I've long contended that it's embarrassing that a major world newspaper carries a columnist who is as poor as Mary McGrory. And I don't say that because I disagree with her ideologically (even though I do), but because she usually can't carry a thought through an entire column, let alone from one column to the next. Today, I'm happy to let Jay Nordlinger carry water on the topic:
Nordlinger is much too charitable.Why would the Washington Post publish a columnist so . . . uh, inconsistent, at least? But she’s a smooth writer, we must give her that.
- Also in that column, McGrory referred to Tony Blair’s “suicidally loyal pro-Bush statements.” This is an example of another kind of denigration. Notice that liberals (as represented by McGrory) can’t credit Blair with acting on Britain’s interest, or on the civilized world’s interest — he is merely being “loyal” to Bush, personally. It has been in the nature of liberal commentary since Sept. 11 to personalize everything (Dowd’s referring to Saddam Hussein as “Bush’s foe,” etc.).
- Then, said McGrory, the Pope’s “list of visitors has been provocative: U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan, Germany’s militantly antiwar foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, and, most annoying to the Oval Office, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz.” So that wasn’t annoying to Mary McGrory? Of course not. Aziz is the representative and mouthpiece of Saddam Hussein, whose regime is one of the most oppressive, most tyrannical, and most murderous in the world. But only uptight white males like the Bushies could be “annoyed” by his tête-à-tête with the Pope.
- Finally, McGrory described the Pope as “the only card the peaceniks have since Colin Powell went south.” Huh? Were you aware that Colin Powell had “gone south”? And didn’t McGrory write a column, right after the secretary of state’s big presentation to the U.N., saying that the man had convinced her?
My friend Mr. Hutchison sent along the following this morning:
I awoke this morning to the sad news that Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood had passed away from stomach cancer....What more is there to say? I grew up with Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. A world without them is a worse place.Like everyone else I went through my phase of making fun of his demeanor when I was younger and more arrogant. But when he retired a couple of years back, my first thoughts were "Who's going to tell children it's OK to use their imaginations?" and "How will children know they deserve to be loved just the way they are?" His sweater hangs in the Smithsonian, along with Fonzie's leather jacket. How cool is that?
I think I'll go make a small donation in his honor to the American Cancer Society.
I suggested in the previous entry that the White House might consider revoking the press pass of Helen Thomas (who is not a White House press correspondent these days, but an opinion columnist, and a rude one at that). The White House, of course, won't do so, because they're no doubt worried about the inevitable cries of censorship.
On the topic of censorship, one Peter Arnett, the man who seemingly sees no distinction between journalism and serving as the mouthpiece for the world's dictators, has a rather curious definition:
What about censorship? The Iraqis have imposed no censorship since the Gulf War, preferring to control information by restricting the media's movements.But that's not quite true. Later, he writes,
Mr al Taie's aplomb is also threatened by what he perceives as disrespect to his president. "No adjectives, please!" he exclaimed heatedly recently to a group of American reporters assembled in his office at the press center. "We show respect to President George W. Bush. So please, no adjectives here. It is President Saddam Hussein, not dictator Saddam Hussein."Never mind revoking the press pass of Helen Thomas -- can you imagine the outcry if Ari Fleischer suggested to Ms. Thomas what words she could use to describe the President?!
But to Mr. Arnett, it's not censorship. And surely it's not propaganda. I mean, those are things dictators (and democracies?) do. And we all know that Mr. Hussein doesn't want to be called a dictator.
Helen Thomas has really become such a rude boor (not to mention she's an opinion columnist, not "press") that the White House seriously needs to consider revoking her press pass. Sure, they would be subjected to all sorts of complaints that they were engaging in censorship and such, but there's really no excuse for the woman's behavior.
There was a mention of this exchange on NRO earlier, and here's an excerpt from the transcript:
Q Then why are you going to bomb them? (Laughter.) I mean, how do you bomb people back to democracy? This is a question of conquest. They didn't ask to be liberated by the United States. This is our self-imposed political solution for them.Mr. Fleischer handled the situation adeptly, as is his wont, but there's really no excuse for Helen Thomas's behavior. Furthermore, one would think the "dean" of the White House press corps wouldn't be so substantively clueless.MR. FLEISCHER: Let me guess that you will not be at the speech tonight. Helen, the President is going to --
Q I'll be very interested in what the President has to say because I don't think -- I think if you ask five people anywhere, what's the reason the President wants to go to war, you'll get five different answers. Usually there's one defining moment and solution.
MR. FLEISCHER: Tonight, the President is going to discuss this. I think you will hear the President tonight talk about the threat of Saddam Hussein and how he poses a danger to the American --
Q In 12 years he hasn't done anything.
MR. FLEISCHER: We will temporarily suspend the Q&A portion of today's briefing to bring you this advocacy minute. (Laughter.)
When I read this article on the BBC News site, Cleric Charged with Inciting Murder, my thoughts turned to similar stories I've read over the last couple years about muslims in the West. There were, for instance, the pictures of muslim demonstrators outside a mosque in London last September holding signs with messages such as "Sharia Law in Britain Now." These things remind me of a point asked by the late Pim Fortuyn of the Netherlands -- how do you reconcile the desire of to be an open, tolerant society with the fact that many immigrants you let in are themselves intolerant.
If we insist on treating those who would like to destroy our democratic, liberal, tolerant way of life as just another "point of view," the West will be morally disarming itself and, in effect, committing suicide. An article in the British magazine The Spectator explains it all much better than I exactly what's at stake: Death Wish by Mark Steyn.
Over at the Claremont Institute's blog, Thomas Krannawitter has an interesting critique of Paul Berman's recent New Republic essay, What Lincoln Knew About War. The gist of Krannawitter's critique is that Berman understands Lincoln not as Lincoln understood himself, but as the Progressives might understand Lincoln.
As a complete coincidence, those of you in Houston might be interested in a lecture at the University of Houston tonight (Wednesday) by Straussian political theorist Michael Zuckert, on Gettysburg and Lincoln, Gettysburg and 9/11. It's at 7:30 pm at the Waldorf Astoria room in the UH Hilton. That's all the info I have.
Why is is that Cold War constructs just won't go away?
I must admit that I had no idea that a group of "Non-Aligned Nations" even existed today, until I saw this article in the Washington Post.
Of course, "non-aligned" appears simply to be a deceptive moniker for "anti-American."
Some things never change.
There's a fine article in the invaluable Washington Times on Kazakhstan's disarmament after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan, of course, inherited various weapons of mass destruction and gave them up. The article suggests -- and I will state outright -- that Kazakhstan should serve as the model for such disarmament.
Iraq, of course, has not even come close to emulating Kazakhstan. Indeed, everything about Iraq's behavior resembles Germany's covert rearmament program leading up to World War II, save for the fact that Saddam is several magnitudes more brazen than the German leadership at the time.
Richard Holbrooke writes:
The administration is now caught in a dangerous dilemma, partly because its military and diplomatic tracks are out of sync and partly because of its failure to maintain America's historical leadership role in its core alliances. This is particularly distressing on the eve of a war that, if it proves to be unavoidable, would have ample justification in international rules and laws, and could be justified by existing U.N. Security Council resolutions -- without the need for a new one.One can pretty much stop reading Mr. Holbrooke at this point, because it seems fairly clear he missed the whole campaign in Afghanistan, when critics of the Bush Administration repeated virtually every point made in the article and were ultimately proven wrong on them all.
Even taking Holbrooke's introduction seriously -- might we call his attention to Donald's Rumsfeld's daily assertions that the Administration's military buildup is taking place to back up its diplomacy (and is hardly out of sync, except to a frustrated group of Dem foreign policy operatives who don't believe in a real link between force and statecraft). Might we also suggest that this Administration has gotten inspectors back in Iraq in the first place (contrasted with his old boss). And might we finally suggest that American leadership has brought along NATO, and may well get another UN resolution (which, we might add, his old boss did not seek before bombing former Yugoslavia into oblivion).
Sadly, this is what passes for serious foreign policy thought among the Dems today. Scoop Jackson, what has happened to your party?
Matt Miller has written an insightful piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer, in which he notes the similarities between John McCain and General Wesley Clark.
And taken in isolation, the two men DO seem a little similar. McCain in recent years has departed from party orthodoxy on a host of issues, but has never wavered on foreign policy (indeed, he's been rather impressive of late) or from a broader view of what some of the Weekly Standard crowd deemed National Greatness conservatism. And by virtue of his stint as Supreme Allied Commander, General Clark brings with him a resume that speaks to national greatness as well.
But the problem with Miller's piece is this: McCain's embrace of national greatness (one element of which is projection of American power abroad) is not a departure from his party's orthodoxy; Clark's is. For the most part, the liberals that dominate the Democrat party do not believe in the projection of American power, and are not National Greatness Liberals to be sure!
To put it somewhat differently -- even though Colin Powell has staked out positions on affirmative action and other issues that depart from Republican orthodoxy, his foreign policy realism and credibility are welcome assets to any Republican administration, and he would make a formidable GOP presidential candidate in his own right (although his departures from party orthodoxy would make winning difficult, though not unimagineable, just as it ultimately proved impossible for McCain). And General Clark's foreign policy credentials would also be a welcome addition. To the Republicans.
But does he really fit into a party which leadership generally eschews assertions of American power, and would prefer that foreign policy problems go away so it could get on with the business of redistributing the nation's wealth? Sure, he would give them instant credibility on foreign policy issues, because he's more of a conservative than a liberal.
But that probably won't please liberal primary voters in, say, Iowa or New York or California. And those are the voters the eventual nominee is going to have to reach.
No, it might be better for the eventual Dem nominee simply to announce during his/her acceptance address that he would nominate General Clark as Secretary of State/Defense (take your pick) if elected President. But such a pledge would also project a seriousness about foreign affairs that we haven't seen of late from many Dems.
Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus columns are always worth reading, because of the little snippets of wisdom (not to mention wit) always on display. Unfortunately, they are more like a collection of blog items, rather than an actual column, which makes one wonder why he doesn't contribute this great stuff to the NRO blog as it comes out of his brain.
But I digress. Here's a keen observation from today's column:
Let me attempt an explanation: Liberals want certain things to be true, and even if they aren’t true, they ought to be true, because, in a way, they’re truer than true. They represent some higher truth. So much of liberal thought and liberal commentary is a morality play.That really is true, you know. Whether it's antiwar protestors, or the folks who want us to care for the children, they really do have their minds in a higher place than the rest of us. It's just that it often doesn't correspond with the facts of reality.
(Update) Some days, it's just too easy. Here is author Ian McEwan's confirmation of the points above:
So, the hawks have my head, the doves my heart. At a push, I count myself—just—in the camp of the latter. And yet my ambivalence remains. I defend it by reference to the fact that nothing any of us say will make any difference: Ambivalence is no less effective than passionate conviction.Fancy words for, I know I'm being an idiot, but it's the kind of idiot I feel like being.
I can respect honesty, at least.
Peggy Noonan has written an excellent piece for the Wall Street Journal this morning, The anti-Ikes. She wonders why former Presidents Carter and Clinton cannot keep their criticism and advice for the current administration private, as previous former Presidents have.
Why are Messrs. Clinton and Carter so careless? Don't they know that their behavior gives cover to foreign leaders as trying to block administration fortunes in the U.N. and elsewhere? Don't they know that it shows Saddam maybe he doesn't have to change, because America is torn and divided?A hunger for relevance and a need for attention are indeed the driving forces behind Clinton. Carter, I believe, is a good man who is so blinded by his vision for how the world ought to be that he is unable to see it for what it is.
Why do they do this? A hunger for relevance, you say. A need for attention. Maybe. But those are personal needs and not worthy of a former president at a time of danger. One wonders: Does Mr. Clinton talk about Iraq and Osama so much because he is trying to hide in plain sight his own failures?
Both men are doing serious harm to our nation's unity and our prestige abroad, and at a time when we need both badly. As Ms. Noonan also points out, they are providing aid and comfort to the enemy. I wonder what Democrats would say if one day George W. Bush, the long-retired victorious wartime president, were to level such viscious criticism at a future Democratic President? I am certain we would here cries of "foul!" and "unfair!" from the left. Of course, we will never find this out, because despite Clinton's behaviour now, George W. Bush will follow the example of his father and will be a true statesman after leaving office.
Every man who has been President should well understand that once the country is committed to war, and we are now, the President needs and deserves the support of the nation. Democracy necessarily involves much bickering and struggle between groups. This is a good thing. But in the end, there is a point where we must be able to reach consensus and go forward as one nation -- if we are to survive.
Mark Steyn has written a number of carefully argued, and well-informed, opinion pieces. But every once in a while he turns out a humorous gem like this one from London's Daily Telegraph: Bush unleashes the Jacquesbot. Is the President of France really a robot created by the CIA? If so, there may be a little problem with the scheme.
"That's what I want to talk to you about, George. He's too French. He's just this ridiculous amalgam of French cliches - shifty, snooty, horny. Someone's bound to figure it out."You may or may not find this little story as amusing as I did. However, Mr. Steyn's underlying point is that M. Chirac is behaving in such a patently absurd manner recently that he is actually serving American and British interests. It's hard to disagree.
Our friend and blog contributor John Vaughn is too modest to pimp himself here, but I'll do it for him. He has his own fine site for longer essays and discussion, Geopolitics.tv, and he's just posted a commentary on the United Nations. Go give him some feedback.
"Short Iraq War Could Cost A$1 Trillion"
This sort of headline, featured at the top of Drudge today, really bothers me. To start with, the numbers seem a little suspect. I've heard and read many experts on the U.S. economy assert that it is uncertainty over the resolution of the Iraq crisis that has kept American managers from committing to new projects, making investments in new plant and equipment, etc. A short, successful, war would remove that uncertainty overnight. The article also mentions higher oil prices, but the middle east without a WMD-armed maniac, and with a democratic Iraq, seems to me a more stable place, and a condition which is more likely to produce lower oil prices. This would be good for the economy of the entire world.
There is a second important matter not considered by the experts mentioned in this article. What would be the cost of the alternative to war with Iraq? What's the cost of doing nothing? If we let the inspections continue for another year, the U.S. would have to pay to hold all those troops in the region. Consider the animosity that would generate. Sounds like lots of instability to me. Markets don't like instability.
And, this is the real kicker, what would happen if Saddam Hussein some day hands off a small nuclear device to a terrorist and that terrorist detonates it in New York or London? What would be the cost to the world economy of that?
By only looking at one set of possibilities, this article paints a false choice -- war with Iraq, or peace, tranquility, and happiness. But that's not the choice. The choice is, take a measured smaller risk now or face an unknown and much greater risk in the future. The smart money's on the former, not the latter.
Remember many months ago when Bill O'Reilly started virtually a one-man expose operation on the activities of Sami Al-Arian, and a lot of people thought it was a bit over the top?
Well, the FBI arrested one Sami Al-Arian yesterday.
I haven't watched O'Reilly's program in a while, but may just have to tune in tonight.
An article in the LA Times on Yemen is fine in terms of its description of Yemen as an extremely poor country which poverty makes it a ripe target of radical (or political) Islam. But it's probably worth noting that its status as a Soviet client during the Cold War did it no favors economically. And it's also worth noting that even though Yemen does not possess the same lucrative geology as its neighbors, it is a net exporter of crude (with increased interest following a definitive border demarcation with Saudi Arabia) and has perhaps even greater potential to export natural gas. Exploiting that potential will require political stability, however, since development of natural gas reserves presents many more problems than development of crude reserves. But all is not lost in Yemen, and the U.S. anti-terror presence there may act as a stabilizing force.
The New York Times editorial page is such a mess that it's fairly easy to have fun with it on any given day. The guys at RealClearPolitics gave it a go yesterday, and it's a decent read. Scroll down through their other stuff while you're there.
Bill Gertz is reporting in the Wash Times that the North Korean ship that was intercepted by the United States last year (prior to delivering weapons to Yemen) also transferred a shipment of sodium cyanide from Germany to North Korea.
Germany, interestingly, is a member of a voluntary regime to limit exports of such dual-use chemicals.
That's helpful.
In the department of "No Kidding!" headlines comes this from the LA Times: Broad Issues Put Bush and Democratic Contenders on a Collision Course
Shocking! It almost sounds like a two-party political system, or something.
One of these days, though, you would think that columnists (not to mention various libertarian bloggers) would finally figure out that President Bush IS a conservative Republican:
From the outset of his presidency, Bush has appeared determined -- at times almost fixated -- on deepening his support among the base Republican voters whose disillusionment helped sink his father's reelection campaign in 1992.I suppose I should forgive Mr. Brownstein somewhat after eight years of political decisions driven by focus groups and polling, but how much longer should it take for people to figure out that Mr. Bush means it when he calls himself a conservative (compassionate or otherwise), and then proceeds forcefully to advocate conservative policies?
The New York Times never misses an opportunity.
They rightly celebrate a statue of Lincoln that has been commissioned for the heart of the old Confederacy.
But even this has to be a statement on Trent Lott:
The bronze work, commissioned by the United States Historical Society, is a rarity in affording Lincoln a place of honor in a state of the old Confederacy. It could not be better timed in the wake of the Trent Lott affair. The fact that the statue will stand as a modern touch in the monument-crammed capital of the Confederacy only makes the unveiling in April more appropriate.The Trent Lott affair is such old news. Unless one is an editor of the New York Times, I suppose.
Now, a Straussian might find it even more interesting that the reference to Lott is in the middle of the middle paragraph of the editorial, but we'll just leave it at a mention.
A number of wealthy Democrats have apparently decided to launch their own liberal talk radio network. It seems they actually believe that the problem isn't the unpopularity of liberalism, but that their message isn't getting to the people:
"I feel like there's a monologue out there," Ms. Drobny said. "I just had this tremendous feeling with great passion that we had to make sure we're heard and make sure having a dialogue in this country of ours."Until the advent of talk radio and Fox News, I also felt like there was a monologue out there! But you know what? A handful of AM radio talkers and Fox News is a pretty minimal counterweight to ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Pacifica, etc.
Still, if the liberals want to spend vast amounts of money on a project with the flawed premise that the medium and not the message is the problem, good for them. The return on investment is likely to be about the same as that of Tony Sanchez here in Texas (millions and millions spent on a governor's race that wasn't even close).
The Observer has run a fairly hysterical piece full of anonymous sources suggesting that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is planning to pull U.S. troops out of Western Europe to punish Germany over the recent rift in relations:
The plan - discussed by Pentagon officials and military chiefs last week on the orders of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - is designed 'to harm' the German economy to make an example of the country for what US hawks see as Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's 'treachery'.I think it's fair to say that Secretary Rumsfeld is probably not that happy with the petulance of the French and Germans, but the Secretary is a serious man surrounded by extremely serious people. It's just silly to suggest (with all anonymous sources!) that he is out to punish Germany by reconfiguring U.S. forces.
That being said, a further troop drawdown from western Europe was inevitable, and has been ongoing for years. Since we haven't had a serious Secretary of Defense in years (Bill Perry wasn't horrible, but didn't have the clout to get anything done), it's not surprising that Rumsfeld is the one moving ahead with this serious work. It's one of the reasons he was brought into the administration.
But that's not nearly as titillating an explanation.
I linked to this article on the front page, but it's probably worth a further comment.
Its author is Harriet McBryde Johnson. She is disabled, apparently born that way. A picture follows:
Even though she doesn't intend it, there's a group that she makes very uncomfortable -- or at least she should. One of those is Peter Singer, a professor who has been outspoken in his belief that parents ought to be able to terminate pregnancies likely to produce people like Johnson. He's not only outspoken, but he claims to have discovered this ethical view based on application of reason and facts (and absent such "dogma" as religion, or dare we say, natural right).
And you know what? He's more honest than most. The abortion-on-demand crowd usually simply assumes that the fetus is not a person. But what about those who are somehow "less" as people than most? People like Johnson?
The answer is, given the premises of Singer and much of the abortion crowd, neither pre-birth-Johnson nor any other fetus possesses rights, since whatever they may be is less than a "person."
Fair enough. Some pro-abortion types are at least honest enough to make that argument. But it leads inevitably to the problem of adults who are somehow "less than human," and the attendant problem of who decides.
Who shall decide?
As I mentioned in the first entry, this is intended to be a team political weblog (just have to add a few people now).
However, I thought some folks might be interested in some of the details of the redesign, since it's radically different from the first version.
The content remains virtually identical, with one exception: the Texana section is gone. There's plenty one can find to post about the great state of Texas, but in the end it just seemed more appropriate to my personal website.
And yes, I finally admit that it's a "conservative review." Orrin Judd has long referred to the site as a conservative Arts and Letters Daily but with more of a focus on politics. I don't disagree with that, but I think a range of people will find the links interesting. "Conservative" shouldn't be a scary word!
On the design itself -- I'm using an outstanding program called Nucleus to manage the content. Nucleus is php/mySQL driven and can manage/integrate multiple blogs. Every blog page on the site is dynamically generated. Indeed, thanks to an easy little hack, EVERY SINGLE PAGE IN VERSION TWO IS DYNAMICALLY GENERATED. No more waiting on MT to crunch out static versions of every single page just because I tweaked a template!
Finally, the layout is formed with the use of stylesheets and no tables. Multiple tables were used in Version One of the site, which slowed things down considerably (and confounded content with layout, to the consternation of users of devices like PDAs). That's all gone now, in conformance with current web standards. The drawback is that older browsers may have difficulty rendering some of the esthetic effects. The pluses are that ALL devices can easily render the content of the site, and the rendering is more efficient. Font sizes are scalable and correspond to user preferences. I've tested various font sizes in a Windows environment on IE, Opera, and Netscape/Mozilla, and everything seems to scale just fine. This is in keeping with current web standards on accessibility (setting px for your fonts may make it look like YOU want, but the vision-impaired person who visits your site may not like that 9px text). And the layout is scalable as well, shrinking to accommodate widths of 640 pixels and expanding to fill larger screens.
So, I'm just about to open the gates and go have some brunch. I trust those of you who find errors or problems (or just plain HATE the redesign) will email me. :)
N.B. Users of PDAs should click on the "low" link above, especially if you use AvantGo. The old AvantGo/low page will no longer be generated, but there is a link at the bottom of the new "low" page to set up AvantGo. Apologies for the inconvenience.
(02-21-03 Update) There are problems with NS 4.x on Mac and Win platforms. NS 4.x provides only partial support for cascading style sheets, which usually produces ugly results. There's little I can do in the way of an easy fix for this browser, although the PDA page should render fine. If your machine is old, you might consider an upgrade to the Opera browser, which is less a resource hog than most, and has long boasted good support for cascading style sheets.
Welcome to the newly redesigned Reductio Ad Absurdum. The new site is designed utilizing
cascading style sheets and no tables, thereby conforming to web standards and making for more efficient loading for all devices (more design notes here). It is accessible to all browers, but will look best in a modern, standards-compliant browser.
I've tried to test across a number of browsers, but platforms have been limited to Windows. If you run across problems, please send me an email.
--Kevin Whited
(03-14-02 Update) This entry moved from the announcements section on the main blog to here for archival purposes.
CNN is covering the "war protests" and interviewing the assorted hippies and twentysomething slackers who compose the "crowd."
Meanwhile, on Fox News Tony Snow just finished interview a former army commander on how the war is likely to go.
Fox News is really a treasure. That it's also popular is even better.
The media caricature of John Ashcroft as hell bent on destroying all civil liberties in this nation is well established by now, and no amount of persuasion otherwise is likely to change many minds already fixed on this view (despite its being grossly unfair and inaccurate).
But for a countervailing view, it's at least worth reading Orrin Judd's post in response to the usual caricature.
Now that North Korea has an untested missile with range to threaten the continental United States, I wonder if the Dems will support the notion of missile defense (which most of them have opposed consistently)?
I'm not holding my breath.
Every time I think NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman has gained a little bit of sense over the years, he goes and writes something like this:
We need a compromise. We need to say to the French, Russians and Chinese that we'll stand down for a few more weeks and give Saddam one last chance to comply with the U.N. disarmament demands — provided they agree now that if Saddam does not fully comply they will have the U.N. authorize the use of force.I thought that's what the LAST security council resolution did!?
In any case, Mr. Friedman is probably right to suggest that the American military and taxpayers ought to be concerned about trying to remake Iraq completely by ourselves. Fortunately, even if the French, Germans, Russians, Chinese, and the extremely important Belgians decide to sit this one out, the United States will be assisted by what President Bush has repeatedly called a coalition of the willing. And most likely a large one at that.
In other words, Friedman is positing a scenario (get the French, Germans, Russians, Chinese, and Belgians on board or go it alone) that doesn't exist. And he appears very confused in the process.
Liberal foreign policy intellectuals like Strobe Talbott and Morton Halperin have enjoyed fairly lucrative careers despite being wrong about almost every aspect of the Cold War.
Now, Halperin's decided it would be fun to start establishing a record of being wrong in the 2000s. In a Washington Post op-ed today, he argues that containment and deterrence are working with regard to Iraq, but that there is one more step the U.N. could take that would REALLY be effective: indicting Saddam Hussein as a war criminal.
No, I'm not kidding.
For those of you who wonder how a President Gore might have handled the war on terror (and Iraq specifically), this is a pretty good place to look. Folks like Halperin and Talbott would surely have been involved in selecting foreign policy personnel, and might well have been appointed to senior positions themselves. They represent the Dem bench on foreign affairs, after all.
Fortunately, there's a much more serious foreign policy team in place at the moment.
As a related matter, Charles Krauthammer wrote several weeks ago about the affinity of the foreign policy left for (mis)applying old Cold War strategic concepts to the war on terror. They're still getting it wrong, after all these years.
With regard to the Miguel Estrada nomination, Bill Frist is proving already to be a more effective Majority Leader than Trent Lott:
After threatening a filibuster for weeks, Democrats emerged from their weekly policy luncheon Tuesday with enough support within their ranks to take on the White House and the Republican Senate majority in an increasingly contentious battle over Estrada's nomination.My guess is, they don't. But it's shrewd politically to force them onto C-Span to oppose this highly qualified nominee who was magna cum laude at Columbia College, magna cum laude at Harvard Law, and who happens to be Hispanic.Senate Republicans, meanwhile, threatened to force the Democrats to stay in session until a final vote was taken.
"If they want to stay through the weekend, we'll stay through the weekend," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
It may please the abortion-on-demand lobby, but I can't imagine it does much good for the Dems otherwise. There is no principle involved, just the (unstated) fear that Miguel Estrada may eventually prove the fifth vote to undo Roe v. Wade. One might respect the Dems more if they were just forthright about it. But then they'd clearly be seen as beholden to an interest group which popularity is waning.
And Bill Frist has let them box themselves in. Bully for the good doctor.
Michael Economides has penned an op-ed for the Washington Post in which he suggests to the Bush Administration that it should carefully consider postwar Iraq's hydrocarbon regime.
It's so like an academic to offer obvious advice to policymakers, as if it's a startling revelation that has not yet been considered!
Given the fact that there are oil men in the administration, not to mention some very serious foreign policy intellectuals as well as policymakers, I'm quite certain they've given some detailed thought to the hydrocarbon regime that will follow war. Indeed, a much better piece by Chip Cummins ran in the Wall Street Journal (sub only) over a week ago, and comes to some very different conclusions:
If U.S. forces find themselves in control of Iraq , international law would give them a large degree of leeway in managing the country's oil fields.The Economides piece is sloppy by comparison.Some analysts expect Washington -- eager to avoid accusations of going to war for oil -- to refrain from making big decisions about the industry in the early days of any Iraqi occupation. But international treaties concerning military occupation and precedents dating to the early 1800s give the administration ammunition to press for a more aggressive role in Iraq's oil patch.
Mr. Joseph Lieberman seems to be running as the EuroApologist candidate for President:
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., took a more conciliatory tone, saying he understood part of the reason for the rift: the Bush administration's balking at the Kyoto global climate change treaty, the international criminal court and the abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.Excellent. One of the few Dems who has any credibility on foreign affairs (at least with the press) thinks it's wise to criticize the administration for not listening to Europe."I fear during the last two years our administration has not listened to Europe," said Lieberman, who has declared his presidential candidacy for the United States.
We agree with Orrin Judd that Mr. Lieberman should have delivered his criticism of America here, instead of in the camp of the enemy.
The transition to permanent minority status continues apace for the Dems.
Welcome to the Reductio Ad Absurdum blog.
It's my plan for this to be a team blog of various thoughtful conservative/libertarian types, but for now it's going to be where I put my more political posts (instead of my more personal site).
The focus of Reductio Ad Absurdum is still going to be spotlighting good political and cultural articles from across the web that ought to interest thoughtful people. But we'll be adding a few comments here from time to time.
What can I say -- it's a blog world.
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