt crisis.

<!--pagebreak-->

The result of industry recklessness and regulatory failure was massive systemic risk that, once materialized, required equally massive government intervention that has cost at least a trillion dollars. While small businesses and families are left to fail when they take on unsafe risk or make bad decisions--1.5 million families and entrepreneurs will declare bankruptcy this year alone--we have been told we have no choice but to bailout the largest players in the financial sector.

One of the most important lessons from the financial crisis is that we need a regulator who will create safety baselines in the consumer credit market and bring clarity to a market loaded with tricks and traps. Clearer financial products will come from clearer rules in Washington.

The CFPA is designed to scissor through the existing consumer protection regulations, which are scattered among seven federal agencies and are as incoherent and ineffective as they are costly and cumbersome. The CFPA reported out by the U.S. House Financial Services Committee would create smart rules that would promote comprehensible, transparent products and, in turn, empower consumer choice and increase competition. This will be a welcome relief for many lenders--particularly community banks--that have been caught between the desire to offer clean products and the need to compete with the charlatans who promise lower prices, then boost their profits with consumer traps.

Of course, a market that allows for real competition drives price closer to the marginal cost of production and won’t be so profitable for some lenders. They want to hang on to their current business model. So, lobbyists have vowed to kill the agency and to make sure it never gets out of Congress. Others are furiously working to get exemptions and to dilute the agency’s overall effectiveness. According to Common Cause, banks, financial houses, and credit card companies pumped approximately $42 million into their lobbying efforts over the first six months of 2009 so that they can continue business as usual.

While the CFPA bill that emerged from the U.S. House Financial Services Committee is strong and has the potential to put an end to the Wild West era of consumer lending, the industry has already won some key concessions. A recent amendment weakened the ability of states to create rules that would go beyond the federal standards to protect their local citizens. This amendment grants discretion to the OCC to preempt state standards on a case-by-case basis when it determines that a state law prevents or significantly interferes with the business of a national bank. While this marks an improvement over current law, it is not as strong as the original CFPA proposal. Yes, compromise is the hallmark of the legislative process; however, states need plenty of room to maneuver to protect their own citizens.

States are important leaders in combating unfair and deceptive practices. Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, and North Carolina took the initiative to protect consumers and to go after predatory lenders well before the federal government intervened. Allowing states to participate meaningfully in rule-writing and enforcement efforts can lead to early detection of fraudulent practices, swift action to stop violators of the law, and the promotion of honest competition.The states can be a resource and a partner in protecting consumers, which is why the large financial institutions want them leashed.

Lobbyists have also succeeded at winning an ill-conceived exemption for auto dealers that originate consumer auto loans. The amendment would protect the ability of auto dealers to collect a fee for selling high-priced loans to customers--a practice that can cost families thousands of dollars. For moderate and lower income buyers, the high cost of these loans combined with limited other loan options makes these types of transactions ripe for predatory lending. (The abuses have been common and well-documented.) The exemption not only shields unscrupulous auto dealers from joint federal and state oversight, but it also gives those auto dealers a competitive advantage over community banks and other lenders.

We have already paid the price for lax regulation and unbridled free market decision-making: hundreds of billions of dollars in government bailouts, millions of consumers tricked into deceptive financial contracts, blighted cities and towns, and a financial crisis worse than any in our lifetimes. This price is too high. The CFPA would help make sure that we don’t repeat these mistakes in the future or ever again incur these enormous costs.

Martha Coakley is the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Elizabeth Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard University and is currently chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel.

Sarah Palin’s autobiography Going Rogue doesn’t have an index. Why? Well, I’m not exactly sure. But it sure makes finding gems in the text--such as the defense of that $150,000 clothing bill, the petty attacks on Katie Couric, and Palin-isms like “maverick” and “dang!”—a pretty tough slog. So, here’s an index. A really, really long and thorough one. Want to know where Palin celebrated one of her baby showers with her gal pals? It’s in here. Want to know how she feels about the ACLU, or Ashley Judd, or Steve Schmidt? In here, too. Want to know how many times she mentions God, or Ronald Reagan, or Tito the Builder? Yep, here. It’s worth reading the whole thing. Enjoy.

A

Abortion and right-to-life issues  2, 5-6, 115, 168-169, 172, 215-216, 277-278, 349

ACLU, as activists who insist on telling people to be offended by religious expression 28

ACORN  360

Alaska

Independent spirit of 6, 12, 13, 65-66, 136, 284

State GOP

State machine of  3

Being outside of  5, 85 110

Starting off on wrong foot with 5

Party bosses of  5, 96

Butting heads with 197

Anti-hunting groups, cluelessness of 19, 134

ANWR 196, 198, 206, 273, 274, 288

Ayers, Bill 306-307, 312

B

Baby shower at a shooting range 76

Baldwin, Alec 314-315

Baldwin, Stephen 314-315

Bartiromo, Maria  206

Bash, Dana 318

Beck, Glenn 206

Beer, first chug of  38

Biden, Joe                                    

On liking to hear himself talk 288

Sarah Palin accidentally calling him "O'Biden" 289

Should Palin call him "Joe" in the debate? 289

Showing up late to debate 296

Weirdly stretching before debate 296

Hair plugs of 297

Big Business 84

Birkenstock 48, 76

Blogs/blogging/bloggers 116, 203, 236, 237, 347, 348, 371, 378

Book banning 76-77, 237

Bono 301

Bridge to Nowhere 237

Buck, Pearl S., on freedom 180

Buckley, William F. 219 

Bush, Laura 135 189

C

Cap and trade, as "environmentalist Ponzi scheme" 391

"Captive," of McCain campaign 261

"Caribou Barbie" 314

Caribou lasagna 218

Carter, Jimmy

Humiliation of America 45-46

CBS, exclusion of in post-resignation interviews 380

"Change," on originating campaign slogan before Obama 114, 225

"Cleavage Czar" 354

Clinton, Bill 286-287

Clinton, Hillary, Palin's non-accusations about whining of  287

Clothes

Disinterest in fancy types of 37, 205, 229

Liking of Ann Taylor suits 221

McCain campaign's giving of to Palin, without her request 226, 245, 314

Unnecessary New York stylists hired to handle 230, 231, 314, 315

Assumption of Palin that items were paid for by McCain campaign 230, 231

Stylists of, as distraction from Palin's opportunities to study foreign policy 232

"Fuss over" as "colossal waste of time" 232

Controversy over $150,000 spent on 314-317, 343-349

CNN 318, 369

Coincidences, disbelief in 44, 330

College

Studying political science and journalism in 3, 45

Taking first semester off of to "thaw out"  42

Going to Hawaii for 42

Transferring to Idaho for 42

Media's mean handling of her career in 44-45

"Commonsense Conservative" 384, 385, 400

Coulter, Ann  288

Couric, Katie

Question about reading news  207

Lack of knowledge about energy issues 207, 273

New York stylists of 230, 315

Setting up interview with 255, 256

Low self-esteem of 256

As "lowest rated news anchor in network television" 270

Friendship with Nicolle Wallace 272

Interview with 271-279

                  Palin's lack of prep for, because of McCain campaign 271

                  Unfair editing of 272-275, 279

Agenda of 273-276

"Heavy dose of condescension" during 276

12 questions about abortion from 277 278

Niceness to Joe Biden 278

Lack of national pride 279

Comments of, regarding clothing controversy 315

Creationism, belief in 217 218, 392

Crist, Charlie 326

Current events, her closely following them 25, 26, 45, 46, 47, 48, 58, 59

D

"Dang" 74, 184, 282, 296, 352, 401

Davis, Rick 284

Debate preparation

Mean people in awful early stages of 279-283

McCain campaign's demanding of "nonanswers" for 281-283

Conflict with Schmidt during 284-285

Prep in Arizona 286-292

Democrats, historical failures of 364

Destiny and miracles, belief in 47, 122, 330, 331

"Different," as first "big word" 15

Ditka, Mike 301

Diva 315, 320

Dolce & Gabbana 316

"Drill, baby, drill!" 105, 243, 273, 310

Drilling 2, 44, 105, 196, 197, 206, 243, 273, 288, 310, 362

Duvall, Robert 300

E

"East Coast", as semi-derogatory descriptor of people 229, 374

Election-night speech, which McCain campaign wouldn't let Palin give 332, 334

Elite/elitist 171, 181, 232

Emanuel, Rahm 368

Ethics complaints, frivolous 342-343, 353-356, 363-368, 373-374, 377

Evolution, as "politically correct" stance 219

F

Feminism

Early radical mantras of 29

Skewed views on liberation of 29-30

Hypocritical followers of 352

Ferraro, Geraldine 43, 295

Fey, Tina 293, 308, 309, 310, 315, 325

FOIA requests, frivolous 353, 372, 377

Fox News 255, 298, 343, 355

“From the heart” 41, 240

G

Gibson, Charles                 

Lack of interest in "substantive issues" 270

As "grumpy" 271

Gingrich, Newt 364, 367

Giuliani, Rudy 350

Glass ceiling 295

God 1,6,15,20,22,23, 51, 52, 57, 30, 33, 34, 35, 56, 83, 103, 104, 121, 123, 133, 144, 169, 170, 173, 175, 176, 177, 188, 185, 186, 187, 193, 195, 208, 217, 218, 233, 238, 243, 244, 261, 272, 286, 294, 322, 323, 331, 337

"Going rogue" 209, 298, 317, 359, 403 

Good deeds of Sarah Palin 1-403

Gossip and rumors, dislike of 74-75

Graham, Lindsey 301

Grammer, Kelsey 303

H 

Hasselbeck, Elisabeth 215, 316

"Headquarters,” as mysterious place in McCain campaign that caused Palin problems 261, 285, 299, 309, 324, 331, 335

Hockey 29, 58, 83, 121, 130, 163 ,166, 167, 169, 243

Hockey mom 243, 262

Hollywood liberals 134, 300

Holtz, Lou

On God 1

On team-building 79

"Holy geez!" 171

I

Ifill, Gwen 281, 294, 297-298

International experience

Trips overseas 165-166

Palin's as greater than Barack Obama's 228, 229

Iraq war

Palin's informed perspective on 214

Media's skewing of Palin's informed perspective on 238

J

Joe the Plumber 304-307, 401

Joe Six-Pack 299, 315

Johnston, Levi N/A

Judd, Ashley, as “pretty, perky celeb” who unfairly opposed hunting of wolves 134

Judd, Naomi 301 

K

Kerry, John, as "elitist loon" 181

Kick butt/ass 67, 111, 127

Kid Rock 300

King, Martin Luther King, Jr., on passionate action 86

Kissinger, Henry 286

Kristol, Bill 135

Kudlow, Larry 206, 257

L

Letterman, David 351

Lieberman, Joe 285-286, 301

Lies told about Sarah Palin 74-75, 77, 79, 95, 102, 148, 202-204, 215, 232, 236-239, 246-247, 272-275, 289, 314, 318-320, 338, 343, 346-348, 350-352, 365-366, 378, 380

Lies told by Sarah Palin N/A

“The Little Guy” 84

Lobbyists, refusal to “hang with” 137                 

Lombardi, Vince, on winning 333

Lower 48 14, 16, 17, 42, 93, 125, 169, 207, 208, 274, 332, 346, 349

M

Main Street 84

Mama Bear/Grizzly, self-description as 71 182

Marx, Karl 84

Matalin, Mary 381

Maverick 90, 252, 299

McCain, Cindy 209-210, 221-222, 286, 290, 337

McCain, John

Phone call from 6, 208

Meeting 210

As POW 210, 225, 240, 244, 245

Boldness/independence of 210, 223, 228

American hero 225, 252, 269

As "maverick" 252

Suspension of campaign, as "odd strategic choice" 269, 270

Meat

Love of 18, 133, 134

Alaskan sayings about 18, 19, 134

Explaining value of to silly vegans 133

Media

Fear that it would misinterpret her words 39

Unnecessary searching for “dirt under” candidates’ “fingernails” 112

Disinterest in Alaska energy news 204-205

As friends of Obama 215, 270, 287

As 90 percent liberal 270

Outlets of, that Palin wanted to talk to 255, 256

McCain campaign's refusal to let Palin meet with 253-258

McCain campaign's lack of preparedness for, when it came to questions about Palin 236

Unkindness, ineptitude toward Palin 215, 232, 236-238, 270-271, 280, 314, 316-318, 338-339, 343-348, 351,353, 359, 371, 378, 399

Unfair attacks on Joe the Plumber 305-306

As "buffoons" 378

Melville, Herman 118

Miller, Dennis 303

Miss America Scholarship Pageant

Initial skepticism of 42

Fear of swimsuit portion of 42

Comparing “butts” in 43

Winning every segment in local portion of 43

Runner-up in Miss Alaska portion of 43

Question about female vice-presidents in 43

Monegan, Walt 139, 201-204, 215, 246, 368, 369

Moose

Hunting of 16, 31

Love of eating 18

Sightings of 20, 113, 188

Dressing of 31

Holding eyeballs of 32

Chili 133

Antlers of 300

In SNL sketch 309 311

Morris, Dick 135

Murkowski, Frank 5, 81, 82, 84, 89, 90, 95, 96

Murkowski, Lisa                 

Nepotistic appointment of 94

Being mistaken for 190

N

National Review 305

National Rifle Association 133

Neiman Marcus 230

New York Times 277, 281, 306, 324,                 

O

Obama, Barack

As "not saying much in his speeches" 227

Lack of international experience 228 229

Lack of administrative experience 229

"Styrofoam Greek columns" of 243

Rallies of, whose size was comparable to those of Sarah Palin 266

Radical associations of 359

As cause of rising deficit 388

Obama, Michelle 269, 372

"Ordinary"/good/regular/hard-working/sincere/patriotic people 62, 81, 84, 68, 108, 111, 114, 129, 140, 155, 220, 221, 225, 242, 248-249, 279, 302-305, 307, 336, 345, 401

P

Pain, as necessary to achieve goals 17, 30, 41, 375

Paine, Thomas, on giving children future peace 146

Palin, Bristol

Potential origins of name 57

Pregnancy

Telling parents about 207, 208

McCain campaign's knowledge of, before Sarah Palin's selection 214, 233

Media finding out about 233, 234

McCain campaign's skewing of Sarah Palin's statement about 234, 235

Countering accusations of being a hypocrite about 373

Palin, Piper

As Right to Life poster child 2

As half the size of state-fair-winning cabbage 17

Palin, Track

Wishing his name was normal 53

Palin, Todd

God's deliverance of 34

"Steel core of" 36

Cussing, chewing, not-going-to-church ways of 37

As Iron Dog champion 187 188 189

“First dude" nickname of 135 194

Accusations of being "Shadow Governor" 136, 367

False rumors about divorce from 352

Sexiness of 352

"Palling around with terrorists" 306

People or groups who have been mean to/spread rumors about/slighted/insulted/otherwise annoyed Sarah Palin

Wasilla "good ol' boys" 71-72

Nick Carney 73

Nick Carney's wife 77

Wasilla police chief 73-74, 79

People who thought Palin's daughter was smoking pot, when in reality it was the old mayor's daughter74-75

Anne Kilkenny

                  As "Birkenstock-and-granola Berkeley grad" 76

                  As "town crier" 117

                  As "town crank" 236

Wasilla librarian 77

Wasilla city employees 72

Mayor's secretary 90

John Stein 79-80 236 237

Opponent in the lieutenant. governor's race 83-84, 72-73

Governor Frank Murkowski 91-93, 98

GOP operatives 98

State Democrats 98

Hollis French 100, 201. 369

Walt Monegan 201

Big Oil 158 159 164 196

State senate president 182 183 184

Hypothetical critics of fifth pregnancy 171

First legislative director 152

State lawmakers who didn’t like her new rules as governor 152, 154

Gubernatorial debate moderator 116

Andrew Halcro 117, 203, 236

"Maniacal blogger" 236

Andree McLeod 117, 236, 353, 354, 367

Alaska media 118, 183, 342, 367

McCain campaign 229, 234-236, 253-255, 256-257, 261, 268-269, 280-285, 293, 298, 307, 309, 316-319, 328, 331, 334-339, 343, 363

                  Steve Schmidt 235, 253, 264-265, 284-285, 318, 320-321

                  Nicolle Wallace 277, 316, 339

                  Mark Wallace 281, 283, 339

National media 215, 232, 236-238, 270-271, 280, 314, 316-318, 338-339, 343-348, 351,353, 359, 371, 378, 399

                  The Atlantic Monthly 238

                  The Huffington Post 238, 354

                  Katie Couric 271-279, 315

Obama campaign, along with media 215, 232

The Left 307

Alec Baldwin 313-314

Women's rights groups 352

Pete Rouse 369

Kim Elton 368-269

Naomi Rice Buchwald 372

Local Alaskan opposition 344, 353-356, 365-367, 373 

Pitbull with lipstick 243

Plato, on battles 24

Poehler, Amy 311

Politico 318

Politics

impatience with 2

“machines” of 3, 116

“good ol' boys” of 4, 67,71,72,85

“as-usual” system of 5, 6, 70, 109, 119, 144

fighting corruption of 5, 94, 99, 112, 119, 128, 142, 162, 163, 224, 225

skewed priorities of 18

as sport 48, 100

presidential type as "blood sport" 262

motherhood as training for 115

family as training for 145

“entrenched interests” of 108 116

"of personal destruction" 352 

Pregnancy, fifth child

Taking test for 171

Not revealing 180, 184, 191

Revealing 191-92

Labor in Texas 193-195

Guilt about not revealing 195

Lies in media about 238, 347

R

Reading and writing

Love of 15, 16, 27, 28

Op-ed contributions displaying aptitude at 206, 277

Reagan, Ronald

Great policies of 3, 46, 384, 386, 387

General awesomeness of 45-47

Self-comparison to 158

Other 59, 297, 391-394, 400

Rich, John 301 

Ruedrich, Randy 5, 94, 95, 96 237

Russia 274-275

S

Salter, Mark 213, 22, 335

Same-sex marriage, opposition to 143, 215, 216

Sarkozy, Nicholas, prank phone call 326-329

Scheunemann, Randy 228, 286, 288, 289, 290, 291, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321

Schmidt, Steve

Nickname of, "the Bullet" 212

Gruffness of 212-213, 262

Slowness to shift McCain campaign from Iraq war to economy 214-215

Knowledge that Bristol Palin was pregnant before Sarah Palin's selection as vice presidential pick 214

Telling Sarah Palin not to talk to Alaska media 252

Alliance with Nicolle Wallace 261

Insistence that Palin eat more carbs 284-285

"rotund figure" of 285

Smoking problem of 285

Insults of 318, 320-321, 328, 334

Confrontation with Schuenemann about Palin 319-320

As "pile of laundry" 335

Scully, Matthew 239-240, 243, 307, 332, 334-335

As "bunny-hugging vegan" 239

Sebelius, Kathleen, Vogue fashion shoot with 204, 205

Sex education 238-239, 371

Sexism

Of sports media 28, 29

Of sports generally 29

Of local "good ol' boys" 71

Of Wasilla city officials 72

Of Wasilla Mayor John Stein 79-80

Of Wasilla police chief 79

Of media covering presidential campaign 287

Of clothing controversy 315

Of David Letterman 351

Of women's rights groups 352

Sinise, Gary 303

SNL 26, 293, 308-314

Snow machines 18, 34, 37, 302

Specter, Arlen 301 

Sports

Passion for 27-33, 39-43, 102, 280

As reason for first child's name 43

As possible reason for second child's name 57, 76

McCain campaign's denial of time for 280

Stapleton, Meg 129, 201, 202, 203, 204, 253, 254, 363, 383, 398, 399, 400

Stone, Oliver 314

T

Tasergate 203, 247

Tea parties

Political variety of 206, 259, 362, 395

Real variety of 135, 189

Teleprompter

Failure of at GOP convention 242

Palin's success without 242

Thatcher, Margaret

On female power 287

On capitalism 360

Policies of 384

Tito the Builder 305-307, 401

Trailblazer 122

"Trig-truthers" 347

Troopergate 201, 203, 246, 368-369

Turkey decapitation incident 345

Turner, Janine 300

U

Underdog 110, 123

V

Van Susteren, Greta 355

Veganism, as questionable lifestyle choice 133, 239

Voight, John 300

W

Warren, Rick 302

Wasilla police chief

Unkindness/unfairness toward Sarah Palin 73-74, 79

Firing of 79

Wallace, Mark 227, 228 279-283, 339

Wallace, Nicolle

Meeting with 227

TV quality of 228

Hiring of New York stylists 230

Pushing for Katie Couric interview 255, 256, 272, 277

Friendship with Katie Couric 272

Palin's doubts about 256

Alliance with Steve Schmidt 261

Other 299, 316, 317, 320, 339, 347

Williams, Hank Jr. 301

Wilson, Gretchen 300

Wooden, John 105

Wooten, Mike (i.e. the trooper in Troopergate) 100-102, 202 246

Wright, Jeremiah "God Damn America" 307

Y

"You betcha" 309

“You can’t blink” 198

Seyward Darby is the assistant managing editor of The New Republic. 

Thomas Omestad covered the Velvet Revolution in Prague for the December 25, 1989, issue of TNR. Read his piece here.

The opening moments of what became known as Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution” did not feel so velvety. Nor did the outcome of those events--a largely peaceful triumph of the people over a stifling authoritarian system--seem certain. For those on the streets of Prague on the evening of Friday, November 17, 1989, it was easy to imagine a tragedy-in-the-making and perhaps a reprieve, of sorts, for a dying regime. The rosy glow of hindsight with which we remember the Velvet Revolution had not yet formed.

No, 2012 is not quite the pointless cinematic exercise that G.I. Joe was, as I noted in my review last week. But that’s no reason not to repurpose some of its more notable dialogue for an alternative literary experience:

WASHINGTON--Imagine a time when government work was exciting, widely admired, and much sought after.

It seems an outlandish thought at a moment when you cannot turn on your television without hearing government spoken of as almost an alien creature. It is cast as far removed from the lives of average Americans and more likely to destroy the achievements of private citizens than to accomplish anything worthwhile.

True, we don't apply our anti-government sentiments to at least one group of Americans who draw government paychecks: our men and women in uniform. All the polls show they are, deservedly, held in high esteem. But civilians who do the daily work of government are more likely to be referred to as "bureaucrats,” “time servers,” and various unprintable things than as public servants.

This has not always been the American way. There were important eras in our history when citizens in large numbers were drawn to government service with a sense of mission and exhilaration. The New Deal was certainly such a time and so were the days of the New Frontier and (it is unjustly derided now) the Great Society.

They came in part--take note, President Obama--because they were inspired by leaders who made it a point to call them into government. Caroline Kennedy has said that when she was growing up, “hardly a day went by when someone didn't come up to us and say: 'Your father changed my life. I went into public service because he asked me.'”

But inspiration is not enough. The military, after all, does not rely solely on patriotic feelings to build its force, and neither should the civilian parts of government. One of the most powerful incentives the military has is the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which offers assistance to those seeking higher education. It's time for a civilian ROTC.

That's the idea of a bipartisan group of Senators and House members who are proposing to create the Roosevelt Scholars program, named after Teddy Roosevelt. Reps. David Price, D-N.C., and Mike Castle, R-Del., have introduced a bill in the House, and a similar measure is expected in the Senate this week from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio.

Although there is sentiment to include undergraduates in the program, the House bill is aimed at graduate students, because the federal government has a special demand for highly qualified employees who are otherwise attracted (and heavily recruited) by the private sector. In exchange for generous scholarships in fields such as engineering, information technology, foreign languages and public health, the scholars would commit to three to five years of service in an agency of the federal government.

<!--pagebreak-->

“With the aging of the boomers and those who responded to Kennedy's call to service, we need to replenish the government work force,” says Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service.

Stier, a one-man evangelizing squad on behalf of government service, notes that the government must fill 273,000 “mission-critical” positions in the next three years. This will require vast improvements in the way government recruits and a new willingness to invest in its work force.

The military, he says, gets roughly 40 percent of its officer corps through ROTC. It makes sense to undertake a comparable investment in the civil service.

In the small and underappreciated world of those who care passionately about improving government's performance and prestige, there are competing visions of how to achieve this. One group of activists and legislators has been pushing to create a Public Service Academy, modeled after the military academies, to prepare a new generation of leaders in government.

It's a good idea and would send another powerful signal that government work is and should be valued. But with the extraordinary constraints on the federal budget, the prospects of the large investment that would be required to build a new institution are not exactly rosy. A civilian ROTC would be a good first step. The Roosevelt program has the benefit of drawing on the entire higher education system's capacity to produce specialists.

The Roosevelt program could also be an antidote to two debilitating trends in our politics. It would push back against the tendency of politicians to deride government (an odd habit, since politicians are themselves engaged in government service). And it might open the way for a bipartisan achievement at a time when such endeavors are in very short supply.

E.J. Dionne, Jr. is the author of the recently published Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. He is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University.

E.J. Dionne's e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.

(c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

When Barack Obama tapped Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state, the typical reaction came in two stages. The first was to think it was nuts. How could two blood rivals possibly make good foreign policy together? The second, a reconsideration, was to think it a stroke of genius. Secretary of state is a job that demands extreme dedication and diligence, requiring its occupant to learn the fine details of everything from the Kashmir dispute to Taiwanese independence--and to articulate U.S. policy with flawless precision. Who could be better for this task than Clinton? As a senator, after all, she had made her name as a policy wonk who actually enjoyed reading to the end of her briefing books--and one who, moreover, was known for an almost animatronic ability to stay on message. Barack Obama is said to have marveled at her relentless message discipline over two dozen Democratic primary debates. In selecting her a year ago, The New York Times reported, aides said he “recognized that Clinton had far more discipline and focus than her husband.”