FRIDAY, JULY 16, 2010


KLMNO Washington FORUM


New Deal? New Frontier? Not anymore.


by Frank Mankiewicz and Joel L. Swerdlow


his week marks the 50th anniversary of when John F. Kennedy, accepting his party’s presi- dential nomination, first mentioned to a na- tional audience his “New Frontier.” The phrase, of course, took hold, and the Kennedy administration became the New Frontier. In the intervening half- century, however, no other phrase has come along to describe a presidency in any similarly strong way. This absence is notable, particularly since JFK was proceeding on a path taken by at least four of his predecessors in the previous 50 years. Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned by offering “a


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new deal for the American people,” and once in the White House he continued — and encouraged oth- ers — to talk about the New Deal. He was harking back, slogan-wise, to his most recent Democratic predecessor as president, Woodrow Wilson, whose “New Freedom” had found considerable resonance in 1912, and to his Republican forebear Theodore Roosevelt, whose “Square Deal” had been the first catchphrase to serve as the signature description of a presidency. One would think a pattern had been set, given the communications revolution of, first, radio and then television, but in the terms of 11 chief executives after FDR — 12 if you count the current president — only Harry Truman’s “Fair Deal” and JFK’s “New Frontier” have followed. Interestingly, those phrases came to describe not only an administration but also its operatives and supporters. Just as JFK’s followers became “New Frontiersmen,” FDR’s people were “New Dealers” and Truman’s were “Fair Dealers.” How, then, do we account for the absence of any descriptive term for a presidency in the half- century since 1960? Richard Nixon had his “Silent Majority,” but that didn’t define his presidency. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” was a useful la- bel for a set of domestic objectives, but it was hard- ly a New Frontier. (Could one describe, say, Joe Cali- fano as a Great Societor?) Jimmy Carter is still touched by malaise. Gerald Ford had the un- forgettable tag “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln” — but no memorable description for his administration. Ronald Reagan brought morning in America, but that and even the phrases associated with both Presidents Bush (“Read my lips: No new taxes” and “Compassionate conservatism,” respectively) re- ferred more to the presidents and their campaigns than to their administrations. Bill Clinton won by running on a new breed of Democrat and a bridge to the 21st century, but without any slogan that stuck.


It can hardly be coincidence that the sloganeers were presidents who thought government should act affirmatively to better people’s lives.


The idea of branding the candidate, as opposed to the presidency, isn’t new. Andrew Jackson was “Old Hickory.” Lincoln was “Honest Abe.” Labels such as “New Frontier” may have replaced this to some extent: Wilson, FDR, Truman and JFK, while clearly defining their administrations, did not have significant personal labels. It’s also possible that the proliferation of cable


television, blogs and all the electronic parapherna- lia of our era have created a permanent 24-hour campaign and news cycle and a gossip-oriented at- mosphere that have made analysis and labeling more difficult, if not impossible. While it’s difficult to exaggerate the power of


electronic media on U.S. politics and public policy, a better answer probably lies in the most funda- mental nature of American politics during the past half century — the difference in ideology between those who would expand and those who want to re- duce government’s role. It can hardly be coinci- dence that the sloganeers — the Square, New and Fair Dealers; and the New Frontiersmen — were the promoters, strategists, candidates and, later, the presidents who thought government should act affirmatively in an attempt to better people’s lives. Today we would call them activists, not stabilizers or traditionalists. FDR saw “one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill- clothed and ill-nourished” and proposed to fight the “malefactors of great wealth” to do something about it — using government as a weapon. His cousin before him had fulminated against “the trusts” and went on to “speak softly and carry a big stick” in developing the Panama Canal, using the Navy to intimidate in foreign policy and promoting passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and tough meat inspection laws. Truman’s Fair Deal included national health insurance, a Fair Employment Practices Committee to combat racial prejudice, and the desegregation of the armed forces. JFK threatened the steel industry and got a reduction in prices, and he launched the Peace Corps. These are just a few actions marking the presi- dencies of the sloganeers. Contrast these to a recita- tion of America’s “present needs” in Warren G. Har- ding’s 1920 campaign speech: “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agi- tation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experi- ment, but equipoise . . .” Can anyone imagine Teddy Roosevelt eschewing heroics for healing, FDR call- ing for restoration and adjustment? Would JFK have won in 1960 on a campaign for normalcy? Those who would shrink government may now be on the march, but it’s those presidents who be- lieve in government as a way to improve lives or mitigate distress who seem to define their time in office through self-described calls to action. The emergence of a label for the Obama administration would be a sure sign that it has finally gained trac- tion. “Yes-We-Canners” doesn’t quite fit the bill.


Frank Mankiewicz, a former president of NPR, was press secretary to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Joel L. Swerdlow is an adjunct professor at the University of Texas. They are co-authors of "Remote Control: Television and the Manipulation of American Life."


MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS Students use laptops at the School of the Future, created by Microsoft and the Philadelphia school district.


Missed connections with broadband


by Blair Levin and J. Erik Garr


debate and indignation — and countless words in news- papers and on blogs — were dedicated to such questions as whether Texas schools should teach about the Con- tract With America and John Calvin. These issues are important to get right. But the debate misses a more important question: Why are we still us- ing ink-on-paper textbooks, when digital technology of- fers a much better way? Today, Johnny opens his math textbook and reads a


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chapter. He understands parts of it, but not all. He does the 10-question homework on paper and hands it in. Lat- er, he gets the homework back and sees that he answered seven questions correctly. Envision this: Johnny pulls up a math chapter on his e-


reader. When he doesn’t understand something, he clicks a link and watches a video of a great teacher pre- senting the concept, perhaps using a cool simulation. If Johnny still doesn’t understand, he can chat online with a tutor familiar with the material. When Johnny does his homework on his e-reader, he immediately learns what he got wrong and sees an explanation based on his par- ticular mistake. Johnny’s parents receive a text or e-mail saying that he finished his math homework. The teacher receives a report that evening outlining what the class found straightforward and which problems puzzled stu- dents, along with suggestions on how to address the in- adequacies. The school board receives data that lead to constant improvement in the effectiveness of course material.


Replacing textbooks with e-readers would create a


platform that lets students learn as much as they can, as fast as they can. The teacher is freed from drudgery, such as correcting homework, and given the tools to teach more effectively. Parents and school officials get data that help them guide the educational experience. And those improvements are just the beginning. Be- cause the learning happens on a digital platform, every- thing about the experience can be captured. Teaching can be constantly analyzed and improved. Equipment such as the iPad and technological devel- opments such as 4G wireless and massive computing power mean that the technology needed for such a plat- form is available today, at costs cheaper than providing material that Gutenberg could have produced. For the sake of our children, and for the competi-


he Texas State Board of Education voted in May to adopt a controversial set of guidelines for social studies and history textbooks. Countless hours of


tiveness of the nation, America ought to be aggressively developing a new category of educational content, de- livered using high-speed Internet access. Unfortunately, America is not grasping the opportu-


nity that broadband presents. As the leaders of the team that prepared the National Broadband Plan that was presented to Congress in March, we have seen that the public debate on broadband focuses too much on how our networks compare with those in other countries. In- stead, the discussion should focus on how to use those networks here in America and rethink how we deliver key services. And it’s not just education. Broadband networks can


create ecosystems for health care, such as through re- mote, in-home monitoring, that can improve patient well-being while lowering costs. In public safety, emer- gency alerts delivered through mobile devices can be far more targeted and effective than many current prac- tices are in providing critical information in a disaster. The barriers to shifting the delivery of services to modern technology are many. Outmoded licensing and reimbursement rules create significant disincentives. Incumbent providers often throw up obstacles to new methods.


But perhaps the biggest barrier is the difficulty in


shifting to a new type of thinking. In the 1997 business classic “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen showed that suc- cessful companies are usually late to employ more effi- cient, radically different approaches to meet their cli- ents’ needs. Still, however hard the problem of innovation, we must solve it — or U.S. leadership in the world will be threatened. America invented the Internet and is the leader in developing the applications the world uses to search, to connect to friends, to shop and to do many other things. Our country should also be the leader in using broadband to reinvent how we deliver education, health care, public safety and other government services. Instead, we appear to be suffering from an in-


novator’s dilemma: spending all our time debating what to put in the history books, without rewriting his- tory by questioning the need for the book in the first place.


Blair Levin is a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute. J. Erik Garr is a partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. Both recently left the Federal Communications Commission after leading the development of the National Broadband Plan for nearly a year.


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Try them in federal court — at Gitmo


by Eugene R. Sullivan and Louis J. Freeh


aving committed — correctly, in our view — to hold the trial of the principal defendants charged with carrying out


the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks before an Article III federal court, the White House and Congress appear stymied about which American venue these accused mass murderers should be tak- en to for trial. Clearly, holding these trials in Manhattan or Illinois is no longer an option for a host of political and practical reasons. Countervailing arguments that the defen- dants should go before military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have led to a stalemate.


But there is a safe, rational, cost-effective solution that upholds the rule of law: Try the suspects in an Article III federal court — in Guantanamo. The territory of every federal district court


is defined by statute. Thus Congress can, by statute, expand the “territorial jurisdiction” of any federal district court — for example, the U.S. District Court for the Southern Dis- trict of New York, the venue initially designat- ed for the Sept. 11 trial — to include Guanta- namo. Or Congress could create a Guanta- namo Bay Cuba Division for any federal district. Either way, the result would be an economical, secure, credible and fair determi- nation before a civilian federal judge and jury. Detainees would have the right to file habeas corpus petitions, which would speed the much-needed closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by adjudicating the remain- ing cases safely, judiciously and quickly. Three core principles argue for this solution.


First, our national honor as a country com-


mitted to the rule of law weighs heavily in fa- vor of trying these accused terrorists in civil- ian federal courts. Our Article III judges, ju- ries, prosecutors, independent defense counsel, due process and precedents make the federal courts the only credible and con- stitutionally sound place to bring these cases. Hundreds of international terrorist suspects have been brought to trial in our courts, with results accepted and respected worldwide. Conversely, the untested and widely ques-


How to give the Sept. 11 suspects a fair trial in a secure place.


TOPIC A How does Jacob Lew cut the deficit?


The Post asked what’s first for President Obama’s nominee to direct the Office of Management and Budget.


MAYA MACGUINEAS President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget Jack Lew is going to have one of the hardest jobs in


Washington: selling tough policy measures to members of Congress who aren’t exactly buying. But 2011 is the year policymakers are going to have to put in place a serious plan to reduce the deficit, phasing changes in gradually so as not to destabilize the recovery. Otherwise, we risk credit markets turning against the United States, leading to our own sovereign debt crisis. The White House must offer a credible budget in


February, unlike this year’s totally unworkable proposal to add $10 trillion to the debt over this decade. The president can’t expect Congress to lead on crafting the specifics. Instead, the White House will have to offer a detailed proposal (think defense cuts, Social Security reform, a strict health-care budget and the reduction of a slew of tax breaks), cooperate with both parties to hash out a workable plan and find ways to offer political cover for those willing to step up. Lew is going to have to spend much of his time building relationships and coalitions on Capitol Hill. He’ll have to convince Democrats that the bulk of changes will have to come out of spending (where the problem lies); persuade the White House to break its untenable promise not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000; and convince Republicans that taxes will have to be part of the ultimate bargain. The policy piece of Lew’s new charge is tough; the politics will be even tougher.


FRANKLIN D. RAINES Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 1996-98 Jack Lew and I worked together on the deficit


reduction deal in 1997 between Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton that balanced the budget. Unfortunately, the problem is much bigger now, and the politics are much worse.


Entitlement reform has to be part of any effort to


bridge the structural gap between federal revenue and outlays. But the biggest entitlement budget-buster, and one that few people are talking about, is the net interest paid on federal debt. Interest is projected to grow from 5 percent of outlays this year to 13 percent in five years. Looked at another way, interest on the federal debt will


grow from 1.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2010 to almost 15 percent in 2050. That’s more than the share of GDP for all federal revenue this year (14.8 percent). Most of the long-run deficit is composed of the interest on debt piled up because we were unwilling to pay today (or over an economic cycle) for the spending we want today. This means, unfortunately, that cutting the budget


deficit in half is not enough. To reduce the impact of interest entitlement spending on everything from taxes to defense to health care, we need to balance the budget as soon as this recession is over. Otherwise, in the not-too- distant future we will face a choice between paying the bondholders and paying the soldiers, doctors, teachers and retirees.


DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN Director of the Congressional Budget Office from February 2003 through December 2005 Jack Lew’s priority must be to demonstrate the Obama administration’s commitment to controlling spending. The administration’s track record on debt is horrendous. It publishes budgets that show the president’s preferred policies lead to a dangerous debt spiral. Obama officials pledge fealty to fiscal discipline while they push through pay-as-you-go budgeting rules with Swiss-cheese-like holes and ignore spending caps. These inconsistencies have lent a craven, political feel to actions such as the establishment of the fiscal responsibility commission. What is the real plan? It needs to center on stabilizing the debt (relative to the size of the economy) and, soon, by curbing administration spending. It is well known that the big money is in entitlements. But OMB is at its best regarding discretionary spending. That is easier to cut more quickly, and there is plenty of bloat in the annual $1.4 trillion discretionary budget. Lew should start by dumping the gimmicky, Bush-like freeze on non-defense, non-security spending and imposing a top-line overall freeze. Making those freezes stick will require overhauling congressional relations. Liberals will be outraged, appropriators will threaten revolt and Republicans will be suspicious. But a solid core of centrists and conservatives in both parties will recognize the virtues and give Lew something to build on. Demonstrated spending control would send the right signal to international financial markets and the U.S. private sector.


tioned military commissions have prosecuted only four detainees since Sept. 11; two re- ceived light sentences and are now free. Even some of the commissions’ principals have questioned the constitutionality of their proc- esses and outcomes. Ultimately, despite the laudable dedication of their participants, the commissions are fatally flawed: The public, at home and abroad, lacks confidence in their independence and fairness. Second, trying these alleged terrorists as quasi-“military prisoners” before military commissions, rather than as “common” (al- beit notorious) criminals, lends credence to their claims to be “warriors.” Not only should we not award them any semblance of warrior status, including military trials, that they can twist for propaganda or ideological reasons, but doing so is also a grave insult to the mil- lions of Americans who have gone into harm’s way, thousands of whom have given their lives, to combat terrorism with honor. It also greatly disrespects the hundreds of thou- sands of innocent victims worldwide — most- ly women, children and other noncombatants — of these cowardly and indiscriminate kill- ers. Third, the economic costs of ensuring ad-


equate security within the United States are prohibitive. Without spending millions of tax- payer dollars, no persuasive argument can be made that trying these defendants anywhere within the states would be as safe and secure as using the multimillion-dollar facilities con- structed at Guantanamo Bay for this purpose. There is precedent for this approach. Other


“island” military bases, indisputably treated as U.S. territories or possessions — the Mid- way Atoll, Wake Island, Johnston Island, Kingman Reef — are expressly defined within the jurisdiction of specific district courts, even if they are retained largely for military use. This would place Guantanamo within the territorial jurisdiction of a federal court, if not within the sovereign territory of the United States. The two political branches of govern- ment could exercise their discretion and have the case tried credibly before an Article III court and jury in the safest, most cost- efficient and available venue of all. This solution has the immense benefit of employing the considerable talent and re- sources of two proven federal courts — the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit — with all the attendant prosecutorial, defense attorney and administrative expertise to ensure a cred- ible conclusion. While it would require some logistical innovations, such as impaneling an anonymous jury in Manhattan and trans- porting the jurors to Guantanamo Bay for service, federal courts have adapted to these kinds of challenges in complex terrorism cases. Federal trials at Guantanamo would enable


that justice is carried out in a safe, fair, cred- ible and cost-efficient way. Congress and the president should act to do so.


Eugene R. Sullivan was chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces from 1990 to 1995. Louis J. Freeh is a former U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York and was FBI director from 1993 to 2001.


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