Bush Listened, but Did He Hear?
By Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post
Friday, December 8, 2006; A39
I've been in this business long enough to recognize journalism when I see it. The first tip-off was the way the canny old pros in the Iraq Study Group (not one of whom I'd play poker with for money) studded their report's brief executive summary with explosive phrases -- a "grave and deteriorating" situation, a looming "humanitarian catastrophe," withdrawal of combat troops by "the first quarter of 2008." As an old editor once told me, hit the readers hard at the top of the story before they yawn and turn the page.
It turns out that James Baker, Lee Hamilton and the other members of the group didn't have to worry about holding readers' attention. The 96-page main report -- an attempt to find a way for George W. Bush to get us out of his Iraq debacle without provoking World War III -- is full of solid reporting and analysis, with surprises along the way that make your jaw drop.
There's only one reader who really counts, though, and I doubt he'll be impressed. The Decider isn't in the habit of letting mere facts get in the way of blind conviction.
At least the five senior Republicans and five senior Democrats who made up the panel have put down a marker. Facts do count, they remind us, and the possibility that the Iraq misadventure will spark a wider regional war is enough to powerfully concentrate the mind.
"I've been on a lot of presidential commissions in my life, going back to 1965. This was the toughest, but also the one where there was more cooperation and common purpose," Vernon Jordan told me by phone Wednesday as he sat down to dinner, the first meal he'd had time for on a day that began at 7 a.m. with a White House meeting with the president.
"This was the only commission I've seen where there was no argument, no falling out, nobody storming out of the room," Jordan said.
Roughly the first half of the report is pure journalism, an example of what old foreign correspondents used to call a "situationer" -- a snapshot overview of whatever country one's editors thought needed assessing. I learned things I hadn't known.
For example, I knew that the Iraqi army was a mess and that the Iraqi police force is full of sectarian thugs. But I didn't know that Iraq had another armed force, bigger than the police -- the 145,000-strong Facilities Protection Service, which is supposed to guard military infrastructure. One "senior U.S. official" described this shadowy force as "incompetent, dysfunctional, or subversive." How comforting.
I also wasn't aware that the Baghdad city government is a "Shia dictatorship" that allocates services along sectarian lines, consigning one Sunni neighborhood to "less than two hours of electricity each day" and waist-high piles of trash.
The second half of the report is less a news story than a long op-ed piece. The panel ruled out my preferred exit strategy, which it dismisses as "precipitate withdrawal." (I prefer to call it "wake up and smell the coffee.'') The report explains how splitting Iraq into three autonomous parts would be an unacceptably bloody process, as well as intolerable to the neighbors; and how the option of sending a lot more troops to Iraq, as Sen. John McCain advocates, is moot given that we don't have a lot more troops to send.
The report is harshest on the president's "stay the course" option, pointing out that the longer we remain, the worse the situation in Iraq seems to get -- and the more American troops are maimed or killed.
The document concludes with 79 recommendations, most of which are eminently reasonable and none of which will get us out of Iraq overnight. The president will probably reject some out of hand -- talking directly with Syria and Iran, for example. And while it would be good if the president finally realized that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would lower the temperature throughout the Middle East, I'm pretty sure it will take more than a phone call to persuade the Israeli government to give up the Golan Heights.
Jordan said that when the members of the panel met with Bush on Wednesday, the president's attitude was encouraging. "My mama used to say that a lot of people listen, but they don't hear," Jordan said. "Bush both listened and heard us."
That's a good sign. But the administration has set in motion its own multiple reviews of Iraq policy, and the official White House position is that the Iraq Study Group's viewpoint will be just one of many the president takes into account -- which is a bad sign. Would someone please tell the president that even his new secretary of defense doesn't think we're winning this war?
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
Friday, December 08, 2006
The Cheney Baby
It's a Cheney!
Reality Is a Blessed Event
By Ruth Marcus
Friday, December 8, 2006; A39
My only regret about Mary Cheney's pregnancy is that it didn't happen earlier -- say, during the 2004 presidential race, when Cheney was working for her father's campaign and his running mate was busy trying to write discrimination against people like her into the Constitution.
Imagine a hugely pregnant Mary Cheney sitting in the vice president's box at the convention. Imagine Cheney and her partner, Heather Poe, cuddling their newborn onstage at the victory celebration.
How perfectly that would have illustrated the clanging disconnect between the Republican Party's outmoded intolerance and the benign reality of gay families today.
Better late than never. Cheney's no crusader; she has little interest in becoming the poster mom for gay parenthood. But whether she intends it or not, her pregnancy will, I think, turn out to be a watershed in public understanding and acceptance of the phenomenon. This is the Ellen DeGeneres moment of national politics.
Acceptance won't come immediately, of course, and certainly not from all quarters. The folks who have fits about "Heather Has Two Mommies" are beside themselves over "Heather Is One of Two Mommies." Especially because the other mommy is -- as Mary Cheney is inevitably described -- The Vice President's Openly Gay Daughter.
"Unconscionable," said Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America. "Her action repudiates traditional values and sets an appalling example for young people at a time when father absence is the most pressing social problem facing the nation," Crouse wrote on the TownHall.com blog. "Her child will have all the material advantages it will need, but it will still encounter the emotional devastation common to children without fathers."
"I think it's tragic that a child has been conceived with the express purpose of denying it a father," pronounced Robert Knight of the Media Research Center. The couple, he said is seeking to "create a culture that is based on sexual anarchy instead of marriage and family values."
I can understand that people -- especially those who have no personal experience with gay families -- are uncomfortable with the notion of children without a parent of each gender. What I can't understand is using words such as "unconscionable" or "tragic" to describe the choice of two people who love each other and want to create a family together.
To be a badly wanted child (one thing that's indisputable about the children of same-sex couples: the parents had to work to make it happen) in a home with two loving parents is no tragedy. If they're worried about "emotional devastation," the Crouses and Knights of the world would do better to reserve their lamentations for children in poverty, those who are abused or neglected, or for children in families splintered by divorce.
As to sexual anarchy, Mary Cheney and Heather Poe represent its antithesis. This is a couple who've been together for 15 years. In her mind, as Cheney told "Primetime Live" this year, "Heather and I already are married. We have built a home and a life together. I hope I get to spend the rest of my life with her. The way I look at it is, we're just waiting for state and federal law to catch up with us."
That could take some time, especially if Mary Cheney's political party has anything to do with it. As a resident of Virginia, which does not permit a gay parent to adopt, Poe will have no legal connection to the child that she and Cheney clearly intend to have and raise together. If the couple were to split up, Poe would have no legal right to see the child.
Virginia's newly adopted and expansively drafted constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage casts doubt on the ability of Cheney and Poe to write binding medical directives and wills. Without any legal protection, state or federal, against job discrimination -- the Bush administration opposes extending anti-discrimination laws to cover sexual orientation -- Mary Cheney could be fired simply because she is gay.
In fact, perhaps because it's less susceptible to being hijacked by the extremes, the business world is outpacing the political sphere in recognizing and responding to the new, out-of-the-closet reality of gay Americans. More than half of the Fortune 500 companies offered health benefits for domestic partners this year, up from just 28 a decade earlier, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
The latest issue of Fortune describes how companies seeking to attract and retain gay workers are offering bereavement leave if a same-sex partner dies, adoption assistance or paid leave for gay employees who have children, and relocation help for gay partners when employees are transferred. "Put another way, gay marriage -- an idea that has been banned by all but one of 27 states that have voted on it -- has become a fact of life inside many big companies," the magazine said.
Perhaps Cheney's high-profile pregnancy will help the Republican Party come to grips with those facts of life. If not, though, she's going to have to explain to her child what mommy was doing trying to help a party that doesn't believe in fairness for families like theirs.
marcusr@washpost.com
Reality Is a Blessed Event
By Ruth Marcus
Friday, December 8, 2006; A39
My only regret about Mary Cheney's pregnancy is that it didn't happen earlier -- say, during the 2004 presidential race, when Cheney was working for her father's campaign and his running mate was busy trying to write discrimination against people like her into the Constitution.
Imagine a hugely pregnant Mary Cheney sitting in the vice president's box at the convention. Imagine Cheney and her partner, Heather Poe, cuddling their newborn onstage at the victory celebration.
How perfectly that would have illustrated the clanging disconnect between the Republican Party's outmoded intolerance and the benign reality of gay families today.
Better late than never. Cheney's no crusader; she has little interest in becoming the poster mom for gay parenthood. But whether she intends it or not, her pregnancy will, I think, turn out to be a watershed in public understanding and acceptance of the phenomenon. This is the Ellen DeGeneres moment of national politics.
Acceptance won't come immediately, of course, and certainly not from all quarters. The folks who have fits about "Heather Has Two Mommies" are beside themselves over "Heather Is One of Two Mommies." Especially because the other mommy is -- as Mary Cheney is inevitably described -- The Vice President's Openly Gay Daughter.
"Unconscionable," said Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America. "Her action repudiates traditional values and sets an appalling example for young people at a time when father absence is the most pressing social problem facing the nation," Crouse wrote on the TownHall.com blog. "Her child will have all the material advantages it will need, but it will still encounter the emotional devastation common to children without fathers."
"I think it's tragic that a child has been conceived with the express purpose of denying it a father," pronounced Robert Knight of the Media Research Center. The couple, he said is seeking to "create a culture that is based on sexual anarchy instead of marriage and family values."
I can understand that people -- especially those who have no personal experience with gay families -- are uncomfortable with the notion of children without a parent of each gender. What I can't understand is using words such as "unconscionable" or "tragic" to describe the choice of two people who love each other and want to create a family together.
To be a badly wanted child (one thing that's indisputable about the children of same-sex couples: the parents had to work to make it happen) in a home with two loving parents is no tragedy. If they're worried about "emotional devastation," the Crouses and Knights of the world would do better to reserve their lamentations for children in poverty, those who are abused or neglected, or for children in families splintered by divorce.
As to sexual anarchy, Mary Cheney and Heather Poe represent its antithesis. This is a couple who've been together for 15 years. In her mind, as Cheney told "Primetime Live" this year, "Heather and I already are married. We have built a home and a life together. I hope I get to spend the rest of my life with her. The way I look at it is, we're just waiting for state and federal law to catch up with us."
That could take some time, especially if Mary Cheney's political party has anything to do with it. As a resident of Virginia, which does not permit a gay parent to adopt, Poe will have no legal connection to the child that she and Cheney clearly intend to have and raise together. If the couple were to split up, Poe would have no legal right to see the child.
Virginia's newly adopted and expansively drafted constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage casts doubt on the ability of Cheney and Poe to write binding medical directives and wills. Without any legal protection, state or federal, against job discrimination -- the Bush administration opposes extending anti-discrimination laws to cover sexual orientation -- Mary Cheney could be fired simply because she is gay.
In fact, perhaps because it's less susceptible to being hijacked by the extremes, the business world is outpacing the political sphere in recognizing and responding to the new, out-of-the-closet reality of gay Americans. More than half of the Fortune 500 companies offered health benefits for domestic partners this year, up from just 28 a decade earlier, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
The latest issue of Fortune describes how companies seeking to attract and retain gay workers are offering bereavement leave if a same-sex partner dies, adoption assistance or paid leave for gay employees who have children, and relocation help for gay partners when employees are transferred. "Put another way, gay marriage -- an idea that has been banned by all but one of 27 states that have voted on it -- has become a fact of life inside many big companies," the magazine said.
Perhaps Cheney's high-profile pregnancy will help the Republican Party come to grips with those facts of life. If not, though, she's going to have to explain to her child what mommy was doing trying to help a party that doesn't believe in fairness for families like theirs.
marcusr@washpost.com
Friday, December 01, 2006
This is too scary: Drug stores
Report sparks changes at pharmacy chains
By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press WriterFri Dec 1, 6:43 AM ET
The nation's largest drugstore chains say they are working to better protect patient privacy after an investigative TV report turned up sensitive information about hundreds of customers in trash bins in cities around the country.
Indianapolis TV station WTHR inspected nearly 300 trash bins and found nearly 2,400 patient records, including pill bottles, customer refill lists and prescription labels. Most of the bins belonged to Walgreens Co., CVS Corp. or Rite Aid Corp. The inspections were done in more than a dozen cities ranging from Boston to Louisville, Ky., to Phoenix.
The station said its investigation began after a grandmother from Bloomington, Ind., was robbed at her front door by a thief authorities said found her address in a CVS trash bin. The man posed as a pharmacy employee to try to steal her prescription for the painkiller Oxycontin, the authorities said.
As part of its response, Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreens Co. said it was now instructing staff to lock outdoor trash bins at all times and was reviewing the way it disposes of patient information.
In Woonsocket, R.I., where CVS is headquartered, 460 patient records were found in CVS trash bins, the station said. Responding to the findings, CVS sent a statement acknowledging it was unacceptable that patient information could be retrieved from the bins.
"Nothing is more central to our health care operations than maintaining the privacy of health information," the CVS statement said.
The report aired in multiple installments up through this month.
CVS, which operates about 6,200 stores nationwide, said it was now requiring all trash generated in its pharmacies — and not just trash containing patient information — to be placed in special bags which are then returned to CVS warehouses. It said it was also holding in-store training sessions to review proper procedures for handling of the pharmacy trash.
"Our policy, when it's followed correctly, is foolproof," said CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis. "But if there's a lack of execution, that's where issues arise. So we've enhanced the policies and procedures in order to make sure that they are followed."
Walgreens, the nation's biggest drugstore chain by revenue, said it had e-mailed all of its stores to reiterate its policy for handling patient information.
The company also said it was now requiring that patient vials be returned to pharmacy warehouses to be thrown out. Previously, staff had been instructed to either black out patient information or remove the label from the vial before putting it in the trash. Outside trash bins are also to be locked at all times, the company said.
Walgreens spokeswoman Carol Hively said Thursday the company was concerned certain employees were not following proper procedures and was trying to reinforce the rules. But she said other TV stations that have conducted similar investigations have not found privacy problems.
"We feel that having seen these other reports from around the country where other TV stations randomly selected Walgreens stores and there was a good outcome makes us feel that these efforts were successful," she said.
Camp Hill, Pa.-based Rite Aid Corp., the nation's third-largest drugstore chain, is enforcing current policies and has not made changes, said spokeswoman Jody Cook. She said company policy calls for pharmacies to shred confidential patient information, such as prescription labels. If the store is not set up to do that, then the information is to be sent back to pharmacy warehouses to be destroyed.
"We have policies in place to protect patient information, so really it was more of a retraining," Cook said.
By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press WriterFri Dec 1, 6:43 AM ET
The nation's largest drugstore chains say they are working to better protect patient privacy after an investigative TV report turned up sensitive information about hundreds of customers in trash bins in cities around the country.
Indianapolis TV station WTHR inspected nearly 300 trash bins and found nearly 2,400 patient records, including pill bottles, customer refill lists and prescription labels. Most of the bins belonged to Walgreens Co., CVS Corp. or Rite Aid Corp. The inspections were done in more than a dozen cities ranging from Boston to Louisville, Ky., to Phoenix.
The station said its investigation began after a grandmother from Bloomington, Ind., was robbed at her front door by a thief authorities said found her address in a CVS trash bin. The man posed as a pharmacy employee to try to steal her prescription for the painkiller Oxycontin, the authorities said.
As part of its response, Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreens Co. said it was now instructing staff to lock outdoor trash bins at all times and was reviewing the way it disposes of patient information.
In Woonsocket, R.I., where CVS is headquartered, 460 patient records were found in CVS trash bins, the station said. Responding to the findings, CVS sent a statement acknowledging it was unacceptable that patient information could be retrieved from the bins.
"Nothing is more central to our health care operations than maintaining the privacy of health information," the CVS statement said.
The report aired in multiple installments up through this month.
CVS, which operates about 6,200 stores nationwide, said it was now requiring all trash generated in its pharmacies — and not just trash containing patient information — to be placed in special bags which are then returned to CVS warehouses. It said it was also holding in-store training sessions to review proper procedures for handling of the pharmacy trash.
"Our policy, when it's followed correctly, is foolproof," said CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis. "But if there's a lack of execution, that's where issues arise. So we've enhanced the policies and procedures in order to make sure that they are followed."
Walgreens, the nation's biggest drugstore chain by revenue, said it had e-mailed all of its stores to reiterate its policy for handling patient information.
The company also said it was now requiring that patient vials be returned to pharmacy warehouses to be thrown out. Previously, staff had been instructed to either black out patient information or remove the label from the vial before putting it in the trash. Outside trash bins are also to be locked at all times, the company said.
Walgreens spokeswoman Carol Hively said Thursday the company was concerned certain employees were not following proper procedures and was trying to reinforce the rules. But she said other TV stations that have conducted similar investigations have not found privacy problems.
"We feel that having seen these other reports from around the country where other TV stations randomly selected Walgreens stores and there was a good outcome makes us feel that these efforts were successful," she said.
Camp Hill, Pa.-based Rite Aid Corp., the nation's third-largest drugstore chain, is enforcing current policies and has not made changes, said spokeswoman Jody Cook. She said company policy calls for pharmacies to shred confidential patient information, such as prescription labels. If the store is not set up to do that, then the information is to be sent back to pharmacy warehouses to be destroyed.
"We have policies in place to protect patient information, so really it was more of a retraining," Cook said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
