UPDATE:

This comes in the way of a little “we told you so” or “we’ve been saying that all along” but admittedly, it is nice to see it in print.

From Jake Tapper of ABC News

Dems’ Iraq Plan Looks Familiar to John Kerry Similar Plan to Senator’s Proposal in October 2005

Allies of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., point out that the current withdrawal (or “phased redeployment”) proposal introduced last week by Senate Democratic leaders and currently being debated on the floor of the U.S. Senate greatly resembles plans Kerry introduced in October 2005 as well as in June 2006.

Moreover, they note - with regret in their voice and bile in their mouths - for his efforts at the time Kerry and his plan were mocked and belittled by his fellow Democratic senators, at least one of whom joined Kerry at a press conference today to push the new proposal.

...

Asked after the press conference if Reid’s plan wasn’t the same as his from last June, Kerry smiles and said, “They’re very similar.”

So what took his colleagues so long to come to the conclusion he reached about a “phased redeployment” back in October 2005?

“These things take time,” Kerry said. “Things have to percolate. That’s the nature of legislation.”

...

Asked today about the lack of support - and anonymous sniping - he experienced back then from the same Democratic senators he stood with today, Kerry said “I’m not interested in going backwards.”

He then resisted one more effort by this reporter to prod him into a more emotive response, smiled, and walked off.

Enjoy your reading!

 

[Editor’s Note: JK blogger KarenNJ went to the first stop on the book tour for JK and Teresa’s new book in NYC last night. It was presented at the 92nd Street Y and took the format of Charlie Rose interviewing John and Teresa. ]

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John and Teresa Kerry interviewed by Charlie Rose

Though billed as a talk with John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry about their new book, the interview covered a broad range of topics, from the environment, to the situation in Iraq and the rest of the middle east and near east, to 2004 and 2008 politics. It was most interesting when the Kerrys succeeded in bring the conversation back to the environment.

In explaining how the book started, Teresa Heinz Kerry spoke of how while campaigning in 2004, both she and John spoke to many people who were trying to do something about environmental problems in their communities. The book was designed to celebrate them and the hope they provided. Sen. Kerry spoke of hoping that we have reached the critical mass to make the changes needed and said that Al Gore deserves all the accolades given to him.

JK then said that the situation is more urgent than most people think. He spoke of having gone to a board meeting of scientists at the Heinz Foundation that Teresa heads last week and that even though he is a Senator, sitting on committees that have held hearings, he was stunned by the latest research. He spoke of how the feedback from Mother Nature has been unbelievably more than anticipated. He then described how the oceans have absorbed more than half of the carbon dioxide and have become more acidic and significantly warmer in our lifetime. In addition to melting the ice caps, he described problems like Spruce forests in Canada being infested by insects that previously could not have withstood the cold. <!-more-> Asked what could be done, Kerry responded that we need to mandatory caps on greenhouse gases, though he admitted that the political will was not there yet. When asked why some leaders were not acting, Teresa answered that some people don’t know the facts and agents for change were needed. Both spoke of how making needed changes could be an uplifting experience. Kerry spoke of how energy efficiency was the key to lowering costs enough to make it economically competitive for Texas Instruments to keep a plant in the US rather than moving it to China.

Teresa, asked about what she does with the foundation, explained the approach of “venture philanthropy” where they look at the chance to succeed and the risk of failing on various projects that do good. She spoke of how starting in the 1990s, in the middle of a recession, they built the first Green headquarters building in Pittsburgh. Through their efforts, they made Pittsburgh into one of the Greenest big cities.

From there, the topic switched to technologies – where Kerry spoke of needing to cap carbons and switch to renewable energy sources. On clean coal, Kerry spoke of two methods that have been proposed to make using coal, a plentiful energy resource in the US, cleaner. He then spoke of how in 2004, he proposed funding many parallel techniques for doing this to see what works and to then use the best methods. He said that solar, while renewable, is too expensive currently to provide much of the energy. He did mention a Chinese entrepreneur who has become wealthy selling a solar device.

Kerry noted that some people were uncomfortable with the nuclear choice, but that it might be needed especially if none of the clean coal methods work. Teresa spoke of how ethanol can’t be the complete answer – especially when it leads to cutting the Amazon rainforest.

At that point, Charlie Rose asked questions on Iraq, Iran, the middle east, Afghanistan and North Korea. After, smiling and holding up his book and saying that those issues are not in the book, Senator Kerry gave his usual sensible, brilliant answers. Rose then read Kerry a Dick Cheney comment from yesterday that attacked people dissenting from Bush’s surge plan. Kerry responded by saying that “Dick Cheney owes us not just candor, but the truth.”, explaining that Cheney attacked a strawman, not the position of any Democrat.

Teresa was asked about a very negative quote on Kerry’s 2004 campaign. She spoke of how they did put their ideas, heart and guts into winning and defended Kerry very, very well.

When asked about “the two front runners that he serves in the Congress with, Kerry mentioned that Dodd and Biden were also candidates and that he remembered how it is when it is hard to get people to listen to you.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

Sounds like it was an interesting evening. Thanks, Karen, for sharing it with us.

For those interested in finding out about other events on the book tour, check out the schedule here and see the excerpts here and here.

 

In December 2005, JK spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations giving an address titled, “Real Security in a Post-9/11 World”. It is worth revisiting in its entirety but one of the underlying points of the speech was the need for us to use all the tools in the toolbox, to move away from overwhelming reliance on the military option to fight terror and to develop a more multi-faceted approach to bringing peace and stability to our world. He mentioned in particular, the need for US citizens to develop a deeper understanding of the world we are engaged in, to “mobilize our universities and our intellectual capital to understand and address the challenges that we face. We need a real investment in language studies and area studies so that our intelligence, our use of force, our diplomacy are better informed and more effective.”

With that thought in mind, I’d like to point out some resources that we can use to broaden our understanding of the world we are engaged in. Past blogposts have highlighted information about Lebanon and about the Shia – Sunni history. In this one I’d like to focus on Iran. In preparing this post, I’ve come to realize there is no easy way to do this. Iran just has so much history. So we’re going to take one small step today in pointing out learning resources and we’ll visit it again.

First off, let’s start with a re-adjustment of how we think of Iran and its current day position with regard to the US. Not all that long ago, Iran was a significant partner for us against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Newsweek ran a lengthy story by Michael Hirsch and Maziar Bahari called “Rumors of War” in the Feb. 19, 2007 issue. In it they highlighted a story of cooperation between Iran and the US that occurred after 9/11—a story that we don’t hear much about these days but it illustrates the cyle of cooperation and confrontation that exists between the two nations.

Yet a NEWSWEEK investigation has also found periods of marked cooperation and even tentative steps toward possible reconciliation in recent years—far more than is commonly realized. After September 11 in particular, relations grew warmer than at any time since the fall of the shah. America wanted Iran’s help in Afghanistan, and Iran gave it, partly out of fear of an angry superpower and partly in order to be rid of its troublesome Taliban neighbors. In time, hard-liners on both sides were able to undo the efforts of diplomats to build on that foundation. The damage only worsened as those hawks became intoxicated with their own success. The secret history of the Bush administration’s dealings with Iran is one of arrogance, mistrust and failure. But it is also a history that offers some hope.

For Iran’s reformists, 9/11 was a blessing in disguise. Previous attempts to reach out to America had been stymied by conservative mullahs. But the fear that an enraged superpower would blindly lash out focused minds in Tehran. Mohammad Hossein Adeli was one of only two deputies on duty at the Foreign Ministry when the attacks took place, late on a sweltering summer afternoon. He immediately began contacting top officials, insisting that Iran respond quickly. “We wanted to truly condemn the attacks but we also wished to offer an olive branch to the United States, showing we were interested in peace,” says Adeli. To his relief, Iran’s top official, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, quickly agreed. “The Supreme Leader was deeply suspicious of the American government,” says a Khameini aide whose position does not allow him to be named. “But [he] was repulsed by these terrorist acts and was truly sad about the loss of the civilian lives in America.” For two weeks worshipers at Friday prayers even stopped chanting “Death to America.”

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The fear dissipated after Sept. 20, when the FBI announced that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks. But there was new reason for cooperation: for years Tehran had been backing the Afghan guerrillas fighting the Taliban, Osama bin Laden’s hosts. Suddenly, having U.S. troops next door in Afghanistan didn’t seem like a bad idea. American and Iranian officials met repeatedly in Geneva in the days before the Oct. 7 U.S. invasion. The Iranians were more than supportive. “In fact, they were impatient,” says a U.S. official involved in the talks, who asked not to be named speaking about topics that remain sensitive. “They’d ask, ‘When’s the military action going to start? Let’s get going!’ “

Opinions differ wildly over how much help the Iranians actually were on the ground. But what is beyond doubt is how critical they were to stabilizing the country after the fall of Kabul. In late November 2001, the leaders of Afghanistan’s triumphant anti-Taliban factions flew to Bonn, Germany, to map out an interim Afghan government with the help of representatives from 18 Coalition countries. It was rainy and unseasonably cold, and the penitential month of Ramadan was in full sway, but a carnival mood prevailed. The setting was a splendid hotel on the Rhine, and after sunset the German hosts laid on generous buffet meals under a big sign promising that everything was pork-free.

The Iranian team’s leader, Javad Zarif, was a good-humored University of Denver alumnus with a deep, measured voice, who would later become U.N. ambassador. Jim Dobbins, Bush’s first envoy to the Afghans, recalls sharing coffee with Zarif in one of the sitting rooms, poring over a draft of the agreement laying out the new Afghan government. “Zarif asked me, ‘Have you looked at it?’ I said, ‘Yes, I read it over once’,” Dobbins recalls. “Then he said, with a certain twinkle in his eye: ‘I don’t think there’s anything in it that mentions democracy. Don’t you think there could be some commitment to democratization?’ This was before the Bush administration had discovered democracy as a panacea for the Middle East. I said that’s a good idea.”

Toward the end of the Bonn talks, Dobbins says, “we reached a pivotal moment.” The various parties had decided that the suave, American-backed Hamid Karzai would lead the new Afghan government. But he was a Pashtun tribal leader from the south, and rivals from the north had actually won the capital. In the brutal world of Afghan power politics, that was a recipe for conflict. At 2 a.m. on the night before the deal was meant to be signed, the Northern Alliance delegate Yunus Qanooni was stubbornly demanding 18 out of 24 new ministries. Frantic negotiators gathered in the suite of United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. A sleepy Zarif translated for Qanooni. Finally, at close to 4 a.m., he leaned over to whisper in the Afghan’s ear: ” ‘This is the best deal you’re going to get’.” Qanooni said, ” ‘OK’.”

That moment, Dobbins says now, was critical. “The Russians and the Indians had been making similar points,” he says. “But it wasn’t until Zarif took him aside that it was settled … We might have had a situation like we had in Iraq, where we were never able to settle on a single leader and government.” A month later Tehran backed up the political support with financial muscle: at a donor’s conference in Tokyo, Iran pledged $500 million (at the time, more than double the Americans’) to help rebuild Afghanistan.

Not what we’re accustomed to hearing these days with regard to Iran.

As I complained to someone as I was researching this, the problem is Iran just has too much history. Actually, it’s just that it doesn’t lend itself to a 3 paragraph summary. I did find some resources that may be of help to those who are starting from square 1 with regard to knowledge of Iran. And as always in this region, current events have deep historical roots which are ignored only at great peril.

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have resource pages on Iran which provide a brief overview of the current geography, economy, population as well as a brief history. If you’ve not read anything before about Iran, this may be a good place to start. The history summaries, which both draw from the Columbia University Electronic Encyclopedia, are “readable”.   WaPo history     NYTimes history

I found this timeline of Iranian/’Persion History placed side-by-side with historical milestones elsewhere in the world very useful in getting my arms around just how much Iranian history there is. The same people at Iransaga have also developed a very readable history with some great maps.

The Wikipedia entry on Iran has a good summary of Iranian history and culture along with a few pictures.

There is a much more scholarly source of articles about Iran and Iranian history at CAIS, The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies. They also have a “brief history” of Persia which covers earlier Iranian history with some interesting details.

Here is another timeline of Iranian history which stretches back 7000 years. I found their summary of the period starting in 1900 interesting.

For those comfortable in acquiring some of their background knowledge from blogs, there’s a highly readable 7-part series at dailykos by diarist Unitary Moonbat, an amateur historian, titled “History for Kossacks: Persia”. Lengthy but entertaining as well as informative.   Parts   1-   -2   3-   -4   5-   -6   7

Finally, a query placed to Juan Cole of Informed Comment brought these recommendations for those with access to libraries or a good online ordering service.

— Nikki Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 1981, and the updated, expanded Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, Updated Edition, Aug. 2006.

—Alessandro Bausani’s little book, The Persians, though older, is good for the earlier period.

—Elton Daniel also has a survey, The History of Iran

If you have any recommendations for reading about Iran, either modern history, current day events or more of Iran’s extensive history, please share them with us in the comments.

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The Democratic Daily post, “Kerry’s Big Ideas for Small Business”, highlighted this Boston Globe article

When the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship convenes a public hearing this morning , it will address an issue its new chairman, Senator John F. Kerry , acknowledges is “a little off the beaten track.”

The topic: climate change. The Massachusetts Democrat wants to gauge its impact on small businesses and explore how they can help prevent it.

Spurring emerging companies to develop alternative energy technologies is only one of the senator’s priorities for the panel. Other priorities he cited during an interview in his Boston office this week include reducing the cost of healthcare and boosting research and development funding for small businesses, while looking for ways to make the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 to counter a wave of corporate financial accounting abuses, less onerous.

...

The senator already is using his perch on the small business committee as a bully pulpit to promote entrepreneurship and tackle the problems he believes are hindering it—even those, like global warming, that have an impact far beyond the small business arena.

Since he assumed the committee chairmanship when Democrats took control of the Senate chamber in January, Kerry has advocated for universal healthcare, pressed for a review of disaster recovery contracting practices, and grilled Steven Preston , new head of the Small Business Administration, on the agency’s priorities.

Kerry said budget cuts have left the SBA “hamstrung in its ability to serve small businesses.” Of Preston, he said, “He’s doing his best to try to turn things around. But it’s very hard for him because he doesn’t have the resources or the budget he would like to have.”

From EarthTimes, the Small Business Committee press release on the Climate Change hearing on 3-8-3007 also noted:

With small businesses responsible for 50 percent of all energy consumption, as well as half of the entire economy, Kerry stressed the importance of providing resources and tools to small businesses to help them develop cutting-edge technologies to address climate change and become more energy efficient.

“We have reached a critical moment in the fight to save this planet, and we can’t win the fight without the support of the private sector. Big Business can help and the government needs to get off the sidelines, but we need a concerted effort from America’s small businesses to bring us home,” said Kerry. “Many small businesses, from Massachusetts to California, are already playing a critical role in creating the technologies that are helping America to become energy independent. These companies aren’t only saving the planet—they are growing the economy and they are creating new jobs. We need an energy revolution as far-reaching as the industrial revolution. Small companies, which employ half of all private sector workers and produce half of our GDP, can help lead that revolution.”

JK was honored for his work on behalf of Veteran Small Business owners and 2 new initiatives were announced at an event sponsored by the American Legion.

Senator John Kerry today was honored by the American Legion for his work on behalf of veteran small business owners.

...

Kerry has long been an advocate of providing opportunity and outreach to our returning veterans. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, he has made helping veteran and reservist entrepreneurs one of his top priorities.

Kerry believes the government can and must do more to ensure that veterans will have economic opportunities waiting for them at home. He has created Military Economic Injury Disaster Loans and has proposed a Small Business Military Reservist Tax Credit and the Military Family Bill of Rights legislation. He has pledged to continue to push for legislation to create grant funding to assist small businesses during an employee’s active duty assignment.

At a reception in Washington, D.C. today, two new initiatives between the Northeast Veterans Business Center (NEVBC) in Boston and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) were also announced. The initiatives will provide coaching and training to veterans who are recovering at VA facilities in Bedford and D.C. Bernie Cournoyer, LRC, the managing director of the Veterans Construction Team at Edith Nourse Rogers Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Mass. who started the first-in-the-nation Veterans Construction Team there in 1992 as part of the Compensated Work Therapy (CWT) Program will announce a new agreement with the NEVBC. The NEVBC will provide entrepreneurship training and help in placing veterans with service-disabled veteran owned businesses. In Bedford, 250 veterans participate in the CWT program each day, putting $3 million a year into veterans' hands -- 90 percent of whom were homeless when they started the program. The NEVBC will also partner with Walter Reed Military Hospital to provide business training and development to recovering injured service members.

<!-more-> Inc magazine noted the release of the GAO report on the Katrina recovery and impact on small business in an article titled, “Report: Gulf Coast Contracts Lack Transparency”

Federal Computer Week also commented on the GAO report in “Katrina subcontracting plans incomplete, GAO finds”.

Departments should keep better records of subcontracts going to small businesses during emergency situations, such as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report. GAO also said inspectors general should review recordkeeping practices.

Required information on small business subcontracting is not consistently available in official procurement data systems of the Defense and Homeland Security departments, the General Services Administration, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, GAO found. Specifically, the systems had no information on whether DHS or GSA required subcontracting plans for 70 percent or more of their contracting funds. But when agencies decided the plans were unnecessary, they often gave no explanation, GAO found.

... Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, commissioned the report to learn whether subcontracting opportunities were readily available to small businesses during the initial phases of Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts after Hurricane Katrina, according to a letter sent March 1 to DOD, DHS, GSA and the engineer corps.

“Obviously, it’s very difficult to complete my oversight responsibilities in determining whether small businesses are receiving meaningful disaster-related subcontracting opportunities where data is incomplete,” Kerry wrote to executives of those departments and agencies.

In his letter, Kerry requests that agency executives send guidance to their procurement offices about better keeping data. He also wants IGs, not agency staff members, to review the offices’ performance.

  A CBS News/AP story on the progress of the recovery from Katrina quoted JK:

“Long-term recovery for the Gulf Coast requires a whole lot more than 18 months of empty promises,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. “Businesses that were once the heart of the Gulf Coast economy are now hanging on by a thread.”

Kerry said legislation offering tax breaks to encourage businesses to build or expand in areas hit by hurricane was a good first step. But, he said, the government’s disaster loan program needs to be overhauled, fixing problems that have prevented businesses from getting timely financial assistance.

The HispanicTips blog noted JK’s appearance at a conference sponsored by the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“Senator John Kerry D-Mass. praised the energy and entrepreneurship of Hispanic business owners around the country today as he addressed the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerces 17th Annual Legislative Conference. Kerry, the chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, also outlined his priorities for advancing small business interests and Latino entrepreneurship.

“Hispanic businesses play a vital role in fueling our economy. With Hispanic firms growing three times faster than other businesses, advancing Latino entrepreneurship isnt a Latino issue, its an American issue,” said Kerry. “Average income for Latinos in Massachusetts is half of the average income for the entire state. The key to bridging this wealth gap is investing in entrepreneurial development and small business programs targeted to the Hispanic community. I am committed to pursuing an aggressive agenda to make sure these entrepreneurs have the tools and opportunities necessary to start, maintain, and grow their business and I thank the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for their leadership in this effort.””

MySuccessGateway blog pointed to JK’s op-ed in the Wooster Business Journal

From corner stores to internet startup companies, small businesses are the backbone of the American economy. And, while Massachusetts small business owners have what it takes to keep our economy strong, they could still use a strong advocate in the federal government to make their case.

That is why we have a Small Business Administration (SBA), a federal agency specifically tasked with championing small businesses. But this year, the President’s budget offers little help for the SBA. Overall, they have cut the agency’s budget by 45 percent since coming to power in 2001.

Here in Massachusetts, the Administration’s proposed cuts have a direct impact on the state’s 640,000 small business owners. For example, this budget proposal will reduce the services, counseling, and outreach programs provided by the state’s eight Small Business Development Centers, including the one in Worcester. Last year, these centers provided in-depth counseling to more than 4,000 clients, while more than 4,500 individuals attended training sessions which helped to create or retain nearly 1,000 Massachusetts jobs.

...

Small businesses fuel our economy, and Washington has a responsibility to fund the federal programs that help entrepreneurs start, maintain, and grow their business. The bottom line is that the President’s budget doesn’t get the job done for Massachusetts. Instead, I will work for meaningful investment in the resources that will help Bay State small businesses remain innovative and competitive in a changing global marketplace.

Update: Here’s a link to the Small Business Committee website which includes transcripts of the remarks as well as a video of the Climate Change hearing.

 

Former U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton died Sunday from a combination of heart, respiratory and other problems. He was 77 years old and had been retired from politics for many years. While he was no longer on the national stage, many of his constituents in Missouri and former colleagues in Washington remembered him fondly and with great respect.

As noted in the AP article reporting on Mr. Eagleton’s passing, past and current senators had nothing but positive things to say about him. Former Sen. John Danforth, a Republican, served alongside Eagleton for 10 years and was his friend for four decades despite their political differences.

“Tom Eagleton was an outstanding public servant throughout his career in elective politics and beyond,” Danforth said in a statement. “As a United States senator, he was highly respected on both sides of the aisle. He was a person of high principle and consistent good humor.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., called Eagleton an outstanding senator in the tradition of Harry Truman.

“He made a difference on every issue he touched in the Senate, especially Vietnam,” Kennedy said in a statement. “He’ll long be remembered for his outrage over the senseless bombing of Cambodia and for his leadership in the anti-war effort.”

Senator John Kerry released this statement upon learning of Mr. Eagleton’s passing:

We will all miss Tom because he held a simple and powerful virtue first in his heart—he always asked the most of those in power.

If Tom were serving in the Senate today, I have no doubt he would speak his conscience against this war with the same passion he used to confront the Nixon Administration over Vietnam. He knew that the best way to support the troops was to fight for the best policy. Tom stood up and he won, demanding that we use better judgment about our involvement in Cambodia, and that the United States stand for the highest values and standards anytime we wage war.

A tireless crusader against corruption and greed in government, Tom was never afraid to challenge his peers in the Senate, and demand that they adhere to a higher ethical code. He cared about this institution, he never forgot his colleagues, and he remained until the very end a steadfast friend. I will always cherish the thoughtful letters in his memorable handwriting that crossed my desk these last years—notes of encouragement, notes filled with motivation. He was a very special public servant.

<!-more-> Speaking on the floor of the Senate yesterday, Senator Kerry also had these words to say in tribute to his friend and former colleague:

Missouri’s own Harry Truman once said that “A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 10 years.” And yet somehow, another son of Missouri, Senator Thomas Eagleton managed to be both a keen master of government and a statesman in his own lifetime, as well as a dear friend to many in this chamber.

Tom Eagleton was a man who radiated wit, warmth, and a brand of intellectual and moral seriousness that commanded your respect even as he won your affection. A Senator and a statesman, a humanitarian and a humorist, Tom left his indelible mark on the issues that mattered most to him.

His proudest accomplishment was an Amendment to cut off funds for America’s disastrous bombing of Cambodia. He was also a principal author of the Senate’s War Powers Resolution, which sought to dramatically limit the President’s ability to commit forces abroad without the consent of Congress.

Ever true to his principles, Tom voted against the version reported by the conference committee, which he believed the Executive would ultimately exploit as a 60-day blank check to use armed force. Over President Nixon’s veto, without Senator Eagleton’s vote, the bill was passed. As usual, his concerns proved only too prescient.

Senator Eagleton was a fierce and passionate critic of the Vietnam War and worked tirelessly to end that conflict. In a 1971 statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just three weeks after my own testimony there, he made an argument that resonates as clearly today as it did then: he spoke of the need to set a firm deadline for withdrawal.

In an essay he wrote entitled “Whose Power is War Power,” he quoted Justice Joseph Story: “In a republic, it should be difficult to make war and easy to make peace.” And yet, he said, “In Vietnam, war came easy and peace comes hard.” His words ring equally true of today’s war in Iraq, a war he fervently opposed from the outset.

Having worked closely with Tom, I can tell you that he was as decent and humble as he was passionate. I remember, when I first came to the Senate in 1984, Tom and I were unlikely seatmates—the two most recent additions to the Foreign Relations Committee.

He wrote a letter to Senator Pell, the Committee Chair. If there was an opportunity for him to serve as ranking minority Democrat on a subcommittee, he said, “I would prefer to forgo [it] in favor of Senator Kerry.”

It was a magnanimous gesture that really blew me away. In a place where seniority counts, where prerogatives matter - sometimes far too much - it was extraordinary and rare to defer to a freshman Senator as he did. But that was Tom Eagleton.

[...]

On so many issues, Tom Eagleton was a trailblazer and a visionary. He helped to write the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972, foundations of today’s environmental protection regime. He was among the few in the Senate to oppose the Reagan tax cuts. “Once again, once again,” he shouted in his famous baritone, “largesse to the rich!”.

[...]

Tom Eagleton was a quick wit, but he was also a man fully committed to living by his conscience—whether it led him to take conservative positions on social issues or even to censure colleagues from his own side of the aisle after ethical lapses.

As the Senate debated ousting a Democratic Senator from New Jersey who had been convicted of bribery and conspiracy, Senator Eagleton was firm: “We should not perpetrate our own disgrace by asking him to remain.” He loved justice. And it is fitting that the federal courthouse in downtown St. Louis now bears his name.

In 1968, his commitment to reform led him to challenge a sitting Democratic Senator whose record many believed was tarnished by corruption. After the race his defeated opponent said bitterly, “The man who builds a house on public service builds it of straw and on sand.”

But Tom Eagleton proved that wrong.

He retired in 1987 with the love and admiration of millions in his home state of Missouri and across the county. When he announced in 1984 that he would not seek re-election to a fourth term, his statement was full of the same personal humility that had led him to hand over his seniority to a freshman Senator. He declared that “public offices should not be held in perpetuity” and added that he had enjoyed “a full and complete career.”

As his fellow Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas said, Tom’s “goal was never to be carried out of the Senate in a pine box. He chose his career in politics because he considered it the best place from which to promote justice, nobility, freedom and dignity.”

When Tom announced that he would not seek reelection, the Kansas City Star summed up the legacy he was leaving behind:

“Senator Thomas F. Eagleton is the kind of politician the system is supposed to produce but so rarely does. He has elevated the job of politics because he does not accept the conventional denigration of politics. He believes it is a noble profession, and in the hands of such as himself, it is exactly that.”

[...]

Tom Eagleton never stopped giving. He gave his life to serving his state and his country. And then, when he died, he gave his body to Washington University for medical research.

Tom Eagleton lived a full and remarkable life, and we will miss him dearly. He died with no regrets: “My ambition,” he said “since my senior year in high school, was to be a senator. Not everybody achieves their ambition.”

Tom did more than that. He achieved his own ambitions and earned the love and enduring respect of millions. And along the way, he inspired so many of us. Not least of all the freshman Senator from Massachusetts who, twenty-years later, rises to pay tribute to the man who once gave up his seniority but never gave up his principles.

Despite his lifetime of public service in the Senate and back home in Missouri, Mr. Eagleton is best remembered today for his brief stint as Sen. George McGovern’s vice-presidential nominee in 1972. A Time magazine cover article dated July 24, 1972, “Introducing… the McGovern Machine,” detailed McGovern’s selection of Mr. Eagleton as his running mate only a few days prior. Just two weeks later, on August 7, 1972, Time ran another cover article titled “McGovern’s First Crisis: The Eagleton Affair.”

Mr. Eagleton resigned from the McGovern ticket after only 18 days under great pressure from pundits, politicians, and the then-nascent but already aggressive conservative attack machine’s tactics of personal destruction. What was Mr. Eagleton’s transgression that led to him being driven from a campaign he had joined less than three weeks earlier? News reports spread the word that he had been hospitalized in the early 1960’s for what was then called “nervous exhaustion” (what we now know as clinical depression) and had at one point received electroconvulsive treatment.

It was a different political climate then than it is now. Few people knew anything about depression or how it could be successfully treated. Admitting to having suffered from a mental illness earlier in his life was Mr. Eagleton’s death knell as far as national politics was concerned. After first defending his running mate against the smear campaign, McGovern finally gave in to the pressure and insisted that his running mate quit the ticket.

It was a decision McGovern later regretted having made. As the Associated Press reported earlier this week,

“It’s a real loss to the country,” McGovern said. “He was a scrapper—he didn’t back away from a fight. Yet he was disarming in his dealings with people.”

In a telephone interview, McGovern said Sunday he erred in removing Eagleton. He said Democrats could have won the election if he had kept Eagleton on the ticket.

“My first reaction was to say I was going to stay with him,” the former South Dakota senator. “But gosh, the outcry across the country was pretty intense. We felt that since we were starting a new campaign we needed to get that off the front page and we needed to get Tom to step down.

“But I think that was a mistake,” McGovern said.

“If had it to do over again, I’d have kept him,” McGovern also said last April. “I didn’t know anything about mental illness. Nobody did.”

Fortunately, we know a lot more about mental illness now then we did in 1972. This is especially crucial today, when so many of our returning veterans are dealing with acute mental health problems that would have gone unrecognized or unacknowledged 35 years ago. As we know, it’s an uphill fight against bureaucracy getting them acknowledged and treated even now. It’s up to all of us to make sure that they are taken care of properly.

If Thomas Eagleton were still with us, he’d be in the front lines of those fighting to support the troops by giving them the help they need to heal their psychic wounds as well as their physical ones. As someone who suffered the public stigma of depression but survived and overcame it in his own life, Mr. Eagleton still serves as a role model for public servants in these more enlightened times. We can continue to honor his memory by following his example and making sure that mental illness is treated fairly in politics and in private life.

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards yesterday. People testifying before the committee included Nicole Nason, Administrator from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Katherine Siggerud, Director of the Physical Infrastructure Team at the GAO.

Kerry pushed to find out why the Administration is still only using voluntary guidelines rather than mandatory guidelines in setting CAFE standards. JK kept demanding to know “What is the plan? Not the target—the plan?” as Nason kept simply reiterating that the goal is a 4% increase in fuel efficiency, but had little to nothing to say about how the Administration intended to achieve that.

Part of JK’s response to the non-answers:

“I have to tell you, it’s been frustrating over 22 years, to watch this process, watch it slide backward some of the same years, stay the same, do worse than Europe and other countries, watch the Germans and the Japanese clean our clock in the marketplace and we just sit around and play games with this. You could get 500 miles per gallon […] We are just nibbling at the margins in the most timid and reluctant and ineffective way. You guys just don’t excite the marketplace. You’re not willing to challenge it. So I think we [meaning Congress] have to.”

You can watch the entire hearing or the exchange between JK and Nason here. Select “View Archive Webcast” ... JK’s comments occur between 2:11:00 and 2:15:00.

After the hearing JK issued this statement:

Sen. John Kerry today called for improved mileage standards for cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the US, arguing that Congress needs to take bold action to reduce dependence on oil. Kerry said that standards must increase and said he supports a fleet average increase of 10 mile per gallon over 10 years.

“It’s past time for us to increase the efficiency of our automobiles,” Kerry said. “Sales of hybrids and advanced technology vehicles are booming. Americans are ready for more efficient vehicles and we need to do more to encourage our automobile industry to keep pace with the public. President Bush says he has similar goals – now he must take the lead and make this happen.”

There’s more on the hearing from the Environmental News Service as well as from The Detroit Free Press which also took an interest. Their report included the following:

In January, Bush called for a 4% annual increase in fuel economy standards through 2017, resulting in an average of about 34 miles per gallon. Nicole Nason, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told senators NHTSA would try to meet the president’s goal but needed to do extensive research to ensure it was feasible.

Last week, the administration said its plans could cost $114 billion, including $85 billion for Detroit automakers, but warned that those estimates were based on 4-year-old data.

Nason told Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., that she couldn’t predict what percentage increase NHTSA would eventually set, to which Kerry replied that without a set target, “this is meaningless, this is just a game.”

“If the president sets it as a goal, you do everything you can to meet it,” Nason replied.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told Nason “for those who want to do nothing about fuel economy, you’re the perfect spokesman,” and pressed her to say whether Bush would veto a specific fuel economy increase mandated by Congress.

Nason declined to say whether Bush would sign or veto such a bill. She did tell Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., that if a mandated increase passed, there could be “a way for us to comply with Congress. It would have to be written carefully.”

Sounds like another typical Bush administration appointee ala “Brownie” and “Foxy”. Wonder what Nicole’s nickname is.

 

For those wanting to know more about JK and THK’s new book, “This Moment on Earth”, there’s a new webpage with an updated tour schedule and a schedule of media appearances as well as an excerpt from the book. It also asks for the stories of citizens who’ve had an impact in your local area so go tell your story or the story of someone you know has done something innovative for the environment in your area.

And just to whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt from one of the stories in the book:

Rick Dove knows far too well the potential health impacts of agricultural pollution. He has lived along the shores of the Neuse River near New Bern, North Carolina, for more than twenty-five years. After graduating from the University of Baltimore Law School in 1962, he joined the Marine Corps and served two tours in Vietnam. In 1987, he retired as a colonel and settled back into civilian life in North Carolina.

“I fell in love with the place,” he said simply. “All I ever really wanted to do was to be a commercial fisherman. So after I retired, I decided to pursue that dream and couldn’t think of any place better than the Neuse River.” He remembered that years earlier the river had seemed like “a paradise” to him. With the help of his son Todd, Rick Dove bought three boats, from which they worked over 600 crab pots and more than 2,000 feet of gill nets. They opened a little seafood outlet store, and for two years, enjoyed the life of commercial fishermen.

But then, father and son began to notice a change in the water. Many of the fish floating by their boats had open, bleeding sores. At first it was only a few, but as time passed, the numbers of bleeding fish grew larger and larger. It was a disturbing sight, but not nearly as disturbing as what happened next. Soon, both Rick and Todd began to develop similar sores on their arms, hands, and legs. Rick began to experience memory loss. As he talked to other fishermen, he heard similar, equally horrifying stories. Some men reported losing consciousness at sea. Others found themselves in their boats unable to remember how to get back to the dock, or after a long day of fishing, couldn’t find their way home.

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The situation escalated. The next year, more fish were developing the bleeding lesions, and Rick’s health also worsened. Frustrated and disappointed, he knew he was too sick to keep going. He stopped fishing and gave up his business.

Then, in 1991, the Neuse River suffered the largest fish kill ever recorded in the state’s history. Over 1 billion fish died in a six-week period during September and October. There were so many dead fish that some had to be bulldozed into the ground. Others were left to rot on the shore and river bottom. The stench produced by this kill was overwhelming, something Rick Dove says he’ll never forget.

What was happening? Though Rick did not at first make a connection between his declining health and the growing number of sick and dying fish, it was all related. The problem, which wasn’t identified until 1995, was found to be Pfiesteria piscicida, a toxic microorganism, often referred to as the “cell from hell,” that is an extremely powerful neurotoxin. It paralyzes fish, sloughs their skin, and eats their blood cells. It is also volatized into the air and is capable of sickening humans who breathe it. How had it gotten to the Neuse? Primarily from nutrient pollution from the industrial hog farms.

“It was really an awful thing,” Rick said. “We didn’t expect this because, thanks a lot to the work of the local Riverkeeper, we had succeeded in removing 98 percent of point source pollutants, like industrial pipes. But in the 1980s, when the hog industry got going in North Carolina, everything changed very quickly, in a matter of just a few years. It was as if they were building cities of hogs. In a typical city, of course, you have to put in water and sewer lines and treatment plants, but even with 10 million hogs, that’s not how these operations work. The industry calls themselves farmers and hold on to so-called farming practices, but it doesn’t work that way. A lot of that fecal matter, full of antibiotics and pathogens, was going directly into the Neuse. It changed a lot of people’s lives.”

Rick Dove eventually was able to return to the water in 1993, this time as the Neuse Riverkeeper, where he continues the tradition of identifying and suing local polluters. Listening to Rick talk about his work is inspirational. Sixty-seven years old—a marine—he could have been doing almost anything else; he’d earned it. But his personal sense of responsibility and love for the river kept him on the job. “Semper Fi”—“Always Faithful”—the motto of the Marines, was his for life. His story conclusively demonstrates the connection between the choices we make and the health of our communities. Few of us likely give much consideration to how our everyday choices—such as the seemingly straightforward decisions we make at the grocery store to provide food for our families—may have an impact on people we will never meet, in places we may never visit.

It also shows us how connected we are as Americans. In recent times, particularly since the 2000 presidential election, we have generally bought into this idea of blue states and red states. But it takes people like Rick to remind us that, regardless of how we vote or which party we align ourselves with, we all share many very basic ideals. All of us certainly want clean water. No fisherman should be sickened by toxins in the water. No mother should worry that her child will become sick from swimming at the local beach. Nobody among us—young or old, farmer or artist, Democrat or Republican—should demand anything less than safe, available water. This is not a matter of politics; it is a matter of common sense, morality, and responsibility.

 

The classic saying is that “everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Well, thanks to the recent release of the IPCC report on climate change, the stunning success of former Vice-President Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth”, and celebrity campaigning on behalf of high-profile groups like StopGlobalWarming.org, that adage is no longer true.

Everybody’s still talking about the weather, but now politicians are jumping on the bandwagon and proclaiming that they’re going to do something about it. Environmental politics is the biggest hot new trend in Washington these days. (Global warming: it’s not just for science wonks any more.) It’s a bipartisan rush to be even more earth-friendly than the next pol. Green is the new blue… and red.

Big-business leaders are suddenly talking about fleet fuel standards in public again. Less-is-more minimalists are discovering that they’re the hit of the parties. Conservatives are hugging ethanol corn the way liberals hug trees. A former vice-president not only wins an Oscar for sticking to his guns and talking about what used to be political anathema, but looks like a shoo-in for winning a Nobel Peace prize over it, too. (When you consider that the last Washington insider to win a Nobel Peace prize was Henry Kissinger, the irony is difficult to miss.)

Most politicians these days are scrambling to produce some sort of bona fides to buttress their claims of having been environmentally-friendly all along. Some of them don’t have to scramble to do that, though; they’ve been on the side of the green angels all along, and they’ve got the track records to prove it. Senator Kerry is one of the good guys in that regard, and always has been. <!-more-> As referenced in this omnibus article on DKos, he was one of the original founders of the very first Earth Day celebration in Massachusetts back in April of 1970. Twenty years later he was chair of the 1990 National Earth Day board. In fact, he first met his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry at an Earth Day rally. And as the biographical information on his official Senate site points out,

John Kerry’s record on the environment reflects his understanding that our quality of life and the long-term sustainability of our economy are threatened unless everyone, including individuals, towns, states and nations, join together to prevent global warming, combat acid rain, clean up and eliminate toxic waste, rebuild depleted fisheries, and protect essential habitat.

Senator Kerry’s concern for the environment has earned him a 100 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters, an organization which closely monitors the environmental records of members of Congress. The League commended Kerry for his “unsurpassed leadership.” The Sierra Club has stated that “there is no stronger advocate in the Senate for environmental protection than John Kerry.” Kerry has also received a 100 percent rating from the Humane Society of the United States.

And as noted elsewhere on this website,

John Kerry has been described by the League of Conservation Voters as an “environmental champion.” He introduced legislation to improve standards for clean air and establish a fund to finance emissions reductions. He secured millions of dollars in funding to clean America’s waterways, harbors, and drinking water, worked to strengthen the Safe Drinking Water Act, and introduced legislation in 1996 to ensure “protection in the quality of our water.” He sponsored legislation that extended and strengthened laws protecting marine mammals from commercial fishing. He helped protect America’s National Parks and National Forests from pollution, excessive logging, and overdevelopment while ensuring that endangered species are preserved for all Americans to experience. He has opposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling for over a decade, ensuring that future generations can experience this national treasure.

The record is clear. For the past four decades, John Kerry has been a tireless advocate for environmental causes, both in government and outside of it. And now, his most recent efforts to carry the message of good green living outside the beltway has resulted in the imminent publication of an important new book that John Kerry co-wrote with Teresa Heinz Kerry, This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future As the publisher’s description of it states,

The environment, and the movement that grew up to protect it, is under attack—concerted and purposeful. Yet the need for solutions to pressing environmental problems grows more urgent each day. Teresa Heinz Kerry and Senator John Kerry traveled across the country in a national campaign to see at first hand how these issues unite people across party and ideological lines. From the San Juan Basin to the Gulf of Mexico to the South Bronx, from mothers on Cape Cod to Colorado ranchers, they found a vibrant coalition of people and communities deploying ingenuity, technology, and sheer will power to save the world they know and love. Now, in this passionate and personal book, Senator John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry shine the spotlight on an inspiring cross-section of these new environmental pioneers.

This Moment on Earth combines intensive research with keenly observed personal experiences to present a portrait of Americans devoted to the natural diversity and spectacular uniqueness of our country. It also includes an extensive guide on where and how readers can get involved.

The book itself is slated to hit the shelves in a few weeks. Your local independent bookshops, chain bookstores, and various online booksellers such as Powell’s, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble are all accepting pre-orders for the hardcover edition now.

This Moment on Earth isn’t just another sky-is-falling compendium of scary facts and figures, it’s a hopeful and forward-looking prescription for positive change. But does that mean it’s a good book, though? Well, at least one guy with plenty of street cred seems to think so:

“John Kerry and Teresa Heinz have written a book that is a profound challenge to all of us but contains, in the examples of the men and women who are fighting the great fight for a better future for our environment, the clear hope that if we can embrace their resourcefulness, determination and essential patriotism we will prevail. Both John and Teresa have been long-time leaders in the battle to save the Earth’s environment. Way back when it was not all fashionable, indeed when very few people in the world were even paying attention to it, both John and Teresa were providing outstanding and courageous leadership.”

—former Vice President Al Gore

More to the point of this blog post, Senator Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry will both be making time to appear on talk shows and visit a number of cities over the next several weeks to discuss this book and the importance of the issues that brought them to write it together. They will be participating in local and regional advocacy group and foundation events, and an extensive online campaign will also be launched in support of these causes. A partial schedule of some of the upcoming events currently includes:

March 23 ..... The Daily Show with Jon Stewart March 26 ..... Imus in the Morning March 26 ..... The Today Show on NBC April 1 ......... This Week with George Stephanopoulus (T.B.D.) ....... The Tavis Smiley Show

April 2 ......... Seattle, WA April 3 ......... San Francsico, CA (T.B.D.) ....... Portland, OR; Los Angeles, CA; Washington, DC

Additional appearances are being scheduled at this time. Keep an eye on this blog for updated information on where and when Senator Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry will be talking about their lifelong commitments to environmental issues and their new book, This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future.

[Updated to add: A new web page devoted to this book has been added to this site and it includes the most up-to-date and accurate scheduling information for media appearances and book tour events at: http://www.johnkerry.com/momentonearth/ ]

When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast 18 months ago, the disaster wiped out a lot more than homes. It also wiped out jobs. Businesses of every size had their buildings and vehicles destroyed, their stocks and supplies ruined, their workers and customers scatterred to the four winds. A year and a half later, they’re still struggling to rebuild.

Big companies with their extra financial resources find it easier to recover from natural disasters like Katrina than smaller ones do. Yet throughout the Gulf Coast region, small to medium sized businesses have always provided the lifeblood of the local economies. For every big refinery or global shipping operation, there are hundreds of independently owned small businesses with less than 500 employees—in most cases less than 50, in many cases as few as 5. And those are the ones that are still suffering the most.

In the hurricanes’ aftermath, President Bush stood at a podium in New Orleans’ Jackson Square and promised Gulf Coast residents that

... We will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.</blockquote

Anyone who’s visited New Orleans recently knows that promise has yet to be kept.

There are still a great many problems to be dealt with in the process of resurrecting the Gulf Coast. A key element in finding solutions to those problems is to help those hundreds of small businesses get back on their feet. As President Bush promised the country in his Jackson Square speech,

Tonight I propose the creation of a Gulf Opportunity Zone, encompassing the region of the disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama. Within this zone, we should provide immediate incentives for job-creating investment: tax relief for small businesses, incentives to companies that create jobs and loans and loan guarantees for small businesses, including minority-owned enterprises, to get them up and running again.

In that same speech, President Bush also assured America that their tax dollars would be well spent.

Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone—from roads and bridges to schools and water systems. Our goal is to get the work done quickly. And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely, so we will have a team of inspectors general reviewing all expenditures.

According to reports released in recent days, however, the government agencies that are supposed to be providing prudent financial management while aiding those businesses to recover is still falling down on the job. <!-more-> As the New York Times reported ,

Last September, the Small Business Administration, which provides most long-term rebuilding aid to disaster victims, accelerated its lending to homeowners and businesses in the Gulf Coast, responding to criticism that it had been slow to respond to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005.

But now federal investigators are looking into accusations that in speeding up its work, the agency made thousands of loans without following its own rules to avoid fraud.

[...]

Caroline Pankove, who worked as a lawyer for the disaster-loan program at the agency from June through December of last year, complained to the agency’s managers and its inspector general that employees were improperly pressured to approve loans quickly.

Loan policies were applied inconsistently, Ms. Pankove said, and disaster victims’ paperwork was often misplaced or mailed out with errors.

“The rush to disburse loans put everyone at risk: the taxpayer, the agency and especially the borrowers,” Ms. Pankove said in an interview. “The people that we needed to serve the most were the ones getting hurt the most.”

And according to this Washington Post article,

Large businesses awarded million-dollar government contracts for Hurricane Katrina cleanup are bending or exploiting rules aimed at helping small companies share the work, congressional investigators said Thursday.

The report by the Government Accountability Office focused on small Gulf Coast businesses that lost opportunities as limited-bid contracts were awarded to politically connected companies after the storm hit on Aug. 29, 2005.

Large contractors routinely did not file reports explaining their efforts to find subcontractors, as required under federal rules, according to investigators. At other times, large companies provided figures that complied with the rules but were misleading as to how much work they were sharing.

Because of the widespread problems, investigators could not offer any assurance the large companies were making “good-faith efforts to meet their small business subcontracting goals,” the report said.

(Full copies of the GAO report can be downloaded as a .pdf file here.)

When the GAO report was released, with its frank assessment of failures in the SBA’s post-Katrina rebuilding efforts, Senator Kerry called for comprehensive reviews of disaster recovery contracting practices in a letter to major federal agencies awarding contracts after disasters calling on them to issue and enforce contracting plans to ensure small firms and disadvantaged businesses receive their fair share of contracts.

All the presidential photo opportunities in the world haven’t resulted in more small and local business participation in rebuilding communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina,” said Kerry, Chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. “This GAO report reveals a severe gap in the information we need to ensure small businesses are afforded every opportunity to win contracts and help recover after a disaster. We need more information and better oversight to ensure the government is following the law.

The full text of Senator Kerry’s letter can be read here.

President Bush made another stop in his series of high-profile tours of the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast last week. Once again, he stayed for a short while and made a long list of promises. Time will tell if those promises will finally come true for the remaining residents of the region who are still struggling to rebuild their shattered lives.

Kerry: Gulf Coast Needs More than Empty Promises

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Today Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) issued the following statement in reaction to President Bush’s Gulf Coast visit. Kerry is the lead sponsor of bipartisan legislation to overhaul the government’s disaster loan program which the Bush Administration has been blocking since September 2005.

“Long term recovery for the Gulf Coast requires a whole lot more than 18 months of empty promises. Businesses that were once the heart of the Gulf Coast economy are now hanging on by a thread. Yet the bipartisan proposals in Congress to get these businesses back up and running have been blocked by the Bush Administration at every turn. On his last visit to the Gulf Coast, the President predicted a bright future for the region’s entrepreneurs. Yet in the six months since that visit, nothing’s changed. While the Go Zone legislation represented a good first step, we still need fundamental reform of the government’s disaster loan program to permanently remove delays and red tape that have prevented businesses from getting timely financial assistance,” said Kerry, Chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

The Small Business Disaster Response and Loan Improvements Act of 2007 (S. 163) would:

—Establish a Private Disaster Loan (PDL) program that allows banks to make loans directly to victims after meeting SBA criteria. The SBA will provide an 85 percent guarantee for these loans;

—Require the SBA to draft rules within one year that would create a new “expedited disaster assistance business loan program.” These short-term loans would have low interest rates similar to regular disaster loans. This would provide businesses with short-term assistance while they await other forms of federal assistance or insurance payouts following future disasters. It specifically addresses one of the major issues following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita – a lack of access to immediate capital to keep businesses afloat;

—Create a new presidential declaration of “Catastrophic National Disaster,” which will allow the SBA to issue nationwide economic injury disaster loans to small businesses affected by a large-scale disaster;

—Allow the SBA to provide relief to fuel-dependent small businesses when energy prices increase at extraordinarily high rates.

—Provide key tools for processing disaster loan applications more quickly by authorizing the SBA to enter into agreements with qualified private contractors to process disaster loans and requiring the SBA to analyze and report to Congress on how the disaster loan application process can be improved; and

—Increase the maximum size of a Small Business Administration (SBA) disaster loan from $1.5 million to $5 million and allow non-profit groups to be eligible for disaster loans.

The people of the Gulf Coast have learned that they can’t count on President Bush to make sure that his promises are kept. One thing they can count on, however, is Senator Kerry’s continuing commitment to helping them get back on their feet—despite the stumbling blocks left in their paths by those who were supposed to be in charge on that day in Jackson Square.

A dictionary definition of the term “iconoclast” says that it refers to “someone who challenges or overturns traditional beliefs, customs, and values.” By those standards, W. Leon Smith definitely chose the right name for the small-town Texas weekly newspaper he launched seven years ago.

You’ve probably never heard of Leon Smith, but the odds are pretty good that you’ve heard about his paper. The Iconoclast pole-vaulted into the national spotlight on September 29, 2004, when it had the audacity to endorse John Kerry for president.

The Iconoclast is based in tiny Crawford, Texas (pop. 705 as of the 2000 census, though that number has now grown due to an influx of new residents that include Cindy Sheehan and a certain individual by the name of George W. Bush.) And when The Iconoclast published its editorial endorsement titled “Kerry Will Restore American Dignity”, the locals didn’t take too kindly to what the paper had to say during the deeply divisive election cycle of 2004:

The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.

Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.

[...]

Kerry has remained true to his vote granting the President the authority to use the threat of war to intimidate Saddam Hussein into allowing weapons inspections. He believes President Bush rushed into war before the inspectors finished their jobs.

Kerry also voted against President Bush’s $87 billion for troop funding because the bill promoted poor policy in Iraq, privileged Halliburton and other corporate friends of the Bush administration to profiteer from the war, and forced debt upon future generations of Americans.

Kerry’s four-point plan for Iraq is realistic, wise, strong, and correct. With the help from our European and Middle Eastern allies, his plan is to train Iraqi security forces, involve Iraqis in their rebuilding and constitution-writing processes, forgive Iraq’s multi-billion dollar debts, and convene a regional conference with Iraq’s neighbors in order to secure a pledge of respect for Iraq’s borders and non-interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.

[...]

When examined based on all the facts, Kerry’s voting record is enviable and echoes that of many Bush allies who are aghast at how the Bush administration has destroyed the American economy. Compared to Bush on economic issues, Kerry would be an arch-conservative, providing for Americans first. He has what it takes to right our wronged economy.

The re-election of George W. Bush would be a mandate to continue on our present course of chaos. We cannot afford to double the debt that we already have. We need to be moving in the opposite direction.

John Kerry has 30 years of experience looking out for the American people and can navigate our country back to prosperity and re-instill in America the dignity she so craves and deserves. He has served us well as a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and has had a successful career as a district attorney, lieutenant governor, and senator.

Kerry has a positive vision for America, plus the proven intelligence, good sense, and guts to make it happen.

That’s why The Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.

The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.

<!-more-> When that story hit the wires, it went national in minutes and global in hours. Leon Smith’s little small-town weekly newspaper, with a grand total of 920 copies sold each week by subscription and on the local newsstands, suddenly found itself in the center of a firestorm of epic proportions.

Local residents were up in arms. Subscriptions were canceled. All three newsstands in town refused to carry the newspaper any more. Most advertisers pulled their ads at once; those who didn’t were boycotted. Hundreds of angry letters and emails poured into The Iconoclast’s offices, threatening to overwhelm Smith and his three-person staff. (Some of those letters and emails threatened to do a lot worse than just overwhelm them.) Not everyone in town turned against Smith’s paper; like the rest of the country at the time, Crawford was sharply divided. But the majority of residents in President Bush’s adopted hometown were seriously disgruntled.

Smith’s associate editor disassociated himself from the paper’s endorsement of Kerry, but he and his other employees refused to back down. They expected to be driven out of business by the vitriolic anger of Crawford’s citizens that resulted from the editorial statement they published that day in September. But a funny thing happened on the way to the bankruptcy court: bloggers came to The Iconoclast’s rescue.

Some say it started with some diaries on DailyKos; others insist it started on Democratic Underground, or on any of a hundred other progressive blogs that picked up the story and ran with it. The blogosphere being what it is, there’s no way to know for sure. But once the ball started rolling, that didn’t really matter anyway.

Bloggers everywhere wrote impassioned posts and sent out action alerts to their followers. Emails and letters supporting the newspaper’s position started pouring into Crawford. Online purchases of subscriptions skyrocketed. Other Texas newspapers took notice. The mainstream media chimed in and carried the story far and wide. And within a matter of weeks, The Iconoclast had gone from being an imperiled small-town newspaper to an internationally-known entity.

Smith stuck to his guns back in 2004, and he’s still sticking to them now. While he’s no left-wing bleeding-heart liberal - Smith describes himself as a conservative Democrat who supported Ronald Reagan - he is still every inch the classic Texas iconoclastic gadfly and his ongoing support of speaking truth to power has never wavered. Instead of going under, The Iconclast has overcome adversity and gone on to prosper. What started out as a small-town weekly newspaper now attracts readers and writers from any place on earth that has an internet connection, including regular contributions from London-based Indian journalist Kapil Komireddi.

In an extended commentary published this past week titled “The Long War of John Kerry”, Komireddi has this to say about the man whose name put a small-town newspaper from deep in the red-state heart of Texas called The Iconoclast on the map when it bucked the odds and courageously endorsed him for President back in 2004:

Perhaps no other prominent politician in modern America has been as terribly mauled by propaganda as Kerry. McCain felt the pain of Karl Rove’s smearing only in 2000, almost 15 years into his Senate career. Per contra, John Kerry became a target of Richard Nixon in 1972, when he was a candidate for Congress. Kerry, a 29-year-old political abecedarian, was making life miserable for Richard Nixon, then the world’s most powerful man. Nixon was so disturbed by Kerry and his antiwar campaign that not only did he send his own son-in-law, Ed Cox, to Lowell, MA, to campaign against Kerry but also stayed up on the election night to see Kerry lose.

Yet Kerry endured. In 13 years’ time, he returned to Washington as a Senator. In 32 years’ time, he would come unbelievably close to achieving an unprecedented feat: unseating a wartime president. There is something about John Kerry’s enduring, fighting spirit which skips and eludes, and will always elude, the sensationalist headline-seeking punditry.

The complexity of John Kerry cannot be simplified in a column. John Kerry is a good man, a great man, perhaps one of the greatest leaders in modern American history. He can dazzle you with his knowledge, but he can also bore you with detail and amaze you with inconsistency. When at a recent Senate hearing, Condoleezza Rice, defending the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, smugly told Kerry, “Elections don’t mean democracy, but I’ve never seen one begin without an election,” Kerry responded: “Actually, the American democracy began with a revolution, not an election.” Rice, a former provost of Stanford, was left speechless.

[...]

In the Senate, Kerry’s remains an influential voice. On many issues, Kerry has been a solitary soldier, but a solider who never gives up fighting. Perhaps the country, and the world, will benefit more by having Kerry in the Senate than in a meaningless race for the presidency. His aim, as he put it, is to end poverty globally, strengthen America’s global leadership, provide universal healthcare, and protect the environment. But above all, it is to put an end to what he sees as a senseless war in Iraq. He recently re-introduced a private member bill designed to do just that. Over three decades ago, standing next to Coretta Scott-King in Washington, D.C., in a speech which truly scared Richard Nixon, a young John Kerry told a gathering of tens of thousands of antiwar protestors: “This is not the struggle of one day, or of one war. It’s a struggle, and an effort, and a sacrifice, and a contribution, which we make for the rest of our lives.” He may have lost the presidency, but the long war of John Kerry goes on.

Senator John Kerry has never given up on fighting the good fight and standing up for what is right for America rather than just what is politically expedient in Washington. Neither has the-little-newspaper-that-could, The Iconoclast. And informed citizens everywhere can take heart to know that both will still be with us for many years to come.