Category: Commentary

It’s rare that a so-called national security event provides so much grist for humor. From beginning to end, the Chinese Spy Balloon Saga has been on a steady trajectory from the sublime to the ridiculous, with politicians and news media playing a leading role. I can’t wait to see what Dave Barry does with it next January!

This crisis, if one wants to call it that, launched with bureaucratic stupidity. It climbed with partisan hype and bald-faced diplomatic lies. It escalated further with the media seeking headlines but failing to ascertain facts. It reached a crescendo with a military over-reaction of stunning proportions. It finally came crashing down with a series of inane government comments and a Presidential non-address. During all of this, I experienced some grins, a few chortles, a belly-laugh or two, and of course near-continuous ROTFLMAO.

Let me share!

So What did Just Happen? The Chinese launched a balloon from Hainan island, from where they previously launched balloons to float over the Pacific to places like Guam and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where the US Navy likes to port. Except this balloon caught some waves from a Polar Vortex (hey, wait, can we blame climate change for bringing us to the edge of World War III?) and swept north to the Aleutians, then down across Canada, Montana, Kansas, and eventually North Carolina. Where the US military shot it down. Oh, and it was a spy balloon.

Blinding Flash of the Obvious (BFO #1): China spies on the United States, every day, every way it can. As we do against China. There are very few exceptions to who-spies-on-whom rule, but suffice it to say China in the skies with balloons is not one of them. China has satellites over the US continuously. They mine things like TikTok for data. They task Chinese students and academics to find specific information. They ask Chinese visitors to gather information. They establish Chinese “police” stations in the US (and other countries) which keep track of Chinese expats and no doubt facilitate intelligence collection. Heck, they even stole the entire human resources holdings of the US Office or Personnel Management a few years back (Note to China: update your records, I’m in Mexico now!).

This balloon does not represent a significant escalation in spying, or any kind of breakthrough. You don’t send a new or novel collection platform gently floating, attached to a giant balloon, over your opponent. What it does represent is Chinese bureaucratic incompetence. They have sent these balloons before. They know Chinese-American relations are tense these days. Yet some fool in charge of the balloon program launched one a week or so before the US Secretary of State was due to visit and patch things up. Nobody in his chain-of-command thought to say “wait.” Nobody in the balloon operations team asked, “Hey, where’s the jet-stream taking our balloons now?” That’s some prime bureaucratic incompetence there. I wonder if the guy in charge is making iPhones in Xinjiang now. And we’re off!

So the balloon drifts off course, and what? It’s too high to affect commercial air traffic. Who cares? Nobody. We’re tracking it, but only because it’s huge. BFO#2, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD, a joint US- Canadian military structure) constantly watches the skies for large, fast-moving objects like missiles (which are bad) and planes (which might be bad). They are most famous for their annual tracking of Santa Claus, who apparently is large and fast-moving enough for them to identify. They generally don’t look for small or slow things, of which there are many. How many? Nobody knows, since nobody cares. One estimate is almost a thousand on any given day. They can be weather balloons (the National Weather Service launches 180 high altitude balloons every day!), model rockets, high school science projects, or a guy in a lawn chair. But in this case, the balloon is so large it gets spotted from the ground by regular people. Well, not really regular people, because who sits around all day staring at the sky? And even if you did, who makes a big deal if they see a balloon? But somebody did, and away we go!

Now it’s a public issue, so the Chinese Foreign Ministry bureaucrat opened the file labelled “what to say in case our spy balloon is noticed over the US.” and read it out, including the part that says “start lying here” and “stop lying here.” Of course it’s a weather balloon, he reassures us. Which only confirms the fact that (1) it is not a weather balloon, (2) the Chinese are lying, and (3) somebody in the US must take the political blame. Some Conservatives and Progressives in the US are outraged, OUTRAGED, about Chinese spying (see BFO #1), and why are we permitting it to continue?

Which leads to the utterly ridiculous government response that we can’t shoot it down over Montana because it might fall and hit someone. Now space junk (man-made and natural) falls to earth every day, and when some piece becomes famous because it is large–or radioactive–the government reassures us that the chance of it hitting anyone are infinitesimally low. Nothing to worry about. The government can’t even tell what hemisphere is going to be hit until the day before it enters the atmosphere. But a big balloon with a multi bus-sized object attached, which we can exactly determine its location, can’t be shot down because it represents a threat? Pull-eaze. My guess is we waited for the ocean because the balloon payload would better withstand crashing in water than the ground. As it stands, that explanation was nonsense.

But it gets better. We send an F22 Raptor up and shoot the balloon down with a Sidewinder air-to-air missile. That’s about $400,000 of hardware we spent. Why didn’t the F22 just use its gun, which would ably destroy a balloon? The Sidewinder explodes near the target, shredding it with shrapnel. I hope they didn’t destroy the parts we intended to salvage and exploit. Please someone tell me the Air Force had a good reason for using a missile rather than a few cheap bullets.

And thus Our Democracy was saved. Except now partisans were asking why the President let the Chinese fly their balloon over our sensitive sites and collect against them. The balloon mostly uses the wind patterns to navigate, although it appeared to have some type of motor and a rudder to make small path adjustments. Here’s a map of sensitive US intelligence sites, from the Washington Post circa 2002:

BFO #3, there’s a lot of them, everywhere. That map doesn’t include some military facilities and critical national infrastructure. I think a great new virtual reality game would involve flying a spy balloon over the United States and NOT flying over sensitive sites! Probably can’t be done.

Faced by the inquisitive press, a public demanding answers, and partisans complaining, the government issued a strong statement defusing the burgeoning crisis. Of course they didn’t; instead they clammed up. Meanwhile, NORAD “opened the aperture on their radars” to catch slow and small things, quickly demonstrating why this was a bad idea. The Air Force began a live-fire game of Space Invaders. Over the course of a few days, NORAD sighted new “objects” over Alaska, the Yukon, and Michigan. Off went the jets, away went the missiles, and down went the objects.

Wait, wasn’t it dangerous shooting things down over. . . . nevermind. The Air Force managed to use up more expensive missiles, and an Air National Guard pilot even managed to miss a balloon with a missile. We all felt better immediately, until White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre helpfully explained that (1) we don’t know what the objects were, but (2) they pose no threat, and (3) they certainly weren’t from outer space. There used to be a simple rule for government officials appearing before the public: under no circumstances are you to refer to extra-terrestrials, space aliens, or UFOs, because (BFO#4) every time the government mentions them, more people believe in them. I don’t know what was more terrifying: the fact no one in the White House noticed that statements (1), (2), and (3) are logically inconsistent, or the fact the US government was announcing it was shooting off missiles at anything moving in the sky, for no apparent reason.

“Wait!” you say, “aren’t balloons a threat to civil aviation?” Well, they’re more of a risk than a threat. Over the decades since thousands of weather balloons and aircraft have taken flight, there does not exist a single documented case of one hitting the other. There are some, rare plane-strikes of other balloons, which result in a destroyed balloon and a pilot making a routine report upon landing. See, civil aviation is a little more resilient than it appears. That extra large Chinese Spy Balloon actually could have damaged a plane, but, you know, we can’t shoot things down over land, until we can.

Suddenly, somebody in the US National Security leadership sobered up. NORAD must have re-tuned their radars, since they stopped reporting on every piece of floating mylar, the Air Force put away its missiles, and calm returned. The President went before the Press to say, “Get a Grip, man” which may have been his best moment at the podium, ever. He said all the right things about China, danced around the unidentified aerial object phenomenon, and walked off when the press went ballistic.

Hardly a “day which will live in infamy” Presidential moment. What might a competent response looked like? For starters, China needs to get its act together, since it all began with them, accidentally or not. First Covid, now balloons; what next? Next, the American government had a choice. Option one was to ignore the balloon, as it had in the past. When it became public knowledge, they could have asked China for an explanation, and when China provided the lame weather balloon excuse, the White House could have publicly offered President Xi an account with the National Weather Service and a streaming subscription to the Weather Channel. Privately, they should have called the Chinese explanation BS and told them to knock it off. I would call this the “Mature Superpower Response Option.” Now if the partisan political heat got too much for the White House, they could have chosen option two: publicly denounce the balloon as an unacceptable breech of sovereignty unfit for a nation which constantly harps on it. Shoot it down immediately, then offer to return it after processing for the illegal importation of items into the United States. Take the damn thing apart down to the last nut and bolt, exploit it, then send the box of trash to the Chinese embassy in DC, along with two more things: a bill for the cost of importing and analyzing the illegal product, and a live carrier pigeon in a box with a note saying (in Mandarin) “try this next time, pendejos.” That’s the “Welcome to the big leagues” approach. The Biden administration seemed confused or frozen, depending on the moment.

What did we learn? Well, if you were unaware of BFOs 1-4, maybe that was educational. Otherwise, not much. I do think that someday the balloon (eventually) shot down over Lake Huron will wash ashore. It will be an exceedingly large piece of brightly colored mylar still bearing traces of helium. And on its side will be the words “Welcome to Chuck E. Cheese’s, Kalamazoo!”

The impending United States Government Debt Ceiling Default Crisis raises an interesting question: is this more like the Y2K crisis or like the bank run leading to the Great Depression. It all depends upon who you think Uncle Sam is.

Let me explain, first off: the debt ceiling is a legislative fiction; it is not real. It is imposed by the government on itself, and so the government can just as easily undo it. For example, the Congress can pass and the President can sign an increase in the authorized debt, or even a law that simply suspends enforcement. The Treasury can finagle revenues coming in and payments going out to extend when the debt ceiling is exceeded. Some have even suggested the Treasury could mint a so-called trillion dollar coin, in effect a non-negotiable trick to say, “here’s the money, so we don’t have any debt.” That last one is arguable, but serves to make the point how artificial this crisis is.

Second, the Democrats and Republicans have driven wildly toward the debt ceiling cliff many times, and always find a way to swerve or hit the breaks in the end. One time it may be different, but there is much history supporting more of the same.

No one knows exactly what the consequences of a debt limit default would be. The real inability to pay off debt–for a country or a person–is a serious thing. But the debt ceiling is not that. Most agree the stock markets would drop, as they fear uncertainty, and just the fact that the political parties didn’t avoid a technical default is a higher degree of uncertainty. But the markets are a difficult sign to read. Some investors believe the government will service their bonds first, so they will continue to get paid (as revenues come in). Others are short-selling, predicting a big market correction from which they would make millions.

But none of that is permanent. Would it send the economy into a recession, since all the other fundamentals don’t change? Would it change the willingness of Saudi Arabia, Japan, and China to buy US government debt? Remember, it’s a technical default: the US government and the Gross Domestic Product remain the same, and the US dollar is still the world’s reserve currency. So no one knows how it will play out. Am I worried? No, but I am prepared. Why? If a technical default occurs, I am sure things like federal pay and pensions will be among the first things that don’t get paid; social security, medicare, and military pay will all come first, although even those will be at risk. There simply isn’t enough revenue coming in monthly to pay the bonds and the entitlements and everything else.

Let’s use a personal metaphor. Imagine Elon Musk, he of an enormous fortune, is sailing on his yacht in the remote South Pacific when he hits a perfect storm, his boat sinks, and he washes ashore on a remote island as the sole survivor. Being incredibly lucky, this island has a small, non-cannibalistic population, and the first thing Elon sees is a small palapa with a “restaurant” sign! He wanders in, sits down, and waves to the waiter. The waiter, a vaguely Samoan-looking character who appears as if he could play nose tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals, takes one look at the soaking-wet, disheveled man and thinks “not another drunk tourist!?!?” but hands him a menu. Elon slams down several glasses of water, then some fresh fish, all the while amazed at his good luck. The waiter brings the check, and Elon realizes his wallet and his credit card holder are gone. He finds his iPhone in a special secured pocket, but it’s a sodden paperweight. He starts to explain about who he is, why he is there, but the waiter, certain it’s time to launch another drunk, is having none of it: he doesn’t know an “Elon Musk” from a “Musk Ox.” As he drags Mr. Musk by the collar towards the door (the palapa may have no walls, but it does have a door!), a woman, the restaurant owner, walks in and does a double take. “Elon Musk? Really?” she stammers. It seems Mr. Musk’s good luck has returned. The waiter re-deposits him at his table, and Elon recounts his story to the owner. He offers to invest in her restaurant, gives her an IOU for $50,000 dollars, and agrees to do a selfie for her to post on social media.

Fun story, what? But what does this have to do with the debt ceiling crisis? Elon Musk is Uncle Sam: fabulously wealthy, but out of available cash at the moment. The waiter is the market, which isn’t sure about anyone or anything, hates uncertainty, looks at the immediate situation and starts to react. The restaurant owner is the rest of the investing world. They see the situation in front of them, but they also recognize the larger implications, and they react differently. Which is why you shouldn’t worry (too much) about the debt ceiling crisis.

Imagine our shipwreck scenario again, only the survivor is Donald Trump. He of at least four bankruptcies, a tendency to overstate his wealth and litigate any debt. If you’re the restaurant owner, do you give him a pass? That’s the US if it ignores the debt (not debt ceiling) problem. Maybe they all decide enough is enough, and the global economy crashes. We don’t know whether we’re Elon Musk or Donald Trump in the eyes of the world’s investors. Which is a reason to worry.

The real problem is not the debt ceiling, but rather the debt itself. The US government owes tons of money. . . literally. It owes $31T as in Trillion dollars: 31,000,000,000,000. That’s over 34,ooo tons of dollar bills. Is that a lot? Well, just like for a person, it only matters if they can’t pay it.

The US Gross Domestic Product (GDP, a measure of the total resources available to the country) is over $25T, so we’re a little over-leveraged. Of course the all the debt never comes due at once, but the government can’t access all the GDP, either.

Add in to that the credit history of the United States: from the original debt of the 13 colonies, through the Union (not Confederate) Civil War debt and the enormous federal expansion during World War II, then the Cold War and creation of the New Deal social welfare state, the US Government has always, ALWAYS, paid off its debt on time and in full. And as any creditor will tell you, that counts for a lot.

Finally, in addition to its tangible assets, like the ability to raise revenue and print money, the US government has intangible but important assets, like the world’s greatest military. What’s it worth? When you need it, priceless!

So far the debt monster is undeniably large, but seems manageable. Now let’s look at how the US Government finances that debt. The US can run large annual deficits (the difference between revenues coming in and payments going out) because it issues bonds: federal IOUs that pay interest, which are bought by investors. These IOUs are highly sought after, because of America’s stability (we don’t devalue our currency, we don’t nationalize other people’s assets) and payment history. When you have cash and you want to it to grow while being protected, nothing works like US bonds. Which is why China, and Japan, and Saudi Arabia hold so much of this debt. It’s not necessarily a bad thing being “in hock” to foreign governments. We took their dollars and gave them paper, which is only worth something as long as the US is around. Yes, they could try selling it all at once to harm the US, but that would involve destroying all their investments at the same time. It’s mutually beneficial, so it works. Banks, investment firms, insurance companies, pension plans and private investors all buy US debt, too, for all the same reasons.

Another big holder of US debt is (wait for it) the US government. What? The two largest government holders of government debt are the Federal Reserve (aka the Fed) and the Social Security Trust Fund. The Fed started large-scale buying of debt during the 2008 financial crisis. It didn’t have to, but it bought up federal debt from banks and others to keep the markets liquid (flowing) and prevent a depression. In effect, it “created money” just like the Treasury does, except the Treasury prints it while the Fed just creates it digitally. The Fed can decide when to sell those bonds and is starting to do so gradually, so as not to upset the markets.

All that money they take out of your paycheck under the heading OASDI (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance)? That’s your input into Social Security. The Social Security Trust Fund takes the extra left-over after paying out benefits and buys US government bonds. So the Trust Fund is full of IOUs, not dollars. But that’s not a problem, because the US government always pays off its IOUs on time. Right now, the amount the Trust fund pays out is about the same as it takes in, but as the baby boomers continue to retire, and there are fewer workers out there paying OASDI, the Trust Fund will need to cash in its IOUs. Current estimates (and they change annually) say that the IOUs will be all used up by 2034. At that point, most of the Social Security payments will have to be appropriated, since the Trust Fund can’t send you (as a social security recipient) a government IOU, what you want is a dollar.

Which is not to say Social Security is the problem. There are other entitlements (which for God’s sake, don’t ever complain about this word, as it means it is a legally required payment, not optional, and it has nothing to do with being “entitled” in popular usage) like Medicare and Medicaid which have similar issues, not to mention our federal tax code which is larded with tax breaks for corporations, wealthy investors, and homeowners. It is never one thing, it is always every thing, together.

As you already know, the larger circle is expenditures, the smaller is revenues, meaning the US once again ran a deficit. The administration points out the deficit was reduced last year, and I guess in these extraordinary times, that’s something. But it’s like a drunk telling you he only drinks half-a-bottle-of-whisky-a-day now: relevant, but not addressing the fundamental problem. Look again at Social Security, Medicare, Income Security, and Net Interest; these are mandatory budget items, requiring no Congressional approval. Most of these programs increase every year. For example, we still have ten more years of ten-thousand baby-boomers retiring every day, and as they apply for Social Security, that expenditure will steadily increase. Only about a third of the federal budget is discretionary spending, and it includes things like defense and education spending. Eventually (like in a decade or two), the entire federal revenue stream will be eaten up by mandatory spending if nothing changes.

What does it matter if institutional investors (countries and firms and people) will keep buying US issued debt? It doesn’t. The US can keep going on running an annual deficit, selling bonds to finance the debt, and nothing changes. But that willingness to buy US debt is built on a fragile, psychological base: the US is a stable, growing, responsible payer of debt. As we get to the point where we can’t pass a budget without huge increases in taxes or drastic reductions in spending (including benefits), who will continue to believe that? And once that trust is gone, it’s very difficult to reacquire.

The thing is, a series of small changes could place the US federal budget on a firmer path for many decades. Simply removing the cap on Social Security taxes (they stop collecting the tax above $160,000 income), means-testing payments for the very wealthy, and delaying the retirement age to 70 help a great deal. Creating a sovereign wealth fund to invest in market securities and help pay for entitlements is another great idea, or allowing the Social Security Trust Fund greater leeway in investments is another. A national sales tax is another good idea. And before you clutch your pearls (I’m thinking of the White House here), if it’s so regressive how come nearly all the progressive social democracies use it? Plus, the government could exempt groceries, for example (under a certain limit; we don’t need to have tax-free foie gras, as much as I like it!). Perhaps a separate value-added tax on items costing over $100k and a small financial transactions tax on securities would be nice additions. I’m open to any suggestions on consolidating (not cutting) federal welfare programs, where any savings would come from eliminating bureaucracies, not reducing benefits.

As things stand now, Republicans are for cutting entitlements and taxes, while Democrats appear to want to raise both. Neither approach will resolve our growing debt problem. When the two sides do compromise, like during a recent debt ceiling crisis in the Obama administration, they mostly compromise on revenue-neutral provisions, which don’t add to the deficit, but don’t reduce it either. That also fails the test, because soon we still run out of discretionary spending.

If you would like to play around with fixing the deficit/debt yourself, check out this website where you can tweak the variables and see how you do. I got within $50B (chump change with respect to the federal budget) of stabilizing the debt at 90% of GDP. It’s actually not that hard, if you try. The larger point is we don’t need to produce a balanced budget (which is practically impossible at this point), we only need to show we’re willing to reduce spending and raise revenue.

In the meantime, our political leaders (both sides) seem content to posture and pretend there is no problem, other than the opposing party. One side or the other will claim to “win” the debt ceiling default crisis. If the President agrees to cuts, the GOP will crow; if the Speaker agrees to raise or suspend the ceiling without cuts, the Democrats will do so. But nobody wins here, because the day after this ends, the debt still looms. It won’t really be a problem until it is, and then it will be too late.

Ernest Hemingway, when asked “how did you go bankrupt?” said, “gradually, then suddenly.”

The partisan hype machine geared up after the Trump, then Biden, now Pence “Oops I forgot I had classified documents” scandals. I fully expected some partisans to get whiplash as they excused, then excoriated, then well, what do you do after you’ve already taken every contradictory position on an issue? Stay quiet? Never!

But the steady drip of revelations also brought out another tired old set of talking heads: the “there’s too much classified information” group. Some of these are so-called democracy promoters who claim secrets are antithetical to democratic government, or we should spend much more de-classifying than we do now. Some are journalists who crave access and hate the fact they can’t have it, or small-government advocates who see an easy target in the always-growing national security establishment, one which often does not respond publicly to criticism. Some are politicians who are looking for a scapegoat. Let’s tackle these objections, shall we?

First, all forms of government have secrets, and even Western democracies (and I hate that term, but permit me) all have intelligence organizations. George Washington personally ran spies as a General. Benjamin Franklin, as Post-Master General, oversaw secret communications and intercepted enemy ones. Part of the consent of the governed is to accept that there are reasons to withhold information. Why? To protect lives and avoid wasting resources. Classified information sometimes contains names of people (“sources”) who provided it, and should they become public, bad things would ensue. Wonder why some government files about the Kennedy assassination are still redacted or classified? In it are names or descriptions of people who provided information, and those people or their immediate families are still alive. What do you think happens in Cuba when somebody’s family name appears in a CIA file? You think Havana forgets or forgives what granddad did?

Likewise, classified information may include clues as to the technical way it was collected (“methods”). Let’s say there is a super-secret satellite which can detect and analyze someone’s breath, allowing us to track individuals and determine their health and activities. Even a document which simply states “Kim Jong-Il is out drinking again” as its bottom line would reveal we have a real-time ability to monitor this situation. If released, the other side can begin researching how we do it, and ways to defeat our capability. And billions of dollars in research, production, and operations would go down the drain, not to mention we’d be totally surprised the next time Kim showed up drunk!

This “sources and methods” problem is like a web, where every document must be scrutinized for how its release could jeopardize national security. The original decision to classify something is easy (more on this later): there are rules any analyst, collector, or official can consult and apply. When agencies are asked to de-classify something, it’s much harder. How does one determine whether all of a source’s relatives are dead or safe? How much of a give-away about the technical method is too much? What if the document has multiple references from multiple agencies? Each must consider and rule on it.

Most agencies treat de-classification as an additional duty for employees, and it is one widely hated by the workforce. Why? It’s hard, time-consuming and nobody gets a bonus for a record number of de-classifications, but woe-be-it to you if you release something that should not have been released. Like being a gate-guard, there is no upside for being lenient. So we’ll never spend much on de-classifying, plus, what’s the relative benefit to the American public? Documents which have high classifications based on sources and methods often have an analytic line that is simple or even obvious. De-classification results in a “so-what?”

The second complaint comes from journalists, and you can see a prime example here from Fareed Zakaria, who should know better. He cites the amount of classified, when he knows this is a canard, and even throws out the old ‘information classified because it is embarrassing’ idea which is specifically prohibited under Executive Order 12356. Let’s focus on the amount of classified. 99.9% of classified information exists not as documents or photos, but as digits in a secure classified computer system. It is physically inside vaults and SCIFs (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities) which are monitored and secured. The computer systems themselves are encrypted and monitored both by systems and people. How much classified is there? Nobody knows, any more than you can say how much info is in your cloud storage right now. The government generates enormous amounts every day. Take the breath-sensing satellite I made up: it circles the globe, taking sensings, and every unique sense of a location is classified, because if you had it, you might be able to figure out what the capability was. So the sensing over your favorite bar is just as classified as the one over the Kremlin, not because of the target, but because of the capability. And the gigabytes of sensings are stored in the classified system. How much are they and is it too much?

It’s only count-able when you produce it as a document, photo or other “thing.” 99.9% of such classified “things” are produced and kept in those same vaults and SCIFs, and only leave them when people properly trained and authorized to do so take them out to show them to whomever needs to see them (sometimes senior officials), but more often that not other intelligence personnel. So the overwhelming majority of classified info exists and is secure, regardless of how much there is. The problem is not the amount, it’s that people get involved.

So does the US government keep spending more all the time for this classified information? Yes. We get better at collecting and using it, and we acquire more. Does it cost a lot? Depends. As any info tech geek will tell you, storage is the cheap part. The government even eventually realized that and outsourced some of its classified holdings to cloud-storage firms like Amazon and Google, because they can operate at extreme orders of magnitude. The expensive part is acquiring the data, and do you want the national security system working with more and better, or less and worse, data?

The third complaint comes from those looking for a scapegoat: someone else to blame. Politicians have a love-hate relationship with classified information. They love it when a secret gives them an advantage in a negotiation, or prevents a crisis, or helps win a war. They hate it when they are told what they can and cannot say in public, for obvious reasons, or when they have to turn in their classified documents before leaving for the day. They also dislike being subjected to background investigations (as do we all). A security clearance is not a right, it is a privilege, so one can be denied for a host of reasons for which a politician might not feel they should be penalized: extramarital affairs, suspicious foreign links (business or family), past drug use, lewd and lascivious conduct, lying (this one scares them the most), bankruptcy. The standard is not a legal one; it’s whether you have weaknesses or vulnerabilities which would make you an opportune target or desperate enough to trade classified info.

Things get especially sticky when it comes to Congress. Remember that most classification comes from Executive branch guidelines, so it does not apply to the co-equal Legislative branch. Congress Members (both House and Senate) have security clearances by virtue of being elected! Their staff must submit to background checks. Furthermore, Members like to go before the cameras and opine, but if you access classified info, there may be things you can’t say publicly. In general, Congress Members and staffs are more rigorous about handling classified, since they in effect must police themselves. Watch carefully the reactions of Democratic Senators to news that classified documents (more than 14 years old) from Senator Biden’s service were found in his home. The degree of shock and concern was much greater than the original case.

Congress created two committees (the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, SSCI or “Sissy”, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, HPSCI or “Hipsy”). Both were originally quite bipartisan and worked primarily to provide oversight on secret matters, especially as intelligence budgets climbed during the Cold War. Afterwards, the HPSCI became very partisan and worse so over time. The most important role these committees have (in my opinion) was to control the flow of classified info in the Congress. There was no need for every Member to see everything; the rest of the Members in effect gave the committees a proxy to tell them “it’s ok.” Which the committees did. Everything revealed by now-Russian citizen Snowden was briefed to and authorized by the committees. It pains me (and many others) when they ran from responsibility with a “What? Gambling in this establishment? I’m shocked!” response.

(brief aside: I had to chuckle when someone was defending Rep. Swalwell–and whether he should be on the HPSCI–by saying “he hasn’t been charged with anything!” Gosh, that’s a great thing. No, he just exhibited horrendously bad judgment by having a relationship with a woman who turned out to be a Chinese agent. Who knows what she has about him? He should have been turned out of the HPSCI by Speaker Pelosi. In the good ol’ days, both parties policed their own when it came to the intelligence committees.)

As to the current cases, Trump can’t really use a scapegoat defense, since he claimed the documents are his and he de-classfied them. No one saw President Biden with the documents, so it’s possible an assistant put the documents where they didn’t belong. But that means it was multiple assistants putting multiple things in multiple wrong places over a decade and a half. Or just Joe. Apply Occam’s Razor here. Finally, Pence has the strongest scapegoat argument, as he denied having documents, he probably did not box them up himself and send them to his home, and they were unopened. But we’ll see. Every politician wants a scapegoat; it’s their favorite pet.

There is no dichotomy between secrets and accountable government of the democratic or other sort. There are more secrets than ever, because there is more information available than ever. No, you and I can’t see them, and there are good reasons for that. Yes, the Congress can see them, and does with great regularity. Yes, senior government officials of both the executive and legislative branches misbehave and mishandle classified information. And everybody should own a scapegoat.

Bear with me if I meander a little today.

I have watched with some amusement the recent accusations of mishandling classified documents leveled against the sitting and former Presidents. My amusement stems not from the possible charges themselves: classified information is a serious thing, and anyone mishandling it should be dealt with accordingly. No, my amusement comes from the way the incidents are portrayed by partisans on both sides and the media (both sides). These people are digging deep into law and regulation to either confirm the similarities or deny the differences. What’s really quite clear to me is the cost not to national security, but to our national sanity.

Classified information, even of the highest nomenclature, is mishandled every day. That is not because, as some suggest, too much is classified. It is because there are very strict rules for who can see what, where they can see or keep it, how it can be transmitted or carried, how it is to be referenced, maintained, and stored. I’ve heard there are a million people with security clearances, and probably a terabyte (10¹²) of classified information: you do the math, it means somebody is breaking the rules every day.

When that happens, there is an investigation, determining “was it espionage?”, then “was it intentional?”, “was it repeated?”, “who might have accessed it?” and finally “what is the effect of a possible compromise?” In the classic case of someone accidentally leaving a briefcase of classified material in their car parked on a secure compound for a few hours, the answers are all “no/none” and the culprit gets a harsh tongue-lashing. Any answers of “yes” incur ever-increasing punishment, up to and including prison.

Depending, of course, on who the culprit is. See a Marine Lieutenant who leaves a classified document in his car at the Base Exchange is probably looking at a career-ending Article 15 or worse. A CIA Director who releases reams of classified info to his paramour might see a $100k fine, probation, and resign. A Secretary of State who directs her staff to pass classified info over an unsecured server gets a stern rebuke in the middle of a Presidential campaign. And a President? Well, the President is the ultimate classification authority, the “god” of classification, so one can hardly charge a sitting President with misuse of that which he alone controls.

Why the disparate treatment? The punishments are harsher for the more junior personnel because they are designed to keep the legions of lower ranking security clearance holders from making ANY mistakes. When someone junior starts thinking classified material is no big deal, or worse yet someone like Reality Winner or Edward Snowden starts thinking it’s their job to correct US national security policy, very bad things happen. But for very senior people in each administration, it IS their job to do so, so they are handled differently. Frankly, if we treated everyone the same, we would run out of senior personnel pretty fast. No, it’s not fair, but it is the system as it exists, and everybody who is “in” the system knows it.

So former President Trump either took (or directed to be taken) many classified documents which were then stored at Mar-a-lago. He has claimed he declassified them, which is possible, but for which he has produced no proof. What if, as he claims, he could just “think” to make them declassified? Perhaps, but why not follow up and complete the process? And they were still Presidential Records, and thus would still be a violation of the Presidential Records Act. Note that there is no criminal penalty for violating same. So what do we have here, in light of my earlier questions to be answered when there is a mishandling of classified info? There is no public evidence he was trying to sell or give the documents away (we await the FBI report). He seems to have admitted it was intentional, since his “declassified” argument suggests so. It was one, albeit very large, incident. While his storage area at Mar-a-lago was not appropriate for classified documents, it was not generally open to the public and there is little chance anyone accessed them (again, we’ll wait for the FBI report). What this demonstrates is former President Trump’s legendary disdain for the rules, an intentional, highly inappropriate, and casual handling of serious material.

As for the sitting President, much less can be authoritatively said. His personal lawyers found classified documents (from his time as Vice President) when clearing his office at the Penn-Biden Center, a think tank. This raises three questions: Why were his lawyers (lawyers, not gophers) clearing his office six years after he left it, why were there classified documents there at all, and who had access to the empty office? The additional classified material (also allegedly from his time as Vice President) at his home in Delaware presents the same last two questions (the first being answered by the point the FBI agreed to have the President’s lawyers conduct that search). No one knows if then-Mr. Biden brought the documents to either location, or ever had them in his possession. The President has expressed only surprise at the fact of, and the discovery of, the classified information. There is little chance the information was accessed by anyone. What this case demonstrates is classified information was left unsecured at two locations for six years, which is negligence, gross or otherwise. We don’t know who committed it, yet.

Trump-partisans are braying at the hypocrisy of treating the cases differently, but there are differences, most notably, the intentionality of Trump’s case and the willingness to cooperate of Biden’s case. But the very nature of the comparison is what I want to highlight (I know, you’re thinking “Pat, you took me through all that, and NOW you’re getting to your point? Who do you think you are, Arlo Guthrie?”).

I read the Washington Post and the New York Times daily. I watch ABC Nightly News and FoxNews with Bret Baier. I get feeds from the Economist, the Atlantic, the New Republic, the Federalist, the Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal. It is rare to read a report about the recently-discovered Biden case that does not give equal time to the Trump case. Oftentimes, more on Trump and the differences than on the news about Biden itself.

Why? Why compare them? If there is a grizzly murder, does the judge compare it to yesterday’s murders? “My bank robbery netted much less than the one last week, your honor” will never be heard in a courtroom. The events stand on their own, and should be judged that way. In my mind, and with only the facts on hand, Mr. Trump deserves a stiff fine and a public admonishment. Somebody (still to be determined) but possibly President Biden, deserves the same. Why? They both sat atop the classification hierarchy and did not respect it. In neither case is there likely to be damage to national security. One case is short, intentional and adversarial, the other accidental and cooperative but negligently long.

Of course the MAGA hat-wearers are claiming “foul.” Why give them their due? Why diminish in any way the seriousness of the latter Biden case, if it proves to be serious, because Trump is so much more offensive? This has been the case from the beginning with the Trump candidacy, then presidency, and even now once again as a candidate. The investigations, the impeachments, the need to respond to every Trump tweet. At one point in the campaign, I recall candidate Kamala Harris saying “if Donald Trump says to take (the vaccine), I’m not taking it.” Hyperbole, yes, but since it’s Trump, well, ok. Apologies to my MAGA friends and Trump haters everywhere, but everything does not need to be about, or compared to, Trump.

President Biden even set himself up, taking the bait in a 60 Minutes interview when asked what he thought about former President Trump’s stash of secret documents at Mar-a-lago:

This aired in September, but why would the President say such a thing? Why even comment on an open DOJ investigation? Because it’s Trump. So one just has to notice it, be offended by it, comment on it, and denounce it.

Trump is famous for breaking not only the rules, but also the norms of civilized behavior. But here’s a little secret: the first person to ignore a norm does not destroy it. The norm only falls when everyone else says “well he did it, so now . . . “. The reflexive need to put everything into a Trump context ratifies his behavior as the new norm. Which means our norms (like a President taking care of classified material even if he can’t be charged with anything) get replaced with “was it fewer documents than Trump had?”, “were they less classified?”, “did we cooperate more?”, and “were we antagonistic?” Which are lousy norms. Think I’m exagerating? Yesterday, the President of the United States said he has “no regrets” about the classified documents found after being unsecured for six years. None. Zero. Nada. That’s a breathtaking assertion, but hey, it’s not as bad as Trump, right?

Neither of these cases look good for the alleged offenders. Both are serious, but neither (probably) resulted in any damage to national security. Trump is attacking the investigation, belittling the process, and making outlandish claims: par for the course. It appears to me that President Biden will employ a version of the “doddering grandfather” defense (“what? documents? where? huh!”), which would be dismissed as typecasting in Hollywood. We should treat them separately, based on how a former President or Vice President should act with respect to classified information. That is all. Our norms need a rest.