--Mori Dinauer

In the last four decades since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, many American nuns stopped wearing religious habits, left convents to live independently and went into new lines of work: academia and other professions, social and political advocacy and grass-roots organizations that serve the poor or promote spirituality. A few nuns have also been active in organizations that advocate changes in the church like ordaining women and married men as priests.

Cardinal Levada sent a letter to the Leadership Conference [of Women Religious] saying an investigation was warranted because it appeared that the organization had done little since it was warned eight years ago that it had failed to “promote” the church’s teachings on three issues: the male-only priesthood, homosexuality and the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church as the means to salvation.

It's not exactly shocking that one of the more patriarchal institutions in human history is acting in a sexist fashion. But, as someone who was raised Catholic, that doesn't make it any less disappointing to be reminded that one can't both fully love God and be an independent woman within the Catholic Church. My great aunt was a Carmelite sister, who gave up a career in New York to enter a convent well before Vatican II. I was always impressed by her decision -- she felt it was her calling, and she was willing to sacrifice a life that, by all accounts, she loved for it. I wonder, though, if she might have served God somewhat differently if the Church had allowed her to.

--Alexandra Gutierrez

A prisoner of conventional thinking on Iran, the most popular American president in a generation was effectively rolled by a cartel of aging, unelected theocrats into believing that a strong statement of support for democracy could be manipulated into an imperialist intervention. ... Alas, this was a loss of nerve with likely dire consequences.

First, a movement for greater pluralism and the rule of law that was manifestly to the advantage of the United States has been silenced. Second, an emboldened hardline leadership will likely present even greater conditions for meeting with the United States and, at those negotiations, prove more reluctant still to seek common ground. Were this a matter simply for Iran, or for U.S.-Iranian relations, it would be bad enough. But there is a third, more ominous threat looming on the horizon--an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear installations.

There is no serious alternative to an adversarial engagement with Iran that includes all key bilateral issues, beginning with areas of common interest and ending with the nuclear question. But, by allowing the regime to dictate the lessons of 1953, and honoring too little and too late the people's movement of June 2009, the president has made an exceedingly difficult task all the harder for himself. An outstretched hand needs to be directed by a head held high -- confident in its own principles and values, responsive to the aspirations of the Iranian people, and signaling to the regime that two can play the game of tough-minded diplomacy.

For one, I'd argue that Obama did offer strong support for universal democratic norms, and it has been used by the Iranian regime to cast blame for civil unrest outside the country. Mousavizadeh believes that Obama's statements came too late to help. But what would have changed had Obama spoken earlier or more harshly? What more could he have done, short of direct action? If you want to be morally serious about an argument that the U.S. did not do enough, you must make clear what ought to have been done and how that would have changed the facts on the ground. An earlier or stronger statement from Obama would not have protected demonstrators from Khamenei's thugs or prevented a movement from being silenced. If there is an argument that his words would have changed facts on the ground, it isn't in this piece.

On the other hand, the idea that "just words" wouldn't have helped protesters could be construed as an argument against engagement -- if the Iranian regime won't hear the international community out on this issue, why should they be receptive to discussions about their nuclear program? But there's a difference between adopting a position and engaging in negotiations. Any international bargain with the Iranian government would be just that -- a deal, with policy changes and compromise. There was no deal Obama, or anyone in the international community, could offer a regime in existential peril to prevent it from crushing domestic opposition. That's why casting aside the policy of regime change is the only way to engage with whatever government eventually comes to power in Iran -- Khamenei and his ilk will not stop their nuclear program if they believe our goal is topple them. Perhaps sanctions are the answer to both questions, but those sanctions depend on the cooperation of the European community, China and Russia to be effective -- it's likely that the EC would cooperate now, but would Russia, where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed after the election?

That's why it's gratifying that Mousavizadeh recognizes that "there is no serious alternative to an adversarial engagement with Iran" and that the threat of an Israeli strike on that country's nuclear program is indeed an ominous one that would likely lead to broader destabilization across the region. The demonstrations in the aftermath of the Iranian experiment were inspiring and worthy of support, but -- sadly -- there was little more the United States government could conceivably do. I'm with Michael Walzer: Only civil society can engage with the Iranian opposition in a productive manner.

Further Reading: Iran Strategy After the Election.

-- Tim Fernholz ]]> http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2009&base_name=an_agressive_iran_policy_would http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2009&base_name=an_agressive_iran_policy_would Iran Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:03:09 -0500 Kurtz:

Whether racial and gender identification produces a gauzier, more favorable portrayal of Obama is perhaps too early to judge. After all, no one raises questions when an Irish American male reporter covers a pol named Murphy. And with her carefully crafted focus on her children, affordable fashion and such reduced-fat apple pie issues as healthy eating, Obama has done little to warrant sharp criticism.

And yet, Kurtz still pens an entire piece for the Washington Post asking:

Well, yes, Obama is a black woman from the South Side of Chicago. It would be impossible for anyone to cover her without giving prominence to that fact. But are the beat reporters inadvertently invested in her success?

Look, the issue of reporters empathizing with their subjects is one that goes far beyond race--politicians who have failed to earn the empathy of their press corps (see Gore, Al) have done far worse than politicians who have (see Bush, George W.) so this shouldn't be a racial issue. It's entirely possible that a white male reporter would run into the same issue with Michelle Obama. More importantly, you would never ever see a media critic like Kurtz questioning the ability of white men to cover other white men objectively, or for that matter the ability of white men to cover women or people of color, despite the fact that if newsroom coverage were to be affected, it would be by the prevailing cultural biases of the better represented population in the newsroom. I'm wondering when the Post Ombudsman will be addressing the issue of whether Howard Kurtz empathizes too greatly with the white reporters he covers because he is a white reporter.

Meanwhile, it seems like Kurtz attentions would be better focused on the 25 gs the WaPo is charging for access to Obama adminstration officials, and what kind of "investment" that represents.

-- A. Serwer

Congress, in passing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) in 2001, allowed the president to wage war “against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States” — namely, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, when they ran Afghanistan. But since no one walks around wearing al-Qaeda or Taliban uniforms, who’s actually a member and therefore detainable remains a major point of contention.

Similarly, the laws of war allow for the detention of a combatant captured on the battlefield until the conflict is over. But whether the battlefield is the specific zone where U.S. forces are stationed in Afghanistan or Iraq, or an area as broad as anywhere in the world that terrorists who hate the United States may be found, is hotly debated. Many of the lawyers I cite in my piece today, such as Martin, Gude and the eleven lawyers who signed the letter to President Obama imploring him not to authorize some new form of preventive detention, argue for the geographically more limited definition of detention.

I want to stress this point--no one, not even the ACLU, is arguing that the military doesn't have the authority to detain combatants captured in an active combat zone for the duration of hostilities. The battle is over whether or not the "combat zone" or battlefield is in fact the entire planet, something that, as Eviatar notes, many liberals object to as problematic and unconstitutional.

At the same time, our complete departure from a law-and-order approach to terrorism during the Bush administration meant that we weren't building cases against terrorist detainees that could hold up in criminal court, which is part of the reason (other than, you know, torture) why the Obama administration has been left with the so-called "fifth category" of detainees who "can't" be tried or released.

For that reason, Ken Gude explained to me yesterday in an email, he might be able to support some limited form of "preventive detention" that applies only to those detainees who were captured previously, rather than an entire new legal structure that would ensure the practice of preventive detention going forward.

"[I]f the policy draws a circle around a dozen or so Guantanamo detainees in continued military detention but expressly bars military detention for future non-zone of combat captures, its not perfect, but its close enough for me to support it," Gude said. "Importantly, there would be no permanent statutory preventive detention regime and no national security courts, both complete disasters and far worse than this alternative."

A secondary question to this whole debate then, is whether or not preventive detention is something the administration would be authorizing for future captures or simply the problematic cases we already have.

-- A. Serwer

Maloney is also up for reelection to her House seat, so these appearances don't necessarily constitute Senate endorsements. Still, considering all the media interest in the Senate seat, there's no doubt that any politician or donor appearing with Maloney has considered the implications.

One caveat: If Maloney wants to be taken seriously by New York progressives, she may want to steer clear of Ferraro, who enraged many during the Democratic presidential primary by suggesting that Barack Obama was only gaining traction because he was black. Then, when the Obama campaign criticized her comments, she called them racist. Yeah. It was crazy.

Update: A Clinton aide says the appearance is not an endorsement and that the former president believes Gillibrand is doing "a good job."

--Dana Goldstein

Photo of Carolyn Maloney via Flickr user TalkRadioNews.

Let's face it: When Barack Obama said in Cairo that "the only resolution" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is two separate states, he was courageously insisting -- well, on what's become conventional wisdom.

But not the unanimous wisdom. The hardliners on each side aren't alone in questioning the two-state idea. On the street in Jerusalem, I've run into old friends, veterans of Israeli peace and human-rights activism who say we've passed the tipping point: There are too many settlements; Israeli withdrawal is impossible; negotiations on two states have repeatedly failed; the only solution is a single, shared Jewish-Palestinian state.

So is he pursuing an obsolete strategy? Actually, no. This time the conventional wisdom is correct.

KEEP READING ...

Simon Johnson is a smart critic of the administration, and no one questions his powers of economic analysis. But a disturbing trend in his recent writing has been making assumptions where he doesn't have the facts. He'll often accuse the administration of not presenting their understanding of how the financial crisis happened, for instance, when that's not true -- they just present a version he disagrees with. He's said that bankers wrote the financial regulation plan, when the evidence is that they didn't. Today, he writes this:

We know that Treasury consulted extensively with the financial sector on all its regulatory reform ideas, and indications are that the chief executives of major banks prevailed in most of their requests. Yet the administration was already in a position to submit a major consumer protection plan to Congress this week. Where did this come from? It must have emerged largely unscathed from interagency debate primarily because of the agenda-setting power of the National Economic Council.

Emphasis mine. But "it must" is not how we do analysis in the real world -- assuming always makes a something out of someone. In fact, though Secretary Geithner had been lukewarm about the proposal, Treasury officials like Assistant Secretary Michael Barr and Deputy Assistant Secretary Eric Stein (late of the Center for Responsible Lending), along with Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, have been involved in this process and support the provision. Treasury sources I've spoken to have made clear that the Consumer Financial Protection Agency -- the best and most progressive part of the administration's mixed-bag proposal -- is a key priority. When I pressed one official on the failure of bankruptcy loan modification due to financial sector lobbyists, he told me that Treasury "has not yet begun to fight." That's both true -- about the not fighting -- and promising in that these officials realize they will have to fight for the CFPA. There's a reason, for instance, that the administration released legislative language for the CFPA before any other part of the plan.

While Johnson is pretty accurate in identifying Larry Summers' move to the left, his analysis that there is a "split" in the administration that could benefit progressives during legislative battles isn't spot on: once the proposal comes out, the administration will present a very unified front, with the possible exception of the independent -- by statute and personality -- FDIC Chair, Sheila Bair. The administration's solidarity is good for the CFPA, but it's also bad for things like derivatives regulation, further regulatory consolidation and corporate governance issues where the party line leaves a lot to be desired.

It's one thing to criticize Treasury for actual bad policy decisions -- like underselling TARP warrants. It's a whole different thing to criticize Treasury for what they haven't done even as they are promoting something progressives should favor. It's a shame because Johnson's critiques are really important and have proven to be quite prescient. But when he starts making bad assumptions, it kills his credibility.

-- Tim Fernholz]]> http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2009&base_name=simon_johnson_gets_too_casual http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2009&base_name=simon_johnson_gets_too_casual Economy Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:19:52 -0500 Photo via Flickr user Misternaxal.

When it comes to Mark and Jenny Sanford the answer seems to be: not a whole lot. I agree with Josh Marshall, who wrote to the embattled South Carolina governor: "Just go be with her," referring to Sanford's Argentine lover. Yes! Though I hope that first, he repairs his relationship with his kids through lots of one-on-one, father-son time.

Mark Sanford told the AP his relationship with Maria Belen Chapur was "a great love affair." On his way to visit her in Buenos Aires, he thought to himself, "I will be able to die knowing that I had met my soul mate." Sure, he's claiming he wants to serve out his gubernatorial term. But his weepy, tell-all interviews are sending quite another message: that he's still passionately in love with Belen Chapur and perhaps just one step away from riding off into the sunset. Sanford even said he didn't regret the affair, though it has quashed his presidential hopes.

Meanwhile, back home, Jenny Sanford, a former Wall Street executive who ably managed her husband's campaigns, said, "His career is no concern of mine." In her written statement, she said she kicked Mark out of the house because if she hadn't done so, she no longer would have been able to look her sons in the eye with her "dignity" in tact.

In other words, it seems clear this couple doesn't want to be together. After his recent affair and a string of other, less serious dalliances, Mark Sanford says he is "trying" to "fall back in love" with his wife. Ouch. Quoting the Bible and talking about forgiveness, it seems clear both the Sanfords, for the sake of their once-shared political ambitions, are trying to craft a salvation narrative that will appeal to their Christian conservative base, in which the governor comes to terms with his sins and and is reborn as a faithful, God-fearing family man. But it also seems clear that a continued Sanford marriage will look, to most of the world, like a total sham. I wouldn't want to be one of their four sons, living in a house with these two after all this has gone down. In fact, so much damage has already been done to those kids that divorce might come as a relief to them. After all, kids often know, better than anyone else, when there's something hopelessly wrong in their parents' marriage.

I hope this entire family is able to move on. Separation and divorce might be part of that. But so far, that possible outcome seems almost taboo to talk about.

--Dana Goldstein

The National Governors Association first declared its support for national education standards in 1989, with then-President George H.W. Bush’s blessing. Yet despite efforts during both the Bush and Clinton years, no common standards system ever emerged.

Now that could change. On June 1, 46 states, 3 territories, and the standardized-testing industry announced an initiative aimed at changing that. The stakeholders have promised to work together to create national curriculum standards -- but crucially, have not agreed on how to actually implement them in each state. The Prospect talked with Scott Montgomery, deputy executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Dane Linn, director of education for the National Governors’ Association Center for Best Practices, whose organizations are leading the coalition, about how this initiative is different that past national standards efforts and what challenges lie ahead.

KEEP READING ...

A year ago, the idea of setting national education standards was a lot like the idea of legalizing marijuana: Despite all common sense, it just wasn't going to happen. Yet on June 1, the National Governors' Association announced that 49 states and territories have signed on to an agreement, called the Common Core Standards Initiative, to develop national standards in math and English. For education reformers across the political spectrum who have long urged that the United States join its developed world peers in articulating national standards, the news is a major victory.

At this point, however, the initiative is vague, and its outcome uncertain.

KEEP READING ...

Keep in mind that when we say 9.5 percent, we're talking about people who have lost their job and are looking for a new one. But when you factor in people who "currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past" "plus total employed part time for economic reasons," and you get a rate of 16.5 percent unemployment -- nearly one in five potential workers has lost significant wages and work in the current economic environment. That's the true cost of this recession, and a stark political warning to Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

The only silver lining the administration officials can present is the fact that we still haven't seen a majority of stimulus outlays -- the actual spending of the money authorized in February to fight unemployment. The bulk of that money will be spent in the next six months to a year and will hopefully have a mitigating effect on the current scenario. But we should also remember that the unemployment news is also bad news for the financial sector: The "stress tests" underwent by banks are becoming increasingly outmoded. Unemployment has exceeded the adverse scenario projected in the tests (see the graph below from Calculated Risk). I'm not worried about bank failure now -- my sources think capital reserves in most banks can withstand the current situation-- but I am worried that this will continue the hesitancy of banks to lend money.

-- Tim Fernholz

Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

Bolton mocks those who are in favor of continued engagement as "theologically committed" to such a course, even though he's certain it won't lead anywhere. Robert Farley and Matthew Yglesias have both expressed skepticism about whether meaningful engagement is possible with Iran post-crackdown, but it doesn't necessarily follow that bombing is in our interest, given our continued involvement in Iraq and the devastation a bombing would cause. It also probably wouldn't work; the consequences of a failed bombing would be pretty catastrophic both for the people of Iran and our relationships in the region, and it would reinforce the legitimacy of the regime at a time when it is struggling to maintain it.

Of course, "theologically committed" could also describe Bolton, who has expressed support for bombing Iran for years now, so it's hard to take seriously his proposal that now is actually the opportune moment to bomb Iran. At the very least, we've come to see an addition to the GOP policy agenda, which for a while was simply "cut taxes." Now we have:

1. Cut Taxes

2. Bomb Iran

 Can't wait for the white paper.

-- A. Serwer

His lawyers also said they would ask the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court, to order the government to preserve any sites where their client was held. They noted that the C.I.A. has said that it no longer operates detention facilities or black sites, and is planning to decommission them.

[...]

Another reason for their request, they wrote, involves the death penalty. If the government decides to seek it against Mr. Ghailani, the lawyers said, they want to be able to present “a detailed and accurate representation of the physical sites” where he was held and subjected to harsh treatment as mitigating evidence on his behalf.

It's possible that the decision to try terrorist suspects in federal court may have a similar effect to the proposed truth commission, in that information about the Bush administration's practices will come to light as a result of the legal rights of defense counsel to have access to exculpatory evidence. Surely the Obama administration was aware of whatever mistreatment Ghailani may have suffered while in CIA custody and decided to proceed to trial anyway -- likely due to the fact that the FBI was involved in investigating the bombings, which means the case against Ghailani doesn't rely on secret or protected information.

I'm not sure that this was the adminstration's intention, but it may be the ultimate outcome.

-- A. Serwer

--Mori Dinauer