Dumb idea: An Arranged Tour of Tibet

In an attempt to appease international pressure to allow foreign journalists into Tibet and Lhasa in particular, Beijing decided to organise an arranged tour for foreign journalists. The arranged tour was to highlight Beijing's claims of the destruction of Han Chinese properties in Tibet by the local ethnic rioters. Apparently, Beijing's organised tours of Tibet backfired once foreign media reported Beijing's strictly guided tour in their piece. This leads me to ask, what are they thinking?

First, Beijing publicly accuses the exiled Dalai Lama of inciting violence in an attempt to promote Tibetan independence. As the political pundits for the truth-o-meter at Politifact.com would say, it is nothing short of a pants-on-fire lie. If Beijing understood anything about Buddhism or most religions around the world, it seeks to promote greater harmony and peace among humanity and not to incite violence. Furthermore, the Dalai Lama has spent his life promoting peaceful dissent and non-violent resistance like Mohandas Gandhi of India. Like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, the international community at large has recognised the Dalai Lama as an vivid advocate for peace. In fact, unlike Beijing's depictions, his message has been for many years about peace. Therefore it is utterly illogical and utterly hypocritical for the man to secretly incite violence in his homeland.

There had been protests around the world outside Chinese diplomatic and consular facilities by the local citizens condemning Beijing for their heavy handed handling of Tibetan monks' street protest. There are already world leaders preparing to boycott the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony. Athletes are under pressure individually to boycott the Games. The international outcry may very well lead to greater political consequences than what Beijing may want. Instead of an Olympic Games like the 1988 Seoul or the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games, Beijing may find itself hosting a very divisive event like the 1980 Moscow games, which Western nations boycotted in retaliation for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Furthermore, Beijing should keep in mind that international community would not tolerate law enforcement actions that border ethnic discrimination and indiscriminate round ups of the Tibetan minority like those in the former Yugoslavia, principally Bosnia Herzegovina. China and Russia supported the defense of internal affairs during the Bosnian Civil War. The West and later the world recognition of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia Herzegovina as independent nations is proof that the world is free to judge the behaviour of national government in times of internal strife. Beijing may not wish to recognise the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, but the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state by the West should be a strong proof that Beijing's right to claim sovereignty over Tibet is purely at the discretion of the international community and cannot be enforced by military might.

What I am trying to figure out is has Beijing learned anything from the breakup of Yugoslavia? The policies of Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia and Croatia were to disenfranchise the local ethnic groups by quietly shipping more Serbs into those republics. Beijing is sending Han Chinese into Tibet to effectively merge the local Tibetan population with the Han Chinese; thereby reducing the local ethnic Tibetan population. Right now, the information and news the international community knows of the situation in Tibet is principally from Chinese Party officials sent to govern Tibet. Many of those officials are Han Chinese, not Tibetans. Does Beijing actually believe that no one would notice what is going on? Or does Beijing believe that information control is tool to prevent such information from ever becoming public? Did Beijing learn anything from the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre? In a world of near instant communication, Beijing is a fool to believe that the world would never learn of what is going on within its borders.

Also, have Beijing forgotten the Western political philosophy of self-determination. In the 19th Century, statesmen in Europe believe that a nation state for each ethnic group would ensure peace across the continent. China is one of the few empire states that have survived into the 21st Century. I believe the break up of the Soviet Union into its constituent republics in 1989 and the dissolution of Yugoslavia were a good thing for world peace. I have more than once said that Iraq is an artificial state that cannot survive without a military strongman like Saddam Hussein. This viewpoint is reinforced by former US Secretary of State James Baker when he believed that the removal of Saddam Hussein from power might precipitate a civil war within Iraq. Given what has happened in Iraq today, George Bush the elder was correct in not going to Baghdad and arresting Saddam Hussein for his Kuwaiti atrocities.

Frankly, Western nations should consider strengthening its ability to find out what is going on in different parts of a country like China by establishing consular missions in more remote regions of a country like Tibet for China. A strong consular presence in potential hotspots like Tibet would ensure that national or regional governments would not undertake unreasonable law enforcement measures in the absence of foreign media. I believe that a stronger consular presence in Tibet in the future would ensure that foreign governments would have an independent local source of information than relying on the official diplomatic or media for news and assessments.

Four thousand dead and five years later, the necessity of the Iraq War

Former White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, defended the War in Iraq on Larry King on the fifth anniversary. Fleischer said that Saddam Hussein had to be removed before he acquired weapons of mass destruction. In fact, according to him, Saddam Hussein told his interrogators that he was still interested in acquiring these weapons, despite UN restrictions following the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The mere fact that Saddam did not have such weapons at the time of the invasion does not render the premise flawed. Furthermore, he said that, if the war was waged later, he would have been far more costly in terms of blood and treasure. Frankly I am astonished that Fleischer would still defend the war even now.

There are several noteworthy points in his argument that I would not dispute. Firstly, the war may have to be waged at a later date, namely shortly or immediately after the death of Saddam Hussein in order to prevent his two sons from taking over. The war may be been more costly if it was waged at a later date. However, Fleischer's argument for the war is fundamentally flawed because he fails to answer the underlying question of why in 2003? The Bush Administration tried to sell this war on the premise of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's links to the terrorist attacks on 11th Sept. 2001. Both claims were disapproved. Furthermore, in 2003, the international community had Saddam Hussein boxed in from all sides, Kuwait in the south, Saudi Arabia in the south west, Iran in the east and Turkey in the north. In fact, Saddam had nowhere to go.

I opposed the war because I simply do not believe in pre-emptive strikes. The Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956 was nothing short of a pre-emptive strike against Nasser. The British claimed that Nasser's collusion with Moscow to build the Anwar Dam made him dangerous. In fact, Prime Minister Antony Eden tried to characterize Nasser as the next Adolf Hitler in Eden's arguments. It was baloney. Nasser turned to Moscow for economic aid to build the dam because both Washington and London refused to help. There was nothing threatening about Nasser's decision to take Soviet aid to build the dam or to nationalize the Canal. Frankly, the only thing threatening about the nationalization of Suez was it would bleed the current accounts of Britain and France dry, given their dependency on Suez.

Would a war at a later date have been more costly? In absolute terms, probably. Right now, most of the international community believes it is just an American cowboy vendetta; hence, the trillion dollar price-tag for the American taxpayers. However, the main counter argument is that there are more countries to share the burden of the cost because more world leaders would recognize the stakes involved. Hence the relative cost to the American taxpayers would be significantly less. America would still be the biggest contributor in terms of manpower, but not to the extent it is right now. Furthermore, the Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians and other Arab nations would recognize their involvement would be critical, instead of their current ambivalence. It worth noting that the French, Germans and some other Western European NATO allies were opposed to the war in contrast to the Persian Gulf War of 1991 and in Afghanistan. In the autumn of 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker went on a tin-cup trip around the world in an attempt to reduce the financial burden on the American taxpayers. To the best of my knowledge, many countries threw a lot of money into that enterprise. That is why the Persian Gulf War only cost the American taxpayer $2 billion.

It is also worth looking at World War Two as a guide, as it was the last time America was an occupying power. Granted that America had a larger military then, her forces were deployed in Germany and Japan. At the same time, Britain, France and the Soviet Union had occupation forces in Germany after the War. Also, the Eastern sector of Germany was the sole responsibility of the Soviets, while the Americans, British and French bore responsibility for the Western sector. As a result, everyone bore some of the cost in terms of blood and treasure. In turn, it reduced the cost for any single party, unlike the current situation in Iraq. Also, the occupation of Germany serves as a very useful guide as to the length of the occupation of Iraq. After the war, the Allied forces needed ten years to end the remnants of German resistance or Nazi guerrillas. If the occupation of Germany was a guide as to Iraq, the Americans are only half way through their occupation at best. That is a scary thought if Hillary was to honor her campaign pledge of ending US military involvement in Iraq after she takes office.

Bear Stearns Collapse and the Banking reform of 2009

When the collapse of Bear Stearns broke, every commentator said that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 regarding public company accounting reforms would be nothing compared to the banking reforms that stem from this collapse. Yesterday on CNBC Squawk on the Street Massachusetts Congressman Barney Franks, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, talked about the urgent need for banking regulatory reform. Franks called the current system haphazard and complicated. He is right.

Currently, there are half dozen agencies overseeing the various banking sectors from investment banking to commercial banking. The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulates the investment banks and Congress established them as the new regulatory body for many portions of Sarbanes-Oxley. The Federal Reserve has primary supervisory authority of state banks which are members of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a government agency, responsible for guaranteeing deposits of $100,000 or less and supervises all state banks not members of the Federal Reserve. The Office of Thrift Supervision oversees federal saving banks and federal saving and loans; and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency now regulates 1710 national banks and 50 federal branches and agencies of foreign banks. Under the Lincoln Administration, Treasury Secretary Samuel Chase wanted to have a national currency printed by national banks not the government in order to finance the Civil War; hence its name and role to control the currency. In the US, national banks are basically banks with the word national or national association in their title or have the letters NA or NT&SA following their title like Bank of America NA. The last two are agencies of the US Treasury. Frankly, by the time one can understand who has jurisdiction over which portion of the financial industry, one should go nuts.

Given the amount of overlapping authority in US financial institutions, it is not unreasonable for Congress to reform and simplify the jurisdictions of all banking regulators instead of establishing a new Treasury agency for the purposes of regulating financial risks as suggested by Franks. By this I mean the vast majority of the 1710 national banks currently under the regulatory control of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are also member banks of the Federal Reserve. The purpose of each government supervisory and regulatory body should be clear. The SEC should regulate stock markets and corporate governance. The Treasury Department should have a single agency to regulate and supervise all US operations of foreign banks and share responsibility with the Federal Reserve for maintaining a consistent regulatory environment across the banking sector, so that both foreign and domestic banks are operating under the same regulations. This would leave the Federal Reserve with several roles. Firstly it is the government's banker and the lender of last resort. Next, it controls interest rates. Lastly, it is the regulatory authority for all publicly traded domestic banks including investment banks and prime lenders. The principal reason that domestic prime lenders and commercial banks should be under a single regulatory authority is the convergence within the financial services sector, especially within commercial banking and prime lending. The merger of JP Morgan and Chase Manhattan Bank and the Citicorp with Smith Barney demonstrate that banks today need to offer greater services to it customers from personal banking needs to commercial and investment banking.

In the process of exiting its regulating role for saving and loans and domestic national banks, the Treasury Department could focus on managing the IRS and the public debt, advancing American economic interest at home and aboard, protecting the currency and combating illegal financing. I mean there are plenty of responsibilities for the Treasury even without its regulatory and supervisory role in certain elements of the US financial services industry. Most importantly, the consolidation of bank regulators under a Federal Reserve led regime would also mean that it is no longer subject to the politics of Washington. Currently Wall Street has a non-partisan regulatory body in the SEC; banks should enjoy the same privilege under the Federal Reserve.

One Bear Stearns economist blamed the Federal Reserve's inaction for the collapse of the venerable Wall Street firm and said had the Federal Reserve acted quicker, Bear Stearns might not be in the sort of trouble it got itself into. The sad truth is that the Federal Reserves have no responsibility for prime lenders and investment bankers. The principal regulatory authority for prime lenders and investment bankers is the SEC. Clearly, the SEC was asleep at the switch. Unfortunately, the SEC could not lend $30 billion to rescue Bear Stearns and Federal Reserve could not make such a loan available without the participation of a state member bank like JP Morgan Chase. Frankly, what was that economist thinking or smoking when he blamed the Fed for inaction? Bear Stearns CEO told the world on CNBC that Bear Stearns was financial sound on the Wednesday before the Friday that he had to inform the Federal Reserve of Bear Stearns’s bankruptcy.

Assuming Congress would give the Federal Reserve jurisdiction in investment banking, it would not hinder the SEC's mission of ensuring corporate governance and regulating stock markets. Furthermore, it would still have a role to play in regulating the numerous mutual and hedge funds. Also, the notion of separate regulatory agencies for the commercial and investment banks stem from the Glass-Steagall Act, when a bank could only serve as an investment bank or as a commercial bank, but in 1999, Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. Hence, Congress created the SEC to regulate investment banks and later mutual and hedge funds. The role of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve are to regulate the commercial banks. However, consolidation of the banking industry as a result of the Gramm-Leach-Blliley Act has not followed up with additional legislation to the regulatory authorities in line with the transformation and creation of financial supermarkets like Citigroup or JP Morgan Chase.

With a Federal Reserve regulatory regime, it would greatly streamline the current mess of alphabet soup. At the same time, it would allow the Federal Reserve the liberty to act in times of crises within the financial sector.

Taiwanese electioneering: Political and economic agendas in Conflict

Here in Hong Kong, every news organization covers the dialogue on closer ties with the mainland between the Taiwanese presidential candidates. Despite both Ma Ying-jeou and Frank Hsieh advocate closer ties with Beijing, their strategic objectives are fundamentally flawed. The Democratic Progressive Party favours Taiwanese independence. While the Nationalists or Kuomintang supports the One China policy, it maintains that the government of the Republic of China is the sole legitimate Chinese government and not the Communist Party in Beijing. Either way, it is problematic for both parties to promote their political agenda while selling a completely different economic agenda.

Their economic agenda centers on the cross-Straits common market. Increasing commercial and economic ties with Beijing makes good business sense. After all, mainland workers are cheaper than Taiwanese workers. At the same time, mainland China is the world's largest unsaturated consumer economy; perfect for Taiwanese consumer electronic industry. Secondly, the Taiwanese economy over the years has become more of a service and research and development economy compared to China's manufacturing economy. Taiwan is home to several major semiconductor and tech companies like Taiwan Semiconductor, Acer and D-Link. Furthermore, unlike mainland China, land in Taiwan is a scarce commodity. Given Taiwan's proximity to China, it makes good economic and business sense to improve commercial and economics ties.

Sadly, what the Taiwanese politicians may not realize are economic needs has a funny way in affecting political agendas. In the 1950s, the French, Germans and a few other countries got together to develop the European Coal and Steel Community. This gave raise to European Economic Community, which was formalized in the Treaty of Rome of 1957 and the forerunner of the European Community. It created a common market across Western Europe, which was formalized in the Single European Act of 1986. Before the Single European Act, the various European governments made many amendments to the Treaty of Rome to liberalize trade between the member countries. These were all pure economic agendas designed to improve trade and commerce, but it has now become something of a supranational entity.

France, Italy, Germany and a few others have since given up their economic sovereignty by creating the Euro. The beauty of a common currency is that businesses do not need to worry about exchange rates in the Eurozone any more. The bad news is that national governments have lost an important symbol of national identity by adopting the Euro. Worse, national central banks, like the Bank of France, no longer control interest rates, despite being the government's banker and the local lender of last resort.

I do not think either Taiwanese presidential candidate has political unification in their minds when pursuing their economic and political agendas. Neither party want a military invasion of Taiwan by Beijing, but Democratic Progressive Party would accept the notion of turning Taiwan into a self-governing region of the People's Republic of China while the Kuomintang wants to re-establish the Republic of China in Beijing. This economic agenda of theirs seems to spell eventual political victory for Beijing, regardless of the pace either candidate wishes to proceed with unification talks because the middle road would never happen. Beijing would never agree to a free trade agreement, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, as it would in effect acknowledge Taiwan as a separate political entity.

Former Republican presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee would argue Taiwan should declare independence given it is already running its own show, regardless of how small that show may be. The president of Taiwan is running its own de facto country, which begs one to ask why demote oneself to a mere provincial governor regardless of the autonomy given when one should aspire to legally become a sovereign country. Furthermore, both Ma and Hsieh should keep in mind that as late as last year, there is movement within the US Congress to strengthen US-Taiwanese ties and what is happening in Kosovo before executing their election pledge of closer ties with Beijing.

Dumbest politician of 2008 - Eloit Spitzer

We all know that politicians are capable of doing stupid things like former Canadian Defense Minister Arthur Eggleton's decision to award a $36,000 government contract to his ex-girlfriend for a study on post-traumatic stress disorder. BC Premier Gordon Campbell caught driving drunk in Hawaii or former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey's decision to appoint his homosexual partner as his homeland security advisor. In his case, no one would have known had he not tried putting his gay partner on the government payroll. These were just plain stupid.

Next, the dumb thing politicians thought they could get away with. Bill Clinton had sexual relations with Monica Lewinski in the White House. A past sexual relationship of Bob Livingston, the powerful Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, came out in Hustler magazine in the days prior to his assumption of the Speakership of the House forcing him to vacant the Speakership before he was even sworn in. In the summer and autumn of 2006, Republican Congressman Mark Forley of Florida became embroiled in a scandal concerning some of his explicit e-mails to a House page. More recently, police arrested Sen. Larry Craig for eliciting gay sex in an airport men's room. Now, the granddaddy of them all and of all times - outgoing New York governor Eliot Spitzer paid for the services of a prostitute on several occasions. As if paying for the services of a prostitute was not bad enough, federal prosecutors want to charge Spitzer for money laundry based on his financial transactions called structuring.

Structuring is the concealment of large financial transactions by moving what seemed like small amounts of money from one bank account to another. More often than not, it is to dummy accounts opened under aliases for the purposes of hiding possibly criminal activities. I can understand why some people might do it. Certainly the paranoid multi-millionaires may wish to conceal their true wealth from their spouses, especially if one suspects that divorce papers may be served in countries where the spouse is entitled to half his wealth. Prostitution itself may not be illegal in some places, but the money made certainly helps to fund some criminal activities.

I used to think that Bill Clinton's sexual exploits were bad and his cover-up of the Lewinski affair was stupid. But Spitzer really trumped Clinton's stupidity by light years. To put this in a motor racing analogy, Spitzer would be driving a Bugatti Veyron while Clinton raced in a Dodge Viper. Most people know what a Dodge Viper can do, but a Bugatti Veyron can go 0 to 60 in 2 seconds and has a top speed of 253 miles per hour. This was the politician who made a reputation as the sheriff of Wall Street while he was New York state attorney general. He wrote the New York state laws against prostitution. That is how stupid Spitzer's actions were. This has to be the Concord moment of political scandals.

Frankly, I am not surprised that Spitzer ultimately resorted to using the services of a 22-year old call girl. I saw his wife standing beside him when he first apologized for his bad behavior and then when he announced his resignation. The man deserves a better looking wife than this. French president Nicolas Sarkozy recently married Carla Bruni, an ex-model and singer, for his third wife. Hillary Clinton was a better looking wife than Spitzer’s current wife. If Spitzer did not like having sex with his current wife, why didn’t he just divorce her?

I know Ken Langone, a venture capitalist and director of the New York Stock Exchange, is publicly dancing in the streets when news of the Spitzer's downfall broke. Right now, I am just surprised that Sen. Barack Obama is not yet dancing in the streets of Chicago on this news. After all, Spitzer is one of Sen. Hillary Clinton's super delegates and a major distraction from the Tony Razko case. America in general is too busy watching what will happen to Spitzer than minding the connection between Obama and Razko. This news has certainly put the Clinton machine on the defensive somewhat. More impotantly, David Paterson, the incoming and first African American New York governor, find himself inheriting not only Spitzer's job, but also his super delegate status. This is where the media misses the big story, who will Paterson endorse in this tight Democratic race - his brother Obama or his adopted girl Clinton. This is really a dilemma. For Spitzer, this was an easy choice. For Paterson, he will be damned either way. If Obama looses the nomination and he backed Clinton, he would be regarded as a sell-out within the African American community. If Clinton looses the nomination and he voted for Obama, he would be the most hated man in New York State.

The Morning After: Is the Obama campaign incompetent or masochistic?

I watched the Texas and Ohio return all night and I could not believe that Sen. Hillary Clinton managed to defy the pundits again. According to CNN and NBC News, Sen. Barack Obama had three golden opportunities to shut down the Clinton machine once and for all - first New Hampshire, then California and now Texas. In each and every case, it came down to either the women's vote or the Latino vote that keep the Clinton machine barely alive. The women's vote saved Hillary in New Hampshire, the then Latino vote saved California and now the combined women's and Latino vote saved Texas. The Obama campaign would like the world to believe that in a few weeks they had almost erased Clinton's near 20 percentage point advantage and 30 years history in Texas. It is be incredible that the eventual nominee could end up loosing America's five or six most populous states, namely California, Texas, New York, Florida, Ohio and Michigan, in the primaries, however barely that defeat was. Granted that the Democratic National Committee had stripped Florida and Michigan, it now frankly really looks the Obama campaign suffers from a case of incompetence or a masochistic streak.

I am seriously beginning to wonder how many more must-win cases can the Clinton machine keep pulling out? In tennis, what the Clintons have achieved is like saving three, perhaps four, match points and the tennis match just refuses to come to an end. The Democratic electorate, the political scientists and pundits are actually getting an election of a lifetime watching these two candidates keep going. This is really history in the making. After Super Tuesday on 5th February, everyone agrees that the longer this drags on, the better are Obama's chances. At some point, someone has to realize that it is more than mere luck that is saving the Clinton machine. If someone told me after Super Tuesday, that Clinton could pull out Ohio and Texas after loosing 11 straight contests, I simply would believe it. Like the 1999 Ryder Cup matches, this is living up to the hype and seemingly manages to deliver much more than the hype is promising.

The only saving grace for the Obama campaign is that he still has a lead in the elected delegates. The bad news is that the Clinton campaign has rather successfully managed to define expectations for the Obama campaign by saying that Obama needs to win all four primaries last night otherwise, it would be proof that the Democratic electorate has a case of buyer’s remorse. The Obama campaign should have upped the stakes by saying that the loss of either Ohio or Texas would be a mortal blow to the Clinton camp; instead it played right into the Clinton expectation game. Fortunately, Obama has one more chance to try to end Hillary's presidential bid by winning Pennsylvania. This time, he really should try to define the expectations for the pundits by putting out numbers she needs.

More than once, with the open primaries like in Texas, I am beginning to believe that some Republicans are actually helping Hillary by voting for her in the primary with the intent of aligning the independents and the conservatives against her in November. Think about this, the Republicans have been screaming for the Democrats to nominate Hillary because they believe that Sen. John McCain, the now definitive Republican nominee, will have a better chance in November against Hillary. And I agree. Furthermore, no one needs Hillary to win the Democratic nomination more than McCain, given his current funding raising numbers. From what I have heard so far, Obama's fundraising is a steamroller. In February only, he has raised something like $50 million compared to Hillary's $35 million and McCain's $7 million. If Hillary is the nominee, the Republican and McCain strategy is simply to raise Hillary's negatives in a similar fashion to what then Pres. Bill Clinton did to Sen. Bob Dole in 1996. This should be fairly straight forward, as Hillary has to battle her in the remaining states to catch up to Obama's delegates and wage the floor fight in Denver before turning her attention to McCain. The hope is that between now and November, McCain would have so successfully defined Hillary so far to the left that she cannot climb out of.

Right now, assuming that Hillary by some miraculous fate manages to take the nomination, McCain's national security resume is far more impressive than Hillary's. McCain's support of NAFTA will only cost him the core Democratic votes like the blue collar worker from the manufacturing sector in Ohio. More importantly, Hillary's negative attacks on Obama may well alienate Obama's younger and more highly educated supporters. Furthermore, more of Obama's suppoerters consider themselves as independents; they may end up switching camp wholesale to backing McCain. Together, one must think that Hillary's bid is still alive for some reason, other than Hillary's explanation of buyer's remorse.

There can only be so many theories that could explain why Hillary's hope is still alive right now. And I am out for now.

What has Hillary done to deserve the feminist endorsement besides she is a woman

Martha Burk, a prominent feminist and the most vocal critic of the membership policy of Augusta National, wrote a piece in the Huffington Post, an online newspaper founded by one-time California gubernatorial candidate and journalist Arianna Huffington, a little more than two weeks ago, which I saw only a few days ago. Not surprising Burk and the National Organization for Women (NOW) endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton. Neither of which is surprising. At around the same time as the NOW endorsement, CNN interviewed a feminist who claimed that, if Hillary was not elected, it would be a setback the women's movement for many generations. She also said something to the effect that Hillary is the best qualified woman America has to serve as the first woman president. I suspect the truth is closer to being the opposite. The Democratic Party has plenty of young bright female stars coming to the national scene, like Governors Christine Gregoire of Washington, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln and Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. None of them are nearly as dangerous as the Clintons and all of them are better prepared to serve as President given their wealth of experience.

However, what is interesting is that both Burk and NOW gave an amazingly pathetic reasoning for their endorsement. Frankly they would have been better off saying that they are endorsing women candidates only than what they offered. According to them, Clinton is the only candidate who will protect a woman's right to abortion. Give me a break... please. It is an insult to every socially liberal man in America at the very least and a sign as to how ignorant these activists are about the male population. Their bottom line is that every man in America is a church going religious fanatic of the Christian faith bent on turning every woman into one's property. As some journalists have so famously said time for them to smell the coffee and watch Christiane Amanpour's CNN Special entitled God's Christian Warriors.

For the record, I am a fiscal conservative and social liberal. In short, we should live within our means and adopt the free-will philosophy in life. I believe that the US Supreme Court decision regarding Roe vs Wade was right. The religious right would like the world to believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is in violation of the Ten Commandments. Firstly, could someone prove how a group of cells floating around a woman's womb constitute a human life? Furthermore, as far as I know, abortion, as we know it today, did not exist at the time of Moses. Also I tend to believe that human beings are not born evil, but rather driven towards evil by external circumstances. Who would know better than the mother the circumstances a child is being brought into this world? The ultimate question the religious right refuses to answer is it fair to a child that he or she should be born to suffer? Lastly, in eastern philosophy, human beings are a part of nature and not the ultimate being of nature.

In reading the NOW Political Action Committee support of Clinton's position, all the so-called Clinton accomplishments would not have been possible without the support of men in the Senate. As Feb. 2008, there are less than a dozen women in the Senate and to imply that Clinton's votes were critical or crucial to any of those outcomes are absurd. Many male Democratic Senators like Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Barack Obama and other liberals voiced deep reservation concerning the appointment of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. In pointed fact, Obama called Alito's appointment nothing short of a move to appease the religious right. More importantly, it was Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, who led the charge to filibuster the nomination of Alito and not Clinton. Bear in mind, she publicly said that she along with Democratic leader Harry Reid were fearful that a filibuster could backfire. In short, she was unprepared to back the filibuster. Also, the Supreme Court that decided Roe vs Wade had no female justices.

Many of her fellow Democratic senators share and support her positions regarding minimum wage, social security, universal healthcare, stem cell research among many others. Sen. Edward Kennedy, the lion of the Democratic Party, has been advocating these positions for years long before Hillary even entered politics. Frankly, NOW's suggestion that Hillary is the only presidential candidate fighting to end violence against women seems to imply that every man in the US House and Senate would embrace in a heartbeat the notion of turning every woman in America into punching bags, if Senator Clinton was not there. This is utterly preposterous.

NOW and Burk have shown themselves for what they really are - political hacks from the suffragette movement from the turn of previous century. Earth to NOW, Earth to Burk: time to go back to the future - year 1890. Parapharsing the quote of former Treasury Secretary, Lloyd Bentson, Senator, you are no Margaret Thatcher. Sen. Bentson addressed his famous words of "Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy" to then Republican Vice Presidential nominee Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debate. I doubt whether they know the substantive policy differences between her and the other Democratic contenders. Burk and NOW fail to understand, from what I gather, what the Clintons are all about. Bill Clinton was, to some extent, a pragmatic liberal and understood the brilliance of stealing the idea of compromise. Hillary would turn American productivity into a federal felony and forward thinking into a capital crime. She does represent the future of women in politics in terms of aspirations becoming reality. Her presidential legacy, if elected, would be one of fear, fear of putting another woman in the White House, and a major setback for women in American politics for years to come.