February 2004

There were 146 posts published in February 2004 (this is page 9 of 25).

Cabinet Doesn’t Believe White House, Either

Division in the ranks:

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow distanced himself on Tuesday from the Bush administration’s official prediction that the nation would add 2.6 million jobs by the end of this year.
That prediction, which is far more optimistic than that of many private sector forecasters, was part of the annual economic report released last week by the White House Council of Economic Advisers and was immediately echoed by Mr. Bush himself.
But on a tour through Washington and Oregon to promote the president’s economic agenda, Mr. Snow and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans both declined to endorse the White House prediction and cautioned that it was based on economic assumptions that have an inherent margin of error.
“I think we are going to create a lot of jobs; how many I don’t know,” Mr. Snow said, adding that “macroeconomic models are based on a lot of assumptions” and are “not without a range of error.”

I wonder if Mr. Snow realizes that this is the type of thing that could get him fired. Anyway, it’s doesn’t instill much confidence when your own cabinet doesn’t get on board with a forecast. Then again, when have any of the administration’s predictions actually been correct? On anything?
UPDATE: Bush himself didn’t want to touch the jobs forecast today. It’s the “number-crunchers'” fault!

India, Pakistan Make Progress

The Middle East has taught us not to get too excited over a “road map,” but news from South Asia looks encouraging:

Pakistan and India today laid out a timetable for peace talks on a wide range of topics, including the key issues of Kashmir, nuclear safeguards and terrorism.
A series of mid-level meetings will begin directly after the Indian elections in April, culminating in a summit in August between the two nations’ foreign ministers.
“We do have a basic road map for a Pakistan-India peace process to which we have both agreed,” the senior official in Pakistan’s foreign ministry, Riaz Khokhar, told reporters at the conclusion of the talks.
Even before the Indian elections, technical-level talks will be held on transport links and other issues, Mr Khokhar said after a face-to-face meeting with his Indian counterpart, Shashank.
“We feel that the atmosphere is much better,” he said. “There is a realisation on both sides that war is not an option.”

Hopefully a terrorist group won’t pop up and derail things.

Whistleblower Sues Justice Department

These allegations, if true, are disturbing:

A federal prosecutor in a major terrorism case in Detroit has taken the rare step of suing Attorney General John Ashcroft, alleging the Justice Department interfered with the case, compromised a confidential informant and exaggerated results in the war on terrorism.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino of Detroit accused the Justice Department of “gross mismanagement” of the war on terrorism in a whistleblower lawsuit filed late Friday in federal court in Washington.

Exaggerating aspects of the war on terrorism–I can’t imagine a government would be compelled to do that. [/sarcasm]
Why might Convertino be ticked?

Convertino came under internal investigation last fall after providing information to a Senate committee about his concerns about the war on terror. His testimony came just months after he helped convict some members of an alleged terrorism cell in Detroit.

People are after him for spilling the beans. It gets even better:

Convertino also accused Justice officials of intentionally divulging the name of one of his confidential terrorism informants (CI) to retaliate against him.
The leak put the informant at grave risk, forced him to flee the United States and “interfered with the ability of the United States to obtain information from the CI about current and future terrorist activities,” the suit alleges.

An intelligence-jeopardizing leak for personal retaliation–where have we heard that one before, Ambassador Wilson?

Backpedaling

Looks like N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, is trying to duck following his assertion that U.S. job outsourcing is a “good thing”:

Mankiw, a former Harvard economics professor, said Tuesday he had learned a lesson about the use of language from his missteps last week.
“Economists and noneconomists speak very different languages,” Mankiw said in a speech to an audience of economists.
“Last week, some of the comments I made about the benefits of international trade were far from clear and were misinterpreted,” Mankiw told the National Economists Club.

The problem is that it isn’t merely one of Mankiw’s off-the-cuff comments that’s being “misinterpreted.” The president’s economic report is what’s drawing most fire for the outsourcing commentary.
Note to Mankiw: next time you sign off on a report, make sure it’s written in the correct “language.”