A 2004 photo taken at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shows a female American soldier holding a dog leash fastened around a naked prisoner's neck.

If there was one incident that led to the decline in support for the Iraq war at home and abroad, it was the 2004 publication of pictures of U.S. soldiers taunting and abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Those photos, broadcast endlessly into homes around the globe, depicted grinning American soldiers – male and female – next to naked Iraqi prisoners stacked in piles on the floor.

Others showed snarling dogs intimidating prisoners. And perhaps the most infamous revealed a female soldier leading a naked prisoner by a dog collar around his neck.

The soldiers who engaged in this rogue, illegal conduct were tried, convicted and went to prison. But the damage they did can never be fully expiated.

Now, a freedom of information filing by the American Civil Liberties Union threatens to open this old wound.

The ACLU filed suit in 2003 to obtain the release of all photos related to military detention, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found in its favor last September. The Bush administration sought to reverse the ruling, but the Obama administration said in April it would not fight the release of the photos.

Then, President Obama reversed course this week, instructing the Justice Department to challenge the release in court on the grounds of national security.

President Obama now says that the publication of these photos “would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals.”

He added that the most direct consequence of releasing them “would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger.”

He did not come to this conclusion without help – namely from Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq; and Gen. David McKiernan, outgoing American commander in Afghanistan, who pushed Defense Secretary Robert Gates to urge the administration to fight the release of the photos.

Better late than never. Obama’s reversal comes after weeks of controversy over his Justice Department’s decision to release Bush administration memos giving legal justifications for the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on enemy combatants.

While the two actions strike some left-wing critics as contradictory, in fact they demonstrate the fine line Obama is trying to walk on Bush-era decisions.

On the one hand, Obama seems eager to punish Bush political appointees for aggressively prosecuting the war on terror.

On the other hand, he’s nervous about doing anything that might provoke more violence against American troops, especially if it might redound to the detriment of his own reputation and that of his administration.

If Obama acquiesces in the release of the photos and terrorist acts against American soldiers or civilians abroad follow, he knows he’ll be blamed.

But the Obama decision also reflects the larger shift on the left from blaming soldiers for their involvement in a sometimes unpopular war to trying to show some respect for military personnel while still attacking the political leaders who sent them to war.

Although Obama is not old enough to remember the Vietnam War personally, he’s nonetheless learned some of the lessons from that era.

Vietnam War protesters spat on American soldiers, literally and figuratively. Many burned the American flag, urged the victory of the communist guerrillas and ignored the torture of American prisoners of war in North Vietnam.

Some, such as Obama friend and political ally William Ayers, went further, engaging in grotesque acts of violence against military installations in the U.S. and later against the police.

The American people overwhelmingly rejected the excesses of these protesters, electing Richard M. Nixon twice.

With some exceptions – notably Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who accused American troops of committing atrocities in Haditha before investigations and courts martial cleared them; and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who accused American troops of terrorizing Iraqi children – most Democrats have tried to sound supportive of American soldiers.

I’d like to think this support is sincere, that they appreciate the sacrifice of the men and women who serve this country so the rest of us can be safe.

But even if President Obama’s decision not to release the photos was simply a cold, political calculation, we should be glad he made it.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

Bristol Palin poses with actress Hayden Panettiere on the red carpet during an event in New York City to promote National Teen Pregnancy Awareness Day. Now an unwed mother, Bristol Palin said abstinence is a realistic way for teens to avoid unwanted pregnancy - a view not shared by the father of her infant son.

Bristol Palin is back in the news. The Alaska governor’s daughter became the most famous unwed pregnant teenager in America last summer when her mother was nominated to be the GOP’s vice presidential candidate.

Since then, Bristol has given birth to a boy in December and her engagement to the baby’s father has ended.

This week, she took center stage again for promoting abstinence among teenagers as part of Teen Pregnancy Awareness Day. But she’s been greeted with howls of derision from pundits and others who think her actions are hypocritical.

However, before critics jump on Bristol, maybe they should consider the facts.

The majority of teenagers who have had sex regret their decision – and that’s not just those who get pregnant.

We need to worry about increasing rates of teen pregnancy, which fell steadily between 1991 and 2005, but started moving up again in 2006 and are higher in the U.S. than in all other countries in the industrialized world.

But pregnancy isn’t the only issue that should concern us when teenagers are sexually active, especially young teens, even if they use contraception. Most young teens are not emotionally ready to have sex, even if their hormones are telling them differently.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has been the leader in providing hard, empirical data on what works to prevent teenage pregnancy and in studying attitudes among young people on the issue. (I currently serve on the board of the National Campaign, which includes a broad range of public figures, health specialists and academics whose views cut across a wide political spectrum.)

In 2007, the National Campaign published a comprehensive survey on attitudes toward sexual activity, teen pregnancy, and who and what most affected teens’ likelihood of engaging in sex. “With One Voice: America’s Teens and Adults Sound Off about Teen Pregnancy” includes some surprising findings.

Among teenagers who have already had sex, 60 percent wished they had waited. And 90 percent of teens say they believe that providing young people with a strong abstinence message is important – a figure not much different from the 93 percent of adults who favor a pro-abstinence message.

Teens also credit parents with being the most important influence in their lives on their decisions to have sex or to delay sexual activity.

Nearly half (47 percent) credit their parents with influencing their decisions, more than friends (18 percent), religious leaders (7 percent), siblings (5 percent), teachers or sex educators (4 percent) or the media (3 percent).

These figures have remained consistent in all the National Campaign’s surveys.

According to the findings in this survey, which included a representative sample of more than 2,000 teens and adults interviewed by phone, both believe it is important to discourage teenagers from sexual activity at least until kids are out of high school.

Eight out of 10 adults said such messages were very important, as did two-thirds of teenagers.

But a majority of adults and teens also want information about contraception given to teenagers. However, nearly half of teens (46 percent) surveyed acknowledged that telling teens “don’t have sex but if you do, you should use birth control or protection” actually encourages teens to have sex.

Given these findings, Bristol Palin’s advocacy for teen abstinence is a good thing. She’s a high-profile example of why all the best-laid plans sometimes go awry.

Bristol got pregnant even though she and her former boyfriend admitted they usually used contraception. She may have thought she would marry the father of her baby, but they ended up breaking up after the baby was born.

And now, instead of being a college freshman enjoying an active social life, she’s home taking care of her infant son.

At least Bristol has a support network to help her raise her child – many unwed teen moms don’t. If she can discourage even a few young girls from following in her footsteps, I think she deserves our praise, not the snickers she’s been getting from some quarters.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

When asked whether he'd advise members of his family against traveling to Mexico, Vice President Joe Biden offered this: "It's not just going into Mexico. If you're anyplace in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. . . . That's me. I would not be at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway."

The White House, commendably, seems to be trying to quiet the hysteria building around swine flu, but apparently the vice president didn’t get the memo.

Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden told Americans to stay out of airplanes, subways and other “confined spaces” on NBC’s “Today Show.”

When asked whether he’d advise members of his family against traveling to Mexico, he offered this: “It’s not just going into Mexico. If you’re anyplace in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. . . . That’s me. I would not be at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway.”

The vice president’s office spent the rest of the day trying to downplay the boss’s irresponsible comments.

Biden’s staff claims the vice president was telling family members: “If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways.”

But the fact is, words matter and that is not what Biden said on TV. He wasn’t telling sick people to stay home; he was instructing healthy people to do so out of simple, ignorant fear.

It’s one thing for cable news – whose business model depends on whipping up public frenzy to drive ratings – to behave irresponsibly. It’s quite another for the vice president to do so.

Biden’s foot-in-mouth disease could turn out to be more dangerous to Americans than the H1N1 virus.

At this point, swine flu is only a theoretical danger to most of us. The cases in the U.S. so far have been mild, and according to most experts there is little reason to believe this will change.

Tens of thousands of Americans die every year from the flu, and yet the media and Joe Biden can’t help but spread panic about swine flu, which has killed one person here in America so far.

But what would happen if the public decided to take the vice president’s advice and stay off public transportation? We have actual experience on this front and know the consequences.

The anxiety that kept people off airplanes and generally frightened people into staying home after the 9/11 attack made it difficult to recover from a mild recession in 2001 – and that was at a time when we had a relatively healthy economy.

Imagine what would happen in the U.S. if similar fears were to drive Americans into their bunkers now when we are in the midst of the worst recession in almost 30 years?

GDP declined 6.1 percent in the first quarter 2009, following a decline of 6.3 percent the previous quarter. Can you guess what would happen to the American economy if everyone stayed home for the next three months?

We are all going to die sometime and from some cause, natural or otherwise.

In 2005, the last year for which data are available, more than 45,000 Americans died from automobile accidents, and nearly 20,000 died from simple falls of one sort or another. Should we never set foot in a car or bathtub again for fear it might kill us?

Communicable diseases are scary. But common sense and good hygiene are the best protection.

This is not 1918 – when the so-called Spanish flu, which may well have been a variant of swine flu – killed more 50 million people worldwide. We have antibiotics and antiviral drugs.

People are more educated and understand how disease spreads. And we have ways to communicate real threats when they occur, and to do so almost instantaneously.

But we also have the ability to spread misinformation and terror more broadly than at any time in history. The media make matters worse by screaming headlines and nonstop cable coverage on each new case that breaks out.

This is the time for cool heads and genuine leadership. President Obama has shown both. Unfortunately, his second-in-command hasn’t.

Perhaps the most constructive thing the White House could do until swine flu blows over is quarantine the vice president.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

New Haven Firefighter Gary Tinney strands in front of the firehouse where he works in New Haven, Conn. Tinney is one of a group of African-American firefighters in New Haven who are at the center of a controversy over promotions - a case that has worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There was a time in America when the color of your skin determined whether or not you could get a job or promotion.

Thankfully, Congress outlawed such practices in 1964, and we are a better country for it.

But just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case that could determine discrimination is OK, so long as its victims are not black.

The case was brought by a group of New Haven, Conn., firefighters who had taken a civil service test to become lieutenants or captains but were denied promotion because the city didn’t like the racial outcome of the test results.

Whites and Hispanics scored the highest among firefighters. No blacks scored high enough to be promoted, so the city decided to throw out the test results. Seventeen white firefighters and one Hispanic, who were denied promotions, sued.

One of the more interesting aspects of this case involves the individual plaintiffs – at least one of whom is an ethnic minority, Hispanic, and another who is dyslexic.

Lead plaintiff Frank Ricci quit a second job so he could study for the test and hired someone to make audiotapes so he could better prepare for the exams.

Despite his reading disability, Ricci placed sixth out of 77 taking the lieutenants exam.

How can anyone claim that denying this man a promotion because he happens to be white is right, much less legal?

A lower court supported the city’s decision to throw out the test results, without a full hearing. A three-judge panel with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision.

When plaintiffs appealed to have the case heard by all 13 members of the Appeals Court, the vote split 7-6 against hearing the appeal.

A Clinton-appointed judge, Jose Cabranes, issued an eloquent dissent: “At its core, this case presents a straightforward question: May a municipal employer disregard the results of a qualifying examination, which was carefully constructed to ensure race-neutrality, on the ground that the results of that examination yielded too many qualified applicants of one race and not enough of another?”

It is exactly the right question to ask.

Is it conceivable in this day and age that a court would uphold the right of an employer to throw out test results if blacks were the highest scorers? (And remember, as Judge Cabranes noted, the tests in this case were carefully constructed to ensure that no racial bias existed in the questions.)

We’d be rightly appalled if the shoe were on the other foot and high-scoring blacks were denied promotions because the city preferred to promote whites.

We should be just as disturbed when the city chooses to deny white and Hispanic firefighters promotions they deserve. Race shouldn’t determine who gets promoted, period.

You’d think we’d have learned this lesson long ago, but apparently not – and the effects have had pernicious consequences.

We may not have totally eliminated racial prejudice, but promoting less-qualified individuals in the name of diversity undermines our sense of fairness. It also casts doubt on the abilities of even well-qualified members of the racial group that has received favored treatment.

Nonetheless, the case will likely be a close call for Supreme Court justices, not based on the merits but because the court is split almost evenly.

Four justices think discrimination is OK, so long as it doesn’t disadvantage minorities, and four believe that the civil rights laws and Constitution apply equally to all persons, regardless of their race.

The man in the middle, Justice Anthony Kennedy, often is skeptical of race-based preferences, but occasionally votes with those who want to take race into account. How he votes when the court hands down its decision later this year will likely determine this case.

Is it too much to hope that someday we’ll get beyond race in this country?

The only way to get there is by outlawing discrimination against anyone because of race.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

A new report out this week from the Pew Hispanic Center confirms what many observers already suspected about the illegal immigrant population in the United States: It is made up increasingly of intact families and their American-born children.

Nearly half of illegal immigrant households consist of two-parent families with children, and 73 percent of these children were born here and are therefore U.S. citizens.

The hard-line immigration restrictionists will, no doubt, find more cause for alarm in these numbers. But they should represent hope to the rest of us.

One of the chief social problems afflicting this country is the breakdown in the traditional family. But among immigrants, the two-parent household is alive and well.

Only 21 percent of native households are made up of two parents living with their own children. Among legal immigrants, the percentage of such households jumps to 35 percent.

But among the illegal population, 47 percent of households consist of a mother, a father and their children.

Age accounts for the major difference in household composition between the native and foreign-born populations: Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, tend to be younger, while the native population includes large numbers of older Americans whose offspring already have left home.

But out-of-wedlock births and divorce, which are more common among the native born – especially blacks, but also Hispanics and whites – also mean that even young native households with children are more likely to be headed by single women than are immigrant households.

But the greater concern for some opponents of immigration – legal and illegal – is the fear that these newcomers will never fully adapt, won’t learn English, will remain poor and uneducated and transform the U.S. into a replica of Mexico or some other Latin American country.

The same fears led Americans of the mid-19th century to fear German and Irish immigrants, and in the early-20th century to fear Italians, Jews, Poles, and others from Eastern and Southern Europe.

Such worries are no more rational today – or born out of actual evidence – than they were a hundred years ago.

It is true that Hispanic immigrants today take awhile to catch up with the native born just as their European predecessors did, and illegal immigrants never fully do so in terms of education or earnings.

But there is still some room for optimism in the Pew Hispanic report. Nearly half of illegal immigrants between the ages of 18-24 who have graduated from high school attend college. A surprising 25 percent of illegal immigrant adults have at least some college, with 15 percent having completed college.

And although earnings among illegal immigrants are lower than among either the native population or immigrants here legally, they are far from destitute. The median household income for illegal immigrants was $36,000 in 2007 compared with $50,000 for native-born households.

And illegal immigrant males have much higher labor force participation rates than do the native born, 94 percent compared with 83 percent for U.S.-born males.

The inflow of illegal immigrants has slowed substantially since the peak, which occurred during the economic boom of the late 1990s – not in recent years, contrary to popular but uninformed opinion.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates nearly 12 million illegal immigrants are living in the U.S. now, a number that has stabilized over the past few years as a result of better border enforcement and the declining job market.

As a result, there might never be a better time to grapple with what to do about this population than right now.

The fact that so many illegal immigrants are intertwined with American citizens or legal residents, either as spouses or parents, should give pause to those who’d like to see all illegal immigrants rounded up and deported or their lives made so miserable they leave on their own.

A better approach would allow those who have made their lives here, established families, bought homes, worked continuously and paid taxes to remain after paying fines, demonstrating English fluency and proving they have no criminal record.

Such an approach is as much about supporting family values as it is granting amnesty.

Illegal population, natives melded

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

President Obama greets the crowd Sunday at Hradcany Square in Prague.

President Obama’s recent whirlwind overseas tour did little to restore respect for America among friends or foes, despite adoring crowds who treated him like a rock star wherever he went.

For a man who hasn’t an ounce of personal humility, the president makes up for it by being downright obsequious when it comes to recounting his country’s supposed transgressions.

In his globetrotting speeches, Obama reviled the U.S.’ history of slavery, the mistreatment of Indians and alleged torture of terrorists.

He hinted that his predecessor had engaged in a war with Islam, but promised that he – Barack Hussein Obama, as he was introduced to Muslim audiences everywhere – would never let that happen again.

Instead of insisting that our NATO allies carry their share of the burden in Afghanistan, he practically begged them to please send more combat troops to add to the 21,000 additional American troops.

And in arguing for a nuclear-free world, he even suggested that maybe the United States should put aside its nukes, as if the United States were the problem when it comes to nuclear proliferation.

So how did the world respond? Our European friends turned a polite but deaf ear to Obama’s entreaties: No more combat troops for Afghanistan, no more stimulus dollars to help rescue the worldwide economy.

Our erstwhile Pakistani partners in the war on terror – oops, the “overseas contingency operations” in Obamaspeak – told us they aren’t making any promises to use $7.5 billion in U.S. aid to actually fight the Taliban and al-Qaida in the tribal regions along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

And those were the friendlier reactions.

Across the globe, the North Koreans chose to use the occasion of the president’s overseas travels to launch a missile demonstrating their ability to deliver nuclear weapons as far away as the U.S.’ West Coast.

Meanwhile, the Chinese, Russians, and others as yet unidentified, have hacked into the U.S. power grid recently in the most serious cyberattack on the country ever.

National security officials confirmed to The Wall Street Journal this week that cyberspies have not only infiltrated our electric grid but have left behind software aimed at disrupting our electrical delivery system during a crisis or war.

And then there are the Iranians. Remember President Obama’s olive branches to this crew?

First, he promised in the campaign that he would sit down with the Iranians with no preconditions. And in February, he sent a secret letter to Russian President Medvedev promising to renege on the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in Eastern Europe if the Russians could persuade the Iranians to forgo their nuclear weapons program.

When that gambit flopped, this week the State Department announced that indeed the U.S. would sit down in direct talks with the Iranians along with the Germans and representatives of the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

And how did the Iranians respond to our friendly overtures? By charging an American-born journalist with spying and holding a secret trial whose results could be catastrophic for the young woman.

Pardon me if I’m unimpressed by the president’s international prowess so far.

When will the left learn that self-flagellation and blame-America-first rhetoric isn’t enough to buy the love of our enemies? And even our friends can turn quisling when we show no spine.

If President Obama wants to restore America’s reputation, he can start by showing strength, not weakness.

He’s made the right decision by increasing our commitment to fight terrorists in Afghanistan. Now he has to make it clear to the Pakistanis that if they want our aid, it comes with strings – namely, taking on the terrorists in their tribal regions.

President Obama needs to learn that being loved by the world is not nearly as important as earning respect – and that comes by honoring our commitments to our allies and punishing those who threaten our peace and security.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

President Obama decided that the man he originally picked to head the civil rights division at the Justice Department, Thomas Saenz, was too controversial.

So he’s now turned to someone he hopes will have clearer sailing through the confirmation process.

Earlier this month, the president nominated attorney Tom Perez as assistant attorney general for civil rights. Perez is the secretary of labor for Maryland and had worked in the civil rights division at Justice during the Clinton administration.

The Obama administration decided not to move forward with the Saenz nomination largely because of Saenz’s efforts on behalf of illegal immigrants, which made him an easy target. But Perez also has some skeletons in his policy background that could prove troubling.

In 2006, Perez wrote a law review article for the University of Maryland’s Journal of Health Care Law and Policy, in which he argued for explicit race-conscious admissions policies for medical school.

He cited a handful of studies purported to show that minority doctors are more likely to provide medical care to under-served poor minority populations than white physicians.

He then leapt to the conclusion that the best way to improve access to medical care for underserved populations was to insist that medical schools use race or ethnicity in choosing which students to admit.

In effect, Perez appears to be arguing for a form of medical apartheid in which minority patients should be served by minority doctors under the presumption that both groups benefit from this practice. The argument is both insulting and dangerous.

It is true that black and Hispanic doctors disproportionately serve patients on Medicare, Medicaid and other public health care programs – but it is a big leap to suggest that this practice should be encouraged or is, indeed, beneficial either to aspiring doctors or poor black and Hispanic patients.

As other studies have shown, doctors who treat primarily patients enrolled in government programs are less likely than those with private insurance patients to have passed demanding board certification in their specialties and to have access to high-quality specialists in other fields.

Under Perez’s rationale, it shouldn’t matter whether the doctors who serve poor people are less likely to be board- certified so long as they are black or brown.

And Perez’s solution to the problem is to lower standards even further so that more underqualified minority physicians are admitted to practice medicine. Medical schools already admit black and, to a lesser degree, Hispanic students with lower qualifications than whites or Asians.

In 2001, my Center for Equal Opportunity published a study of admissions to the University of Maryland School of Medicine and found that the university admitted black students with much lower test scores and science GPAs than whites, Asians or Hispanics.

As a result, black enrollees, on average, had much greater difficulty in medical school, maintaining only a 2.5 grade point average in their first two years of medical school (compared with a 3.0 for Hispanics and 3.2 for whites and Asians).

And blacks were less likely to pass medical licensing exams or to graduate than others. (CEO completed similar studies of medical school admissions at several other schools, which are available online at www.ceousa.org/content/blogcategory/78/100.)

Perez’s solution would exacerbate the problem of poor health services for minority patients, not improve it.

Ironically, the modern era of affirmative action was ushered in by the famous Bakke Supreme Court decision in which a more-qualified white medical school applicant sued the University of California-Davis Medical School because it denied his application, choosing instead a less-qualified black student, Patrick Chavis.

For years, advocates of race-based admission argued that Chavis’ service to poor and minority patients showed the wisdom of the university’s decision.

Those arguments proved both embarrassing and tragic in the late 1990s when the California Medical Board suspended Chavis’ medical license after several patients died or were severely injured in his care. The board cited “inability to perform some of the most basic duties required of a physician.”

Clearly, not every affirmative action medical school admittee will end up like Chavis, but admitting poorly qualified medical students increases the risk of producing incompetent physicians.

Race should never be the deciding factor in deciding who gets into medical school. President Obama has done a disservice to all of us by choosing a man to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division who thinks it should.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

AIG Chairmen Edward Liddy testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington Wednesday before the House Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises subcommittee.

Spare me the populist outrage. Members of the House Financial Services Committee sounded more like an out-of-control mob than leaders who could help solve one of the worst financial crises in U.S. history when they confronted AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy this week.

And the president wasn’t much better. They are whipping the American people into a nasty and destructive frenzy that won’t do anything to help fix the economy and will likely make it worse.

Liddy is not public enemy No. 1. Liddy had nothing to do with the credit-default-swap mess that threatened to unravel the financial system last year.

He came out of retirement (from a different company) at the urging of government officials to take over AIG when it was on the verge of collapse.

After Wednesday’s disgraceful performance by Committee Chairman Barney Frank and others – Republicans as well as Democrats – who could blame Liddy if he decided to return to the golf course and let somebody else take the abuse?

But if Liddy’s not to blame, neither are the AIG employees who received bonus checks this month. These are not the same people who devised the credit default obligations that jeopardized AIG. Those individuals are long gone.

The bonus recipients are the people whose job is now to try to mitigate the financial risk those complex instruments caused. They are highly skilled and could, like Liddy, walk away and let the company implode, with consequences that even critics of AIG agree could affect all of us.

To ensure they not do that, the company last year promised them financial incentives to stay in their jobs.

When a company is collapsing – as AIG certainly was at the time these contracts were negotiated – everybody who has an alternative is looking to jump ship.

Think about it. If you knew that your employer might not be around in a few months and you had very specialized skills that were much in demand elsewhere, would you be willing to go down with the ship? Not likely.

But if your employer offered you a handsome financial incentive to stick around, you’d be far more likely to take the risk. Well, that’s exactly what AIG did when it negotiated retention bonuses.

But what about the people, who received those bonuses, that had already left AIG? It’s legitimate to question whether those bonuses are deserved, but it’s ridiculous to jump to the conclusion they aren’t based solely on the information we currently have.

It depends on the circumstances surrounding their departures. If they just up and quit, leaving the company in the lurch, they aren’t entitled to the bonus.

But my guess is that most of them left because the company decided it was in its interest either to eliminate the job or replace the individual with someone else. In that case, barring demonstrable fault on the part of the individual, the company would be obligated to pay the amount that had been promised when the employee agreed to stay on.

So if it’s not the principle of retention bonuses that infuriates people, what is it? It’s anger that the people who received these bonuses are greedy.

But greed isn’t the only destructive vice out there. What’s driving public outrage right now is another unattractive vice: envy. Neither vice is healthy.

Class envy won’t put a single penny in anyone’s pocket. It won’t save jobs. It certainly won’t solve the credit crisis. And the irresponsible rhetoric from politicians will make it less likely that we will solve the real problems confronting the nation.

We’ve already had Sen. Charles Grassley suggest failed company executives ought to commit hara-kiri – a sentiment he retracted later – and Rep. Barney Frank seemed perfectly happy to have AIG executives who received bonuses identified publicly even if it jeopardized their security.

If this keeps up, it could turn really ugly. Mobs are difficult to control once they’ve been unleashed.

But don’t expect any of the rabble-rousers on Capitol Hill or in the White House to take responsibility if things turn violent.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

Linda Chavez says President Obama ought to get over his messiah complex.

President Obama reminds me of the fellow who’s off to save the world while he ignores the disaster in his own backyard.

Instead of focusing on the urgent problems facing the country – the credit crisis and the collapse of the housing market – he’s diverting scarce resources and attention to solving health care, reforming education and stopping global climate change.

Worse, his efforts to tackle these intractable issues involve fiscal policies that exacerbate the current financial crisis. He is not only driving the deficit up to unsustainable heights, his policies will amount to a huge tax on all Americans.

President Obama claims he’s going to raise taxes only on the wealthiest Americans. But even if his tax-the-rich scheme didn’t depress investment and slow growth – which it will – there are other ways government policies, in effect, tax individuals.

Government also imposes tax increases indirectly on individuals through policies that encourage businesses to raise prices paid by everyone.

Most companies operate on relatively thin profit margins; the corporate average has been about 8.5 percent since 1980. Those margins stay relatively constant because capitalism works.

If a company’s profits get too high, a smart competitor comes in and starts a rival business that makes the same product for less, and the greedy company loses customers.

But what happens when government taxes all businesses – or even a select group of companies? If the company’s profits decline, the company might reasonably respond by laying off workers or reducing capital outlays to cut costs.

That’s not exactly what we’d like to see at a time of skyrocketing unemployment, declining construction and decreasing manufacturing orders. The alternative for most businesses is simply to pass on the increased costs to the consumer.

That is exactly what will happen if Obama’s cap-and-trade policy on greenhouse emissions is enacted by Congress.

The president wants to impose stricter pollution controls on carbon emissions and allow companies that can’t meet those regulations to purchase the right to pollute more through a government auction, with the money flowing into the federal budget.

But how will energy companies pay for what is really a new government tax? By passing it on to their consumers, of course. And unlike other businesses, where competition can help control costs, there isn’t much competition in the utilities world.

Most of us have few choices when it comes to purchasing electricity or natural gas. We’re pretty much captives of our geography, so we won’t have a choice about choosing a more efficient, less polluting electricity company if Obama gets his way on cap-and-trade legislation.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that cutting carbon emissions by 15 percent would result in a huge cost to most Americans.

According to CBO’s analysis as reported on the Wall Street Journal editorial page March 9, the plan would cost the bottom 20 percent of households 3.3 percent of their entire after-tax incomes every year, or about $680. Those in the next three quintiles would pay between $880 and $1,500 a year in extra energy costs.

This is exactly the wrong thing to do, and the worst time to do it. The president ought to get over his messiah complex. He’s not going to slow the rise of the oceans, as he promised in June when he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination.

What the country needs now is not grand schemes to redistribute wealth and provide all Americans cradle-to-grave education and health care at government expense.

We don’t even need someone to find a way to keep all those homeowners facing foreclosure in their homes. Sadly, the housing bubble has burst and everyone is going to suffer, especially those who couldn’t afford the homes they bought in the first place.

What we need now is someone who can figure out what actions the government can and should take to unfreeze credit. If Obama fixes that, he’ll be miracle worker enough.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

The Republican Party needs a leader, and no one has stepped up to the job.

The mainstream media have had great fun declaring talk-show host Rush Limbaugh the de facto head of the GOP, which caused new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to assert, testily, that he’s in charge, not Rush.

Frankly, neither man is right for the job. And if the party can’t find someone who is – and fast! – Republicans will have a tough time fighting the Democratic juggernaut.

Rush certainly speaks for a segment of Republicans, the populist wing that has become increasingly bitter about everything from immigration to bank bailouts.

But his job is to keep listeners entertained – though he’s more than an entertainer, as Steele dismissively described him and later apologized for.

Rush can say outrageous things without real consequences, as he has on numerous occasions. In fact, the more controversy he stirs, the higher his ratings and the fatter his paycheck.

He’s a very smart guy, as much as the liberal media think he’s an albatross around the Republican Party’s neck.

Over the years, he’s educated a wide swath of Middle America on some important issues, such as the fallacy that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes.

But he doesn’t represent the Republican Party any more than filmmaker Michael Moore or MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann represent the Democrats.

Nor is Steele the right guy to lead the party at this moment in history. Don’t get me wrong, I like Steele. I thought he was a great candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2006, a decent lieutenant governor of Maryland and the best of the lot running to be RNC chair this year.

But the party needs more than an affable and articulate guy who’s good on air with talking points.

The GOP needs real leadership from someone who can fashion a vision for the party, lead the fight in Congress and against the White House, and rally ordinary citizens to the cause.

For the sake of the party, Steele should step aside and let a proven leader take the role of RNC chairman.

A few members of Congress come to mind. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is one of the most principled conservatives around. He’s as bright as they come and is very effective in front of the cameras.

But though he’s risen in the ranks of Senate leadership over the years, Kyl never seemed to relish the role of national leader. I’ve always thought he’d be a great presidential candidate, but he’s never taken a bite of that apple.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota is another potential leader. He’s one of the most telegenic and well-spoken members of Congress and a great debater. He’d make a first-rate GOP chairman, giving the party a more youthful face – he’s exactly the same age as President Obama.

Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor also might fit the bill. He’s certainly been effective on the Sunday talk shows, not to mention rallying Republican troops in the House not to break ranks in opposing the Democrats’ spending spree.

But it’s harder for a House member to emerge as a national leader, though Newt Gingrich certainly managed it even before he became speaker of the House.

Not since Lyndon Johnson occupied the White House and Democrats held huge majorities in the House and Senate have we seen such a lopsided advantage for the Democratic Party and an absence of effective leadership among Republicans.

What we’re seeing now is one-party rule unchecked by an effective opposition, something Republicans never had, even when they controlled both branches of elected government.

Given the uncharted waters the country now finds itself in – with an economic crisis that shows no sign of abatement and a continued threat to national security posed by terrorists and rogue nations – the risks are enormous.

The Democrats seem hell-bent on spending the nation into penury and paying for what they don’t borrow by weakening our national defense. The country – not just the GOP – needs someone to articulate an alternative vision, and right now, we just don’t have it.

E-mail Linda Chavez at: lchavez@ceousa.org

Obama wants to create a perfect society in which the state takes care of everyone in need.

Hubris is the word that comes to mind as I listen to President Obama lay out his plan to rescue the economy, create 4 million jobs, halve the deficit in four years and give quality health care to every American.

The man has big ambitions and an even bigger ego. It has been one of the most troubling aspects of his character as it has emerged on the national scene in the last two years.

He seems, almost literally, to believe he walks on water. No one – no matter how talented – could accomplish a fraction of what Obama has planned in a good economy, much less the weakened one we have right now.

Worse, he thinks he can do this simply by taxing the rich, a fantasy only someone who knows nothing about human behavior, much less the U.S. tax system, could possibly believe.

This is what the president has planned in the health care arena: $634 billion as a down payment on a new system that would provide insurance to those uninsured Americans, about 47 million people at last count.

Sounds great – except when you consider who is going to pay for it.

About half the money, the White House claims, will come from tax increases on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, those earning $250,000 a year or more, and savings from already existing health programs.

But the math doesn’t add up. There simply aren’t enough rich people to pay for the Democrats’ plans, even if the president could figure out a scheme to confiscate every penny the rich now earn.

As the Wall Street Journal editors pointed out Feb. 26 the roughly 3.8 million income tax filers who had more than $200,000 in adjusted gross income (the IRS doesn’t break it down at the $250,000 level) paid $522 billion in income taxes, about 62 percent of all taxes paid in 2006.

And if the taxman simply took every dime earned by those in the very top group – $500,000 and above – it would pay for about one year’s worth of free health insurance for the uninsured.

But there’d be no rich people left for a second or third or fourth year of such a scheme.

We’ve seen this kind of plan before, in Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China – free health care, yes, but of universally lousy quality and living standards for everyone that would make the poorest Americans look rich by comparison.

I’m not suggesting President Obama is a communist, but he is a utopian – and that’s the danger.

He wants to create a perfect society in which the state takes care of everyone in need. It sounds wonderful – but the road to economic ruin and loss of liberty is paved by well-meaning men with good intentions.

The rich – as liberals like to call them – are the people in this society who earn enough to invest and create jobs so that all the rest of us can live decently.

A couple earning $50,000 a year with two kids don’t have money left over after paying the bills to invest in the stock market or even hire one part-time worker at minimum wage.

Small and medium-size businesses create most of the jobs in our economy, and the people who start and run those businesses are the very taxpayers Obama is targeting.

He says he’s going to cut the deductions these people take on their tax returns by about 20 percent – which means they’ll have less to pay their employees and less incentive to hire new ones.

And the worst part of Obama’s plan is that it will actually increase the deficit, not halve it as he promises.

When individuals have disincentives to earn more money because Uncle Sam will take more of every extra penny they earn, they do the natural thing: They cut back on work. And when they earn less, they pay less in taxes.

Obama’s plan will mean a rush to the bottom – where government incentives give the biggest rewards to those who produce the least. Pretty soon there won’t be anyone to foot the bill.

Maybe if President Obama had spent time in the real economy, not simply as the recipient of government or nonprofit paychecks his whole life, he’d be a little less confident in his utopian plans.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.”

E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

Attorney General Eric Holder

We’re a nation of cowards – or at least the attorney general of the United States thinks we are.

In a speech at the Justice Department celebrating Black History Month, Attorney General Eric Holder said: “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”

It seems a rather peculiar statement coming from the first black attorney general, moreover, one appointed by the first black man elected president.

Holder’s complaint is that, “We, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.” But is that really what the country needs: an extended conversation on race?

Bill Clinton proposed a similar idea back when he was in office. He called it a National Conversation on Race and hosted several town hall events around the country with lots of media hype.

There was much finger-pointing – at whites, of course – and little serious analysis of the real challenges the black community faces.

The problem is not that we talk too little about race but that our discussion is often irrelevant to the problems at hand.

When Holder and Clinton talk about confronting racial issues, what they really want is a national therapy session in which whites admit that their prejudice and discrimination – past and present – is responsible for all the ills that beset blacks today.

Well, sorry, it just isn’t so. And if we’re going to have an honest discussion about race, let’s begin by defining the problem.

There are still large differences between whites and blacks in this society on everything from education to earnings to crime rates.

But does racial discrimination explain why black high school graduates, on average, read four grade levels lower than whites? Is employment discrimination wholly to blame for the differences in average earnings between whites and blacks?

Is racism responsible for the fact that blacks are more likely than whites to be the victims of violent crimes?

Then how do you explain that in 2005, according to Holder’s own Department of Justice, black males between the ages of 14-24 represented only 1 percent of the population but committed almost 28 percent of homicides, and their victims were overwhelmingly other blacks?

How about out-of-wedlock birth rates? Does racial discrimination explain why 70 percent of black children are born to single women, compared with 25 percent of white children?

In fact, many of these problems are interrelated – and they have virtually nothing to do with discrimination or racism.

Sure, many inner-city black children attend lousy schools that do a poor job of teaching them to read and write. But those school districts are often run by black superintendents in cities governed by black elected officials, not some modern-day incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan.

Nor is money the explanation. Boston, Chicago and St. Louis, for example, spend more to educate their largely black and Latino students than the surrounding suburbs do on their largely white student populations.

And poor educational performance turns into lower wages for black workers. Only 17 percent of blacks hold a college degree compared with a third of whites. Is it any wonder then that blacks earn, on average, only about 80 percent of what whites earn?

If Attorney General Holder is really interested in improving the status of blacks, he could begin by addressing the issue of personal responsibility.

The decision to have a child out of wedlock has enormous consequences for single moms and the children they bring into the world. If there is one factor above others that explains the huge differences between the well-being of whites and blacks in this society, it is that so many black children grow up in homes with no fathers.

Those children do more poorly in school, are more likely to get in trouble with the law, and become single parents themselves, thus perpetuating a destructive cycle of despair.

So, by all means, let’s have some honesty in our discussions of race during Black History Month.

Let’s begin by having our most prominent black elected and appointed officials show a little courage by speaking out on the real problems in the black community, not the chimera of white oppression and unacknowledged guilt.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

President Obama

Now that Congress is on the verge of passing a $790 billion stimulus bill we can all breathe a huge collective sigh of relief, right?

Our homes will be safe from foreclosure, unemployed workers will soon be heading back to their jobs and no one else will lose theirs?

And what if the Congress hadn’t pushed through this behemoth? Well, we have President Obama’s word that a failure to act could have turned “a crisis into a catastrophe.”

But apparently, not everyone is buying the Obama Miracle Plan. The stock market was down sharply Tuesday – nearly 400 points – when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced sketchy details of the Obama administration’s plan to spend $2.5 trillion to rescue the American financial system.

Indeed, investors have been noticeably bearish since the election. The Dow Jones stood about 9,300 on Oct. 31; as of Thursday, it had fallen about 1,400 points.

Not all of the decline reflects mistrust of the new president and his team – but it sure doesn’t indicate much faith that he can rescue us, either.

And that’s the problem for President Obama. Many Americans voted for Obama – whose actual record of accomplishments was thin at best – on hope alone. It was the basis of his whole presidential campaign, what he called the “Audacity of Hope” after a sermon from his former pastor, the now infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

President Obama’s hope lies in government. In his presidential news conference Monday night, he told the American people that “the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs.”

And he promised he would create jobs – 4 million of them to be exact.

But presidents don’t create jobs, employers do – mostly in the private sector and primarily in small businesses, not large corporations. Which is why the congressional stimulus package won’t do much.

There are some tax breaks, but not the rate reductions and big capital gains cuts that could spur businesses large and small to take on new workers.

Just as important, the lack of available credit means that many businesses won’t have access to the cash to pay workers in those industries that must rely on credit to fund their payrolls.

And what happens when the $790 billion spending spree and amorphous $2.5 trillion credit relief plan fail to jump-start the economy? What is Team Obama’s game plan?

So far, the president’s answer has been to launch into campaign mode, taking Air Force One on a tour of small towns where he can give his stump speech to handpicked groups of factory workers.

He’s good at campaigning, but he’s yet to show he has a clue how to govern. His first few weeks in office were consumed with embarrassing revelations that a number of his appointees hadn’t bothered to pay their taxes until they were nominated.

And many of the most respected members of his new administration are, in fact, simply Clinton administration retreads. If the president’s plan was to inspire confidence that he would take the country in a bold new direction, he’s already fallen short.

The ability to inspire people has been at the heart of President Obama’s phenomenal personal success. It’s what draws huge crowds wherever he goes and makes people – even some of those who didn’t vote for him – want him to succeed.

But at some point in the not-too-distant future, President Obama will have to point to tangible evidence that he can do more than give a rousing speech or flash an appealing smile.

Americans will want an accounting of what those billions, indeed trillions, of dollars produced. And it will take more than audacity or hope to satisfy them.

Something tangible must come from hope

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.” E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

One man’s bipartisanship is another’s capitulation, which is why Republicans should resist compromising their principles by supporting President Obama’s so-called stimulus package.

House Republicans wisely chose to reject an $819 billion spending spree, with not a single member breaking ranks (and 11 Democrats joining them). Senate Republicans should do the same.

The point isn’t to be obstructionist for its own sake. But there are important differences between the two parties on how best to stimulate the economy, and simply adopting one or two Republican amendments won’t turn this sow’s ear of a bill into a silk purse.

Democrats remain the party of Big Government – and with the most liberal president since FDR now in the Oval Office, Democrats see their chance to expand the reach of government into new areas.

The economic crisis is merely an excuse to do what they’ve always wanted – spend more on everything from education to mass transportation. The kinds of jobs Democrats like best are those that create evermore public employees.

And why not? Government workers, especially those at the state and local level, help put Democrats in office – or more accurately, their unions do.

Just a tiny fraction of private sector workers are unionized – less than 8 percent in 2008. But nearly 40 percent of public employees are union members and they contribute, big time, to Democratic candidates.

In 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Service Employees International Union, which represents 850,000 public service workers, spent nearly $34 million on independent expenditures in helping elect President Obama. And one of its affiliates, New York-based Local 1999, spent another $4.3 million.

No wonder the Democrats want to bolster public employee union ranks.

But those government jobs are actually a drain on the economy – not the engine of growth that Democrats like to portray.

When a private company gets into economic trouble, it can’t simply raise prices to suit its need for profits – it cuts expenses to keep afloat. Not so for the government.

When cities and counties across the country experienced budget shortfalls from lower property taxes based on declining home values, many simply adjusted their tax rates to make up the difference.

Now that the Democrats control Congress and the White House, they’ll dip into the federal Treasury to save state and local jobs.

President Obama claims that Republicans are playing politics with the stimulus bill. Writing in The Washington Post, he said: “In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis – the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems. . . . I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change.”

Not even the Post editors bought that argument. In an editorial opposite the president’s piece, the editors noted, “As credible experts, including some Democrats, have pointed out, much of this ‘long-term’ spending either won’t stimulate the economy now, is of questionable merit, or both.”

The Democrats can, of course, pass the president’s bill without help from their Republican colleagues. And President Obama will sign whatever bill emerges after the House and Senate get together to work out their disagreements.

President Obama was wrong in his inaugural address when he said, “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.”

Big Government never works – and if we try to make it work at the expense of the private sector, we’ll all be worse off.

E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org

House Democrats passed a nearly trillion-dollar so-called stimulus bill this week at the urging of President Obama – but the spending may do little or nothing to get this economy moving again.

Not even the president can explain how giving more money to prevent sexually transmitted diseases or $50 million more to the National Endowment for the Arts will stimulate anything but a good laugh.

Most of the money in the bill will take so much time to work its way into the real economy, it’s unlikely it will shorten the current recession or keep people from losing their jobs.

Much of it will simply fund the pork-barrel projects dear to the heart of members of Congress. And with Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House, there will be no check on profligate spending.

But if we’re going to have a trillion-dollar stimulus, here’s a modest proposal for a better way to do it. This approach would cost about the same as the Democrats’ current plan, but it could put money into people’s pockets in weeks, not years.

Why not give every man, woman and child in the U.S. $3,000 to spend on pretty much anything they choose.

The price tag would be about $900 billion, barely more than what is in the House package now. But unlike the Democrats’ plan, which has government making the decision about how the money should be spent, people would get to decide for themselves.

There’d be no limits on who could receive the money – a rich man would get the same three grand that a poor woman or child received.

The only rule that would apply is that the money would have to be spent within a certain period of time, say 18 months.

In addition, most of the money would have to be spent on buying things: payment toward a new or used car, down payment on a home, some new appliances, home remodeling, clothes, electronics or even a vacation.

But only a portion of the money could go to paying down credit card or current mortgage debt – say, a third – and then only if the person was already two months in arrears in their payments.

To keep this cash distribution about as simple as possible but still allow the money to be tracked so that we know that people are actually buying stuff and not hoarding the money in their bank accounts, the government would disperse it in the form of debit cards linked to the individual’s Social Security number.

The government could surely subcontract this out to one of the large credit card companies for a small administrative fee charged to the cardholder, similar to what some companies charge now for gift cards.

And recipients would receive a statement that they would have to submit with their tax return within the time period to ensure they played by the rules.

The virtue of this plan would be that the market would allocate the money far more efficiently than any scheme government bureaucrats could come up with.

A young family of four would suddenly have $12,000 that they could use toward a down payment on a home or a new car. Imagine how quick the inventory in depressed housing would dry up if, suddenly, young families had that kind of cash to put down on a home. And cars would go racing off the lots.

Now, of course, all this cash could be inflationary – government spending usually is. And we know all those debit cards would be paid for with borrowed money – but so is Nancy Pelosi’s “stimulus package.”

Nonetheless, the beauty would be that consumer spending would bring the country out of recession, create new private sector jobs and protect existing ones and the government would get back at least a portion of what it gave away in taxes from people who were suddenly working instead of drawing unemployment compensation.

Sure, this is a radical proposal. But no more so than the boondoggle House Democrats just passed.

If we’re going to borrow a trillion dollars, I’d rather ordinary people got to make the decisions about where it’s going to go, not Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity. E-mail: lchavez@ceousa.org