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eklyWeFebruary 27, 2015 Volume 7 • Number 9

TOM WILLIAMS – CQ ROLL CALL / GETTY IMAGES

This Week in Washington WASHINGTON WHISPERS 2Hillary Clinton’s purple place; John Kerry’s smackdown; bigger is better; on the edge of financial ruin

HEADING TOWARD A SHUTDOWN 4Congress hasn’t come to an agreement on Homeland Security funding

NET NEUTRALITY MOVES AHEAD 6The FCC approved the new rules on a party-line vote

QUESTIONS FOR THE FED CHAIR 7Janet Yellen says interest rates will not likely rise in the next few months

WHY THEY REALLY RUN 8These candidates don’t have much of a shot to win the presidency

SPECIAL REPORT | A CELEBRITY IN THE OVAL OFFICE 12President Barack Obama has become a part of popular culture

Commentary and Features THE PRESIDENCY | KENNETH T. WALSH 10The likability factor is very important in the 2016 presidential race

QUIZ OF THE WEEK 11The House of Representatives’ long and storied history

CAPITAL NOTIONS | ROBERT SCHLESINGER 16King v. Burwell is the silliest Obamacare challenge yet

WASHINGTON BOOK CLUB 17Sarah Chayes’ “Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security”

BLOG BUZZ 19

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 20

EDITOR’S NOTE 20

MORTIMER B. ZUCKERMAN | EDITORIAL 21Netanyahu’s mandate on preventing Iran from going nuclear

THE BIG PICTURE 23

Speaker John Boehner

COLLISION COURSE

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WashingtonWhispers By David Catanese

Hillary Clinton says if she were to become president,

she’d strive to fuse red and blue America into “a

nice warm purple space where we’re trying to

solve problems.”

Clinton’s comments at the Lead On Watermark

Silicon Valley Conference for Women on Tuesday

afternoon are a slight indication that the former

secretary of state already has one eye trained on the 2016

general election before she’s even announced a campaign

to seek the Democratic nomination. How Clinton will

position herself ideologically in a likely White House bid

is one of the largest questions she’s confronting as she

seeks counsel before an official announcement.

Even without the threat of a formidable primary

opponent, liberals are hoping to pressure Clinton to

gravitate toward the left as she builds a governing

agenda. But the embrace of “purple” America suggests

she remains most comfortable in the center, embracing

common-sense, collaborative ideas that aren’t

polarizing. With a 45-point lead over the primary field

in the latest CNN survey, Clinton must be tempted to

forego any genuflecting to progressives.

She ticked off the minimum wage, paid family leave,

wage disparity and energy efficiency as issues around

which she’d form a hypothetical campaign. When asked

about the debate over the National Security Agency

Clinton’s Purple Place

Vocativ looked at the voting records for all sitting representatives to see who has missed the most votes. Here are the most absent representatives:

1. John Conyers (D-Mich.)

2. Don Young (R-Alaska)

3. Richard Nolan (D-Minn.)

4. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.)

5. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.)

6. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.)

7. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.)

8. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.)

9. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)

10. Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas)

The List: Most Absent Representatives

Keep up with thelatest Washington

buzz at www.usnews.com/whispers

WALT HANDELSMAN – TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY


http://www.usnews.com/whispers


WASHINGTON WHISPERS

spying, she again struck a balance,

speaking about the importance of

valuing both liberty and security.

At one point, the moderator

interjected, floating a hypothetical

President Elizabeth Warren. Clinton

barely flinched and couched her answer

around “whoever it is.”

Later during the discussion, she

yearned for a political dialogue, “if we

could get back to working together

cooperatively again.” That’s not even a

whiff of the rhetoric of Warren, or Sen.

Bernie Sanders, the ornery independent

from Vermont who is contemplating a

challenge to Clinton.

But Clinton appeared to feel little

pressure to move from a political

sweet spot that’s more appealing for

a broader electorate. When asked to

come up with her favorite hashtag to

close the program, she replied blandly

but safely, “#LeadOn.”

John Kerry’s SmackdownJust when you thought the bad ro-

mance between Israeli Prime Minis-

ter Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama’s administration couldn’t

get uglier, Secretary of State John Kerry

upped the ante with a verbal smack-

down of Netanyahu on Wednesday.

Kerry said that Netanyahu’s

meddling in the sensitive negotiations

with Iran makes it seem like he’s

spoiling for a war he wants the U.S.

to fight – the same position he took

when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003.

“The prime minister was profoundly

forward-leaning and outspoken about

the importance of invading Iraq under

George W. Bush,” said Kerry, on Capitol

Hill to brief the House Foreign Affairs

Committee on Iran negotiations, the

goings-on in Ukraine and other hot

spots. “We all know what happened with

that decision.”

But the secretary added a touch

more heat, just in case Netanyahu

didn’t get the message. “Israel is safer

today with the added time we have

given [to reach a deal] and the stoppage

of the advances in the [Iranian] nuclear

program than they were before we got

that agreement,” Kerry said, “which by

the way, the prime minister opposed.

He was wrong.”

Bigger Is Better Some prefer brick exteriors over siding.

Others like the look of shingled roofs.

But nearly 60 percent of Americans

agree that their ideal home would be

a different size than the one in which

they currently live.

A Trulia housing study out Thursday

found that 43 percent of more than

2,000 survey respondents would

prefer living in a larger home. About

40 percent of Americans are satisfied

with the size of their current house,

while only 16 percent would prefer

to downsize. “The responses to our

survey show significantly more demand

for larger homes than for smaller

ones,” Trulia housing economist

Ralph McLaughlin wrote in a statement

accompanying the survey results. “But

the reality, of course, is that households

must make trade-offs between things

like accessibility, amenities, and

affordability when choosing what size

homes to get.”

On the Edge of Financial RuinAmericans’ overall perception of the

domestic economy has ticked up to pre-

Great Recession levels, though more

than a third of the country still sits on

the edge of financial ruin.

A study published this week by

Bankrate.com suggests 37 percent

of Americans have credit card debt

greater than or equal to their emergency

savings, meaning a steep medical bill,

a car accident or other unexpected

expense could push them over a

budgetary cliff. “A pretty good chunk of

the population still has more credit card

debt than they have in their emergency

savings account,” says Jeanine Skowronski, a senior credit card analyst

and reporter at Bankrate.com. “The

recession’s over, but there’s still some

lagging effects that can be affecting

some people’s pockets.” Though about

58 percent of those surveyed said they

had more savings than debt, Skowronski

says that’s only “marginally” improved

from years past. l

With Joseph P. Williams

and Andrew Soergel

MOUTHING OFF

Everyone has an opinion. Send yours to [email protected].

Will the Supreme Court strike

down Obamacare after the

King v. Burwell hearing?


mailto:[email protected]


This Week In WashingtonA

fter the 9/11 attacks, Congress found a unifying

issue in national security. The bitter partisanship

following the disputed 2000 presidential election

and recount evaporated while Democrats and Re-

publicans set about making sure the nation would be

protected from another attack. Congress moved quickly

– way too quickly, critics later said – to give more sur-

veillance power to federal law enforcement. Republicans

who had long been opponents of a bigger federal gov-

ernment joined Democrats in creating an entirely new

agency, the Department of Homeland Security.

Fast-forward to the present, and Congress is at a mirror-

opposite position. Everyone generally agrees that national

security is critical (recent world events have made it even

more of a priority), but domestic politics are trumping that

consensus. In what would have seemed unthinkable in the

frantic months after 9/11, the Department of Homeland

Security has been threatened with a shutdown as lawmak-

ers bicker over an unrelated immigration policy. And the

situation has united lawmakers only in their frustration

over their own inability to keep functioning a department

dedicated to the nation’s basic safety.

“[The Islamic State group] has funding,” says an exas-

perated Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. “We need

to have funding for security in this country, and not just

for a few weeks.” Adds an equally annoyed Sen. Susan

Collins, Republican of Maine: “I have always said that the

department should be fully funded.” And given that “we

live in a time when the new generation of threats facing

our country continues to grow, I think the mission of the

department is absolutely vital,” Collins says.

And yet, as the Friday midnight deadline approached

to fund the agency, lawmakers were still stubbornly fight-

ing over how and whether to include immigration policy

language in the DHS bill. The snag started last year, when

congressional Republicans were balking at passing fund-

ing legislation for the entire government because they were

unhappy with President Barack Obama’s November execu-

tive action expanding temporary legal status to millions of

» Net Neutrality Moves Ahead » Questions for the Fed Chair » Why They

Really Run » The Likability Factor

Heading Toward a Shutdown The House and Senate haven’t come to an agreement on Homeland Security funding

By Susan Milligan

Sen. Harry Reid at a news conference Tuesday discussing the fight over the Department of Homeland Security

BILL CLARK – CQ ROLL CALL / GETTY IMAGES



immigrants. To avoid a politically trouble-

some and disruptive shutdown, Congress

grudgingly agreed to keep all of the gov-

ernment going at current spending levels

until September – all except DHS, which

was given a reprieve until Friday. Repub-

licans, armed with an expanded majority

in the House and a new majority in the

Senate, hoped to strong-arm Democrats

into approving a longer-term DHS fund-

ing bill that included language undoing

Obama’s executive action.

That plan started to unravel as Sen-

ate Democrats four times filibustered

the mixed-policy measure, insisting on

a “clean bill” extending funding. That

put the “hot potato” (as Senate Minor-

ity Leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Ne-

vada, called the issue this week) back in

the House, which came under pressure

to pass a bill without the immigration

language. House Speaker John Boeh-

ner, Republican of Ohio, responded

that his chamber had done its job, and

it was time for the Senate – specifically,

the Democrats – to do the same. Senate

Republicans were not eager to get into

a cross-chamber feud with their compa-

triots in the House, but expressed some

consternation that House GOPers did not

seem to comprehend that there was no

way Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mc-

Connell, Republican of Kentucky, was

going to get the 60 votes to approve the

House language. “Some of my colleagues

in the House have recommended that we

go to 51 votes,” getting rid of the filibus-

ter entirely, says Sen. John McCain, Re-

publican of Arizona. “I would do that if

I could be assured that we’ll always have

Republican control of the United States

Senate, but I’m not positive of that.”

As the deadline neared, McConnell

made a peace offer to the other side of the

aisle: he’d separate out the bills, allow-

ing the Senate to vote on a clean funding

bill as well as another measure reversing

Obama’s order on immigration. (Some

said the GOP didn’t even need the bill,

since a Texas judge has already issued a

temporary restraining order keeping the

Obama administration from moving for-

ward with the action. The White House

said it would obey the ruling but appeal.)

Reid balked, saying he didn’t want to pass

anything unless he was given assurance

the House would go along. That put it

back on Boehner, who bluntly told re-

porters, “the House has done its job. I’m

waiting for the Senate to pass a bill. At

the end of the day, the Senate has to act.”

Fine, Reid concluded. On Wednesday,

the Senate, by a near-unanimous tally,

voted to advance a clean funding bill, with

plans to pass the measure on Friday. That

put the “hot potato” back where it has been

hopping for some time – in the lap of Boeh-

ner, who most recently floated a proposal

to fund DHS for three weeks while they

sort it out. A CNN poll last week showed

that 53 percent of Americans would blame

congressional Republicans if DHS was

shut down, compared to the 30 percent

who would blame Obama.

While the Hill fiddled around with

Homeland Security funding, Obama

burned the GOP with some strong lan-

guage about immigration. At a Florida

town hall meeting on the topic, the presi-

dent vowed to fight the Texas ruling and

said there would be consequences for Im-

migration and Customs Enforcement offi-

cials who don’t follow the new guidelines.

“There are going to be some jurisdictions

and there may be individual ICE officials

or Border Control [agents] who aren’t

paying attention to our new directives.

But they’re going to be answerable to the

head of Department of Homeland Securi-

ty, because he’s been very clear about what

our priorities should be,” Obama said. “If

somebody’s working for ICE … and they

don’t follow the policy, there’s going to be

consequences to it.”

A DHS shutdown would not end all

Homeland Security programs, since

certain employees would be required to

come to work (unpaid, until a funding

measure was finally approved) and other

programs are funded largely through

fees, and could continue based on that

revenue stream. But ironically for Repub-

licans determined to thwart illegal immi-

gration, the “E-verify” program – which

allows employers to check immigration

status before hiring someone – would not

be protected during a shutdown.

Meanwhile, lawmakers grouse that

the entire mess is an international em-

barrassment. “The security of our na-

tion is so important. If we can’t show

the world that we have a commitment

to keeping our homeland safe, then God

help us all,” says Sen. Joe Manchin, a

West Virginia Democrat who wants to

fully fund DHS but also believes the pres-

ident overstepped his bounds. As the 11th

hour approaches, the Homeland Security

bill remains as hot a political potato as

ever. And Boehner is likely to be the last

one holding it. l

THIS WEEK IN WASHINGTON

What Do You Think? Are GOP legislators acting responsibly in the battle over the Department of Homeland Security? Email your thoughts to [email protected].




Title II of the Communications Act as

part of an effort to replace regulations

struck down by a federal appeals court

last year. Wheeler has said he expects

another lawsuit, but that Title II invokes

a stronger legal authority that would

survive a challenge while ensuring the

rights of consumers and companies. “It’s

simply too important to be left without

rules or a referee on the field,” Wheeler

said during the commission’s meeting

Thursday. “The Internet has replaced

the function of the telephone and the

post office.”

Title II, however, will allow the FCC to

“decide the future of the online world” by

giving the commission the power to regu-

late transaction rates, FCC Commissioner

Ajit Pai said. Pai voted against the rules,

along with the agency’s other Republican

commissioner, Michael O’Rielly.

Pai’s concerns, shared by other Re-

publicans, also include that the rules

would harm the Internet business by

discouraging investment and opening

the door to government meddling. “This

order imposes intrusive government

regulations for a problem that doesn’t

exist … using the legal authority that the

FCC doesn’t have,” Pai said. “Consumers

should expect their bills to go up and

they should expect broadband speeds to

slow down going forward.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mc-

Connell, a Kentucky Republican, echoed

those concerns in an email calling the

commission’s rules an overreach of gov-

ernment power that endangers the Inter-

net by “suffocating it under the weight of

an outdated bureaucracy.” Republicans

have broadly criticized the commission’s

proposed net neutrality rules but have

embraced some open Internet policies

after the FCC received more than 4 mil-

lion public comments on the issue, many

of which called for strong regulation to

ensure equal access.

House Energy and Commerce Com-

mittee Chairman Fred Upton, a Michi-

gan Republican, has sought to avoid FCC

regulation by proposing a bill he claims

would uphold some principles of net

neutrality, including that Internet ser-

vice providers should not block or slow

down traffic.

During a hearing of his committee

on Wednesday, Upton said the FCC vote

“is just the beginning” and “means an

inevitable return to the courts for net

neutrality rules, which will lead to more

years of uncertainty for consumers and

providers.” AT&T has indicated it will

sue the FCC to challenge the approved

rules. l

After nearly a year of intense debate about the fu-

ture of the Internet, the Federal Communications

Commission voted 3-2 Thursday to approve net

neutrality rules that aim to preserve competition

online by treating all Internet traffic equally. But Re-

publicans and telecom companies still plan to fight the

regulation in court and in Congress.

The newly approved rules forbid Internet service

providers from blocking or slowing the traffic of their

rivals, and ban new fees for faster download speeds that

would create “paid prioritization” or “fast lanes.” The

rules will affect competition between certain compa-

nies, especially those reliant on fast download speeds

like Skype and Netflix.

Republicans and telecoms like AT&T are particularly

concerned that the rules apply some of the commis-

sion’s regulatory power over phone companies to In-

ternet providers. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler invoked

Net Neutrality Moves AheadThe FCC approved the new rules on a 3-2 vote

By Tom Risen

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler at Thursday’s meeting

PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS – AP





cent as other facets of the economy gain.

Yellen cited stagnant wages as a drag

on the domestic economy and a thorn

in the side of any potential interest rate

increase, and some analysts agree that

wages have thus far represented a miss-

ing piece in the economic recovery puz-

zle. “Wages are a big part of inflation.

You can’t really get inflation to stick un-

less you get wages to move higher,” says

John Canally, chief economic strategist

for LPL Financial.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York

Democrat, advised Yellen and the Federal

Reserve on Tuesday to “act with caution”

when considering interest rate increases

if limp wages persist. “Let me be clear: I

believe the Fed should remain committed

to its current accommodative policy until

it sees clear evidence that shows a con-

sistent improvement in wages,” Schumer

said. “In the current environment, wage

growth needs to be a major factor, maybe

even a loadstone for the Fed, when it’s

deciding to raise rates.”

But Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania

Republican, said he believed the current

low interest rate policy is “unbelievably

accommodative” and urged Yellen and

the Fed to boost rates sooner rather than

later. “I can’t help but observe what strikes

me as a very obvious paradox here, and

that is the financial and economic crisis

is over,” Toomey said. “It’s been over for

years, at least six or seven years, and yet we

still maintain crisis-level interest rates.”

The Fed weighs a collection of econom-

ic indicators, including employment and

unemployment figures and the consumer

price index, when making policy deci-

sions, though some have criticized Yellen’s

posse for a perceived lack of transparency.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican,

is among a host of federal lawmakers hail-

ing legislation calling for an audit of the

fed, which proponents say would allow for

more oversight of the Fed’s inner work-

ings. “I want to be completely clear that

I strongly oppose Audit the Fed,” Yellen

said Tuesday, referring to the legislation.

“...Audit the Fed is a bill that would politi-

cize monetary policy, putting short-term

political pressures to bear on the Fed.”

Canally says the chances of the legis-

lation passing are relatively low, noting

that the bill would have trouble making

it through the Senate. President Barack

Obama also would still have the opportu-

nity to veto it. “The last thing markets want

is Congress running fiscal policy and mar-

ket policy,” says Canally, distinguishing

the congressional budget responsibility

from the Fed’s monetary oversight. “That’s

everyone’s worst nightmare.” l

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Tuesday

dodged giving a definitive starting date for awaited

interest rate hikes, but outlined a potential path

toward such a move as the domestic economy con-

tinues to recover. Appearing before the Senate Banking

Committee, she noted that an interest rate hike is “un-

likely” to result from “at least the next couple of [Federal

Open Market Committee] meetings.”

“I think it’s fair to say that when we look into raising

our target for the federal funds rate, it will be because we

are confident about the recovery, and we are reasonably

confident that inflation is back to our 2 percent objective,”

Yellen said. Low interest rates generally keep more money

in consumers’ pockets, which in turn spurs economic ex-

pansion and should theoretically boost inflation. But the

Fed hasn’t raised interest rates since 2006, and inflation

has rested stubbornly beneath the Fed’s target of 2 per-

Questions for the Fed Chair Janet Yellen says the Fed isn’t likely to raise interest rates in the next few months

By Andrew Soergel Fed Chair Yellen speaks to the Senate Banking Committee

SUSAN WALSH – AP



This is true of the large 2016 Repub-

lican lineup, which features interested

politicians who will struggle to compete

in a single primary state, let alone sit in-

side 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. But there

are plenty of reasons to run other than to

win. Here are four incentives for a hand-

ful of long shots.

Sen. Lindsey GrahamWhat He Could Really Win: Secretary of Defense

Imagine a scenario in which Sens. Ted

Cruz and Rand Paul dominate the Iowa

caucuses and Jeb Bush and Gov. Scott

Walker battle it out for supremacy in

New Hampshire.

The South Carolina primary that fol-

lows suddenly becomes pivotal in the

chase for primary momentum. And this

third-term GOP senator just happens

to hail from the place that could turn it.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that Graham

finishes in single digits in each of the first

two nominating states, but still carries

considerable sway in his native land. So,

in an attempt to halt a surging Cruz – or

other conservative alternative – he drops

out days before the Palmetto State pri-

mary and throws his blessing to Bush.

Bush ekes out a victory, much like

Sen. John McCain did in 2008, avoid-

ing disaster and paving his way toward

Super Tuesday. Graham then could be

credited with saving the establishment

from a right-wing coup. And that would

earn him valuable chits.

There’s nothing Graham cares more

about than national security issues, and

he’s well-versed and well-respected when it

comes to the flare-ups popping up around

the globe. Bush will be seeking a muscu-

lar defense secretary who is ready on day

one, and Graham will have earned himself

a high place on the list of candidates.

Carly FiorinaWhat She Could Really Win: Vice President

The former Hewlett-Packard CEO has

never held elected office and may be

most remembered politically for a bizarre

if not engrossing Web video during her

2010 California Senate campaign that

featured “demon sheep.”

Nonetheless, Fiorina has been quietly

traversing the country for months now,

casually doling out her personal cell-

phone number to activists and raising

her profile as the lone potential female

Republican contender.

She’s leaving an impression. Her speech

at a conservative Iowa rally last month

turned heads for its aggressiveness toward

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

When tempted by the herculean challenge of

seeking the presidency, it’s natural for even

the most ambitious politician to ask: Why

run? The more suitable question in the mod-

ern era might be: Why not?

The downsides of mounting a White House bid are

few. Simply flirting with the possibility garners attention,

notoriety and relevance with the media and the general

public. The process fosters otherwise elusive relation-

ships and elite connections, and the payoff is usually a

heightened status as an expert, pundit or pseudo-celeb-

rity. It can produce a bigger book deal, a larger talk show

contract or simply a higher-profile gig afterward.

That’s not to say that all candidates don’t possess some

drive to win. But the harsh reality is almost all of them

won’t, and most don’t really have much of a chance at the

starting gate. And they know it.

Why They Really Run These candidates don’t have much of a shot to win the presidency

By David Catanese

Carly Fiorina could be a good vice presidential candidate.

SCOTT OLSON – GETTY IMAGES




But she’s also making a case for herself in

private one-on-one conversations.

Ovide Lamontagne, a former U.S. Sen-

ate and gubernatorial candidate in New

Hampshire who has strong ties to con-

servative activists, walked away from his

meeting with Fiorina impressed. “I think

she could be a dark horse in this race. She’s

a really solid conservative. Pro-business,

traditional values,” he says.

If, as expected, Clinton is the Demo-

cratic nominee, there will be considerable

pressure for the Republican standard-

bearer to close what’s likely to be a gap-

ing female gender gap. Several women

will have to be seriously considered for

the vice president’s slot. If Fiorina is the

only woman on the stage, that puts her

in a distinct position.

It’s even more advantageous because

there are not that many high-profile GOP

women to choose from. The primary pro-

cess is the grandest tryout stage one can

find, and Fiorina seems poised to seize it.

Rick PerryWhat He Could Really Win: Reputation Recovery

Almost every news organization worth its

salt has written the story in some vari-

ant: Rick Perry, the former governor of

Texas who self-destructed midsentence

in 2011, has learned from

his mistakes and is back

as a better prepared, high-

er-octane version of him-

self. True.

But liking Perry – which

is difficult not to do – and

casting a ballot for him

are two very different ac-

tions. Hence, he has a

Sarah Palin problem: He’s

a candidate who exudes

contagious charisma and

wields natural charm, but

doesn’t quite meet the vi-

ability threshold for the

presidency. With so many other palatable

options on the stage, it will be difficult for

Perry to become the first or second choice

of GOP primary voters.

But this campaign is as much about

Perry cleaning up the damage he did to

his name during his last run as it is about

anything else. Perry’s expectations are now

demonstrably lower than they were when

he brashly rode into the race in the sum-

mer of 2011. If he strings together a couple

solid, error-free debates, commentators

will toss roses at his feet. “Imagine if this

Rick Perry ran the first time,” they’ll coo.

Perry’s bar for success isn’t a win in

Iowa or South Carolina; it’s becoming a

serious, substantive presence while on-

stage with his peers and maybe even mas-

tering a moment that’s all his own. It’s a

restoration project.

Once that’s complete, he can ride back

into the sunset in Texas as the titan ex-gov-

ernor he always yearned to be. And it may

even nab him a Cabinet slot in a Republi-

can administration – just not in one of the

three agencies he vowed to eliminate.

Ben CarsonWhat He Could Really Win: A Talk Show

Ben Carson is a neurologist from Mary-

land who grabbed fame by having the au-

dacity to rip into President Barack Obama

while he was seated just a few feet away at

the National Prayer Breakfast.

Carson’s brand is that he doesn’t do

political correctness. He won’t adhere to

the traditional laws of politics by biting

his tongue or framing his statements so

they don’t offend.

The Islamic State group reminds him

of the American revolutionaries fight-

ing for independence. Obamacare is like

slavery. These are some of his greatest

hits. And when he’s skewered for it, mak-

ing the media the foil as the PC-police is

almost too easy.

Carson doesn’t seem as interested in

building an organization for president as

he does in leading a rabble-rousing move-

ment. As a rare GOP African-American

provocateur, he’s carved out a special

place for himself in a party pining for any

signs of diversity.

Carson won’t be the nominee, but the

draft movement attempting to lure him

into the race is evidence of the following he

could create. His greatest talent is his abil-

ity to pick the pressure points that arouse

the most passion – and that’s a perfect fit

for the television or radio talk show circuit.

The timing also may be perfect: Mike

Huckabee just abandoned his Fox News

show, leaving a vacuum waiting to be

filled. l


Ben Carson could end up with a TV show.

CLAY JACKSON – THE ADVOCATE MESSENGER / AP



The Presidency

The Likability Factor

By Kenneth T. Walsh

His tough-guy exterior was initially considered a plus by

his fans. They billed it as evidence that he could effec-

tively take on special interests and political adversaries

at home and antagonists abroad. But Christie went too

far. He has regularly gotten into dustups with reporters

and citizens who challenge him, sometimes in a rude

and dismissive way. He seems eternally strident. He is

flunking the likability primary.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, another Republi-

can, seems too diffident and retiring. This makes him

appear bloodless, which runs counter to likability. He

also faces a difficult problem in trying to deal with

the baggage he carries as the son of former President

There will be many phases in the 2016

presidential race, including the contests

for raising money, framing themes, re-

cruiting strategists, building field organi-

zations, and establishing credibility with

the media. But one phase isn’t getting the

attention it deserves: the likability test. And this could

be the most important of all.

Likability isn’t the only factor in determining who

wins the presidency. The candidates’ stands on issues,

their experience and their records will make a big dif-

ference. But presidents play such a big part in our lives,

and Americans are so enamored of positive personalities

in public figures that being likable has become an indis-

pensable quality for a candidate to have.

Ever since I started covering national presidential

campaigns for U.S. News in 1988, the more likable can-

didate has won. It was Barack Obama over Mitt Romney

in 2012; Obama over John McCain in 2008; George W.

Bush over John Kerry in 2004; Bush over Al Gore in

2000; Bill Clinton over Bob Dole in 1996; Clinton over

George H.W. Bush in 1992, and George H.W. Bush over

Michael Dukakis in 1988. Before that, Ronald Reagan was

more likable than Walter Mondale in 1984 and Jimmy

Carter in 1980, and Reagan won both times.

In the current cycle, even though it’s early, some po-

tential candidates are already coming up short regard-

ing the Likability Factor. Gov. Chris Christie of New

Jersey, a Republican, is emerging as probably the least

likable potential candidate of all. He is widely seen as

a bully and an intimidator, whether that’s fair or not.

George W. Bush was more likable than both Al Gore and John Kerry .

PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS – AP



George H.W. Bush and the brother of

President George W. Bush. Dubya’s re-

cord is a particular problem because

he remains so unpopular. Jeb Bush

so far has not set forth his differences

with his father and brother. He doesn’t

want to seem disloyal but also says he

is his own man. It’s a mine field, and

his calculated approach so far hasn’t

been very appealing.

Hillary Clinton, an ex-secretary

of state, former Democratic senator

from New York and former first lady,

has problems in the likability depart-

ment. Obama gave her a backhanded

compliment during their battle for the

2008 Democratic nomination when he

said she was “likable enough.” Yet in

her current incarnation as an expected

candidate and the Democratic front

runner in the polls, she can appear re-

mote and tone-deaf. She has allowed

her family foundation to raise millions

of dollars from foreign sources, raising

conflict-of-interest questions. And this

week she called again for pay equity

for women even though a highly-pub-

licized study by the Washington Free

Beacon found that she paid women

substantially less than men while she

was in the Senate. Unless she finds a

more appealing approach, she may not

be “likable enough” in 2016. A recent

University of New Hampshire poll

found that only 32 percent of voters in

the first primary state say Clinton is

the “most likable” Democratic candi-

date in the race. And while 58 percent

of New Hampshire Democrats support

her for the nomination, her trouble in

the likability department is cause for

concern among her backers. Adding

to her potential problems, the media

are starting to zero in on her efforts to

refresh her image.

Most of the other candidates aren’t

known well enough and haven’t suffi-

ciently displayed their personas on the

national stage for Americans to assess

their likability. But some, like Christie,

come across as too combative and al-

ways itching for a fight. Republican Gov.

Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Republi-

can Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas also may fall

into this pugnacious category.

In the end, likability counts, and can-

didates who ignore or downplay this fac-

tor do so at their peril. l

THE PRESIDENCY

A Long and Storied HistoryQUIZ OF THE WEEK

1. What year did the House of Represen-

tatives have its first electronic vote?

A. 1965

B. 1973

C. 1980

D. 1994

2. Since 1904, the House of

Representatives’ cafeterias have

served which food every day?

A. Butternut squash soup

B. Carrot cake

C. Peach cobbler

D. Bean soup

3. How many women have served as

speaker of the House?

A. 0

B. 1

C. 2

D. 3

4. Congress has met in all of the

following cities except:

A. Boston

B. New York City

C. Philadelphia

D. Washington, D.C.

5. Which state has the most

representatives?

A. New York

B. Texas

C. Florida

D. California

6. What is the minimum age

requirement for a House member?

A. 20

B. 25

C. 30

D. 35

7. The first speaker of the House

was from which state?

A. New York

B. Massachusetts

C. Connecticut

D. Pennsylvania

8. True or False: Individuals have

to live in the district and state

in which they represent.

True

False

9. Who was the first former president to

serve as a representative?

A. James Madison

B. John Quincy Adams

C. Thomas Jefferson

D. Andrew Jackson

By Casey Leins

Unless Hillary Clinton finds a more appealing

approach, she may not be “likable enough” in 2016.

ANSWERS ON PAGE 18 »



Barack Obama has become a path-

breaker in an unexpected way. He

realizes that Americans today ex-

pect their president not only to be

inspirational, educational, managerial and

empathetic but also to be a part of popular

culture. And he continues to find new ways

to play the role of celebrity in chief.

In some respects he is following the

lead of previous presidents who achieved

superstar status, notably Theodore Roos-

evelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F.

Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clin-

ton. These earlier commanders in chief

had charisma, as all true celebrities do –

an aura that made people want to know

what they were like and what their ideas

were. Each mastered the media of their

day and deftly used their notoriety not

just to maintain their fame but also to sell

their agendas. These skills have become

even more necessary in today’s celebrity-

driven culture, and future presidents will

have to adopt some of President Obama’s

media strategies to succeed.

The first true celebrity president –

able to command attention at will and

to capture the nation’s imagination –

SPECIAL REPORT

A Celebrity in the Oval Office President Obama and other presidents before him have become a part of popular culture

By Kenneth T. Walsh

OLIVIER DOULIERY – POOL / GETTY IMAGES

President Obama at the 2014 White House Correspondent’s Association gala



SPECIAL REPORT

was Theodore Roosevelt. He became

known for leading “the strenuous life,”

his memorable phrase for staying as ac-

tive as possible and excelling at every-

thing he did. Using what he called the

White House “bully pulpit,” he captivated

America with his sparkling and outsized

personality – even inspiring the creation

and popularization of the “teddy bear,”

named after a young animal he famously

spared during a hunting expedition. And

he used his fame to popularize his mus-

cular foreign and domestic policies, such

as his attack on abusive corporations and

greedy millionaires whom he called “the

malefactors of great wealth.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt achieved celeb-

rity status as a leader who empathized

with fellow citizens suffering from the

Depression and, later, became perhaps

the most trusted American commander in

chief ever, during World War II. Everyday

people came to recognize his smooth and

soothing voice on the radio, the dominant

mass medium of the Roosevelt era. And he

used his “fireside chats” to enter America’s

living rooms and to inspire confidence

that the nation would eventually escape

from its economic calamity and win the

war. FDR was the first president to culti-

vate the stars of the entertainment indus-

try, and he built up a huge base of support

among actors and actresses from film and

the stage, which added to his own luster.

John F. Kennedy was America’s lead-

ing man, with looks worthy of a cinema

star and a wife, Jacqueline, whose attrac-

tiveness and charm rivaled her husband’s.

They had style and grace, and the country

loved it. He also was one of the best presi-

dents at promoting himself in the media,

especially on television, which was becom-

ing a huge force in the country.

Kennedy and his advisers encouraged

perceptions of the president as a devoted

family man even though, privately, JFK

was a womanizer who had trouble in

his marriage and lived somewhat reck-

lessly. But Kennedy’s White House team

disseminated stories and striking photo-

graphs illustrating his commitment to his

young children, such as a famous picture

of his son John, Jr. hiding under his fa-

ther’s big desk. Even when JFK skated

close to the edge, it benefited him. Hav-

ing sex symbol Marilyn Monroe sing

“Happy Birthday” at a huge party given

in the president’s honor in 1962 height-

ened his allure as a matinee idol.

Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 added

to his mystique as the noble young scion

John F. Kennedy Jr. playing under his father’s desk in the Oval Office

GETTY IMAGES



SPECIAL REPORT

of Camelot, where all things seemed pos-

sible, until this brilliant leader was struck

before he could reach his full potential.

Ronald Reagan was unique – the only

president to have been a movie and TV

star. He had performed in a string of

films and hosted the popular “General

Electric Theater” and “Death Valley

Days” on television before he entered

politics and won the governorship of

California. His show business image was

that of a decent and genial Everyman

determined to overcome adversity and

projecting perpetual optimism. This is

what he did as president, and his skills as

a TV performer were second to none. His

speeches were some of the best ever de-

livered by a president, such as his mov-

ing “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” address on

the 40th anniversary of D-Day in 1984

when he paid tribute to the men who had

scaled the cliffs at Normandy and started

the military campaign that freed Europe

from the Nazis in World War II.

Bill Clinton was the perfect represen-

tative of his baby boomer generation in

all its positive and negative aspects. He

had a brilliant mind and kept in con-

stant contact with popular culture, from

movies and television shows to music

and books. Clinton could speak moving-

ly about the needs and strivings of the

middle class and the poor, but he was

also self-indulgent. His affair with for-

mer White House intern Monica Lewin-

sky almost brought down his presidency,

but he survived by successfully making

the case that even if he seemed to be a

rogue in his personal life, he was actu-

ally a good leader. He knew that what the

country wanted most from government

was peace and prosperity, and that’s what

he managed to provide. Because of the

Lewinsky scandal – for which the House

impeached him and the Senate acquit-

ted him – Clinton’s presidency had the

air of a soap opera, adding to his image

as the central figure in a compelling and

suspense-filled real-life drama.

For his part, President Obama has

been a celebrity from day one. He al-

ready made history as the first African-

American president, and the country and

much of the world had extremely high

hopes for him as an agent of change. His

reputation as a potentially transformative

leader resulted in his winning the Nobel

Peace Prize during his first year in office,

even though he hadn’t achieved anything

at that point to match his inspirational

rhetoric from the 2008 campaign. His su-

perstar status held firm during his first

term, and it kept his public approval from

sinking to dangerously low levels even

when the popularity of his policies faded

during his second term.

Obama’s experience showed that ce-

lebrity can be perishable. Americans’

attention spans can be short and their

patience can abruptly evaporate with a

president who fails to deliver on his prom-

ises or to meet expectations. But Obama’s

GETTY IMAGES

Ronald Reagan’s show business image was of a genial Everyman determined to overcome adversity

and projecting perpetual optimism.

Ronald Reagan with his wife Nancy at a premiere party for the film “Moby Dick” in 1956



SPECIAL REPORT

experience also shows that a president

who deftly manages his celebrity status

can eventually bounce back.

Though Obama’s policies contributed

to the Democratic Party’s losses during

the 2014 midterm elections, resulting

in the Democrats losing control of the

Senate and additional seats in the GOP-

controlled House of Representatives, the

president has since reversed his slide.

To the surprise of many observers, the

president has used his celebrity-in-chief

status to remind people why they liked

him in the first place. He showed that he

was a devoted husband and father, which

added to his likability. He persistently

made the case that he had the middle

class’s interests at heart while opposition

Republicans seemed intent on promoting

the rich and powerful. And he showed

that paying close attention to popular

culture can give a president important

opportunities to promote their agendas

and enhance their personal popularity by

connecting to contemporary lifestyles,

trends, fads and public sentiments.

Just before the Super Bowl earlier

this month, Obama placed himself in the

middle of one of the biggest TV viewing

moments of the year when he gave an

interview to NBC, which was broadcast-

ing the game. This has become an annual

tradition, and Obama made the most of

it. He and interviewer Savannah Guthrie

sampled a honey ale brewed at the White

House with honey from the first lady’s

garden, connecting Obama with the mil-

lions of Americans who gather around

their televisions and consume oceans of

beer on Super Bowl Sunday. He also used

the occasion to make a pitch for his budget

priorities, such as more spending for roads

and education.

In late January, first lady Michelle

Obama, a celebrity in her own right for her

work promoting good nutrition and sup-

porting military families, abruptly jumped

into the culture wars when she praised the

controversial movie “American Sniper.”

Breaking with show-business liberals who

criticized the movie for its positive portray-

al of the late U.S. sniper Chris Kyle, she

said the film could help Americans better

understand the challenges and sacrifices

of military life. “More often than not, this

film touches on many of the emotions and

experiences I have heard firsthand from

military families over [these] past few

years,” she told a conference.

A major objective of both Obamas has

been to enter popular culture more ex-

tensively than any of their predecessors.

And a big part of their strategy has been

to bypass the “mainstream news media,”

such as the broadcast networks and the

major newspapers, and to take their mes-

sage to the country and as many different

segments of the population as possible.

President Obama recently told Vox, a news

site described by the president as “for the

brainiac-nerd types,” that his White House

successor will need to follow his lead and

circumvent the MSM , as he has done, to

speak directly to as many different seg-

ments of the population as possible.

“The balkanization of the media means

that we just don’t have a common place

where we get common facts and a com-

mon worldview the way we did 20, 30

years ago,” Obama said. He added: “My

advice to a future president is increas-

ingly try to bypass the traditional venues

that create divisions and try to find new

venues within this new media that are

quirkier, less predictable.”

To Obama, this means giving inter-

views to late-night comedy show hosts

such as Jimmy Fallon; daytime entertain-

ment shows such as “The View”; niche

shows such as “Between Two Ferns” with

Zack Galifianakis and YouTube celebrities

such as GloZell. It also means communi-

cating through the White House website

and social media such as Twitter.

Overall, the lesson from Obama’s expe-

rience has been that being the celebrity in

chief and participating in popular culture

can help to improve a president’s effective-

ness and build goodwill. Capitalizing on

stardom has become a vital tool that oc-

cupants of the Oval Office will need to use

as much as possible in the future. l

Adapted from Kenneth T. Walsh’s “Celebrity in Chief: A History of the Presidents and the Culture of Stardom”

(Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2013). Permission courtesy of Paradigm Publishers.

Obama showed that paying close attention to popular culture can give presidents important

opportunities to promote their agendas.


http://www.amazon.com/Celebrity-Chief-History-Presidents-Culture/dp/1612057063/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325


King v. Burwell, the Obamacare-

related case which the Supreme

Court will hear on Wednesday,

represents a critical test of politi-

cal legitimacy and viability – not for the

Affordable Care Act but for the court.

The decision the justices hand down will

speak to their intellectual honesty and ul-

timately the body’s integrity.

The case hinges on the section of the

law dealing with the tax subsidies that

help people pay for health insurance; it

says people who are enrolled in a health

care “Exchange established by the state”

are eligible. The plaintiffs in the case as-

sert that this should be interpreted to

exclude people on federal exchanges (es-

tablished in the 34 states which refused

to set up their own such marketplaces).

The subsidies are a critical underpinning

of the law; their getting knocked out of

federal exchanges would result in “mas-

sive damage,” as Secretary of Health and

Human Services Sylvia Burwell put it in

a letter to lawmakers this week. It could

trigger a death spiral in the exchanges as

people who could no longer afford health

insurance drop it, especially the young

and healthy, leaving a smaller, sicker risk

pool and thus skyrocketing rates. A RAND

Corporation study released earlier this

month estimated that an adverse ruling

would cause 8 million people to lose their

coverage and the health insurance premi-

ums of those who hadn’t been getting tax

subsidies to rise by 47 percent. In addi-

tion, the insurance companies themselves

could face insolvency, according to a letter

the American Academy of Actuaries sent

to Burwell this week.

So the stakes are huge. But the case

itself is, quite honestly, absurd.

Start with the question of legislative in-

tent. The plaintiffs argue that the phrasing

was the residue of a Democratic plan to use

the denial of subsidies as a stick to force

states to set up exchanges. Not only do the

law’s sponsors and the staffers who han-

dled it say that’s flat wrong but there’s no

evidence that anyone, the law’s critics or its

proponents, held this novel view while the

law was being debated and passed. If any-

thing, the contemporaneous reporting and

commentary indicate an expectation that

the subsidies would apply to every state.

Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office

and the Joint Committee on Taxation both

issued estimates about the law with that

assumption – estimates that Republicans

cited without qualification. So too the GOP

failed to ever decry this impending federal

extortion of the states. Further, while a

half-dozen state attorneys general filed an

amicus brief now claiming that their states

opted not to set up exchanges in order to

avoid the tax subsidies regime, George-

town University’s Center on Health Insur-

ance Reforms studied the public reasons

for states not setting up exchanges; they

“found no evidence that states weighed

the possibility that premium tax credits

would not be available in federally run

exchanges.” Moreover 23 other attorneys

general filed a brief on the government’s

behalf arguing that no state “had reason to

believe that choosing a federally-facilitat-

ed Exchange would alter so fundamental

a feature of the ACA as the availability of

tax credits.” Hell, as Yale Law professor

Abbe Gluck noted, even the justices who

dissented from the Obamacare-preserving

2012 decision in NFIB v. Sebelius thought

the tax supports applied to all states, as

did the anti-Obamacare state governments

which weighed in.

All this recalls the scene from “Dr.

Strangelove” when the Russian ambassa-

No, Democrats didn’t deliberately design

Obamacare to not work the way they wanted it to.

The Silliest Obamacare Challenge Yet

CAPITAL NOTIONS By Robert Schlesinger



dor reveals the doomsday device. As the

titular scientist points out, “The whole

point of a doomsday machine is lost if

you keep it a secret. Why didn’t you tell

the world, eh?” We’re supposed to believe

that Democrats thought this doomsday

clause could compel recalcitrant states

… but never told anyone about it? And

having abandoned the scheme, the presi-

dent, members of Congress and their

respective sprawling staffs kept it an

absolute secret – unmentioned in the

myriad articles or books about the law’s

contentious enactment – until years later

conservatives divined it through deduc-

tive inference when they were fishing for

a court case?

Of course intent may prove irrelevant.

Textualists on the court – led by Antonin

Scalia – profess to believe that the law

says what it says and what it was meant

to say is beside the point. So as Gluck

argued, this is a textualist test because

their theory isn’t meant to cherry-pick

individual phrases but to look at a law

as a whole. And in the broader context

of the act, interpreting Obamacare to

deny subsidies to those on federal ex-

changes doesn’t make any sense. The act

is “slashed to pieces under the challeng-

ers’ reading,” she writes. Indeed a recent

article in the University of Miami Law

School’s Business Law Review tallied no

less than 50 provisions in the law that

“would be made anomalous, if not ab-

surd” under that reading. One example:

Only “qualified individuals” may buy in-

surance on an exchange; but such people

are deemed qualified only mif they live in

the “State that established the Exchange.”

But if the federal exchanges don’t count as

being state-established, then no one could

qualify to buy insurance on them. Huh?

The question then is whether the

court’s conservatives are textualists, will-

ing to read the law as a logical whole, or

Moops-ists, to borrow an analogy from

New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait,

ready to fit their philosophy to the parti-

san demands of the moment. “Seinfeld”

fans will recall the famous episode in-

volved George Costanza getting in a fight

with a “Bubble Boy” over a misprinted

Trivial Pursuit answer to the question of

who invaded Spain in the 8th century.

Are the high court’s conservatives ready

to say, in effect, that they’re sorry but the

law says “Moops”? l

In many nations today, corruption pervades every

level of society. When people in these countries fi-

nally rebel out of frustration, their response often

takes extreme forms. According to Sarah Chayes,

senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for In-

ternational Peace and author of “Thieves of State:

Why Corruption Threatens Global Security,” this kind

of malfeasance often is mischaracterized as a conse-

quence of internal security crises when it is really the

cause. Chayes, who was inspired to write the book after

spending 10 years in Afghanistan during the Taliban

insurgency, shows how corruption has been destabi-

lizing countries for centuries and how it consistently

undermines international efforts to achieve long-term

global stability. Excerpts:

Why did you decide to write the book?

Corruption became the focus of my work in Afghani-

stan, but what drove me ultimately to write the book

was a speech that I gave in early 2010 to an audience

of about 250 counternarcotics officers from 45 coun-

tries. The talk was on the opium economy in southern

Afghanistan, but I couldn’t resist including two slides

that diagrammed how the Afghan government was

functioning as a vertically integrated criminal organi-

zation. I expected those to be throwaway slides but, to

my amazement, people lined up to tell me that I had

just described their own country. In every one of these

countries , there was a violent, religious insurgency. I

thought: There’s a cause and effect here that everyone

is missing, and I need to explore it more deeply.

Robbing Their People BlindBy Maura Hohman

BOOK CLUBThe WashingtonCAPITAL NOTIONS

Will the GOP pay a price if Obamacare is gutted? Weigh in at [email protected].



http://www.amazon.com/Thieves-State-Corruption-Threatens-Security/dp/0393239462/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325




You suggest corruption has risen in many

nations since the 1990s. What caused this?

My hypothesis is that it’s connected to the

collapse of communism. This change in

political ethics took the brakes off leaders

who had been constrained in their public

behavior by the communist ethos. It also

linked excessive wealth to virtue.

What are the different forms of corruption?

One type is petty corruption, which re-

fers to shakedowns of regular people by

government officials. Another is pub-

lic procurement theft, or siphoning off

public money via padded contracts.

There’s also the use of bureaucracy as

an enforcement arm for the kleptocratic

elite. The equivalent of the IRS in Tuni-

sia often would allow businesspeople not

to pay their taxes so long as they gave a

cut of their profits to the ruling family.

Then there’s high-level corruption – the

siphoning off of revenues at the top. But

these aren’t separate activities. Corrup-

tion at the bottom and in the middle

feeds the guys at the top.

What is the connection between government

corruption and religious extremism?

For a decade, I watched how the in-

creasingly abusive and flagrant cor-

ruption of [former Afghan President

Hamid] Karzai’s regime (and the U.S.

role in enabling that) drove people into

the arms of the Taliban. Think of how

you feel after three wasted hours in the

DMV, when you’ve got no recourse,

when you’ve been insulted, when you

know the money taken from you will go

in someone [else’s] pocket, and when

this happens for the fifth time. You want

to shoot someone, and the Taliban are

there with a gun. Corruption isn’t the

only driver of religious extremism and

revolution, but it’s an accelerant.

What kind of corruption is in the U.S.?

Look at the inordinate role that Wall

Street and the energy, health and mili-

tary-contracting industries have had in

determining U.S. public policy. Look at

the financial meltdown of 2008 and the

incredibly little [amount of] personal

accountability that has been imposed

on the individuals whose decisions led to

that meltdown. We’re on the continuum.

How should the U.S. engage with corrupt

governments?

People need to demand better from their

own governing elite, but the U.S. can do

more to support their efforts. It [could

use] visa denials, asset forfeiture, the

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and con-

straints on military assistance [to pres-

sure individual] countries. Ordinary peo-

ple can boycott banks serving as money

launderers for criminals and kleptocrats,

as well as law firms defending corrupt

government officials.

Will corruption ever cease to be a political

or security issue?

I don’t think it ever will because humans

have conflicting instincts behind their

behavior. One is greed; another is a de-

sire for justice. As long as we have greed

plus ingenuity, we’ll be corrupt.

What do you hope readers will take away

from the book?

The issue of corruption is urgent and

immediate. If we care about our secu-

rity, we need to reduce how our govern-

ment enables corruption abroad. We

also need to look at the subtle ways our

political process is being corrupted in

America. If we don’t want to lose our

republic, then we better get indignant

and do something about it. l

Ordinary people can boycott banks serving as

money launderers for criminals and kleptocrats.

1. B. 1973

2. D. Bean soup

3. B. 1

4. A. Boston

5. D. California

6. B. 25

7. D. Pennsylvania

8. False

9. B. John Quincy Adams

Answers to Quiz

« BACK TO PAGE 11Does corruption pose a threat to America’s future? Weigh in at [email protected].

THE WASHINGTON BOOK CLUB

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Recent chatter from the Thomas Jefferson Street bloggers, who weigh in on current events at usnews.com

The political – not scientific – definition that pregnancy begins at fer-

tilization was also the core of the Hobby Lobby case in which five male

justices decided belief, not science, was sufficient reason for employers

to deny birth control coverage to their female employees. According to a

friend of the court brief filed in the Hobby Lobby case by Physicians for Reproduc-

tive Health, which includes the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecolo-

gists, Hobby Lobby et al “fail to cite any scientific authority for their assertions that

any FDA-approved contraceptives are abortifacients ... there is no scientific evi-

dence that emergency contraceptives available in the United States and approved

by the FDA effect an existing pregnancy. None, therefore are properly classified

as abortifacients.” As reproductive health advocates have pointed out, if you take

emergency contraception while you’re pregnant, you’re still pregnant.

Is a deal with Iran, which is probably the largest sponsor of terror groups

anywhere on the globe, at the expense of the security of Israel, America’s

strongest ally in the Middle East, worth it? What does the United States

get out of that? And can we really trust the religious fanatics who actu-

ally run Iran to behave responsibly with nuclear weapons should they ever acquire

the ability to manufacture them? These are the questions we should be asking. This

should be the topic of the national conversation about the president, not whether

he loves his country. America is not perfect because human beings are not perfect.

We expect, rightfully, that all our leaders will have flaws of one sort or another.

Whether those flaws affect their ability to preserve, protect and defend the Consti-

tution of the United States and the nation they lead is another subject entirely, and

one that it is never out of bounds to discuss.

The perpetually low ratings at MSNBC have long been a source of merri-

ment for conservatives, who point to it as evidence of the failure not just of

a liberal network but of liberal ideas. But MSNBC’s shortcomings are not a

function of ideology but of format. Lay that at the feet of folks like Jon Stew-

art and Stephen Colbert. As the fake newsmen wrap up their popular shows, they leave

a legacy of liberal skepticism not just toward right-wing media but toward political

media more broadly. Skewering the staples of cable-news punditry, Stewart and Col-

bert laid bare its inanity: the endless shouting, the meaningless talking points, the in-

escapable echo chamber. True, conservative media were most often in the comedians’

crosshairs, but viewers couldn’t help coming away with a distrust of all cable news.

In the history of feel-good and soon-to-be forgotten feminist hashtags,

#AskHerMore’s moment in the viral spotlight at Sunday’s Oscars surely

ranks among the more ridiculous. The campaign, an initiative of the Rep-

resentation Project, encouraged red carpet interviewers at the Academy

Awards to focus less on what designers the starlets happened to be hawking (err,

wearing) and more on, well, the great depths of non-sartorial wisdom of which said

focus had presumably denied us. As Reese Witherspoon, a key champion of the ef-

fort, declared on the red carpet: “We are more than just our dresses.” That may very

well be the case the other 364 days of the year. But on this night of all nights, the femi-

nist push – much like Patricia Arquette’s plea for pay equality during her acceptance

speech for winning best supporting actress – came off as more than a little ham-fisted.

BLOG BUZZ LAURA CHAPIN

Reproductively Illiterate

PETER ROFF

The Conversation America Should Be Having

NICOLE HEMMER

Blame Jon Stewart for MSNBC’s Problems

BREE HOCKING

It’s Not About the Dress?

More wit and insight from Thomas Jefferson Street are at www.usnews.com/opinion.


www.usnews.com/opinion


Avoiding a TermPresident Barack Obama’s unwilling-

ness to call terrorists “Islamic” is sound

despite the fact that these extremist fac-

tions consistently invoke Islam to justify

their bloody deeds [Editor’s Note, Feb.

20]. But publicly acknowledging them as

Islamic, even accurately as fanatical ones,

plays into their hands by legitimizing

them, thereby allowing them to promote

their “clash of civilizations” objective

– Islam vs. the West (the Crusaders all

over again) – which serves as a terrorist

recruitment tool. Obama is right to em-

phasize that we’re not at war with Islam

but with perverters of Islam because ul-

timately, only until and unless moderate

Muslims actively take up the fight against

such radicals, can this scourge be defeat-

ed. The extremists’ depraved ideology

must be irradicated, and that’s not going

to be accomplished by Western ideology

or by Western force, which, even if suc-

cessful in the short run, would be coun-

terproductive. Moderate Muslims must

be not just our allies but in the forefront.

After all, it’s their religion that’s being

denigrated – and that should be sufficient

motivation for them to act. Who wants

their religion held up as an example of

such God/Allah-awful brutality?

Richard Palzer

Clarendon Hills, Illinois

Too Much Power?I do not think that [the Authorization

for Use of Military Force] would give the

president too much power [“A Battle Over

Force,” Feb. 13]. I believe he is showing the

right initiative in doing something about

[the Islamic State group]. There is clearly

a determined passivity to do nothing more,

because of what seems like another bloody

battle, but the president is clearly taking

responsibility for a conflict, not brought

on by allies and is standing up for human

rights. Somebody must stand up to [the

Islamic State group] for their crimes, and

the president is just doing the right thing.

Mike Finnerty Markham, Ontario

Correction: “Hitting a Legal Roadblock,”

Feb. 20 incorrectly identified Andrew

Hanen and included an incorrect date.

Hanen is a district court judge and part

of President Barack Obama’s immigration

order would have begun on Feb. 18.

[email protected] CAROLYN KASTER – AP

Rudy Giuliani ac-

cused President

Barack Obama of

not loving his coun-

try, but the story

became one about Scott Walker.

The Wisconsin governor and

currently trending presidential

prospect was on stage when the

former New York mayor made

his remarks, which provoked

media calls for him to repudiate

Rudy. One commentator even

called Walker a coward. He was

archly asked if he thought Obama

was a Christian. Walker smacked

back saying he had no place in

such discussions, adding that the

media was one-sidedly baiting

Republicans. Does Walker have a

point? Is he the victim of “gotcha”

questioning? Or, as a leading pos-

sibility for a presidential nomina-

tion, should he be grilled on his

views about the sitting president?

We’d like to hear your thoughts at

[email protected].

By Brian Kelly EDITOR’S NOTE




Something’s wrong with this pic-

ture. A man fearing for his life

calls 911. He is roundly rebuked,

told to call again because he didn’t

say ‘please’ nicely. Absurd of course, but

it is roughly where we are in the serial

denunciation of Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu for daring to speak

to a joint session of Congress next week

about the mortal threat he sees looming

for his country.

Actually, he did inform the White

House of his intent, despite the admin-

istration’s spin, and despite erroneous re-

ports to the contrary for which the New

York Times, for one, had the decency to

admit its mistake. But it didn’t stop Sec-

retary John Kerry’s abrasive attack on

Netanyahu’s “judgment” and National

Security Advisor Susan Rice deploring

the prime minister for damaging the fab-

ric of the U.S. relationship. Wait a min-

ute. Isn’t a prime minister right to be very

concerned about a sworn enemy dedi-

cated, given half a chance, to destroying

the fabric of the nation he has a sacred

duty to protect? As for his judgment, is

he not exercising elementary prudence

to be alarmed by what normally well-

informed people are seeing through the

sieve of secrecy? Survival, not protocol, is

the issue of the hour. “The U.S. has gone

a long way” toward accepting Iran’s posi-

tion on nuclear negotiations, David Al-

bright, head of the Institute for Science

and International Security told the Wall

Street Journal.

The U.S. had wanted to restrain Teh-

ran’s nuclear activities for 20 years, but

Tehran called for no more than a 10-

year freeze. A shorter freeze would per-

mit Iran then to increase its capacity

to enrich uranium and get dangerously

close – a year or less – to bomb-making

capabilities.

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chair-

man of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, told the Wall Street Journal

that a 10-year time frame wasn’t long

enough to truly curb Iran’s nuclear am-

bition. “If you are going to do all of this,”

he said, “and then just end up with a 10-

year agreement, you just really haven’t

accomplished near what people had

hoped.” That time frame would be “very

concerning,” Corker said. “About the

time they’re beginning to do what they

should be doing, they’d be out from under

the regime” of sanctions imposed by the

major powers.

At a security conference in Munich,

Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval

Steinitz said that the U.S. has given Iran

too much ground on central issues: the

number of centrifuges it would be per-

mitted to continue operating; research

into more advanced centrifuges; and the

storage and dismantling of mothballed

centrifuge arrays. According to the Fi-

nancial Times, Steinitz said that with-

out a comprehensive ban on centrifuge

research, Iran could completely and le-

gally undermine any deal.

The agreement, if indeed it is signed,

would allow Iran to become a thresh-

old nuclear state and with the consent

of the major powers. Iran, which open-

ly declares its intention to destroy the

state of Israel, will receive a license to

develop the production of bombs, Ne-

tanyahu said according to the Jerusa-

lem Post. After the period expires, the

Islamic Republic would be allowed to

gradually resume its activities.

One alternative would be to bridge

the differences between the two sides

over how long an agreement should last.

Netanyahu’s Mandate

EDITORIAL By Mortimer B. Zuckerman

The agreement, if indeed it is signed, would

allow Iran to become a threshold nuclear state.



For example, there should be strict con-

straints on the number of centrifuges

for the first 10 years of a potential 15-

year agreement. That would allow the

Iranians to say the tough constraints

would last only 10 years and the Amer-

icans to say they have a 15-year agree-

ment, according to the New York Times.

It would give the U.S. and Israel time

to do something if Iran races for the

bomb. But of course, this and any other

deal would have to find a way to cut off

any other alternative for Iran to get to

a nuclear weapon by covert means. And

a key imperative would be highly intru-

sive inspections.

Inspections! The history of the nucle-

ar talks is a history of sudden surpris-

es. The deputy director of the National

Council of Resistance of Iran, Alireza

Jafarzadeh, had this to say about Iran’s

claim it has been transparent about its

enrichment activities, according to the

Jerusalem Post: “Since 2008 the Iranian

regime has secretly engaged in research

and uranium enrichment with advanced

... centrifuge machines at” a military base

on the northeastern suburbs of Tehran

called Lavizan-3.

No wonder the Israelis are alarmed to

see the U.S. come so far from its promises

that Iran would never be allowed a bomb,

and nowhere near the conduct President

Barack Obama envisaged in his heady

Nowruz vision in 2013 of Iran rejoining

the community of nations. Steinitz con-

cedes Iran has made “substantial conces-

sions” on delivering abroad most of its

stockpile but he sees clearly the threat

remaining: “For a 10-year delay [in Iran’s

nuclear program] you are sacrificing the

future of Israel and the U.S., and the fu-

ture of the world.”

One dimension of this is the nature

of the absolute ruler of Iran, the Ayatol-

lah Khamenei. Read what he has said. He

has called for the destruction of Israel,

saying the “barbaric” Jewish state “has

no cure but to be annihilated.” Indeed a

plan last year entitled “9 Key Questions

About Elimination of Israel” was posted

on his Twitter account using the hashtag

#HandsOffAlAqsa, in reference to recent

tensions on the Temple Mount. Here is

Khamenei’s rationale for replacing Israel

with a Palestinian state: First he stated

that “the fake Zionist regime has tried to

realize its goals by means of infanticide,

homicide, violence & iron fist while boast

about it blatantly.” Therefore, Khamenei

argues “The only means of bringing Is-

raeli crimes to an end is the elimination

of this regime.” His solution to destroying

Israel without such a massacre, what he

calls the proper way of eliminating Israel,

is “a public and organized referendum”

for all the “original people of Palestine

including Muslims, Christians, and Jews

wherever they are.” However, “the Jew-

ish immigrants who have been persuaded

into emigration to Palestine do not have

the right to take part.” The resulting gov-

ernment would then decide if the “non-

Palestine emigrants” can remain in the

country or should “return to their home

countries.” Until the referendum, Israel

should be confronted with “resolute and

armed resistance.” He rejected “arbitra-

tion by U.N. or other international orga-

nizations.” But, he wrote, “this barbaric,

wolf-like & infanticidal regime of #Israel,

which spares no crime, has no cure but

to be annihilated.”

The Iranian Supreme Leader also

called for the arming of Palestinians in

the West Bank in July, and in late August

Iran said it was stepping up efforts to arm

West Bank Palestinians for battle against

Israel with the Basij militia chief Moham-

mad Reza Naqdi saying the move would

lead to Israel’s annihilation, according to

Iran’s Fars news agency. “The Zionists

should know that the next war won’t be

confined to the present borders and the

Mujahadeen will push them back,” said

Naqdi, who claimed that much of the ter-

ror group Hamas’ arsenal, training and

technical knowhow in the recent conflict

with Israel was supplied by Iran, accord-

ing The Times of Israel.

Is this a leader we can trust not to put

a nuclear warhead on intercontinental

missiles with a range reaching even be-

yond Europe? Is this a leader who would

never use nuclear blackmail?

Even the Obama administration has

described Iran as the greatest threat to

world peace and has made many prom-

ises over the last six years on Iran, not to

mention pledges to Israel, which stands

to lose the most. Unfortunately too

many of these statements have taken on

a hollow ring, leaving Netanyahu alone

to make his country’s case to Congress

and, if regretfully necessary, to defend it

against Iran. l

EDITORIAL

Is Israel alone in defending itself against Iran? Weigh in at [email protected].

There should be strict constraints on the number

of centrifuges for the first 10 years of an agreement.



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