Op-Ed Columnist: Dreams and Glory By DAVID BROOKS, NYTimes

George Bush fundamentally sees the war on terror as a moral and ideological confrontation between the forces of democracy and the forces of tyranny. Howard Dean fundamentally sees the war on terror as a law and order issue. At the end of his press conference, Bush uttered a most un-Deanlike sentiment:

”I believe, firmly believe — and you’ve heard me say this a lot, and I say it a lot because I truly believe it — that freedom is the almighty God’s gift to every person — every man and woman who lives in this world. That’s what I believe. And the arrest of Saddam Hussein changed the equation in Iraq. Justice was being delivered to a man who defied that gift from the Almighty to the people of Iraq.”

Bush believes that God has endowed all human beings with certain inalienable rights, the most important of which is liberty. Every time he is called upon to utter an unrehearsed thought, he speaks of the war on terror as a conflict between those who seek to advance liberty to realize justice, and those who oppose the advance of liberty….

Furthermore, Bush believes the U.S. has a unique role to play in this struggle to complete democracy’s triumph over tyranny and so drain the swamp of terror. …

At first, the Bush worldview seems far more airy-fairy and idealistic. The man talks about God, and good versus evil. But in reality, Dean is the more idealistic and naïve one. Bush at least recognizes the existence of intellectual and cultural conflict. He acknowledges that different value systems are incompatible.

Op-Ed Columnist: Patriots and Profits By PAUL KRUGMAN, NYTimes

[T]he more you look into this issue, the more you worry that we have entered a new era of excess for the military-industrial complex.

The story about Halliburton’s strangely expensive gasoline imports into Iraq gets curiouser and curiouser. …

Meanwhile, NBC News has obtained Pentagon inspection reports of unsanitary conditions at mess halls run by Halliburton in Iraq….

And more detail has been emerging about Bechtel’s much-touted school repairs. …

Are these isolated bad examples, or part of a pattern? It’s impossible to be sure without a broad, scrupulously independent investigation. Yet such an inquiry is hard to imagine in the current political environment — which is precisely why one can’t help suspecting the worst.

Let’s be clear: worries about profiteering aren’t a left-right issue. Conservatives have long warned that regulatory agencies tend to be “captured” by the industries they regulate; the same must be true of agencies that hand out contracts. Halliburton, Bechtel and other major contractors in Iraq have invested heavily in political influence, not just through campaign contributions, but by enriching people they believe might be helpful. Dick Cheney is part of a long if not exactly proud tradition: Brown & Root, which later became the Halliburton subsidiary doing those dubious deals in Iraq, profited handsomely from its early support of a young politician named Lyndon Johnson.

So is there any reason to think that things are worse now? Yes.

The biggest curb on profiteering in government contracts is the threat of exposure: sunshine is the best disinfectant. Yet it’s hard to think of a time when U.S. government dealings have been less subject to scrutiny.

First of all, we have one-party rule — and it’s a highly disciplined, follow-your-orders party. There are members of Congress eager and willing to take on the profiteers, but they don’t have the power to issue subpoenas.

And getting information without subpoena power has become much harder because, as a new report in U.S. News & World Report puts it, the Bush administration has “dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government.” Since 9/11, the administration has invoked national security to justify this secrecy, but it actually began the day President Bush took office.

To top it all off, after 9/11 the U.S. media — which eagerly played up the merest hint of scandal during the Clinton years — became highly protective of the majesty of the office. As the stories I’ve cited indicate, they have become more searching lately. But even now, compare British and U.S. coverage of the Neil Bush saga.

The point is that we’ve had an environment in which officials inclined to do favors for their business friends, and contractors inclined to pad their bills or do shoddy work, didn’t have to worry much about being exposed. Human nature being what it is, then, the odds are that the troubling stories that have come to light aren’t isolated examples.

Some Americans still seem to feel that even suggesting the possibility of profiteering is somehow unpatriotic. They should learn the story of Harry Truman, a congressman who rose to prominence during World War II by leading a campaign against profiteering. Truman believed, correctly, that he was serving his country.

On the strength of that record, Franklin Roosevelt chose Truman as his vice president. George Bush, of course, chose Dick Cheney.

Op-Ed Columnist: Another Battle for Bush By BOB HERBERT, NYTimes

The front-page headline in The Daily News on Thursday said, ”Santa Comes Early to Wall Street.” It was accompanied by a photo of Philip Purcell, the chairman and C.E.O. of Morgan Stanley, who was described by The News as ”the first titan to cash in at the end of a banner year.”

The article cited several executives who were expected to receive year-end bonuses in the $12 million to $17 million range.

The Bush crowd will tell you that these economic goodies are bound to trickle down. Jobs will become plentiful. Pay envelopes will fatten. Nirvana is just around the corner.

The problem with this scenario is that there are no facts to back it up. The closer you look at employment in this country, the more convinced you become that the condition of the ordinary worker is deteriorating, not improving.

The problem is that we are not creating many jobs, and the quality of those we are creating is, for the most part, not good. Job growth at the moment is about 80,000 per month, which is not even enough to cover the new workers entering the job market.

And when the Economic Policy Institute compared the average wage of industries that are creating jobs with those that are losing jobs, analysts found a big discrepancy. The jobs lost paid about $17 an hour, compared with $14.50 an hour for those being created. …

A fierce and bitter war — not bloody like the war in Iraq, but a war just the same — is being waged against American workers. And so far, at least, the Bush administration has been on the wrong side. …

That’s the reality for workers. The corporations would like to hire as few people as possible, keep wages as low as possible, provide as few benefits as possible and work the workers as long and as hard as possible.

The president of the United States should be allied with working families in this struggle.

MSNBC – Newsweek Poll: Dean Rising

If an election were held today between Dean and Bush, the Vermonter would still likely lose (the president retains a 49 to 42 percent lead among all registered voters in a two-way race). A full 34 percent of all voters give Dean little or no chance of winning in a face-off against Bush.

Dean’s approval ratings may continue to climb, though, considering more than a third (35 percent) of registered Democrats consider Gore’s endorsement significant enough to make them more likely to vote Dean, and a majority (53 percent) of all registered voters think Dean has at least some chance of beating Bush in a hypothetical two-way election against Bush next year.

MSNBC – Can Bush Be Beat?
Vote in this poll.

If Howard Dean is the Democratic Party’s candidate for president next year, how much of a chance do you think he has of defeating George W. Bush in the November election – a good chance, some chance, very little chance, or no chance whatsoever? * 40 web responses

Democrats hurting selves with attacks – Opinion – thespectrum.com

This, of course, could splinter the party as voters tire of the internecine bashing.

For the Democrats to succeed, they must tone down the personal attacks and stick to the issues.

If not, the GOP will have a stranglehold on the White House for four more years.