Iacocca may be trying to sell a book; he may not have all the answers, but he does have a fine rant in Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

There is quite a bit more in the excerpt at the linked page, and presumably much, much more in his book. The excerpt was enjoyable. I probably won’t bother with the book, however.

Advance Indiana has a post on Victor Gold’s book entitled Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP. AI’s description of the book captures most of my uneasiness with the Republican Party, particularly on the federal level and particularly over the past decade or so.

Gold is (was?) a family friend of the Bushes and was a co-author of Bush the Elder’s “auto”biography. So, Gold is probably not pre-disposed to bash Republicans. And yet:

Gold’s beef with the younger Bush’s administration can be summed up as follows: “Under Bush and Cheney, he argues, the GOP has moved away from principles of small government, prudent foreign policy and leaving people alone to live their private lives — all views Gold associates with his hero, Goldwater.” “[His book] makes plain Gold’s contempt for the direction of his party and the guidance of its leaders.” “For all the Rove-built facade of his being a ‘strong’ chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times,” Gold writes. “Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots.” “The war was a big factor.” “It seemed to Gold to run counter to the traditionally conservative notion of keeping clear of foreign entanglements.” “He was infuriated by Bush-Cheney moves to augment executive power.” “And he was disgusted by the Terri Schiavo episode, which to this old libertarian seemed emblematic of a modern GOP takeover by religious zealots.”

I just love the use of the passive voice when a government scandal is being “explained.” Probably the quintessential form of this is the phrase, “mistakes were made.” So, I was tickled to read that President Bush used that phrase when commenting on the Justice Department dismissing eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons having to do with their personal loyalty to President Bush as opposed to professional reasons having to do with their ability to do their jobs.

“Mistakes were made, and I’m frankly not happy about it,” Bush said during a joint news conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Merida, Mexico.

. . .

[Attorney General] Gonzales acknowledged that mistakes were made in the dismissal of the federal prosecutors, but he rejected calls for his resignation from Democrats incensed by fresh evidence that the Bush administration testified inaccurately about its role in the controversy.

Gonzales went on to “accept responsibility,” but placed the blame on his chief of staff. The Bush administration has correctly noted that the U.S. Attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the President,” but went on to falsely assert that these sorts of dismissals are customary.

In the past, incoming administrations have replaced United States attorneys with their own presidential appointees after taking over from the other political party, as President Bill Clinton did when he won the White House after 12 years of Republican control. But neither the Clinton nor the Reagan administrations sought the removal of United States attorneys in their second terms.

Mark Silva, writing for the Chicago Tribune has a good recap on the story to date:

The saga started after Bush’s re-election in 2004 with a recommendation to the Justice Department by Harriet Miers, then-counsel to the president, that all 93 of the nation’s federal prosecutors be replaced. The White House explained that Miers, whom Bush later offered and withdrew as a Supreme Court nominee, was looking for “fresh blood” in the prosecutors’ offices.

. . .

Kyle Sampson, who was chief of staff to Gonzales and rejected Miers’ recommendation to replace all the prosecutors, resigned Monday after Gonzales blamed him for the withholding of information about the firings from Congress.

. . .

Democrats say the firings were politically motivated. The White House says that the firings mostly were based on poor job performance.

. . .

Q–Was partisan politics involved in any of these cases?

A–The administration insists it was not, but critics think otherwise. One of those fired, David Iglesias of New Mexico, said two New Mexico Republicans, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, called him to ask whether a political corruption investigation involving a prominent Democrat would be finished by Election Day 2006. He told them it would not. The Justice Department confirmed that Domenici called the agency to complain about Iglesias, and Iglesias was later dismissed.

Q–Are there indications that Iglesias had a poor job performance?

A–Iglesias was given a strong job evaluation in 2005. But Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said Justice Department officials “felt that he was not managing the office as well as it should be” and “didn’t possess leadership skills.”

Q–Is political influence the only issue here?

A–No. The controversy has heated up considerably since it was learned that Justice Department officials who testified before Congress under oath last week misstated how active the White House had been in the firings.

Q–How active?

A–It was revealed Tuesday that President Bush told Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales that he had received complaints that some prosecutors were not aggressive enough in vote fraud cases. It was also disclosed that White House counsel Harriet Miers had planned a U.S. attorney purge two years earlier. And the emerging role of White House political adviser Karl Rove has attracted particular notice.

Q–Did the Justice officials give intentionally misleading testimony to Congress about the White House role?

A–Gonzales’ chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, resigned Monday after acknowledging he did not tell other officials about the full extent of White House contacts before they testified. Bush said Wednesday that “mistakes were made” in communication, but he insisted the firings were not political.

Tim Dickinson, writing for Rolling Stone, has a column entitled Weathervane McCain: Throw Rummy Under the Bus. That’s a good nick-name for Sen. John McCain. I’m right with Mr. Dickinson when he writes:

I take the unmaking of John McCain personally. Another lifetime ago, when he was running against Gov. G.W. Bush, I registered Republican to vote for McCain in the California presidential primary. He struck me as a principled problem solver. A man who might bring about a post-partisan revolution in good government and accountability.

The article goes on to document a few of McCain’s greater flip-flops, but takes particular umbrage at McCain only now choosing to criticize Rumsfeld’s handling of the War in Iraq. McCain had the power to do something about Rumsfeld and his prosecution of the war years ago, but did nothing. Now that Rumsfeld has been removed, spitting on the grave of his career serves little purpose.

TPMmuckraker is doing a bang-up job covering the corruption indictment of “Dusty” Foggo, formerly the CIA’s executive director until he resigned in May. Foggo was a close friend of defense contractor, Brent Wilkes.

One of the officials said the grand jury heard claims that Foggo joined Wilkes on trips to Hawaii and Scotland, and was introduced to Wilkes’ employees as early as 2003 as a “future executive” of Wilkes’ company, Wilkes Corp., which allegedly received $12 million in illicit contracts from various government agencies.

Wilkes was also charged with conspiring to bribe convicted former Congressman, Duke Cunningham. TPM Muckraker has entries here, here, here, here, and here. You can’t expect folks to just watch the torrent of “defense” money coming out of Washington without trying to get a little taste, can you? People are getting rich from these expenditures, and it’s not the troops in the field.

The Kung Fu Monkey. Go for his thorough and amusing discourse about “Catholic” League rightwingnut William Donahue’s hand-wringing about John Edwards choice of bloggers to use as netroots staffers; stay for everything else.

The U.S. Federal Reserve send 363 tons of currency (bills, not coins), totalling $5.5 billion into Baghdad according to an AP story.

“Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that’s exactly what our government did,” [Rep. Henry Waxman] said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.

The story goes on to note that $8.8 billion out of $12 billion disbursed by Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority was unaccounted for.

Indiana Representative Dan Burton, apparently able to drag himself out of the 19th Hole, bothered to show up to comment, “We are in a war against terrorists, to have a blame meeting isn’t, in my opinion, constructive[.]”

All that sun on the golf course must be baking Rep. Burton’s brains. Otherwise, he would surely realize that, if we weren’t pumping billions of dollars into an Iraqi black hole, we might not have to borrow so much money from our grandchildren to try to fight the terrorists, some of whom have probably now made their way to Iraq now that it’s been destabilized. (Nevermind the very real possibility that those recent Iraqi immigrant/terrorists could be funding themselves with the dollars that are unaccounted for.)

One of our great political commentators has died. Molly Ivins died after a long battle with breast cancer at the age of 62. She was entertaining and she was dead-on most of the time. That’s quite a loss.

I thought this was a very interesting exchange between Mike Kole who was posing a question to Branden Robinson. (I would also direct readers to Mike’s thoughts on the limitations of democratic governments.) So, as the guy with his name on the blog, I’m exercising my liberty to move Branden’s response to the front page. (Though, more seriously, I recognize that much of the value of this space comes from the thoughtful posts of the commenters. So, here or any other time, let me know if you’re unhappy with the way I use a comment.)

(Mike Kole): How do you reconcile one’s right to choose who they associate against prohibitions against discrimination?

Remember that a right cannot negate a right and have both survive.

(Branden’s response follows)
The subject no doubt demands an essay or more to elucidate fully, but in the interest of brevity (a mistress I serve mercurually at best), let me offer you the guiding principles I’d apply:

* There is such a thing as a public space. Unlike radical propertarians, I do not reject the notion of a commons (in the physical or abstract senses), and do not insist that every square inch of land on this planet be the property of some individual, with right of exclusion to everyone else.

* On the other hand, I do believe each individual does have a right to some area of exclusive use, to which they can retreat when stressed, invite friends and confidantes, and otherwise assert control over an intimate space.

* I find exclusive use to be fundamentally incompatible with operating a retail enterprise wherein one seeks the custom of strangers.

* Economic theory illustrates that markets operate most efficiently when market actors are rational and well-informed.

* Actual market actors, whether as individuals or as organizations, are frequently anything <em>but</em> rational and well-informed.

* Efficient markets are desirable because they ultimately empower individuals to do more with the resources they have.

* It is therefore a societal good to increase the amount of rationality and information in the marketplace.

* You can’t force people to learn or be rational.

* You can, however, through legal prescriptions and proscriptions, encourage (or compel) them to behave as if they were rational and/or informed.

* Such compulsion should only be undertaken where the benefit is worth the infringement on individual liberty.

* There is no easy formula for making such evaluations. The popular will, as well as fundamental individual rights, must be seriously weighed.

* Discrimination against gays and racial minorities is irrational (and frequently ill-informed, grounded on stereotypes or myths, including religious myths).

* Discrimination against gays and racial minorities makes the market less efficient.

* An individual has a fundamental right to exclude whomever he/she chooses from his or her private exlcusionary zone.

* A private exlcusionary zone does not include, e.g., a retail business, as covered above.

* Individuals have a right to transact commerce in public spaces.

* It is acceptable for the society (acting through persuasion, protests, picketing, or petition of their elected representatives) to discourage this form of irrational market behavior, on behalf of the individuals being irrationally discriminated against.

That’s longer than I had hoped, but I hope it is useful to you to illuminate my values and my approach.