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GOOD NEWS
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) will be returning a recently received $50,000 donation after questions were raised as to whether it conflicted with his campaign promise "not to accept campaign contributions from groups that negotiate directly with his office."
DON'T MISSIRAQ: A soldier's story
ETHICS: With lawmakers and lobbyists, where there's a bill there's a way
WOMEN'S RIGHTS: Sen. Bill Frist, the closeted pro-choicer?
DAILY GRILL"Baltimore Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro has been suspended ten days for violating Major League Baseball's steroids policy." -- WBEN Radio, 8/1/05
VERSUS
"Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him. He's the kind of person that's going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn't use steroids, and I believe him. Still do." -- President Bush, 8/2/05
DAILY OUTRAGEFocus on the Family's James Dobson attacked the argument that good can come from stem cell research by saying, "In World War II, the Nazis experimented on human beings in horrible ways in the concentration camps, and I imagine, if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind."
ARCHIVESProgress Report
PARTY TIMESupport the Progress Report: Join John Podesta and the Progress Report team on August 8 for a rockin' night at the VFW in Washington, D.C.
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by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney,
Mipe Okunseinde and Christy Harvey
EDUCATION
Being Intelligent About Intelligent Design
On Tuesday, just a few weeks after the 80th anniversary of the famous Scopes trial, President Bush expressed his support for teaching intelligent design in public schools, saying, "[b]oth sides ought to be properly taught...so people can understand what the debate is about." In so doing, he "invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution." That's where the problem lies. While there is nothing wrong with intelligent design as an idea, it is not a scientific theory. Treating it as such for political purposes does a disservice to the nation's children.
DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN SCIENCE AND NON-SCIENCE: "American society supports and encourages a broad range of viewpoints," the American Association for the Advancement of Science correctly notes. And while this diversity unquestionably enriches students' educational experiences, it is of critical importance that our educators distinguish between information acquired through rigorous scientific methods and those founded upon belief systems. As President Bush's science advisor, John H. Marburger III, acknowledges, "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Although its proponents often point to supposed empirically based "gaps" in the science of evolution, intelligent design theory also necessarily involves positing extra-natural (if not religious) phenomena. "Outside the precincts of the religious right, though, the scientific consensus about evolution is very close to unanimous." The National Academy of Sciences, "the nation's most prestigious scientific organization," declares evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have." A recent National Geographic ran a cover story asking, "Was Darwin Wrong?" and then provided the answer in the subhead: "No. The Evidence for Evolution Is Overwhelming." Evolution is, to again quote Bush science advisor John Marburger, "the cornerstone of modern biology."
SCIENCE CLASSES SHOULD TEACH SCIENCE: Commenting on President Bush's remarks, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said, "Whatever your belief, it should be respected. But the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both reject intelligent design and don't want it mentioned in science classes. That, in my opinion, is fascism." O'Reilly added: "There is no reason the students cannot be told that more than a few people, including some scientists, believe the creation of the world, no matter how it occurred, involved a higher power. ... Just state the facts, whether it be science or any other subject." This is a red herring. For one, despite the widespread confidence in evolution theory, virtually all involved in the debate believe that teachers must present a thorough, probing analysis of its scientific merits and demerits. Moreover, many believe that intelligent design could play an important role in public school curricula. Students should be and are taught about theories like intelligent design -- they learn of various belief systems in philosophy and humanities classes, and of the levels of religious belief in our society in sociology classes. (Indeed, consider the recent struggle over evolution in Dover, PA: the school board candidates who opposed the teaching of ID in science classes also strongly supported its inclusion in humanities curricula. "Paradoxically," the New York Times observed, "that may mean that if [those candidates] win, intelligent design would be examined more thoroughly, and critically, than under current policy," which was crafted by ID proponents.) But, contrary to O'Reilly's claim, intelligent design and similar theories should not be taught by scientists, and not in science classes.
BELIEF IN GOD AND EVOLUTION ARE NOT INCOMPATIBLE: As physics professor Lawrence Krauss observes, "One can choose to view chance selection as obvious evidence that there is no God, as Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and uncompromising atheist, might argue, or to conclude instead that God chooses to work through natural means." In the latter case, he notes, "the overwhelming evidence that natural selection has determined the evolution of life on earth would simply imply that God is 'the cause of causes,'" as Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, stated when he presided over the church's International Theological Commission. Indeed, "when a researcher from the University of Georgia surveyed scientists' attitudes toward religion several years ago, he found their positions virtually unchanged from an identical survey in the early years of the 20th century. About 40 percent of scientists said not just that they believed in God, but in a God who communicates with people and to whom one may pray 'in expectation of receiving an answer.'"
THE CONSTITUTIONAL END-RUN: In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that the teaching of creationism in public schools violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. "[T]he doctrine seemed to be shut out of public schools once and for all," Michelle Goldberg writes for Salon.com. But now "intelligent design" -- "an updated version of creationism couched in modern biological terms" -- is giving advocates of creationism new hope that they can circumvent the high court's ruling. Proponents of "intelligent design" insist, of course, that the theory is distinct from creationism, and does not posit the existence of God. Yet the most fierce advocates of "intelligent design," led by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute (which praised Bush's remarks), clearly have a religious agenda. The institute's main financial backer, savings and loan heir Howard Ahmanson, spent 20 years on the board of the Chalcedon Foundation, "a theocratic outfit that advocates the replacement of American civil law with biblical law." A 1999 fundraising proposal that was leaked online stated, "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built"; the institute's goal, it said, was "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."
ID PROPONENTS SHOULD ADVANCE THEIR THEORY THE RIGHT WAY: If proponents of "intelligent design" wish for their theory to hold the same stature in the scientific community as evolution, there is an appropriate course of action. Like any other researchers, they should subject their critiques and theories to repeated testing and submit their findings to be reviewed by their peers. Instead, as it stands now, "church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels" to crowbar their views into public classrooms. Neither, moreover, should we close our eyes to the scientific merits and teach "intelligent design" simply because some fear that theories like evolution, which say precious little about how humans ought to act, will open the door to "moral relativism." ("The ultimate extension of this position," Krauss writes, "may be Representative Tom DeLay's comment that the tragedy at Columbine happened 'because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud.'") The politicization of evolution teaching is actually harming our students by making teachers nervous about delving into the topic at all. "In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue. ... [T]eachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in their communities."
IRAQ
The Conflict That Can’t Go On Vacation
As President Bush heads to Crawford for “the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years,” there are some issues of national interest that unfortunately won’t get a vacation. Most important among them is the ongoing and intensifying conflict in Iraq. Yesterday, U.S. troops witnessed the “deadliest roadside bombing suffered by American forces in the Iraq war,” as 14 Marines were killed when their “lightly-armored vehicle” was targeted by insurgents. The incident underscored that U.S. troops are still fighting without the proper resources against an insurgency that's getting more deadly.
TROOPS STILL EXPERIENCING EQUIPMENT PROBLEMS: While President Bush called the death of 14 Marines a “grim reminder” that America is still at war, the incident also served as a grim reminder that troops are not properly serviced with the equipment they need. A report by the Marine Corps inspector general in June warned that Marine units in Iraq were not properly equipped for one of the most difficult missions in Iraq where “fighting is heaviest.” The IG concluded a quarter of the Marines’ Humvees “lack sufficient armor to protect against road-side bombings.” The report also said the Corps will need another 650 up-armored Humvees. This is an immediate priority that the Bush administration still hasn't addressed.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?: The New York Times reported recently that “the Bush administration is retooling its slogan” for the fight against extremist groups. Instead of calling Iraq the "central front" in the “war on terror” as President Bush has done time and time again, the Pentagon, led by Rumsfeld, has embraced a new phrase: “a global struggle against violent extremism.” President Bush appeared to address this emerging division within the administration by giving his own point of view in his speech yesterday: “Make no mistake about it, we are at war.” And Bush made numerous references to the “war on terror” as well. Secretary Rumsfeld has been forced to retreat from the name change as well: “Let there be no mistake about it. It's a war." While the semantic word difference is unlikely to have any immediate impact on the war itself, the struggle over how to define it underscores a growing split in the administration about a much larger issue: whether we can “win” in Iraq. Gen. Richard Myers wanted to rephrase the “war on terror” because “if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution.”
ALL THIS FOR A PRO-IRANIAN GOVERNMENT?: Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, who advised the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad from January to April 2004, wrote in Slate recently that “there is another way we could fail in Iraq.” Diamond writes that if pro-Iranian Islamic fundamentalists take power in Iraq, our longstanding efforts to build democracy in the region will greatly suffer as a result. This is already being seen in Iraq as the pro-Iranian political party SCIRI (Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) and its militia, the Badr organization, are increasing in strength. Iran and Iraq’s growing alliance took another significant step last month when the two countries signed a military pact that will allow Iran to take a more established role in training the Iraqi troops. What remains to be seen is how the election of Iran’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who Rumsfeld called “no friend of democracy,” will affect Iraq’s democracy-building efforts. The increasing cooperation between Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who spent a decade in Iran fighting Saddam’s forces, and Iran is, according to Diamond, “another sign of this administration's incompetence and duplicity [because] the very prospect it has most feared has been advanced by its bungling.”
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Under the Radar
CORPORATE POWER -- WAL-MART BUYS OP-ED IN NEW YORK TIMES: An op-ed in yesterday's New York Times defended Wal-Mart's business practices, recycling the tired argument that we shouldn't worry about how the company treats its employees because it provides goods at low prices to consumers. One of the authors was Ken A. Mark, who was billed as a "business consultant in Toronto." Mark did not reveal, however, that Wal-Mart is a client of his consulting firm. Wal-Mart Watch reveals that Mark's firm, The Martello Group, lists Wal-Mart as one of its clients. The Martello Group website asserts, "we have a singular focus on our clients’ top and bottom lines."
BUDGET -- BUILDING ROADS AND FUDGING BOOKS: Few pieces are legislation are stuffed with as much pork as the new highways bill, which contains more than 6,000 special projects requested by individual lawmakers. But few bills are so good at hiding their price tag, either. The New York Times reports this morning that the legislation costs $8.5 billion more than originally reported -- despite the fact that both Congress and the White House had repeatedly patted themselves on the back for keeping the cost down. The numbers trick is achieved through a process called rescission, in which money is allotted for a project, with the promise that it will be returned to the Treasury at some future date. In this case, Congress (reportedly at the White House’s behest) just added the extra $8.5 billion and mandated -- without explaining how -- that it be returned to the Treasury by 2009. This may seem strange, but careful observers will notice that 2009 is conveniently the year in which the budget ceases to be the Bush administration’s problem.
SUPREME COURT -- ROBERTS HELPED SHAPE THE '80'S CIVIL RIGHTS DEBATE: In continuing revelations into the ideology of President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, the New York Times reports that Roberts was an "eager combatant in the political wars" of the Reagan revolution. One of the issues being "seriously reconsidered" was "the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was up for renewal in Congress." In his role as special assistant to the attorney general, Roberts "produced a torrent of memorandums," "drafted op-ed articles for his boss," and "circulated talking points" to Congress, as part of an administration-wide "effort to develop a new, more conservative approach to civil rights and voting rights." Though the White House is attempting to present Roberts' actions as simply doing his job -- to "advocate the point of view of the Reagan administration at the time" -- it seems that Roberts was actually a willing participant, writing to one of his mentors, "This is an exciting time to be at the Justice Department. So much that has been taken for granted for so long is being seriously reconsidered."
ENVIRONMENT -- GLOBAL WARMING MAY INCREASE DISEASE OUTBREAKS: First there was the evidence that climate change can be correlated to recent spates of severe weather occurrences. Now, a four-decade analysis of disease records in Bangladesh has revealed "a pattern that some researchers believe bolsters claims that global warming will increase disease outbreaks." The study, which will be published in the science journal Nature, demonstrates that "the effect of weather on disease can be dramatic...although the research does not directly address global warming, it is among the first to show that extreme weather can alter disease patterns." Meanwhile, President Bush remains unwilling to take effective steps to counter climate change.
HUMAN RIGHTS -- ALLEGATIONS OF SECRET UNDERGROUND U.S. PRISONS: The AP reports, "two Yemeni men say they were held in solitary confinement in secret, underground U.S. detention facilities in an unknown country and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world." Officially, the administration has "denied allegations of secret detention facilities, saying they hold terror suspects only at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq and Afghanistan." Sharon Critoph, a researcher at Amnesty International, said, "We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of U.S. secret detentions around the world."
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