FOIABlog on Obama's New Freedom of Information Policy

Thoughts on FOIA Executive Order [NOTE: Corrected to "Presidential Memorandum"]

Now that I've had some time to digest President Obama's Executive Order on the FOIA, I have some thoughts on it.

The biggest implication, I believe, is the signal it sends. This Executive Order states that there is a presumption of disclosure of government records and it was sent on the first day of the new administration. It tells the Attorney General to issue guidelines consistent with the Executive Order. I believe it is an instruction to the Department of Justice and all agencies that past practices need to be revisited and the withholding for the sake of withholding days are past.

I think the Reno memorandum of October 1993 will be the place the Department of Justice will start in making the FOIA more open. However, I hope that Justice doesn't stop there and listens to open government groups that have circulated ideas about improving the FOIA.

My advice to the Department of Justice is to be bold and rethink underlying assumptions about why certain records should not be released pursuant to the FOIA. As an example, does the release of pre-decisional documents always chill the decisional process of the government? I don't think it is always true and the use of exemption 5 on every pre-decisional document should be rethought.

On the whole, I think yesterday was a great day for the FOIA, but there is much work to do in the months ahead.

You can read the complete text of the memorandum at this permalink.

Geithner's Record Raised Questions BEFORE Meltdown

It's not just unpaid taxes, statues of limitations, and Lehman Brothers. In a Bloomberg article about his appointment to the NY Fed from 2004, his regulatory (in)abilities were already raising hackles:

Other Fed watchers were disappointed that someone with an established reputation as a regulator didn't get the job.

``Geithner's appointment raises questions about the willingness of the New York Fed to aggressively supervise financial holding companies in its territory because there is very little in Geithner's resume that shows experience in regulatory issues,'' says Tom Schlesinger, 55, executive director of the Financial Markets Center, a Philomont, Virginia-based nonprofit group that monitors the Fed.

`Tough Cop'

``The New York Fed could have sent a message by appointing a well-known tough cop with regulatory experience and a professed willingness to crack down on financial crimes,'' says Schlesinger. ``Geithner may prove to be that kind of individual, but it is improbable at this time.''

Not the right guy to restore confidence, IMHO.

Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery's Inauguraton Benediction

Find an Inauguration Event Near You

A couple of our friends have come from Chicago for the inauguration...they're at Union Station waiting for Barack Obama's Amtrak train right now...so this blog may not be a going concern till Wednesday. Meanwhile, you can find an inaugural event near you with this handy dandy website from Barack Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee at http://events.pic2009.org/page/event/search_simple.

There's also a YouTube Inauguration Channel.

David Czerny's EU Art Unveiled in Brussels

Kelly Hutchinson v Hans Hoffman

Why pay more?
I stumbled into Kelly's Art and Frame while on my way to art class in Alexandria, VA. Not only does she own the gallery and do her own framing, Kelly is an artist from Buffalo, NY who paints abstractions that to my amateur eye seem just as nice as Hans Hoffman's. Can you tell which of these is by the famous German artist? Believe it or not, Hutchinson sells her original canvases for $150...sometimes in person at Eastern Market on weekends in DC...

You can find her gallery at: http://www.kellysartandframe.com/

BTW, Hoffman is on top, Hutchinson below.

Yes, He Could!

Yes, he did!
Maybe this event will give New York City back some of its mojo lost after 9/11....US Airways flight 1549 Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger not only deserves a tickertape parade and key to New York City, he's hopefully a harbinger of the Obama era...instead of everything going wrong, maybe things will go right.

How many times have we been told how to prepare for a water landing before takeoff? I never believed it was possible, thought it was only PR to reassure frightened passengers. Now--I believe. If Chesley Sullenberger can land a jet without engines in the Hudson river, without hitting a building, a bridge, or a boat, and if all those boats came to help rescue without worrying about liability or other excuses, my faith in America is restored. There is nothing Americans can't do.

Obama Wants Your Ideas

Another email from the transition team:

Dear Laurence,

We wanted to tell you about a new feature on Change.gov which lets you bring your ideas directly to the President.

It's called the Citizen's Briefing Book, and it's an online forum where you can share your ideas, and rate or offer comments on the ideas of others.

The best-rated ones will rise to the top, and after the Inauguration, we'll print them out and gather them into a binder like the ones the President receives every day from experts and advisors. If you participate, your idea could be included in the Citizen's Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama.

Visit the Citizen's Briefing Book now and share your ideas.

Throughout this Transition, a truly inspiring number of citizens have gotten involved. We hope that you remain involved through the Inauguration and beyond.

Thank you,

Valerie

Valerie Jarrett
Co-Chair
Obama-Biden Transition Project

Please note that replies to this email will not be answered.

I have only one idea to share:
Lead by example...

Latinos Protest Ken Burns' Inauguration Event

Got this in my email today:

Defend the Honor
January 14, 2009

To: Esther Foer Judith S. Goldstein
Executive Director Executive Director
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue Humanity in Action
600 I Street, N.W 1088 Park Avenue
Washington D.C. 20001 New York, NY 10128
1-202-266-3231 1-212-828-6874
Fax: 202/408-5124 FAX212.410.4969
efoer@sixthandi.org

And to Defenders of the Honor

On first hearing about plans to ask the poster boy of Latino and Latina public documentary film exclusion to share his "VISIONS OF RACE IN AMERICA," as part of the festivities surrounding President Elect-Barack Obama's historic inauguration on January 20, 2009, some thought it was simply a joke in poor taste. After all, there was a well-publicized national outcry in 2007 when Ken Burns left Latinos out of his 14.5-hour documentary about World War II.

But on further investigation (See: http://www.humanityinaction.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=879) , it appears to be a fact: Humanity in Action and the Washington D.C. Sixth and I Historic Synagogue have asked Ken Burns to speak about a topic on which he is an anti-authority. Ken Burns has demonstrated repeatedly a peculiar blindspot to Latinos, so his "Vision of Race" is not only incomplete, it is wildly inaccurate and a slap in the face to Latinos.

Hard to believe it escaped anyone who keeps up with the news that in 2007, Burns united Latinos and non-Latino supporters to decry the absence of Latinos in his WWII documentary. We knew that an estimated 500,000 Latino and Latina patriots fought, while other Latinos and Latinas supported the war effort on the homefront - and those contributions are too often left out of books, movies, etc. about WWII. But the issue was larger, than World War II -- it focused attention on the historic omission of Latino contributions to our nation. So when the Ken Burn documentary was set, Latinos reacted loudly and proudly: The voices of our community against Ken Burns and PBS were strong and included over thirty national Latino organizations, and thousands of individuals and elected officials from the country. In the end, Burns did add on two short Hispanic and one Native American film bits-- at the end of three episodes, after the screen went to black and the theme began. Many felt his addition was passive-aggressive; it was not the "seamless addition" he had promised in an April 2007 meeting in Washington with Latinos, including elected officials and representatives of major Latino organizations, as well as Defend the Honor. We came to know that Burns is a serial eraser of Latinos -- he did the same in previous documentaries on baseball and on Jazz.

That he would be chosen to discuss race in America is painful. Latinos made a difference in Obama winning the 2008 election and we are celebrating his inauguration enthusiastically. But news that Burns has been chosen as a major speaker on the topic of race in America is a bleak reminder that Latinos are not considered, by some, an important part of our own country.

The question we have for the event sponsors, Sixth & I Historic Synagogue and Humanity in Action is simple: why was Ken Burns, of all people, chosen to speak on this topic at this event when there are many others who are knowledgeable and considered experts on the issues of "race" in America and the world?

Humanity in Action's mission statement reads, in part: "Humanity in Action believes that an important test of a genuine democracy is how it treats its racial, ethnic, and religious minorities..." Does that not include Latinos in our country? Inviting Ken Burns to speak about race raises doubts about Humanity in Action's respect for the Latino community.

We are deeply disappointed by the Washington D.C. Sixth and I Synagogue's involvement in co-sponsoring the "VISIONS OF RACE IN AMERICA" presentation. We express our concerns over what appears to be a lack of sensitivity on the part of the well-respected Historic Synagogue, representing a community that has been active in establishing a Latino-Jewish Dialogue. This inter-ethnic community effort has been advanced over the last seven years by the American Jewish and the Latino communities. In fact, the results of a "landmark survey" in Latino-Jewish Relations released in 2001 by The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding under the leadership of Rabbi Marc Schneier states the findings "provide a roadmap for Latinos and Jews to address of mutual cooperation and concern." The Ken Burns/Latino issue is important and must be addressed by all Latino-Jewish Dialogue groups in the country.
The San Diego Latino-Jewish Coalition is building relationships among and between our communities and was one of the first to expressed concern and dismay over Ken Burns exclusion of Latinos and Latinas in his PBS The War documentary.

Those of us involved in the Defend The Honor campaign and many others involved in building community relations between ethnic groups call on the Humanity in Action and Sixth and I Synagogue to reconsidered their invitation of Ken Burns to speak on "VISIONS OF RACE IN AMERICA." If Burns is provided a forum to speak about a matter that we consider sacred, then there should representation by Latinos who may address the continuing omission of Latinos in our nation's historical narrative. We will be glad to provide a list of knowledgable speakers.

We request that the Executive Directors of the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue and the Humanity in Action organizations to reach out and invite representatives of Defend The Honor to meet and discuss our mutual concerns and interests. We also request all supporters of Defend The Honor to express their sentiments on this issue and their vision of race in America to the Executive Directors of Sixth & I Historic Synagogue and Humanity in Action and to Defend the Honor. Please send us a copy of any correspondence. Constructive change requires constructive dialogue.

For additional information and perspective on Defend The Honor and the contributions of Latinos to the WWII effort, go to
www.defendthehonor.org

Gus Chavez
Co-founder Defend The Honor & member of the San Diego Latino-Jewish Coalition
guschavez2000@yahoo.com

Washington Post Jumps Off Hillary Bandwagon

IMHO, today's editorial signals weakening support...

The Senate's Advice
If she accepted it, Hillary Clinton would find it easier to manage questions about her husband's foreign fundraising.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009; A16

AT THE outset of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's otherwise gentle and uninformative confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday, Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.) clearly spelled out the problem presented by foreign contributions to Bill Clinton's foundation. "The Clinton Foundation," he said, "exists as a temptation for any foreign entity or government that believes it could curry favor through a donation. It also sets up potential perception problems with any action taken by the secretary of state in relation to foreign givers or their countries."

"Every new foreign donation that is accepted by the foundation comes with the risk that it will be connected in the global media to a proximate State Department policy or decision," Mr. Lugar added. "Foreign perceptions are incredibly important to U.S. foreign policy, and mistaken impressions or suspicions can deeply affect the actions of foreign governments toward the United States." The senator concluded that "the only certain way to eliminate this risk" is for the Clinton Foundation to refuse new foreign donations while Ms. Clinton is secretary of state.

Mr. Lugar was only stating the obvious. The Clinton Foundation, which has pursued such worthy projects as combating HIV/AIDS and climate change, has collected millions in donations from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf governments, as well as from prominent supporters of Israel, Indian industrialists and the Blackwater security firm -- to name just a few of the potentially sensitive cases. Questions continue to arise about apparent conflicts between Ms. Clinton's actions as a senator and the foundation's fundraising: The Associated Press reported yesterday that Ms. Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting firms or individuals tied to contributions to her husband's foundation.

Yet senators mostly shied away yesterday from probing this obvious minefield -- or, in the case of several Democrats, endorsed the loophole-ridden disclosure agreement the Clintons negotiated with President-elect Barack Obama. Ms. Clinton said nothing about the issue in her opening statement. When she was pressed for more disclosure by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), she stonewalled: "All the answers are in the record," and "there is no intention to amend" the memorandum negotiated with Mr. Obama.

To his credit, Mr. Lugar released a list of improvements that former president Clinton could make to the disclosure agreement. These are eminently sensible: For example, instead of disclosing new foreign contributions only once a year, the foundation would immediately report all gifts of $50,000 or more, and all such donations from foreigners at the time they are pledged. Also, a State Department ethics review would cover all donations above $50,000 from foreign sources -- and not just foreign governments. Ms. Clinton would be doing herself, and Mr. Obama, a favor by pressing her husband to accept greater disclosure or, better yet, to suspend foreign fundraising. Otherwise, the questions raised by senators yesterday will haunt her, and her president, throughout their tenure.

For goodness sake, Bill raised $109 million--why does he need to keep working?

Geithner's Tax Problems Disqualify Him For Treasury Post

So says Bizzy Blog (ht Michelle Malkin):

As I said last night:

Giethner’s personal self-employment “mistakes” have to do with his obligation to pay Social Security taxes on his income when he worked at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF is exempt from paying the employer’s share, and apparently doesn’t withhold any amounts for Social Security on employees’ behalf. It’s easy to see how non-financial administrative employees might get tripped up here, but the idea that Giethner wasn’t aware of his obligations makes him either evasive, negligent, or incompetent. The same possible adjectives apply to the fact that he took as long as he did to catch up on his assessments. These are usually not qualities one looks for in a Treasury Secretary.

The obvious question is why the IRS, and for that matter Giethner, didn’t look back at 2001 and 2002 after the 2003 and 2004 errors were caught. The answer may well be that by the time it found the 2003 and 2004 “discrepancies,” the IRS’s ordinary three-year statute of limitations for unpaid taxes from the date a return is filed had expired for 2001 and 2002.

But there’s an exception to that three-year rule: “The statute of limitations does not apply in the case of a false or fraudulent return with intent to evade any tax.” Intent can be difficult to determine, but Team Obama must have concluded, “brilliant” financial guy that he is, that Geither should have known, and indeed may have known, that he was required to pay self-employment tax at the time he filed his 2001 and 2002 returns. So they told him to pay up.

Second, Geithner has a 15-year history of issues relating to self-employment taxes, something Blackledge brought up in his report last night in this very damning paragraph:

The committee’s materials said Geithner “has experience with Social Security tax issues.” He filed the taxes late for his household employees in 1996 for years 1993 to 1995; he incorrectly calculated Medicare taxes for his household employees in 1998 and received an IRS notice; and he received notices from the Social Security Administration and the IRS after not filing 2003 and 2004 forms for his household employees, the report states.

Davis had nothing about the matters from the 1990s in her update.

It seems quite a stretch to believe that a guy with “experience in Social Security tax issues,” and who had also experienced the fact that these taxes have to be paid when employing domestic help, didn’t realize that he would have to pay those taxes himself if his employer wasn’t withholding them.

Finally, though they both did so at the very end of their reports, Blackledge and Davis quoted an expert who took strong exception to the “goof” argument:

Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of tax for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, said it would be difficult for someone preparing a tax return for a self-employed person to skip the Social Security and Medicare tax lines.

Of course, Ochsenschlager is right. You would expect any experienced tax preparer looking at a W-2 form showing no Social Security or Medicare tax withheld to follow up with his client and find out why. If that preparer did follow up, it seems that Geithner would have either told him or her that he was exempt from such taxation without verifying it, or that he fibbed.

All of this represents evidence that Geithner’s tax problems go well beyond the “goof” level. By putting such a “goofy” assertion into her second paragraph, Davis may be hoping that readers, including those who are preparing the teleprompter scripts for the morning TV newscasts and network news programs, don’t take the nominee’s checkered tax history as seriously as they should.

I also pointed out last night that there was no historical context in Blackledge’s report.

In 2001, Linda Chavez’s nomination as Labor Secretary went down in flames over matters relating to an illegal immigrant whom Chavez had sheltered in her home a decade earlier. Also, in 1993, Zoe Baird withdrew as Bill Clinton’s nominee for Attorney General over the employment of illegal-immigrant domestic help and her failure to pay the related employment taxes on a timely basis.

CIA Pays $350,000 in FOIA Case

To the National Security Archive, for attorney's fees, according to FOIA Blog:

CIA Pays Out $350,000 in Attorneys Fees

Recently, I reported on the National Security Archive's victory over the CIA in its attempt to be treated as a member of the news media.

Subsequently, the parties entered into an agreement in which the Archive's attorneys received $350,000 in attorney fees for work on the matter. Hopefully, agencies will think out their positions before forcing litigation that results in the payment of these fees, which now under the OPEN Government Act of 2007 come from agency budgets.

The stipulated agreeement can be found here.

Hillary's Dumb Testimony About "Smart Diplomacy"

I'm hearing a pained Senator Lugar on C-Span right now, trying to help Hillary sound more sensitive about the appearance of corruption--but she can't give a straight answer, just talking points and self-justification. Awful. Embarrassing. If the Senate consents to Hillary as Secretary of State, it looks like no end of problems in sight.

Hillary actually called the Clinton Global Initiative "a pass-through." She promised more "conflicts."

IMHO, grounds for her rejection. But I suppose no-one in the Senate is brave enough to stand up for what's right.

Poor Senator Lugar, apparently willing to sacrifice his reputation for honesty and sober judgement by running interference for the Clintons...

More on the hearings from Michelle Malkin

Politico story here.

President-Elect Obama's Plan

I just got this email from the Obama-Biden transition team, and so thought I'd share Obama's plan with my readers:

Dear Laurence,

Last Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama gave a major speech outlining his plan for getting us out of this economic slump we're in, called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. It's a far-reaching and aggressive plan, and we think it's what the economy needs to get going again.

But it's going to take a lot of work to get the plan approved, and your involvement is essential. That's why we asked some of the leading members of the Transition's policy teams to sit down and talk a bit about it -- why it's necessary, how it will work, and how we'll make sure it's as efficient and effective as it is bold.

We compiled their responses into a short video, touching on each of the major elements of the plan. Watch the video now at http://change.gov/plan:

Some parts of the plan might already be familiar to you. The plans for rebuilding infrastructure, expanding renewable energy capacity, and overhauling health care and education all build upon promises that President-elect Obama made during the campaign.

We're committed to keeping those promises -- and now, given the challenges we face, they're more important than ever.

We're counting on your help and your support.

Thanks,

John

John D. Podesta
Co-Chair
Obama-Biden Transition Project

Mark Steyn on the Gaza Crisis

From National Review Online:

Forget, for the moment, Gaza. Forget that the Palestinian people are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth. For the past sixty years they have been entrusted to the care of the United Nations, the Arab League, the PLO, Hamas and the “global community” — and the results are pretty much what you’d expect. You would have to be very hardhearted not to weep at the sight of dead Palestinian children, but you would also have to accord a measure of blame to the Hamas officials who choose to use grade schools as launch pads for Israeli-bound rockets, and to the UN refugee agency that turns a blind eye to it. And, even if you don’t deplore Fatah and Hamas for marinating their infants in a sick death cult in which martyrdom in the course of Jew-killing is the greatest goal to which a citizen can aspire, any fair-minded visitor to the West Bank or Gaza in the decade and a half in which the “Palestinian Authority” has exercised sovereign powers roughly equivalent to those of the nascent Irish Free State in 1922 would have to concede that the Palestinian “nationalist movement” has a profound shortage of nationalists interested in running a nation, or indeed capable of doing so. There is fault on both sides, of course, and Israel has few good long-term options. But, if this was a conventional ethno-nationalist dispute, it would have been over long ago.

So, as I said, forget Gaza. And instead ponder the reaction to Gaza in Scandinavia, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and golly, even Florida. As the delegitimization of Israel has metastasized, we are assured that criticism of the Jewish state is not the same as anti-Semitism. We are further assured that anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, which is a wee bit more of a stretch. Only Israel attracts an intellectually respectable movement querying its very existence. For the purposes of comparison, let’s take a state that came into existence at the exact same time as the Zionist Entity, and involved far bloodier population displacements. I happen to think the creation of Pakistan was the greatest failure of post-war British imperial policy. But the fact is that Pakistan exists, and if I were to launch a movement of anti-Pakism it would get pretty short shrift.

But, even allowing for that, what has a schoolgirl in Villiers-le-Bel to do with Israeli government policy? Just last month terrorists attacked Bombay, seized hostages, tortured them, killed them, and mutilated their bodies. The police intercepts of the phone conversations between the terrorists and their controllers make for lively reading:

“Pakistan caller 1: ‘Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.’
“Mumbai terrorist 2: ‘We have three foreigners, including women. From Singapore and China.’
“Pakistan caller 1: ‘Kill them.’
“(Voices of gunmen can be heard directing hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand aside. Sound of gunfire. Sound of cheering voices.)”

“Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims.” Tough for those Singaporean women. Yet no mosques in Singapore have been attacked. The large Hindu populations in London, Toronto, and Fort Lauderdale have not shouted “Muslims must die!” or firebombed Halal butchers or attacked hijab-clad schoolgirls. CAIR and other Muslim lobby groups’ eternal bleating about “Islamophobia” is in inverse proportion to any examples of it. Meanwhile, “moderate Muslims” in London warn the government: “I’m a peaceful fellow myself, but I can’t speak for my excitable friends. Nice little G7 advanced western democracy you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it.”

But why worry about European Muslims? The European political and media class essentially shares the same view of the situation — to the point where state TV stations are broadcasting fake Israeli “war crimes.” As I always say, the “oldest hatred” didn’t get that way without an ability to adapt: Once upon a time on the Continent, Jews were hated as rootless cosmopolitan figures who owed no national allegiance. So they became a conventional nation state, and now they’re hated for that. And, if Hamas get their way and destroy the Jewish state, the few who survive will be hated for something else. So it goes.

But Jew-hating has consequences for the Jew-hater, too. A few years ago the poet Nizar Qabbani wrote an ode to the intifada:

O mad people of Gaza,
a thousand greetings to the mad
The age of political reason
has long departed
so teach us madness

You can just about understand why living in Gaza would teach you madness. The enthusiastic adoption of the same pathologies by mainstream Europe is even more deranged — and in the end will prove just as self-destructive.

Irwin Cotler on the Gaza Crisis

From the Jerusalem Post:

While the rejection by Hamas of any peace with any Israel - or the existence of Israel itself - is a foundational root cause, there is a much more pernicious and sinister one that is all but ignored in the fog of war. This is the public call by Hamas, in its charter as well as its contemporary declarations, for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews wherever they may be.

Jews everywhere - not just in Israel - are referred to as inherently evil, as responsible for all the evils of the world, as defilers of Islam, and, repeatedly during these hostilities, as the "sons of apes and pigs." This genocidal anti-Semitism - and I do not use these words lightly or easily, but there are no other words to describe what is affirmed in these genocidal calls, covenants and declarations - this culture of hatred, this is where it all begins.

In the words of Prof. Fouad Ajami following the 2002 terrorist massacre of Israeli civilians in Netanya sitting down for their Passover meal: The suicide bomber of the Passover massacre did not descend from the sky; he walked straight out of the culture of incitement let loose on the land, a menace hovering over Israel, a great Palestinian and Arab refusal to let that country be, to cede it a place among the nations.

The bomber partook of the culture all around him: the glee that greets those brutal deeds of terror, the cult that rises around the martyrs and their families.

MOREOVER, Iran not only joins in these genocidal calls, but has become the epicenter of calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map." In Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, one finds the toxic convergence of the advocacy of the most horrific of crimes embedded in the most virulent of hatreds and propelled by the avowed intent of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons for that purpose. Iran is not just a bystander to the conflict, but an actor and choreographer involved in the training, supplying, financing, harboring and promoting of Hamas.

The Iran "connection" to the present hostilities is too often ignored or sanitized. As a senior commander of Hamas has said, "Iran is our mother. She gives us information, military supplies and financial support." It is all the more tragic that innocent civilians are dying in Gaza because of hostilities supported by Iran, whose criminal accountability is marginalized.

Bush's UN Security Council Blunder

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, John Bolton says the US made a mistake to abstain from a recent Security Council vote:

Abstaining allows a resolution to be adopted (assuming it enjoys at least nine affirmative votes) without explicit support from, in this case, the U.S.

All five of the permanent members of the Security Council abstain for various political reasons. The abstainer may conclude that threatening a veto carries too high a political price on the international stage, while a "yes" vote will haunt it later on.

But abstaining comes with its own costs. A permanent member's abstention invariably reflects that it failed to achieve its objectives. It also signals timidity.

Britain and France avoid vetoes for fear that if they are seen to be too hard-edged, they will be harried off of the Security Council and replaced by one European Union seat. Russia and China are motivated by other pressures. Russia is cautious because its influence is waning. China's influence is increasing, but it feels the need to tread lightly.

This is all the more reason why the U.S. can't afford to abdicate its international leadership role. For the U.S., abstentions have larger costs than for any other permanent member.

When the U.S. abstains, it cedes the field to others on the Security Council. And our global interests make losing the initiative unacceptably risky, especially on critical issues such as the Middle East.

Ms. Rice's abstention last Thursday, for example, neither mitigated the council's pressure on Israel, nor increased the likelihood of a cease-fire. As a display of weakness, it simply invites a diplomatic feeding frenzy. That will almost certainly happen now in regards to Gaza, where Resolution 1860 is having no effect.

Finally, abstaining encourages careless decision-making in Washington, especially for an administration seeking to avoid hard foreign-policy choices in order to focus on domestic issues. In short, abstaining passes the buck to those who do not have the U.S.'s interests at heart, while allowing those in Washington to feel like they are actively managing our interests.

NY Times Apologizes for Publishing Fake Letter to the Editor

And they have the chutzpah to criticize bloggers...In today's paper, this note:

A few weeks ago, as many of you will recall, we published what turned out to be a fake letter over the name of the mayor of Paris, whose office later confirmed that he did not write it. We apologized to him, and to you, the readers. And since then, we have worked to tighten our verification system for letters and enforce it more rigorously.

We encourage our readers to keep writing letters, of course, and we are all for full and vigorous (but civil) debate. But we are asking for your help as we “trust but verify.”

From now on we will adhere unfailingly to our existing standards: we will consider only letters with full contact information — your name, address, current location and daytime and evening telephone numbers (not for publication). If your letter is being considered, we will call you and send back an edited version for your approval before publication.

And here is our contact information:

E-mail: letters@nytimes.com

Fax: (212) 556-3622

Telephone: (212) 556-1873

Postal address: Letters to the Editor, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018-1405

The readers of this page deserve to know that the letters we publish are legitimate. While no verification procedure involving strangers and operating on a degree of trust can be completely foolproof, we will work to ensure that an error like this doesn’t happen again.

THOMAS FEYER

An earlier note provides more detail:

Early this morning, we posted a letter that carried the name of Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, sharply criticizing Caroline Kennedy.

This letter was a fake. It should not have been published.

Doing so violated both our standards and our procedures in publishing signed letters from our readers.

We have already expressed our regrets to Mr. Delanoë's office and we are now doing the same to you, our readers.

This letter, like most Letters to the Editor these days, arrived by email. It is Times procedure to verify the authenticity of every letter. In this case, our staff sent an edited version of the letter to the sender of the email and did not hear back. At that point, we should have contacted Mr. Delanoë's office to verify that he had, in fact, written to us.

We did not do that. Without that verification, the letter should never have been printed.

We are reviewing our procedures for verifying letters to avoid such an incident in the future.

Kennedy, Seen From Paris (December 22, 2008)

Who wrote the letter?

Bernard Henry-Levy on the Gaza Crisis

From his New Republic article, "Liberate the Palestinians from Hamas:"

Quickly, let's hope, the fighting will cease. And very quickly, let us also hope, the commentators will regain their wits. They will discover, on that day, that Israel has committed many errors over the course of many years (missed opportunities, a long denial of the Palestinian national demands, unilateralism), but that Palestinians' worst enemies are the extremist leaders who have never wanted peace, have never wanted a State and never conceived of one for their people other than as an instrument and as a hostage. (Consider the sinister image of Hamas supreme leader Khaled Meshal who, on Saturday, Dec. 27, when the scale of the greatly desired Israeli response was becoming clear, only knew to declare a return to suicide missions--and this during his comfortable exile, his cushy job in Damascus ...)

From two choices, one. Either Hamas leaders re-establish the truce that they broke, and, while they're at it, declare null and void a charter founded on the pure rejection of the "Zionist Entity": In doing so, they will rejoin the vast party for compromise that has not ceased--God be praised--to make progress in the region, and peace will be established. Or they will only, obstinately, consider the suffering of Palestinian civilians in terms of its fueling of their annealed passions, their insane hate, nihilistic, beyond words. And if that is the case, it is not only the Israelis, but the Palestinians, who will need to be liberated from Hamas' somber shadow.

cnewmark

My cousin Savtadotty had a link on her Facebook page to Craig Newmark (founder of craigslist)...and he has a blog that looks interesting: cnewmark.com:

"White House illegally deleted Secret Service computer records"

Ellen Miller from the Sunlight Foundation tells us about a small but signficant victory for the good guys.

Turns out the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, CREW was investigating visits to the White House of nine conservative religious leaders. They also were checking up on. Stephen Payne, a lobbyist, caught in a video sting operation.