Grade This! - June 17, 2005

The week’s wrap-up: Senate lynching caucus, the plot to gut Big Bird, and Bush’s global warming cheerleader.

Energy Policy: Senate Acts, Inhofe Makes Stuff Up

The Senate made a small but important step towards a sane energy policy this week when 44 Democrats joined with eight Republicans to require that utility companies generate 10 percent of their power via renewable energy sources by 2020. Such a development will disappoint the White House and the House of Representatives, which have endorsed an energy policy focused exclusively on fossil fuels that might best be termed the “Saudi Arabia, Please Give Us More Oil! Pretty Please!!” Act of 2005. The conflict could be even starker next week, when the Senate is likely to vote on an amendment that would cut the carbon dioxide emissions scientists consider largely responsible for global warming.

Not all senators deserve to share in the praise, however. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) expressed his view this week that global warming is a hoax perpetuated by fringe leftists who want to destroy the American economy and set up a world government. This could come as a surprise to such fringe leftist corporations as General Electric, which believes global warming merits immediate action.

Senate energy policy: B
Senate energy policy if it votes to cut carbon dioxide emissions: A
White House energy policy: D+
Sen. James Inhofe’s energy policy: D-
The movie Waterworld, starring Kevin Costner: F

Josh Patashnik, Harvard University

Senators’ Inaction on Lynching Beyond the Pale

When Senators Mary Landrieu and George Allen assembled a bipartisan coalition of 80 Senators to co-sponsor a resolution apologizing for the Senate’s historic indifference to lynching, you would hope that it would finally be something that all Americans could agree upon. You would be wrong. 15 conservative Senators opposed the effort. But you would still hope that on an issue like lynching, which used to be perpetrated by men too scared to show their faces, instead hiding behind white cloths, that the Senators would at least be willing to take the stand publicly. You would still be wrong. Senators Allen and Landrieu were told by Majority Leader Frist that no roll call vote would be allowed on the issue, so those Senators who feel no remorse for the nearly 5,000 Americans killed at the hands of lynch mobs would be protected from public scrutiny. Thankfully, even if Senator Frist is satisfied letting members of his caucus hide their faces behind Senate rules, John Aravosis and others have been working overtime to remove the white hoods. Find a full list of the Senators here.

Taking Institutional Responsibility for Sins of the Past: A
Assembling 80 Co-Sponsors: A
Refusing to Co-Sponsor: F
Providing Cover for the Cowards: F

Matt Singer, University of Montana

The Olive Garden of Pop Music

Jon Pareles, chief music critic of the New York Times, wrote a front-page article for the Sunday arts section called “The Case Against Coldplay.” The piece is essentially Pareles’ attempt to be hipper-than-thou by attacking a popular, musically tight group for being…well, popular and musically tight. According to Pareles, Coldplay is too universally popular, its records too scrupulously produced, and bands that rip them off like Keane suck. If your job is to be a music critic, it seems like a waste of energy pointing out that a particular band is the Olive Garden of the charts- not bad in and of itself, but representative of a bourgeois, pseudo-upscale sensibility that hipsters find so galling. If anything, that’s a redundant statement about the state of pop music today.

Making fun of an acclaimed band for self-promotion: C-
Doing so under the guise of music criticism: D
A cross-marketing plan of unlimited Coldplay, salad and breadsticks: A

Amy Schiller, Brandeis University

Poll Says: Time for the Revolution, Right?

According to a new poll by the New York Times/CBS News, President Bush’s approval ratings have slipped to 42%, the lowest they’ve been in a year, and tied for the second lowest level since he took office. At the same time, 61% of respondents think that "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track" in this country. 62% disapprove of Bush’s handling of Social Security and 66% are "uneasy" about his ability to make good decisions about it. 51% of Americans now think that we should have stayed out of Iraq and 59% disapprove of how Bush is handling the situation there. My take? Slowly but surely, this administration’s attempts at cloak-and-dagger governing are being outed. But if so many people know about it, where’s the outcry?

The American people figuring out the truth: B+
...and then not doing anything about it: D
President Bush: F (It takes a steep curve for a 42% to be anything else.)

Chaim Schramm, University of Michigan

Freedom is on the March?

Iranians are electing their new president in what could be their closest election since 1979. However, power ultimately lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is apparently hoping a high turnout will silence critics of Iran’s political system.

President Bush would have none of it though. He called the elections a farce, claiming that "the Iranian people deserve a genuinely democratic system in which elections are honest." And no wonder, the election is filled with western-style political tactics, including professional campaigns and those ever so pernicious blogs. With fake news reporters, flip flopping politicos, and blatant electoral fraud, how could this possibly be a democracy?

Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstancracked down on protesters and investigations continued into Uzbekistan’s civilian massacre. But that’s okay, at least they don’t have weapons of mass destruction.

Iranian Attempts at Democracy: B-
Iranian Blogosphere: A+
Fake Reporters: D-
Authoritarian Regimes: F
Ridiculously Difficult to Spell Names: Z+

Andrew Fong, Harvard University

The GOP’s Plot to Kill Big Bird

Thanks to a proposal authored by Ohio Republican Rep. Ralph Regula, public broadcasting lost $100 million in federal funding after a House subcommittee voted last week. The cuts will significantly affect public media outlets such as PBS and NPR, especially harming children’s educational programs such as Sesame Street, Arthur, and Reading Rainbow. “Americans overwhelmingly see public broadcasting as an unbiased information source,” said Wisconsin Democrat Rep. David Obey in a statement. “Perhaps that’s what the GOP finds so offensive about it. Republican leaders are trying to bring every facet of the federal government under their control…Now they are trying to put their ideological stamp on public broadcasting.” The severe attack on public broadcasting undermines the need for free media in a democracy. Public media has been a glimmer of hope in the world of corporate media, allowing listeners and viewers to actually participate in and influence content. But I suppose we should hardly be surprised that right-wingers would want to crush any media outlet that could possibly reflect public opinion rather than telling us what to think.

Big Bird: A
Republican continued attacks on a free, flourishing and independent media: F-

Suemedha Sood, University of Virginia

Slavin’ Away on Capitol Hill

The woman who some Senate Democrats have called the worst of President Bush’s judicial nominees is a self-proclaimed would-be Abraham Lincoln, on a mission to emancipate fellow Americans from the shackles of slavery. And who might the slave-drivers be? Newly-minted DC Circuit Court of Appeals judge Janice Rogers Brown thinks that dubious title goes to none other than … liberals.

Government regulation and dependence, according to Brown, threaten fundamental freedoms just as, in the wacky world of radical conservative thought, same-sex marriage threatens heterosexual unions. According to the New York Times, Brown, an evangelical, has in the past denounced affirmative action, abortion rights, and even decried New Deal-era legal precedents which opened the door for vitally important federal regulations and social programs – what she calls “the triumph of our socialist revolution.” “In the heyday of liberal democracy,” Brown has said in speeches, “all roads lead to slavery.” Don’t worry, we’re as confused as you are.

Despite all the Ayn Rand-inspired libertarian rhetoric, Campus Progress wonders if Brown’s possible future appointment to the US Supreme Court will ever help the hundreds of Muslim men detained indefinitely in the legal equivalent of The Twilight Zone in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prisoners as a result of George Bush’s reckless War on International Law. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, always a hit with the civil libertarian crowd, cemented his invitation to the annual ACLU Ball when on June 9 th he confirmed our lingering suspicion that no one in the Executive is considering closing Gitmo’s infamous never-ending summer camp, where the facilities are wanting, the camp counselors are cruel, and your Qu’ran is likely to fall into the hands of abusive infidels. Can you say ‘hypocrisy’?

Janice Rogers Brown’s hypocritical and reactionary insanity: D-
Senate “compromise” that ends in the confirmation of Justice Brown: D
Books by Ayn Rand: F
The food at Camp Delta: B

Andrew Garib, Cornell University

President Bush Takes on Iran in an Inadvertent Stand-Up Routine

Bush called the upcoming Iranian elections undemocratic. Here’s something everyone can agree on: Having a religious council that has to approve candidates for the presidency is by nature undemocratic. Having a regime that forces women to wear veils and forbids public mixing between genders can be fairly considered oppressive (right, Saudi Arabia?).

Of all the statements Bush could make about the hypocrisy of Iran’s electoral process, it is baffling that he would choose this one: "Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy." Wasn’t there that Florida election thing a few years back?

Having the president write your joke for you: A
Having that joke be so painfully true and yet so blatantly unacknowledged by anyone in media: F

Amy Schiller, Brandeis University

Bush Admin Hacks Still Pretending Global Warming is No Biggie

Philip Cooney, the former chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality who was caught editing reports on climate change, will be returning to real lobbying in the fall for Exxon-Mobil. He was caught by the New York Times adding words such as “might” and “possible” to sentences referring to the effects of human induced climate change as well as deleting entire paragraphs about melting glaciers in official government reports. While the administration insisted all their reports were based on input from scientists, the government whistleblower who brought the documents forth says Cooney had the final review and authority. Two days later, Cooney, who has no scientific background, resigned from his post for what the administration cites as completely unrelated reasons and was quickly picked up by Exxon-Mobil. Luckily, his previous work lobbying for the American Petroleum Institute should help his transition to the oil giant. (Though one might say that as part of his work in the Administration he was basically serving as an in-house lobbyist for big energy companies.) Meanwhile, the Bush administration has succeeded in weakening the climate change resolution to be signed at the G8 Summit in Scotland scheduled for early July by deleting parts describing how rising temperatures are affecting the planet and eliminating sections setting targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions worldwide and creating stricter environmental guidelines for World Bank funded power projects.

Global climate change: F
Cooney’s completely “unrelated” resignation: B+
Exxon-Mobil’s never ending climate skeptic bank roll: D-
Bush taking his embarrassingly wrongheaded view that CO2 emission cuts are unnecessary to other major world leaders: F

Kim Teplitzky, Temple University

 
Illustration: August J. Pollak

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