The Commentariat -- March 20

Paul Krugman really has had it with the self-proclaimed "oracle of wisdom," Alan Greenspan: "... he’s the man who presided over an economy careening to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression — and who saw no evil, heard no evil, refused to do anything about subprime, insisted that derivatives made the financial system more stable, denied not only that there was a national housing bubble but that such a bubble was even possible. If he wants to redeem himself through hard and serious reflection about how he got it so wrong, fine — and I’d be interested in listening. If he thinks he can still lecture us from his pedestal of wisdom, he’s wasting our time."

President Obama speaks about human rights in Rio de Janeiro:

     ... Thanks to the Uptake, the only outlet I found that had the video. You can donate to them here. I'll always love those kids for covering the Franken-Coleman recount.

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, on the Libyan effort:

Tom Friedman: "In putting off big policy decisions, we are brazenly taunting two unforgiving forces: the market and Mother Nature.... President Obama has the right convictions on all these issues, but he has not shown the courage of his convictions. The Republicans have just gone nuts.... The world is caught in a dangerous feedback loop — higher oil prices and climate disruptions lead to higher food prices, higher food prices lead to more instability, more instability leads to higher oil prices."

In a Washington Post op-ed, David Rothkopf, an international policy expert who has worked for both Republicans & Democrats, assesses how President Obama exercises foreign policy. CW: you could argue with Rothkopf's thesis, & even some of his statements of fact seem to differ with published reports, but his observations are at least food for thought.

The Obamas & Brazilian President Dilma Vana Rousseff observe the Brazilian honor guard during an arrival ceremony in Brasilia. Reuters picture.Glenn Thrush of Politico: "President Barack Obama ... juggled the pageantry and substance attendant to his first South American visit with urgent phone calls and top-level national security consultations about a pending joint aerial assault against Libya."

Jordan Fabian of The Hill: Michael Moore rips President Obama in a series of tweets deriding the no-fly zone policy against Libya.

Nicholas Kristof on what we could learn about social responsibility from the Japanese.

Joe Nocera of the New York Times praises Elizabeth Warren, whom Repubicans on a House subcommittee treated as "a piñata" at a recent hearing. "Subprime mortgages? Too-big-to-fail banks? Unregulated derivatives? No problem! With the exception of their bête noire, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Republicans act as if nothing needs to be done to prevent another crisis. Indeed, they act as if the crisis never happened."

** Karen Garcia on the New York Times' paywall:

If you are a New York Times subscriber, registered user or commenter, the richest man on the planet owns a piece of you. And if you plan on forking over between $185 and $300 a year in order to scale the digital edition's upcoming paywall, you’ll be contributing even more to the vast fortune of one Carlos Slim.

     CW: by rights, stories & opinion pieces on the Times' paywall -- already in effect in Canada -- should fall under my Infotainment section, but turning the "paper of record" into an exclusive rag is a serious issue for those of us who care about access to news & opinion. So, at least for now, I'm keeping stories about the Times inaccessibility front & center.

Jim Fallows remembers Warren Christopher.

Michael Facone of ABC News: "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to [the dedication of] ‘Joe Biden’ Station [in Wilmington, Delaware]: Federal Railroad Officials Abandon Stranded Train."

Local News

Live Free or Die Smoking. Think Progress: "In a flurry of legislative activity this week, the New Hampshire House approved a tax cut on cigarettes even while cutting funding for education, and health care. The ten cent tax cut bucks a national trend of raising taxes on tobacco... and, according to multiple studies, could lead to a 6.6 percent increase in respiratory cancer deaths."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "The Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, deplored the broad scope of the U.S.-European bombing campaign in Libya and said Sunday that he would call a league meeting to reconsider Arab approval of the Western military intervention." ...

... Al Jazeera: "Loud explosions have rocked the Libyan capital, Tripoli, a day after international forces launched an operation to enforce a no-fly zone over the North African country. Anti-aircraft tracer fire erupted in Tripoli late on Sunday, indicating a second wave of incoming jets aimed at targets belonging to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Britain's ministry of defence said one of its submarines had again fired guided Tomahawk missiles on Libyan air defence systems on Sunday." ...

... New York Times: "A day after American and European forces began a broad campaign of strikes against the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader delivered a fresh and defiant tirade on Sunday, pledging retaliation and saying his forces would fight a long war to victory." Story has been updated: "American and European forces intensified their barrage of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces by air and sea on Sunday, a day after an initial American cruise missile barrage badly damaged Libyan air defenses, military officials said."  ...

... Washington Post: "After fierce street battles [in Benghazi, Libya], after barrages of artillery and rockets pounding this rebel stronghold and cradle of Libya’s populist uprising, Gaddafi’s troops withdrew in the afternoon."

New York Times: "Yemen’s president fired his cabinet on Sunday, while antigovernment demonstrations here in the capital grew in number and momentum two days after government-directed forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least 45 people and wounding more than 200."

New York Times: "Protesters set fire to the ruling Baath Party’s headquarters and other government buildings in the southern city of Dara’a on Sunday, as protesters rallied and clashed with the police for a third straight day, witnesses said. Police officers fired live ammunition into the crowds, killing at least one and wounding scores of others, witnesses said. But the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, also made some conciliatory gestures...."

New York Times: "Egyptian voters overwhelming approved a referendum on constitutional changes that will usher in rapid elections, with the results announced Sunday underscoring the strength of established political organizations and the weakness of the nascent liberal groups.... The Muslim Brotherhood and remnant elements of the National Democratic Party, which dominated Egyptian politics for decades, were the main supporters of the referendum. They said their position was to insure the swift return to civilian rule."

New York Times: "AT&T announced on Sunday that it agreed to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom, in a $39 billion deal that will reshape the cellular telephone industry. The merger — one of the largest since the onset of the financial crisis — would combine the second and fourth largest cellular carriers in the nation...."

New York Times: "More than 20,000 people marched Saturday in the southern Syrian town of Dara’a in funerals for protesters killed in demonstrations the day before, and the police used truncheons and tear gas to disperse the mourners. Protests broke out in four [Syrian] cities on Friday, a rare event in a police state tha brutally represses dissent. At the largest one, a march of several thousand people in Dara’a, a police crackdown killed six people."

Reuters: "Japan restored power to a crippled nuclear reactor on Sunday in its race to avert disaster at a plant wrecked by an earthquake and tsunami that are estimated to have killed more than 15,000 people in one prefecture alone. Three hundred engineers have been struggling inside the danger zone to salvage the six-reactor Fukushima plant...." With video.

AP: "The U.S. ambassador to Mexico has resigned after the publication of U.S. diplomatic cables that criticized that government’s anti-drug fight, infuriating the Mexican president. Carlos Pascual appears to be the first senior U.S. diplomat to lose his job because of the WikiLeaks revelations. He had been stationed in Mexico for 19 months. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement Saturday evening that she had accepted Pascual’s resignation 'with great regret.'... Analysts say the opinions expressed by Pascual and other U.S. diplomats in the classified documents aren’t surprising.... But the Mexican government clearly felt exposed upon publication of the criticism by a close ally, which became a media sensation."

CNN: "Hip-hop singer Wyclef Jean was recovering Sunday after he was shot in the hand, his publicist said. Spokeswoman Cindy Tanenbaum said Jean, who was in Haiti, was shot in Port-au-Prince on Saturday -- on the eve of the country's presidential runoff vote." Jean had planned to run for president, but Haitian officials ruled that he did not meet the residency requirements.

The Dodds of Connecticut

Maureen Dowd writes a thin, somewhat fawning column/interview of former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who as the new head of the Motion Picture Association of America has become Washington's top lobbyist. She & Dodd take a trip down memory lane, as Dodd relates anecdotes from the old days. He mentions his father, who was also a Connecticut Senator. The moderators scrapped my comment, so here it is, somewhat modified to say what I really think:

Chris Dodd, learning ethics on his father's knee. Undated photo.Since Chris Dodd is so fond of telling old stories & of complimenting his new bosses on their ability to do the same, here's one about Dodd's father, Sen. Thomas Dodd.

My great aunts lived on the first floor of a modest two-flat on Triangle Street in West Hartford. On the upper floor lived a couple with a beautiful young daughter. When she became of marriageable age, she took up with young Tom Dodd, who had just matriculated at Yale Law. Tom was on a tight budget. Every evening my aunts would see Tom going up the steps to have dinner with the fiancee and her parents. Those hearty meals, freely given by the folks upstairs, sure helped their future son-in-law get through law school.

Upon being graduated from Yale Law, Tom went to work for the FBI where his biggest case was an unsuccessful attempt to capture gangster John Dillinger. Oh, and he met a young woman from a wealthy family. So Agent Tom left the girl upstairs -- and her accommodating parents -- and married the socialite, who was to be Chris Dodd's mother. My aunts were Democrats, but they never voted for Tom Dodd. They said he was too untrustworthy.

Chris Dodd also left the Senate under a cloud. As Dowd mentions evah so briefly, "In trouble with Connecticut voters for taking a V.I.P. home mortgage from Countrywide Financial, he didn’t seek re-election." The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

P.S. I notice at the bottom of Dowd's column is an announcement that "Thomas L. Friedman is off today." While I'll warrant Friedman is often "off," he must not have got the memo, because not only did he write a column for today's paper, it is a darned good one.

The Commentariat -- March 19

** Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker: the federal government's nuclear energy policy is to pretend our plants are safe & hope we get away with it:

More than two dozen reactors in the http://www.realitychex.com/process/admin/CreateOrModifyJournalEntry?moduleId=4549814&entryId=10842517#U.S. have aboveground storage pools similar to those that have failed at Fukushima — the only difference is that the American pools contain far more waste than their Japanese counterparts.... David Lochbaum ... of the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the risks currently posed by spent-fuel pools in the U.S. 'about as high as you could possibly make them.' ...

... Bob Herbert: "The public deserves a much fuller accounting of nuclear power’s pros and cons." ...

... "Duck and Cover." Karen Garcia lived within 50 miles of New York State's Indian Point nuclear plant which has a "long history of unplanned radioactive gaseous burps and leakage problems and a transformer explosion and proximity to a fault line." Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to shut it down, but he has no plan whatsoever for providing an alternative source of the energy the plant produces.

Glenn Greenwald: "... the intervention in Libya was presidentially decreed with virtually no public debate or discussion; it's just amazing how little public opinion or the consent of the citizenry matters when it comes to involving the country in a new war." ...

... Karen deYoung of the Washington Post: "The planned military action in Libya marks a rare international intervention in which U.S. forces will not take the lead operational role. With French, British and United Arab Emirates jets poised to begin flights over Libya, and other European and Arab forces assembling to aid enforcement of a no-fly zone, the Americans were far from the pending action, in ships offshore and surveillance aircraft high above." ...

... Helene Cooper & Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times have more background on the rapid evolution of U.S. policy on the Libyan crisis. The writers credit U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, National Security Council aide Samantha Power, & -- ultimately -- Secretary Hillary Clinton -- for moving the U.S. & other nations toward intervention." See also yesterday's Commentariat for a link to Josh Rogin's reporting on the same subject.

One example I particularly like is the encouraging number of female presidents in the region. And I must say that I’m far enough away from my own career in electoral politics that I will not take too much heat for suggesting that these women and societies can teach American voters a thing or two! -- Hillary Clinton, on Latin America

Local News

Richard Oppel, Jr., of the New York Times: "In an abrupt change of course, Arizona lawmakers rejected new anti-immigration measures on Thursday, in what was widely seen as capitulation to pressure from business executives and an admission that the state’s tough stance had resulted in a chilling of the normally robust tourism and convention industry. The State Senate voted down five bills that among other things sought to require hospitals to inform law enforcement officials when treating patients suspected of being in the country illegally and to prod the Supreme Court to rule against automatic citizenship for American-born children of illegal immigrants."

News Ledes

President Obama today on the strikes on Libya:

New York Times: "American and European forces began a broad campaign of strikes against the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Saturday, unleashing warplanes and missiles in the first round of the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon said.... The Pentagon said that American forces dominated an effort to knock out Libya’s air-defense systems. In a briefing Saturday afternoon, Vice Adm. William Gortney told reporters that about 110 Tomahawk missiles, fired from American warships and submarines and one British submarine struck 20 air-defense targets around Tripoli, the capital, and the western city of Misurata." ...

... New York Times: "Libya had pledged a cease-fire hours before [President's Obama's address yesterday]. But reports on Saturday from rebel-held territory indicated that Colonel Qaddafi’s troops were attacking in the east. Government forces continued to advance on Benghazi, the rebel’s capital in the east, and the BBC reported that some tanks were in the city on Saturday morning. The government spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, denied in Tripoli that pro-Qaddafi units were attacking in Benghazi and said that only the rebels had an incentive to break the cease-fire. After the BBC report on tanks moving within Benghazi, the BBC Web site was inaccessible in Tripoli, suggesting that it may have been blocked." The Times story has been updated: "American, European and Arab leaders began the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq on Saturday, in an effort to stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s war on the Libyan opposition. Leaders meeting in Paris on Saturday afternoon said direct strikes against Libyan government forces, as approved by the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, would begin within hours. And President Nicolas Sarkozy said French warplanes had already begun enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya, conducting reconnaissance missions and preparing to intercept any Libyan military aircraft."

A plane shot down over Libya. To the left of the plane, you can barely see the pilot, his parachute beginning to open. The plane is reported to be a Libyan plane shot down by rebel forces over Benghazi. AFP photo.... AP: "A warplane was shot down over Libyan rebels' eastern stronghold Saturday as the opposition accused Moammar Kadafi's government of defying a cease-fire.... Trying to outmaneuver Western military intervention, Kadafi's government declared a cease-fire on Friday as the rebel uprising faltered against his artillery, tanks and warplanes. But the opposition said shells rained down well after the announcement and accused the Libyan leader of lying."

AP: "Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 50 mortar shells into Israel on Saturday, the heaviest barrage in two years, Israeli officials said, raising the prospect of a new Mideast flareup. Also Saturday, Hamas police beat reporters and news photographers covering a rally in Gaza City, drawing a stiff condemnation from the reporters' association."

New York Times: "Egyptians flocked to the polls to vote in a referendum on a package of constitutional amendments that will shape the country’s political future."

New York Times: "For the first time since demonstrators began camping out in front of Sana University calling for an end to the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country’s opposition leaders attended the protest as a group on Saturday afternoon to voice their support."

Reuters: "One of six tsunami-crippled nuclear reactors appeared to stabilize on Saturday as Japan raced to restore power to the stricken power plant to cool it and prevent a greater catastrophe. Engineers reported some rare success after fire trucks sprayed water for about three hours on reactor No.3, widely considered the most dangerous at the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex because of its use of highly toxic plutonium." ...

AP: "Japan said radiation levels in spinach and milk from farms near its tsunami-crippled nuclear complex exceeded government safety limits, as emergency teams scrambled Saturday to restore power to the plant so it could cool dangerously overheated fuel. The food was taken from farms as far as 65 miles (100 kilometers) from the stricken plants, suggesting a wide area of nuclear contamination."

New York Times: "After securing the Federal Reserve’s blessing, a series of financial giants rushed to raise their dividends and buy back stock on Friday, underscoring how Wall Street profits and an improving economy have helped the biggest banks stage a broad recovery since they were laid low by the financial crisis. Within hours of being told by regulators they had passed a second round of stress tests, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and several other major lenders laid out specific plans. Meanwhile, American Express and Goldman Sachs announced they were resuming large-scale stock repurchases, with Goldman buying back the $5 billion stake it sold to Warren E. Buffett in the fall of 2008."