Obama and the Brass

It's intriguing to watch Barack Obama's evolving relationship with the U.S. military. Have a look at Fred Kaplan's piece ("It's Obama's War Now") in Slate on the ouster of Gen. David McKiernan, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and the naming of his replacement, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Consider, too, Obama's U-turn on the release of photographs showing abuse of American detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq. One week, the President signals that the Pentagon will release them as part of a new era of transparency; the next he announces that the White House will block their release and will defend that decision in court on national security grounds.

Here's a fascinating BBC Radio Today program interview on the subject with Melvin A. Goodman, a former CIA analyst who is now a fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington (to put Goodman's remarks in context, note the CIP's "about us" page).  

"The Manure Parliament"

From manure and moat cleaning to TV porn and bath plugs - these are just some of the items that members of the "Mother of Parliaments" have charged as expenses to the British public. A massive compilation of MPs expenses for the last several years was due to be released this summer under Freedom of Information rules, but the Daily Telegraph paid a mole in order to get the data early. Ever since the Telegraph's revelations began last week, public anger has mounted. The fallout will be hardest on Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Labour Party, which was already headed for defeat in the next election, sometime before June 3, 2010. But it's only in that sense that the opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will benefit from this contagion, which has brought the entire British political class into disrepute.

Bizarrely, we can blame Margaret Thatcher for this. Here's the history according to Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford University, in the Times of London. Back in the 1980s, MPs were poorly paid; their salaries were about £14,000 a year. Thatcher, the prime minister of the day, wanted to correct this and ordered an independent review of MPs' pay. The review recommended much higher salaries. Thatcher knew the voters wouldn't stand for that. To make up for their low salaries, MPs were then encouraged to supplement them through their generous system of allowances.

Over time, their allowances ballooned (along with their salaries, now £60,675 a year for a backbench MP with no special committee roles). By 2006, their total allowances hit £88 million - roughly what it cost in 1985 to operate every single aspect of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, including salaries, allowances, staff, catering - even the upkeep of Big Ben.

For purposes of comparison, here's some perspective from the New York Times: "In the United States, members of the House of Representatives make $174,000 a year. They also receive, on average, between $1.4 million and $1.9 million a year to run their offices and pay for travel to and from Washington, depending on how far away their districts are. But they are expected to pay for their own housing and living expenses, said Kyle Anderson, a spokesman for the Committee on House Administration."

Just how bad is this mess in the UK? Here's what Tony Wright, a Labour MP who is chairman of the public administration committee, said in Parliament yesterday: "At various times in our history we have had the Long Parliament, we've had the Rump Parliament, we've had the Good Parliament, we've had the Addled Parliament. If we are not careful we shall finish up with the Moat Parliament or the Manure Parliament."

Maybe Content Isn't Free...

Like lunch, maybe online content isn’t free either. Get ready for more and more talk from MSM – mainstream media – about charging for online content. I just wrote a piece in The Daily Beast about how Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation runs the world’s largest English-language journalism business (including the Wall Street Journal), has set up a special team to look into content charging. Steve Brill & Co. have already staked their claim with Journalism Online. Even Britain’s Guardian Media Group, traditionally a left-leaning softie in these matters, is toying with the idea; have a look at this summary of remarks by Carolyn McCall, GMG's CEO, at yesterday’s World Magazine Congress in London. Fasten your seat belts. The bad news is that, over time, you’re increasingly going to have to pay for what you read online – if you’re after quality. The good news is that content-charging may well rescue journalism as we know it (or at least knew it), pumping real money back into reporting - journalism's "empty quarter" - the corner hardest hit by recent cutbacks, layoffs and buyouts.