Out of Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations

[JackSpratts]

Joel Brinkley

April 21 was an unusually violent day in Iraq; 68 people died in a car bombing in Basra, among them 23 children. As the news went from bad to worse, President Bush took a tough line, vowing to a group of journalists, "We're not going to cut and run while I'm in the Oval Office."

On the same day, deep within the turgid pages of the Federal Register, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause "substantial competitive harm" to manufacturers.

As soon as the rule was published, consumer groups yelped in complaint, while the government responded that it was trying to balance the interests of consumers with the competitive needs of business. But hardly anyone else noticed, and that was hardly an isolated case.

Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives. Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders while dismaying interest groups representing consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others.

And most of it was done through regulation, not law - lowering the profile of the actions. The administration can write or revise regulations largely on its own, while Congress must pass laws. For that reason, most modern-day presidents have pursued much of their agendas through regulation. But administration officials acknowledge that Mr. Bush has been particularly aggressive in using this strategy.

"There's been more federal regulations, more regulatory notices, than previous administrations," said Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, though he attributed much of that to the new rules dealing with domestic security.

Scott McClellan, the chief White House spokesman, said of the changes, "The president's common-sense policies reflect the values of America, whether it is cracking down on corporate wrongdoing or eliminating burdensome regulations to create jobs."

Some leaders of advocacy groups argue that the public preoccupation with war and terrorism has allowed the administration to push through changes that otherwise would have provoked an outcry. Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, says he does not think the administration could have succeeded in rewriting so many environmental rules, for example, if the public's attention had not been focused on national security issues.

"The effect of the administration's concentration on war and terror has been to prevent the public from focusing on these issues," Mr. Pope said. "Now, when I hold focus groups with the general public and tell them what has been done, they exclaim, 'How could this have happened without me knowing about it?' "

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/po...14bush.html?hp

[theknife]

"The effect of the administration's concentration on war and terror has been to prevent the public from focusing on these issues," Mr. Pope said. "Now, when I hold focus groups with the general public and tell them what has been done, they exclaim, 'How could this have happened without me knowing about it?' "

because the public is largely clueless and generally believes what they are told without questioning (John Perry Barlow was right)....

every time "war" is declared on some abstract concept, it ends up being a blank check for all sorts of excesses by government. whether it's the "war" on terror, or drugs, or poverty, you can be sure of several things:

a) it's not winnable, therefore it can be perpetuated indefinitely (how do you declare victory over a concept?)
b) the "war" will suck billions of taxpayer dollars into some black hole with little results and no accountability
c) the "war" will be used to justify all kinds of government intrusions that generally involve from some curtailment of civil liberties
d) critics will be marginalized with nonsensical arguments that generally invoke a "we're at war" theme, which inherently means that anything goes and the end justifies the means.

our current flavor of war is the "war on terror" - i can absolutely guarantee you that, not in your lifetime or your children's lifetime, will this war be won.

beware of war on abstract concepts





i

[Mazer]

Knife, I think you'd be just as opposed to a war against an other country as a war against an abstract concept. The war on terror has included attacks on other countries. So far we've engaged in a war against Taliban controlled portions of Afghanistan and against Iraq, and those campaigns have been very successful. Iraq had been attacking our military forces for a decade before we finally decided to fight back; they broke the cease-fire and in essence the first Gulf War only just ended a year ago after twelve years of hostile action against us. And yet you act like winning that war was a bad thing to do. Just come out and say it, you're against all wars in general whether a geven war is winnable or not.

The problem here is one of semantics: a 'war' on an abstract concept is in fact not a war. War is a term used by media and politicans to highten the suspense. A more appropriate word would be struggle against terrorism, poverty, drugs, etc., and that word would cancel out c and d in your list and keep b in check. Are people going to start using this word instead? How about we start doing it here and see if it catches on?

[theknife]

Originally Posted by Mazer

Knife, I think you'd be just as opposed to a war against an other country as a war against an abstract concept. The war on terror has included attacks on other countries. So far we've engaged in a war against Taliban controlled portions of Afghanistan and against Iraq, and those campaigns have been very successful. Iraq had been attacking our military forces for a decade before we finally decided to fight back; they broke the cease-fire and in essence the first Gulf War only just ended a year ago after twelve years of hostile action against us. And yet you act like winning that war was a bad thing to do. Just come out and say it, you're against all wars in general whether a geven war is winnable or not.

me, an anti-war leftie dove? lol, i'm not that simple and neither is the world. no, i think war is a an occasionally useful and necessary evil....but you have to test the decision to go to war with certain questions:

-is it clearly in our national interest? (Gulf War - yes...Afghanistan - yes....Iraq - debatable)
-does it have clearly defined, measurable objectives and exit scenarios? (Gulf War - yes...Afghanistan - yes....Iraq - no)
-is it winnable? (Gulf War - yes...Afghistan - could be if we actually finished it....Iraq - no)

Iraq fails this test miserably, and what's worse, we had not met our objectives in Afghanistan before we rushed into Iraq (Taliban is resurgent, Al Qaeda active, democracy can't get off the ground).

so, since you're not too clear on my views, let me be more specific - i'm against war that does not meet the above criteria.

Originally Posted by Mazer

The problem here is one of semantics: a 'war' on an abstract concept is in fact not a war. War is a term used by media and politicans to highten the suspense. A more appropriate word would be struggle against terrorism, poverty, drugs, etc., and that word would cancel out c and d in your list and keep b in check. Are people going to start using this word instead? How about we start doing it here and see if it catches on?

i agree it's an issue of semantics and i think the term "war" is sorely abused by our government - struggle would be a more appopriate, but your leaders like the word war coz it's a lot easier to sell a war than a struggle....and it's a lot easier to explan a body count. it creates the illusion that it's something we could win.

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by theknife

-is it clearly in our national interest? (Gulf War - yes...Afghanistan - yes....Iraq - debatable)
-does it have clearly defined, measurable objectives and exit scenarios? (Gulf War - yes...Afghanistan - yes....Iraq - no)
-is it winnable? (Gulf War - yes...Afghistan - could be if we actually finished it....Iraq - no)

I didn't mean to second guess your opinions, but thanks for clarifying them for me. I had hoped to point out that the Gulf War and the Iraq were were actually one and the same, drawn out over a period of twelve years. The Gulf War hit a lull during wich Iraq fired on our planes as they patrolled the no-fly zones, and we fired cruise missiles whenever Clinton needed a boost in the polls. The fact that neither side engaged in more battles doesn't lessen the fact that both sides were still trying to kill each other. The military did meet it's objectives in 1991 before it pulled out, but the war was never won to anybody's satisfaction.

You may argue that the war still hasn't been won to anybody's satisfaction, but you can't point to the Gulf War as an example of a good war because it's still the same war.

The objectives simply changed in 2003. In 1991 the goal was to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait and cripple their army to prevent a second invasion. In the time since the goal was simply to cage Saddam in and keep him from harassing his neighbors, which we did half assed for a while, depending mostly on the UN to take responsibility. The fact is we started into this Vietnam-esque morass a long time ago, it simply never got much attention because few soldiers died. But did the US or the UN ever have any idea how to remove the threat Iraq still posed? No, not until we decided to invade and take Saddam prisoner. This was the only solution that didn't include a) nuking Iraq, b) endlessly sending planes to get shot down for ever, or c) persuading the rest of the middle east to take care of Iraq while we abandoned the reigion. Am I missing something, was there a better way to neutralize Iraq's threat without invading?