Veto looms over kids' health insurance funds

Congress passed legislation last week to expand funding for the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by about 7 billion dollars per year over the next five years. The vote sets up a fight with President Bush, who has promised to veto the legislation. The 67-29 vote in the Senate was enough to override any veto, but the House bill was about two dozen votes short of the amount needed to do the same. Both chambers would need to reach the two-thirds majority to void the veto.

With that stage set, Bark Back contributor Thomas May, director of graduate studies and associate professor of bioethics at the Medical College of Wisconsin, examined the question of universal health coverage in an excellent Op/Ed in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

By Thomas May
With a controversial vote on renewal of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program looming, the importance of health insurance for America's children has perhaps never been more relevant.

Although it is one of the wealthiest societies in history, the United States is one of the few industrialized nations not to offer universal coverage for its citizens, with more than 45 million Americans lacking health insurance. This has resulted in a relatively poor level of health for the U.S. population overall, compared to other industrialized countries.

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For example, the World Health Organization ranks the U.S. 37th among global health systems, with a ranking of 23rd in infant mortality and 18th in life expectancy.

Despite widespread consensus on all sides that the problem of the uninsured is one that must be addressed, potential solutions disintegrate when political issues, especially funding, are faced.

A significant reason for this is that while the moral ideal of universal access is widely lauded, it is difficult to see how devoting greater tax resources to this problem will directly benefit those who are already insured (and who are more likely to vote).

The problems leading to poor rankings by WHO measures, for example, are felt most significantly by the uninsured.

The benefits of addressing the health insurance crisis, however, are significant even for those who already are insured. This is because the impact of the insurance crisis is felt in many areas that affect the health of the entire community, insured and uninsured alike.

The high number of uninsured people means that for a very large segment of the population, access to the health care system will come only as a last resort and then, much later than those who are insured would enter the health system for similar ills.

A review of the literature relating insurance coverage to utilization of health care services finds numerous studies demonstrate that insurance coverage increases utilization of health services, including outpatient primary care as well as acute ambulatory care and inpatient services.

This is significant not only for those who lack access to health services, but also for those who do have access.

For example, because the uninsured do not utilize early detection services in an effective manner, a high number of uninsured people means that early detection of pandemic disease like bird flu (or even the release of a bio terrorism agent) will be undermined.

This is especially true since infectious diseases spread most rapidly in urban areas, where the concentration of uninsured people is greatest.

This affects children disproportionately: Children are recognized "super vectors" for the spread of infectious diseases like flu because of their close interaction in schools and day care facilities and their lack of attention to sanitary precautions.

Perhaps the best example to illustrate the benefits of public funding for access to health services, especially for children, lies in the mandatory childhood vaccination program for entering the U.S. school system - widely recognized as one of most successful public health programs in history.

The program has resulted in the eradication of smallpox, the elimination of polio and a radical reduction in the number of cases of diphtheria, measles, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella, mumps and a number of other serious diseases.

The success of this program depends on enough children receiving vaccination so as to achieve a phenomenon known as "herd immunity." Herd immunity is a concept that is at the foundation of the U.S. vaccination program.

Lack of access to vaccination, would then threaten both those who do have access to this health service, as well as those who do not have access.

Most importantly, and for this reason, the success of this program is the direct result of public funding for vaccination of those children who would otherwise not have access.

These are but two among many potential examples of how access to health services directly impacts the health of the insured and uninsured alike.

The lack of health insurance coverage also poses indirect effects that are nonetheless significant.

Since the costs of treating the uninsured are largely absorbed by hospitals, these costs have contributed to fewer facilities and personnel for those who are insured.

The increasingly competitive health care marketplace has resulted in less ability to "cost-shift" expenses associated with care for the uninsured and increased financial burdens on hospitals where there are high numbers of uninsured patients.

This, in turn, has contributed to rigid streamlining for hospitals in attempts to cut costs. While less a problem in areas like Milwaukee, it is significant at a national level:

A March 2003 report released by the Institute of Medicine concludes that "hospitals in urban areas with higher uninsured rates have less total inpatient capacity, offer fewer services for vulnerable populations, and are less likely to offer trauma and burn care."

In addition, because those who lack health insurance also tend to lack a regular source of primary care, lack of insurance has also been linked to overcrowding of emergency rooms (required to see patients regardless of ability to pay under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act), who often inappropriately use ERs as a primary care outlet.

The lesson of these examples is simple. Health is largely a community good, and the effects of an individual's lack of access to health services extends well beyond that individual's immediate circle of family and friends, to the community as a whole.

If we are not motivated to address the health insurance crisis by morality, then, perhaps we will be motivated by the self-interested reasons of protecting our own health by recognizing the broader community effects of the growing health insurance crisis.

Thomas May is director of graduate studies and associate professor of bioethics at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

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Bark Back Sports: Officials should be invisible

From the betting scandals and personal vendettas in the NBA to last week's dust up in Los Angeles that left San Diego Padres outfielder Milton Bradley on the disabled list, sports officials have been in the paper too often lately for all the wrong reasons. Our own Steve Hart, sportswriter for The Staten Island Advance, took a long hard look at the trouble with today's MLB umpires and what the league has and hasn't done to remedy the problem in SILIVE's blog.

By Stephen Hart
Major League Baseball could not even ignore the fact that it was Milton Bradley, who seems to create a problem every time he steps on the field. The commissioner's office, finally and in long overdue fashion, took a stand against it's umpires this week -- a group that has increasingly broken the cardinal rule of sports officials. That rule? Be invisible.

Baseball's umpires have been anything but that over the past decade or so, where the prerequisite for the job is apparently to have a thin skin and rabbit ears.

Growing up as a die hard fan of the game in the 1970s and '80s, I don't remember seeing the kind of player "baiting" being conducted by today's umps. The only one who stood out was Ron Luciano, who was -- and this isn't a compliment -- ahead of his time. At first, Luciano's exaggerated ball/strike and out/safe calls were funny, especially if they provoked a confrontation from someone such as former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver.

But as those video clips of Luciano and Weaver going nose-to-nose started getting airplay, from "This Week in Baseball" to "The Tonight Show," Luciano began making the talk show and banquet rounds. His calls became more pronounced as he succumbed to self-promotion and, in doing so, brought embarrassment to his profession.

Although in today's me-first society, Luciano would have his own talk show; EA Sports would've put him in one of those special suits so he could reenact his gyrations for a virtual Luciano they'd use in their latest MLB video game; and his calls would be lauded on ESPN's SportsCenter, which teaches kids (judging by its nightly highlights) the only things that count are dunking a basketball, belting homers and laying somebody out with a vicious hit on the football field.

With all that said, at least Luciano was a little funny. Today's breed of umpires are lacking a sense of humor. Up until a dozen or so years ago, players could calmly argue a call with an ump; if the player was a little heated, the ump would more often than not just walk away, sometimes with the crew chief stepping in to try and calm down the situation.

Today's umpires simply go looking for a fight. If a batter grumbles as he's walking back to the dugout after a called third strike, the home-plate ump will either a) stare down that batter; b) actually take a few steps and follow him toward the dugout; and/or c) bait him into an argument, which will last about five seconds before an ejection occurs.

Of course, it's not simply relegated to home-plate umps, which brings us back to Mr. Milton Bradley. The talented yet highly emotional San Diego Padres outfielder, who has a history of flying off the handle, may or may not have flipped his bat in the direction of plate umpire Brian Runge following a called third strike in the fifth inning of San Diego's eventual 7-3 home loss to Colorado. Runge didn't see it, but first-base ump Mike Winters did, and informed Runge he believed it was intentional.

Three innings later, Bradley reached first on a single and asked Winters if he told Runge that he flipped his bat toward him. According to Padres first-base coach Bobby Meacham, Winters followed with an expletive-laced tirade against Bradley. That led to a face-to-face confrontation, with Winters not backing down against Bradley, who was first held back then thrown to the ground by his manager, Bud Black. As fate would have it, Bradley -- one of the few hot hitters (.313 average) for the fading-fast Padres -- tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee on the tumble and is out for the season.

It was expected by some, including me, that Winter would only get a slap on the wrist from MLB. But with commissioners in other sports (most notably the NFL's Roger Goodell) stepping in quickly to fix any blemishes, baseball commish Bud Selig suspended Winters for the remainder of the regular season and the postseason.

The evidence and testimony against Winters may finally force MLB to take a long, hard look at an increasing group of officials who feel they need to be part of the game ... to make the highlights ... to make hair-trigger ejections that affect not only a game but possibly a playoff berth.

Why are umps different now? Is it reflective of society's general lack of discipline? Is it their jealous way of demonstrating power against mega-million ballplayers? Who knows.

Officiating throughout the sportsworld is under increasing scrutiny -- whether it's soccer referees in Europe taking bribes; NBA refs aiding gamblers by making calls that affect point spreads; or just the basic incompetence of NFL officials, who still blow more than their share of calls even with video replay. But what can you expect from guys who only do their job once a week for half a year? (This is an inherent problem for NFL refs, one that warrants more dialogue ... and another blog perhaps).

Still, none of them flaunt their presence in the arena of sport quite like MLB umpires do, a group that should remember the cardinal rule of officials. Be invisible.

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A Connecticut Yankee in a whole new court

By Rick Shade
As an American who spends much of his time living, working and traveling in Europe and other foreign locales, I'm often asked to describe foreign attitudes regarding America and Americans in a post-9/11 world. Inexperienced travelers in taxis and at airports often ask the same questions -- "Do they really hate us now?" or "Is it safe for Americans?" and "Should I tell people I'm Canadian?"

While my answers are usually filled with positives about the joys of travel and the fact that most people will be courteous and friendly to travelers, it is getting harder these days to tell anyone with a straight face that Americans are well-liked throughout the world. Now of course, America-bashing is nothing new -- we've been experiencing backlash throughout old Europe (particularly in France) since the 1950's -- but events of the past few years, particularly the war in Iraq, have created a whole new level of animosity toward our country and its foreign policy that seems to have spread worldwide.

The Iraq War may be the straw that broke the camel's back in our relationship with many foreign nations, but our decisions to cozy-up to one dictator after another in the Muslim world -- particularly our past ties to the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein and Saudi King Fahd -- probably anger more people worldwide than our support for Israel. Today, our calls for freedom around the world ring hollow to many while we still support King Mohammad VI in Morocco and military dictators like Mushareff in Pakistan.

Spending as much time as I have in the Middle East made me an opponent of the Iraq War from the outset -- not because I had any idea of the mess it would become internationally, but simply because of the "clan" mentality which dominates a great deal of Muslim culture. Most countries throughout the region have a particular clan or sect that dominates much of the society. Iraq, much like Morocco and Pakistan, have many. The concept of an American force invading that country and inserting a western-style democracy was laughable from the beginning.

One connected factor that seems to be making life a little less comfortable for Americans traveling abroad is the ever-increasing population of young Muslims throughout Western Europe. They are generally first and second generation Euros -- far too young to have any remembrance of America as the Great Liberator, and far too likely to see us as the Great Satan.

I experienced that very anger only a couple of months ago in Holland (where I am currently located) at my hotel's bar. While chatting with a co-worker, I found myself being stared-down by two Dutch Muslims sitting at the bar. When my friend asked them (in Dutch) why they kept staring and muttering, they said that they simply hated Americans. The bar eventually asked them to leave, but the point was taken.

I recently took another U.S. bashing in a local Brazilian bar, as a Brazilian co-worker spent a half-hour explaining to an American co-worker how dangerous and stupid the American regime is. My American friend ended the conversation by asking the Brazilian -- "If you agree that there is always going to be a world superpower, which one would you rather live under, Nazi Germany, the USSR, Red China or the USA?" We didn't win any hearts and minds, but at least we didn't lose the argument either.

On my last trip to England, I got a taste of how America bashing is both a new and old phenomenon. While strolling through London, I walked past many of the foreign embassies and consulates. Most were isolated homes with the only security being locked doors. The American embassy however, was a fortress. It had two sets of security fences and about a half-dozen UK police officers patrolling the perimeter with automatic weapons.

"Ah," I thought, "Now we see the results of the war and how it has changed the way people see us." However, when I approached one of the officers to ask him about the extra security, he responded that it was nothing new. "It has been like this for as long as I can remember," he said.

Unfortunately, it appears that while world anti-American sentiment has certainly grown in the past few years, it did not start with the inauguration of George W. Bush and will not end overnight with the election of a new president.

That said, I still tell anyone that asks how great seeing and experiencing the world is, especially the great city of London. I also tell them to tell taxi drivers they are Canadian.

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A scream heard from Bermuda... agonizing over the Petraeus Report

By Michael Hart
Although I was vacationing in Bermuda during the week that General David Petraeus testified before Congress and President Bush addressed the nation on that report, you may have heard me screaming from across the Atlantic.

If Petraeus' overly optimistic comments were not bad enough, I was driven to yelling at the television by Bush's follow-up prime time address a couple of days later. Dubya once again tried to link 9/11 to the Iraq disaster, despite the fact that his new tool/fall guy Petraeus (in Colin Powell U.N. address mode) told Congress there was no evidence of any Iraqi involvement with 9/11 and that Al-Qaeda was not in Iraq before 9/11 (they came there thanks to our mismanagement of the post-invasion).

Dubya, despite occasionally admitting there was no Saddam-9/11 connection, still loves to put that idea out there with his tortured logic on why we invaded Iraq.

Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker certainly made the rounds, appearing on countless news shows that week to promote their views. I thought there was a war on. Shouldn't they have gotten back to Iraq as soon as possible instead of doing what was supposed to be the job of Bush's White House -- explaining the mission and currying support for it? What is the mission anyway? Does anyone know?

What's sad is seeing our venerable institutions crippled or destroyed by Bush and crew: the Supreme Court with its laughable decision to give Dubya the presidency, the politicizing of the Justice Department and now the military.

And why is the questioning of Petraeus' motives off-limits anyway? He has Republican ties (he was operated on by Bill Frist, one of his protegees is Colonel Mike Meese, son of Reagan AG Ed Meese) and while he is an intelligent individual (as is Crocker) who often speaks wisely and in measured tones about Iraq, does anyone believe he does not want to please his boss?

General Wesley Clark was talking with John Stewart on The Daily Show last week, and he used a football analogy to make a good point about Petraeus. Clark compared Petraeus (who served UNDER Clark) to a back-up quarterback being thrown into a game late in the fourth quarter and facing a 20-point deficit. The QB is facing a bigger team and knows the game is lost, but he is not going to go back to his coach and say that he cannot do it.

Meanwhile, what has happened to Robert Gates? Our new Secretary of Defense was supposed to be the serious guy who would put Dubya on the right track and steer him toward adopting the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. Bush appears not only to have not listened to Gates; he has also managed to diminish his standing.

So it appears I will still be screaming at the TV set whenever Bush gives a speech or holds a press conference until he finally leaves office on January 20, 2009 (and I dread those Executive Decisions). Let's hope that phony Rudy Giuliani does not replace him -- my throat needs a break.

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Barking Back:
Top reader comments

Our features on Alan Greenspan's book tour and the troubles in Jena, Louisiana produced some lively commentary.

On Greenspan, Rick Graves said:
"His (Greenspan's) job allowed him to dictate monetary policy -- not consumer spending in the stock market.

Six Months prior to the bubble bursting he warned everyone there was an "irrational exuberance in the market". Raising Fed Fund Rates would have done little to control the gluttony which existed.

I agree that the genius tag is probably not deserved. But, in reading the posts it seems we all agree he deserves "some" credit. Economics is classified as a "social science". No Fed Chairman can control rational consumers in the market place.

He did after all, keep the country out of any sustained periods of recession or inflation. Pretty tricky stuff -- especially during the dot.com boom -- when tremendous amounts of paper and liquid wealth were being created overnight!"

On the troubles in Jena, Carter McCoy wrote:
"I agree with much of what you say Cav, but I do think that the sentences for the black kids were too harsh. It's too bad everyone in that little down has to be painted as a thug or a clansman."

Terry Page said...

"The symbol of a rope over a tree in the South is much more than a nasty prank -- it's an act of violence in itself."

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Hillary joins Rudy as Bark Back poll winner

The polls closed yesterday on Bark Back News' week-long political poll asking readers to pick the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.

Senator Hillary Clinton came out on top, capturing 34% of the vote to edge Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who received 31%. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards finished a strong third at 23%, with Delaware Senator Joe Biden dividing a handful of votes with Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Clinton joins former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani -- the winner of last week's Bark Back GOP poll -- setting up a potential NY super rumble not seen since Ali-Frazier I.

Check Out Our Newest Feature -- Video Siderbars (right) -- featuring content-related topics!!

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Jena protestors' objectives baffling

By Scott Cavanagh
In an appearance earlier this month on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, musician and actor Mos Def spent a considerable amount of time lamenting the plight of the "Jena Six" -- a group of African-American students imprisoned on charges involving the assault of a white classmate in the small Louisiana town of Jena.

During a lively discussion with the quick-witted Maher and the brilliant Professor Cornel West, Def provided a Cliff's Notes version of the events that have since led to the front-page national news event we're now experiencing. His story in short: some white kids started a ruckus involving the placing of nooses on a tree; a fight ensued and one of the white kids was knocked unconscious; major charges, including "attempted murder" were filed against the black kids only -- while the white kids skated.

Hearing the story angered me immediately. Not only was the apparent miscarriage of justice against the black kids involved ridiculous, but the lack of national media attention to such Jim Crow Era shenanigans in 21st century America seemed shameful.

The trouble in Jena has since become an overnight phenomenon, culminating with yesterday's pilgrimage of over 15,000 protesters and activists to the tiny southern town of 3,000. Major media outlets are suddenly all a flutter over Jena and the brewing "civil rights battle." Air America Radio's news affiliate gave updates all day long, beginning and ending each short piece with some vague remark about the "imbalance of justice" involved in the sentences and such, but never uttering a word about the facts of the actual case in question.

Those facts would have been interesting to hear, because upon digesting them, many in the listening audience might very well have been left pondering the same question I've been asking myself all day long -- what are the people in Jena really protesting?

While Mos Def was quite compelling on Real Time, and his rightful indignation over the state of racial inequality in this country is no doubt sincere, a simple review of news reports from the days directly following the events in Louisiana paint a very different picture from the one currently painted by him, the protesters and the media.

The controversy in Jena began when a group of black students decided to sit underneath a tree on the school's campus -- a spot usually reserved for whites only (ah, the special charm of the South.) This obviously angered the redneck element of the population and soon after, three nooses appeared hanging from the tree.

An investigation into the shameful incident uncovered the perpetrators -- all students -- and they were suspended from school. There was some talk of hate crimes charges against those involved, but the boys met none of the three main criteria for those charges. They later returned to school.

Months later, white student Justin Barker was attacked and beaten unconscious by six black students. The six were soon arrested and charged with a variety of crimes ranging from simple battery to attempted murder. Charges against the group were later reduced to conspiracy and battery and as of yesterday, all but one of the six had been released from jail.

Which brings us to today. What is the message of the demonstrations in Jena? Do those marching believe that the morons who hung the nooses needed to serve jail time? If so, then how in the world can they question tough jail sentences for the six kids that beat one student unconscious? You can't expect serious punishment for offending someone and the soft touch for a violent crime.

There is talk about the lack of hate crimes charges against the white kids, but if their offenses qualified as acts of hatred, would the actions of the black students not qualify for the same penalties?

The inequality of the American justice system for African-Americans is no secret. From lack of proper legal representation to police harassment and racial profiling, the list of reasons to take to the streets and protest is long and diverse. Wasting time bringing more attention to a bunch of small town punks of both races does nothing to solve any of those problems.

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Quick Hits and Fazed Cookies

It appears the people of Iceland will not be fighting an oil war in the Middle East any time soon. According to a CNN story, that country's continuing 50-year plan to run exclusively on clean, renewable energy has utilized fuel-cell technology to power it's automobiles. Daimler Chrysler is working to develop a fully-functional Mercedes for that market. Will Detroit soon follow suit, or be left behind the learning curve again?

The presence and actions of some of the over 100,00 private security and contract workers in Iraq has finally spurred the Mailiki government to action. Following Tuesday's shooting incident in which Blackwater security forces killed 10 civilians and wounded another 13, the Prime Minister indicated that his government would call for all private contractors to leave Iraq. The shooting was the seventh deadly incident involving Blackwater . The troubles raise the question -- should America be employing a mercenary shadow army?

Long an opponent of our continuing fascination with private armies, the French government will surely be feeling the sting of another O'Reilly Factor boycott and more calls for Freedom Fries following yesterday's announcement that conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy favors a series of economic sanctions against Iran over talk of military strikes.

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GOP blocks vote to restore Habeas Corpus

By Ken Hart
The Senate wasn't able to restore the habeas corpus provision (you know, one of those little things that makes America, well, America).

A short time ago, all of the Democrats and a few Republicans voted to give "military detainees" the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court, but they didn't reach the 60-vote "supermajority" to beat a hypothetical GOP filibuster.

Did this supermajority stuff happen overnight? Back in the old days -- say 10 years ago -- old wobbly Senators would've needed to stand up and actually, you know, filibuster for hours to get their way. Now all anyone has to do is threaten to filibuster. What a lazy nation we've become. Make them work for it!

What I find interesting -- aside from the carefully considered decision by many Republicans that protecting the country and preserving the Constitution are mutually exclusive -- is how the media has bought into the supermajority silliness. Consider the Associated Press report, which says, "The 56-43 vote against the bill, by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,..." The truth is that it was a 56-43 vote for the bill, since last time I checked, more than 50 votes in a body of 100 constitutes a majority. Just because the majority of Senators couldn't reach 60 votes doesn't mean the Senate voted "against" the bill.

The account at The Washington Post get the terminology right and describes it clearly in the lead: "A Republican filibuster in the Senate today shot down a bipartisan effort to restore the right of terrorism suspects to contest their detentions and treatment in federal courts, underscoring the Democratic-led Congress's difficulty with terrorism issues." Not so hard to write, is it?

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More Greenspan...

The Greenspan World Guru Tour continued last night on The Daily Show.

While Paul Krugman echoed our Ken Hart's sentiments in this N. Y. Times piece.

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Alan Greenspan and His CYA Tour

By Ken Hart
Former Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan is making a lot of waves with his new memoir, "The Age of Turbulence." The official subtitle is "Adventures in a New World," but based on his comments in interviews, it should be "It's Not My Fault!"

This man has been portrayed as a financial genius, an elderly Harry Potter of the economy. And maybe some of that is deserved. But let's not forget that he failed to adequately prepare the economy for the bursting of the dot-com bubble in the late '90s, just as he suggests that he was taken off-guard by the current collapse of the housing market. Other economists, such as a professor at Stanford, say that Greenspan's own post-2001 interest rate cuts artificially inflated the housing boom; Greenspan retorts that the housing boom was a "global" phenomenon and that he takes absolutely no blame (a strong view that he reiterated on the "Today" show Monday morning).

Other folks with much better knowledge of economics than me can debate Greenspan's financial merits, but Greenspan raised a bigger ruckus by: 1) attacking the fiscal policies of George W. Bush, and 2) making this statement in his book:

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

Immediately - and understandably - bloggers and politicians on the left seized on this as an affidation - from a Republican insider! - of what we already knew: Iraq was invaded not because of WMD, but because of the advantage the U.S. would gain by seizing an oil-rich nation in the center of the Middle East.

Almost as immediately, however, Greenspan started backtracking from this comment. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Greenspan said:

"My view of Saddam over the 20 years … was that he was very critically moving towards control of the Strait of Hormuz and as a consequence of that, control of the oil market."

The Strait of Hormuz is very important - much of the world's oil supply travels through it, and Greenspan said on the "Today" show that if Saddam got control of it, oil prices could practically triple in a short period of time. Sounds bad, right?

A financial wizard Greenspan may be, but he clearly got a D in geography. As has been pointed out elsewhere, Iraq doesn't touch the Strait of Hormuz. After the Gulf War, Saddam had no naval capability, and his air force was grounded. So, to take control of the Strait, he would have needed to send his troops across miles of hostile territory to seize one or more ports ... and, oh yeah, go toe-to-toe with the U.S. Navy once he got there.

As for the Bush fiscal policy, Greenspan has taken criticism for backing Bush's disastrous tax cuts for the wealthy -- the results of which are now being felt. Greenspan now says, in essence, that he backed "a" tax cut, not necessarily Bush's tax cuts. Again, Greenspan maintains that he bears no blame for the current fiscal problems.

What's going on here? It certainly sounds like Greenspan, like many other Republicans who see the GOP Gravy Train running off the tracks, is trying to salvage his legacy and cover his butt by saying that he was an innocent bystander to everything that happened during the Bush Administration. He even tries to have it both ways by saying that recession odds have grown yet the economy "is not doing badly." No matter what happens, he wants to be seen as the Economical Karnak.

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Quick Hits and Fazed Cookies

Looking for someone to blame for nearly five years in Iraq? So was Keith Olbermann -- in a blistering Countdown piece. Check it out here.

President Bush's address to the public last week stressed the positive effects of the "troop surge" on everyday life in Iraq's Anbar Province. In a piece from today's New York Times, writer Gary Langer examines life in that part of the world through the eyes of the people who live there. Read his findings here.

No Bush left behind? While big brother George touts his "No Child Left Behind" program as the one-size-fits-all remedy for all that ails our public school system, little brother Neil Bush is making a fortune in the business of packaging some of that program's more "questionable" educational aids. This despite no background in the education business. Read more here.
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Giuliani tops Bark Back poll as GOP nominee

By Scott Cavanagh
Former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani was the choice of nearly 40% of the voters in last week's Bark Back News opinion poll, making him the favorite answer to the question:
"Who will be the GOP nominee for president in '08?"

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney finished a distant second with 28%, followed by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee at 18% and Arizona Senator John McCain with 12%.

Despite his moderate and often conflicting views on some key conservative social issues, Giuliani's track record as a law and order mayor with the ability to get things done amidst streams of bureaucracy continues to strike a positive chord with a good portion of the public.

The oddest stat line might have been the returns on newcomer Fred Thompson, who finished last. Let us know your thoughts on the Republican field, and vote in our first look at the Democratic field above.
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Quick Hits and Fazed Cookies

Conventional Nuke Threat
Over the past six years, smuggled nuclear devices and homemade "dirty bombs" have been at the center of every worst-case scenario involving threats to national and international security. While those threats are real and need to be addressed, an older, more dangerous menace still hangs like the sword of Damocles over all of our heads -- the increase and spread of conventional nuclear weapons.

For over 30 years people all over the world -- particularly those in the United States and the former Soviet Union -- lived with the never ending fear that someday the world's huge arsenal of its most deadly weapons would be unleashed in a holocaust not seen since the biblical great flood. The fall of the USSR and the easing of relations between the United States, Russia and China relieved much of that fear, but a cold reality remains -- the missiles are still in place, still armed and still pointed at each other -- and they have been joined over the past 20 years by many more missiles in many more places -- a fact that makes former President Jimmy Carter fearful that we might be closer to a world-wide nuclear catastrophe than at any time during the height of the Cold War. Read his thoughts on the matter here.

GOP Sex Scandals
On the heels of Senator Larry Craig's airport bathroom debacle, the GOP chairman of the St. Petersburg City Council recently committed suicide after he was accused of having sex with his two adopted daughters and a nanny. Bill Maher takes a hilarious look at Republican sex scandals in a piece for Huffington Post.

Reliable Source?
CNN 's Howard Kurtz may host a show called "Reliable Sources," but evidently he doesn't feel that news networks, particularly Fox News Channel, have any obligation to be fair and honest brokers of the news. Read his amazing exchange with fellow CNN talking head Glenn Beck here.
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Quick Hits and Fazed Cookies

With the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York looming tomorrow, we seem to have ignored an equally significant milestone last Saturday, September 8 -- the fifth anniversary of the Bush administration's initial media blitz to push war with Iraq. Frank Rich explains in a brilliant piece from Sunday's New York Times.

While we here in the States debate the merits of our most recent "troop surge" in Iraq, those who know best -- the Iraqi people -- have already formulated their opinion -- it's not working. So says a new ABC News survey.

Osama bin Laden's most recent video diatribe once again gave traction to the Bush Administration at a time when they needed it most. The timing could not have been better, with the Petraeus, er, White House report on progress in Iraq being mulled over in Congress, the president wasted no time mentioning the tape at the APEC summit meetings.

"If al-Qaeda bothers to mention Iraq, it’s because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq, which is to drive us out,” said Bush, ignoring the fact that U.S. intelligence has long concluded that al-Qaeda really wants the opposite: to bog the United States down in a hopeless, bloody war in Iraq that has been a boon for recruiting young jihadists, raising money and protecting al-Qaeda’s leadership holed up in base camps inside Pakistan.

Speaking of the APEC summit, Bush made a fine impression on international leaders there, referring to the Australian troops as "Austrians" and whipping out the gem seen here.
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U.S. Open highlights plight of American tennis

By Scott Cavanagh
This year marked the 30th anniversary of the United States Open tennis championships being played at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York.

(View Bark Back News' exclusive photos from the 2007 Open)

The Center, now called the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, was built during a period of time known as the "tennis boom" -- a time when tennis dominated the international sports landscape and American stars named Connors, Evert, McEnroe, Ashe, Austin and Gerulaitis dominated the world rankings.

Those days seemed more like a hundred years ago this week, as both the men's and women's finals were played without an American participant. It has now been four years since an American man has raised the trophy of our national tournament and five years since an American woman has even reached the final.

While those results don't seem to have affected the popularity of the Open itself (the tournament drew a record 700,000 fans) they do reflect the state of American tennis at the professional level since the retirements of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi and the recent injury problems of both Serena and Venus Williams.

Entering this year's Open, only two American men -- 2003 champion Andy Roddick and James Blake -- were ranked in the top 40 players in the world, while only the Williams sisters held places in the women's top 50.

"We can look at things from a positive view if we wish to," U.S. Junior Tennis Coach Steve Harris said. "The Williams sisters are the current title holders at both Wimbledon and the Australian Open, we should not forget that. But they are veterans now and fully admit they don't see themselves playing for that long, and it's hard to consider Blake, and to a certain extent Roddick as real contenders for major championships. What we need to worry about is what's coming up throughout the system. Can we still build American-born champions?"

There seem to be many roadblocks to that goal. Fiscal concerns have led to the elimination of tennis programs in hundreds of public high schools, taking the game even further away from average Americans and re-enforcing the image of tennis as an elitist, country club game -- an image the game does not have in other parts of the world -- particularly Europe and South America.

In addition, the massive growth of youth soccer programs over the past 20 years has siphoned off a large number of athletes of both sexes that were not inclined to play football and basketball.

"There was a time when tennis was a real option for kids that were athletic, but not football or basketball players," Harris said. "Now kids start with soccer first, so when the time comes to choose a sport, those that don't gravitate to our big sports choose soccer."

There are bright spots however. Donald Young, the top-ranked american junior for the past three years, who has struggled playing professional tournaments over the past two years, won two rounds at this year's Open, gaining his first wins in a Grand Slam event. At the same time, John Isner, a 6' 9" mountain of a man, slammed his way into the fourth round only months after completing an outstanding college career at Georgia.

"There are so many options out there for kids to both play and watch now," said Harris. "Everything from NASCAR to ultimate fighting get much more air time and unfortunately higher ratings than tennis, so it's a little bit like the chicken and the egg. We need to develop strong players with compelling personalities to increase interest and exposure for the sport, but if no one sees them, it doesn't matter. What we need is a champion like Federer that just wins so much you can't help but pay attention, of course that's easier said than done."

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Bush, books and the endless debate

By Michael Hart
With Robert Draper's new book on the Bush presidency, "Dead Certain," now out and with Mr. Draper making the rounds on the talk shows (with Keith Olbermann on Wednesday night and Charlie Rose Thursday) I have been pondering the question about Dubya that has been asked continually since he became President: is he a dense clod or is he the canny politician with touches of Cheney/Rove evil in him?

I bring this up because although I agree that Dubya is definitely intellectually lazy, I may now have to side with the canny argument. Why? Because the more these writers like Mr. Draper and Bob Woodward come out with books on his administration, the more I think that Dubya has cleverly fooled them and a sizable segment of the population.

The authors leave the impression that Dubya is a contemplative, compassionate person -- but what is that based on? In both Mr. Woodward and Mr. Draper's cases, it is based on relatively short (Draper had six hour-long interviews with Bush I believe and Woodward was also on a similar schedule) interview sessions controlled by Bush. The authors talk for him a little while on tough subjects like war, and because he shows or feigns emotion to them (did they ever hear of acting?) they are quick to write that he has a lot of empathy about people's plights.

No, Dubya is not stupid in that he apparently knows how to manipulate writers to present him in a good light -- even his stubbornness and refusals to change his original positions based on developments are often portrayed as strengths, not liabilities.

Moreover, in these books about the Bush presidency, it seems to me that it is usually the supporting players who take the big hits, not Dubya. Again, who's the dummy? Also, don't the authors ever question the fact that most of Bush's staff will only say good things about him? I just watched Mr. Draper on with Charlie Rose and he was praising Bush's skills at policy meetings with his staff, saying Bush is a great editor. Again, does he think that whomever talked to him was going to say that Dubya just sat there and nodded? These authors are so desperate to get brief interviews with Dubya that it appears they will accept any conditions set by the Bushies. Those conditions, combined with Bush's charm (yes, I guess he has some) seem to blind them in my opinion.

These books are not like Carl Bernstein's Hillary Clinton book, "A Woman in Charge," where he followed her around for years, but are works based primarily on these short interviews. Are we really to believe they accurately give us a detailed look at Dubya?

The debate continues as to whether Dubya is smart or stupid, but I believe one thing: that Dubya comes out of those interview sessions with a big smile on his face that the authors do not see.

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Bush bluster continues: now we're "kicking ass"

By Scott Cavanagh
Even the most ardent supporters of the Bush Administration and the war effort had to be shocked by the president's blatant attempts this week to sway public opinion just prior to the upcoming Petraeus report to Congress.

The numerous press conferences during his impromptu "visit" with our fighting men and women were one thing, but yesterday's cartoonish cowboy quote about us "kicking ass" in Iraq was another example of Bush playing fast and loose with the truth and the safety of those very soldiers.

From "Bring it On" to "Mission Accomplished" to his early talk about our "crusade" in the Middle East, this president has rarely missed an opportunity to use childish tough guy catch phrases to gloss over the complexities of given situations and paint simple, often incorrect, pictures of realities on the ground.

We were going to "smoke out" the terrorists and Osama bin Laden was "wanted dead or alive", but six years later, the Taliban is on the rise in Afghanistan and Osama is planning the release of his next recruiting commercial.
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