I missed this when it came out, but it’s still timely:
The Grand Elusion
By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, March 14, 2007; A02
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced the cameras for all of nine minutes yesterday, but he managed to contradict himself at least four times as he fought off calls to resign over the firing of U.S. attorneys.
“Mistakes were made,” he said in fluent scandalese, but “I think it was the right decision.”
“I am responsible for what happens at the Department of Justice,” he posited, but “I . . . was not involved in any discussions about what was going on.”
“Kyle Sampson” — Gonzales’s chief of staff — “has resigned,” he said, but “he is still at the department.”
And, finally, “I believe in the independence of our U.S. attorneys,” Gonzales maintained, but “all political appointees can be removed . . . for any reason.”
Ouch!
h/t: Egregious Moderation
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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