As the debate raged over Card Check during the 2008 election, I kept waiting for somebody to put it in perspective. Surely, I thought, I had been bedazzled by some sort of Right wing trickery. After all, I reasoned, Unions battle on behalf of the worker, keeping the hob nailed boot of management off the collective throat of the middle class. (I should note that this is not sarcasm. I come from a union family and was, for a time, a member of the I.B.E.W. after leaving the military. I’m also well versed in the early history of unions and the important role they played in America.) But the Card Check argument simply didn’t make sense to me, so I decided to look around for some explanation as to why it was a good idea. Today, it seems I found one, though the “good” part may be held in reserve.

In response to a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, Digby attempts to offer some analysis in “(Card) Check, Please.”

This past election I noticed a new catch phrase. The minute a conservative breathes the word “card check,” his or her supporters completely lose their minds. When he ratchets it up saying “lose your right to a secret ballot” they come completely unhinged with even more energy than they unleash when someone says “we’re going to beat the terrorists.” It’s just weird.

He then goes on to point out portions of Thomas Frank’s WSJ article, including these bits:

[U]nion-certification elections often don’t meet the most basic democratic requirements. Supervisors routinely hold captive-audience meetings with workers in preparation for elections; management commonly threatens to close up shop if the union wins; antiunion employees are frequently rewarded and pro-union employees are sometimes fired.

Card check is about power. Management has it, workers don’t, and business doesn’t want that to change. Consider the remarks made by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott at an analyst meeting on Oct. 28, when he was asked about the possible coming of card check: “We like driving the car and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.“

You know, if you allow a lot of that to speed past you like a 98 mph fast ball on the inside corner, it actually sounds as if it makes some sense. But under closer scrutiny there are not only some absurd fallacies here, but a complete denial of reverse problems which should be of equal if not greater concern to workers. Mr. Frank worries about management holding meetings which might intimidate workers from seeking collective bargaining, but makes no mention of the fate of workers who might oppose unionization yet wind up in a union shop. Once formed, the union bosses will have tremendous control over the perks and opportunities available to the workers, and being the “anti-union guy” doesn’t leave one in a good position.

There is also zero examination of exactly what is the downside of a secret ballot? If a majority of the workers would be willing to walk up in public and “card check” their union approval, surely they would be equally willing to check “yes” on a secret ballot. So what is the downside to such a system?

And why would workers ever choose to not endorse unionization, or at least have some healthy hesitation? One needs look no further than the UAW and the current state of the Big Three in Detroit. Yes, the automakers have brought more than their fare share of woe upon themselves with incompetent management and an unhealthy attachment to the past while ignoring the needs of a new 21st century world. But their path to a comeback of any sort is nearly doomed before it starts because the union has done its job too well and strangled the goose which lays the golden eggs to the point of putting the bird on life support. A quick look at the labor costs of the car manufacturers, as compared to other American workers of similar starting education and skill levels, tells the whole story.

Total Compensation Per Hour, 2007-2008 (includes wages and all benefits):
Big Three automakers — $73.08
Toyota — $48.00
All workers — $28.48

There is definitely still a place in America for unions, but unlike the depression era employment landscape, there is also room to be judicious in shopping around for the right union and labor agreements which work on both sides. Getting the best pay and benefits for your members is an admirable goal, but if you eventually sink the employer, then nobody is making any money. I agree with both Digby and Franks that workers need the right and ability to choose a union for collective bargaining should they wish to. But they also deserve the right to choose the other direction (or even ask to examine other unions if the “default choice” isn’t acceptable) and they should all be able to do so in private, sparing them any vendettas in the aftermath should they come out on the losing side of the debate.

Card check still doesn’t sound like freedom from intimidation for workers to me. In fact, it sounds like exactly the opposite, acting as an opportunity to ram unionization down the throats of workers whether they want it or not.

If’ you’d like a short break from politics, I will be manning the co-pilot’s chair this afternoon for a special holiday edition of Movie Addict Headquarters with author and film critic Betty Jo Tucker. We’ll be talking to film critic Nell Minow about some of the classic holiday films of all time, both new and old.

Nell Minow writes as “The Movie Mom” for Beliefnet. She has been featured in USA Today, Parents, The Chicago Tribune and other publications as well as profiled in The New York Times, Forbes, and Ladies Home Journal. Her book, The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies, helps parents select safe and fun films for their children.

Join us at 4 pm eastern at the link above, and call in with your own favorite holiday movie memories!

Let’s take a quick poll here and have a show of hands if you didn’t see this one coming. CNN is reporting that Joe Lieberman looks to be a “shoe-in” to keep his chairman’s seat on Homeland Security and stay in the Democratic Caucus, while being “punished” by losing some less prestigious position. Predictably, his opponents in the Democratic base who are still boiling mad over his endorsement of John McCain and attacks on Barack Obama, are up in arms.

Um, what idiot would think that taking away a subcommittee from Lieberman would be seen as a “stinging rebuke”? In whose DC-Beltway-addled mind is that even remotely punishment?

Let Lieberman keep that subcommittee. No one gives a shit about it. The only thing that matters, the only thing that Lieberman wants, and the only thing we don’t want him to have — is the chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.

If this is the “starting point”, and given the Senate Democrats’ history of capitulations, expect Lieberman to come out of that meeting as majority leader.

KOS is hardly the only one. Of course, the main point which made this so predictable is that the majority of these critics are bloggers, pundits and talking heads who are partisan, ideological purists. Harry Reid, on the other hand, has a job which makes him a pragmatist by definition. If you select a majority leader who is a purist, he’s very likely to be a minority leader within an election cycle or two. The Senate races are still playing out, but it looks like the Democrats will seize Ted Stevens’ seat in Alaska and Al Franken may still find a path to victory if he can pry open the trunks of a few more Chevy Impalas. The Georgia seat, however, is a pipe dream and the Dems will come up at least one seat short of a bullet proof majority. He can get by with the support of a few hungry RINOs (which assumes the loss of a couple blue dogs here and there) but it will still be razor thin. He needs Lieberman more than Lieberman needs him.

So Joe will give the appearance of eating a small portion of crow (”whew! That was close. They almost kicked me out!”) but he’ll go back to business as usual. Lieberman will wander off the ranch at times, particularly on foreign policy issues where he wants to play the hawk. But on the critical domestic issues - particularly SCOTUS appointments - he’ll toe the company line. There’s high drama playing out in the blogosphere and the media, but it’s looking like nothing more than business as usual on the Hill.

Today is an anniversary which often passes without notice, but in true American style, we should honor it here lest we ever forget. Forty years ago today, on Nov. 17, 1968, the New York Jets were barely leading in a pitched battle with the Oakland Raiders, hanging on to a slim 32-29 lead. There was still 65 seconds left on the game clock, but NBC television executives were looking at the real world clock instead. It was 7:00 pm on the East Coast and there was a decision to be made.

They made that decision, cutting away from the game and switching over to the scheduled broadcast of the movie ‘Heidi.’ Moments after viewers saw the opening credits of the film begin to roll, the Raiders staged one of the most dramatic, surging comebacks seen up to that time, scoring two touchdowns in under a minute and trouncing the shell shocked Jets 43-32. But unless you were watching on the West Coast, you didn’t see it.

I was still in middle school at the time and not yet as much of a fan as my dad, so I didn’t really understand exactly what had driven him to knock over his can of Utica Club beer and stomp around the room screaming words my mother insisted I shouldn’t repeat in polite company. He never forgot it, though, retelling that story with his friends every football season in years to come. He cursed the name of NBC until the day he died. He wasn’t alone, either. The Heidi Bowl and the ensuing outrage expressed by fans is widely credited as the key event which changed the way the major networks handled sports broadcasting which continues to this day.

And as for the Jets fans? Well… we’ve still really never forgiven the Raiders.

Today, James Joyner takes a look at how Barack Obama may soon have to give up his Blackberry, a difficult task for an avowed technophile. The chief problem here is the Presidential Records Act.

In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive.

Joyner believes it’s time for some more Hope and Change, at least in terms of that legislation.

It’s likely time to modify the law. Even presidents ought to be able to have privacy on what are truly private matters. Surely, presidential emails can be shielded from public scrutiny for some period of time — as are their papers — and we could establish some sort of process whereby they could designate private correspondence exempt from release and a neutral party could verify.

These are serious questions, but there’s also an element of snark to the story which is too juicy to ignore. First of all, if you’re going to allow the President to use an e-mail account but you have to keep track of his correspondence, then we’ll have to track and record all of the e-mail he receives, won’t we? Will future presidential historians decry Obama’s administration because of all of the suspicious contacts he had with mysterious Nigerian princes who were trying to smuggle vast amounts of currency into the United States to Obama’s great profit? Was our first Commander in Chief worried about the size of his, errr, manliness? If not, why was he in contact with so many people offering “enlargement” techniques? And why were so many people negotiating with President Obama for subscriptions to online pornographic services? Was he some sort of closet pervert?

On a more serious note, the easy, flexible and all too tenuous nature of electronic communications seem to be both a blessing and a curse in terms of White House communications. We rightly demand a level of accountability, traceability and historical recording from our presidents which no other citizen in their right mind would tolerate. Particularly given the secrecy surrounding the current administration (most notably in the Vice President’s office) Obama would do well to make sure that he’s an open book for the nation. But, as Joyner notes, taking away the very tools that allow people to be effective communicators in the modern era seems to needlessly cripple him.

Will we ever be able to trace, track, store and verify e-mail, text messages and downloads with the level of confidence we have in dead tree letters penned by past leaders? How much privacy should the president be allowed in communicating with family or friends, and what assurance do we have that such protected channels won’t be abused by our leaders for shady purposes? New technology brings new opportunities, but also new challenges. It will be interesting to see how these needs are balanced and if Obama actually has the first Blackberry presidency.

When we examine the election of 2008 and the makeup of government across the nation today, it seems that a few previously-uncomfortable questions have finally been answered. We have elected a black man as president. His chief rival in the primary was a woman who many analysts and poll results estimate would have beaten John McCain by an even wider margin. A gentleman of Hispanic descent is the Governor of New Mexico, was a serious contender for the White House and is widely being hailed as a highly qualified candidate to be Secretary of State. In 2000 we saw a Jewish man in the VP slot on the Democratic ticket which won the popular vote across the nation. In this environment are there any serious thinkers left who find the idea of an Asian candidate for President out of the question?

The point of all this is not the questions we’re asking, but the questions we are no longer asking. Are these people equal? Do they have the same rights and opportunities as “the rest of us?” In almost every case the good news is not that the answer is “yes,” but that we’re no longer even asking the question. These things are accepted as a given. No, I’m not so foolish as to think that racism and intolerance have completely disappeared from our shores. But at this point it is at least increasingly-restricted to some backward holdouts in comparatively small numbers who are primarily engaged in developing a time machine so they can go back and take one more crack at Pickett’s Charge or rescue some of Hitler’s DNA to be stored until cloning techniques improve. Given this heartening news, though, I find myself wondering whether anyone was left behind in these advances? I’m afraid that the answer is still yes.

The current spate of demonstrations against California’s decision on Proposition Eight should be the first indicator of Something Being Rotten in Denmark. Allow me to tie this point in with the two preceding paragraphs. We aren’t asking a question along the lines of whether or not a gay or lesbian American could be elected as president here. We’re holding an allegedly serious national debate as to whether or not gays and lesbians even have the same basic rights as everyone else, or whether it is proper for the majority to pass legislation limiting their rights based solely on their sexual orientation. Opponents - primarily found in the so called “social conservative” band of the political spectrum - are quick to point out that of course they aren’t homophobic, and of course gays have the same rights as anyone else. That’s why we’re going to provide them with these shiny new civil contracts which are pretty much just as good as a marriage, see? (Astute readers who have studied the civil rights movement in America should, at this point, be nodding their heads and reminding us of exactly how well “separate but equal” worked out for black Americans.) It is not the struggle for “marriage rights” which should capture our attention, but the fact that we are even debating the question at all which should sadden us.

The second group of Americans who seem to have missed the Hope and Change Bus are Muslims. For evidence of this, one need look no further than the campaign of our President-Elect. Right wing supporters were running around the nation making hay out of Obama’s middle name, Hussein. His supporters on the left were equally involved in accentuating the divide. While loudly proclaiming that all religions are equally welcome here, they were quick and vocal in attacking those who invoked the H word when speaking of Barack. If the fact of being a practitioner of the Muslim faith were really not an issue, why would you work so hard to establish Obama’s Christian bona-fides? It’s something that everyone knows, but nobody wants to talk about.

The election of Keith Ellison, a Muslim, to Congress sent shockwaves through the Right wing. CNN’s Glenn Beck went so far as to show up on national television and challenge Mr. Ellison, saying, “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.” What should be automatically shunned in a real nation of religious freedom is still taken as a matter of fact. Today you can be an atheist, a Jew, a Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan or any species of Christian and get by just fine. Others may raise an eyebrow at you or smugly mutter about how you will get your “reward” when you wind up roasting in hell, but you’re still part of America’s tattered religious tapestry. Muslims, however, are seen by too many has having “something to prove” by default, even if they were born and bred in the U.S.A.

These are the questions we are left with, representing the rotten dregs of sour grapes at the bottom of a rancid barrel. In the America most of us envision - that shining beacon of hope, opportunity and equality standing out on the hill - we shouldn’t be looking for answers to these questions. We need to be examining why anyone is still asking them at all. Should we ever reach the point where such queries are no longer taken seriously, then we may finally be getting close to the finish line. Until then, roll up your sleeves. The election of Obama sends a fine message to everyone, but there’s still plenty of work left to be done.

File this under “things I didn’t see coming” but it appears that John McCain and President-Elect Obama will be having a long meeting in Chicago this week.

After fiercely competing against each other for five months, President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain are scheduled to have their first post-election meeting Monday at the transition headquarters in Chicago. “It’s well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality,” transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. The president-elect and the Arizona Republican will be joined by Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and close McCain friend, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Democrat who will serve as Obama’s White House chief of staff.

Starting right on the evening of November 4, John McCain continues to impress me. Not only was his concession speech elegant and dignified, his subsequent media appearances reflect the maturity and general good nature which many have come to expect of him. And now he has agreed to a serious meeting with his former opponent on plans for the future of the nation. Such a meeting does a lot for Obama in terms of “healing the nation” and working with everyone in his new administration. Conversely, it’s hard to picture what this does for McCain. It seems like a very generous gesture on his part.

Will they discuss new policy proposals which McCain will be a partner in advancing? Could Obama be considering offering a position in the new administration to his vanquished opponent? Either way, if he can show that he’s moving quickly to work together with the man he battled so fiercely all summer it will be a feather in his cap. My hat is off to Senator McCain, and here’s hoping something productive comes from the meeting.

UPDATE: As Manchester points out in the comments section, this is almost undoubtedly a meeting on policy initiatives. McCain could hardly consider a cabinet position under current conditions, since Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano would then be free to place a Democrat in his Senate seat. (I’ll need to double-check how they handle Senate replacements in Arizona, actually, but the GOP would hardly want to put the seat up for grabs under any conditions.)

As I said yesterday, what this country needs today is less partisan bickering and more people willing to find creative, goal oriented solutions to real problems. Today, my friend Ed Morrissey brings to light a group of educators in Texas who are doing just that. In a move sure to draw praise from immigration reform advocates around the nation, one Dallas school district has solved the problem of illegal immigration. The solution is so staggeringly simple in concept that most of you will be slapping your heads in one of those “why didn’t I think of that” moments. You simply take the illegal alien in question and issue them a fresh, new Social Security number. Problem solved.

Over a period of several years, a Dallas school district fraudulently issued Social Security numbers in order to employ bilingual teachers. Despite previous warnings, the DISD continued this practice until a tipster alerted investigators to the practice.

Is teaching a job Americans won’t do? Are there no bilingual educators in the US? Or was DISD just unwilling to pay a competitive rate for those instructors and conspired to get cheaper labor through fraud?

If we could get hold of roughly 20 million forms to assign new Social Security numbers to people we would have one less partisan issue to wrangle over. Well done, Dallas!

Ever since the National Football League made the self centered, cash grabbing decision to launch the NFL Network, fans of various teams around the country have had to resign themselves to the idea that, for at least one week out of the season, they would be robbed of a chance to support their team. This week it was supporters of the New York Jets and the New England Patriots who were forced to take their turn in the barrel. Last night’s battle pitted two historic rivals who were tied for first place in the AFC Eastern Division against each other, both having a legitimate playoff shot. The game turned into an action-packed shootout, with regulation play closing out on an incredible touchdown pass by the Pats just as the final seconds ticked off the clock, sending them into overtime. The Jets managed yet another charge down the field under the generalship of Brett Favre, setting them up for a game-winning field goal.

Of course, if you were one of the millions of football fanatics in America living in an area where your cable company doesn’t carry the NFL Network - or if you happen to be one of the even larger number who refuse to pay blackmail funds for access to eight Thursday night games per year - you didn’t see it. In the eyes of the NFL, the fans are no longer the reason for the season. The game isn’t played for its ardent supporters in each franchise today. Those fans are seen as nothing but a revolving ATM which the league management will try to raid for as much cash as they can and as frequently as possible. The already bloated fat cats at the NFL have worked to strong arm the nation’s cable companies into carrying their network (charging them premium fees to do so) and putting the channel on the basic service rack. The cable companies, not wishing to allow these corporate bullies to hustle them out of business, are left with three choices. They can not carry the service at all, (the choice made by my provider) charge extra for the channel as a premium service, or jack up everyone’s rates for basic cable to cover the pound of flesh demanded by the League.

Even the most devout fans are unlikely to want to shell out additional cash each month for a service which they will possibly watch on eight Thursday nights during the second half of the regular season. And one can only imagine how happy non-football watching households (there are a few left, you know) will be about having their rates jacked up just so this largely irrelevant slot shows up in their cable directory. Small wonder that many cable companies are willing to simply pass on it and put up with the occasional howls of protest from subscribers during the one week when the home team gets targeted this way. (You can see some typical reactions from fans here.)

And please, don’t even get me started on “other alternatives” such as watching the game live at the NFL.com website. Here’s one fan who already put it much as I would. (From the previous link.)

Yes, if you don’t mind them constantly cutting to three talking heads in a studio.. even when the game is going on. 3 pontificating idiots, not even really talking about the actual game itself. It was the most frustrating experience in the viewing of sports. You’re better off streaming a local radio station in your team’s market than being stuck listening to three clowns talking over the game, not letting you watch the game, because the idiots need camera time.

The NFL seems to be testing the waters to see if they can move closer and closer to making professional football into a pay-per-view event. You can see how well that worked out for boxing. If the NFL can’t manage to control the costs of their operation and the outrageous spending and salaries of the individual teams, this isn’t the problem of the fans, and we shouldn’t have to pay for their errors or their greed. The year of the great baseball strike injured that sport’s reputation severely and they never fully recovered. If the NFL wants to go down the same road, it’s their decision, but it’s also a sad day for a great American tradition.

While talking heads are dashing back and forth suggesting how to “fix” the Republican party, various solutions are being offered. These include suggestions as extreme as rounding up the RINOs and executing them. Most of the plans include a return to their Reagan roots of small government fiscal conservatism, which is a good plan but doesn’t speak to the real issue. Hand wringing over the fate of a party currently backed into a corner of the deep South should not focus on how to win more elections, but rather on finding a plan for America that solves real problems which Democrats are leaving on the table for them.

Item one on this agenda is the 800 pound gorilla of Social Security and Medicare. Frantic “anti-socialist” elements in the extreme fringe of the party who would see all Federal entitlement programs ended do not hold the answer, but a solution is still required. We have no need to scrap these programs, nor would America’s voters tolerate such a move, but they are still driving us toward a national economic crisis in the next 30 to 40 years which could dwarf the one currently dominating the news cycle. The Democrats have failed to field any serious proposals to fix this because the cure is seen as too painful for an entitlement minded electorate to face. But if the cure is phrased properly, people will be willing to recognize that a little pain up front is preferable to an avalanche of agony further down the line. Take the lead on these issues and you’ll start swinging some hearts and minds back in your direction.

Second, the GOP platform should adopt a retooled approach to personal responsibility. Once upon a time, Republicans stood for personal privacy and keeping the Federal government out of our bedrooms, our churches and our personal lives. If Republicans abandon the purposely divisive tactics of trying to outlaw all abortion, ginning up anger about gay marriage and the rest of the Christian Conservative agenda, they would attract open minds who would rather see these issues settled by the states. Remind the voters of the few, key missions of Washington and pledge to carry them out frugally and efficiently. Leave the bells and whistles to the voters of each state.

If the GOP’s leadership can turn its back on distractions and find ways to deliver real solutions to major, long term problems for America - as opposed to finding ideas to fix partisan problems in their own party - the road to recovery will open up. If the focus remains on discovering attack strategies to “beat the Democrats” then I fear the GOP will need to get used to living in the wilderness. They’re gong to be there for a while.

Oh… and you might win back a few folks like me who left the party in disgust back in 2005.

Attention continues to focus on President Elect Barack Obama’s possible selections for his staff and Cabinet, and some of the questions I’m hearing center on the dearth of Republicans popping up on the list. Today I’d like to address a couple of potential issues with this debate. It’s a tricky high wire act for Obama, with barriers being thrown up on both sides of the aisle.

The first question centers on how to make the offer in the first place. One thing that the President Elect can’t afford in this highly charged, partisan political environment is to make a public offer of a position to a Republican who then runs out in front of the media and says, “Are you kidding me? There’s no way I’m working for you!” He needs to thread the needle and feel people out to determine if they would even be open to the offer.

The second, and perhaps tougher question is the effect this has on the the Republican who considers such an offer. Would accepting a position in Obama’s Cabinet, be it ever so prestigious, effectively burn their bridges in their own party in terms of any future elections? Would they be viewed as a traitor who crossed over into enemy territory and can no longer be trusted. A brief look at the debate raging over Joe Lieberman should be an object lesson for anyone considering such a post-partisan position.

I would very much like to see the new president live up to his claims and build a team which draws the best and brightest ideas and people from both parties. It might go some ways to heal the current Red-Blue divide and get Congress working in an effective manner again. But the real Republicans available to Obama may be older warriors who are already out of office an no longer worried about future battles. This may be why Colin Powell is one of the only names in contention. His bridges are long since burned and he would have nothing to lose. Sadly, this limits the talent pool considerably.

There have been a number of people who move from public office into the media. One example is Joe Scarborough, a former Congressman who now hosts a political-analysis show on MSNBC. Mike Huckabee also has his own show on Fox. But do people ever move in the opposite direction, going from the media into government service? The word on the street is that Chris Matthews of Hardball fame may be looking at a Senate run.

Pennsylvania was at the epicenter of the fight for the presidency in 2008 and, just one week after the Barack Obama’s victory, the Keystone State is once again caught up in the political buzz with a new poll that tests “Hardball” host Chris Matthews’ chances against Sen. Arlen Specter (R).

The poll — conducted by Public Policy Polling — showed Specter leading Matthews 40 percent to 27 percent in a hypothetical 2010 general election matchup. One-third of the sample said they didn’t know which candidate they would vote for and the PPP pollsters clearly did little to push them off of their indecision.

Matthews certainly has a lot of name recognition, but I don’t know how seriously he would be taken as a legislator. He would certainly have a hard time as coming across as “post partisan.” Do you think he might surprise us all and run as a Republican?

I can’t possibly wrap my mind around this enough for a long diatribe, but I would like to submit my nomination for one of the most idiotic things I’ve read in an already silly season.

Anti-war camp wants Gates out

Arms control advocates and anti-war activists are ratcheting up pressure on President-elect Barack Obama to dump Defense Secretary Robert Gates and replace him with a more strident anti-war voice.

I’ll need the help of some readers here, please. Don’t believe your own lying eyes from my quoted text… click through the link provided and come back here to tell me if I read that correctly. Did someone capable of operating a keyboard actually rise up on their hind legs and peck out the phrase, “a more strident anti-war voice” to be the Secretary of Defense?

You can be an anti-war president. That’s fine. But if you’re going to go to the trouble of paying somebody to be the Secretary of Defe