At Weinberger’s Passing, Times Refights Reaganism

     David Stout’s obituary for Caspar Weinberger doesn’t waste time plunging into Cold War controversies over Reagan’s “costly” military buildup, opening with loaded language: “Caspar W. Weinberger, who held high positions under three Republican presidents and oversaw the biggest and costliest military buildup in peacetime history as Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense, died yesterday in Bangor, Me., after a brief illness. He was 88.”

      And: “Mr. Weinberger never lost his bone-deep suspicion of the Russians, and his comments after the collapse of the Soviet Union suggested that he still had more faith in arms than diplomacy, at least in dealing with the Kremlin.”

     Stout portrays Reagan administration straight out of a liberal nightmare, cutting social programs while military spending skyrocketed: “So while other parts of the federal government were cringing under the cut-to-the-bone philosophy of the Reagan White House (as the old Cap the Knife might have desired), Mr. Weinberger demanded billions more for nuclear arms, ships, planes and tanks. ‘This is not a one-year program for summer soldiers,’ he warned in 1981. He was true to his word. Year after year, he fought for big increases in Pentagon spending and usually won.”

      Stout shows Weinberger flouted in his attempts to cut, and even showed he had some liberal inclinations himself: “As his critics had predicted, Mr. Weinberger did try to kill or rein in dozens of programs, including some for hospital construction and school aid. But his stewardship was not marked by the wholesale federal retreat on health issues that some liberals had feared.

     “One reason was that Mr. Weinberger embraced some causes that liberals (and not a few conservatives) liked. He tried to get Congress to pass legislation limiting the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes. He envisioned national health insurance. He prodded his own department to protect the civil rights of mentally retarded people who were considered for sterilization. And at his insistence, a better American diet became official departmental policy.”

     Of course, there are several obligatory paragraphs on Weinberg’s involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.

For more on Weinberger, click here.

Coldhearted Anti-Immigrant Republicans

     Rachel Swarns is a bit harshly reductive in her take on anti-illegal immigrant House Republicans in her Wednesday reflection billed as a “news analysis,” “Split Over Immigration Reflects Nation’s Struggle.”

     “It is almost as if they are looking at two different Americas.

     “The Senate Republicans who voted on Monday to legalize the nation's illegal immigrants look at the waves of immigration reshaping this country and see a powerful work force, millions of potential voters and future Americans.

     “The House Republicans who backed tough border security legislation in December look at the same group of people and see a flood of invaders and lawbreakers who threaten national security and American jobs and culture.”

     Illegal immigrants are of course by definition lawbreakers, whether House Republicans “see” them that way or not.

     Like Nina Bernstein did yesterday, Swarns portrays this as a political problem exclusively for Republicans: “But both wings of the deeply divided Republican Party are responding to the same phenomenon: the demographic shift driven by immigration in recent decades, a wave that is quietly transforming small towns and cities across the country and underscoring pressures on many parts of the economy.”

     Swarns sets up a congressman leading the fight against illegal immigration as stonehearted in the face of touching rallies by illegal immigrants: “But to Representative Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who helped spearhead the border security bill in the House, illegal immigrants are far from welcome or essential to this country. He was not moved when he saw the tens of thousands of immigrants, some illegal, and their supporters rallying against his bill. He said he was outraged that people he viewed as lawbreakers felt comfortable enough to stand without fear in front of the television cameras.

      “Mr. Tancredo's view of the illegal immigrant as an unwanted outsider, an encroacher, is far from uncommon.”

     To help bolster the pro-illegal immigrant case, the Times gives some strange new respect for conservative activist and pro-immigrant Grover Norquist, usually a liberal foe:

     “But some Republicans are warning now that tough anti-immigrant legislation may fuel a backlash and threaten the party's hard-won gains with Hispanics, whose numbers have surged in recent years. Foreign-born Hispanics voted for President Bush in 2004 at a 40 percent greater rate than Hispanics born in the United States. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strategist close to the White House, warned that Republicans could squander what the party had gained if lawmakers did not embrace a more welcoming vision of America.”

For more of Swarns on illegal immigration, click here.

Joshua Bolten, Comforting Incompetent

     Yesterday, Bush named Joshua Bolten, former White House budget director, as his new chief of staff, replacing Andrew Card. Reporters David Sanger and Elisabeth Bumiller didn’t exactly lay roses at Bolten’s feet.

     Sanger used the shift to emphasize his usual criticism of Bush as deaf to dissent.

     “President Bush replaced his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., with another longtime loyalist on Tuesday, a step unlikely to satisfy calls within his own party for fresh thinking to address the administration's troubles. In turning to Joshua B. Bolten, his budget director, as the new chief of staff, the president stayed within what one close associate called a ‘circle of comfort’ and what Mr. Bush's critics consider a closed world that brooks little doubt or dissent.”

     Meanwhile, Bumiller slighted Bolten’s competence, pointing to Bush’s budget deficits.

     “But the question is whether Mr. Bolten is the man to right a listing presidency, and whether his skills, instincts and access to Mr. Bush are enough to overcome public anger over the war in Iraq and the growing questions in Washington about the competence of the West Wing staff. Mr. Bolten, after all, has been with Mr. Bush from his first days as a presidential candidate, and in the last three years has presided over the biggest budget deficits in the history of the United States.”

     Besides being a cheap shot, that’s misleading. Although in pure dollars, Bush II’s deficits are highest in history, economists say the proper way to measure deficits is as a percentage of gross domestic product. Measured that way, deficits were higher in the early 1980s and early 90s, while in 1943, during World War II, the deficit was more than 30% of the wartime economy. Of course, the U.S. is at war now.

     Bumiller does give Bolten a backhanded compliment, suggesting Bolten at least isn’t one of those nutty supply-side guys: “Exactly what Mr. Bolten believes is something of a mystery, although he was considered a pragmatist who liked tax cuts and not a supply-side true believer in nearly six years at Goldman Sachs in the 1990's.”

For more Bumiller, click here.

For more Sanger, click here.