I've got another post on stock options bubbling, based on a good discussion in my comments section. In the meantime, a few fair points:

- At first glance, I thought that the spin on this report was bullshit. Cheney didn't do anything wrong by selling his Halliburton shares. It happened to work out well for him, but that doesn't mean he did anything unethical.

I'm noticing a bit of a mini-trend to pounce on politicians who sell stocks that fall in price later on. There's nothing wrong with that. Even if the person in question was an insider, they're still allowed to sell their stock. They just have to alert the FCC in a timely manner, so that outsiders know what insiders are doing.

However, when I read closer, I realized that the shares in question were sold in August 2000, well in advance of the election, let alone assuming office. He didn't have to sell at that time in order to avoid a conflict of interest. I'm not in a hurry to pounce on this (they were his to sell, after all), but despite what you may have heard, it's not the case that Cheney was forced to sell.

Though Cheney was under pressure to sever his future financial interest in Halliburton, conflict-of-interest laws did not require the sale. "There's no conflict until I'm sworn in on January 20th," Cheney said Aug. 27. Four other Halliburton insiders also sold shares in August, including the vice chairman and the chief financial officer.

So don't you believe it.

- I noted yesterday that Bush sold his Harken stocks two months after signing a letter saying that he wouldn't sell for six months. Someone in my comments noted (UPDATE: It was PJ, from The Scrub Team) that that letter became invalid after a merger failed.

A tip of the hat to Brad DeLong for putting up with a lot of undeserved abuse in his comments section. Brad is explicitly not deleting critical comments; he just wants to maintain his page without being personally insulted or compared to Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. It's a reasonable request. Even if it wasn't a reasonable request, it's his treehouse, and he gets to set the rules.

James Lileks commented recently, "I've always thought that the phrase 'blogging will be light today' is akin to saying 'the free ice cream cones will be 27 percent smaller.' It's still free ice cream." If I was getting that kind of crap in return for the crime of putting out "free ice cream", I'd be sorely tempted to shut down the comments entirely.

The Weekly Standard's Christopher Cardwell worries that the effects of Harken could be extremely harmful to the GOP. (Link via Rod Dreher at The Corner, of all places.)

Caldwell thinks that "corporate scandals are hatching a catastrophe for Republicans. They will probably destroy this administration." He doesn't think that Bush is guilty of insider trading. I don't understand why knowing that Harken was about to tank wasn't "material information", but never mind.

What kills the President is that every time Harken comes up, Democrats get to retell the story of how he made his money. And this, basically, is the story of the spectacular unfairness with which moneymaking opportunities are lavished on the politically connected. It is the story of a man who has been rewarded for repeated failures by having money shot at him through a fire hose. It is the story of a man who talks with a straight face about having "earned" a fortune of tens of millions of dollars, without having ever done an honest day’s work in his life.

This is Christopher Caldwell. From the Weekly Standard. He then goes on to detail the remarkably uninspiring biography of George W. Bush, and concludes:

For decades now, the "small government" Republican Party has been slamming the corrupt conduct of, say, trial lawyers who just suck money out of the economy and put it in their pockets in the name of the ideal of "representing the little guy." When they talk this way, I’m all ears. But, Jesus, this is what they have to offer in its place?

He finishes by speculating about the mystery buyer of the Harken stock.

In the months after Bush came onto the Harken board, according to a 1999 Journal report, a Saudi financier named Abdullah Taha Bakhsh bought a 17 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh’s American representative Talat Othman was given a seat on the board and met with then-President Bush at the White House. And the "good news" into which now-President Bush claimed to be selling his Harken shares was an oil-exploration deal with the government of Bahrain–a total (but lucrative) flop that was arranged despite Harken’s never having done any foreign oil exploration before. In fact, the ex-president’s ne’er-do-well son appears to have been used by the Harken board as "Arab bait," much as Democrats sold the promise of photographs with Clinton family nobodies for cash from Asian businessmen. ("Rook! That’s me with Lodger Crinton!")

To be fair (if only for a moment), back in the early 1990s, Saudi Arabia was known as our unsavory but solid longtime ally against communism, not as the gang of rich fascists who spawned Al Qaeda and are now obstructing our war against it. But until the identity of the Harken purchaser is revealed, probing the issue will be a no-lose situation for the Democrats. They can ask whether George Bush’s fortune has its roots in Arab oil money. They can ask whether the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International was involved. They can ask why it was that the entire bin Laden clan was allowed to be flown out of the country in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. They won’t accuse Bush of intentionally bungling the war on terror to please the Saudis. But they may note that it was tragic that, at a time when thousands of Americans were murdered by extremists whose only ultimate means of support was oil, we had an oil man in the White House.

This isn't Eric Alterman; it's Christopher Caldwell. In politics, turning points are only apparent in the rearview mirror. But I've never seen conservatives lay into Bush's character like this.

In response, Dreher said, "When I heard my dad on the phone last night light furiously into the "cheating bastards" running these companies, I thought: God help the GOP if President Bush is credibly presented to voters as one of the corporate elite who get rich and take care of each other, while ordinary folks who trust them to play fair are left holding the bag."

testing

Andrew Sullivan has been doing some soul-searching about AIDS and the Third World. He asks,

The difficulty, of course, is that AIDS simply reflects the broader, global context: that millions live far worse lives than we do in the West and far simpler means - clean drinking water, for example - might do more to save lives than elaborate HIV regimens. So why aren't we doing that? When does our obligation to these others begin? And does a health crisis like this one change the entire equation and demand that we simply throw skepticism to the winds and do whatever we can?

I'm glad to hear it. This is the thing that frustrates me: AIDS drugs are expensive and hard to administer, and developing them is extremely resource-intensive. The developers need compensation. We should be trying hard to fight the death toll of AIDS in Africa, but conservatives are generally right when they argue against breaking patents to do it.

For pennies a day, however, we could be providing oral rehydration therapy to the millions of children who die from dysentery every year. In the last ten years, more people died of dysentery than died in World War II. Oral rehydration therapy is just some salts and sugars, mixed in water. We could deliver it without violating any patents or discouraging any drug development. I would be so happy if Sullivan used his megaphone to promote it.

I've noticed this letter popping up on a variety of weblogs. I don't know where it started, but I believe in it and am happy to reprint it. Who knows, it might do some good.

An Open Letter in Support of the People of Iran from the Weblogging Community

To show our support for the Iranian people, we each have agreed to display this letter.

We are not politicians, nor are we generals. We hold no power to dispatch diplomats to negotiate; we can send no troops to defend those who choose to risk their lives in the cause of freedom. What power we have is in our words, and in our thoughts. And it is that strength which we offer to the people of Iran on this day.

Across the diverse and often contentious world of weblogs, each of us has chosen to put aside our differences and come together today to declare our unanimity on the following simple principles:

- That the people of Iran are allies of free men and women everywhere in the world, and deserve to live under a government of their own choosing, which respects their own personal liberties.

- That the current Iranian regime has failed to create a free and prosperous society, and attempts to mask its own failures by repression and tyranny.

We do not presume to know what is best for the people of Iran; but we are firm in our conviction that the policies of the current government stand in the way of the Iranians ability to make those choices for themselves.

And so we urge our own governments to turn their attention to Iran. The leaders and diplomats of the world's democracies must be clear in their opposition to the repressive actions of the current Iranian regime, but even more importantly, must be clear in their support for the aspirations of the Iranian people.

And to the people of Iran, we say: You are not alone. We see your demonstrations in the streets; we hear of your newspapers falling to censorship; and we watch with anticipation as you join the community of the Internet in greater and greater numbers. Our hopes are with you in your struggle for freedom. We cannot and will not presume to tell you the correct path to freedom; that is for you to choose. But we look forward to the day when we can welcome your nation into the community of free societies of the world, for we know with deepest certainty that such a day will come.

UPDATE: It's from Random Jottings.

Did you know...

Two months before cashing in on his Harken stock options, Bush promised not to sell any of his stock for six months?

When Harken sold Aloha to the group of insiders, it only collected $1 million, then claimed income of $8 million, contrary to accounting standards? According to BusinessWeek:

The buyers paid $1 million in cash, and Harken took a note for the remainder. Harken then claimed income of $8 million, even though accounting rules bar recognition of revenue from an IOU unless the noteholder has substantial collateral and the company is "reasonably assured" that the loan will be repaid. The ploy let Harken report a loss of $3.3 million in '89, instead of $12 million.

From Martin Peretz:

According to Adam Entous, a Reuters White House correspondent, Bush was late in informing the SEC of his sales not once but four times, and one of those times he was more than eight months late.

The June 22, 1990, transaction was for 212,140 shares sold at $4 per share, for a total of $848,560. Two months after the sale (but before Bush actually reported it), Harken announced an unprecedented quarterly loss of $23 million, of which George W. could not have helped but be aware--of which, in fact, he was legally obliged to be aware. An Associated Press dispatch reported that "[Bush] received memos in spring 1990 that referred in stark terms to the company's cash-strapped condition.... One document said that the company was in the midst of a `liquidity crisis' and another told Bush the company was `in a state of non-compliance' with its lenders." When the loss was made public, Harken stock fell to a shade above $2 and, by year's end, was down to $1....

Given the president's well-known distaste for lawyers, it's perhaps not surprising that he blamed his blunder on members of the bar. But not every Bush lawyer involved in the Harken affair has been made a scapegoat. Bush's personal attorney at the time, the man who defended him against the SEC, was a man named Robert W. Jordan, formerly a partner at Baker Botts LLP. The Baker referred to therein is none other than James Baker, secretary of state to Bush père and the tactician behind W.'s extra-legal victory in Florida. At W.'s inaugural, Baker Botts threw a private party for, among others, Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar. Later that year Jordan, who knows almost nothing about the Middle East, was appointed U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

James Baker now has a very influential friend and full-time interlocutor in Riyadh whenever he goes there (which he does often) on behalf of the banking consortium called the Carlyle Group. As it happens, George H.W. is also a highly remunerated senior Carlyle trustee with special responsibilities for Arab and especially Saudi Arab clients. In fact, Bush père traveled to Saudi Arabia shortly after the 2000 election. Prominent among H.W.'s clients was the family of Osama bin Laden, the money of whom was quickly disentangled from Carlyle for purposes of public decency shortly after September 11. Which raises a few questions: Why were Osama's many siblings and cousins who were in the States on September 11 apparently allowed to slip out of the country so quickly and without questioning? Did Ambassador Jordan do anything to facilitate their sudden and surprising departure? Did Jordan call his old partner Jim Baker to facilitate the mass getaway? Or did he go to the pater-familias, who had his own interest in the bin Ladens not suffering any embarrassments? Or did Jordan simply talk directly to his boss? Maybe no one talked to anybody. Which leads back to the original question: Why were the bin Ladens not detained? These might be useful topics for a congressional committee, once it gets done with Harken Energy.

(On this point, Matthew Yglesias notes:

I've really been struck by the fact that conservative pundits and bloggers, all of whom seem to grasp the truth about Saudi Arabia, don't seem to be able to see that it's George Bush — not some PC liberals — who's been maintaining the Big Lie of the War on Terrorism. Not only does Bush not recognize that Saudi Arabia is an enemy (indeed, perhaps the most dangerous enemy) of the United States, he insists it's a friend.)

Fierce editorial in the LA Times today titled "Our AWOL President."

What? Bush? AWOL?

I've heard about Scalia's speech about the divine right of government, but I haven't taken the time to say anything about it.

Mark Poyser has, though. Take it away, buddy.

----------------------

There was a letter to the NYTimes (July 14, 2002) agreeing with an OpEd piece about Supreme Court justice Scalia.

Excerpt:

Americans love to think that we never had any genuine aristocratic conservatives, that political debate was from the beginning conducted within a framework of Enlightenment liberalism.
...
Antonin Scalia, a genuine aristocrat, believer in the divine right of the state and divine authority, deserves praise for clarifying the debate.

So I read the (July 8, 2002) OpEd.

Excerpt:

Justice Scalia's remarks show bitterness against democracy, strong dislike for the Constitution's approach to religion and eager advocacy for the submission of the individual to the state.

It made reference to an article in the (May 2002) conservative Catholic publication First Things by Scalia.

Excerpt:

[Scalia quotes St. Paul approvingly]

... the core of [St. Paul's] message is that government ... derives its moral authority from God. It is the “minister of God” with powers to “revenge,” to “execute wrath,” including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty). ... in this world the Lord ... did justice through His minister, the state.

[St. Paul's message] represent the consensus of Western thought until very recent times. ... That consensus has been upset, I think, by the emergence of democracy. It is easy to see the hand of the Almighty behind rulers whose forebears ... were supposedly anointed by God, or who at least obtained their thrones in awful and unpredictable battles whose outcome was determined by the Lord of Hosts, that is, the Lord of Armies. It is much more difficult to see the hand of God ... behind the fools and rogues (as the losers would have it) ... whom we ourselves elect to do our own will. How can their power to avenge—to vindicate the “public order”—be any greater than our own?

So it is no accident, I think, that the modern view that the death penalty is immoral is centered in the West. That has little to do with the fact that the West has a Christian tradition, and everything to do with the fact that the West is the home of democracy. Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post–Christian Europe, and has least support in the church–going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: “Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.” And when Cranmer asks whether he is sure of that, More replies, “He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him.” For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence. What a horrible act!

The mistaken tendency to believe that a democratic government, being nothing more than the composite will of its individual citizens, has no more moral power or authority than they do as individuals has adverse effects in other areas as well. It fosters civil disobedience, for example ...

The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible. We have done that in this country ... by preserving in our public life many visible reminders that ... “we are a religious people, whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” These reminders include: “In God we trust” on our coins, “one nation, under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, the opening of sessions of our legislatures with a prayer, the opening of sessions of my Court with “God save the United States and this Honorable Court,” ...
All this, ... helps explain why our people are more inclined to understand ... that government carries the sword as “the minister of God,” to “execute wrath” upon the evildoer. [MP: "evildoer"! Can you believe it?]

That's it in a nutshell. Scalia sees democracy as an unfortunate development and he prefers a Christian theocracy - or something close to that. This view is compatible with Pope Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors (1864) which (among other things) said it was an error to hold that:

#80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.

Towards the end of Scalia's article (actually it's a speech he gave at the University of Chicago Divinity School in January) he tries to argue around and against recent Catholic catechisms about the death penalty, but that's just a waste of everybody's time.

I'm surprised that Scalia's remarks haven't been given more exposure. There was some coverage of his message to (Catholic only?) judges who find the death penalty immoral. But his view that democracy undermines the moral status of the state seems to have been ignored by most everybody.

Any guesses about how he'd rule on the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance?

------------------------------------------

Ted again. There are all sorts of things one can say about this. What strikes me is how clearly Scalia's ideas illustrate the difference between conservatives and libertarians. Could there be anything more anathema to a libertarian than this:

Government ... derives its moral authority from God... The mistaken tendency to believe that a democratic government, being nothing more than the composite will of its individual citizens, has no more moral power or authority than they do as individuals has adverse effects in other areas as well. It fosters civil disobedience, for example ...

Well, probably, but you get my point. This guy is Bush's favorite Justice, and a favorite to become the next Chief Justice. You don't need to be anti-religion to see what kind of trouble you can get into when the Chief Justice thinks that government's moral authority comes not from the consent of the governed, but from God Himself. Not only does Scalia literally believe that he's doing God's work, he believes that he knows better than the Pope when it comes to the death penalty. He's demonstrated in Bush vs. Gore that he won't be bound by precedent when the chips are down. I know that many libertarians were toasting the Supreme Court after that decision. Be careful what you wish for, folks.

Charles Dodgson has some deep thoughts on the subject as well.