Tilting at Windmills - critiquing SUV's

Washington Monthly, Dec, 2002 by Charles Peters

Their indignation might have been understandable if the commissioners were full-time employees based in Washington. But they are part-time and come from all over the country to attend the meetings. So they might as well go to Wilmington as to Washington. On the other hand, Berry's reasons for holding the meeting in Wilmington were something less than compelling. For the next meeting, she has offered no reason at all for holding it in San Diego.

I WAS TOUCHED BY THE MANY tributes to Paul Wellstone, especially by those from conservatives like David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, Fred Barnes, and Robert Novak. But there was one theme that ran through the praise that I found disturbing. It was that he was a "pure liberal" or "honest liberal," never a "New Democrat" or "moderate" My friend and former colleague Timothy Noah asks in Slate, "Can't a New Democrat or a neoliberal be just as true to his beliefs as Wellstone was to his?" True, some of us may be in the center out of cowardice or cynicism. But isn't it also possible that some of us are there because of our beliefs? Just because our principles may be a mixture of conservative, liberal, and middle-of-the-road, it doesn't mean that our convictions are any less strong or pure or honest.

THE TSA's SINS ARE NOT CONFINED to its selection of hotels. It also appears to be cannibalizing much of the rest of the government. Consider Gail Linkins, the TSA's security director at the Mobile (Ala.) Regional Airport. Her senior staff--you've got to love the fact that the Mobile Regional Airport director has a senior staff--consists of a former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms officer, a former U.S. marshal, and a former administrative officer at the U.S. attorney's office, reports The Washington Post's Stephen Bart.

The TSA's air marshals program has already taken 60 members of the U.S. Capitol police. Mayor Anthony Williams tells The Washington Times that the marshals program is pulling away the District's "most seasoned veterans."

SO THAT THE CIA WILL SIT UP and pay attention to those terrorist messages, I suggest they try the label that the State Department puts on such cables: VISA VIPER.

THE Monthly HAS LONG TAKEN pride in being Washington's resident anthropologist. And it is in that role that we advise you of a recent subtle change in the city's culture identified by The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin.

It used to be that lobbyists could succeed by being a good friend and a generous contributor to the target politician. Now there is something else you must do: go back home with the politician and help him campaign.

"The price of access has gone up," one lobbyist tells Eilperin. "It's becoming increasingly clear that fundraising is not enough anymore," says another. "You have to do your part on the grassroots and be part of the ground game."

"ARMY WEIGHS PRIVATIZING Close to 214,000 Jobs," was the headline on a Nov. 3 story in The Washington Post. On the newsstand that day was the Nov. 4 issue of U.S. News & World Report, with a feature article entitled "America's Secret Army: A swarm of private contractors bedevils the U.S. military," which identified the problems that have followed in the wake of privatization efforts the military has already made. They hint strongly that, although it may be a dandy idea to outsource functions like garbage collection at bases here in the United States, it may not be such a good idea to privatize essential functions overseas such as weapons maintenance. Contractors are subject to military orders only in an inefficient and roundabout way, through the contracting officer. Also, they are not permitted to carry arms. If they are permitted to do so for self-protection, who is going to train and oversee them? Most nettlesome of all is the potential for price-gouging by a sole-source contractor performing an essential function: "I deeply regret to inform you that the recent economic downturn has compelled me to double my charge."