Harry Truman said he wanted a one-armed economist. All his economic advisors would discuss an issue at length, and tell him what he wanted to hear, but they would continue with “on the other hand…”

The basic rules governing economics are pretty simple, but the number of variables that must be considered is staggering. I’ve made a few feeble attempts at understanding. When crude oil prices rise, I know that gasoline prices will go up. And when crude oil prices drop, gasoline prices go… up.

Prices jumped nearly 11 cents over the past two weeks to $2.35 for a gallon of regular-grade gasoline, even though the price of crude oil dropped, a national survey said Sunday.

…

The price rise came even as the cost of a barrel of crude fell from $62.91 on February 24 to $59.96 last Friday -- a 7-cent-per-gallon drop.

I do believe the oil companies have found themselves a one-armed economist.

It’s been said, “You cannot break the law. You can only break yourself against the law.” The lawless Bush Administration likes to deal from the bottom of the deck, but there’s a price to be paid:

A federal judge today halted the death penalty trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and indicated she might throw out the death penalty entirely after prosecutors disclosed that a government attorney had violated the court’s rules about discussing witness testimony.

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema called it “the most egregious violation of the court’s rules on witnesses” she had seen “in all the years I’ve been on the bench.”

Her comments came after prosecutors said a Federal Aviation Administration attorney had discussed the testimony of FAA witnesses with them before they took the stand and also arranged for them to read a transcript of the government’s opening statement in the case. Both actions were banned by the judge in a pre-trial order.

This, of course, is why the right wing wants to undermine judicial independence. They think their lawlessness can prosper if only they can get rid of the judges. But the law remains, and they break themselves against it.

The quote from Judge Learned Hand yesterday comes from a speech he made in New York’s Central Park on May 21, 1944, in the midst of World War II and just shortly before D-Day. Judge Hand led 150,000 newly naturalized American citizens in the Pledge of Allegiance.

After posting yesterday, I realized I had a reprint of an old Life magazine with the text of the speech. Much of it reads like a rebuke to our current national leadership on both sides (emphases my own):

We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion. Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land.

What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought liberty; freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This we then sought. This we now believe that we are by way of winning.

What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will. It is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.

What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias. The spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to the ground unheeded. The spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.

And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay, which never will be, except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the sprit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I now ask you to rise and with me to pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands — one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.