This morning, I attended a breakfast that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held with several journalists. At the start, she noted that she had recently been in Afghanistan, and she indicated she was not encouraged by what she had seen on the ground. When the breakfast was over, I asked her about that trip. What struck her, she said, was her meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He was, she reported, more subdued than her last meeting with him eighteen months ago. And during their talk, he had acknowledged that corruption is a major problem for his government.
That admission registered with Pelosi, for in her previous meeting with Karzai he had downplayed corruption as a concern. So one clear implication is this: if Karzai is finally admitting that corruption plagues his government, it must be really, really, really bad.
After his meeting with Pelosi, Karzai's office released a statement noting that he had received a commitment from Pelosi to help his government fight terrorism. Whatever that meant. But given Karzai's uncertain standing these days--President Barack Obama has criticized his government for being "detached"--receiving any commitment from the speaker of the US House of Representatives would be good news for him.
But not so fast.
After Karzai's office released that statement, Pelosi released her own stating that "Karzai asked for no commitments from the Speaker's delegation, and none were provided." Worse (for Karzai), Pelosi's statement listed the key issues they had discussed. And number one on the list was "the continued corruption and lack of effectiveness by the Afghan police." When she returned to Washington, Pelosi noted that any strategy for Afghanistan "must address systemic corruption within the Afghan government."
As the Obama administration proceeds with its review of Afghanistan policy--which is due to be completed by the end of this month--government corruption is just one of many knotty problems it will have to confront. But if Karzai is talking about it, I don't know whether that's a good sign (as in, Karzai wants to do something about it), or a bad sign (as in, even Karzai cannot ignore it).
WHERE HAVE ALL THE REPORTERS GONE? After the Pelosi breakfast, I strolled trough the Senate press gallery. In years past, it used to be crowded with reporters following Congress, with all the desks were taken. And there would be a buzz of activity whenever Congress was in session. Today, it was quiet--though Congress is working--and there were plenty of empty desks. One veteran told me that there always are empty desks. He recalled that years ago he had to fight like hell to obtain a work space in the gallery. Now anyone can get one. Between media mergers and media deaths, there are fewer outlets sending correspondents to Congress.
Which means that these days, when Congress is dealing with more stuff than ever, there are fewer journalists to cover it. This is not a good thing.
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Comments
DC,
I'd bet it is "a bad sign (as in, even Karzai cannot ignore it)."
That and the simple fact that we have a new administration and maybe some new policies.
If the desks were previously filled with talking point parrots who sold us two terms of Bush and all of his follies or those who really thought a BJ was important "news" - who needs them?
If those desks could be filled with hard working journalists it would be a good thing. Seems like in the larger context there are far too few real journalists - maybe not enough for much of anything.
Posted by: capt
| March 3, 2009 1:17 PM
pelosi should explain why american forces are over there in the first place, and why the production of opium has increased by 1000% since.
Posted by: as_if!
| March 4, 2009 3:06 AM
Knowledge is Power and GOP do not want to report on what is really going on or what has really happened!
Although there was hardly any reporting done on this by the Republican-owned, main stream media, it was George Bush who pushed for minority home buying.... not Clinton as they love to distort about and gave Speculators the go ahead to get minorities to buy homes in the hundreds of thousands.
Source: Dateline: 06/18/02
"Calling a home the "foundation for families and a source of stability for communities," President Bush has proposed three new initiatives designed to enhance existing federal home buyer assistance programs by helping African- and Hispanic-Americans buy homes. According to the White House, fewer than half of all African and Hispanic Americans currently own their homes, compared to nearly three-fourths of white Americans. "We must begin to close this homeownership gap by dismantling the barriers that prevent minorities from owning a piece of the American dream," said the President in a nationwide radio address. To close the homeownership gap, President Bush proposed legislation funding the following new initiatives:
American Dream Down Payment Fund
This program would provide money to qualified low-income families to assist in making the down payment on a home. "The single greatest hurdle to first time homeownership is a high down payment requirement that can put a home out of reach," said President Bush. White House analysts estimate that the American Dream Fund will assist some 40,000 low-income families annually in making down payments on homes.
Tax Credits to Create Affordable Housing
This proposed initiative would provide home-builders and developers with nearly $2.4 billion in tax credits for building affordable single-family housing in distressed areas. The tax credits would help make 200,000 new affordable homes available to low-income buyers over the next five years.
Home Buyer Education
To assist home buyers deal with the complexity and difficulty of the purchasing process, this program would provide funds to agencies working to better educated first-time home buyers. Consumers would be advised of their rights and responsibilities as home buyers, and trained to recognize and avoid abusive and unscrupulous lending practices. "Financial education and housing counseling can help protect home buyers against abuses, greatly improve the loan terms they are offered, and help families get through tough times with their homes intact," said President Bush "Owning a home lies at the heart of the American dream," Bush said. "My approach to broadening home ownership focuses on empowering people to help themselves and to help one another."
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa061902a.htm
And because there were no Regulations to protect said homebuyers who had a balloon interest at the end, well we see what has happened, and they still want to blame the homebuyers instead of the scam perpetrated by lenders who first lowered interest rates to put people into homes then raised their interest rates so they could no longer afford their homes. Someone should go to jail for this!
Posted by: bacaangel
| March 4, 2009 7:52 AM
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