THE FULCRUM

Keeping the Bush Boom Alive

The Pentagon has launched a sweeping investigation of Halliburton Co. activities in Iraq and found evidence of "substantial overcharging" in $1.2 billion of fuel sales by the company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.

An audit of fuel costs, which still isn't complete, found that the company may have overcharged by as much as $61 million for gasoline in Iraq, a claim that Halliburton denies.

In a foreshadowing of the political uproar likely to erupt around the Halliburton allegations, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean accused President Bush of standing by as "campaign contributors ... continue to overcharge the American taxpayers." Halliburton gave $708,770 in political contributions between 1999 and 2002, 95% of it to Republicans, according to the contributions monitoring group OpenSecrets.org. Of that, $17,677 went to support President Bush.

Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, another presidential contender, said "Vice President Cheney's former employer ... proceeded to bilk the American taxpayer for tens of millions of dollars."

"As a discussion of US politics grows longer, the probability of a liberal or progressive being called a 'Bush-Hater' approaches one. Once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever called someone a Bush Hater has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress."

And renato's corollary (from the discussion thread):

"As a discussion of US domestic and foreign policy grows longer, the probability of a right-winger saying, '9/11 changed everything!' or otherwise using 9/11 as an excuse for the US to do anything it damn well pleases including killing thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, approaches one. Once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever used 9/11 as an excuse for the Bush regime's innumerable lies, civil rights violations, and war crimes has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress."

...and another thing. Stop ceding the goddamn debate. Who here thinks Howard Dean can beat Bush? Why Ted, you ignorant slut, Fred Flintstone could take Bush with Barney Rubble as his campaign manager. Wesley Clark should stop saying that he needs to be the nominee because someone needs to be able to match Bush at foreign policy. What Clark should say is that Joey Tribiani could match Bush at foreign policy, though he, Clark, has the most experience. Stop acknowledging that Bush is strong on anything. He's a big loser. He's a miserable failure. He's lost 3 million jobs. He got us into a screwed up war. Our soldiers are being killed by terrorists. The Middle East is a mess. Afghanistan is a mess. OBL is alive. Hussein is alive.

The Bush administration says it wants help in Iraq, but somehow it can't stop infuriating the countries that could shoulder more of the load.

President Bush heard the complaints first hand when he called the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's official debt. Speaking privately, officials said that the timing and tone was disastrous and certain to make it much harder to pry troops, aid or debt-forgiveness out of furious allies. But they said that the president had decided that the policy would stand.

Patrick Guerriero is certainly right that the Constitution was "designed to protect and ensure equal treatment for all Americans" ("'Til Death Do Us Part," editorial page, Dec. 4). But surely that referred to the principle of equal treatment as a matter of government policy. The reason that the social issues, such as gay marriage, are becoming so intractable is that equal treatment has been misread to require that individuals, too, be nondiscriminating. If they own businesses or apartment buildings, for example, they are no longer allowed to exclude those of whom they disapprove. Since it is through the personal freedom to make such discriminatory choices that morality-based institutions like marriage are formed, defined and enforced, the denial of such freedom has led inevitably to the confused moral morass we see today.

The reason we are now faced with having to decide as a matter of national policy what constitutes marriage, is that we have lost the freedom to make personal decisions on the subject. It is unclear if Mr. Guerriero considers our nation's Founders "real conservatives," but it is certain that all of them would be turning in their graves to hear that their Constitution requires acceptance of gay marriage.

Steve Wunsch
New York

With the federal budget stretched to pay for the war in Iraq, tax cuts and homeland security projects, the White House has warned cabinet departments that the president's fiscal 2005 budget proposal will include $2.5 billion in new money for his Millennium Challenge Account -- an initiative to reward well-run nations in Africa and elsewhere -- and $1.1 billion in increased spending for international AIDS projects, according to people familiar with the president's proposals.

Combined with appropriations still awaiting final congressional action for fiscal 2004, those amounts represent just 18% of the $30 billion in spending increases that the administration has promised would take place by 2008. Should Congress fund Mr. Bush's request, it would effectively put off the vast majority of the promised spending until after next year's presidential election.

"Seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many," Mr. Bush said in the State of the Union address.

"They aren't quite willing to put the money out there to match the rhetoric of the president's speech," said Steve Radelet, formerly the top Africa hand in both the Clinton and Bush Treasury departments.

Army officials said there had been about 60 cases of adultery prosecuted in the last two years, always as part of some larger set of criminal charges, like rape. The military, in guidelines to commanders, suggests that adultery is principally a problem when it affects discipline and order as in cases where it involves people who are in a subordinate-commander relationship.

The military does not contend that either of those offenses is related to any security breaches but that they were violations discovered in the course of the investigation. But Captain Yee's civilian defense lawyer, Eugene R. Fidell, has said the charges were added vindictively as part of an effort to cover up the military's mistake and overreaction.

The toy survived into the electronic age because of nostalgia and clever promotions. But its appeal has continued, in part, because it keeps getting cheaper to own. It sold for $3.99 when it was introduced. If it had kept pace with the consumer price index over its 43 years, it would retail for $23.69 today instead of $9.99.