Nuclear Posture Review: Oops! We Missed One!

In one of the more remarkable public course changes Washington has yet seen, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has added Israel’s name to the previously released short list of exceptions to the general policies articulated in the Pentagon’s new Nuclear Posture Review. Originally released on April 6, the Review, which stands as the highest expression of the nation’s nuclear strategy, stated that nonnuclear nations abiding by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would generally not be threatened with nuclear retaliation for non-nuclear attacks.

The policy did note the exception of “outliers” which were identical to the “rogue states” referred to by the Bush administration. At the time of the document’s release, Gates told a press conference, “There is a message for Iran and North Korea here…if you’re not going to play by the rules, if you’re going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you.” North Korea is known to have nuclear weapons and Iran is widely thought to be in active pursuit of a nuclear capability.

Now Gates has amended that list, noting that “upon careful consideration we have decided that a realistic appraisal of the situation requires that we acknowledge the existence of another nation widely believed not to be in compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty – Israel.” President Obama himself immediately asserted that what he called a “simple policy clarification” implied no change in United States policy toward its closest Middle East ally, saying this “in no way alters America’s commitment to the existence and security of Israel.” The addition, he said, “should not lead anyone to believe that hostilities with our great friend are even remotely anticipated.” He described it rather as a “signal” that his Administration considered it “important to convey to all parties in the region that we see the situation as it really is, not as we might wish to see it.”

Although the President steered clear of further detail, this first American acknowledgment that Israel, a non-signer of the Nonproliferation Treaty, has amassed a nuclear weapons arsenal is seen by many Middle East analysts as representing a potentially tectonic shift in world politics. Israel’s nuclear arsenal has been an open secret for decades. Former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu served 18 years in prison for telling the British press details of the nuclear weapons program in 1986. At the time, London’s Sunday Times estimated its production to be in excess of 100 weapons.

Israel’s first warhead is thought to have been produced in the late 1960’s. The country is also believed by many to have collaborated with South Africa in that country’s development of nuclear arms, before its force was dismantled in 1989 on the eve of the nation’s transition to majority rule. Current estimates put Israel’s warhead numbers at anywhere from 75 to 400; the high figure would likely make the country the world’s third largest nuclear power – after the United States and Russia. Israel’s official policy is to offer no comment on the matter.

Observers attributed this astounding “policy clarification” to delayed effects of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s surprising decision to name the President as the award’s recipient during his first year in office. One White House insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “As you know, the President in no way sought the Prize. In fact, a lot of people around him urged him to decline, thinking that it would place too high a burden of expectation around his future policies. But you see, the thing is the award seems to have gotten under his skin – to the point where he appears to have decided that if he’s ever going to play any kind of role in bringing peace to the Middle East, both sides have got to see him as being reality-based.”

Other sources noted that Gates was considered the right choice to be the messenger of such a bold policy alteration since he has altered it in the past – it is less than two years since the Defense Secretary declared that the U.S. would not forswear first use of nuclear weapons in retaliation for chemical or biological attacks upon the US or its allies, a policy that the new Review repudiates. At the time of his earlier statement, Gates was serving in his current position in George W. Bush’s Cabinet. One CIA source thought it would take several days for world opinion “to sort itself out over this shocking outbreak of candor.”

Okay, so Gates and Obama didn’t actually say anything about Israel’s nuclear arsenal and the way it might make the highly touted new Nuclear Posture Review seem hypocritical. But since the new policy was unveiled in early April, we could hardly wait until next April Fool’s Day to satirize it, now could we? The point of this little thought experiment in candor is not to suggest that any of the actual nuclear policy changes Obama is currently making or proposing are in any way wrong or useless. It is rather to illustrate just how much further the U.S. would need to go in order to actually be seen as “reality-based” in many parts of the world.
Domestically, the current administration is widely viewed as relatively “dovish” on matters relating to nuclear weaponry – at least in comparison to its predecessor. Likewise, the idea of dissuading Iran from joining the world’s nuclear powers is hardly a controversial one here at home. But the presumption that our government therefore enjoys worldwide credibility in these matters runs up against some harsh perceptions: For much of the world, the global campaign to prevent Iran from getting what Israel already has seems to indicate only that the one nation to have ever used nuclear weapons has no immediate plans to change its policies in any serious way.

Future of Afghanistan Complicated by Election Outcome

The Afghan presidential elections have ended. And I’m sure I’m not the only one to who finds the outcome thoroughly unsatisfying. After vehemently denying that his campaign had engaged in massive voting fraud, President Hamid Karzai essentially admitted to fraud, accepting the election commission’s revised vote tally. This revision dropped Karzai’s support from 54% to under 50%, triggering a runoff under the Afghan constitution. Karzai’s opponent in the runoff, Abdullah Abdullah, not in a position to actually win and fearing more fraud and violence with a second round of voting, dropped out of the contest, leaving Karzai the winner.

American officials act reasonably satisfied with these elections, though it’s hard to see why. They are now left with an Afghan partner in the escalating war against the Taliban that has run a shockingly corrupt and ineffective government, has garnered less than half the majority of votes cast in the election, and has committed large-scale fraud in a failed effort to win these elections. To sum up, Karzai has proven to be bad at governing Afghanistan, does not have the support of most of the Afghan people, and was caught trying to steal the election. While Karzai seems to have legitimately won a commanding plurality of the vote, his behavior indicates a blatant disregard for the electoral process and the rule of law that would be condemned by the US government had it occurred in a place such as Iran or Venezuela.

Though President Obama gave Karzai a scolding about improving his governance when he called to congratulate him on his victory, close US-Afghan cooperation is bound to continue. Indeed, if Obama has his way, it will increase (though he appears to be feeling less hawkish about Afghanistan than he was as candidate – perhaps because of this tainted election). And it should. The return of the Taliban poses a threat to Afghans, the region, and perhaps the world. After a decade of supporting violent religious fanatics (both Afghan and foreign) against the Soviets, and then walking away to let these extremists, drug kingpins, and warlords plunge the country into civil war, the US owes the Afghan people a serious commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan by providing security, promoting development, and nurturing a democratic government.

This means US military involvement is needed, but more importantly, it means overcoming the challenges of bringing things like water, electricity, roads, health care, education, and jobs to Afghans. Yet, hopes have been dashed that these elections would give Afghanistan a clear and legitimate democratic leader who was ready to work with the US and battle the Taliban with the support of the Afghan public. The muddied results will certainly make the work of the Afghan government, the US, NATO, and other foreign players more difficult. And the Taliban are already claiming victory, believing that their attacks stopped the second round of voting.

In the end, these elections give little hope for the immediate future of Afghanistan and the US mission there. By his own actions, Karzai has weakened his position vis-à-vis the Taliban, and the US will be hard-pressed to win Afghan hearts and minds while backing a largely discredited Afghan government and failing to follow through on efforts to improve the lives of Afghan people. US involvement is also becoming increasingly unpopular at home, and the longer US soldiers and aid workers are in Afghanistan, the more chances there are for casualties that may not be palatable to Americans who increasingly believe that there are unclear reasons to stay in Afghanistan.

The Obama administration is hopeful that Karzai will clean up his act and the UK is making threats that it can’t support a government that is so unapologetically corrupt. However, it is hard to imagine that the US or the UK – as heavily invested in Afghanistan as they are – will simply quit Afghanistan if Karzai continues running his government as is. The US certainly has some leverage over Karzai, but for now it has little choice but to put most of its eggs in one basket, hoping that he is the man best suited to improve life in Afghanistan and to fight the Taliban. Unrest seems sure to continue to plague Afghanistan, and US ability to win a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan has been seriously compromised by this election’s outcome. How adeptly Obama’s strategy can adapt to today’s complex political situation in Afghanistan and how well US forces can work with other regional players (Pakistan, India, Russia, Iran, China) will be key to preventing Afghanistan and the entire region from becoming more dangerous and unstable than they are today.

This is the second article covering the Afghan election and the fourth in a series on major elections in Asia this year.

Why Another Karzai Government May be Bad for Afghanistan

If you read the news (in the US anyway) it is common knowledge that what is most important in the current Afghan elections is not necessarily who wins, but that the elections be seen as legitimate and transparent by the Afghan public as well as the international community. Now, almost three weeks after election day, it is highly questionable whether the election process this time around will be, in the end, seen as legitimate by Afghans or the international community. There have been widespread allegations of voter fraud, including among supporters of sitting President Hamid Karzai. The sheer volume of complaints has pushed back the announcement of the election’s official results by at least two weeks.

With 90% of the vote counted, Karzai appears to have won 54% of the vote, with runner-up Dr. Abdullah Abdullah with 28%, and the remainder of the vote being split among 36 other presidential candidates. However, these results are not official, hundreds of thousands of votes have been thrown out, and there have been persistent allegations of massive voter fraud. It appears that there is substance to many of the allegations, raising the possibility that enough votes could be disqualified to drop Karzai’s tally to under the 50% that he needs to avoid a runoff with Abdullah. Investigations into voter fraud could last months, delaying any eventual runoff and threatening to plunge Afghanistan into more violence and perhaps a constitutional crisis as competing groups and candidates jockey for a position in whatever government eventually comes to power (or alternatively, strive to discredit and destabilize the government elect).

The reason for the strong opposition against Karzai has been his government’s extreme corruption and his political amorality in being willing to team up with unsavory former warlords like Abdul Rashid Dostum, accused of human right atrocities against Taliban captives under his control. The Afghan people also have seen Karzai largely as the candidate of the US and the international community which has generated distrust concerning the outcome of the vote, believing that his victory has been preordained without concern for Afghan opinion. If Karzai wins a majority in a flawed election process, his adminstration is sure to be dogged by accusations that it came to power illegitimately. Should he fail to win over 50%, his position would be confirmed as relatively weak while he would be subject to repeated opposition attacks (during and between election campaign) highlighting his corruption and poor administration. If Karzai were to win the runoff election, he would be returning to office with a poor record, a weak administration, and no mandate from Afghans. If on the other hand, Abdullah were to win the run off, there may be a public sense of hope for a new direction in Afghan politics, and a belief in the legitimacy of the electoral system. Nor would Abdullah have the amount of negative baggage that is holding Karzai back. While Abdullah’s backers are also likely to have engaged in vote fraud, the most serious allegations appear to be against the Karzai campaign. An Abdullah win would more likely be perceived as representative of a fair and legitimate electoral process.

The biggest difference between Karzai and Abdullah is that Karzai supports a government with power concentrated in the office of president, while Abdullah sees a parliamentary system as a more appropriate system for representing the diversity of Afghan beliefs and communities. An Abdullah win would mean a fundamental restructuring of the Afghan government with unpredictable results. In governing, Abdullah would probably need to rely on supporters as shady as Karzai’s, and his government would face the same difficult challenges to improving life in Afghanistan that Karzai’s would.

But it may just be time for a change. Karzai may have been the man for the job when the Taliban fell. He had an admirable history of brave opposition to the Taliban and al Qaeda. He challenged Presidents Bush and Musharraf on many aspects of his country’s rebuilding and advocated strongly for the Afghan people. He may have been the best chance to hold Afghanistan together after 2001, but now, his rule has become a liability for the Afghan state. A new leader is needed to bring legitimacy to the election process and to restore faith in the Afghan government itself. Bringing progress in Afghanistan will be a difficult task for anyone, but should Karzai win, it will be harder than need be.

This article is the third in a series about major elections taking place in Asia this year.  Part one and two covered the recent elections in India.

Kennedy: Policy Over Politics

Over the last two weeks, I’ve heard countless arguments about what the death of Ted Kennedy means to everything from health care to bipartisanship to the legacy of the New Deal to overall themes of leadership and compromise in Washington. At least in the mainstream media, there has been little nuanced introspection and examination of the what his legislative accomplishments may teach us about the policy dilemmas of the current day. Rather, most commentary, like virtually everything else on the airwaves during the congressional recess, has been dominated by political opportunists and windbag journalists who know of little outside of the rules of thumb that they have been taught in their elite circles. As I think about all of this, I myself ponder what Ted Kennedy’s real legacy may be for the substantive policy debates in months and years ahead

Outside of the man, his family, and close friends, most of us cannot begin to know for sure what Ted Kennedy himself would think. Instead, let’s take a look at his life of policy work through our own unique lens. By understanding this legacy, we can better frame our own ideas about the current situation and what may be the way forward.

Policy Lessons: Liberal Lion or Man of Compromise?

Of course, like all of us, Ted Kennedy’s life was anything but perfect. From the privileged youngest son of Camelot and playboy philanderer to the elder statesman who became a champion of the working class, Ted Kennedy lived an interesting life indeed. Most of us probably know the beginning and end of this story, along with several chapters in-between. However, what I believe is most instructive are the policy and legislative lessons of the period post-1980, after Kennedy’s presidential ambitions were slammed shut for good.

It was during this latter stage of his career that Ted Kennedy became known for being able to reach across the aisle to get things done. During this era, Kennedy was largely responsible for more legislation than any other Senator could dream of. There are too many bills to mention, but a few significant ones that Kennedy played a major role in during this time include:

The Americans with Disabilities Act

The Family and Medical Leave Act

The State Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program

No Child Left Behind Act

I purposely have included No Child Left Behind on this list as it is a bill that is often not all that popular with the base of the so-called Liberal Lion. This bill in particular has led many right-wing commentators to argue that Ted Kennedy was all about a compromise akin to capitulation, as so many of his centrist Democratic colleagues unfortunately have been over the past three decades. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. While Ted Kennedy was perfectly willing to compromise the means, I have yet to find an instance in this period where he compromised the ends. In order to get more funding for education, yes, he was willing to agree to tougher standards for teachers and more accountability through testing.  (Yes, the Bush administration did not follow through on all of the promised funding, but funding did increase.) Sure, in order to get a path for citizenship for illegal immigrants, he was willing to negotiate other issues with John McCain and George W. Bush in the immigration bill on which President Bush jumped ship after a backlash from his own base. However, at the end of the day, while he often was willing to meet the other side half way, that is not the same thing as capitulating on the main reason/goal that brought him to the negotiation table in the first place. If your goal is to provide all Americans affordable insurance options, you can be willing to negotiate the means of getting there, but any man or woman of principle simply cannot be willing to negotiate away the end goal.

While Ted Kennedy’s legislative record does teach us that one can accomplish much by being willing to accept frameworks that could be expanded in the future, it tells us nothing of  agreement to self-aggrandizing political compromises that have no real policy implications to ever improve the lot of those who you aim to help. According to recent reports, this type of debate is currently going on between the policy and politics people in the Obama administration. I firmly believe that the lessons of Kennedy’s legislative experience squarely support the ideals of the policy camp and those who choose real substance over faux accomplishment and photo ops.

What’s the Matter with Such Principled Negotiation Today?

Part of the problem with going a bipartisan route to achieving such compromise on policy matters, including the processes and mechanisms of bills such as health care, is that lately it seems that virtually no Republicans share the same overall end goals to improve policy. Sure, we may all disagree on what policy improvement should look like, but in order to negotiate we must at the very least agree that our end goal is to actually improve policy and not to simply pump up our political agendas. If it was a given that 10 GOP Senators honestly agreed to the goals of a good health care bill that extended affordable coverage to 95% of Americans, then Ted Kennedy’s type of compromise would work. If such honest negotiation was taking place on both sides of the aisle, the Senate finance committee would have reached an agreement months ago instead of being nothing but a vehicle for delay meant to kill any real reform. Unfortunately, in the current debates, it seems that with the possible exception of the two Senators from Maine, there are no honest brokers on the GOP side of the aisle today. For believers in a healthy diverse intraparty political system, this is disappointing to say the least.

Given these current dynamics, anyone who falls for such a bipartisan negotiation trap in the current political environment is at best naive, at worst guilty of political malfeasance. It would be akin to negotiating with Strom Thurmond over civil rights or Jefferson Davis over slavery. In times when there is no loyal opposition that is serious about policy improvements, bipartisanship is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Thankfully during many legislative battles of the past, such as the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s, there were supporters of change on both sides of the aisle and bipartisan compromise was not only possible, but the only way forward. Unlike today, during this time period both parties had national support that crossed both geographical and ideological lines.  When ideology and worldviews cross cut party identification on certain issues, those issues are ripe for bipartisan compromise. Otherwise bipartisanship means nothing.  Unfortunately the only real substantive policy negotiation that can occur today is between members of the same political party. This much has been obvious for a long time to anyone who has had their eyes open.

Bottom Line

When it comes to health care and other pending issues such as global climate change legislation, President Obama and Democrats in Congress need to choose policy over politics and hold out  the hope that doing the right thing for those who elected them will win out at the ballot box at the end of the day. It can’t be the other way around.  A real leader can do more with a four year window than a series of weak leaders could ever hope to accomplish in decades of impotent rule. It’s time for real leadership and adherence to ideals that would make Ted Kennedy proud.

Any views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of any organizations that the author is in any way affiliated with.

President Obama Stumps in New Jersey for Governor Corzine

Thursday, July 18, 2009

PNC Arts Center

3:15 pm– Members of the press passing out in a massive, seemingly endless line into the center, and its not on the account of President Obama but the scorching heat. Audacity of Hope? More like the Audacity of Heat Stroke

3:20 pm– I just made it through the security check and I didn’t even have to take off my shoes…Yes we can!

3:24 pm– Finally made my way down to the press pool seating area. In retrospect, I probably would’ve have sat in the blogger section, but then I’d be on the side of the Garden State Parkway.

3:30 pm– Some state senator approaches the podium and addresses the throngs of exuberant Obamaniacs and their one Corzine fan. She touts and panegyrizes the achievements and accomplishments of Governor Corzine. Yeah, how’s about addressing the fact that New Jersey received more than 17 billion dollars in Federal Stimulus money and yet no free bottled water in sub-Saharan heat.

3:32 pm– Much to the pleasure of the ultra-partisan crowd, State Senator begins to equate Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for governor, to president Bush. Not surprisingly, the crowd erupted in a raucous of boos. I think Bush is about as popular with the general electorate as flesh eating bacteria.

3:36 pm– Oh my, there appears to be a full-scale chorus singing. The chorus sang mellifluously and were very impassioned, but I fear I was much too much to distracted by the plethora of awkward white guy dancing. Clearly the black part of Obama would be put to shame.

3:45 pm– Whose Congressman’s leg do you have to hump to get a martini around here!

3:46 pm– Still no Obama or that other guy whom one person came to see.

4:00 pm– NJ Governor Corzine just made his way up the stage and to the podium and announces that he’s a Gay American. But seriously, Governor Corzine begins to address the enthusiastic crowd. What, too hot for sweater vests?

4:02 pm– Oh my, this man really needs to touch Obama because he has the charisma of a week’s old meatloaf. If he isn’t the Art Garfunkel to Obama’s Paul Simon…

4:05 pm– The topic of health care–the wheezing 800 pound gorilla in the emergency room–was broached.

4:08 pm– Governor Corzine panders to his most ardent supporters by playing up his support for unions and working class New Jerseyians.

4:12 pm– Governor Corzine announces the arrival of his good friend, Hillary Clinton. But seriously, President Obama has arrived!

4:13 pm– I think I just lost 80 percent of my hearing.

4:14 pm– President Obama begins to address the sweltering but ebullient crowd of thousands.

4:15 pm– I don’t care one iota if President Obama has back peddled on some of his campaign promises, belied some of his most vehement campaign rhetoric, and sheepishly kowtowed to the banks because he is adorable! He’s like puppy’s breath and new car scent all put in one! But seriously, President Obama exudes confidence and is highly commanding.

4:16 pm– Oh no he didn’t! I believe President Obama just handed Corzine his coat jacket. I guess Corzine is doing his laundry now.

4:18 pm– President Obama wastes no time in emphatically declaring Governor Corzine a crucial ally who had helped develop the national economic recovery plan, saving countless jobs, while working wonders on education and health insurance and still cutting the size of state government.

4:20 pm– President Obama seems very ensnared in his presidential campaign rhetoric and almost forgets that he got the job back in November. His tone is just as fiery and forceful as it was on the stump. Clearly Obama feels more comfortable in this arena than he does in the oval office.

4:25 pm– Health Care reform is explained not just in terms of the nation as a whole but to the great many small business owners suffering from soaring costs here in New Jersey.

4:30pm– Enough with all of this trivial health care reform! I want to know why the president hates flies and yellow mustard!

4:36– After lauding Governor Corzine for his own efforts in fixing health care, President Obama took this golden opportunity to highlight his own prescription for a workable and affordable health plan. In fact, President Obama took off the gloves and confronted the most vociferous republican and conservative Democrat opponents of his health plan by loudly declaring “What’s your Plan?!” Kudos!

“What’s your Plan?!” ~ President Obama

4:40 PM– President Obama concludes his 25 minute speech by reaffirming his support for Governor Corzine and thanks the crowd.

San Francisco Gets an Antiwar Congresswoman

The recent 226-202 House of Representatives approval of the supplemental budget was a particular disappointment to antiwar activists.  At one point they’d thought it might be possible to block the bill and its $79.9 billion Department of Defense appropriation earmarked largely for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, – at least temporarily.   Nonetheless, San Francisco antiwar voters might take some consolation in one thing anyhow – it appears that the city now has an antiwar Congresswoman.  And no, it’s not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Jackie Speier, elected just last year to represent the less liberal western part of the city and several towns on the Peninsula to the south.

Not only was Speier one of but sixty votes (fifty-one of them Democrat) against the budget in its first trip through the House, but she also made a second, tougher vote against it.  When House Republicans took umbrage at the addition of a $5 billion International Monetary Fund loan guarantee, they announced they would switch sides and vote against the bill upon its return from the Senate, raising the possibility of its defeat should the antiwar Democrat votes hold firm.

Predictably, they did not.  This time even Pelosi herself – who did not vote the first time as is common practice for a Speaker – was recorded in favor, presumably to demonstrate how much the House leadership really wanted the votes.  And yet, despite a San Francisco Chronicle report that “the White House has threatened to pull support from Democratic freshmen who vote no,” Speier did just that, one of only six freshmen – among thirty-two total Democrats – to do so.  Arguably, Speier was doing nothing but what San Francisco voters had directed her to do last November when 59 percent of them supported Proposition U which stated that the city’s Congressional representatives “should vote against any further funding for the deployment of United States Armed Forces in Iraq.”

But realistically speaking, although the ballot question’s only exception concerned “funds specifically earmarked to provide for their [American troops in Iraq] safe and orderly withdrawal” and did not exempt funding requests from Democratic Presidents, the fact that George Bush had negotiated a troop withdrawal agreement before leaving office seems to have made most House Democrats feel they have a pass to fund that war right through 2011. And certainly Pelosi has never given any indication of paying the proposition any heed despite the fact that 61 percent of her district backed it.

On the contrary, she’s made it clear that she views it as a Democratic Speaker’s duty to ensure the funding of what a Democratic President has now taken on as his wars.  Her spokesman, Brendan Daly, told the Chronicle that Pelosi was telling members “we need to do this, this is President Obama’s plan for both Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s got a plan to end the war in Iraq.  He’s got a plan to refocus our efforts in Afghanistan, and we need to support the president in that, and this is the right way to go.”

And yet when Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) proposed adding language calling for the Secretary of Defense to “submit to Congress a report outlining the United States exit strategy for United States military forces in Afghanistan” by December 31, 2009, it was no dice.  Pelosi’s view is apparently that the President shall give us his plan in his own good time. (McGovern has since filed his amendment as a free-standing bill with 84 co-sponsors.)

Her San Francisco colleague Speier, on the other hand, said she had “serious problems with the current wars” and didn’t believe that “escalating the conflicts make America or the world safer.”  Speier’s viewpoint is particularly welcome in that it differs so markedly from that of her predecessor, the late Tom Lantos, who voted for the first House resolution for the Iraq War (which Pelosi did not.)

Moreover, in her ascent to her new position, Speier had betrayed no particular maverick tendencies.  She gained it not through any kind of insurgent antiwar campaign but more of a vetting process of the area’s political establishment.  A former state legislator forced to leave office due to term limits, she had failed in a prior bid for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor. But when she announced her interest in the Lantos seat, it soon became clear that she would have the endorsements deemed to matter – and presumably the attendant campaign financing.  At this point, other potential candidates backed off and the insider consensus choice was presented to the voters for their ratification.  Speier then won 90 percent of the Democratic vote in a special primary after a campaign that seemed to involve less of telling people what she stood for than reminding them that they already knew her – and that her ultimate victory was inevitable.

So, at a point when the country’s antiwar movements are largely stalled, Bay Area antiwar voters can at least cheer the pleasant surprise of having a new Congresswoman willing to buck both the White House and the House leadership.

Gallup, Abortion, and Shades of Gray

With the economy, health care reform, environmental regulation, and other important issues being widely discussed in policy circles, it would be easy for one to forget about wedge issues, such as abortion. However, with the news of the shooting of  Dr. George Tiller, among other recent acts of extremist right-wing violence, and the debate over a new Supreme Court nominee, abortion is back on the front pages.

In this light, I decided that I would take a deeper look into a recent poll that was conducted by Gallup that found changing attitudes toward abortion in the US. Gallup’s results showed that for the first time since they began polling the issue 14 years ago,  more Americans identify themselves as “pro-life” than “pro-choice”.  According to this new poll, virtually all movement in public attitudes toward the pro-life position has occurred within the past year.  After reading about these results, I had several questions, including:

1. The dramatic shift in the past year looked a bit odd to me.  Could Gallup expand upon the bottom-line reasoning from their reporting?
2. What was the party breakdown of the poll? It doesn’t mention weighting, but perhaps they did weight. (If I remembered correctly from the Presidential tracking polls in 2008, one of the big differences between Gallup and Rasmussen was that Rasmussen weighted and Gallup did not, leading to more swings in the Gallup tracker.) My concerns here were that a smaller, more extremist Republican tent, could indicate a misleading swing if they were still weighted at their 2008 levels.
3. Relating to #2, I recently read that Gallup had nearly a 50/50 split in Party ID in this poll. Was this correct?
   

Thanks to my former graduate school classmate, Cynthia English, a Gallup writer and researcher, I had the honor of having my questions answered by Lydia Saad, a Senior Editor at Gallup who worked on this poll. Ms. Saad gave very thoughtful answers to my questions and went above and beyond what I expected. Here are some of Ms. Saad’s responses:

• Kevin’s memory is correct; we do not weight our surveys by Party ID. Although some pollsters do it, weighting by Party ID is not the standard in national RDD surveys. Party ID is essentially a political attitude like every other that we measure; and while it is generally stable from one survey to the next, it does change over time and is susceptible to survey-to-survey variation due to the content of a given survey. Weighting by party ID on election polls, for example, can be problematic since it’s asked after the candidate preference ballot, and therefore largely mirrors the ballot. To weight by party ID on these surveys is to essentially weight by the ballot.

• We did obtain a near 50-50 split in leaned party ID on the 2009 May Values survey. Because this was unusual, we did two things to check the validity of the data. We re-ran the abortion questions on the G1K track two days later, and obtained nearly the same results. That survey had a 10-point advantage for the Democrats on leaned party ID. We also did a post hoc reweighting of the data by party ID, using targets giving Democrats/Dem leaners a 14-point advantage (typical of what we’ve been getting on recent stand-alone polls) and re-ran the survey results . (This was for internal analysis only; we are not publishing the reweighted figures.) The figures changed by only 1-2 points in most cases – indicating that the party distribution of the sample did not account for all or even much of the change seen in the abortion trends. However, as noted in point A, we don’t consider the party ID distribution we obtained in the survey “wrong” just because it was different from what we obtain on other surveys. Thus, we stand behind the published figures based on our standard Census-based demographic targets.

• As highlighted in the story, and expanded on in the “bottom line” analysis, the major change in abortion attitudes over the past year was seen among Republicans and independents who lean Republican. Thus, even if we were to hold party ID constant across the two surveys, attitudes would have become less friendly to abortion rights because Republicans moved to the right, while Democrats stayed the same. The question is, why did Republicans become more conservative in their views on abortion? The “pro-life” side has been eager to attribute it to the “success of their efforts” on the issue. I’m dubious about that. Without a high profile “pro-life” campaign over the past year to attribute this to (which I can’t),  I would expect to see that sort of attitudinal change happen more gradually. This was abrupt. The major change that’s happened is that Obama was elected, and since he is “pro-choice” and those views have been forefront in the news over the Notre Dame flap, I think it’s reasonable to hypothesize that this has compelled some.

• The external validation component is very important. We are not alone in showing a shift toward the “pro-life” position (or anti-abortion position, in the case of legality questions). Aside from Gallup, four other organizations have come out with abortion data in recent weeks, and all of them show a more “pro-life” stance than they did in their last measurement in 2008 (all pre-election).

• “PRO-LIFE” V “PRO-CHOICE”
  Gallup Values survey shows a 7 point increase in “pro-life” and an 8 point decline in “pro-choice” (May 08 vs. May 09) SWING=15 POINTS.    Gallup G1K survey shows a 6 point increase in “pro-life” and a 7 point decline in “pro-choice” (May 08 vs. May 09) SWING=13 POINTS.    Fox News shows an 8 point increase in “pro-life” and 6 point decline in “pro-choice” (September 08 vs. May 09) SWING = 14 POINTS.    CNN shows a 1 point increase in “pro-life” and a 4 point decline in “pro-choice” (Aug 08 vs. April 09) SWING=5 POINTS.

• LEGAL/ILLEGAL
  Gallup Values survey shows a 3 point increase in “legal in only a few/illegal in all” and a 4 point decrease in “legal in all/most” SWING=7 POINTS.    Gallup G1K survey shows a 5 point increase in “legal in only a few/illegal in all” and a 6 point decrease in “legal in all/most” SWING=11 POINTS.    Quinnipiac shows a 3 point increase in “always/usually illegal” and a 5 point decline in “always/usually legal.” (July 08 vs. April 09) SWING=8 POINTS.    Pew shows a 3 point increase in “always/usually illegal” and an 8 point decline in “always/usually legal” (Aug 09 vs. Apr 09) SWING=11 POINTS.

Given these responses, I think it is fair to say that Gallup and others are on to something. There does seem to be a change, albeit possibly temporary, in attitudes toward abortion. Given this change, several questions come to mind:

1. Is reporting about abortion with only two binary options the most appropriate way of showing public opinion? What are some other options to polling about abortion?
2. Will this change be permanent or just a temporary blip in public opinion due to reasons that Gallup points out?

As far as reporting such polling results as binary options (”pro-choice” v. “pro-life” or always/sometimes legal vs. always/sometimes illegal), Gallup also thankfully breaks down its legal/illegal question into four categories. Granted, opinion on abortion is probably more nuanced than four categories, but it is encouraging that Gallup offers these details:

• Legal under any circumstance (change from 2008 to 2009):  -6 points
• Legal under most circumstances: +2 points
• Illegal under most circumstances: – 3 points
• Illegal under all circumstances: +6 points

While it is possible and in fact likely that many Republicans who once had a nuanced position on abortion now identify themselves in the extreme given the polarization of the GOP tent and the fear of an “abortion-loving president” from the talk radio set, the movement away from the “legal under any circumstances” category is still a bit  perplexing by the “Republican Party being more extreme” movement theory.  Are there really many Republicans who just one year ago thought abortion should be legal under any circumstance who now are 1.) Still Republicans AND 2.) No longer hold this position?  It’s possible, but definitely not as likely or as easily explainable as the movement toward the “illegal under any circumstances” camp.  Perhaps this cross-tabulation is just random noise, which wouldn’t be surprising since the margin of error is going to be much higher among these subgroups.

What are some other approaches for asking about abortion?

While I commend Gallup for asking about this question in more than a strictly binary fashion, it’s important to point out that there are other possible ways of asking about abortion that could possibly lead to very different baseline conclusions.  Paul Rosenberg does a nice job of summarizing the findings of the General Population Survey (GPS), which gives survey respondents three different abortion scenarios and asks them to indicate whether they think abortion should be illegal in:

1. None of these cases
2. One of these cases
3. Two of these cases
4. All of these cases

Since many people may have a hard time defining exactly what “pro-choice” and “pro-life” are (Gallup admits that it doesn’t necessarily endorse these terms, and hence uses them in quotes), this approach is nice because it conceptualizes the issue in three nuanced situations, ranging in acceptability.  By using this approach, the GPS finds that only 9% of respondents believe that abortion should be illegal in all three given cases.  This is not to say that this bottom-line result is more accurate than other polls, as it is  asking about slightly different things. (It’s also important to note that these numbers are not meant to in any way dispute Gallup’s trend, but rather to show that a different interpretation of baseline values could be made by using a slightly different methodology.)

What does this mean?

The book Myth of a Polarized America further explores some these issues and argues that most of the “pro-choice” versus “pro-life” debate is in fact media driven and that most Americans actually lie somewhere in the middle, holding a nuanced opinion about abortion and other social issues.  In this light, is it possible that media reports that only repeat binary results of such wedge-issue polls encourage the narrative of a divided, polarized America?

Although recent right-wing extremism may be afoot, it is important to remember that most of those that are pro-life are anything but extremists.  Despite what they may tell pollsters, one can legitimately argue that most Americans hold nuanced views that deserve nuanced reporting that respects the complexities that are inherent in such social issues. Given the apparent sudden change in attitudes, it will be interesting to look at this issue again in five or six months or in a year to see whether this is a short-term blip in response to the first brand-new Democratic President in 16 years or a sudden, sustainable change in public opinion.  The best period to which to compare this recent movement would be 1993, when President Clinton first took office. Unfortunately, 1993 was two years before Gallup began polling this issue.

Bottom Line

I applaud Gallup and others for looking in-depth at these issues and hope that the mainstream media can begin to report such public attitudes and beliefs with the nuance and respectful tone that they deserve.  Like most things in life, abortion does not involve mutually exclusive sets of ideas and values for most individuals.

Same-Sex Marriage: Obama’s Lincoln Moment

On Wednesday night, Governor John Baldacci of Maine signed legislation that he struggled to support. While governors are often pressed by their legislatures and constituents to support laws that they do not necessarily agree with, this bill—one that legalizes same-sex marriages—was a personal dilemma for the first-term governor. After weeks of agonizing over the decision, the Governor released a statement to the press that outlined the reasoning behind his eventual approval:

In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.

The first governor to sign a same-sex marriage bill, Baldacci touches on the heart of the same-sex marriage debate: The arguments for or against same-sex unions based on morality, religion, tradition, or any other logic is irrelevant. What matters is the law. And the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution that he refers to clearly states “[no] State [shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Which means that, like it or not, from Baldacci’s perspective, gays and lesbians should be entitled to the right to marry if straight people are allowed to marry.

Over the course of the past several months, four states have legalized same-sex marriage in their states: Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa, and New Hampshire (Massachusetts legalized gay marriage back in 2004). Recently, both New York and Washington D.C. have decided to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. And now there is talk that New Jersey may become the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage in the coming months.

Throughout this civil rights upheaval,  President Obama and his administration have remained conspicuously mum. According to the New York Times, Obama has said that as a Christian he opposes gay marriage but remains a “fierce advocate of equality” for gay men and lesbians. And so far, he has remained true to that statement by pledging to sign a U.N. declaration, which Bush refused to sign before he left office, that calls for a worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality (the United States was the only western nation not to support the measure). Moreover, Obama has continually recognized qualified persons with same-sex sexual orientations for top level jobs: In his short time in office, he has appointed numerous openly gay officials for executive administrative positions and may be considering two prominent lesbian lawyers to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court.

Although the saying goes that “actions speak louder than words,” his silence is an action that may indicate his political discomfort with gay rights advocacy. During the election, he reiterated that same-sex marriage is an issue that should be decided by the states. And, to a certain extent, he’s constitutionally correct: There is currently no federal marriage license that any straight couple can apply for but, then again, opposite-sex couples who marry in their home state trust that their marriage will be honored no matter which state they travel to or live in. And while there is no federal law regulating straight marriages, the 1996 Federal Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress regulates same-sex unions. The Act explicitly outlines that states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions performed in other states. That is a gross discrepancy.

While Obama has said that he supports a repeal of that legislation and of the military’s “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy, he has remained virtually silent on the gay marriage issue since he took office and has chosen to not comment on the landslide of same-sex marriage laws in recent months. Although this issue may not seem like a priority for the administration when they have an economic crisis and two wars to contend with, it should be a priority for the president since Obama has repeatedly stated that he wants America to rebuild and renew its reputation in the world. In a 2007 article he wrote for Foreign Affairs, he stated:

At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world — that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders. […] They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.

Yet, how can those freedoms be realized if America does not follow its own laws and ensure that all of its own citizens receive the same “protection” under the law? If President Obama is going to continue to reiterate that marriage laws should be left to the states, then he should actively pursue a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act since it is a federal measure. So too, if he wants America to “lead by deed and example” then he must show support for states that have passed inclusive marriage legislation and encourage others to do the same. It sets a very bad “example” to have some areas of the country have more “freedoms” for its citizens than others.

Or, Obama could take a cue from his favorite president, Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln took office in 1861, he viewed slavery as a states’ issue and expressly stated that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.” However, two years later, he delivered his Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves because it was “an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution.” Certainly, it is thorny comparison between slavery and gay rights and America is not in a civil war where gay marriage is, like slavery was, the catalyst for domestic combat; nevertheless the United States is at a civil rights crossroads that needs to be addressed by the President. Had Lincoln chosen to never take that stand on slavery, decided to put it off until later, or thought he could leave the responsibility on to the next administration, Obama may have never even had a chance to be our president. Obama should take a page from the book of his presidential idol and realize that, regardless of the political risk, he is obligated as America’s national leader to stand up for the rights of all Americans.

Obama has continually said that he wants his presidency to speak to and for all Americans. In his famous Democratic nomination acceptance speech, Obama evoked Martin Luther King and reiterated that “now is the time” for the United States to rebuild and renew:

[I]n America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one. “We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

Indeed, we cannot turn back and now is certainly the time.

They Grow Up So Fast

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in a case that was bizarre if only for the fact that it had to reach the Supreme Court at all. The case is apropos due to the recently-reported trend of what the media are calling “sexting”: the phenomenon of teenagers sending nude or semi-nude photographs of themselves to each other. It is another front in the War on Sexuality that parents and politicians have been fighting for years. The crux of the argument is this: teenagers should not be having sex, despite the fact that they’re probably in the sexual prime of their lives. It’s like trying to hold back the Colorado River with a wooden, beaver-made dam. It’s not that teenagers didn’t have sex in the past; certainly they did, but it just wasn’t discussed. Sexuality, for everyone — adults included — was something to be ashamed of. We’re just more open about it now. And that’s not a bad thing.

Earth to parents, teachers, and politicians: teenagers will have sex. They are having sex, probably right now. They are programmed to have sex. You can’t stop them. The most you can do is give them the information they need to make good decisions. If you deny them that information, you’re not preventing them from having sex; you’re just denying them information and ensuring that they will probably make bad decisions, instead.

Moving on.

Yesterday’s case involved 13-year-old Savana Redding, who was strip-searched because the principal heard a rumor (”an uncorroborated tip from the culpable eighth-grader,” says the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) that she might have brought prescription-strength ibuprofen to school. The school has a zero-tolerance policy for any drugs, whether outright illegal, prescription, or over-the-counter.

Let’s put aside for right now the tired arguments about how zero-tolerance policies don’t work, create criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens, and provide no room for human beings to make mistakes of varying degrees.

Let’s also put aside the fact that ibuprofen is not a narcotic and is not to be found on any of the five schedules of the Controlled Substances Act. The only reasons a kid would try to abuse ibuprofen are: (1) she’s really in a lot of pain; or, (2) she’s an idiot. Not only will ibuprofen not alter your mind in any way, taking too much of it will give you tremendous pain and cause stomach bleeding. I’d love to think that Safford Middle School was only looking out for the best interests of its students in preventing an overdose on prescription-strength ibuprofen, but sadly, I don’t really think that’s the case. I think what’s far more likely is an overzealous administrator cracking down on anything and everything that appears to be “drugs.”

In case the summary of this case isn’t disturbing enough and you’d rather have the play-by-play, just read the “Background” section of the Ninth Circuit Court’s opinion. For one, Savana didn’t refuse the search because she said that she felt as though she would be in more trouble if she didn’t comply. If this isn’t the very reason for the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against “unreasonable search and seizure” — namely, the threat of punishment for people who don’t agree to warrantless searches — then I don’t know what is.

If Savana were an adult an not in school, her constitutional rights would clearly have been violated, the authorities would be in a world of legal hurt, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Not to mention that the uncorroborated testimony of a suspect would not have been sufficient evidence for a search even in the Real World. (By the way, the girl who was caught with the ibuprofen, the girl who fingered Savana as the supplier, was not punished.)

But since Savana is in school, and the doctrine of in loco parentis is in play, she suddenly has greatly reduced constitutional rights. Civil Liberties Lite, specially designed for children. Naturally, the principal could have obtained permission from the girl’s parents to perform such a search. For some unfathomable reason, he didn’t, apparently unaware, in his quest to save children from themselves, of the kinds of torts he could be exposing (no pun intended) the school district to. One man’s “reasonable search” is another man’s “assault and battery.”

For a great analysis, check out Slate’s evaluation of the oral arguments, which includes this wonderful sentence about the cognitive dissonance between “school districts all around the country finding naked photos of teens and immediately calling in the police for possession of kiddie porn. Yet schools see nothing wrong with stripping these same kids naked to search for drugs. Evidently teenage nakedness is only a problem when the children choose to be naked.” (Please read this transcript of the oral arguments.)

Then again, should we be surprised the depths to which our police powers are going? And isn’t it surprising that we shouldn’t be surprised? Though I hate to harp on the damage that the George W. Bush administration has done to this country, it’s harping that must be done because the damage is real, significant, and pervasive. The average American’s expectation of privacy has gone down in this Post-9/11 World. Intrusive, unlawful searches are now expected and have become normalized as we are told that these are necessary trades for a gain in security. It would be one thing if there were empirical data indicating that, say, a 10% decrease in liberty causes a 10% or greater increase in security. At least then we could have a debate (even though it still wouldn’t be ethical to trade in that liberty). But as it is now, we have no data indicating that an increase in surveillance cameras yields a decrease in crime, or that warrantless wiretapping is more effective than lawful wiretapping, or that unreasonable strip searches of 13-year-olds yield drug possession convictions. (Well, actually, we have some anecdotal evidence for the last one: Savana had no drugs on her person. One wonders if the principal contemplated a body-cavity search.)

Sorry for the rant. Back to my original thesis: teenagers occupy a nebulous zone between children and adults. Biologically, they are “adults,” even though mentally they are not quite adults, or at the very least, lack the experience of adults. Yet, what qualifies one as an “adult”? There are plenty of adults — cf. global financial crisis — who act like children, and yet we afford them the right of adults, not of children. It was quite brave for the court to admit, in Tinker v. Des Moines, that humans who are defined as children are as capable of profound thought and understanding as humans who are defined as adults, and in so recognizing, that the speech of those so-called children ought to be just as protected as the speech of so-called adults. Unfortunately, the court has continued to shoot itself in the foot over the years, eroding the rights of schoolchildren because, hey, they’re just kids! What do they know?!

We routinely ask teenagers to take on adult responsibilities — President Obama has emphasized volunteering, for example — and yet we fail to consider that they have adult minds, adult thought processes, and adult opinions. Show me a teenager who has made a bad decision and I’ll show you an adult who has made an equally bad decision — or possibly a worse one, since adults are afforded more rights and thus the capability to screw up more in degree than a teenager can. (A teenager sure can’t get a mortgage that he knows he can’t pay for!)

Nevertheless, the brains of humans in the midst of puberty are chemically different from the brains of children or full adults, and it is for this reason that teenagers do a lot of stupid things. But sometimes, teenagers do great things that are on par with the great things that adults do. There’s no reason to assume the worst when it comes to teenagers, as the assistant principal at Safford Middle School did.

Starry, Starry Plight: Obama and the Space Program

Space enthusiasts are watching and listening carefully to find out how President Barack Obama will support NASA during his administration. Earlier this year he gave the space agency a glowing endorsement:

When I was growing up, NASA inspired the world with achievements we are still proud of. We cannot cede our leadership in space. We need a real vision for space exploration. Let’s also tap NASA’s ingenuity to build the airplanes of tomorrow and to study our own planet so we can combat global climate change. Under my watch, NASA will inspire the world, make America stronger, and help grow the economy.

Before we dive into recent developments, a brief review of NASA under George W. Bush is in order. NASA achieved some laudable feats in the last eight years, notably:

• It greatly expanded the International Space Station (ISS) to add more solar panels, laboratories, and living space (with contributions from other nations, notably Russia and Canada).
• It successfully landed two Mars rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) that have been sending pictures back for 5 years, much longer than originally anticipated.
• It repaired and upgraded the Hubble Space Telescope, which has sent more than half a million images back to Earth.
• It developed the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, which will take astronauts to the Moon and Mars.
• It launched the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has produced sensational images of Mars.

In particular, the string of successful trips to Mars stands in stark contrast to previous missions. Historically most attempts to explore the Red Planet have failed, including one notorious disaster in 1999 caused by a mix-up of measurements made with the metric and English systems.

Yet since the achievements of the Apollo program that landed astronauts on the Moon, there hasn’t been a program that has evoked the same widespread level of interest here and abroad. Indeed in March President Obama made reference to this in an answer to a reporter’s question about the shuttle program

NASA has yielded — or the space shuttle program has yielded some extraordinary scientific discoveries. But I think it’s fair to say that there’s been a sense of drift to our space program over the last several years. We need to restore that sense of excitement and interest that existed around the space program. And shaping a mission for NASA that is appropriate for the 21st century is going to be one of the biggest tasks of my new NASA director.

Sadly as of this writing, The White House’s Technology Page does not include any mention of the space program. Obama has not yet appointed a new NASA administrator, though rumors have been circulating this year about the possible pick of astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson. Anyone who has seen Tyson on PBS’s NOVA scienceNOW cannot deny his charisma and enthusiasm for astronomy and space exploration. Tyson is currently the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York and is famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) for advocating the demotion of Pluto from a planet to a “dwarf planet.”

Financial support for NASA remains strong despite the severe worldwide recession. The fiscal year 2010 budget of $18.7 billion is $2.4 billion above the 2008 amount. The first priority listed in their budget summary is climate change monitoring and research. President Obama has repeatedly mentioned addressing global warming as a top issue, as noted in my last article.

NASA scientist James Hansen continues to be a fierce advocate for action to combat global warming. In 2006 he complained that the Bush Administration was trying to silence his dire warnings for political reasons. In December 2008, James Hansen and his wife Anniek Hansen sent an open letter to then President-Elect Obama (and his wife Michelle Obama) urging him to phase out traditional polluting coal plants, support an aggressive carbon tax plan, and encourage R&D of modern nuclear power plants.

Many people are sad to see the end of the successful space shuttle program, currently scheduled for 2010. If and when the shuttle program is canceled, Florida residents may bear the brunt of the employment fallout with 8,000 or more jobs on the line. However a congressman and congresswoman from Florida have introduced legislation to keep the shuttle program alive a bit longer.

The new Orion spacecraft and companion Ares Launch Vehicles are presently in the testing phase. NASA expects to fly the first missions in 2014 or 2015, leaving us with at least a four-year gap in the government’s space transportation system. (Private companies will carry supplies to the ISS, and the Russian Soyuz will be used to rotate crews.)

The James Web Space Telescope (JWST), often described as the successor to Hubble, is currently in development and expected to be deployed in 2013. NASA intends to keep Hubble in operation until at least that time, to avoid any interruption in data collection. JWST is substantially larger than Hubble, though lower in mass. Hubble detects light in the optical and ultraviolet ranges, and can be repaired in space, while JWST will collect data only from infrared light. Nevertheless, JWST will allow scientists to peer substantially further back into the distant past, closer to the origin of the universe.

There have been reports that Obama might combine some space programs from NASA and the Pentagon. The Pentagon’s space budget is significantly higher than NASA’s total budget, and some observers wonder whether the space vehicle gap might be filled in by the military. The merger discussions have been fueled by the fear that China has strong military intentions for its own space program.

While the U.S. must be mindful of threats to our security from other nations, a strong militarization of NASA would be an unfortunate turn of events. NASA was founded during the Eisenhower Administration to conduct non-military space activities. Obviously there is already significant overlap in personnel, and technology flows in both directions. But it would be very sad if NASA becomes distracted or subverted by security issues.

Other controversies still brewing include:

• Arguments about whether robots or humans should be sent to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.
• Whether we should ever bother going back to the Moon.
• Calls for President Obama to fire NASA’s inspector general Robert Cobb — a recent New York Times editorial accused him of being unethical and ineffectual.
• How much we should cooperate with other nations’ space programs.
• An oldie but a goodie–whether NASA should even exist given all the problems we have to solve on Earth.

Despite the criticisms and controversies, the space program is a vital part of our national identity. It has inspired generations of students young and old, capturing their imagination like nothing else. The dream of human flight and exploration will not go away as long as birds take wing and stars and planets twinkle. NASA must survive and thrive during Obama’s time in office, so we may continue to watch over our pale blue dot from space and keep looking at the stars.

(Thanks to Michael Conway for suggesting the title of this article.)

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