THIS MODERN WORLD

Here’s Washington Post reporter Shailagh Murray yesterday (via Atrios):

WASHINGTON, D.C.: I am somewhat surprised at the debate about the surge. In October, The Post’s own polling showed that 19% of voters favored an immediate withdrawal. Yesterday, CNN reported that more than 50% want an immediate or by year’s end withdrawal. Still, the politicians debate more or less, not sooner or later. Why won’t the politicians follow the polls when it comes to leaving Iraq?

SHAILAGH MURRAY: Would you want a department store manager or orthodontist running the Pentagon? I don’t think so. The reason that many politicians are squeamish about hard and fast goals of any kind in Iraq is that there is no simple response or solution — it would have emerged by now. A withdrawal by year’s end carries enormous, very serious implications.

LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y.: Why do we care so much more about Iraq, where our elected representatives have little influence, compared with affordable health care?

SHAILAGH MURRAY: Because the security of the most unstable part of the world is at stake.

Here’s my admiring email to Shailagh:

Shailagh,

Thanks very much for your cogent answer to the questioner in your Washington Post chat yesterday who asked why politicians are ignoring the clear desires of Americans vis-a-vis Iraq. For far too long American “citizens” have felt they’re entitled to some sort of say over what the U.S. government does. (I’ve noticed they get especially uppity when it affects whether their children live or die.) Only with the efforts of leaders like yourself can we stamp out this pernicious nonsense.

I also appreciate that, when someone else asked why the U.S. government cares “so much more about Iraq” than affordable health care for Americans, your response avoided the actual answer, “oil.” It’s imperative that we keep this reality from the eyes of the department store managers and orthodontists who simply don’t have the brainpower to comprehend it.

best regards,
Jonathan Schwarz

Universal health care’s newest champion — Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday proposed extending health care coverage to all of California’s 36 million residents as part of a sweeping package of changes to the state’s huge, troubled health care system.

A total of 6.5 million people, one-fifth of the state’s population, do not have health insurance, far more than in any other state. At least one million of the uninsured are illegal immigrants, state officials say.

Under Mr. Schwarzenegger’s plan, which requires the approval of the Legislature, California would become the fourth and by far the largest state to attempt near universal health coverage for its citizens. The other three states are Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont.

In a column about Mallard Fillmore on the HuffPo, someone named Chris Kelly writes:

And yes, there are some lousy liberal comics too. There’s not enough guilt in the world to make the average non-Hispanic read “La Cucaracha” and “Tom Tomorrow” is just embarrassing.

Usually I would shrug this sort of thing off, but comparing me, even implicitly, to Mallard Fillmore? That, sir, is a low blow …

The response to the petition has been gratifying, not to mention overwhelming, and I’ll have more to say about that later. For now, what we really need is a few more pages of dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers to take this thing over the top. If you live or work in the city and haven’t signed yet, please do. Remember, keep it polite — I want to work with these people, not start a fight with them.

Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. “So where is the oil going to come from?… The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies,” he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq’s oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through “production-sharing agreements” (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world’s two largest producers, is state controlled.

Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

Story, via Roy.