Starting Points

Sep 16, 2009

U.N. Deputy in Kabul Leaves in Dispute With Boss Over Flawed Vote - washingtonpost.com

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By Pamela Constable and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 16, 2009

KABUL, Sept. 15 -- The deputy head of the U.N. mission here has abruptly left the country after a dispute with the mission's Norwegian chief over whether to publicly denounce Afghanistan's election commission for not discounting clearly fraudulent votes cast in favor of President Hamid Karzai's reelection.

Mounting tensions over the country's tainted presidential vote have divided and frustrated Afghanistan's international backers, and endangered President Obama's troubled war strategy as his administration debates whether to deploy additional U.S. troops.

American diplomat Peter W. Galbraith and his Norwegian boss, U.N. Special Representative Kai Eide, disagreed so strongly over the right post-election approach that they were unable to keep working together, prompting Galbraith's departure from the country Sunday.

"I suggested to him, and he agreed, that it would be best" to leave the country, Galbraith said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "It's fair to say [Eide] didn't have confidence that I would follow his policy line on this, and I had disagreements with his policy line that were best resolved by leaving." A senior U.N. official here said Galbraith "will be back."

On Thursday, Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission is set to announce final results from the Aug. 20 vote. It is expected to declare that Karzai has won reelection with about 54 percent of the vote and that his top challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, has lost with about 28 percent.

But the polling process has been irreparably tainted. A separate, U.N.-sponsored Electoral Complaints Commission has found evidence of fraud at polls throughout the country, and the panel said Tuesday that about 10 percent of the entire vote, from 2,500 polling stations, needs to be recounted on suspicion of fraud. This might affect enough ballots to lower Karzai's tally below the 50 percent plus one vote he needs to avoid a runoff with Abdullah.

The question that has increasingly divided Afghan experts and international officials here is whether to pursue the time-consuming fraud investigations to the end -- leaving a weakened Karzai, estranged from Afghanistan's international backers, in power during months of political drift and potential violence until a possible spring runoff -- or to seek an unlikely political compromise among Afghans to avoid a second round of voting.

Divisions over what to do exist even within the Obama administration, which is under increasing pressure to demonstrate to a skeptical Congress and American public that its Afghanistan strategy is working. That strategy depends on having a viable, democratically elected partner in the Afghan government.

The divisions are paralleled in disagreements among NATO allies fighting in Afghanistan that began long before the presidential vote. Some European countries have lowered their troop commitments to Afghanistan, while the United States is increasing the size of its force. A recent U.S. airstrike in northern Afghanistan that killed at least 70 people -- including some civilians -- was requested by German ground forces that the Americans complain have not been active enough in patrolling the area.

In the post-election dispute, sources close to the United Nations said Galbraith represented the view that the fraud probe must be fully carried out, along with a partial recount that the complaints panel ordered, even if this leads to a delayed runoff. That view jibes with the vision of Grant Kippen, the Canadian who heads the complaints commission, that building a democratic process matters more than who wins this election.

Germany's foreign minister said Tuesday that his government would press for a full investigation of the fraud complaints, saying the new Afghan president needed to be "recognized and respected by the entire population." Other European governments have backed off from their initial praise for the election, saying that unless the new government is seen as legitimate, it will be hard for them to justify continued military involvement.

But another, more pragmatic school of thought, which Eide has publicly endorsed in the past, argues that a runoff may be too difficult and dangerous to hold. The urgent need to establish a new government while Afghanistan and its Western allies are fighting a war against Taliban insurgents, this line of thinking goes, requires finding a political solution such as a compromise between Karzai and Abdullah.

Diplomatic sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said U.S. officials here had been frustrated in their efforts to press Karzai to acknowledge the widespread fraud and to accept the possibility of a runoff, or to make a deal in which he would remain as a titular president but be held more accountable for his actions and allow himself to be surrounded by foreign, technocratic advisers.

The sources said Karzai has been privately trying to win over European diplomats, including Eide, suggesting that they not be overly concerned about the fraud problem and give him full support on the grounds that he has won a decisive mandate.

The dispute leading directly to Galbraith's departure began Sept. 2, when he called the Afghan election commission to protest its decision to abandon agreed-upon guidelines under which it would not count any ballots submitted by local officials from "ghost" polling places, where no voters showed up because of security concerns, sources said. The United Nations, Galbraith said, would not remain silent in the face of the decision.

Within 90 minutes, Karzai had summoned U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry to protest Galbraith's action; Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta summoned Galbraith to a meeting that afternoon. Eide, sources said, told his deputy he disagreed with his intervention and made his views known to the Afghan government.

On Sept. 7, the election commission decided to go ahead with the ghost tally, and it announced the next day that Karzai, with more than 90 percent of the vote counted, had passed the 50 percent mark.

DeYoung reported from Washington.

Sep 15, 2009

Muslim American Doctors Give Back to Their Communities

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Free health services answer Obama’s call to service

By Ahmed Mohamed
Staff Writer

Washington — “I see us as Americans. This is our home, not a home away from home. We chose to come here; we chose this country as our country. America is our country. We were given chances here for education, business; we were allowed to be who we are. Now it’s time for us to pay back the country that accepted us with open arms,” said Rodwan Saleh, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, Texas, during a fundraising event for the Al-Shifa Clinic in Fort Worth, Texas.

Al-Shifa is but one example of a free Muslim clinic that serves the American community regardless of the ethnic or religious background of patients.

Muslim community-based health organizations have emerged steadily since before the turn of this century, a good example being the University Muslim Medical Association (UMMA), one of the oldest free Muslim health care clinics, which has served the Los Angeles community since 1996.

Other examples are the Al-Shifa Clinic in San Bernardino County in California (2000), the Ibn Sina Foundation Clinic in Houston (2001), the Inner-City Muslim Action Network Health Clinic in Chicago (2002), the Compassionate Care Network in Chicago (2004) and the Health Unit on Davison Avenue Clinic in Detroit (2004). Organizations like Zaman International in Detroit are slowly emerging, and are dedicated to providing humanitarian relief as well as end-of-life care and women’s shelters. Other Muslim-initiated community health programs are developing in Chicago; Baltimore; northern Virginia; Las Vegas; Buffalo, New York; and elsewhere, building on the models established by these pioneering organizations.

A recent report by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding outlined how Muslim community-based health organizations are providing a critical safety net in health care access for the most underserved communities in America.

Titled “Caring for Our Neighbors,” the study provides a picture of the motivations that drove Muslim-American health professionals to become involved in these clinics. The report also describes the demographic makeup of the populations they serve and the clinics’ growing role in American public health and community building.

Researchers found that while the clinics’ service models may vary, their services are universally available to everyone, regardless of their patients’ ethnic or religious background, at a low cost or even free of charge. The vast majority of their patients come from families living below the federal poverty level and who almost always lack health insurance.

According to the report’s findings, the clinics operate on lean budgets, relying heavily on donated equipment and volunteer physicians, many of whom are first-generation American Muslims who are driven by a desire to give back to the country that welcomed them as immigrants. The report also documents the emergence of a new American-born generation of Muslims dedicated to serving the only country they have ever known.

“What we found is that these clinics are stepping in to meet a critical need in communities across America,” said Lance Laird, a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. “That service model remains all the more important today as rising health care costs are leaving a growing number of families uninsured.”

Muslim-American doctors have become a part of the solution for the current health insurance crisis, as seen in four examples of health clinics across the nation.

UMMA Clinic, California. The University Muslim Medical Association (UMMA) provides a good example of these clinics. Located in the heart of south central Los Angeles, the clinic serves an impoverished but culturally rich population that is 73 percent Latino and 25 percent African Americans. It serves the homeless as well as the unemployed and working poor who do not receive insurance or qualify for state assistance, in one of the poorest and most medically underserved areas of the region.

“UMMA shall strive to pursue opportunities for interaction and understanding between Muslim Americans and people of all other cultural, economic and religious backgrounds,” said Awais Chughtai, community relations coordinator, “to promote the well-being of the underserved by providing access to high quality health care for all, regardless of ability to pay.”

Chughtai expressed the clinic founders’ vision: “The services, activities and governance of UMMA shall reflect the Islamic values and moral principles which inspired its founders. These include the core values which are universally shared and revered by society at large, such as service, compassion, dignity, social justice and ethical conduct.”

The UMMA clinic was launched to “exemplify the positive contributions of Muslims to American society and to serve as a model of institutional excellence for the American community, by upholding the highest standards in all aspects of its services, activities and governance, also to provide medical education and training to future health professionals,” Chughtai said.

Al-Shifa Clinic, Texas. The Al-Shifa Clinic is a weekly free clinic in Fort Worth. It operates under the umbrella of the Muslim Community Center for Human Services organization.

“It provides services for general medical problems such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and minor infections. If these problems are not treated at an early stage, they may lead to more serious problems such as heart disease, stroke or kidney failure, which can result in more serious consequences for the patients and their families,” said Dr. M. Basheer Ahmed, the clinic chairman.

“Al-Shifa Clinic served 1,200 patients in year 2006, 1,500 patients in 2007, and the number of patients has increased to 1,800 in the year 2008,” Ahmed said.

Muslim Clinic, Ohio. Muslim-American doctors in Ohio joined the Give Back Convoy, a group of Muslim doctors who opened the first free clinic in Ohio run by Muslim physicians in 2008. The clinic now offers free health care services to underserved populations. “It is a small attempt by Muslims to help solve the health insurance crisis in America,” said Dr. Esam Alkhawaga, a psychiatrist.

The clinic is based in Montgomery County, the region around Dayton, Ohio. “It serves adults and children, regardless of race or religion,” Alkhawaga said. The county “has nearly 70,000 uninsured residents, about 13 percent of its population.”

Dr. Ramzieh Azmeh, the co-founder of the Ohio Free Clinic, said, “At least 15 Muslim primary care physicians are signed up and credentialed to work at the Muslim Clinic of Ohio,” and “another 50 specialists are also ready to contribute.”

Alkhawaga said, “Our goal is to engage the Muslim community in outreach work, and let people know that Muslims are part of this community.”

“Most of us are physicians and we felt as Muslims this could be the least we could do to give back to America for what they’ve done for us,” Alkhawaga said.

Muslim Outreach Free Clinic, Michigan. In June 2009, a group of Flint-area physicians wanted to address the community’s health care crisis and decided to use their skills and expertise to help the Flint community. They established the Muslim Outreach Free Clinic, which opened by offering a half-day of free health care services per week to lower-income people.

“Our main goal is to serve people who don’t qualify for any kind of health insurance and don’t have enough income to afford anything on their own,” Dr. Ahmed Arif said. “We’ve also contacted diagnostic facilities and labs who’ll provide us with free services. A lot of people have been very generous and forthcoming to help us provide all aspects of care for long-term and chronic illnesses.”

Muslim doctors in Minnesota also accepted the challenge. The Islamic Center of Minnesota has taken on the role of a first-access, primary-care clinic for anyone who needs it with the Al-Shifa Clinic.

“It is our Islamic duty to address the issue of providing people with equal access to health care. We serve anyone in the community, both Muslim and non-Muslim,” said Sobia Sarwar, clinic coordinator. “It’s the volunteer doctors that really make it happen. Without their skill set we really would not be able to contribute to the community. The fact that they dedicate their time and effort is enormous.”

Asia Pacific Bulletin - Japan's 'electoral revolution'

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Abstract

The Japanese general election was revolutionary: it brought to power for the first time since the end of World War II a majority government not led by the Liberal Democratic Party and it saw the final transition to a two-party system brought about by the introduction of single-member electorates 15 years ago. Like any revolution, it will be some time before it is clear if the pressures of real power will allow the new Democratic Party government to bring about promised change.

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US-Iran Talks Start October 1 - Nation

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posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 09/14/2009

The hawks, neoconservatives, and Israeli hardliners are squealing, but the US and Iran are set to talk. The talks will begin October 1, among Iran and the P5 + 1, the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany.

Mohammed ElBaradei, the outgoing head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was ebullient, even as he urged Iran to "engage substantively with the agency," saying:

"Addressing the concerns of the international community about Iran's future intentions is primarily a matter of confidence-building, which can only be achieved through dialogue. I therefore welcome the offer of the US to initiate a dialogue with Iran, without preconditions and on the basis of mutual respect."

That's exactly the right tone and message, and it underscores that President Obama is doing precisely what he campaigned on, namely, to open a dialogue with Iran. It's an effort that began with his comments on Iran during his inaugural address, his videotaped Nowruz message to Iran last winter, a pair of quiet messages to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Leader, and Obama's careful and balanced response to the post-election crisis over the summer. Once started, the talks aren't likely to have a swift conclusion, but the very fact that they're taking place will make it impossible for hawks to argue successfully either for harsh, "crippling" sanctions on Iran or for a military attack.

That didn't stop Bibi Netanyahu, for one, from trying. Speaking to Israel's foreign affairs and defense committee today, the Israeli leader said:

"I believe that now is the time to start harsh sanctions against Iran -- if not now then when? These harsh sanctions can be effective. I believe that the international community can act effectively. The Iranian regime is weak, the Iranian people would not rally around the regime if they felt for the first time that there was a danger to their regime -- and this would be a new situation."

Netanyahu's belief in sanctions, harsh measures, and regime change was echoed by John Hannah, the former top aide to Vice President Cheney, who wrote an op-ed criticizing Obama for taking regime change off the table in dealing with Iran. Hannah utterly ignored the fact that eight years of anti-Iran, pro-regime change bombast from the Bush-Cheney administration did nothing but strengthen Iran's hawks, while Obama's softer, dialogue-centered approach to Iran helped boost the power of the reformists and their allies in Iranian politics. Indeed, it was precisely Obama's less belligerent tone that confused the Iranian hardliners, emboldened the liberals, reformists and pragmatists in Iran, and therefore did more to create the conditions for "regime change" than anything that Bush, Cheney, and Hannah did.

Nevertheless, here's Hannah:

"It is ironic, of course, that just as the Obama administration seemed prepared to write off regime change forever, the Iranian people have made it a distinct possibility. It would be tragic indeed if the United States took steps to bolster the staying power of Iran's dictatorship at precisely the moment when so many Iranians appear prepared to risk everything to be rid of it. It would also seem strategically shortsighted to risk throwing this regime a lifeline."

Hannah adds that whatever happens in the talks, Obama had better be careful not to undermine the possibility that the regime might collapse. "However engagement now unfolds, Obama should do nothing to undermine this historic opportunity."

Other, less temperate hawks have forthrightly condemned Iran's offer to negotiate. The Weekly Standard ridiculed Iran's five-page statement on opening negotiations:

"The Iranian response is a bad joke. It makes a complete mockery of the situation."

And the churlish Washington Post, in an editorial written before the US agreed to start talks with Iran, huffed that Iran's offer to talk was a "non-response" and complained that so far Obama has had no results:

"President Obama's offer of direct diplomacy evidently has produced no change in the stance taken by Iran during the George W. Bush administration, when Tehran proposed discussing everything from stability in the Balkans to the development of Latin America with the United States and its allies -- but refused to consider even a temporary shutdown of its centrifuges."

And the Post again brought up the importance of getting "tough" with Iran and pushing for sanctions, a la Netanyahu, even though neither Russia nor China will have anything to do with more sanctions. (The Europeans don't really want more sanctions either, though they say they do. And Venezuela has offered to export whatever gasoline Iran needs if, in fact, the United States tries to impose a cut-off of refined petroleum products imported by Iran.)

We can only hope, now, that the United States and the rest of the P5 + 1 will table an offer to Iran to allow Tehran to maintain its uranium enrichment program, on its own soil, combined with a system of stronger international inspections. That's the end game: not regime change, not Big Bad Wolf threats of military action, not Hillary Clinton-style "crippling sanctions," not an Iran without uranium enrichment -- but an Iran that is ushered into the age of peaceful use of nuclear energy, including enrichment, in exchange for a comprehensive settlement.

Stuff Some White People Don't Like | The American Prospect

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by Paul Waldman

Back when Barack Obama began his extraordinary quest for the presidency, lots of conservatives -- particularly those prone to wake screaming in the night from visions of Madam President Hillary Clinton -- just couldn't say enough nice things about him. What attracted them most was not his intellect or political skill: It was the way he handled race. Right-wing stalwart William Bennett may have best summed up the feeling when he gushed that Obama "never brings race into it. He never plays the race card. Talk about the black community -- he has taught the black community you don't have to act like Jesse Jackson; you don't have to act like Al Sharpton."

The post-racial honeymoon couldn't last, of course. During the campaign, conservative forces worked overtime to define Obama by his race, from the attacks on his wife as an "angry black woman" (Fox News once referred to her as Barack's "baby mama") to the way they gleefully seized on Jeremiah Wright in an attempt to turn Obama into Black Panther Huey Newton. "It is clear that Senator Obama has disowned his white half. He's decided he's got to go all in on the black side," said Rush Limbaugh, making sure his listeners were not deceived into thinking Obama was anything but a black militant. .

A year and a half later, you might think Obama is some kind of racial King Midas, turning everything he touches into a race-inflected debate. But he's not the one for whom race is so important. There are some people who just can't help seeing this president through race-colored glasses.

Let's be absolutely clear -- many people who dislike the president or his agenda are perfectly comfortable with his race. After all, just under 60 million Americans voted for John McCain, and they did so for many reasons. But it's becoming clear that the presence of a black man in the Oval Office, combined with the increasingly diverse makeup of the American public -- most particularly the growing number of Latinos -- is causing some to not only see terrible threats in things they cared very little about a year ago. It's also causing them to cast aside any pretense of commitment to the basic legitimacy of the American system as it exists today.

The current fight over health-care reform is the arena in which this trend is becoming evident, but the details of that issue are not really motivating the most intense opponents. When you show up at a town hall debate and yell that reform represents "socialized medicine," you just don't know much about socialism (or health care, for that matter). But when you come to that town hall and shout "I want my America back!" through tears, you aren't talking about health care at all.

It is plain that a great many people simply do not believe Barack Obama legitimately occupies the office of president of the United States. Some -- the "birthers" -- think he was really born in Kenya, and benefited from an elaborate conspiracy to falsify documents demonstrating otherwise -- in other words, not American at all. Some have reacted to policies they oppose by reviving a neo-Confederate claim that states don't have to abide by laws passed by the federal government if they don't like them. These are the "tenthers," who believe that the tenth amendment makes virtually everything the federal government does unconstitutional, from Medicare to building interstate highways to regulating airlines. So long as the wrong man's in the White House, that is.

It goes on. When George W. Bush was president, wearing a T-shirt simply saying "Protect our civil liberties" could get you thrown out of a rally and threatened with arrest; today, conservatives come to see the president toting firearms. Talk-show hosts warn darkly that government actions they don't like aren't merely bad policy -- they're totalitarianism. Extremists begin stockpiling weapons in preparation for an imagined government crackdown. When the president plans to tell kids to work hard and stay in school, people on the right complain to school officials and keep their children home, lest the impressionable young ones have to listen to Obama's "socialist indoctrination." And members of Congress decide that shouting out insults during presidential addresses is now within the bounds of decorum.

What all of this has in common is a rejection of the mores of American democracy. There were some things that people on the left and right used to agree on. You might not like it if Congress passes the president's agenda, but the law is the law. You might not like the president himself, but you're not going to make a big stink about it when he does things like pardon turkeys on Thanksgiving or tell kids to study hard and stay in school. You might not want to vote for what the president is arguing for, but if you're a member of Congress you don't heckle him like you're a drunken frat boy in a comedy club.

For all the passion and, at times, anger in our politics, those things used to be true. But not anymore.

It isn't just a random protester here or an obscure blogger there who are showing this rejectionism. The branches of the conservative crazy tree reach much farther into the establishment than anything comparable on the left. There are leftists who think weird things, but they are treated with scorn by Democrats. In contrast, there are members of the United States Congress who believe that President Obama may have forged his birth certificate. Probable 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota -- heretofore known as a modern, moderate Republican -- recently started talking about "asserting our tenth amendment rights" to nullify federal laws. Pawlenty was lining up behind a series of Republican politicians, including Texas governor Rick Perry, South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. And does anyone think it's an accident that the now-famous Congressman Joe Wilson is a former aide to segregationist Strom Thurmond and a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who supported keeping the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina statehouse? And is anyone surprised that what really had Wilson so mad was the prospect that somewhere, an undocumented immigrant might get health coverage? One of Wilson's constituents who recently lost her own coverage explained her misgivings about health reform by saying, "We're without insurance, and I do think some folks should get government health care. But they have to be American."

For the people who appreciate the vigorous pandering of conservative politicians, who believe that Obama has no right to the office he occupies, who are now wielding "Don't Tread On Me" banners as though they were oppressed by a foreign occupier, it's all beginning to make sense. Glenn Beck, who has become the key media figure of the anti-Obama movement, tells them Obama harbors "a deep-seated hatred for white people." They've lost "their" America, the one where a certain distribution of privilege and power was unquestioned. In 2009, being in the political minority isn't just a drag -- it's cause to discard your commitment to the system as we've known it.

During the post-election wrangling of 2000, numerous commentators said that the fact that there weren't tanks in the streets was a tribute to American democracy. In the end, we'd settle the argument through our established institutions, and everyone would respect the results. (Imagine for a moment if Obama had won the way George W. Bush won -- with fewer votes than his opponent, and only through the employment of a combination of ruthless hardball tactics and the intercession of a friendly Supreme Court majority.) That was supposed to be what made us so admirable. It seems like so long ago.

There is nothing we can do to escape tribalism; it is written on every page of human history. As our own society grows more complex and diverse, we become members of multiple overlapping tribes that we use to differentiate ourselves from others. We define "us" and "them" by our age, the place we live, our religious beliefs, our favorite sports, the kind of music we favor, and our taste in various consumer goods, to name but a few.

But there are some things we're all supposed to share, including a willingness to submit to the results of democracy even when we don't like those results. For a growing number of Americans, the presence of a certain kind of person in the White House calls that willingness into question.

The Return of the Repressed | The American Prospect

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by Michelle Goldberg

Now that popular conservatism has given itself over so avidly to racial resentment, it's curious to remember how hard the right once tried to scrub itself of the lingering taint of prejudice. Indeed, for a decade and a half the Christian right -- until recently the most powerful and visible grassroots conservative movement -- struggled mightily to escape its own bigoted history. In his 1996 book Active Faith, Ralph Reed acknowledged that Christian conservatives had been on the wrong side of the civil rights movement. "The white evangelical church carries a shameful legacy of racism and the historical baggage of indifference to the most central struggle for social justice in this century, a legacy that is only now being wiped clean by the sanctifying work of repentance and racial reconciliation," wrote Reed.

"Racial reconciliation" became a kind of buzz phrase. The idea animated Promise Keepers meetings. "Racism is an insidious monster," Bill McCartney, the group's founder, said at a 39,000-man Atlanta rally. "You can't say you love God and not love your brother." The Traditional Values Coalition distributed a video called "Gay Rights, Special Rights" to black churches; it criticized the gay rights movement for co-opting the noble legacy of the civil rights struggle.

Throughout the Bush years, homophobia and professions of anti-racism were twinned in a weird way, as if the latter proved that the right wasn't simply still skulking around history's dark side. At a deeply surreal 2006 event at the Greater Exodus Baptist Church, an African American church in downtown Philadelphia, leaders of the religious right invoked Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks on behalf of gay marriage bans and Bush's judicial nominees. At the end of the evening, several dozen clergymen, black and white, joined hands in prayer at the front of the room. "Black Americans, white Americans," said a beaming Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council. "Christians, standing together." The whole premise of compassionate conservatism -- which shoveled taxpayer money towards administration-friendly churches like Greater Exodus Baptist -- was that the right cared as deeply as the left about issues like inner city poverty.

What a difference an election makes. Even if you believed that compassionate conservatism was always a bit of a con, it's amazing to see how quickly it has vanished, and how fast an older style of reaction, one more explicitly rooted in racial grievance, has reasserted itself.

Today's grassroots right is by all appearances as socially conservative as ever, but its tone and its rhetoric are profoundly different than they were even a year ago. For the last 15 years, the right-wing populism has been substantially electrified by sexual anxiety. Now it's charged with racial anxiety. By all accounts, there were more confederate flags than crosses at last weekend's anti-Obama rally in Washington, DC. Glenn Beck has become a far more influential figure on the right than, say, James Dobson, and he's much more interested in race than in sexual deviancy. For the first time in at least a decade, middle class whites have been galvanized by the fear that their taxes are benefiting lazy, shiftless others. The messianic, imperialistic, hubristic side of the right has gone into retreat, and a cramped, mean and paranoid style has come to the fore.

To some extent, a newfound suspicion of government was probably inevitable as soon as Democrats took power. At the same time, with the implosion of the Christian right's leadership and the last year's cornucopia of GOP sex scandals, the party needed to take a break from incessant moralizing, and required a new ideology to take the place of family values cant. The belief system analysts sometimes call "producerism" served nicely. Producerism sees society as divided between productive workers -- laborers, small businessmen and the like -- and the parasites who live off them. Those parasites exist at both the top and the bottom of the social hierarchy -- they are both financiers and welfare bums -- and their larceny is enabled by the government they control.

Producerism has often been a trope of right-wing movements, especially during times of economic distress, when many people sense they're getting screwed. Its racist (and often anti-Semitic) potential is obvious, so it gels well with the climate of Dixiecrat racial angst occasioned by the election of our first black president. The result is the return of the repressed.

It's not, after all, as if the Christian right was something completely removed from the old racist right -- rather, as Reed acknowledged all those years ago, they were initially deeply intertwined. The Columbia historian Randall Balmer has shown that Christian conservatives were not, contrary to their own mythology, initially mobilized by their outrage at Roe vs. Wade. Rather, what spurred them into action was the IRS's attempt to revoke the tax-exempt status of whites only Christian schools, schools that had been created specifically to evade desegregation.

The Christian right was always rooted in an older style of reactionary politics. Before he became a political organizer himself, Falwell -- who ran one of those Christian segregation academies -- attacked Martin Luther King Jr. for his political activism. ("Preachers are not called to be politicians, but to be soul winners," he said.) Before Tony Perkins was basking in homophobic interracial amity, he paid Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list. In 2004, David Barton, then the vice president of the Texas GOP, spoke at an event featuring white preachers and ministry workers dropping to their knees before their black brethren to plead for forgiveness. Thirteen years earlier, Barton had twice been a featured speaker at meetings of the Christian Identity movement, which preaches that blacks are sub-human "mud people." One could go on and on.

As racism grew politically unacceptable, the Christian right was able to channel resentment over the decline of white male privilege into a Kulterkampf directed at more acceptable enemies, like gays and lesbians. The movement borrowed heavily from Catholic theology and convinced itself that it was in a righteous struggle against a culture of death, not a culture of diversity. Now the mask is off. One wonders if fifteen years from now, they'll bother apologizing all over again.

Threat of Trade War With China Sparks Worries in a Debtor U.S. - washingtonpost.com

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By Steven Mufson and Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The prospect of a trade war with China fueled fears of wider fallout Monday, rattling bond markets and prompting many economists to criticize President Obama's decision to slap import tariffs on Chinese-made tires.

Traders fretted that the 35 percent tariffs might prompt China to send a sign of disapproval by paring purchases of U.S. government bonds. And a chorus of economists and climate activists fretted that the president's action might undercut U.S.-China climate talks and poison relations just two weeks before the summit of the Group of 20 major economies to be held in Pittsburgh.

Moreover, economists argued that it would all be for nothing; they said tariffs on Chinese tires would probably boost U.S. imports from countries like Poland and Mexico and do little to help the American steelworkers whose union brought the trade action in the first place.

Obama said Monday on CNBC that the tariffs, which were announced late Friday night, were necessary to maintain the "credibility" of trade agreements. "I'm not surprised that China is upset about it, but keep in mind, we have a huge economic relationship with China," he said.

China's commerce minister, Chen Deming, called Obama's action an "abuse" of trade provisions and said it "sends the wrong signal to the world." China said it would look into punitive measures against U.S. exports of auto and poultry parts.

"I think it's a terrible message in the run-up to the G-20, and we are all very concerned about the escalation of protectionist measures," said Uri Dadush, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and long-time international trade director at the World Bank.

"If there were any prospect of the United States taking the moral high ground in Pittsburgh at the G-20, there isn't any longer, and that's unfortunate," said Daniel Rosen, partner at the advisory firm Rhodium Group and a former senior adviser for Asia at the National Economic Council. "Instead . . . people are going to be talking about the U.S. and China squabbling over tires and chickens."

One person who said such fears are overblown: Leo W. Gerard, the former nickel mineworker and leader of the United Steelworkers who instigated the current flap by filing the trade complaint that pushed Obama to impose a tariff on Chinese tires imports. Brushing aside concerns over a trade war or China's purchases of mountains of U.S. debt, he said that China exports far more than it imports and so has much more to lose.

"Eh," Gerard said when asked about fears of Chinese retaliation. "Are they going to kick the three chickens out they let in? . . . We've got into a situation now where everyone's afraid to tick off our banker," he said. "If our government had the guts to retaliate, [China] is going to be on the losing end."

The Obama administration also said it was not worried. "We do not expect that it will have an impact on the broader relationship," said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. He said that there had been a "robust effort" by the administration to negotiate with China for a settlement on tires before imposing import tariffs. He asserted that U.S. imports of Chinese tires, which more than tripled since 2004, clearly met the test for tariffs aimed at reducing "surges" in imports.

But when asked about whether the United States would simply import from other nations, he conceded that "it is hard to predict the impact with specificity."

'Not to Be Provocative'

"A healthy economy in the 21st century also depends on our ability to buy and sell goods in markets across the globe. And make no mistake, this administration is committed to pursuing expanded trade and new trade agreements," Obama said in a speech Monday in New York's financial district.

"But no trading system will work if we fail to enforce our trade agreements," he added. "So when -- as happened this weekend -- we invoke provisions of existing agreements, we do so not to be provocative or to promote self-defeating protectionism. We do so because enforcing trade agreements is part and parcel of maintaining an open and free trading system."

There are reasons why the dust-up over tires might settle down. China exports three times as much to the United States as it imports from the United States. It also has relatively few secure places to park its huge foreign-exchange reserves other than U.S. Treasury bonds and government-backed U.S. mortgage securities.

Thea Lee, an economist and policy director for the AFL-CIO, said the concern over an incipient trade war was overblown and called China's reaction "blustering."

"The Chinese government is trying to raise the rhetoric and scare off the U.S. We should not be scared off," she said. "We are within our rights. . . . It's not the beginning of a trade war."

From 2004 to last year, the number of Chinese tires imported in the United States more than tripled and their share of the U.S. market rose from 5 percent to 17 percent. Over the same period, the share of the U.S. market served by U.S. factories declined by a corresponding amount. More than 5,000 U.S. jobs were lost.

Opponents of the tariff say the U.S. industry's shrinkage is unrelated to the surge in Chinese imports. U.S. manufacturers, they say, have strategically moved into pricier, more profitable tires, shifting production of cheaper tires overseas. Yao Jian, a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman, said, "Four U.S. companies have tire production operations in China and account for two-thirds of exports to the U.S. The tariffs will have a direct impact on them."

Under the so-called "421 clause" that China agreed to as part of its bid to gain admission to the World Trade Organization, the United States does not need to prove unfair trade practices.

Bad Timing?

But other observers said the timing was particularly bad, regardless of the case's merits. "They may have the basis for doing this, but the point in my mind is not the legality but the overall political impact and the message this gives the world," said Dadush of the World Bank. "Over the last several months, Chinese imports are exploding and thank God for that because that's holding up all of Asia and having a good impact on the rest of the world." By contrast, he said, U.S. imports are declining.

Moreover, globally, new requests for protection from imports in the first half of 2009 are up 18.5 percent over the first half of 2008, according to the World Bank-sponsored Global Antidumping Database, organized by Chad P. Bown, a Brandeis University economics professor. That increase follows a 44 percent increase in new investigations in 2008.

On Tuesday, Obama is scheduled to address the AFL-CIO's annual convention. Some analysts said that the tire tariffs were a political favor to trade unions, whose support Obama needs for health-care reform and who backed Obama in the 2008 election. Gerard dismissed the idea that the tire tariffs were political payback. The people who say that "are smoking something," he said.

Some observers said Obama might follow the Bush administration, which initially seemed to adopt a tough stance on trade. In March 2002, President Bush imposed tariffs on foreign steel, but later he backed off and rejected proposals to impose trade sanctions for other products.

"He pulled the plug on us because he didn't think we were grateful enough," Gerard said. "He didn't have the guts to enforce the law. He basically invited the Chinese to keep doing the same thing."

Whoriskey reported from Pittsburgh.

Immigration, Health Debates Cross Paths - washingtonpost.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

As Congress's debate over health-care legislation lumbers toward a defining test for the Obama presidency, partisans on both sides of another issue -- immigration -- escalated their own proxy war this week, concluding that the fates of the two issues have become politically linked.

Trying to beat back a furor over whether President Obama's centerpiece initiative would subsidize health care for illegal immigrants, liberal supporters of an immigration overhaul on Monday called a main proponent of that claim a "hate group," citing its founder's ties to white supremacists and interest in racist ideas, such as eugenics.

The counterattack comes as opponents of illegal immigration plan a Capitol Hill lobbying push, starting when 47 conservative radio hosts hold a "town hall of the airwaves" in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday to highlight the costs of illegal immigration.

Strategists on both sides said the clash underscores how Republican activists have stirred populist anxiety against not only Obama's health-care effort but also other parts of his agenda, and how core Democratic groups have concluded that it is time to return fire.

In an ad published in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call and a teleconference with reporters, America's Voice, an umbrella group of immigrant advocacy organizations, accused the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a prime lobby for reduced immigration, of leading xenophobic efforts to lower the number of Hispanic people in the United States.

Allies of America's Voice, including leaders of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil rights group, and Media Matters, a news watchdog group, alleged that FAIR and related organizations play on nativist, racially charged fears to drown out debate.

"The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is designated a HATE GROUP by the Southern Poverty Law Center," the ad reads, citing a December 2007 listing by an independent group based in Montgomery, Ala., that monitors racist organizations. "Extremist groups, like FAIR, shouldn't write immigration policy," the ad concludes.

Dan Stein, president of FAIR, called attacks on the group's founder, John Tanton, false and outdated.

"Saying something that's not true or telling a lie 50 times doesn't make it more true than the first," Stein said, noting that the SPLC began its attacks earlier this decade. "They've decided to engage in unsubstantiated, invidious name-calling, smearing millions of people in this movement who simply want to see the law enforced and, frankly, lower levels of immigration," Stein said.

Ongoing Attacks

Supporters of immigration reform usually stopped short of such blunt attacks when Congress debated the issue in 2006 and 2007.

Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, said conservative activists have been trying to intimidate Congress by tapping into a thin but vocal vein of populist anger. Sharry acknowledged that the best scenario for a successful legalization push would be "a comeback victory for health-care reform." Obama has said he will turn to immigration next after energy legislation.

"We didn't call them out last time, we thought we were in a political debate. Now we realize it's part political debate and . . . part culture war," Sharry said. "These talk-show guys and FAIR, this isn't about immigration policy, as much as they think there are way too many Latinos in this country and they want to get rid of a couple of million of them."

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank spun off FAIR, said Obama and congressional Democrats have lost credibility in the dispute over health coverage for illegal immigrants and probably were surprised by its intensity.

"Right now there are a lot of members of Congress who might have thought the immigration issue wasn't as hot for opponents as it was a couple of years ago," Krikorian said. "They were disabused of that notion."

Focus on FAIR Founder

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's shout of "You lie!" during Obama's speech to Congress last Wednesday night dramatized the dispute, in which critics say Democrats are not doing enough to verify that illegal immigrants will not receive expanded health coverage at taxpayers' expense. The White House said Obama's plan would tighten restrictions and require more verification of legal residency. Supporters say research indicates that abuse is rare, that enforcement costs outweigh savings and that U.S. citizens may be improperly denied help.

In a series of reports, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have focused on Tanton, who founded FAIR in 1979. The groups quote from Tanton's correspondence with Holocaust deniers and white nationalist thinkers, his expressed interest in anti-Semitic writers and the study of eugenics, and concerns about the "educability" of Hispanics and the loss of a "European American" majority.

"We want to keep that drumbeat going so politicians know when FAIR lobbyists speak to them, this is who they represent," said Heidi Beirich, an SPLC researcher.

Stein defended FAIR's track record, cited its diverse membership and said the group "stands four-square against discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion." He said attacks on Tanton are taken out of context and "simply do not reflect the true character of the person," whom Stein described as a "Jeffersonian or Renaissance man or intellect" whose interest and writings span a wide range of issues.

He criticized America's Voice and allied groups as "juvenile mud throwers who seem unprepared to engage in serious public debate."

World's Wealthy Pay a Price In Crisis - washingtonpost.com

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Nations Raise Taxes, Tighten Regulations

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

LONDON -- In this land of inherited privilege and celebrity billionaires, it no longer pays as much to be rich.

Hobbled by soaring debt and ballooning public spending amid the global financial crisis, the British government is joining others around the globe in tapping the wealthy to cover massive shortfalls. As a result, the tax rate here for those making more than $250,000 a year is set to jump from 40 to 50 percent, leaving the likes of Charlie Mullins -- the self-made king of London plumbing -- fuming. He estimates that the new bill on his $2.5 million annual income, with exemptions, will jump by no less than $236,000.

Observers say it is part of a far broader campaign in the wake of the Great Recession -- including curbs on bankers' pay and a rigorous global hunt for tax cheats from Switzerland to Singapore -- that is suddenly putting the world's wealthy on notice.

In the United States, taxes on the richest Americans are one option for covering the cost of offering health care to the 46 million who are uninsured. The Obama administration has vowed to press forward with its ambitious agenda without raising income taxes on families earning less than $250,000. But the president's current budget calls for a rollback of the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans that would increase their top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, or the same as in the Clinton era.

In India, the government has launched an effort to track down billions of dollars in "black money" -- or hidden profits of the rich. In Germany, Parliament in July passed a law requiring the affluent to provide more information on the locations of their assets. Since the economic crisis began, there have been fresh tax increases for high-earners in the Netherlands, France, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and several other countries.

Analysts say the action marks the first time since before the Reagan-Thatcher era of the 1980s -- when trickle-down economics led to decades of lower tax rates on the wealthy -- that the world's moneyed have faced this level of pressure from such a wide array of governments. It happens as cash-strapped governments -- even as the global economy begins to recover -- are scrambling for scarce sources of revenue to fund expensive stimulus packages, combat the recession and expand services to the less fortunate.

There has been "an absolutely direct correlation between taxes and the financial crisis," said Jon Terry, head of reward practices at Pricewaterhouse Coopers in London. "If there was no financial crisis, I would have been surprised if taxes would have increased at all for high-earners."

Given the gap between the rich and poor that widened globally during the excess of recent years, many see the wealthy as the fairest, most likely source for funds in hard times. In the case of tax cheats, the campaign to root them out, many argue, is long overdue.

But for some, it is beginning to feel like governments are piling on when it comes to the rich -- who, through lost real estate and stock values, have already shed untold billions.

"I know the public is angry and looking for someone to blame, but this [crisis] was not the doing of people like me," said Mullins, a mop-topped 56-year-old who left school at age 15 to form Pimlico Plumbers, now one of Britain's largest plumbing companies with 162 employees. "I've worked hard for what I have, and the government is taking it away because they've dug themselves into a fine mess. I know the rich have certain responsibilities, but this just isn't right."

A special hot seat has been reserved, however, for those seen as directly responsible for causing the economic crisis -- namely, bankers.

At a summit of the Group of 20 industrialized nations in Pittsburgh this month, the French and Germans will press for strict caps on extravagant bonuses at financial firms. Though such a measure has met resistance from the United States and Britain -- home to the world's two great financial centers, New York and London -- President Obama and other leaders are nevertheless expected to embrace guidelines for a level of transparency and government scrutiny of bankers' pay considered unthinkable before the crisis.

On a national level, the Obama administration's plan to curb financial bonuses is still pending before Congress. Yet other countries have already acted. The Dutch, whose taxpayers also are footing the bill for massive bailouts, have gone as far as capping bonuses at 100 percent of base salary while limiting severance packages to one-year's pay. The French have moved to defer existing bonuses and forbid multiyear bonus guarantees, making it no longer quite as rewarding to be a financial executive in Paris.

French bankers are reacting with a mix of anger and acceptance. "I would think that among the various causes you may give for the crisis, traders' pay is not a significant cause," said Pierre de Lauzun, director general of the French Banking Federation. "Of course, after a crisis, it is not bad that people reflect on how to make the market healthier. But [the bonus issue] is not the main cause, not the dominant problem. It is one dimension among others."

The push for more government revenue during the crisis has fueled what experts describe as the most serious global effort to root out wealthy tax evaders in recent history. The campaign began in earnest in April with threats to "name and shame" governments that act as tax havens. But it is now poised to markedly escalate, with G-20 leaders in Pittsburgh, according to sources close to the talks, set to take the further step of imposing sanctions on tax havens such as Uruguay and Panama if they do not move to cease shielding tax dodgers by March.

Already, the campaign has cracked open the famous secrecy of Swiss banks, which, under extreme pressure, have shared thousands of names of tax cheats with the Americans and the French. Last month, Indian officials said they would begin talks with Switzerland to track down an estimated $27 billion annually in "black money" hidden by wealthy Indians overseas, which they consider vital cash that could go toward economic development and programs for the poor.

Yet some experts caution that such efforts only scratch the surface. In India's case, for example, critics argue that the government is moving too slowly to follow up on promises to bring wealthy cheats to justice, in part because many tax offenders are believed to be government officials. Underscoring mounting public rage, on Sunday in New Delhi dozens of residents marched at the historic downtown India Gate against the "laziness" of the government in tracking down black money deposited in Swiss bank accounts.

Cheats or not, the rich are seeing governments helping themselves to their wallets in a manner not seen in years -- particularly in Britain.

Spurred by Thatcher, who came to power in 1979, Britain became a relative paradise for the wealthy, with maximum tax rates coming down from 83 percent to 40 percent in recent years. But with Britain facing one of the world's sharpest downturns and lagging behind much of the rest of Europe in recovery, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called the wealthy the fairest targets for the heavily indebted government.

Not only is the general income-tax rate for wealthy Britons scheduled to leap from 40 to 50 percent for 2010 but they will see major rollbacks on the types and sizes of permitted tax deductions. A separate tax on wealthy foreigners who live in Britain but do not pay income taxes here -- a measure partly aimed at the Arab sheiks of elegant Mayfair -- will now force them to cough up about $51,000 a year.

Some, like the Swiss, whose domestic tax loopholes can still dramatically benefit foreign high-earners, see an opportunity to lure the jilted rich of Britain. Swiss officials have begun hosting seminars in London, seeking to persuade wealthy executives to move to the friendlier environment in the shadow of the Alps.

Some appear to be taking them up on their offers. Others, like Irish packaging tycoon Dermot F. Smurfit, thought about it but ultimately decided to stay in Britain.

"It bothers everybody paying taxes, and the rich have already been hit harder than the average person in this crisis since they have more stocks or property that have lost value," Smurfit said. "But I guess you can say that it is fair that the wealthy should pay more. That doesn't mean you have to like it."

Correspondent Emily Wax in New Delhi, staff writer Lori Montgomery in Washington and special correspondents Karla Adam in London and Shannon Smiley in Berlin contributed to this report.

'You Lie!' Shout Brings Vote on Sanction - washingtonpost.com

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Racial Issue Simmers as Black Democrats Lead Push Against Wilson

By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

House Democrats plan to formally reprimand Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) on Tuesday for his outburst last week in which he accused President Obama of lying about proposed health-care legislation.

The vote on punishment will resolve the issue in the House, but behind the incident some see a broader question: Is racism a factor in the way the president is being judged?

With two simple words -- "You lie!" -- shouted during Obama's speech to Congress, Wilson helped escalate an issue that has been on a slow burn for weeks, especially among African Americans. Many watched the rancor at last month's town hall meetings with suspicion that the intense anger among some participants -- including signs calling for Obama's death and a movement questioning his citizenship -- was fueled by the fact that a black man sits in the Oval Office.

Led by their most senior black lawmakers, House Democrats decided Monday evening to hold the vote. The decision risks escalating the partisan warfare that has erupted since Wilson's outburst.

A vote would reverse the initial sentiment voiced by the president and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that it was time to "move on" to the debate on health-care. But the White House and Pelosi yielded to senior black Democrats, led by House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), and other members of the leadership team, who argued that Wilson's remark was a breach of conduct that must not be tolerated.

Clyburn has said behind closed doors that many black voters saw Wilson's actions as part of the heated rhetoric from conservative activists whose protests, including one on the Capitol grounds Saturday, have included depictions of Obama as Adolf Hitler and the comic-book villain the Joker, according to those attending the meetings. It was one thing to have such remarks at town hall meetings during the summer recess but completely different during a presidential address to a joint session of Congress, Clyburn and other black Democrats argued, and Democrats needed to stand up for the nation's first black president.

Clyburn has not publicly called Wilson's remark racist, but he told reporters immediately after the speech that Obama is the only president to have been treated in such a manner.

Some black lawmakers were more direct.

Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), who received hate mail from constituents during Congress's August break, said Wilson had just returned from the rowdy town hall forums at which the most heated accusations were leveled at Obama.

"I think he was caught up in a moment. The issue is: Would he have done that if the president were white?" Scott said, adding that few Republicans opposed the "level of rhetoric" against Obama in August. "We've got to realize racism is playing a role here. I'm hopeful that this will be a wake-up call for us to get it off the table."

Democrats emphasized that it was not just members of the Congressional Black Caucus seeking to reprimand Wilson, and that a broad cross section of Democrats supported the measure, including Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.). Hoyer had argued publicly that Wilson had to make a formal apology from the well of the House chamber or face some sanction.

But Wilson has refused to offer any apology beyond the private phone call he made Wednesday night to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. In a show of defiance Monday, the lawmaker was the first Republican to speak when the chamber opened for a round of brief speeches. Rather than apologizing, Wilson hailed the "patriots" who attended his August town hall forums and opposed a "government takeover" of the health-care system.

Republican leaders rejected the accusation that there was any racial tinge in Wilson's comments and instead accused Democrats of using the issue to play to their base of liberal activists, who have funneled more than $1 million in contributions to Wilson's likely opponent next year.

"Representative Wilson has apologized to the president, and the president accepted his apology," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). "Last Thursday, Speaker Pelosi said that she believed it was time to move on and discuss health care. I couldn't agree more."

Senior aides in both parties expect the resolution to pass largely along party lines. The vote will officially be on what the House calls a "resolution of disapproval," the mildest form of punishment. Democrats cite rules of debate that prohibit lawmakers from "unnecessarily and unduly exciting animosity among its members or antagonism from those other branches of the government."

Republicans said Monday that they are not likely to offer an alternative resolution and that instead they want their members to focus on the content of the health-care proposal, as Wilson did in his brief remarks. But some Republicans came to Wilson's defense, accusing Obama and Pelosi of going back on their statements to move about moving beyond the controversy.

"What's it called when somebody says something they're going to do, and then they don't do it? What is that statement?" Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) asked in a floor speech.

After Obama's speech, the initial "macro view" among top Democrats was that he had finally broken through the noise of the town hall meetings and the alleged distortions of the legislation, according to one senior aide who discussed internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity. Democrats, the aide said, did not want to get distracted from the policy debate, as they had earlier in the summer after Obama's prime-time news conference on health care ended with his controversial comments that police had acted "stupidly" in deciding to arrest Henry Louis Gates Jr., a black Harvard professor, outside his home after police responded to a call about a possible intruder.

"It's time for us to talk about health care and not Mr. Wilson," Pelosi told reporters Thursday morning, echoing a similar statement from Obama, who suggested that "we all make mistakes."

But that morning several members of the black caucus stood up at a gathering of House Democrats to argue that Obama was being treated differently than any president, according to those in attendance. They argued that the image of a white Southerner calling the nation's first black president a liar on television on the House floor could not stand with a private apology.

During a series of roll-call votes Thursday, Clyburn implored his fellow South Carolinian to make a formal apology, as did Boehner and other Republican leaders, who had initially rejected Wilson's comment to Obama as inappropriate. But Wilson rejected the entreaties.

Clyburn, the highest-ranking black lawmaker in Congress, took the position in a leadership meeting Thursday afternoon that Wilson had to be punished, according to a handful of those in attendance.

Clyburn has served as a leader on racial matters. During last year's hard-fought Democratic presidential primary contest, he criticized former president Bill Clinton when he thought his comments about Obama's victory over his wife, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the critical South Carolina primary were racially disparaging toward Obama.

Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), another black lawmaker, said the action was warranted not "because he's the first black president" but because Wilson broke the rules. But Meeks said that Wilson's charge was borne of that sentiment from the town hall anger. "You've never seen those kinds of signs and that kind of language used before," Meeks said. "You didn't see that same kind of language with past presidents."

But some Congressional Black Caucus members were hesitant to give Wilson too much attention, suggesting that a reprimand plays into the Republican hands. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), a past chairman of the group, said, "I don't want this to distract from what we are doing, because that's the danger."