Bush's Place in History

Jacob Weisberg at Slate comes not to praise George W but to bury him, saying invading Iraq, the global war on terror, and the current financial mess are his three worst decisions but that we don't know that much about the inner workings of the administration. This isn't an outlier--there seems to be general agreement Bush is a bad President, and always will be such.

Not that, as a firm Democrat, I particularly like GWB, but I've lived too long to agree. Harry Truman left office with terrible ratings, but he's now very highly regarded, so things can change. A more recent example: Mr. Greenspan retired not so long ago with high praise from everyone, except for a few who thought he might have followed his irrational exuberance speech in the 1990's with some cold water on the high tech bubble. Now he's being blamed for the current mess.

The reputations of many of our presidents have fluctuated over the years. I'd suggest Bush's reputation will improve if:

• there is a significant terror attack on US soil (I don't think it will occur)
• Afghanistan stabilizes (in my view Bush's failure to get an exit strategy there is his worst failing)
• Iraq muddles through (the Korean "police action" was a big deal in Truman's rep as left, but now it looks okay). If 30 years from now Iraq is where South Korea is now, Bush will benefit, regardless of how flawed his administration was in (not) planning for the post-war.
• things like No Child Left Behind, the AIDS initiative in Africa, Medicare drug benefits, or other initiatives became seen as significant milestones. (Truman's integration of the armed forces seems larger today than it did then; Ike's interstate highways loom larger today than they seemed in 1960.)

Conversely, I can't imagine much which would hurt his reputation more than it is now.

Bottomline--he doesn't have anywhere to go but up.

A Kid with a Passion: Gorilla

The National Zoo welcomed a baby gorilla this weekend. The Post story included this sentence:

District resident Max Block, 10 -- who is so enamored of gorillas that he raised $2,500 at a lemonade stand this summer for a preservation group -- had been watching the drama unfold for much of the weekend. He arrived to see the baby Saturday, just a few hours after it was born

That's a lot of lemonade.

Tight Budgets

Chris Clayton at DTN has an interview with the President of the Farm Bureau predicting farm programs will face tight budgets. That, in my opinion, is bad news for the supporters of organic farming, sustainable agriculture, etc., simply because conventional ag has a stronger presence on the appropriations committees than they do.

Crystal Ball on USDA Organization

A commenter on this post asks whether I think the possible reorganization of USDA will eliminate FSA? Dragging out my crystal ball, I see into the future and provide this answer: "Darned if I know".

There seems to be an ebb and flow to these things. Back in the Ford administration there was a push to co-locate county offices which looked forward to some consolidation of administrative functions. Then Carter came in and priorities changed. Around 1984 they tried to consolidate state offices in the northeast, but Congress killed that one. Sec. Madigan started "Infoshare" and the consolidation of county offices in 1991. That effort evolved into the 1994 reorganization splitting FmHA and hiding Rural Electrification within RD, and then the aborted Glickman proposal for merged administrative support. The new millennium seems to have been relatively quiet, except for some more office closings.

I wonder how much NRCS and FSA customers use the Internet instead of county offices. I say this because I'm struck every day by how small the NY Times is when it lands on my doorstep. Newspapers seem to be losing more and more ground to the Internet. Retailers are also hurting now (it's been years since my wife or I were in a department store, though that is partially a reflection of how cheap we are, as well as our use of online shopping). Thinking abstractly, one would say there's fewer and fewer commercial farmers and more and more capability to do things online, so FSA is and should be on the way out.

On the other hand, government reacts slowly to changes and rural areas have lots more clout than the burbs and cities. And Congress seems determined to keep making the programs more and more complicated. ACRE, SURE, and direct attribution are good insurance against major changes in the number or organization of offices.

Old Aerial Photography

Here's an interesting article on efforts to retrieve the old aerial photography used in administering farm programs. The article refers to photos authorized in 1933, which surprises me but is possible. The project in Iowa is to try to identify possible "brownfields" for EPA, but they are historically important as well.

Bush Didn't Stop All Abortion Advice

My impression is that the Bush administration forbade government bureaucrats from discussing and recommending abortions. (On a playoff Sunday I'm not inclined to doublecheck my impression.) But apparently not, as this post from Extension Service shows. (Horses)

Pigford and Black Farmers

I'm not familiar with Colorlines but Jessica Hoffman has an article on black farmers and Pigford. It doesn't break new ground for those who have been following the subject. Via EWG Pipes

The Times They Are A'Changing: Cotton and Animals

Agweb.com carries a couple posts:

1 Cotton (a report on the Beltwide Cotton Conference):

"Now that grain has a solid footing in the old cotton strongholds, it could remain a factor at least for the near future. “Producers are telling me that farming grain is easy compared to cotton. There’s more time for family, for golf, for other things. We’re seeing a lot of grain bins built in the mid-South and they’re sure going to find ways to fill them,” says Tom Barber, Arkansas Extension cotton specialist."

2 Animals:

In 2008, there appeared to be an increase in well-funded animal rights activities directed at animal agriculture, according to the Animal Agriculture Alliance research.

In 2007, the latest reporting period available for review, charitable donations to animal rights groups rose 11% providing activist groups funds to develop activities such as California’s Proposition 2, undercover video operations, legislative initiatives and legal actions. Donations to the extremist People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and its subsidiaries increased 11%.

Most Incredible Sentence of the Week

“The protocol is you’re not supposed to talk to the President directly,” Frank said. from Jeffrey Toobin's profile of Barney Frank in the New Yorker, talking about the famous meeting on the $700 billion bank bailout bill.

My first reaction is: WHAT?

My second reaction is: What?

My guess, after I calmed down, is that this isn't a standard rule of protocol for meetings with President Bush, but a one-time only rule for this meeting. It would allow Bush to understand where all the parties are coming from, without having to do something dangerous, like ask questions.

The Cost of Federalism

OMB released some performance reports. Here's an interesting factoid from the report on improper payments:

Breaking-out the 12 programs identified in Exhibit 4 based on whether they are administered by states or the Federal government, shows a distinct difference in their reported errors. The combined error rate for the five Federally-administered programs was 1.4 percent while the combined error rate for the seven State-administered programs was 3.5 percent. The lower error rate among Federally administered programs may be due to having standard eligibility rules across the program. State-administered programs must follow Federal eligibility regulations; however, each state can define additional (and unique) eligibility requirements. These unique state variances may increase the challenges of administering these programs and could contribute to the higher error rates.

In other words the Federal bureaucracy is more effective at preventing improper payments than the 50 State bureaucracies.