Mixed News on Crime and Welfare
Mixed News on Crime and Welfare Michael Barone ("The Good News Is the Good News Is Right," Sept. 8) is right about recent national trends in crime rates and welfare rolls. But I see both more...
...Kenneth H. Bacon Assistant Secretary of Defense Washington, DC Matthew Rees responds...
...On welfare, I keep waiting for someone (anyone...
...In such volatile times, why is the only party with moral insight and wisdom plagued by such a dearth of leaders fit for the task ahead...
...But it's odd to hear conservative Republicans singing the Democrats' old song, "Happy Days Are Here Again...
...Rees also cites an allegation that DoD is failing to perform its traditional role of protecting national security...
...John J. DiIulio Jr...
...Still, serious youth crime remains rampant in many cities, and neither police nor preachers have all the answers...
...Goodman was contracted by the Commerce Department, partly with funds provided by DoD, to undertake an impartial review of technology trends in the high-performance-computer industry, to provide information about the national-security applications of high-performance computers, and to provide an independent analysis as a non-government expert...
...Likewise, district attorneys in many cities have been galvanized by the frightening rise in juvenile mayhem into an unprecedented push against youth crime and delinquency, including prevention programs that complement, not contradict, their ongoing efforts to crack down on kids who murder, rape, rob, assault, or lead gun-toting, drug-dealing street gangs...
...Murphy has...
...But I see both more silver linings and more clouds on the horizon...
...The real players are fat cats and national consultants and people like that who really don't have to haul themselves to Indianapolis to hear the predictable stump speech...
...On the contrary, Dr...
...Kellyanne Fitzpatrjck Washington, DC...
...In fact, the sale was allowed to go forward only after conditions were included at the insistence of the Department of Defense providing safeguards against unauthorized use...
...As for the charge that Goodman's initial study was never rejected or confiscated, two Pentagon officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter told me the opposite is true...
...Where is the man with the vision and wisdom to tackle the great issues of our time...
...At the very least, Murphy could have made his remarks as constructive as his compensation was handsome for presiding over two failed presidential campaigns last year...
...That's happening, too...
...Murphy's true lack of connection with and animosity toward the base was revealed in a statement he made to the New York Times explaining why he didn't join us little people in Indianapolis...
...Our party seems full of ambitious but tepid men, all of whom have talents of one kind or another, but none of whom seems suited for greatness...
...to document what's actually happened with the top quarter of welfare recipients who have left the rolls (how many have floundered or circled back to public assistance...
...He alleges that Dr...
...Goodman instructed to provide a particular policy recommendation...
...supercomputers subject to export licensing...
...1) reveals one creeping problem in modern politics: the unchecked rise in the influence and arrogance of consultants, or "staff infection...
...Rees also mischaracterizes the conduct of a 1995 review of export controls on high-performance computers by a respected outside expert, Dr...
...David McIntosh to address more than 1,000 Republicans who are so committed to the party that they would spend the last weekend in August in a conference hall...
...Had Rees bothered to interview Dr...
...This isn't the real thing," Murphy groused...
...Moreover, if DoD didn't strongly support the license approvals, then why did the department ultimately sign off on them...
...Goodman was tasked to "recommend policy changes that would leave even fewer U.S...
...27, 1995), I warned of "tens of thousands," not (heaven forbid) "a generation," of remorseless young thugs, muggers, and street gangsters, and I looked to inner-city clergy for solutions...
...Wallerstein or any of the other DoD officials he unfairly attacks, he would have learned the facts, including the reasons that DoD recommended revision of export controls to reflect the dramatic changes in computer technology...
...Bacon's assertion that the Pentagon is fully involved in the export-control process highlights the problem: When the top DoD officials overseeing export controls, such as Mitch Wallerstein, are zealous advocates of liberalization, it means there's no voice at the table raising national-security concerns...
...Barone kindly argues that "we should take seriously the warnings" of yours truly "that a generation of super-predators is about to hit the streets...
...Where is the man who will lead public opinion instead of following his focus groups...
...Philadelphia, PA Behold the Man After reading David Tell's insightful description of the Republican presidential hopefuls in Indianapolis ("They're Off!," Sept...
...Positive changes in law-enforcement practices aside, it is also possible to change the socioeconomic conditions and cultural mores of the larger cohort of severely at-risk kids from which the next decade's bigger troupe of teen terrors could emerge...
...8), I thought it might have been more apropos if the elephant with the starter pistol on your cover had had the gun to his head...
...This, too, is totally false...
...At no time was Dr...
...Drafts of Dr...
...I pray daily that my skepticism will prove unfounded and that some gifted statesman will emerge...
...As always, Barone is perceptive and a pleasure to read, and his pardonable pride in how "Republican victories" facilitated policy changes and helped cut crime rates and welfare rolls is justified...
...Donald R. McConnell Long Beach, CA Vitriol Over Controls Matthew Rees eviscerated the notion of responsible journalism in his article "Sell Them Anything: The Evisceration of Export Controls" (Sept...
...Rather, I have had the fortune to deliver remarks to and mingle with thousands of conservatives in two dozen states, many times on weekends, and rarely with compensation...
...Goodman's report were never "rejected" by DoD officials, and copies of the report were never "confiscated...
...As James Q. Wilson has emphasized, few cities where overall crime rates have fallen sharply have actually engineered anything like Brat-ton-style reforms...
...The real loss is not in what Mr...
...DoD officials at the highest levels raised strong concerns about the proposed sale during the license-review process...
...Rees asserts that the Department of Defense strongly supported the sale of machine tools to China by the McDonnell-Douglas Corp...
...Concerning the McDonnell Douglas sale, Bacon charges it's "totally inconsistent with the record" to say that DoD strongly supported granting the export licenses...
...The process isn't the issue...
...The People's Pollster Mike Murphy's handling of the editors' symposium question ("Is There a Worldwide Conservative Crack-Up?," Aug...
...Also, for the first time in decades, community safety is being treated as job one by local probation authorities who supervise ever larger caseloads of violent juveniles and young adults...
...Moreover, DoD's role was actually enhanced by a 1995 Presidential Executive Order that guarantees it the right to review all license applications submitted to the Commerce Department...
...Inner-city poverty and joblessness are being alleviated somewhat by overall trends in economic growth...
...This is totally inconsistent with the record...
...Bacon boasts about the Pentagon's role in securing certain "conditions" before the licenses were approved, while overlooking that the conditions still didn't prevent the machine tools from being diverted to the Chinese military...
...I agree that the value and integrity of some consultants should be questioned, but why remove the one touchstone of public sentiment and consumer input that remains in politics...
...Pentagon officials who objected to the approval of the licenses were removed from the case...
...Or who can judge good character and has it himself...
...Rees goes on to assert that DoD officials "rejected a draft" of the report and "ordered all copies to be confiscated...
...Computers that were considered sensitive only a few years ago are now ubiquitous (i.e., they are widely available in the global marketplace by the hundreds of thousands) and therefore uncontrollable—except for the more sensitive, higher-performance computers, which are still subject to controls...
...The latest of these was the Midwest GOP Conference in Indianapolis, where I cheerfully accepted an invitation from Rep...
...And suburbanization and the rise of gated communities must also be "credited" in part for drops in crime, not to mention for drops in urban church coffers and the inner-city's volunteer base...
...Murphy said but in what he failed to say...
...It's a phony pre-presidential photo-op...
...Murphy's statement "First, fire the pollsters" has some merit, but it is far too sweeping...
...How typical of a former Dole campaign adviser to point the finger elsewhere in trying to understand why conservatives seem frozen, and why the "base is angry...
...A true conservative in touch with the rank and file might have discussed issues such as school choice or entitlement reform...
...the personnel and their policies are...
...DoD is a full and equal participant in the inter-agency export control process with the Department of Commerce and other key agencies...
...Kenneth H. Bacon provides no evidence that the main point of my article—that the Clinton administration has been reckless in its liberalization of export controls—is in error...
...Seymour Goodman...
...Besides, if the pollsters disappeared, who would be there to convey popular opinion that a particular ad or media plan stinks...
...and to explain precisely where paying jobs for socially dysfunctional low- or no-skill recipients (the bottom third to half of the rolls) will come from when, even in our booming economy, we still have several million civil, sober, self-motivated, and skilled job-seekers who can't get and keep full-time living-wage jobs with medical benefits...
...The spread of church-anchored youth-outreach efforts and other programs is putting more at-risk kids into regular contact with responsible, loving adult mentors who teach moral absolutes and serve as a cultural counterweight to underclass norms and gang subcultures...
...My basis of knowledge regarding the conservative movement comes neither from focus groups nor polls, nor from claiming the number of big-names clients that Mr...
...As I have since learned firsthand, hundreds of urban churches are mobilizing around youth-saving crime-prevention initiatives, and many accomplished crime-fighters, including former New York City police chief William Bratton, have duly credited the clergy as partners in the crime-control successes of Boston and other big cities...
...Seymour Goodman may be "respected," but hiring him to perform a study of supercomputer liberalization is equivalent to hiring the AARP to study whether Social Security benefits should be reduced...
...Murphy does not even bother to pay them lip service...
...Actually, in the article in these pages in which I summarized my concerns about today's juvenile crime menace ("The Coming of the Super-Predators," Nov...
...25/Sept...
Vol. 3 • September 1997 • No. 2
