President Bush showed his real talents on Saturday, December 14, when he successfully ducked two shoes being thrown at him during a press conference in Iraq. He has been so good at ducking (the truth) he should join a circus and work the "dunking machine."

Ann Molison

Fort Collins, CO

A thank you to Alfie Kohn for his mention of the ongoing petition to get Dr. Darling Hammond named secretary of education. At the time he wrote his article, he did not know that we had closed the petition to turn in signatures to the Obama transition team and have since re-opened the petition at the following address: http://www.petitiononline.com/2Hammond/petition.html.

Over 2,600 signatures were hand-delivered to the Obama transition headquarters in Chicago and we intend on delivering many more soon. Thank you.

Dave Atias

Rochester, NY

A prefatory note: I know that it is quite unlikely that this letter will have the visibility of Alexander Cuadro's piece about the Venezuelan regional elections. That fact is unfortunate, because what Cuadros has written is wrong and misleading in key respects. Nation readers deserve better.

Let us take his errors and odd interpretations, one by one. To start, Cuadros asserts that the recorded conversation between Consul Carlos Galvis Fajardo and an adviser to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe "revealed no substantive evidence of Colombian meddling in Venezuelan territory." That's one gloss, and is literally true.

Another gloss might have quoted Fajardo as saying that "I already spoke to them this morning and we're going to meet to look at taking some action at the level of government, because I'm thinking about what we are doing there." "Them," meaning opposition officials.

One could add that such a statement may well be legitimate grounds for expulsion--governors should not be in the business of making agreements with foreign governments, at least if one takes the rather heterodox position that international law is a legitimate framework for consular comportment.

One should add that Chávez has an understandable concern about Colombia's respect for other countries' sovereignty. It was not so long ago that its military erred over Ecuador's borders, an incursion that the Organization of America States denounced immediately. There are also credible allegations that Colombian paramilitaries have infiltrated western Venezuela and murdered peasant activists (Colombian paramilitaries have considerably more intimate relations with the Colombian state than the Michigan Militia has with the White House).

It is also unclear why Cuadros thinks that the December 2006 landslide is the relevant benchmark for assessing the 2008 regional elections. While down in Caracas last spring, I heard tell of a nationwide vote in 2007 on a constitutional referendum. Chávez lost that vote, by a 2 percent margin. As Oliver Zambrano, left-wing organizer and spokesman for the National Peasant Front Ezequiel Zamora, told me in Caracas in April, that loss inflicted a grievous blow on “the process.”

Thus the issue facing chavismo in the 2008 regional elections was whether a loss would hammer a reeling chavismo or if a win would, as Venezuelan sociologist Javier Biardeau puts it, "direct the electoral trajectory toward the recovery of the level of support reached in the 2006 electoral cycle," which is what happened. Indeed, as he notes, "the Venezuelan revolution has recovered significantly from the electoral setback of December 2, 2007."

So why does Cuadros hold forth statistics such as "gubernatorial candidates for the PSUV, Chávez's party, won just 52.5 percent of the popular vote nationwide. Out of Venezuela's twenty-three states, the opposition now controls five, along with the mayor's seat in Caracas" like so many bleeding scalps?

Such statistics seriously mislead. Cuadros must know that before the election, PSUV candidates controlled only sixteen statehouses and that in this election the PSUV picked up two governors' seats. He must also be aware that while PSUV candidates only amassed 52.5 percent of the popular vote, opposition candidates only gathered some 42.5 percent. To put it differently, PSUV candidates received 5.3 million votes, while opposition candidates tallied 4.3 million. "Just"?

Cuadros is right to highlight the loss of the mayoralty of greater Caracas. But the one scalp he is right to brandish should rightfully be placed next to the PSUV's win of over 80 percent of the mayoralties. Such stark facts render meaningless Cuadros's subsequent query, "Is Chavismo finally on the wane?"

Cuadros then waxes on about "mismanagement and corruption" having become "hallmarks of Chávez's government," in turn citing garbage collection problems and "shortages of coffee, milk and sugar." But Chacao, Caracas's poshest district, has also had problems with garbage collection recently--or at least it did in April, when I lived there (the PSUV does not govern Chacao). Food shortages, for their part, are what happen when a country's poor see their income rise precipitously while producers hoard foodstuffs or ship them to Colombia instead of disbursing them to the national market.

Meanwhile, "mismanagement and corruption" are not exactly a Chavista monopoly. Serious students of Venezuelan society agree that mismanagement and corruption have been endemic to Venezuela for decades. Indeed, the upper classes used to run PDVSA, the state oil company, as their private fiefdom, before Chávez firmly yanked it into government control.

Cuadros correctly comments on the significance of the opposition victory in Petare. But he omits vital context--Petare is not merely a sprawling slum. It houses upper-middle-class bastions that reliably and en bloc vote for opposition candidates. It was not mass disaffection that laid low Jesse Chacon, the PSUV candidate there but elements of discontent combined with traditional, class-based voting patterns.

In turn, Cuadros plaintively murmurs out his key preoccupation--"whether there is any way to bridge the chasm between the two camps." He turns to Margarita Lopez Maya for an answer. She characterizes the nation's plight as "dark times." Yet poverty has been more than halved, while extreme poverty has plummeted over 70 percent, according to the painstaking and definitive work of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

One needn't be an economic determinist to wonder how Lopez Maya could possibly call these "dark times." Indeed, if the views of the most impoverished denizens of Venezuela are at all relevant, these times aren't so bad at all (it might smack of cheap demagoguery or self-righteousness to note that two decades ago were kind of glum times too, as government troops shot down poor people rioting against neoliberal austerity measures).

Cuadros adds that the opposition has resorted to armed coup, but does not bother to expound much on the relevance of this tactic. Meanwhile, the Chavista camp has resorted to subsidized food, literacy campaigns and free healthcare, which Cuadros also downplays. These are two projects that, to speak unfashionably, are at war with another. To speak of bridging them is to dream.

Finally, if I might append a postscript to symmetrically frame this comment. I do not defend Chávez as a messiah or the Bolivarian process as perfect. Venezuela is no wonderland. I do not ask readers to take my word for anything, or Cuadros's. In an ideal world, they could go and see and judge for themselves the spectacular successes and the foibles, too, of Bolivarian Venezuela. But they cannot, and so must seek out trusted sources. I recommend the excellent on-site work of George Ciccariello-Maher or Greg Wilpert, or for serious economic analysis, CEPR. But for understanding contemporary Venezuela, strange sketches like Cuadros has chosen to provide are of little help.

Max Ajl

Brooklyn, NY

Pragmatism, capitulation and antithesis... "Lincoln was also pragmatic about the institution he helped end." But that's only part of the story.

Neither Stephen A. Douglas nor Lincoln professed a love for slavery. Their positions not to end slavery were both pragmatic. Lincoln's choice had a moral basis. The choice for Douglas was based on self-interest.

Greg Sullivan

San Diego, CA

This idea--what the Republicans rightly called the nuclear strategy--this notion scares the hell out of me.

Look. I'm a lefty from way back. And to me, the sixty-vote rule represents a way to protect the rights of minorities. Sometimes, as in recent days, it is we who are in the minority.

No. A far better way is to find a consensus--a center-oriented way to govern. Yes, McConnell is a prickly so-and-so. Nonetheless he represents views held by many, many of our fellow citizens, views that need to be respected. Anything less is simply carrying the torch of polarization and is clearly abuse of power.

So, a message to the Senate: Find a way to work it out, boys.

Michael Spencer

Naples, FL

How pragmatic!

What is it, again, that The Nation stands for? Pragmatism? Oh, OK... I might as well subscribe to a "bipartisan" magazine then... the journal of the new pragmatists--is that about right? I mean, left? I mean, center?

To pretend as if "liberals" and conservatives are equally responsible for the Democratic neoliberal party we see before us today is just plain stupid.

Sure, neocons have "solutions" too! We just tried them all! And if PE Obama intends to continue them--I will never vote for a Democrat again.

Kyle Christensen

Dayton, OH

Mr. Grieder is on target that Senate Republicans will abuse the sixty-vote cloture vote minimum to reinforce their reduced power. Unquestionably, the Republican Party leadership is devoid of statesmen. I doubt, however, that lowering the sixty-vote minimum to fifty is good long-term strategy. The tyranny of the majority is a real problem in our two-party system, and the Democrats will one day find themselves on the weak side, as they were just two years ago.

The better plan is what Senate leaders negotiated in 2005 when the Republican majority of that time threatened to eliminate filibusters by reducing the cloture vote minimum to fifty-one. A "gentlemen's agreement" was negotiated under which both sides promised to avoid use of the filibuster except in the most dire of circumstances, which, though an ill-defined standard, at least raised the stakes and sent a message to the minority that constant use of filibusters was off-limits. This worked until December 2006, after which the Democrats took over a slim one-vote Senate majority. However, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell refused to abide by the gentlemen's agreement and filibustered every chance he got, robbing Congress of any significant say in the final two years of Bush's presidency.

Clearly, it was the fault of the Democratic Senate leadership in the current Congress, which abdicated its power by refusing to address the Republicans' flouting of the filibuster rule both sides had agreed to in 2005. It is incumbent upon Senate Dems not to repeat that mistake.

Robert C. Carmody

Manhasset, NY

Small point of clarification: Nixon's "V" for victory sign is not the same thing as a Harvey Smith. In Britain the two-finger victory signal was made famous by Churchill. However, when the hand is reversed so that the back of the hand is facing whomever it is that the person making the gesture is facing, the meaning is the same as the extended middle finger in the USA.

Harvey Smith was a champion show-jumper in the 70s, who caused turmoil in that staid and snooty world by giving the judges what was then called a "V-sign" to express his displeasure. It made the cover of most of the newspapers.

paul schwartz

Nyack, NY

Save millions of jobs... now! Medicare for All.

Infrastructure spending will take time to implement. The money will not get flowing for many months. Sure, it will be allocated, but not spent into the economy for at least six months, and the bulk of it will take longer than a year.

Infrastructure spending is worthwhile, necessary and stimulative, but it will not appreciably help an economy that is in a free fall, with jobs being lost at an accelerating rate in the hundreds of thousands. By the time Obama's infrastructure stimulus reaches the economy, it will already be a basket case.

What we need now are job-saving ideas. It is far easier, quicker and cheaper to save a job than to create one. We need "Medicare for All." This saves jobs right away, especially in the public sector in states and local governments.

This re-capitalizes business, especially manufacturing, but also any business currently employing many people. Strings could be attached such as a no layoff rule whereby companies would run thirty-two hour workweeks paying for forty and supplemented by paid health insurance. States would be mandated to take any extra money and use it for unemployment benefits and/or pension fund replenishment.

Medicare for All would also make our businesses more competitive at home and abroad. All the other G7 nations have government-sponsored health insurance giving their businesses a subsidy.

We need to save as many jobs as possible as soon as possible. We need Medicare for All ASAP. Obama has the momentum, the people on the ground and the moral authority to get this done. Will he be a manager or a leader?

Michael McKinlay

Hercules, CA

Bravo! I never, ever thought I'd agree with Mr. Scheer on anything but, by god, "Socialism for the Rich" did it. An interesting thing is happening now in our politics: populist right-wingers like me and populist left-wingers like Mr. Scheer are speaking with one voice at least on this issue. That's a good thing! Who knows, we both may be shouting bring the revolution before too long.

Charles Jackson

Atlanta, GA

I've argued for a long time that both Democrats and Republicans clearly support socialism, in terms of what they actually do in office, anyway. Moreover, we have many socialist institutions in the US already: the public education system, the Postal Service, national parks and forests, the interstate highway system, the military (which, interestingly, is where small-government neocons love to spend enormous amounts of money--moreso than anyone else, in fact) and so on. Recently, we nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. And now much of the financial sector, and possibly the auto industry, are or will be nationalized to some extent. And we still have forty days before Barak Obama's inauguration.

Even so, the GOP ticket and many of its supporters routinely alleged during the election campaign that Barak Obama was bad for America because, they said, he would "experiment with socialism"--in their view, apparently, a new phenomenon in the United States. Interviews with disappointed Republican voters still often show that many believe Mr. Obama is a socialist (and/or a terrorist sympathizer, a racist, not a "natural born" citizen etc., etc.). Their "evidence" for Mr. Obama's socialist tendencies almost always boils down to the casual comment he made to a man who came to be known as "Joe the Plumber," off-the-cuff, about "spreading the wealth." Never mind that Joe the Plumber seriously misrepresented himself, and that it's likely he mainly sought to set up a marketable persona, one which he is exploiting even now (while betraying the man who made him famous, John McCain). Obama's comment to JTP hit the GOP public conversation like chum hits shark-infested waters.

The question is: how did a casual comment come to trump actual data? The data show that both parties lean toward socialism. However, Dems and Reps apply it somewhat differently. Republicans clearly prefer upward redistribution of wealth, and government handouts for corporations rather than citizens. Democrats support big corporate interests too, but prefer to include some additional government assistance for people who are not fabulously wealthy. That's the bit Republican politicians really don't like: helping average people too, not just big business or rich people.

Robert Scheer writes beautifully about this and Dubya's brand of socialism.

Eric Burr

Pocatello, ID

With all of the stats in this article, I was surprised there weren't stats on the dollars coming in from the heroin trade, which is funding the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. The economic void in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have led to this disaster, allowing opium agriculture to flourish. In order to cut off this blood supply for the terrorists, the opium fields must first be destroyed, without destroying the soil, and replaced with a viable crop.

I do not believe for a minute that Karzai is exempt from any benefits of this trade! Why hasn't there been a thorough investigation following the money? More than 90 percent of the world's heroin now comes from Afghanistan? Where is the accountability--especially when US dollars seem to be funding this economy?

Not only does the heroin supply bring income for arms, bribes, and soldiers, it weakens the countries it goes to!

We need to destroy this bloodline first, and then send food and goods to both the Afghans and Pakistanis so they can survive while economic development takes hold. Creating goodwill instead of just focusing on destruction will create more allies in the region than a singular military strategy. This strategy will cost less in dollars and lives in the long run and lead to a sustainable economy.

Christina Ivazes

Sacramento, CA

The fundamental problem with the "9/11 meme" is that it implies, to the uncritical mind, a necessarily link between a true description and a false prescription. The true description is that of organized murder on an appalling and devastating scale. The false prescription is pre-emptive war, also known as the Bush Doctrine.

Lakshmi Chaudhry is right to be exasperated with journalists who, rather than attack this barbaric ethical prescription, take the cowardly, roundabout path of watering down the description. The effect of this is not only to leave unchallenged the faulty assumption that victimization always must lead to vengeance. Worse, it is to trivialize the pain and the grief of the victims of the traumatic attacks in Mumbai.

Rather than trivialize this grief, we need to embrace it and to validate it. The ethic of bomb-dropping retribution would not seem so unassailable if it didn't have a powerful emotion behind it: the thirst for vengeance, which the self-deluded cult of masculinity misrepresents as virtue.

But there are equally strong, or perhaps even stronger emotions that are nobler and far more needful in the wake of this and other traumas. I believe one of these is grief. Grief is not for sissies. Its onset feels like helplessness, not like the delusion of power that vengefulness bestows. The experience of grief is pure pain, like the application of a red-hot iron to cauterize an open wound. But grief leads to healing, whereas the end effect of anger, rashly acted upon, is to spread its infection to new victims.

Grief can also be like a cloudburst, particularly if we are willing to share it openly with others. It waters the soul and purges it of bile. It washes away the distinctions between us and lets us see, through the magnifying lenses of tears, the common humanity of others.

I believe a new president could send a new message by grieving with the citizens of Mumbai. I believe he could present us all with a nobler image of masculinity by validating the grief of traumatized men and women everywhere. Maybe if we more often had the courage to share our grief, we would more often avoid the divisive and perhaps catastrophic effects of unrestrained rage.

Eric Paul Jacobsen

West Saint Paul, MN

After retirement, Bush should join the circus. What better career for a clown? He could be the one they shoot out of a cannon (without a helmet).

Then he would know what it's like to be cannon fodder.

Edward Golden

Everett, WA

Bush could acqaint himself with our library system, then host the national Storytimes for toddlers' events and readings.

Renee Lusian

Seal Beach, CA