Politics News

"I have no idea what he’s going to do."

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism it's just the opposite

PRESIDENT BUSH said last week of his erstwhile “friend” Vladimir Putin, “I have no idea what he’s going to do.” Mr. Bush is not alone: no one but Mr. Putin knows whether the Russian president will relinquish power next year. Still, after Mr. Putin’s announcement that he would not be averse to becoming the next prime minister, the prevailing guess is that after the March 2 presidential election Mr. Putin will head the Russian government under a new president.

Yet before the Bush administration and the leading contenders for the White House begin to design a Russia policy based on this, its plausibility has to be examined. In the light of what we know about Mr. Putin and the political and economic system he has forged, he is more likely to find a way to continue in office as President Putin.

To begin, Vladimir Putin has done the opposite of what he publicly said he would do with regard to some major policy issues. In November 2003, he declared that “the state should not really seek to destroy” Yukos — at the time Russia’s largest, most modern and most transparent private company — and then methodically did just that through a palpably fraudulent prosecution.

He has repeatedly averred that Russia needs a robust party system — and then proceeded to make participation in parliamentary elections arduous and subject to unchallenged management by an election commission that is subservient to the Kremlin. No party may hope even to get on the ballot in Russia without the Kremlin’s approval.

Yet power in Russia today grows not only from the barrel of a gun, but also from a barrel of oil. And here, too, everything has been done to ensure that the president’s administration, not the prime minister’s office, be in charge of the daily export of seven million barrels of crude oil and oil products (like fuel oil and diesel fuel). With natural gas, these fuel exports fetched $190 billion last year.

Crime Wave Forces Omaha Mayor's Hand

If good policy is good politics, what are 30 something shootings in 40 something days for a Mayor who might run for the Senate next year....well it can't possibly be helpful.

So  Mayor Mike Fahey (D-Omaha) took time Friday a to announce a series of moves aimed at shoring up the city's crime fighters.

At the top of Fahey's list a crackdown on illegal guns, especially those winding up in the hands of minors.

At the bottom: hiring more police. He won't.

His critics complain he should, but Fahey's not budging.

This is the worst spike in inner city violence during Fahey's six years in office. There was a similar though smaller spike just about a year ago.

As for that Senate race, Fahey's been saying for weeks that until Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) decides if he's running for re-election, the issue is off the table.

Kasparov Gets 5 Days in Jail for Marching

Reality is whatever refuses to go away after I stop believing in it.

Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion and opposition leader, was arrested Saturday and sentenced to five days in jail after trying to lead a march to the offices of the federal election authorities.

Mr. Kasparov was taken into custody during a scuffle between protesters and security officers on the route to the offices, where he had intended to present a letter asserting that the parliamentary election on Dec. 2 was biased toward President Vladimir V. Putin’s party.

Taken into a small bus, he gave a victory sign through the back window as he was being driven away.

On Saturday night, a Moscow judge ordered him to serve five days in jail for holding an unauthorized march. City officials had given his loose opposition coalition, Other Russia, permission to conduct a rally on Saturday, but not a march.

In a statement, Mr. Kasparov said the court proceedings had been “a choreographed farce from beginning to end.” He added, “It was a symbol of what has happened to justice and the rule of law under Putin.”

Mr. Kasparov is one of the best-known foes of Mr. Putin, but the Kremlin has isolated him by preventing him from receiving coverage on television networks. Mr. Kasparov has in turn relied on demonstrations to draw attention to his criticisms of Mr. Putin. He was arrested at a march in April, though he received only a fine, not jail time.

History: Skip Iowa at Your Own Risk

Plenty's been said about the Clinton campaign memo recommending that Senator Clinton pull out of the Iowa Caucuses. Although the memo was quickly quashed by Mrs. Clinton it made one thing crystal clear: the Clinton campaign (which is running third in the polls there) is in big trouble in Iowa.

So why not punt Iowa? One name: Al Gore.

In 1988, running against other Democrats including Richard Gephardt and Michael Dukakis (who won the nomination even after losing Iowa) Al Gore decided he wasn't going to do well in Iowa or New Hampshire. So Gore put all his time and money into that year's Super Tuesday. One problem, by ditching Iowa he took himself off the political map during a critical time, went on to do badly on Super Tuesday, and was finished.   

(By the way Gore did show up at the Des Moines Register's debate in 1988 and dropped a few choice words about Dukakis' revolving door furlough program for Massachusetts inmates, which George Bush turned into the Willie Horton ad that helped keep Dukakis out of the White House).

Learning from his mistakes, in 2000 Gore played in Iowa, beat Bill Bradley, and went on to win the nomination.

As for Senator Clinton while the bad news is she's running third in Iowa, the good news is she's running third in Iowa. Come January if she finishes second she beats the expectations and goes to New Hampshire with momentum, if she finishes first the race could be over quickly.

But if she passes on Iowa history says she's going nowhere fast.

The strange world we live in

Charles Bullock, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, said that "in much of the South, there was this tremendous transformation from a time when it was a term widely used by politicians making successful appeals to now where it is something that no politician would dare utter."

Webb's comments to the Times-Dispatch prompted Allen campaign officials to direct a reporter to Dan Cragg, a former acquaintance of Webb's, who said Webb used the word while describing his own behavior during his freshman year at the University of Southern California in the early 1960s. Webb later transferred to the U.S. Naval Academy.

Cragg, 67, who lives in Fairfax County, said on Wednesday that Webb described taking drives through the black neighborhood of Watts, where he and members of his ROTC unit used racial epithets and pointed fake guns at blacks to scare them.

"They would hop into their cars, and would go down to Watts with these buddies of his," Cragg said Webb told him. "They would take the rifles down there. They would call then [epithets], point the rifles at them, pull the triggers and then drive off laughing. One night, some guys caught them and beat . . . them. And that was the end of that."

Cragg said Webb told him the Watts story during a 1983 interview for a Vietnam veterans magazine. Cragg, who described himself as a Republican who would vote for Allen, did not include the story in his article. He provided a transcript of the interview, but the transcript does not contain the ROTC story. He said he still remembers the exchange vividly more than 20 years later.