Hey, Right-Wingers -- What's In Your Wallet?

Ooh, the 'wingers didn't like this one. But it's a really easy response to their outraged emails--do you want a tax cut that benefits you more than me, or me more than you? Why? Here's the response I'm now clipping-and-pasting into the emails:

I support tax cuts that help those at the bottom and the middle, not the top; those at the top are doing just fine and don't need the help like you must. If you've reported your financial situation accurately, the congressional Democratic plan puts more money in your pocket than Bush's. So which side do you support?

Net jobs created during Clinton administration (1993-2000): 22 million.
Net jobs created during Bush I (1989-1992) and Bush II (2001-2003) administrations: zero.

Oh, and did you see this from today's LA Times?:

Old question: What did you do in the war, Daddy?
New answer: I pocketed a large tax cut, honey.
[Pause.]
And then I passed the bill for the war onto you.

Maybe that's the way to fight this plan. Point out just how it happens to be oh-so-convenient for the people supporting it.

The Bush Economic Stimulus
A WINDFALL FOR ME -- BUT BAD FOR THE COUNTRY
East Valley Tribune, Jan. 12, 2003

George W. Bush’s “stimulus” plan is a colossally stupid idea. It’s also a screaming deal for Sam Coppersmith. Perhaps that second fact will help convince you of the first.

I make out like a bandit under the Bush’s $674 billion proposal. I get increased child tax credits, something unavailable to those without minor children. As both my wife and I work, speeding up the so-called “marriage penalty” adjustment means another sizeable break, inapplicable to singles who make exactly what we do. And while modesty demands I not disclose the precise percentile, with our adjusted gross income toward the top of the pyramid, we’ll pocket a nice chunk from acceleration of the upper-income tax cuts.

But those are just the appetizers in this particular financial banquet. Check out the vast menu of more obscure entrees.

We might make enough that we even get a piece of the proposed adjustments to the alternative minimum tax. Then consider the “small business purchases” incentives, tax credits we could use to get a plasma screen for the conference room. Cool!

But the Big Enchilada, where the real money is, is the exemption of dividend income from taxation. When my parents died, I inherited some dividend-paying stocks, and I’ve done my best to save and invest, too. Now, lots of people own stocks, but most own them in pension plans, where any dividends are tax-free already.

The Bush plan thus doesn’t help the majority one bit; a senior administration official confirmed that dividends accumulated in a 401(k) would indeed be taxed as ordinary income when withdrawn. Too bad for you. But for me, Fat City.

Owning stocks outright puts me in yet another top-percentage minority, but the majority of the Bush plan is targeted precisely at guys like me with personal dividend income. The wealthiest five percent of taxpayers will corral about two-thirds of this money, over half of the entire deal. My dividend income becomes tax-free, “a gift that keeps on giving” from George W. Bush.

The Bush “stimulus” plan couldn’t be better designed to assist Sam Coppersmith unless it provided subsidies for cigars and bicycling accessories. Of the $674 billion in the plan, 92 percent goes to the stuff I’ve described that benefits me.

Oh, the President will spend about half of his time talking about moving low-income taxpayers to the 10 percent bracket and the $3,000 accounts for unemployed workers, but those two items comprise less than 8 percent of the deal. Apparently, having to “tip” our economic lessers 8 percent to grab 92 percent of the goodies is what George W. considers the “decent” thing to do.

Under Bush’s plan, I’ll pay a lot less in taxes. Here’s the kicker: Bush calls it a “stimulus” plan, but the Coppersmiths probably won’t spend that money. Instead, we’ll try to save it.

Meanwhile, plenty of folks are worried about their jobs and mortgages, wondering when business investment and consumer demand will increase. They even believe Bush when he says his plan will get the economy moving again.

I have but one word for those suckers who swallow Bush’s hokum: Ha!

Bush’s plan is a winner for me personally, but a huge loser for the country, so I oppose it. You should, too.

To a conservative, a “sacrifice” is supporting policies that oh-so-conveniently happen to benefit you (or your patrons) personally. I’m a liberal, so I’m opposing something that would benefit me greatly -- merely because it’s bad for the country.

But if you’re gullible enough to give me that much money in tax cuts, you bet I’m taking it. I’ll pay my fair share like everybody else, but I’ll be darned if I’ll pay your share, too.

There's No Problem We Face That Can't Be Fixed By (a) Cutting Taxes On The Rich, (b) Invading Iraq, Or (c) Both

One interesting sidelight in the recent climb-down by the Bush administration on North Korea ("We will never negotiate with evil; however, we oh-so-sincerely want to talk with evil") is this Michael Kelly column in the Washington Post. You might miss it, but he cites, with apparent approval, a KGB report that North Korea had a nuclear weapon as early as 1990. Hey--that was during the first Bush administration.

So who's "feckless" now (or, more accurately, then)?

"Just Cut Spending" Is As Sincere As "The Check Is In The Mail"

My libertarian editor at the East Valley Tribune obviously has a different perspective than I do on this issue, which is why the headline really makes a different point than the article. But that's the op-ed business for you.

In case you're really interested, the Kaus article that triggered this piece is available here. It really is quaintly anachronistic to read it now, even though it's less than 2 years old, because G.W. Bush clearly is no better at actually cutting spending (instead of just talking about it) than his predecessors -- not that cutting spending actually makes sense, but it really is like civil rights in that Republicans so earnestly believe in the principle but just won't do anything about it in reality. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Also, it's quaint because Kaus has stopped writing about universal healthcare and job training and big ideas, and these days spends his time more concerned about whether The New York Times has published too many stories about the Augusta National Golf Club as part of some partisan liberal conspiracy.

Also, a call-out buried deep in the column to Dustin Nolte, whom I don't know, but who is the left-side Arizona correspondent for Political State Report, which is a collection of "bloggers" reporting on state politics collected on one website. I can't vouch for the quality of the commentary, but it's a good idea if it works and you might want to check it out to see if it's working.


Wielding the Ax
TAX CUTS? TRY TO TRIM SPENDING
Presidents raised taxes and were re-elected, but no one has limited government's growth
East Valley Tribune, Jan. 5, 2003

In May of 2001, journalist Mickey Kaus disputed that Bush’s budget represented a long-term victory for anti-government conservatives and a nearly-irreversible defeat for liberals. Kaus argued that liberals should love Bush’s budget, because every dollar "saved" today is available for spending tomorrow.

Kaus based his argument on the fact that at the federal level, it’s hard to raise taxes, but cutting spending is harder. Taxes have been hiked without automatic political death. Reagan raised taxes in 1983, G.H.W. Bush in 1990, and Clinton in 1993. Bush lost, but the others won reelection easily. (As Kaus noted, when we weren’t looking, did somebody repeal "tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect"?)

But the history on cutting spending is pretty bleak. Neither Reagan or Gingrich could do it. Nobody has done it.

Democrats are dreadfully bad, but Republicans aren’t better. Both freely devote hundreds of billions to farm subsidies, socialized healthcare for veterans, and tax loopholes for specific businesses.

Kaus theorized that "budget bloat" for existing programs would swallow the resources needed for ambitious future priorities, like health care reform. Routine spending would eliminate any chance at robust, systemic changes like Medicare expansion, job training on demand, and comprehensive health care. But if Bush actually cut spending to pay for his tax cuts, then liberals would have four years to argue that such major programs are really more valuable.

If by 2006 Democrats couldn’t convince voters that health care and Social Security for everyone (which will cost plenty) are more valuable than those tax cuts for the rich (which are just as expensive), then clearly voters don’t want more affirmative government, and shouldn’t get it.

Kaus’s article is quaintly anachronistic now, because the war on terrorism and the forthcoming war in Iraq mean that the Bush administration isn’t cutting spending, either. Instead, we’re now funding new stuff somehow connected to “homeland” security (like bailing out airlines and insurance companies), spending the Social Security surplus and borrowing billions more. The administration is as serious about cutting spending as they are about civil rights: Devout believers, just don’t make them actually do anything.

But here in Arizona, we may see whether Kaus’s theory works. The state’s budget problems can’t be evaded by using trust funds or by running a deficit like the federal government. This year’s and next’s fiscal realities are extraordinarily grim, with a yawning $1 billion deficit in a $6.5 billion general fund budget looming -- and that after several previous rounds of spending cuts.

Gov.-elect Napolitano announced that she will not recommend tax increases in her budget plan due later this month. As noted by Dustin Nolte in Political State Report, that’s probably realistic; the new GOP-controlled Legislature was unlikely to raise taxes, which requires a supermajority vote anyway. But that means those same “no new taxes” legislators actually will have to cut spending by about 15 percent.

Eventually, the national economy will turn around and bring Arizona's along. Given our cyclically erratic tax system, which is adequate during good times and terrible during bad ones, heading into the 2006 election Gov. Napolitano probably won’t need any tax increases to have budget surpluses and revenues for bold new initiatives. There even might be enough money to overhaul our antiquated and highly-variable tax system.

Kaus was clearly wrong on the federal level, where we’re getting the worst of both worlds, wrongheaded and increasing spending and wrongheaded and increasingly regressive taxation. But the incoming Arizona Legislature has no choice but to cut spending, and they’re so conservative that they just might actually enjoy the job. Then, when the economic cycle turns, they will have unwittingly set the table for new Napolitano initiatives in 2005 and 2006.

That would be sweet irony indeed.

So Exactly What Did He Mean to Say?

This week's column is a riff on the idea that you should take Trent Lott's apologies seriously, that he really meant something else. And exactly what would that be?

Anticipating one objection, that conservatives were solely responsible for defeating communism, I note only that the fall of the Berlin Wall occurred during George H. W. Bush's term, and conservatives threw him overboard as one of them during the budget compromise, and they can't take him back now.

Isn't it interesting that whether Trent Lott deserves to be a U.S. Senator is strictly a matter for voters in Mississippi, but every Democrat in America was/is responsible for Cynthia McKinney?

Lott's Legacy
AMERICA SOLVED 'PROBLEMS' WITHOUT THURMOND
East Valley Tribune, Dec. 30, 2002

Maybe Trent Lott wasn’t nostalgic for segregation when he recalled Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential campaign with such undeserved fondness. Perhaps Sen. Lott somehow ignored the sole reason for the Dixiecrat party, and Thurmond’s only lasting political achievement (besides living so long) -- leading those conservative white voters with “problems” about equal rights out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican.

But what did Sen. Lott mean when he said that if ol’ Strom had won, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems.” Pray tell, exactly which “problems” of the past 54 years would we have avoided?

Better not ask black Americans. In 1948, in great swaths of this country we blocked them from voting, prohibited them from owning property in “restricted” neighborhoods, and sent them to segregated schools -- including, yes, in Arizona.

We prevented them from using the same restaurants, theaters, and hotels; when they enlisted in the armed forces, they served in segregated units. Presumably equal rights isn’t one of “these problems” we now regret.

Better not ask senior citizens, either. In 1948, we had no Medicare program. Vast numbers of seniors went without even basic medical care. Despite Social Security, the elderly were more likely to be poor, while today, the reverse is true. In 1948, even a minor illness raised the specter of destitution. While Medicare certainly isn’t perfect, I don’t see today’s seniors clamoring to give up their benefits. Presumably Medicare isn’t one of these unfortunate “problems,” either.

Next, recall the medical care available in 1948, before so many of today’s amazing medical developments in surgery, technology, pharmaceuticals, and treatments far better (and far more costly) than almost anything available then. Many of these developments -- including future advances -- come from publicly-subsidized research at universities or the National Institutes of Health.

Better not ask people facing diseases for which no cures existed in 1948 if government-sponsored medical research is one of “these problems” we could have avoided.

Don’t ask the disabled, either. They might think that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991 opened doors of opportunity and self-reliance formerly nailed shut. Lots of women might point out that the civil rights movement also led to equal treatment for them in the workforce, too. It’s doubtful either group would consider the ADA or Title VII as “problems” we shouldn’t have had to endure.

I’d also suggest not asking any women who play high school or college sports. They might not take kindly to any suggestion that Title IX is a terrible mistake that electing Strom Thurmond in 1948 might have prevented. (And I’d especially advise you older guys against making a dedicated athlete angry, regardless of sex.)

So, we’ve ruled out asking minorities, women, seniors, the disabled, and those benefiting from new medical treatments -- and that’s just for starters; don’t forget television, computers, and microwave ovens, much less the fall of communism. So what exactly are these “problems” that electing Thurmond 54 years ago might have let us miss?

Despite the formidable impediment suffered by anybody born before 1960, that of no longer being young, life today is clearly better than in 1948. Any American who wants to trade now for then lives on a different planet.

Maybe life today is worse than in 1948, if you’re a U.S. Senator longing for those bygone days when a handful of old white guys controlled everything. You might want to reverse decades of years of progress -- none of which was brought to you by conservatives, of course -- thus avoiding “all these problems.”

But for the rest of us, it’s nostalgia that ain’t what it used to be.

It's All Enron's and Trent Lott's Fault

I got a pretty amazing "tag" above the headline this week: "Republican Rot." Bob Schuster's idea, not mine--and that's even without mentioning the $60 million civil verdict against GOP Corporation Commissioner Jim Irvin. If you want proof, check out the paper's version here.

I also wrote 99 Words About Jane Hull, in Sunday's Arizona Republic, where they pretty much used my bar mitzvah photograph. You can read the bit here but there's no photograph available online.

Happy holidays to Gentile readers, and I presume I'll see the rest of you (us?) at the movies or at dim sum on Christmas day.

REPUBLICAN ROT
OF SYMINGTON'S ACCOUNTING, McCAIN'S PARTISANSHIP
East Valley Tribune, Dec. 22, 2002

Our local media missed the local angle on two big national stories last week.

First, a videotape surfaced of an Enron Corp. party, featuring a glowing testimonial from our current president, and one from his father about just how helpful an Enron executive had been to “my boy George.”

The video also featured skits with Enron honchos actually joking about accounting fraud. A financial type jests that managing earnings was proving less difficult and time-consuming than he had feared. But the highlight was Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling talking about a new technique to boost profits by “kazillions” through adoption of “HFV” -- accounting based on “Hypothetical Future Values.”

Skilling was joking (I think). Enron’s standards-free abuse of “mark-to-market” accounting already allowed it to decide how much money it made by using prices only it knew, set in markets it controlled. Who needed to invent future values when you were creating today’s prices? But HFV sounded eerily familiar. What famous Arizona businessman actually used HFV, years before the Enron skits?

Answer? Former Gov. J. Fife Symington. In his bankruptcy fraud trial, Symington justified the inflated values he claimed for various assets on his financial statement as based on what he just knew those properties would be worth sometime in the future. It was Fife Symington, not Jeffrey Skilling, who invented HFV -- and then testified under oath that he meant it.

Fife Symington: Just slightly (and fraudulently) ahead of his time.

Second, while Trent Lott now regrets wishing that Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948, his problems increased before his resignation Friday with renewed attention to several pro-Confederacy and anti-civil-rights remarks Lott’s made, including a lengthy interview with a crypto-racist publication called Southern Partisan.

Southern Partisan has defended slavery (“Slave owners . . . did not have a practice of breaking up slave families. If anything, they encouraged strong slave families to further the slaves’ peace and happiness”) and trashed Lincoln’s memory (a “consummate conniver, manipulator and a liar”). They sold the T-shirt -- with Lincoln’s image over the words “sic semper tyrannis” (“thus always to tyrants”), John Wilkes Booth’s cry after the assassination -- that Timothy McVeigh wore when arrested for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Here’s the Arizona connection. In 2000, Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign -- paying some $20,000 per month for “consulting services” -- hired none other than Richard Quinn, the editor of Southern Partisan, for the South Carolina presidential primary.

Quinn’s “consulting” led McCain into supporting keeping the Confederate flag atop the South Carolina capitol, a position McCain later renounced and for which he apologized. And based on what foul stunts the Bush campaign pulled in South Carolina (the speech at Bob Jones University, the push-polls about the McCains’ adopted daughter), perhaps McCain gets his apology accepted.

But why was support of the Confederate flag the least bit legitimate in the first place, to McCain in 2000, and in GOP gubernatorial campaigns in South Carolina and Georgia this year? In 1948, the Dixiecrat platform meant nullifying the U.S. Constitution. Flying that flag today celebrates treason.

If Confederate flag-wavers claim that it’s actually about culture or history, South Carolina and Georgia were British colonies, and Mississippi and Alabama part of France, decades longer than the Confederacy. You don’t see the Union Jack or Fleur-de-Lis on many pickup trucks.

In reality, it’s all about racism.

Coded (or plausibly-deniable) appeals to crypto- (and not-so-crypto-) racists have been part of southern GOP politics for decades. As Bill Clinton noted, despite the current right-wing outrage over Lott, “he just embarrassed (the GOP) by saying in Washington what they do on the back roads every day.”

As computer programmers say, “It’s not a bug -- it’s a feature.”

Such a Sacrifice! Such a Burden!

Trent Lott stepping down as majority leader (but remaining a senator) means that Republicans take care of their problems and Democrats don’t, says Instapundit.

Really? Of course not.

First, if taking Lott out of leadership - but keeping him in the Senate - is “taking care” of the problem, then any criticism of Robert Byrd and Ernest Hollings for their segregationist past and, more recently Byrd’s use of a racial epithet when discussing his past, isn’t valid. They’re just as eligible to remain in the Senate as is Trent Lott - much less Strom Thurmond. They just can’t serve in party leadership like Lott was.

Byrd and Hollings are “merely” long-serving members of the U.S. Senate who have been around long enough to chair (or serve as ranking minority members) of powerful committees - which is apparently a perfectly acceptable outcome for Trent Lott. The office he “wasn’t fit to hold” was majority leader, not U.S. Senator.

Second, if the issue really was Lott’s leadership role and it’s up to voters in Mississippi to decide whether Lott can remain as a senator, then only residents of West Virginia and South Carolina get to decide whether Byrd and Hollings are fit to serve as senators today.

Actually, having voted for Strom Thurmond for so many years, South Carolinians are ineligible, so it’s just West Virginia residents who get to play. Any other Republican who accepts Lott remaining in the Senate, despite his comments, just forfeited his or her right to slam Byrd or Hollings.

Third, notice what “taking care of the problem” means in this case. Trent Lott is no longer majority leader, but he’s still a United States Senator, with his seniority, committee assignments, and stature.

The Republicans solved their problem by keeping him on stage, but moving him to the side so that the spotlight doesn't shine so brightly on him anymore. Cynthia McKinney had to leave Congress, but Trent Lott can stay in the Senate.

It’s usually liberals who get blamed for self-pitying moralizing, but check out this quote from the Peggy Noonan column that Mickey Kaus saluted:

Some of us have put our reputations in jeopardy by supporting programs like the school liberation movement because we want to help people who don't have much and need a break. Or we’ve put ourselves in jeopardy by opposing racial preferences, or any number of other programs, for the very reason that we believe completely in our hearts and minds that all races are equal and no one should be judged by the color of his skin.

How, pray tell, has Noonan “put herself in jeopardy” due to her personal support of the downtrodden and of equal rights? Does she mean that The Wall Street Journal would pay her more or run her stuff more often if she just didn’t care about other people? That she would have more stature in the conservative community if she didn’t believe in equal rights so very, very sincerely? That it really is a career-limiting problem for conservatives to believe in equal rights?

It’s must take such incredible bravery to be a conservative. You have to accept money, power, and prestige being showered on you -- such a burden! Oh, what a burden your reputation bears for supporting equal rights! It’s a terrible, terrible price to pay, but they pay it, because they know such sacrifice is worth it because of how it helps the less fortunate, or because of your firm belief in equal justice under the law for all citizens.

Of course, the “sacrifice” is supporting policies that oh-so-conveniently happen to benefit you personally, like tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich, like school voucher plans that will aid segregated private schools, like government spending devoted to GOP congressional districts.

In the real world, a “sacrifice” is when you give something up, or do something difficult, to benefit others and not yourself. But this sort of, yes, Orwellian abuse of language is necessary to believe that letting Trent Lott remain in the U.S. Senate is a sacrifice, “taking care of” a long-standing and shameful problem.

(Harold Ickes put himself in physical jeopardy and lost a kidney working for equal rights. Into exactly what jeopardy has Peggy Noonon put herself in the cause? Oh, yes, one more thought experiment. Imagine that Paul Krugman wrote a column so self-pitying and self-justifying as Noonan's. Would Kaus have called it "good"?)

Don’t sprain your shoulder patting yourself on the back, guys.

NOTE: I edited this post after initially posting in on Saturday.

Unfortunately, When the Right Wing Asks about Women Who Had Affairs with Bill Clinton, Lots of Volunteers Step Forward

This one goes out to my high school friend Jim Finkelstein, currently of Albany, GA, who often fills my email in-box with column ideas, and who happened to pass on an overstated version of the "gaps in Bush Guard service" story from an anti-Bush website. I'm not sure the whole anti-Bush claim checks out, but the no-record-of-service-in-Alabama part does. I also like the idea of the Bush campaign asking for anybody to step forward who remembers actual service in the Alabama National Guard, as recounted in Bush's campaign autobiography. Anybody see him at the time? Nobody's come forward so far.

Plus, local itemizers, don't forget the bizarre laundry list Arizona tax credits before Dec. 31! Information and the mailing address for the Citizens Clean Election Fund tax credit contribution is available here.

My column is also available online via the East Valley Tribune website here.

BUSH CAN'T ACCOUNT FOR 'LOST' NATIONAL GUARD TIME
East Valley Tribune, Dec. 15, 2002

In a letter to the editor on Dec. 4, Master Sgt. Michael Gorman took umbrage at my description of President Bush’s “service” in the Alabama Air National Guard. I’m not surprised Sgt. Gorman missed the point, because in matters great and small, George W. gets graded “on the curve.”

I wrote that contrary to The Tribune editorial page’s fond wish that Congress “revisit” aspects of the new Homeland Security law, “The GOP will show as much desire to ‘revisit’ these issues next year, and do it about as often, as George W. Bush showed up to do his draft-avoiding stint in the Alabama National Guard.”

Sgt. Gorman objected to calling National Guard service “draft-avoiding” -- and slurred me personally by saying that I called such service “unpatriotic” when I wrote no such thing. But I wasn’t attacking Guard service; I was pointing out George W. Bush’s service record in Alabama. More accurately, his lack of one.

In 1972, Bush transferred from his Texas Air Guard unit to work on an Alabama political campaign. Bush claims he met his Guard commitment in Montgomery, but no record exists that he ever showed up for duty.

I leave it to those who served in the military, or worked for the federal government, to ponder whether anyone could spend one hour on duty without generating any paperwork.

Of course, Bush can’t account for less than a year of “lost” Guard service, and it happened decades ago. Just do me one favor, though; insert “Clinton” in that sentence, and repeat; let me know how it feels.

“Revisit” the Homeland Security bill? President Bush will claim he did the job, only nothing will get written down. But given our low expectations, it just won’t matter to you ‘wingers.
_______________________________________________

Having cleared that particular air, December is also time to remind readers of the dizzying variety of state income tax credits. Don’t forget that anyone in a position to itemize deductions and without potential Alternative Minimum Tax liability can make thousands of dollars of state tax liability disappear.

First, there’s a credit (up to $625 for married couples filing jointly, $500 for individuals) for donations to “private school tuition organizations.” Give by December 31, then get your entire donation back in April when paying state taxes.

Second, don’t forget the separate-but-not-equal tax credit for contributions to public schools, up to $200 (individuals) or $250 (couples filing jointly). It won’t cost you a dime due to the dollar-for-dollar credit.

Third, donations to charities helping the working poor can qualify for another $200 tax credit (same amount whether married or single). Donate today, and Arizona repays you when you file your taxes.

The fourth widely-available credit may be moot, because for possibly the first time in American history, a government agency has too much money and is giving it back. The Citizens Clean Election Commission estimates it will have $1.4 million more than the legal limit, and will transfer the excess to the state’s General Fund.

But regardless, taxpayers can contribute $530 individually or $1,060 for a couple filing jointly, or 20% of your state tax liability, whichever is greater , to the Citizens Clean Election Fund. You get a dollar-for-dollar credit on Arizona income taxes. (Contributions are also deductible for federal taxes, so it’s entirely refundable; pay now, get it back in April.)

Even if your money ultimately lands in the General Fund, you have the satisfaction of earmarking those dollars and making things more difficult for the Arizona Legislature -- and that’s worth something, right?

Sure, this laundry list of tax credits is lousy public policy and a key component of the state budget crisis. But those are the rules, so why not play the game?

It's Not a Bug -- It's a Feature!

As Josh Marshall has noted, coded or plausibly-deniable appeals to crypto-racists and not-so-crypto-racists have been part and parcel of both Trent Lott's and John Ashcroft's politics. Despite outrage on the right about Lott these days, I have to note with regard to Lott's paeans to the not-so-wonderful past, "It's not a bug -- it's a feature!"