"Consensus" science? And more science...

First, before getting down to science, congratulations to my bro Kim Stanley Robinson, for winning this year's Nebula Award for best novel. 2312 is an epic that spans the solar system and a myriad fascinating ideas. And felicitations also to the other Nebulists - the delightful/brilliant Nancy Kress and the talented Andy Duncan and Aliette de Bodard. Learn more at the SFWA site.

Oh, one more announcement. See today's  San Diego Union Tribune article/interview about me and the Clarke Center Starship Conference (with a familiar face smiling on page one of the paper on our doorstep). 

Mostly, I was asked about SETI... the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. By coincidence, at the Starship Century Symposium at UCSD, we had the honor of hosting Dr. Freeman Dyson and Dr, Jill Tarter (head of the SETI Institute) at our home, along with luminaries Geoffrey Landis, Allen Steele, Kevin Grazier and many others.

== Do scientists "vote" on what is true? ==

Is it true that "97 percent" of scientists working in the fields of climate, meteorology and planetary atmospheres stand by the current consensus that human generated, carbon-rich gases produced by human industry are responsible for substantial, rapid climate change?

That claimed figure -- long denied by one major wing of Culture War -- now appears to have been verified systematically.  Almost all of the extremely smart folks who study climate on eight planets and who were responsible for transforming the Weather Report's range from two pathetic hours to ten miraculous days agree that something reckless and perilous is going on, and therefore some new technologies and some carefully discussed and economically bearable alteration of habits may be in order.

Does 97% expert agreement mean that something is necessarily true?  My late colleague, author Michael Crichton, led the charge among those on the right whose catechism now declares that "science cannot vote on what is true: there is no such thing as scientific consensus."  Indeed, like many polemical lies, that line has a basic level where it is true. Nature, indeed, cannot be coerced by mass opinion, even among brilliant scientists. There have been times when 97% of savants were dead wrong!

Take these examples from a well-written little piece  on the Fox News site that relates "five blunders in science." Indeed, at the surface, these interesting anecdotes -- (e.g. Lord Kelvin's calculation of the age of the Earth and Einstein's cosmological constant) -- simply go to show that science is not a realm of all-knowing priests, but of brilliant and not-so brilliant workers whose interplay of argument, experiment and reciprocal criticism is just as important as coming up with terrific models. When you and I read this article, we'll say, here's evidence that science works well.  Ah, but then note where this piece was published. (And imagine the  very different sub-text lesson that is drawn by the average Fox customer; these guys know their propaganda.)

In fact, those occasions when 97% of scientists get  it wrong are exceedingly rare. And science has been much better at discovering and correcting systematically wrong models than any other walk of life has been. Moreover, those rare cases are irrelevant to the matter at hand…

...which is whether to let public policy be affected by -- and prudently attend to -- important failure mode warnings by the vast majority of those who actually understand an important field of human knowledge.  And to give them some benefit of the doubt, rather than reflexively obeying the same advertising firms that claimed cars don't cause smog and tobacco is good for you.

When 97% of those who know a lot more than you do about something warn you that there may be danger ahead, only idiots blithely ignore such expert diagnoses and go charging ahead with business as usual.  You criticize and question while heeding the advice of folks who are much, much, much smarter than you are.

See also: Distinguishing Climate Deniers vs. Skeptics and Arguing with your Crazy Uncle About Climate Change.

== Science Potpourri! ==

A team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Canada have discovered pockets of water that they say have been isolated for at least up to two billion years. What makes the find especially intriguing is that the ancient water carries all the essential ingredients for life.

Reversing heart disease in older mice?  Sure. Claiming this portends a reversal of aging in humans? Malarkey.  Mice are not analogues for human aging. Period. For reasons I go into elsewhere.  Good news for mice though!

NASA's Lunar Monitoring Program uses a special 14 inch telescope to stare at the moon whenever it is in view from Marshall Space Flight Center.  This is the sort of thing we need to do more of -- and it bore result startling results when a boulder-sized meteor slammed into the moon in March, igniting an explosion so bright that anyone looking up at the right moment might have spotted it.  Only now we have a device looking for us.

Read a fascinating and cogent explanation of why NASA and Google are investing in D-Wave's quantum annealing approach to quantum computing, which appears to work better for optimization problems than any of the gate based quantum computer experiments. This is a frontier with many puzzles and many potentials. (A few of them illustrated in Existence.)

Amateur beekeepers are taking up controlled breeding to seek hardier varieties that can withstand New England winters, resist mites, overcome parasites and pesticides and help stave off the honeybee collapse that threatens agriculture across North America.  Augmenting work done at universities, these clubs are terrific exemplars of useful avocation science and the Age of Amateurs.  Heck, I just rescued a hive on my hill, moving it from a lethal place to safety.  Third time I've done it. I think I'll buy some bee boxes next.

Would you gardeners use human poop that's been treated and transformed into organic fertilizer? About 50 percent of the bio-solids produced in the U.S. are returned to farmland through a process that is heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency… To sell Class A biosolids to farmers and gardeners, facilities have to ensure that there are no dangerous heavy metals or bacteria in the end product. Still…

Researchers have used transcranial random noise stimulation (TRNS) which mildly "shocks" the brain with high frequency electrical noise. Supplied to an area known to be important for math ability, this can apparently improve a person's ability to perform calculations. No one exactly knows how this relatively new method works, but it does seem to allow the brain to work more efficiently by making neurons fire more synchronously.  Augmentation, here we come. Expect huge use in China.

Alien? Subhuman primate? Deformed child? Mummified fetus? The Internet is buzzing over the nature of "Ata," a bizarre 6-inch-long skeleton featured in a new documentary on UFOs. A Stanford scientist now asserts the DNA is purely human and not "alien." Uh huh. Right.  Okay, look, I deal in the strange professionally.  And the lack of  any external and separate-referenced studies of this thing screams alarm bells.  Despite sober-sounding rhetoric in the articles, I give it 90% to be a hoax. But I never let 90% -- or even 97% -- prevent me from keeping a corner of my mind... well... ready for more questions.

== And still more science! ==

According to preliminary orbital prediction models, comet C/2013 A1 will buzz Mars on Oct. 19, 2014. JPL calculations suggest the comet is most likely to make a close pass of 0.0007 AU of Mars  (that’s approximately 63,000 miles from the Martian surface). But uncertainties are still high and the comet might either strike the planet or break up. (If it struck... what a show! And maybe water reservoirs might awaken?)

But that's unlikely and not what concerns me most.  What I fret about is the storm of pebbles, dust and gas  accompanying the dirty iceball (according to my doctoral dissertation). There is real danger that a near passage might sand-blast our Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissaance Orbiter spacecraft, now delivering valuable science from above the Martian surface and providing services to the Curiosity and Opportunity landers. I find this prospect both exciting and worrisome.

But stay tuned… 2014 will be significant in other ways.

A disappointingly superficial article about geo-engineering by Clive Hamilton appeared in the New York Times, glossing over many aspects and issues, and leaving out any mention of the one geo-engineering remedy to climate change that would actually replicate what the Earth is already doing -- ocean fertilization to remove CO2 from the atmosphere while stimulating new fisheries. By far the most promising (despite very badly-done initial "experiments"), this remedy almost certainly will be used by our children, in one form or another, yet it is almost never discussed. Alas for journalism.

Where is it all leading?  Max More and Natasha Vita-More are the editors of The Transhumanist Reader: Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, the first book to present a comprehensive survey of the origins and current state of transhumanist thinking about the future of humanity. The volume offers of core writings by seminal thinkers, exploring the scope of the effects of human innovation of science and technology and how, in turn, science and technology often changes human nature.  It goes into arguments for and against human enhancement and life prolongation along with issues of social concern and biopolitics.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the world's most famous astrophysicist, and he is a Trekkie.  "I never got into Star Wars," Tyson tells us. "Maybe because they made no attempt to portray real physics. At all."  Despite his getting way too inflated lately I always liked the guy a lot.  Here's one more reason. I guess.

== Science I'll preen about ==

San Diego-based Torrey Pines Logic is developing the Beam 100 Optical Detection System for the military; it sends out pulses of low power lasers that can detect various lenses out to roughly one kilometer. Returning pulses are analyzed for signatures indicative of optical glass, discarding noise from other glass, like bottles, windows. (Note one for the predictions registry?)

Meat from tissue culture could be a powerful game changer, one that has appeared in science fiction since the 1940s and certainly in many of my own past novels. Now researchers hope to make one hamburger from calf muscle cells grown in dishes… a small and expensive beginning, but so was the first micro-processor.

Reminiscent of my "privacy moths" on Planet Jijo, in my novel BRIGHTNESS REEF:  "Croatian Bees Are Being Trained to Hunt Down Deadly Land Mines."

A 3D printer is slated to arrive at the International Space Station next year, where it will crank out the first parts ever manufactured off planet Earth.  More than 30 percent of the spare parts currently aboard the International Space Station can be manufactured by Made in Space's machine. I presented a paper to NASA in 1982 predicting this exact event, someday.  It was dismissed as sci fi, alas.

And now I'm rather tired after three tech and space conferences in a week, discussing starships, asteroid mining, transhumanism, national and international tech policy, SETI, destiny, Dyson Spheres, and fine wines... I almost certainly have the best job on the planet.

Now... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Why the Candidates Should (But Won’t) Stipulate

It's been said that a politician gets to be perfectly honest just once in a long career -- at its end. Refreshing candor sometimes pours after an old pol has faced the last campaign. No more fund raisers or flattering voters. One chance to tell the truth.

All right, it’s rare. Many politicians hurry through a revolving door, into fat directorships and lobbying firms. Still, it can be colorful when a few spill their hearts.

Take the day in 1992 when both Republican Senator Warren Rudman and Democrat Paul Tsongas made headlines declaring that everybody was at fault for the country's fiscal condition at the time, from then-President Bush to the democrat-controlled Congress, to the American people. Responsible economists later credited Rudman and Tsongas for spurring reforms that helped lead to the Clinton era surpluses.

Around the same time, retired senator and conservative eminence gris Barry Goldwater denounced the followers of émigré philosopher Leo Strauss – so-called “neocons” – for hijacking Goldwater’s beloved movement over cliffs of romantic delusion. A more recent example of post retirement candor came When G.W. Bush’s ex-Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, revealed a swamp of backroom dealings and ineptitude, explaining that he was "old and rich" and unafraid to speak his mind. On the other side, some claim that Senator Joe Lieberman really came into his own when he ran as an independent, shrugging off party discipline (if such a thing exists, among democrats.)

Alas, under our electoral system candor is punished. Folks on both sides of the lamentably oversimplifying “left-right axis” yearn for the best and most sincere people on the other side to wise up!  To eject radicals from control over the other party’s agenda. Too bad we rarely ponder the way crimes like gerrymandering have been used by our own side, with terrible effects upon the radicalization of politics.    (Elsewhere I describe one time that party self-reform actually happened.)

== A Modest Proposal ==

Let me offer here a proposal that I've made every presidential election for decades. Throughout the campaign we’ll learn how the candidates disagree on a myriad issues. And platitudes, what they think voters want to hear.

Logically, there must be a third category -- areas where these well-informed professionals agree with each other, but fear to speak  first.  But consider: there’s no political cost to telling voters what you really believe... if your opponent has agreed, in advance, to say the same thing.

What's wrong with two leaders finding patches of consensus amid a sea of discord? It has a name - stipulation... as when attorneys in a case agree to agree about a set of points, so the trial can focus on areas where they disagree.

What does stipulation have to do with politics? Given the intensity of partisanship in recent American political life, can we dream? Bear with me for a “what-if” thought experiment.

Suppose, amidst the 2012 campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney and President Obama were to suspend their mutual attacks just long enough to meet for an afternoon. Staffs would cover debate rules, and maybe how to prevent spirals of mudslinging and people would applaud just seeing them talk to each other like adults.

Only then -- they go for a walk, alone. During this quiet moment before the rough and tumble resumes, they seek just a few points of consensus.

Don’t dismiss it too readily. For all his faults, the last GOP nominee – John McCain did this sort of thing before. So did Senators Clinton and Obama, amid their primary fights in 2008.  In fact, the only ones to object would be extremes in both parties.

Oh, neither candidate will change the other's mind concerning major divisions. But here we have two knowledgeable public persons, presumably concerned about America's future. Surely there’d be some overlap? Things that both of them feel that we, as a nation, should do.

Imagine a joint statement. Though reiterating a myriad points of disagreement, they make public simultaneously their shared belief that America should, for its own good, pass law "X", or repeal restriction "Y". Further, they agree - neither will attack the other for taking this stand.

No longer pandered to, folks might say -- "Gosh, if both say the country needs this strong medicine, let's give it thought."

This would not free candidates completely from the stifling effects of mass-politics. But it could let them display something rarely seen... leadership. Even statesmanship. Setting aside self-interest in favor of hard truth, telling the people what they need to hear, whether they like it or not.

=== Is This Impossible? ===

Well, it happened before, during the Presidential campaign of 1940. When Franklin Roosevelt was running for a third term, he approached Republican candidate Wendell Wilkie, to negotiate just such a stipulated agreement in the area of foreign policy. Britain badly needed escort vessels for the North Atlantic and the U.S. had over-age destroyers to spare. But Roosevelt feared political repercussions during a campaign in which he was already under attack for breaking neutrality. Wilkie agreed to FDR's request, and declared that lend-lease would be his policy too, if he were elected.

Everyone benefited -- Wilkie rose in stature. FDR got his policy implemented, and the world was better off because political advantage was briefly put aside for the common good. On other issues, Roosevelt and Wilkie battled as fiercely as ever. Yet, that historical act of stipulation shines in memory.

How might today's politics differ if two adults -- each the standard bearer of a major party -- agreed to let it be known how they agree? Might they take on some of our most politically impossible subjects? Perhaps a cow as sacred as the Social Security retirement age, a compromise on gun control, some campaign finance reform…

… or the biggest candidate for such a declaration?  The obvious of course. The topic that neither side dares to raise first.  The failed Drug War.

== How it could happen ==

Is this quixotic proposal too much to ask of today's opportunistic brand of politician? Perhaps. Indeed, I have little hope that it has a chance of happening during the 2012 election cycle, while partisanship towers foremost in the minds of the partisan attack dogs who have turned America into a silly place for two decades, overshadowing any national good.

Still, our politics can evolve. Only during the most recent generation has the tradition of Presidential debates become so entrenched that no front-runner can now duck them. Ancient hurdles of age, race, and gender are falling. And note, there are millions of Americans who deeply yearn for a more mature approach to politics. If a candidate offered this kind of stipulation process, and the other refused... well, there might be benefits there, as well.

Indeed, imagine if a third party candidate – say the Libertarian Party’s unusually reasonable/interesting Gary Johnson – were to join one of this year’s presidential debates. (Okay, so I think that would devastate one of the major candidates, offering sane, libertarian-minded conservatives a place to escape their party’s current madness.)  Johnson’s natural move would be to pounce on obvious things like the drug war. Ironically, this could offer one of the other guys cover to step forward, partially agreeing with Johnson while remaining moderate/skeptical. Good positioning, politically speaking.  And as a result, we all benefit when the topic itself (changing the drug war) moves up in peoples’ minds.

All right.  It won’t happen. Not this time around. But it could.  And maybe someday it will.

Shatter the barriers against candor!

Once upon a time, it was just a glimmer in a few eyes to imagine that debates would be standard in elections.  Now it’s normal.

Might the Candidates' Post-Convention Summit and Letter of Stipulation also become traditional, like doldrums in July and mudslinging in October?

Someday, the whole nation may look forward to the occasion, once every four years, with a sort of delicious, nervous anticipation -- awaiting the one day when two eminent politicians will say not what is politically savvy, but what is simply wise.

Renaming Killers -- the idea spreads

Folks have been writing in, ever since I posted the latest version of my "Names of Infamy" essay.  In fact, during just the last few days there has been a noticeable media swell - - a growing movement not to mention the name of the Aurora/Batman shooter.

As reported by Molly Hennesy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times:  "Jordan Ghawi, 26, of San Antonio became frustrated by how much of news coverage focused on the 24-year-old Holmes. 'Let us remember the names of the victims and not the name of the coward who committed this act,' Ghawi tweeted Friday afternoon. The tweet went viral. When some Twitter followers noticed Holmes' name trending on Twitter - something Ghawi said bothered his mother - they started a campaign to promote (a victim's) name instead."

On Sunday, Mr. Ghawi made his pitch directly to President Obama, who chose not to mention the shooter by name, in his public remarks.

Not a new idea, this worthy notion goes back to the last century, even long before I proposed it publicly in Salon Magazine (1999), describing the "Herostratos Effect" in which ancient peoples would sometimes expunge the names of those committing heinous crimes.

The pros and cons and means of doing this in a modern context, while preserving full memory, accountability and freedom of speech, lead to some interesting possibilities.

Although my most recent posted version of the Herostratos essay led to some radio time,  I imagine Mr. Ghawi and the others thought of this notion independently -- and more power to them! Good ideas sometimes take time, before finally gaining traction.

Still,  the intellectual/historical side of things may be of interest, if this idea is to build momentum and become a factor in solving a terrible human problem.

=== The absurd nostrums on "gun control" ==

My "names of infamy" proposal is actually quite separate from another matter -- the endless tussle over gun control.

And yet, the two topics inevitably get conflated at a time like this. At least, they were in a flood of emails, comments and assertions on facebook, twitter and this web log, proclaiming that "this sort of thing brings out  hordes of liberals campaigning to eliminate the Second Amendment and gun owner rights."

Speaking as a Smithian libertarian, but one who finds liberals worthy to talk-to, may I respond with a simple request? Will someone please show me this campaign?  Point to specific bills, or sustained efforts, even solidly backed proposals with even a slight chance of enactment.

They don't exist.  And this simple little cartoon from Tom Tomorrow sums it up neatly.

Only one serious gun control notion is getting even tepid mention: to restore the requirement that people get checked out and licensed before blithely purchasing full-on assault rifles with mega-sized magazines.  The very law that would have prevented the Aurora shooter-nut from easily acquiring his means to spray mass death.

That rule was passed, way back in the sane 20th Century, by an old thing called negotiated consensus between sober democratic and republican leaders... a pragmatic measure that led to no "slippery slope," nor any decay in reasonable gun-owner rights. Alas, it was flushed away by the later, crazier breed controlling Congress in 2005.

Now before you call me a lefty nut, please pause for perspective: those who denounced the assault gun licensing requirement  -- and who howl now against its restoration -- seem to have no problem with the ongoing, 70 year old rule against private ownership of full-scale machine guns. So then, it's just a matter of where you choose to draw lines, right?

See my essay, The Jefferson Rifle: Guns and the Insurrection Myth.

Raising this question: when one whacko can kill or wound 72 people in a couple of minutes, so quickly that no brave bystander gets a chance to tackle him, isn't that a "machine gun" style situation? Can you contemplate that maybe - just maybe - your line-in-the-sand may have been drawn just a tad too far? Is it possible to rediscover the sane art of pragmatic compromise, without fainting away or screeching in dread of a Slippery Slope?

I have shown a possible national compromise that would be a win-win... actually strengthening the constitutional guarantees of basic, essential gun ownership, while at the same time allowing pragmatic measures to be taken that reduce some of the worst calamities... all without a slippery slope.  (That is, I have shown it to the half dozen people who still have both curiosity and the patience to read careful arguments. If you choose not to actually read that proposal, please don't gush forth generalized comments here, about what you presume it to be.)

Anyway, it's all much, much simpler than that.

The Slippery Slope does not exist. Not anymore.  It's a fantasy. And I can prove it.

The fact is - and, again let me remind you that I say this not as a "liberal" but as a Heinleinian-Smithian Libertarian - the right seems completely unaware of a seismic shift that happened under G.W. Bush --

-- when many liberals started arming themselves.

Yes, they are. As is their perfect right.

Now tell that to your crazy uncle and watch multiple expressions pass across his face, as it sinks in.

Democrats and Republicans -- two very different kinds of internal party struggle

There seem to be civil wars taking place within both of the major American parties.  At least, that is how internal disputes among republicans, and among democrats, are portrayed in the media -- as bitter tiffs  between political pragmatists and stubbornly intransigent (or else 'principled') idealists of either the far-right or far-left.

Certainly, you do hear some left-leaning democrats accusing President Obama of betraying his promises and beliefs, by accepting anything less than the full suite of liberal health care recommendations, or by continuing to put troops in the Middle-East.  Meanwhile, the wrath of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck crashes  down upon any GOP office holder who so much as utters the word "compromise."

So, have we embarked on an era of ever-more bilious partisanship?  Is dogmatism on both left and right all that remains of the once-vaunted American gift for dialogue, courtesy, reciprocal-learning and practical problem solving?  Certainly, one can be excused for picturing this trend -- sometimes called "culture war" -- as a pell-mell rush toward one inevitable conclusion.  The violent and hate-drenched third phase of our ongoing American Civil War.


Each Party Has Its Own Style

We'll get to the fascinating and rather surprising nature of internal conflict between democrats, a little later, leading to something even more astonishing -- what may be a unique and highly strange historical phenomenon. A weird new take on how legislation is now done, under the U.S. Constitution.

 But first, let's talk about the republicans, among whom the popular diagnosis really does appear to be on target. No one can deny that influence within the GOP is measured by a person's fierce adherence to doctrine. And to bitter, uncompromising, partisan wrath.

The results of a poll conducted by "60 Minutes" and Vanity Fair magazine and issued Sunday (November 29, 2009) show that, by a wide margin, Americans consider Rush Limbaugh -- who openly prays for the current administration to fail, even at achieving any good for the nation -- to be the nation's most influential conservative voice. The radio host was picked by 26 percent of those who responded, followed by Fox News Channel's equally vociferous Glenn Beck at 11 percent. Top politicians -- former Vice President Dick Cheney and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- were the choice of 10 percent each, neither of them particularly well-known for concession-trading with folks on the other side of the spectrum, or being amenable to agreeable bargaining.

As for those GOP members who now hold actual office, few even figured as blips on the influence poll.  But stalwart partisanship applies to them as well.  Reciting the same talking point phrases -- sometimes within minutes of their issuance over Fox -- these men and women seem content to be interchangeable, seldom making any effort to be distinguishable, in a political sense, from one-another.  When it comes to the republican denizens of the U.S. Capitol, the current style of GOP partisan uniformity has had an odd effect -- of rendering them into doctrinal clones who matter only en masse, never as individuals.


Stunning Party Discipline

Sure, the 40 republicans in the Senate and 200 or so GOP representatives in the House appear to be there.  They inhale and exhale, make speeches and intone "present" during roll calls.  But to what effect?  To a man, they have submitted themselves, almost 100%, to absolute party discipline.

Let's make this situation plain; on the republican side, there is no bargaining, dickering, haggling, persuading, pleading-to-conscience, intercession, arbitration, or mediation -- nor efforts to find common ground of any kind with the majority party, representing more than half of America. They do not seek to come up with incremental steps toward creating new laws, amending old ones or allocating tax dollars  These "delegates" do not serve their constituents or the districts.  They are party men, first and last.

Now lest we simply shrug and accept this as normal, let's recall that American legislators used to be among the least party disciplined in the world, notoriously willing to negotiate as individuals.  Traditionally, the way things used to get done was that you might seek the least-unpalatable portions of the wish-list of the opposing side, and grudgingly let some of those smelly-but-acceptable measures come into being, in exchange for getting some progress on matters that you consider to be really important. It is the "sausage" approach to making law... perhaps inelegant, even ugly, but it's democracy and we did okay with it.

But that sort of behavior is now impossible, at least among republicans.  Even one deviation from party line perfection may be punished, volcanically, on radio and in the blogosphere. Everything is now purely black vs white.  Good vs evil. A complete matter of "sides," with no permissible shades of gray.


History Lesson: How Has This Played Out?

Now, you might imagine that this trait would have differing effects, depending upon whether the party is in the majority, controlling Congress, or in the minority.  Let's see if that was the case.  Take the brief era of 1993-94, when -- for a short time -- newly elected President Bill Clinton also had slim democratic majorities in both chambers.  As economic pundit Russ Daggatt put it:

The 1993 Budget Act, which was designed to eliminate the record budget deficits inherited by Clinton From Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, included an overall increase in taxes and extended the pay-as-you-go budget rules.  It passed without a single Republican vote in Congress by the closest possible margin – by one vote in the House and with Vice President Gore breaking a 50-50 tie in the Senate.   Republicans predicted that the economy would collapse as a result. (Like all predictions based on Supply Side theory -- that one failed diametrically to come true.) Instead, it produced record budget surpluses and the strongest economy in a generation.  But the Democrats paid a price, as they were crushed in the 1994 elections and lost control of Congress.  Unfortunately, the lesson that was learned in Congress was that fiscal responsibility doesn’t pay politically."

In fact, polls showed that it was not the 1993 tax bill, but Hillary Clinton's overly complex attempted Health Care legislation, that helped propel the 1994 rout. Nevertheless, Daggatt's point is taken.  While in the minority, in 93-94, the GOP showed impressive discipline and utter devotion to partisanship, just like today.

One might have expected the Party of No to change its tune, after it gained control of both houses of Congress, in late '94.  After all, Newt Gingrich led that "revolution" with a full agenda of clearly stated goals.

Indeed, it is instructive to recall the one time that Gingrich actally negotiated with Bill Clinton in good faith.  Out of that narrow moment of adult-style bargaining, we got the Welfare Reform Bill, which was without any doubt one of the most successful pieces of social legislation in the last forty years, correcting hundreds of abuses and inefficiencies, effectively getting millions off of the state dole and into job training... followed by real employment. Despite dire predictions by both radicals of left and right, this pragmatic piece of goal-oriented legislation achieved real progress, proof of which is seen in the simple fact that nobody mentions welfare anymore.


Alas, though, Gingich got so much grief from his partisan-dogmatic wing, for even speaking to Clinton, that this kind of thing never happened again. Indeed, apart from a relentless flurry of brinksmanship confrontations with the President (which Clinton always won), republicans on Capitol Hill settled in for the laziest, do-nothing stretch in the history of the Legislative Branch.


Until democrats wrested back control in 2006, the Senate and House spent fewer days in session and considered fewer bills than any comparable period in the last 100 years.  Except for seeking the ever-elusive "smoking gun," to prove that the Clintonites were corrupt, they held almost no investigative hearings. Even bills that might have pushed the conservative agenda languished and were seldom even reported out of committee.


During the long era from 1995 through 2009 -- and especially 2001-7, when they  controlled every branch of government -- there were only three general ways in which the Republican Party consistently used its sweeping power to change conditions in the United States of America. (1) They passed bills cutting taxes and granting special privileges to the wealthy and well-connected.  (2) They then passed more bills cutting taxes and granting special privileges to the wealthy and well-connected.  And (3) they yet again gathered the energy and will to pass bills that cut taxes and granted special privileges to the wealthy and well-connected.
Beyond that, despite having the best-disciplined and most potent lock on government since the democrats' Do-Everything Year of 1965... and despite the nation facing major problems, plus a tsunami of outright corruption... the GOP consensus seemed to be to Do-Nothing.

 Never Really Happy in the Majority
My private impression?  Fellows like Tom Delay, John Boehner and James Imhofe never seemed all that happy when they were in the majority.  For one thing, they had to face nagging questions from sincere conservative citizens, demanding: "Well?  We sent you to Washington, and now you have complete power. So legislate!"

They couldn't even blame the darned democrats, since that party almost never practiced lockstep-obstructionism.  Here, again, is Russ Daggatt:

'During the George W. Bush years, his tax cuts and Medicare Part D passed the Senate with less than 60 votes. which meant there was no problem with any democratic fillibuster.'  In fact, Medicare Part D was -- "the largest increase in entitlement spending since the creation of Medicare in the 1960 s with a ten-year cost of almost a trillion dollars.  At least when LBJ created Medicare he also enacted taxes to pay for it.  Bush and Congressional Republicans never even discussed any means of paying for their budget-busting initiatives.  To pull that off, they had to let the pay-as-you-go budget rules lapse."

The point here is that from Nixon to Ford, from Reagan to both Bushes, there was always some way to get democratic votes, when they were needed. Always some who were willing to horse-trade... as when the mega tax cuts of 2001 and 2002 passed without any serious threat of a democratic fillibuster. In that case, one small concession got enough democrats to go along. That was an expiration date on the tax cuts.  The GOP simply assumed that, by 2010, every supply-side dream would have come true and they would thereupon be so popular that they could make the cuts permanent, before they expired.

 (Alas, at risk of repeating, every major Supply Side forecast in history has been disproved.  It is pure voodoo, and our children are deep in debt, as a result. But let's move on.)

 The crucial point is that, when the GOP was in power, the opposition Democratic Party nearly always let things come down to an open, majority vote.  And that had a real downside to GOP leaders like Boehner and Delay.  For it meant they never had a very good excuse to offer conservative constituents, for their near-total inaction on any part of the official GOP agenda... except, of course, doing favors for the rich.


 Happier to be in the minority again
Ever since the GOP became the minority party in both houses, the republican senators and representatives now seem -- in fact -- much more cheerful!  Not only is it easier and more emotionally satisfying to be outraged outsiders, but this has meant that their existence, in either chamber, is simply a matter of standing up, whenever the party whip calls, shouting "Nay!" when ordered to, then perhaps staging an irate public statement before going off for an early weekend.

And yet, whether they are in power, or in the role of Loyal(?) Opposition, one thing stands out as consistent -- republican grumpiness and refusal to negotiate. This uniformity is far more than simply a function of being in the minority.

It is a character trait.


Are The Democrats The Same?

In a word, no.

All right, I'll add a sentence or two.  Popular American humorist Will Rogers used to say "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a democrat."

Everyone knows that the very words "Democratic party discipline" constitute an oxymoron. Any democratic representative has his or her own, weird internal concoction of ideology and pragmatism, local interests and global passions.  If republicans are dogmatically uniform, disciplined and lockstep dedicated to both complaining and to doing nothing...

...then democrats are scattered across the political horizon, flighty, distractible... and each of them frenetically determined to save the world. (And yes, that can have its scary aspects, too.)

That is where the real difference between the parties lies -- in the small but vital matter of personality. And it explains why we have embarked on one of the weirdest epochs in American political and legislative history.


The Result: A Completely New Approach to Legislation in the USA

So what does this mean for the Republic, right now? It means that all actual negotiation over legislation -- such as finance/banking reform or healthcare or passing a military budget, must take place within the Democratic majority caucus... and that caucus must somehow achieve unanimity, before a bill even goes to the floor of either house. Because, given the predictability of lockstep GOP opposition, only with a completely united democratic caucus can there be any chance of passing any bills, at all.

But we've already seen that democrats don't march well together. If republicans click their heels and obey Rush, then democrats are more like a herd of cats. This means that unanimity must be achieved the hard, old fashioned way.  Through persuasion and negotiation, one legislator at a time.

  It means that the Democratic caucus in each house is the locus of deliberation in today's United States.  That is where men and women who are charged with the nation's business do the actual arguing, criticizing, tradeoff-balancing and incremental modification, by which legislation improves (we hope) enough to become law.  It is there that Santa Monica liberals must debate semi-conservative "Blue Dogs" -- sometimes late into the night and across weekends -- struggling to find common ground, combining (we hope) good ideas from the moderate left and the moderate right, shambling, bleary-eyed, toward a consensus that everybody can live with.  That is, everybody who has chosen to participate in negotiation.

No wonder things get so excruciating!   We have sixty senators - with sixty fractious and varied viewpoints - who must come to complete consensus (with some murkiness regarding Joe Lieberman and Olympia Snowe) in order to get by a Republican filibuster that is now seen as automatic, reflexive, inevitable, and impervious to any effort to placate, mollify or apply reason.  In fact, the GOP senators might as well just go fishing, under the new quasi-Constitutional tenet -- "when the dems are unanimous, it passes.  If not, it doesn't."

Things are similar in the House, only with a teensy amount more slack.


Is that it?  All that blather, just to point out the weirdly obvious?

Well, yes, it's what I'm routinely paid for.

Nevertheless, we now see that the civil wars within the two parties are very different phenomena.  In the GOP, it amounts to the systematic purging of any hint of heresy from central dogma.  Among democrats, today's tiffs between liberals and "blue dogs" constitute something that Americans have almost forgotten the name of -- "deliberation."

Does this grate on liberals? That blue dog semi-conservatives have extra leverage these days, because legislation must be passed unanimously?  (In the real legislature: the Democratic Caucus.)

Sure it does!  The lesson??  Live with it. Learn to accept incremental change. Better yet, recognize that the sane version of conservatism, that the blue dogs represent, does have important and useful things to say.  Moreover, that part of America deserves to be heard.  Especially since the main "conservative" party is lost, down boulevards of delusional catechism that Barry Goldwater denounced as quite mad, before he died.

Indeed, the top liberal agenda right now should be to help more Blue Dogs win in contested districts!  Recruit decent, progressive, if sometimes a bit too-crewcut ex-military men and women to run against the loony culture warriors, everywhere possible.  Help the GOP to continue along in a long, self-chosen path, marginalizing itself into the New Know Nothings, and thus finally put the once-great party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower out of its  terminal illness.

And, if the predictable result is to eventually split the Democratic Party in two?  Into a Liberal party (mostly free of loony lefties) and a Decent-Moderate Conservative/Libertarian Party (free of monstrously crazy neocons)?  Well, it may surprise you to learn that this exact thing happened before, earlier in the life of the republic.

What? You cannot see that as possibly the best of all possible worlds for the nation of Washington and Franklin?  A nation that desperately needs to rediscover the grace and power and effectiveness that arises from the adult practice of reason.

So Many Ways Obama Could Use Jiu Jitsu...

The LA Times recently presented an unusually insightful editorial about ”Obamacain” -- relating to the few - but noteworthy - areas in which the two candidates overlap or share important views.

“It has been a refrain during the exhausting battle for the Democratic presidential nomination that once Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama emerged as the party's choice, we could finally dispense with the personality battles and get down to nitty-gritty policy differences. Indeed, now that Obama seems to have the position locked up, he and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain will have plenty to argue about. But some might be surprised at the breadth of issues on which they largely agree.”

The editorial goes on to cite surprising consensus in areas of National Security, Immigration, environment and social issues. The Times suggests that the thought of consensus, instead of Fox-style reflexive opposition, ought to be attractive, now and then.

Alas, the Times essay stops short - way short - of taking this notion to its logical conclusion. If a majority of voters in both major parties have already pledged general allegiancve to one of two presumptive nominees, haven’t we already voted, many months before the general election, to trust their wisdom enough to listen... tentatively... to areas where they both agree change is needed?

One of the very worst immaturities to be foisted on America by the culture warriors has been the oversimplification of reflext opposition. If your side likes something I must be against it. If you open your eggs at the small end, I must open mine at the big end. The biggest actual result of this wretched reflex has been to ensure that very little gets done. We’re doing fine, vetoing each others agendas. But to actually move ahead, we’ll have to re-learn how to negotiate, sometimes compromise, or else let your opponents have the part of their agenda you object to least... in exchange for them doing the same for you.

Above all, where ae actually agree, should it not be politically safe to actually say so?

I go into this in some detail in an essay that I have recycled during each of the live FIVE presidential elections... Why The Candidates Should "Stipulate"...

... proposing that a contest between two mature and intelligent adults does not have to be entirely about a battle of opposites. America and the world might benefit most by hearning where they have discussed a certain matter, and reached a consensus - a stipulation - that it is time to stop the rigor mortis inaction that arises from rigid opposition, and to start talking about how -- rather than whether -- to act on a major problem.

“One of the chief flaws of our electoral system is that real candor is punished. Both sides may rail against each other, but they'll never aim bad news at us. Even if both nominees believe in their hearts that the public needs to face some hard truth, neither will dare be first to say it, lest the other side take advantage.... only now consider this. There is no political cost to telling voters what you really believe... if your opponent has agreed, in advance, to say the same thing.

“The process is called stipulation... as when the attorneys representing opposite sides in a trial agree to agree about a set of points. By stipulating these points, they help move the trial forward, focusing on areas where they disagree. Consider this year. For all of his faults, McCain has done this sort of thing before. So has Senator Obama. In fact, the only ones to object would be those at the extremes, in both parties.”

I go on to cite the greatest-ever example of this kind of bipartisan maturity, in the 1940 Roosevelt-Wilkie election, in which both candidates agreed to support aid to Britain, instantly undercutting the isolationists in both parties. Of course this suggestion was pure fantasy during the poisonous atmosphere of the last eight years, while one of the major candidates represented nothing but stupidity, lunacy, compulsive deceit and rabid partisanship. But if we really are returning to an era (as in the Clinton-Dole contest) when grownups might argue sensibly, then this idea really needs another look. So please do...and possibly spread the word!

And while we’re at it, see another -- somewhat related -- idea: Honoring the Losing Majority --  that might also restore civility, consensus, negotiation and mutual respect back into the lexicon of American political life. In fact, this idea is - at one level - simply common courtesy and would score points to whichever candidate made the pledge that I suggest.

“Originally, the Constitution awarded a prize for second place -- the Vice Presidency. If little else, at least the electoral runner-up got a bully pulpit. But after near-disaster in the flawed election of 1804, the system was amended to make the Vice President more of a deputy, chosen by the winning party. Nevertheless, this precedent does show what the founders had in mind. They always intended for the losing side to get something. Might there be some way to acknowledge the losing minority in a presidential election, without grinding their face in humiliation, making them determined to do the same thing, when their turn comes around?”

Check out an original suggestion for how this miracle might be accomplished -- in a way that might also make your side’s candidate seem vastly more statesmanlike and mature.
.
---- From the Transparency Front ---

The US & EU will let security agencies to obtain private information — like credit card transactions, travel histories and Internet browsing habits — about people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The potential agreement, as outlined in an internal report obtained by The New York Times, would represent a diplomatic breakthrough for American counterterrorism officials, who have clashed with the European Union over demands for personal data. Europe generally has more stringent laws restricting how governments and businesses can collect and transfer such information.

---- FOR THE OSTRICH FILES ---

Here’s a news item that I have re-written in the form of “what if Clinton had done this?” -- as part of my continuing series offering you bait for that “decent conservative” or Ostrich, who might yet be lured out of that hole of denial, rousing him or her to recall that he or she is an American first, and a Republican second. See also: Ostrich Hunting : The Bill Clinton Gambit.

“Imagine how a Republican might feel if - late in the Clinton Administration - the Justice Department's own Inspector General reported that Clinton's White House staff had meddled with nearly all Justice Department hiring decisions, ending the traditional practice of hiring and promoting on advice from neutral commissions and instead applying blatant political tests, transforming the U.S.J.D. into a massive, private law firm serving one political party... relentlessly ignoring crimes by their "side" and pursuing vendettas against the other.”

If this happened under Bill Clinton, and only fiercely partisan liberal Democratswere allowed inside Justice, would you have called it a scandal? But the Inspector General says that this did NOT happen under Clinton. It happened under Bush and the Republicans. So where's your righteous sense of anger?

While you’re at it... try rephrasing the following items the same why! “What if Clinton and the liberals had...?”

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. “For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC's Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources. ...A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations..... And example cited in the article: “In the run-up to the invasion one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth seven billion that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company, which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president. Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.”

Now look back at how thr far-right howled over the UN’s “Oil for Food” program and some possible graft that might have added up, over a decade, to a billion dollars. Where is the same indignation over theft that directly betrayed our troops in the field, amounting to tens and even hundreds of times as much?

While we’re at conspiracy explanations for the , go see this intervirew with Vanity Fair editor Craig Unger on the Bush family feud, neoconservatives and the Christian right. Unger is author of House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties, which traces the intense links between those two royal families, which helps to explain why the Saudis and the Iranians are the only real winners to emerge from the neconservative era. Unger’s latest book The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War and Still Imperils America's Future tracks the civil war between Bush Sr.’s moderate republican circle and the neocons who (metaphorically) hijacked his son. See an interview with Unger that, except for some flickers of Israeli conspiracy fetishism, are deeply informative, fascinating and rather scary.

---
And what would Timothy McVeigh have said? That is... if liberals did this? The Senate’s subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on “Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government,” chaired by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. Growing use of secret law “is implicated in fundamental political controversies over domestic surveillance, torture and many other issues directly affecting the lives and interests of Americans. ... Secret law excludes the public from the deliberative process, promotes arbitrary and deviant government behavior, and shields official malefactors from accountability.” At this very Senate hearing, John R. Elwood, the Office of Legal Counsel’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General, provided a startling example of the Bush administration’s justification for the imperious essence of secret law. As reported in the May 1 New York Times, Elwood “disclosed a previously unpublicized method to cloak government activities.” The Bush administration believes, he said, “that the president could ignore or modify existing executive orders that he and other presidents have issued without disclosing the new interpretation.”


----
Next time... why Obama should do several more “jiu jitsu moves”... including a bold statement in favor of “states rights.” Now it’s blue-staters who want relief from an overbearing central government that takes their taxes, returns little, and quashes every attempt to make progress at the state level.

The ul;timate irony will come when liberals add gun ownership to states rights, as positions that suddenly make sense from THEIR perspective... while the far right consinues being hereded toward defense of authoritarianism.

But then, ironies are generally overlooked till theyhit people on the head…

---- ANNOUNCING ---

The latest Armageddon Buffet is out! See some wonderfully inflamatory (and yet twistedly wise) articles that leap out from the rest. http://www.armageddonbuffet.com

Why The Candidates Should "Stipulate"

It's been said that a politician gets to be perfectly honest just once in a long career -- at its end. Refreshing candor sometimes pours after an old pol has faced the last campaign. No more fund raisers or need to flatter voters. One final chance, before the cameras, to tell the truth.

Frankly, though, we don't have time for that sort of thing today. Indeed, so many politicians hurry through the revolving door, into fat directorships and lobbying firms, that even this source of candor is becoming all-too rare.

Hence, I would like to offer here a suggestion that I've made every presidential election since well before the turn of the century. An unusual idea... perhaps one you'll call mad. And yet, an idea that could empower BOTH the Democratic and Republican nominees to do the nation a tremendous service before the campaign and the election even finish!

Yes, it calls for maturity, common sense and genuine patriotism... all in apparent short supply. Still, do hear me out.

As I've said, only a few officials spill their hearts when they retire, but when they do it can be colorful.

Take the day in 1991 when both Republican Senator Warren Rudman and Democrat Paul Tsongas withdrew from public life. They made headlines by jointly suggesting that everybody was at fault for the country's condition at the time, from then-President Bush to the then democrat controlled Congress, all the way to the American people. The pair castigated politicians of all parties for not telling citizens that burgeoning budget deficits threatened our economic well-being. Responsible economists agreed. A few even credit Rudman and Tsongas for spurring reforms that helped lead to the Clinton era surpluses.

A more recent example of post retirement candor came with ex Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's revelations about the second Bush Administration. It resulted in a fire storm of attacks from his own party. O'Neill's explanation for this candor? That he was "old and rich" and unafraid to speak his mind.

However one feels about those specific examples, we can all agree that they are rare. One of the chief flaws of our electoral system is that real candor is punished. Both sides may rail against each other, but they'll never aim bad news at us. Even if both nominees believe in their hearts that the public needs to face some hard truth, neither will dare be first to say it, lest the other side take advantage.

Think about it. Throughout the coming election we will learn how the candidates disagree on a myriad issues. We will also hear platitudes, as each tells voters what they want to hear. Logically, there must be a third category -- areas where these well-informed professionals agree with each other, but are afraid to speak out.

Alas, we will never hear whatever topics or beliefs occupy that logical box -- no matter how full or empty it may be -- because neither of them will dare speak first.

Now consider this. There is no political cost to telling voters what you really believe... if your opponent has agreed, in advance, to say the same thing.

Now at first, this statement sounds absurdly simpleminded.

After all, the metaphor for an election is a race. "Give 'em hell" combat, with no holds barred.

==The Third Option: Arguing Like Adults==

But wait. What's wrong with the idea of two leaders finding a patch of consensus amid a sea of discord? We cheer when this occurs among heads of state, overcoming differences between nations in order to sign a treaty that finds common ground. Then why not between candidates?

The process is called stipulation... as when the attorneys representing opposite sides in a trial agree to agree about a set of points. By stipulating these points, they help move the trial forward, focusing on areas where they disagree.

What does stipulation have to do with politics?

And, given the exceptional intensity of partisanship, in recent American political life, is it utterly dumb to even dream of mature behavior popping up, like a flower in the desert?

Bear with me for a little while, in a “what-if” thought experiment. Imagine, along with me, this weird, but possible scenario.

Suppose, amidst the 2008 campaign, Republican candidate John McCain and his Democratic opponent were to suspend their mutual attacks just long enough to get together and meet for an afternoon. First, they and their staffs would cover issues such as scheduling debates, and how to prevent spirals of mudslinging. The people would applaud any agreement on fair campaigning principles. Heck, just seeing them talk to each other like adults might be refreshing. Think how the image might affect the rancorous mood we see in politics today, independent of policy disagreements.

So far, so good.

Only then suppose the two nominees do something unprecedented. They go for a walk, alone. Unpressured by cameras and media flacks, they talk. During this quiet moment before the rough and tumble resumes, they seek just a few points of consensus.

Don’t dismiss this too readily! For all of his faults, McCain has done this sort of thing before. So have Senators Clinton and Obama. In fact, the only ones to object would be those at the extremes, i both parties. Those wanting nothing but take-no-prisoners political war. Of the sort that has come near ruining our country. So, let’s ponder this fantasy a bit longer.

Oh, neither candidate will change the other's mind concerning major divisions. But what about issues where they do agree? Here we have two knowledgeable public persons, presumably concerned about America's future. Surely there would be some areas of overlap? Things that both of them feel we, as a nation, should do.

Now imagine that this overlap this results in a joint statement. Though reiterating a myriad points of disagreement, they go on to make public, simultaneously, their shared belief that America should, for its own good, pass law "X", or repeal restriction "Y". Further, they agree that neither will attack the other for taking this stand.

No longer pandered to, a lot of folks might say -- "Gosh, if both of them agree that the country needs this strong medicine, let's give it some thought."

This would not free candidates completely from the stifling effects of mass-politics. But it could let them display something we've seen rarely... leadership. Even statesmanship. Setting aside self-interest in favor of hard truth, telling the people what they need to hear, whether they like it or not.

==Is This Wish Impossible and Unprecedented?==

Well, actually, it has happened before, during the Presidential campaign of 1940. When Franklin Roosevelt was running for a third term, he approached the Republican candidate, Wendell Wilkie, to negotiate just such a stipulated agreement in the area of foreign policy.

Britain badly needed escort vessels for the North Atlantic and the U.S. had over-age destroyers to spare. But Roosevelt feared political repercussions during a campaign in which he was already under attack for breaking neutrality. Wilkie agreed to FDR's request, and declared that lend-lease would be his policy too, if he were elected.

Everyone benefited -- Wilkie rose in stature. FDR got his policy implemented, and the world was better off because political advantage was briefly put aside for the common good. On other issues, Roosevelt and Wilkie battled as fiercely as ever. Yet, that historical act of stipulation shines as in memory.

How might today's politics differ if two adults -- each the standard bearer of a major party -- agreed to let it be known how, in a few ways, they agree? Might they take on some of our most politically impossible subjects? Perhaps a cow as sacred as the Social Security retirement age, a compromise on gun control, some campaign finance reform, or perhaps shifting strategy in the endless, brain-dead War on Drugs?

That would still leave plenty for us to fight over, don’t worry! But note, there are millions of Americans who deeply yearn for a more mature approach to politics. If a candidate offered this, and the other refused... well, there might be benefits there, as well.

Is this quixotic proposal too much to ask of today's opportunistic brand of politician? Perhaps. Indeed, I have little hope that it has a chance of happening during the 2008 election cycle, while partisanship towers foremost in the minds of the partisan attack dogs who have turned America into a silly place for more than a decade, overshadowing any national good.

Still, our politics can evolve. Only during the most recent generation has the tradition of Presidential debates became so entrenched that no front-runner can now duck them. Ancient hurdles of age, race, and gender are falling.

==So why not barriers against candor?==

Might the Candidates' Post-Convention Summit become traditional, like doldrums in July and mudslinging in October? Someday, the whole nation may look forward to the occasion, once every four years, with a sort of delicious, nervous anticipation -- awaiting the one day when two eminent politicians will say not what is politically wise, but what is simply wise.

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

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