The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-24)

A22 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, MAY 24 , 2022

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RESIDENT BIDEN raised eye- brows Monday by seeming to confirm that the United States would intervene militarily to pro- tect Taiwan from Chinese attack. During a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, Mr. Biden answered “yes” to a reporter who asked whether, in contrast to the president’s having refrained from sending U. S. troops to help Ukraine fight Russia, he would be “willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, if it comes to that?” Mr. Biden elaborated: “That’s the commitment we made.” That isn’t strictly true: For a h alf-century, since President Richard M. Nixon’s opening to Communist Chi- na, the United States has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan, which includes a recognition of Beijing as the sole legitimate Chinese government, a commitment to help Taiwan defend itself with American- made weaponry — and vagueness about what else the U. S. might or might not do. There is no formal mutual defense treaty such as the ones the United States has with South Korea and Japan.

And so Mr. Biden’s seeming declara- tion of such a “commitment” sent White House aides scrambling to clarify a remark critics were quick to call a “gaffe.” In a statement, the White House recast Mr. Biden’s comment as a simple reiteration of the long-standing U. S. policy, w hich “has not changed.” But neither China, which warned against “causing grave damage to bilateral relations,” nor Taiwan, which expressed "gratitude” for Mr. Biden’s “rock-solid commitment to Taiwan,” appeared to buy it. We don’t pretend to know why Mr. Biden made his comment. What we will say is that it’s not cause for a crisis. To the contrary, there might be a benefit. Mr. Biden did not so much end strategic ambiguity as modify it. Be- tween his repeated allusions to a U. S. duty to defend Taiwan — Monday’s was the third such since August — and his staff’s repeated denials that the president’s words mean quite what they seem to mean, Beijing has new reasons to think long and hard before sending its armed forces across the Taiwan Strait. Yet the People’s Republic of China cannot quite accuse the United

States of violating the understandings forged in Nixon’s time because, techni- cally, it hasn’t. Certainly, the president was correct Monday when he said, apropos of a potential Chinese repeat of Russia’s aggression against a pro-Western neigh- bor, that “the idea that [Taiwan] can be taken by force, just taken by force, it’s just not appropriate. It would dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. And so it’s a burden that is even stronger.” If there’s a flaw in Mr. Biden’s ap- proach to countering China, it’s the vagueness of the plan for regional com- mercial integration he’s offering — the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. It is no substitute for the market-opening Tr ans-Pacific Partnership that was nego- tiated by President Barack Obama and then abandoned by President Donald Tr ump. Mr. Biden has China guessing about U. S. intentions toward Taiwan. Maximizing Beijing’s worries, however, would require much more robust economic engagement with East Asia, India and Australia.

Less ambiguous. More strategic.

For the third time, Mr. Biden’s aides are clarifying a ‘gaffe’ on Taiwan. Is it part of a plan?

T

HE DISINFORMATION Govern- ance Board has been put on pause — leaving skeptics of the new body within the Depart- ment of Homeland Security sighing with relief. The board was from the start too mired in controversy to perform its intended function. But its collapse is no cause for celebration. The rollout of the DGB was rife with mistakes. Its name was eerie enough (and its i nfelicitous i nitials close e nough to “KGB”) to conjure the specter of an Orwellian “Ministry of Tr uth,” and de- tails on the board’s function were scarce enough to lead even those who might have otherwise supported it in concept to wonder about its effect on free expression. The American C ivil Liberties Union, f or instance, pointed out t hat any real enforcement authority for the DGB to direct the removal of information on the Internet would be unconstitutional. The ACLU was right: The DGB couldn’t

and didn’t have any real enforcement authority. Instead, it was meant to be an internal coordinating body, given a mission to establish best practices for DHS in the work the agency is already doing to fight malign influence cam- paigns online. Whether the creation of the DGB was the most effective way to draw up these best practices — which could range from offering tips on correcting false narratives through public messaging to advising agencies on how to monitor social media for disinformation with- out impinging on civil liberties — was never clear. Yet this episode has shown how vulnerable the government is to the same types of campaign the DGB was supposed to help it fight. Some of the questions about the board’s ambit were legitimate; worries about the perceived liberal bias of the woman picked to lead it, researcher Nina Jankowicz, while overblown, still mer-

ited consideration. But amid the legitimate criticisms arose a focused, aggres- sive right-wing effort to mislead citi- zens about the board’s role, and to harass Ms. Jankowicz until she ten- dered her resignation. Those most at fault in this imbroglio, of course, are the a ctors who f looded the Web with lies and misogyny. But DHS’s own errors were a showcase in some of the worst practices for b lunting disinformation: failing to anticipate how oppor- tunists might exploit its odd name or vague mission to sow distrust, for instance, and then failing to mount a robust response as smears spread far and wide. These failures are the reason the DGB had to be, at least temporarily, dismantled. They’re also a reason, however, that some version of the job it was designed to do remains necessary. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the Biden administration has learned from this going forward.

The truth about the DGB

The Disinformation Governance Board’s collapse showcases the problem.

“V

IRGINIA’S RETREAT from academic rigor.” That was the online headline on an editorial we wrote in 2017 decrying how officials were moving away from the high standards and accountability that long had been a tradition of public education in the commonwealth. Among the troubling moves: jettisoning of critical tests, adop- tion of test score standards to make it easier for students to pass and weaken- ing of regulations for schools. Officials, alas, paid no heed to concerns about the consequences of lowering standards and expectations. Now, we get to say we told you so. State education officials last week issued a damning r eport that document- ed a years-long trend of declining student performance and glaring racial, ethnic and income achievement gaps that have been hidden from public view. Chock-full of data, it cited significant drops in reading scores for both fourth- and eighth-grade students on the most recent National Assessment of Educa- tional Progress administered in 2 01 9, revealing the wide gaps in how students perform on state reading and math assessments compared with the grade- level benchmarks on the federal assessment. The report also noted the literary deficiencies in which 42 percent of second-graders scored below a key reading benchmark. Additionally, 45 percent of public high school seniors in 2019 — including 76 percent of Black and 54 percent of Hispanic seniors — were not college-ready in math on the SAT. Virginia has fallen from t hird to n inth in the nation in students earning college credit on AP exams. No question, as the report acknowl- edged, the p andemic has had a d evastat- ing effect on student learning, but the declines started well before covid- 19 hit. The report had been requested by

Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) in his first executive order, and it immediately got caught u p in the political rancor that has raged in Richmond since Mr. Youngkin took office. Democrats and their allies in the teachers union hit back, accusing the report of cherry-picking and manip- ulating data. Never mind that it draws from every valid state and national measure of student performance. An- drew Rotherham, a former member of the Virginia Board of Education appointed by Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner and co-founder of a well- r egarded nonprofit educational consult- ing o rganization, called the r eport “ pret- ty comprehensive” and the problems outlined in it as “real.” One line of attack against the report seemed to be that it doesn’t really matter that so few eighth-graders (33 p ercent) and fourth-graders ( 38 per-

cent) are proficient in reading on the Nation’s Report Card because that scor- ing is good enough. Virginia once prided itself on asking more of its students than what was minimally required by the federal government, and this report should be a call t o action for meaningful reform. Much depends upon Mr. Youngkin. Instead of using this issue as a cudgel against Demo- crats, he needs to seek bipartisan support for addressing problems that, de- spite the report’s overemphasis on the four years o f the last Democratic administration, date back 15 years. In the coming months, he will have the oppor- tunity to appoint five of the nine members on the state board of education. Whom he names will speak vol- umes about whether he wants to score political points or find real solutions that will help Virginia students.

Virginia’s hard lesson

A damning report shows that lowering standards didn’t benefit the state’s students.

STEVE HELBER/ASSOCIATED PRESS Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) on Thursday.

Regarding the May 17 news article “Crypto meltdown refocuses regulators’ attention”: This plaything of criminals and specu- lators has regularly tripped over its own feet because it claims to be “new money” but is a shell with no inner value — no God in whom to trust. Now, those who put their money on the felt-topped table and find the gamble didn’t go their way want to be protected. Even the most regulated financial exchange doesn’t do that. Certainly something that has no inherent value and produces nothing should not have any central government oversight, which would lend real status to a hollow, clanging bell. The lobbyists continue to create chat- ter and worries among those who should stand up to this noise. The best thing that c an be done now is to walk away and leave the crypto mess alone. Thus far, no government funds o r responsibility have been involved. Other losses are the price of an education. Thomas Bower , Washington

The gamble of crypto

Regarding the May 17 editorial “Trag- edy i n Buffalo”: Apparently, gun ownership and hateful ideology might or might not be nor- mal in some places. What differentiates mass s hooters from others who o wn guns and may believe hateful ideologies is that somehow the idea of committing violence takes hold. There is a transition from a nger to violence. We n eed a solution that all — right and left, conservative and liberal, young and old, rural and city dweller — can grasp. Such a solution will look to the causes of anger and what pushes angry individuals into committing acts of violence. We truly don’t understand the tipping points, nor do we fully grasp the fine line between anger and violence. T he reasons for violence are likely as varied as the violence itself, but we must start by identifying those who may b e vulnerable to the disease. Nomenclature is impor- tant. We must address anger and violent tendencies a s though t hey were an addiction, with mental health treatment and the hope for a cure. Too often, individuals fall off the radar. On the road from anger to violence, there typically have been multiple failures along the way — parents, friends, schools, churches or other organizations that should h ave been alarmed e nough to alert authorities. This is an addiction that can and s hould be c ured. Joseph P. Petito , Bethesda

From anger to violence

debt in December 2021. Though higher education is expen- sive, it i s an investment by individuals to build knowledge and skills for personal and national growth. An Economist- YouGov poll found that 49 percent of Americans support forgiving student loan debt, and other p olls show majority support for some level of debt forgiveness. The challenge is the level of relief and who benefits. There is broad support for $10,000 of loan forgiveness, which would clear the balances of about one-third of borrow- ers. That is also the level that the 20 19 Secure Act authorized students, who had 529 Plan student account balances, to use 529 funds to pay qualified education loans. Regardless of the 529 balance, only $10,00 0 can be applied to student loans. There was bipartisan agreement in 2019 on the $10,000 level that could be applied t o qualified loans, and s hould be the basis for agreement on forgiving $10,000 student debt now. That would offer the same benefit to students and their families who could not save and obtained federal loans for college as those w ho could save for c ollege through 52 9 plans. That would be an equitable solution for Mr. Biden to enact by executive order. Robert Perry , Arlington

The May 16 Politics & the Nation article “Biden plunges into risky politics of student loan debt” addressed the politics of student debt relief, including Sen. Bernie Sanders’s ( I-Vt.) p roposal for $50,0 00 debt forgiveness, and the oppo- sition to such plans. President Biden has signaled support for some debt forgiveness, but not the higher levels requested by progressive Democrats. The article noted that 45 million Americans held a total of $1.6 trillion in federal student

An equitable solution

After reading the May 17 Metro article “Confederate roads stoke divide,” about the divisive Confederate street name issue in my n eighborhood, I felt the need to give an overlooked piece of crucial information. I agree wholeheartedly with the social justice issues at stake, but the reasons I’d like to see the names changed are the very reasons some of my neighbors do not. There’s nothing I can say to someone to undo decades of institutionalized racism. However, a more logical reason could persuade some of my neighbors to change their minds: housing prices. In February, Bloomberg ran an article on the correlation between housing prices and street names. Researchers found that homes on houses with street names that referenced the Confederacy sold for 3 percent less on average than streets with neutral names. The difference was more drastic in areas outside the Deep South. Curious about where a D.C. suburb would stand, I reached out to the researchers to find out if they had any data on our area. They did. Homes on streets with Confederate names in Northern Virginia sell for 6 percent less on average than comparable homes on streets with neutral names. According to Zillow data, that difference adds up to about $40,0 00 in Mosby Woods. Why aren’t the effects on housing prices entering this discussion? Marissa Perrone , Fairfax

Before making judgments about John S. Mosby and Mosby Woods, maybe we should know a bit more about the man. Mosby led a complicated life. He wasn’t one-dimensional. He was a Uni- versity of Virginia graduate and rural lawyer before the Civil War. Prewar, he was an outspoken opponent of slavery whose family apparently enslaved two people. He opposed Virginia’s succes- sion but, driven by a sense of loyalty to his home state, joined the Confederate army only after Virginia h ad left the Union. After the war, Mosby resumed his law practice in Warrenton. Ulysses S. Grant in 1866 gave Mosby a handwritten exemption from arrest when it was reported that Mosby and his family were being harassed by Union troops occupying Warrenton. Later, President Grant made Mosby the U.S. consul to Hong Kong, a post he held for about seven years. Upon returning to the United States, Mosby served as a lawyer for the Southern Pacific Railroad in San Francisco. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Mosby a special agent of the Interior Department, where he resolved several ongoing land dispute issues and water rights issues in Colorado and Nebraska. Finally, he was appointed as an attorney for the Justice Department’s Bureau of Insular and Territorial Affairs. Mosby certainly wasn’t an abolition- ist, but neither was he a full-blooded racist. Because he served in the Confed- erate Army, he can fairly be character- ized as a traitor. But after the war he earned the friendship and support of Grant and honorably served the United States in several positions. On balance, I do not believe his name and reputation deserve to be erased by changing the name of Mosby Woods. John Henebery , Manassas

A street name could cost you

The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-24)

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