It's good that Mr. Clyde Prestowitz cites John Winthrop's famous sermon to buttress his silly argument that America is marching towards empire. We do not suppose Mr. Prestowitz has actually taken the time to ponder the sermon he cites, or any of the other sermons that were so influential in early American political thought. However, we applaud his calling attention to the same. One cannot go wrong studying the fundamental documents of American political thought, nor could one go wrong in studying the fine Ellis Sandoz collection, Political Sermons Of The Founding Era. Don Lutz's Colonial Origins Of The American Constitution and the Lutz/Hyneman classic collection American Political Writing During The Founding Era would top off that Liberty Fund order nicely. Because who can order just one item from the Liberty Fund?
Clarity from Jay Nordlinger today, whose Impromptus column would make for a much better blog, posted as the thoughts come to him:
Where have I heard something like that before? Oh yeah.Many years ago, a conservative lawyer lectured my class: "Case law is case law, darn it. Constitutional law is constitutional law. There's a difference between constitutional law and case law." Well, for many liberals — and for many others — case law has been, in fact, constitutional law. I'm afraid your average person is perfectly prepared to believe that Roe is the inevitable law of the land, mandated by the Constitution — "right to privacy" and all. And any judicial nominee who comes before Sen. Leahy and his like will be told: "If you don't believe in Roe, you don't believe in the Constitution. You are, in fact, an enemy of the Constitution — ready to shred it."
Well, well, well: Consider the just-decided sodomy case. This, indeed, overturned previous case law. So did those six "shred" the Constitution? Or redeem it?
I guess we think the decisions we like are constitutional — and that the decisions we dislike are just plain nutty case law, waiting to be overturned by a more enlightened bench.
Conceptually, Nordlinger makes quite a good point. There was a time when constitutional law was not simply case law. But recovering that conception of American constitutionalism is a mighty task. Especially when those who are trained in constitutional law in most of the nation's law schools are taught by lawyers with a dedication to the case-law conception of American constitutionalism , and whose commitment to a broader undestanding of American political/legal thought varies considerably.
Richard Bennett says we're all missing one of the most interesting aspects of the Supreme Court's discovery of a constitutional right to anal sex:
I'm sure Kennedy and Scalia do see it that way. But why shouldn't the Administration go for broke (as it so often does), and elevate Clarence Thomas?This wasn't a case about law, it was the kick-off event in the race to replace the retiring Rehnquist as chief justice. The two candidates are Kennedy and Scalia, and with their strongly-written opinions, the contenders are reaching out to the constituencies they feel most likely endorse them.
Jay Nordlinger continues to advocate his elevation, and as David Frum put it yesterday,
I still think the man's dissent in the old term limits case is one of the most beautifully crafted statements of American political thought that I've seen from a lawyer. He's only gotten better since then.One last thought: In the past week, we’ve been given some of these most powerful dissents in recent history, two by Justice Scalia, two by Justice Thomas. It is very striking to me to see the difference between the two – Scalia’s witty, slashing, devastating; Thomas’ grave, eloquent, and sorrowful. We have in these two men two of the greatest jurists of the 20th century. One of them, Justice Thomas, has been the target of scurrilous attacks that continue to this day. He has not flinched or retreated or in any way been infected by the bitterness of his detractors. He’s shown himself more than a great lawyer; he’s a great man.
He should be elevated because of his jurisprudence. But it would be an interesting political move as well.
And so, the implications of manufacturing rights nowhere contemplated in the text of the U.S. Constitution, in amendments, or by its Founders already begin to manifest themselves. Orrin Judd has this somewhat muted response:
Interestingly, the case cited above raises equal protection concerns. But Lawrence v. Texas was decided on privacy grounds. Apparently, contemporary Supreme Court Justices don't especially need to employ logic or consistency when in the process of inventing constitutional doctrine on the fly to resolve the political controversies of the day.Typically when something occurs like the Court's anti-sodomy ruling conservatives bemoan the slippery slope we've been placed on and the Left protests that this is nonsense. Here the Court clears the matter up by okaying sexual assault on a retarded child, placing us fairly close to the bottom of the slope right off the bat.
And one day, when it's not a political issue one personally supports, one might yearn for a lost constitutionalism.
Owen Courreges has a familiar take on the Supreme Court's invention of a heretofore undiscovered right to anal sex in the Constitution:
It's part of a broader Q&A on the recent decision, and worth reading.The temptation to use the courts to get past a legislative impasse are decidedly great, and when it comes to issues I feel strongly about, it would be all too easy to yield to that temptation. However, that weakness common to pundits aside, it is simply wrong and dangerous to use SCOTUS to determine non-Constitutional issues.
Well, mostly this post is about sodomy. Parents, keep an eye on your kids. We're not discussing Bill Clinton here, just the Supreme Court. So you should be ok.
Here's the story. The federales have struck down a Texas law against sodomy. This is cause for mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I'm an old states-rights type of guy, who thinks that this country has gone to hell since they got air conditioning in DC and the fed legislature seems to be in permanent session. The Supremes and the rest of them ought to mind their own business and leave us in Texas alone. Let Texans run Texas.
On the other hand, I'm a keep-the-government-out-of-my-pocket-and-my-bedroom kind of guy and wonder about the people who are really interested in what homosexuals do when they're alone. Frankly, I don't want to know what they're up to. I'd like to be left alone and I'm sure they do too. I'm glad that now maybe cops won't be breaking into peoples' houses and arresting them for having forbidden sex.
Guess I'll have to read the decision. The funniest part looks like it's right here:
"The court has taken sides in the culture war," [Justice] Scalia said, adding that he has "nothing against homosexuals."I wish he'd said, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
Jay Nordlinger comments on Dowdy Maureen:
I have nothing to add.Many of you, I know — because I've heard from you — read Maureen Dowd's stunning — yet typical — op-ed column yesterday, which basically called Thomas an ungrateful Negro, not realizing what liberals such as she have done for him. Really, the column has to be read to be believed. Nothing so outrages white liberals as the independent black man who won't behave — who won't conform to the Operation PUSH/Maya Angelou/Phil Donahue conception of what a black man should be. Yet another reason to elevate Thomas to chief justice.
One of the things Dowd says is that "when he switched from a Democrat to a conservative as a young man, he knew that he would be a hotter commodity in politics." This suggests, of course, that Thomas's politics were/are merely expedient, and not sincerely arrived at or held. Oh, no: He is a conservative, genuinely so. That's (part of) why the Dowds hate him so! The man is stubborn as a mule for principle, and a breath of fresh air on the bench, as well as a pillar.
Further down, Nordlinger comments on another liberal idiot/hero:
I still think Bruce Herschensohn would have made a far better senator. But, I'm not a voter in California, so there you go.Think the Democratic party has gone nuts? Are they nuts, or just bad? Give a listen to Barbara Boxer, the senator from California: "I think having John Kerry and Wesley Clark . . . they know what war is, [and] they are going to give us a real interesting contrast [to] this president who likes to go to war but never went to war."
. . . who likes to go to war. Ponder that, ladies and gentlemen, and think of the sheer awfulness of that statement, on a variety of levels.
Just how would Barbara Boxer protect Americans in this new, daunting post-9/11 environment? Or don't Democratic senators from California have to give any thought to such puny matters?
(Update) I just read Orrin's latest take on Dowdy Maureen:
Ouch!One does admire Ms Dowd her consistency: as a quota hire herself she wants to keep the ladder down to help other undeserving women take men's jobs. That is what she means, right?
The libertarians have jumped on the anti-neocon bandwagon.
Fine.
Except, as Sean Hackbarth points out, it might be nice if they gave any indication they even know what a neoconservative is/was.
Contemporary American conservatism is a movement with a broad number of wings (some with beliefs that overlap in many policy areas, some that diverge sharply in others). To speak of "the neoconservatives" in the way that has become all the rage in the popular media of late is not terribly precise or informative in most cases.
Hardcore liberals have suggested that President Bush might avoid nasty confirmation battles if he will just work with them, and pick his judges from a list they supply.
Orrin Judd thinks he should take them up on that offer:
Absolutely.This is an exquisite trap for the Democrats to place their heads in and the White House would be wise to spring it. Ask the Senate Democrats to suggest a list of nominees they would support. First of all, just putting the list together will turn into a hilarious political exercise because it will have to represent every race, gender, religion, sexual preference, etc., and each Senator will have his/her own favorites who will have to be included. The final list could have two or three hundred names.
Meanwhile, in order to be taken at all seriously the list will have to include conservatives and Republicans, who thereupon become bulletproof. If not, or if the list does not include the White House's first choice, they can simply dismiss it as partisan hackwork. It's a win/win situation for the GOP.
Following Richard Gephardt's proclamation that he would overrule Supreme Court decisions by decree, Bill Hobbs has been doing some research into how (and how often) various Presidents have employed executive orders. It's a fascinating post, which he promises will continue to be updated.
A friend of mine from grad school wrote his doctoral dissertation on executive orders and the separation of powers, which made my eyes glaze over at the time. Who would have thought it would be a hot topic (at least for a few days)?
I wish I could agree with Max Jacobs that Maureen Dowd's latest column is unbelievable, but really, this is Maureen Dowd we're talking about. It's all too believable.
I do agree, however, that it is stunningly stupid, which Max does a fine job of pointing out.
(Update) Robert Alt blasts her over at No Left Turns.
Liberals have seized upon a recent George Will column on the topic of WMD, hoping someone somewhere might pay attention to their ranting on the topic. Here's the paragraph that has caused them nearly to wee-wee all over themselves:
Funny that liberals would seize on this, because it is riddled with confusion.Some say the war was justified even if WMDs are not found nor their destruction explained, because the world is ``better off'' without Saddam. Of course it is better off. But unless one is prepared to postulate a U.S. right, perhaps even a duty, to militarily dismantle any tyranny--on to Burma?--it is unacceptable to argue that Saddam's mass graves and torture chambers suffice as retrospective justifications for pre-emptive war. Americans seem sanguine about the failure--so far--to validate the war's premise about the threat posed by Saddam's WMDs, but a long-term failure would unravel much of this president's policy and rhetoric.
First, Will of all people should realize that President Bush's doctrine of pre-emption -- which Will understands to mean attacking potential enemies with significant military force before they attack us -- was never destined to be the primary or even preferred tool of American foreign policy. Americans don't stay interested in foreign affairs for long enough, for one thing. And Americans generally are far too insular to support military adventurism over a long period of time. But they do, to their credit, understand credible threats, and they do/will support a foreign policy of assertive disarmament when the case is made (Iraq) or could be made (Iran). That's a much more limited form of pre-emption than Will presents. And really, pre-emption via forward basing of troops/advisors (we have relatively permanent special forces in 65 countries, according to Robert Kaplan, and conduct exercises in as many as 170 -- does Will know this?) is likely to be the foreign policy tool of choice in the future, as Robert Kaplan makes abundantly clear in the print version of this month's Atlantic Monthly (not available online currently, but here is a related interview).
Second, Will makes it sound ridiculous that the U.S. might conceive that it has the right (I would use the term power) to dismantle militarily (sorry, George, we don't use split infinitives here) any tyranny. I don't find that assertion -- with some qualifications -- to be ridiculous at all. Where U.S. strategic interests are threatened by a tyrannical regime, I have no problem with the use of American force to defend human rights. It defends the country and it accomplishes a moral good deed -- what a wonderful two-for-one deal! Liberals of the Wilsonian variety might go on to argue that the United States has a duty to act against all such instances of tyranny regardless of strategic interests, but most realist/conservative types would reject imposing that duty on American taxpayers/citizens, I would think. Surely this line of reasoning is not as astonishing as Will makes it seem; he's only a veteran conservative columnist with a Ph.D. in political theory, after all.
I disagree with Will that a "long-term failure" to find actual WMD in Iraq will "unravel much of this president's policy and rhetoric." If there is a long-term failure (and by long-term, we mean more than the few weeks it took before the Democrats decided to try to use this as a campaign issue), Will is right only in this respect: if the President makes the same case about the necessity of attacking another regime based on its possession of WMD, he will be subjected to more scrutiny than he was this time. But as we've already pointed out, that course of action was always unlikely. And it really doesn't undermine the broader foreign policy, which is to be more aggressive against both terrorists and the nations that sponsor/harbor them, while defending human rights.
This is not one of Will's better paragraphs.
Occasional contributor Courtney got this snotty little email from a reader of her main blog:
How about I not look up the definition of "liberal" in a dictionary, and instead tell you what I think of your email?I suggest reading Hillary's new novel with an open mind. Also, I want you to look up the definition of liberal and tell me what you think. By the way, make sure you read the noun version of liberal. You may find it very different from what the media portrays.
Liberal has a specific meaning within the context of contemporary American politics. A dictionary is a general reference tool. But when we are debating/discussing/blogging about contemporary American politics, we have moved from a general to a specific context. So your suggestion isn't terribly useful. And I'm being kind with that assessment.
So, here's my suggestion to you, kind reader of Courtney's blog: I want you to look up the definition of context and think about it (but don't tell me what you think).
Stefan Sharkansky of the Shark Blog (fairly new to the blogroll here) takes apart a NY Times column that we linked to on the front page earlier today.
That newspaper really has gotten careless (or, to be far less charitable, very careful) with its quoting and paraphrasing.
This story here, just shows that the Chronicle is going along with their publicly stated policy to attack anyone who dares to differ with them on rail. Oh, and they'll use the "news section" to do that. From their memo announcing (inadvertantly) the attack policy:
The timing, language and approach of the paper's editorials would, of course, be the decision of the Editorial Board. But I suggest that they could be built upon and informed by a news-feature package with an equally specific focus: Telling the story of rail here by examining the long term relationship of the two key players in the local transit wars -- Rep. Tom DeLay and former Mayor Bob Lanier. For better or worse, (mostly worse, I would argue) no two have had a more significant impact on transit decisions here. Our readers deserve to know how they've operated to fund and promote an anti-rail agenda for the past two decades. This would be vital information for voters as they come to their decision on rail. It would also be highly entertaining read.
From the "news" article on the front of Sunday's paper:
One issue DeLay categorically refuses to spend money on is Houston's rail program.
DeLay has blocked federal funding for rail while insisting its promoters develop broader local support for the plan. Saying that rail won't alleviate congestion, DeLay has tried stalling the program for years, arguing that a more multifaceted approach is needed for the region's transit woes.
Well, at least they told us they would do this hatchet job.
Robert Alt over at No Left Turns says it's time for Justice O'Connor to go:
Actually, she's overstayed for quite a while. Over at the precursor to the current version of Reductio Ad Absurdum, I suggested as much on 19 April 2001 (scroll down) in a link to something no longer available (but no doubt inane).I know that I previously predicted that Justice O’Connor would not retire this term, but now I join the chorus with a simple plea: RETIRE NOW. She has done enough damage to the law. It is time for her to go. Yes, I know that this means that we could get someone squishy like Gonzalez, but I now think that it would be extremely difficult to get anyone who is less capable of reading the Constitution.
I still stand by the assertion that she's one of the least compelling Supreme Court justices in history.
The Houston Chronicle is such a notoriously bad newspaper that I refer to it as the Comical on my personal site. On any given day, one can expect this sort of distortion and misrepresentation in the local paper:
In the coming months, DeLay wants to move on an ambitious plan to revamp the federal regulatory process, giving Congress oversight on all standards issued by federal agencies.Tom DeLay has not suggested that Congress will be writing regulations at all, but that's a conveniently misleading quote included from a think tank the authors decline to identify as liberal, and all to further the author's point that DeLay really views this as a fundraising mechanism. Yes, DeLay has suggested that Congress should vote on various regulations that are promulgated by federal regulatory agencies that were never contemplated by the Founding Fathers. Those regulatory agencies allow legislators to avoid taking the heat for tough decisions -- and Professor Light is right to suggest that Congress would be less efficient at doing the same job -- but the Founding Fathers purposely designed a government that sacrificed efficiency for other political values. The people most likely to find DeLay's proposal radical are those progeny of the Progressives who really do prefer efficient government by experts and technocrats. Those who suggest it's simply a backdoor funding mechanism are not to be taken seriously.As envisioned by DeLay, the new system would give elected officials final say on a range of standards and regulations imposed by government agencies -- everything from fuel efficiency standards and food and drug approvals to environmental protections.
Critics contend that Congress lacks the expertise for approving government regulations, and note the proposal opens up broad avenues for aggressive corporate and special interest lobbying and campaign spending.
With new campaign finance regulations increasingly restricting the ways in which DeLay and others can raise money, shifting regulatory power to Congress would be a potential fund-raising bonanza, creating a whole new class of financial contributors.
Others believe it's just bad policy.
"There is a reason why Congress delegates the authority to write regulations to government agencies, and it's because Congress can't do the job itself," said Paul Light, an expert on congressional politics at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
"Any proposal to have Congress write regulations is a proposal to have no regulations at all, which would therefore be Tom DeLay's perfect world," Light said.
So, I'm catching up on some new (to me) blog reading this morning, when I run across this post on the Cam Edwards site. It's a few days old, but somehow I missed the exchange in which Senator Russ Feingold was incredulous -- INCREDULOUS -- that judicial nominee Bill Pryor actually admitted that, yes, he changed the dates of his family's planned vacation to Disney World so as to avoid Gay Day. Apparently, Pryor didn't want his young daughters exposed to the festivities. Hardly a case of gay-bashing, in my view.
But I suspect Senator Feingold is STILL shaking his head.
Here's a fascinating bit of news from my friend Michael Duff: uncorroborated comments from a Marine friend of his about WMD in Iraq.
To answer his question why, if it has this information, the Administration is keeping quiet -- my guess would be that they just don't want to go public with it until they've got the goods. Otherwise, they'll get banged over the head for lying, exaggerating, and deliberately misleading the American people. There's a Dem primary to be won, after all, and such accusations are all the rage.
I'm not the only one who's having trouble making sense of anything said by prominent Dems lately (whether they are candidates or "editors"). Here's Jay Nordlinger:
Are you ready for some Democratic-party crazy talk? A correspondent of mine said that, in acting the way he has, Bob Graham of Florida was simply "paying his left-wing-crazy dues" — in order to have any chance at the nomination (and perhaps at the vice-presidential nomination).No doubt.Graham the other day said, "We not only cannot find Osama bin Forgotten or Saddam Hussein, we can't find the weapons of mass destruction." This is something a particularly dull and ill-mannered undergraduate might say — perhaps reciting what he'd read in a bathroom stall.
And John Edwards is even more off-the-wall. Said he, "The fundamental difference I have with this president . . . is that he seems to value wealth and preservation of wealth over the value of work." Huh? How could he even entertain this absurd lie? "You know, the value that I disagree with the president about is that he values and honors wealth and the protection of wealth."
That's Edwards.
A little more from the North Carolina senator? Bush's tax-cut program is "the most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since socialism. It's time to end the failed conservative experiment and return to the idea that made this country what it is. Instead of helping wealthy people protect their wealth, we should help people build wealth."
Etc.
Let's move on to Edwards and Miguel Estrada. The senator has been saying that Estrada was nominated for a judgeship only because of his surname — because he is Hispanic. Actually, Estrada is one of the legal stars of his generation. But because Democrats act routinely in this fashion, why wouldn't others? What do the psychologists call that again? I always forget: transference or projection.
On to Gephardt. If you can understand the following statement, you're a better man than I: "The president is right to begin withdrawing American troops from Saudi Arabia. . . . But what good will it do if our government remains shackled to Saudi oil producers? That's why this administration tolerated Saudi silence when we struck back against the Taliban."
Huh?
And here's Gephardt in his Marxian mode: "[The Republicans] go on and on passing programs for the wealthiest Americans. It's immoral." Excuse me, what programs for the wealthiest Americans? Tax cuts? These are "programs" for them? I wonder whether Democrats can even speak right — even when they're wrong — anymore.
An article from John Judis and Spencer Ackerman has now been posted to The New Republic website, and they're moving full speed ahead with the Democrat offensive to attack the President's credibility:
The Bush administration took office pledging to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House. And it's true: Bush has not gotten caught having sex with an intern or lying about it under oath. But he has engaged in a pattern of deception concerning the most fundamental decisions a government must make. The United States may have been justified in going to war in Iraq--there were, after all, other rationales for doing so--but it was not justified in doing so on the national security grounds that President Bush put forth throughout last fall and winter. He deceived Americans about what was known of the threat from Iraq and deprived Congress of its ability to make an informed decision about whether or not to take the country to war.A good majority of Americans disagree. It's possible they are wrong, of course, although I don't think so. 2004 will be a referendum on the national security credibility of people like John "The Emerging Democrat Majority" Judis and John F[ibber] Kerry and Howard Dean and the like -- and President Bush. And that's as it should be.
I'm not posting this to the front page because I think it's political posturing posing as investigative journalism, but opinions may vary. Go read and decide for yourself.
(Update) In the same issue, the editors of TNR say there was a justification for the war against Iraq, even if the Administration did not make it exactly as the New Republic did. Effectively, the editors argue that Saddam's nuclear ambitions justified going to war, even though the Administration allegedly "exaggerated" those ambitions, and made too much of the biological and chemical weapons programs. Except as it turns out, the nuclear program may have been dormant after all (oops). But there was the moral case all along. Except it might have been stronger in 1998 or 1991 (nice dig there).
HUH?!
I can't make much sense of what the editors are saying, although it is clever that they refer to the "dishonesty" of the Bush Administration as a given. So let's see -- the Bush Administration employed political rhetoric towards an end which the editors support (I think), and there's a scandal here?
Let me repeat: HUH?!
(Update 2) In retrospect, I wish the Administration had simply announced that Iraq was not in compliance with the terms of the armistice that concluded the first Gulf War, that the regime was openly in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions intended to deprive it of weapons of mass destruction, that the post 9-11 international security environment made this situation unacceptable to the United States, and that Iraq had a deadline of XXX to comply fully with the armistice and relevant Security Council resolutions or the United States would enforce the same militarily. The Left, of course, would have demanded the same elaborate justifications that their more radical elements call dishonest now, but in the end it wouldn't have mattered all that much. Hindsight is always 20/20, I suppose.
Did Jimmy Carter secretly hack Charles Krauthammer's computer and send out this silly column? I only ask because Krauthammer is usually very sensible. This, however, is not:
We must reduce oil consumption. The very easiest way to do it is simply to artificially raise the price of oil--i.e., tax it.The benefits of such a "scheme" (why is an alleged conservative engaged in a "scheme" to tax, btw?) are enormous only if you are a Democrat, since the windfall in government revenues will allow you to buy votes that you desperately need.Oil is currently selling at about $30 a barrel. Slap, say, a $5 (or $10--the bazaar is open) tax on every imported barrel. And most important, keep the new price--let's say $35--as a floor. The world market price is likely to fall as Iraqi oil comes online, as Venezuela stabilizes, and as Russian and Caspian producers ramp up production.
This presents a wonderful opportunity to capture the fall in oil prices in the form of taxes. Say oil drops to $20 a barrel. Raise the import fee to $15 a barrel, so the consumer keeps paying $35 a barrel net. The windfall goes to the U.S. Treasury.
The benefits of such a scheme are enormous. Fixed and fairly expensive oil prices will induce consumers to cut oil consumption. It won't happen overnight. People are not going to junk their SUVs, but they will begin to make choices favoring greater fuel efficiency over time, exactly as they did when oil prices rose in the 1970s.
Look, the world isn't facing a global oil shortage, and enacting a different version of Bill Clinton's BTU tax (any of you remember that?) or Jimmy Carter's Windfall Profits Tax is just as bad an idea now as those ideas were then. A pricing mechanism that is free from additional governmental interference will spur development of resources that are uneconomic at the moment (such as Canada's oil sands, or any number of ultra deepwater projects OUTSIDE of the Gulf) or unattractive (any number of trouble spots in the world with marginal to economic reserves -- say, Colombia?) when they become economic. Distorting that mechanism with a crude tax, on the other hand, keeps us just as reliant on current sources of crude, hurts poor people the most, and gives politicians much more revenue for mischief.
Bad idea, Jimmy. Err, Charles.
There are those of us who blog on politics and economics from time to time.
And then there are the good folks over at Assymetrical Information, who really drill down into economics (and share it with the rest of us).
Today's post from Mindles Dreck is a good example. Go read his checklist for economic analysis.
One of many troubling aspects of Progressive constitutionalism is the notion, largely unquestioned these days, that judges are (and should be) the sole arbiters of constitutional questions. Recent comments from Georgetown Law's David Cole are a good example:
"I don't think the proper response to a serious constitutional question is to deprive the courts of answering the question because you're afraid of what the answer might be," said David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center.Christopher Johnson does a nice job taking apart Professor Cole on the issue of Congressional authority to regulate appellate jurisdiction."The pledge is either constitutional or it's not, and the courts should properly play a role in telling us whether it's constitutional or not," Cole said.
However, Cole said measures such as the one currently before Congress always have come up short because it is the role of the court to decide constitutional questions. "And it is highly questionable for Congress to deprive the federal courts of the authority to decide a constitutional question," he said.
The Guardian has an article on how the issue of gay marriage might ultimately hurt Republicans. It's slanted, but falls short of being (yet another) hit piece. While making comparisons between racism and homophobia, it has a paragraph that jumped out at me:
That is is not quite true. Racism in America's public discourse is certainly more subtle than homophobia, but no less pervasive. Whenever politicians refer to welfare, crime, inner-city deprivation, teenage pregnancy or affirmative action - which is often - they are talking about race, and rarely in terms supportive of minorities.
They are? Really? Whenever as in "any time"? So when I say "crime is bad" I am saying "blacks are bad"? Except that I'm not saying anything about blacks. So who is making "black" synonimous with "crime" here? Should Republicans drop all of these issues (which generally favor them) because liberals don't listen?
Or, I suppose, it's analogous to that nasty old male tradition of Nonverbal Sexual Harassment.
It's been tough to decide how to refer to John Kerry.
There's Orrin Judd's nice John "Cabana Boy" Kerry formulation.
But I'm kind of partial to John F[ibber] Kerry, given the man's tendency to fib about matters (like his ancestry).
I'm more inclined to run with that last name after today's little outburst:
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Wednesday that President Bush broke his promise to build an international coalition against Iraq's Saddam Hussein and then waged a war based on questionable intelligence.Ah, how rich, John F[ibber] accusing someone of lying.''He misled every one of us,'' Kerry said. ''That's one reason why I'm running to be president of the United States.''
Kerry said Bush made his case for war based on at least two pieces of U.S. intelligence that now appear to be wrong that Iraq sought nuclear material from Africa and that Saddam's regime had aerial weapons capable of attacking the United States with biological material.
Still, Kerry said it is too early to conclude whether or not war with Iraq was justified. There needs to be a congressional investigation into U.S. intelligence on Iraq, he said.
''I will not let him off the hook throughout this campaign with respect to America's credibility and credibility to me because if he lied he lied to me personally,'' he said.
At least the Bush campaign team now has John F[ibber] on record, in June 2003, saying he can't conclude whether the war with Iraq was justified. I hope if John F[ibber] is the Dem nominee that Karl Rove has plenty of ads showing Iraq's mass graves along with John F[ibber]'s quote. That should be a nice counter to the implication that he's credible on foreign policy because (as he reminds us constantly) he's a proud Vietnam vet.
Speaking of Vietnam and John's fibbing, here's an interesting passage from Mona Charen's excellent Useful Idiots:
VVAW did do some good for one real veteran, a decorated veteran at that. John Kerry, tall, handsome, and highly ambitious, was able to use VVAW as a launching pad for his political career. He had returned from service in Vietnam "as a rather normal vet," according to one friend: "He was glad to be out but not terribly uptight about the war."And we are expected to treat this man as credible when he calls the President a liar?But the ambitious Kerry quickly gauged the political mood in Massachusetts and before long became the highly telegenic spokesman for VVAW. Kerry participated in one of VVAW's attention-grabbing gambits called Dewey Canyon III, a "limited incursion into the country of Congress." Members of VVAW marched on Washington wearing tattered fatigues and battle ribbons. After circling the Capitol and being turned away from Arlington National Cemetery, they held a candlelight vigil outside the White House. While someone played taps, the veterans stood up one by one and threw their medals over the fence -- a defiant gesture of contempt for the war and for the nation that had asked them to fight it. Among those who threw his medals away was John Kerry.
Or did he? Years later, Massachusetts Democratic senator John Kerry changed his tune about Vietnam, assuring constitutents that he was "proud" of his service. And his medals turned up, framed, on his office wall. A journalist with a longer than average memory questioned him about Dewey Canyon III, and the senator acknowleged that he had thrown someone else's medals over the fence. He was also cagey about what he meant by "proud," permitting listeners to assume he no longer believed the war was immoral. But on other occasions, Kerry has elaborated. After telling a Newsweek reporter that he was proud of his service, he added, "We should not be proud of what we did as a nation." (45-46)
(06-19-03 Update) Drudge points out what John F[ibber] Kerry was saying in 1997 about Iraqi WMD. Oops.
(06-19-03 Update 2) It seems John F[ibber] has been equivocating, if not outright fibbing, about his support of the Grenada invasion.
Old media can be so... old.
Take this conclusion from Pat Buchanan's latest column:
Sources tell this writer Schwarzenegger has agreed to run, that ex-L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan supports him, that he has begun to reach out to the right to cut a deal where it plays a lead role in balancing the state budget and is given concessions on partial birth abortion. If Conan the Barbarian is in Sacramento by fall, his robes awash in blood from slashing the California state bureaucracy, recall where you read it first.Gee, Pat, it's going to be hard to recall where I read it first, since it's been a topic on many blogs for quite a little while now. But thanks for playing!
Pat is a paleo in so many ways.
Just another example of the evils of globalization and exploitation of the third world by meanie-mean corporations:
In truth the work does look tough, and the conditions grim, if we compare Vietnamese factories with what we have back home. But that’s not the comparison these workers make. They compare the work at Nike with the way they lived before, or the way their parents or neighbours still work. And the facts are revealing. The average pay at a Nike factory close to Ho Chi Minh is $54 a month, almost three times the minimum wage for a state-owned enterprise.
Ten years ago, when Nike was established in Vietnam, the workers had to walk to the factories, often for many miles. After three years on Nike wages, they could afford bicycles. Another three years later, they could afford scooters, so they all take the scooters to work (and if you go there, beware; they haven’t really decided on which side of the road to drive). Today, the first workers can afford to buy a car.
But hey, if they're not getting 9.50 an hour with thirty hour work weeks, and union membership, they're just better off starving, right?
The fine folks at The New Criterion seem to have their weblog up to speed, and it's quite a welcome addition.
Plus, it's always good to point to a politics/books/culture blog that has a more convoluted name than our own!
So, go visit the very smart Armavirumque blog.
We noted a few days ago that Kim du Toit was none too sad to see General Shinseki heading into retirement.
Neither is Jed Babbin:
During the Clinton years, we went on what the Pentagon all-too-politely calls a "procurement holiday." It was, to be more accurate, a vacation from responsibility. We didn't spend enough on R &D or weapon system procurement. We're beginning to make up for that, but only beginning. We need Big Dog to accelerate transformation, increasing tooth and reducing tail.Secretary Rumsfeld is doing tremendous, necessary work at DoD.And he's doing just that. After years of fighting future Hawaii senator, and temporary Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki, Big Dog is rid of both Shinseki and Army Secretary Tom White, who was also a problem. That Spec Ops is the future is undeniably in Mr. Rumsfeld's mind. He chose retired General Peter Schoomaker as the next Army Chief, a decision to be confirmed publicly this week. Schoomaker -- according to one of his War College classmates -- is as steady as they come. He should be. In his younger days, he was a Delta Force operator, and then commander of Delta and then of SOCOM itself.
There's an old saying around the Lower Latitudes that goes something like, "If you can't run with the big dogs, you'd better go sit on the porch." Shinseki was a decoration, a poodle in Rotweiler's clothing. Now when Big Dog looks at the Army, he's got someone who is big enough to run with him and won't try to bite his tail on Capitol Hill. Welcome back to the big leagues, General Schoomaker.
This editorial in the Chonicle has been bugging me. In particular this part:
Congressman Culberson pledged to support any transit plan approved by voters. He should at least give voters a fair chance to hold their debate and make their choice without trying to sabotage the election.
This part bugs me because I've been listening to John Culberson speak for a few years now. I've never heard him say that he would "support any transit plan approved by voters." What I have heard him say is that if the voters approve rail, repeat rail (not just any transit plan), he will help get federal funding for it.
In fact, here's what he said in July, 2001:
A public vote on a specific rail plan has always been my only requirement before I can cast my vote on behalf of my constituents for or against federal tax dollars for the specific rail plan being debated.
Now, go back to what the Chronicle editorial says:
Culberson might say that he has always conditioned his promise on various exceptions and codicils and wherefores. If that is the case, he cheapens his promise and signals that his fine print, not his word, is his bond.
Now, what this really means is that the Chronicle gets to misquote what the Congressman says and then accuse him of dishonesty when he doesn't do what they say. They get to lie and twist the facts and then accuse others of lying for pointing out the truth.
You say, "Not the Houston Chronicle! They're a newspaper, they wouldn't lie to get rail passed." Well, actually they would, and they admitted to it when they accidently posted an internal memo to their website. Go read that one here, here, or here.
John Hawkins of Right Wing News had a bad traffic accident yesterday. He and his dog came through just fine -- a little banged up, but thankfully both still with us. Here's hoping for a quick recovery.
Everyone be careful out there, okay?
A very, very long write-up on the possible upcoming Supreme Court battles by Stuard Taylor in the National Journal.
He shares my belief that Alberto Gonzales would be an politically ideal replacement for Justice O'Connor but would cause headaches all around should he be tapped to replace Rehnquist. The article reads as though Bush is on a tight-rope without a net below and that's probably about accurate.
The most interesting section dealt with Justice's views changing after their appointments:
Amid all the politicking and war-gaming, it's worth recalling how often justices have disappointed the presidents who appointed them. Dwight D. Eisenhower, when asked whether he had made any mistakes as president, replied: "Yes, two, and they are both sitting on the Supreme Court." They were Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William J. Brennan Jr., who were among the most liberal justices in history. President Truman once complained: "Packing the Supreme Court simply can't be done.... I've tried it, and it won't work.... Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court, he ceases to be your friend." President Nixon appointed Justice Harry A. Blackmun as part of a campaign to make the Court more conservative; Blackmun drifted left, and was the Court's most liberal member when he retired in 1994. President Reagan and the first President Bush ran on anti-abortion platforms, yet two of Reagan's three justices (O'Connor and Kennedy) teamed up with one of Bush's two (Souter) to reaffirm the core holding of Roe v. Wade in 1992.
It's interesting how roving Justices seem to have uniformly moved to the left. When the liberals scream that Bush's nominees are "too right-wing" that Republicans have a much better record of choosing moderates and liberals than Democrats do. The court may be balanced 3/2/4 right/center-right/left, but 7 of the 9 were appointed by Republicans.
That makes me a little worried about Mr. Gonzales.
Jonah Goldberg's column today is a (kind of rambling) response to Christopher Caldwell's plea for the government to solve his spam problem so he doesn't have to take the time to learn how to operate a spam filter, but I wish Goldberg had just started a slightly different column with this (his conclusion):
Well, conservatism faces a moment of truth. Libertarianism is gaining in popularity and so is a government-friendly form of conservatism of which Caldwell's spam article is a minor example. A new and interesting magazine called The New Atlantis seems to be trying to carve out the space for the government to stop the more offensive aspects of biotechnology while libertarians increasingly take the position that all new technology is always good no matter what the consequences. What both branches of the Right share is the view that it is government and government alone that has the power and/or the right to stop change we as a society don't like. This is a disturbing development because it reveals that much of the Right has grown blind to the organic society championed by both Hayek and Burke. If the Right comes around to the position that only the government has the authority or the ability to solve a real social problem and that a real social problem is defined as any problem the government can solve, then we are in big trouble. It would signal that conservatives have given up on trying to improve the culture and uphold the authority of tradition. In short, it means that conservatives will have given up on conservatism.A topic worthy of elaboration and discussion, I would think.
Martin Devon .points the way of a Donald Rumsfeld speech regarding our NATO allies peers partners hangers-on.
Belgium needs to realize that there are consequences to its actions. This law calls into serious question whether NATO can continue to hold meetings in Belgium and whether senior U.S. officials, military and civilian, will be able to continue to visit international organizations in Belgium. I would submit that that could be the case for other NATO Allies, as well.
If the civilian and military leaders of member states can not come to Belgium without fear of harassment by Belgian courts entertaining spurious charges by politicized prosecutors, then it calls into question Belgium's attitude about its responsibilities as a host nation for NATO and Allied forces. For our part, we will have to consider whether we can allow senior uniformed and civilian officials to come to Baghdad . . . to Belgium, I mean. (laughter) Because of the charges flowing out of the activities in Baghdad, which of course would involve other coalition nations as well. Certainly until this matter is resolved we will have to oppose any further spending for construction for a new NATO headquarters here in Brussels until we know with certainty that Belgium intends to be a hospitable place for NATO to conduct its business, as it has been over so many years.
If you wonder what you're feeling, that's the shift of the planet's weight as liberals everywhere roll their eyes in unison.
Whether it's talk like this or floating the idea of moving military bases from Germany to Poland, there is an interesting point to be made. There is the tendency of some on the left to view the US as the only party that must be held accountable for its international diplomacy (or lack thereof).
For instance, when the Belgian axis of NATO threatened not to support NATO ally Turkey, according to some it was our fault cause we weren't nicer to them instead of, say, their fault for reneging on a NATO treaty. It was just another sign of Bush's "disastrous diplomacy" and whatnot.
I'm not a fan of any "patriotism police" that go around accusing those who disagree with Bush's policy's of failing to rally around the flag (whose influence is public discourse is rather overstated), but there is the tendency of many on the left (not all, but some otherwise very reasonable liberals) to side with President Chirac over President Bush.
The general idea is that we have more to lose by not giving European nations what they want rather than standing our ground. They can call Bush a Nazi, but heaven forbid our senior defense official put the world "Old" in front of Europe.
As Rumsfeld helpfully reminds us, foreign policy does not follow playground rules where everything just works out dandy if people manage to all be nice to one another. If European countries want to set up an International Criminal Court, we should oblige just the same as if Belgian Foreign Minister Michel wants his turn with the shovel in the sandbox.
As our nation prepared to embark on war, France, Germany, and Belgium stood front and center to try to undermine our efforts. They tried to rally the world against us. France threatened membership of East European nations to the EU in a move most American liberals even objected to. They not only did not work as our friend, but actively worked against us.
As is their right. But, as Rumsfelt says, actions have consequences. Chirac got a boost in international recognition for his grandstanding. Shroeder won re-election based in large part on his opposition to our goal. So if they are rewarded for opposing us and if we aren't allowed to change our behavior in the slightest in order not to be rude, what in the world is to stop them from opposing everything that we do? Where is the incentive to cooperate.
Of course the opposing argument is "we shouldn't blackmail them" to which I can idealistically agree, but we don't live in an idyllic world. Even if you think Bush is a scumbag, look at it this way: he's not the only one who isn't acting in the international community's best interest. He's not the only one who, heaven-forbid, is actually looking out for the country that elected him.
Truth is I don't personally hold much ill-will towards Chirac, Shroeder, or any of the others. They're doing what's in their political best interest and what their constituents want them to. They believed that it was against their nation's best interest for us to go to war against Iraq, so they opposed it. To act accordingly isn't bribery or blackmail, it's simply a recognition that nations will do what they feel is in their best interest and what they, not the next nation down the way, feel is right.
That even applies to countries run by a President named Bush.
So when Europe starts talking about an International Criminal Court and even existing institutions such as war crimes tribunals, we must remember that these are not arbitrary constructs. If we sign on, we are passing more and more power off to people who hold their, not our or even the world's, best interest at heart.
There are times I get very frustrated with President Bush and Republicans in general. But it's subtle issues like these that are very often the most important. I don't care if the other guy's plan on health care is better (which it's not, but that's beside the point), I care about the possibility of a president signing over our rights to an International body. I care about our President subverting our national security to a United Nations where the security council is run by terrorist nations and their coddlers.
The United States isn't perfect, but no one else is going to look after it if the United States does not. President Bush and the Republicans are not perfect either, but they seem to be the only ones who recognize that fact.
Richard Bennett thinks California may be in play next election for President Bush. Yes, it's a Dem State. But other factors may break for the President:
Now what things affect election results, beyond party registration? At least three major factors: 1) turnout; 2) crossovers; and 3) coattails. I think all of these favor George W. Bush in California.Go read the rest.
Every day is Flag Day here at Reductio Ad Absurdum.
But this is the day most some Americans hail as Flag Day.
John Kerry unveiled his "energy plan" in a speech today.
And it's a great plan, if wishful thinking counts. Kerry imagines it will have America independent of Middle East oil in a decade. All we need are a few more regulations, a Hydrogen Institute (it really reads like something from Atlas Shrugged), and more spending in Iowa (convenient, that!) on things like Iowa State's biorenewables program.
Now, I'll give Kerry credit -- he agrees with folks who are starting to sound the alarm on natural gas. But what is his solution? Perhaps opening some of the federal lands that are currently off limits to explorationists? Oh no! Are you kidding? The answer is (you guessed it kids) -- more regulations:
Today, high prices and supply shortages are hurting the families that depend on natural gas to heat their homes, as well as the businesses and farms that rely on it to do their work. The first step is to crack down on the profiteers who manipulate the natural gas market. My plan calls for a North American Compact, bringing together our allies in Canada and Mexico to develop and transport clean natural gas resources from across all over North America - especially in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.That's it. That's the man's plan to reverse some very troubling trends (huge PDF presentation with some very useful slides) in natural gas discovery and production in North America, which have serious short-term implications.
This is not something from someone who has anything serious to say about energy policy. It may play well with people who don't think much about such matters, but then again, maybe not. Why would someone trust a tax-and-spend liberal with a history of fibbing (about such things as his ancestry, no less!) on energy policy, over a couple of oil men? Does all of America hate oil companies THAT badly?
Surely not.
Jay Nordlinger calls attention to this passage from the Michael McFaul's review of Anne Applebaum's Gulag in the New York Times:
In visiting Poland last month, President Bush took the time to go to Auschwitz and tour one of the most ghastly assaults to humanity in the history of mankind. After finishing his tour, he remarked: "And this site is also a strong reminder that the civilized world must never forget what took place on this site. May God bless the victims and the families of the victims, and may we always remember."Oh, the irony!The next day, Mr. Bush was in St. Petersburg, Russia. While there, he did not make it up to the Solovetsky Islands, the site of the first camp of the gulag. Nor did he call upon the world to "always remember" the millions of people who perished in the Soviet concentration camps well before Auschwitz was constructed and well after Auschwitz was dismantled. The families of the victims of Soviet Communism — much more numerous than the families who lost loved ones in Hitler's camps — received no special blessing from the leader of the free world.
Mr. Bush should not be singled out for failing to remember the innocents killed in the gulag. Rarely do visiting dignitaries take time to remember the tragedies of Soviet Communism.
You see, the New York Times, much like CNN with its phony "reporting" in Iraq, played no small part in covering up the crimes of a cruel tyranny (we'll note that Reagan was right to call it an evil empire), and its chief correspondent Walter Duranty even won a Pulitzer for his lies posing as reporting about Stalin's Soviet Union!
The New York Times has never properly repudiated Duranty's lies, although the news that a Pulitzer Committee is considering revoking Duranty's prize 70 years after the fact may force the newspaper to confront the issue.
Perhaps Professor McFaul should have included that interesting tidbit in his review, although presumably the Raines-less Times still prefers to beat the President over the head rather than consider its own role in covering up the true nature of the Evil Empire.
Many of us do not believe that President Bush lied about Iraq's WMD program (and see Rob's post below, since he's more of an authority than most on the topic).
But if we are to take the Loony Left seriously that, indeed, President Bush lied to us all, then what are we to make of what THEIR favorite icons were saying about Iraq's WMD before the war?
John Hawkins over at Right Wing News has done a little research on that topic, and posted some very choice quotes. It's probably worth bookmarking, to have handy when confronted with Lefty Revisionism over the war.
On a related note, John (Sgt) Stryker revisits President Bush's stated reasons for going to war, quotes and all. This is another handy one to bookmark.
Most folks have been relatively sanguine about the retirement of General Shinseki, including people I would have expected to say more.
Kim du Toit, however, comes through loud and clear, wishing the general a... umm... happy retirement:
Army Chief of Staff Eric "Empty Uniform" Shinseki retired last Wednesday, and the giant whooshing sound you heard was rank-and-file Army types letting out a long sigh of relief.There's more.
Ann Coulter has the tip, and Mickey Kaus is starting to run with it:
Who is Greg Packer, "apparently the entire media's designated 'man on the street' for all articles ever written," according to Ann Coulter? Coulter says that Packer has "appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public," including three relatively recent NYT pieces. NEXIS backs her up. ... Does Greg Packer actually exist?... Is he related to Allan Smithee? ...Does he know Baird Jones? ...Will he soon turn up in Iraq talking to Col. Tim Madere?Well, Big Journalism, Who IS Greg Packer?
(Update) Greg Packer's real, as it turns out. He's a guy with a strange hobby, but he is a real guy. Bizarre.
Bill Hobbs has posted some great speculation as to what Saddam Hussein might have done with his weapons of mass destruction.
Before dismissing it as too fantastic, it's worth pondering what those critics who accuse President Bush of a deceitful conspiracy expect you to believe (the point of Hobbs's concluding paragraph).
Sorry, but the post-objectivist in me couldn't help but be amused at the way Terence Jeffrey opens his latest column:
The first rule of logic, Aristotle affirmed, is the law of non-contradiction: A thing cannot be "A" and "not A" at the same time. It's either one or the other.Man oh man, didn't we objectivists all commit THAT one to heart at some point?
The rest of the column is okay.
A lot of the conservative blogging going on lately seems to be heading towards the opinion that it doesn't matter if the coalition forces find the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) alleged to be in Iraq. I'd like to chime in with an opposing view -- it matters a great deal. In fact, the security of the US and the political fortunes of President Bush hang in the balance.
If I may, I'll drop a couple of autobiographical notes that qualify me to discuss WMD with a little authority. For three years (from 1995-1998), I was stationed at what was the On-Site Inspection Agency (now part of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency). I worked on three main projects during my time there:
Unfortunately, I heard them at different times. For example one day President Bush says "we're going to war because of WMD." The next day Secretary Powell says it's ties to terrorism, and then it's Ms. Rice saying liberation. It's fine if it's all those things, but they need to say, every time, "These are the three reasons we're doing this..." That stays on message and explains everything to the American public quickly. We (the American public) are generally too busy working to do a massive research project every time there's a public policy debate. That's what we elect people to do.
So, what we handed the Left is a great stump speech theme, which gives the media a great hammer to bang on the Administration.
And now, the Administration is sitting back and responding to the drip, drip, drip of accusations. They're letting the Democrat presidential candidates and their friends in the media set the terms of the discussion.
They need to take the argument to them and point out how irresponsible this is. Something like:
There are loose weapons of mass destruction that could be used by terrorists against our troops abroad or us at home and the Democrats are trying to use this for their political gain. I hope the American understand that we are doing everything we can to find these weapons and I invite the Democrats to get off the sidelines and get into the game and help us.
There would be howls of indignation and the Dems wouldn't be happy. There'd be counterattacks. But the Administration would be doing the right thing. And the American people would support them.
The editorial staff at Seattle's goofy newspaper finds a heretofore undiscovered constitutional test for warmaking: the "clear and present danger" test!
Here I thought "clear and present danger" was a test related to First Amendment cases. It's good of the coffee sippers to try and set the rest of us straight (you know, those of us who have actually studied the constitution).
Kathy Kinsley also seems unconvinced by their arguments. We'll let her take it away, since she does such a fine job.
There's a fair amount of discussion on weblogs today of this donation tool set up by Kos for the Dems.
I'm not going to add substantively to that conversation since it's well along (although I hope the GOP comes up with something similar). However, there's a bit of (inadvertent?) truth in advertising here from Kos:
Update: I wrote this post just about 40 minutes ago, and it has already raised nearly $1,000 for our anti-Bush efforts. People, we are on the verge of something big here.One suspects that the Dems are going to be frustrated until they move from anti-Bush efforts to pro-Dem efforts. Yeah yeah, I understand the need to motivate donors to give (much as the GOP uses Senator Rodham), but still... the Dems seem to have become the reactionary party of late, rather than the progressives.
The fine folks at RealClearPolitics may be discovering that maintaining a political news/commentary site can be more of a hobby than a business enterprise, and are asking for contributions to help keep things going. Those of you who value what they're doing may wish to consider it.
Reductio ad Absurdum, on the other hand, remains entirely free for readers, and we don't even nag you with a tip jar. If you wish to buy any of the contributors a beer or other stiff drink, however, I don't think any of us would turn you down (I may try bribing some of our other contributors soon)!
Well, unless you're some kind of psycho. Then it will most likely take premium liquor to do the trick.
Reason has posted an article by Cathy Young.
Ms. Young takes on the issue of media bias, and in 11 paragraphs, comes to no real conclusions. Instead, she observes that the Left thinks the media is biased to the Right, the Right thinks the media is biased to the Left, she can't really decide, so "skepticism toward both sides may be the only healthy response."
Since we have a healthy respect for the time of our readers, we're happy to have condensed Ms. Young's article to a more appropriate length.
There's a nice post from Bill Hobbs on Iraq and WMD. Well worth a read. Money line:
By going to war to remove Saddam from power, the United States ended the Iraqi WMD threat.The U.S. also ended all of his family's other nastiness (from the mass graves to torturing of Olympic athletes). Let the President's critics defend that nastiness in the next election, if they want.
Meanwhile, Professor Schramm takes apart John W[atergate] Dean's recent column on the topic.
(Update) Dean Esmay's lengthy post on the topic is worth reading (and brought to my attention by Sean Hackbarth).
Our occasional contributor Courtney was hanging out with some lefties last night (we have a few in Texas, and I have to admit, they are kind of adorable, though not as adorable as Chia Pets), and has the details here.
Funny that they didn't seem to know much about current affairs. Anecdotal evidence that most liberals just haven't been mugged by reality. Yet. :)
Jay Nordlinger goes all compassionate-conservative in today's Impromptus column:
Just about the saddest, and most revealing, thing about that infamous Today Show interview — the one in which [Hillary Rodham] talked about the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy — was her use of the words "proven true." She said, "If all that [the Lewinsky stuff] were proven true, I think that would be a very serious offense. That is not going to be proven true." She, of course, did not say, "Of course it's untrue — why would my husband, the president of the United States, use a 21-year-old intern for sex in the Oval Office?" She couldn't say that. Instead, she got all legal about what would be "proven true."Of course, who am I to hold her (strictly) to her words during those days, given what her state of mind must have been?
Frankly, the saddest thing I ever heard HRC say took place in that infamous Talk magazine interview, with Lucinda Franks. Do you remember that she said, "I'm no Miss America"? She must have known full well that, among her husband's mistresses (or whatever), had been a real, live Miss America. That sort of made me feel sorry for her, believe it or not.
I stuck a link to this outstanding article on Leo Strauss on the front page, but I'm going to link to it again. Bret Stephens has done an extraordinary job, and has captured the essence of Strauss in a remarkably short column. Alas, it's the Jerusalem Post, so not as many Americans will see it as should.
Stephens even takes on that silly article by Jeet Heer that gave me such fits a few weeks ago:
I can hardly describe myself as a scholar of Strauss, nor do I consider myself a Straussian. But I've read enough of Strauss (and of Machiavelli) to know this is the sheerest nonsense. There is no such thing as "Straussianism": not as an ideology, much less as some kind of conspiracy. There was merely a man named Leo Strauss a Jew, a Zionist, a classicist, a man who engaged profoundly and forcefully with the greatest issues of his day who taught his students that "we cannot be philosophers, but we can love philosophy," chiefly by "listening to the conversation between the greatest philosophers."Most of the silly conspiracy-theory articles that have been written about Strauss could have been cleared up if the authors had simply taken the time to read him.For bringing me into that conversation, I'm in his debt. And having spent three decades in the grave, the least Strauss deserves is to be read before he is condemned.
I know we have some Canadian readers.
So here's your chance to sound off. I'm curious what you think about these two columns by Lawrence Solomon?
(For the record, I LOVED my one trip to Calgary, and think Alberta would make a splendid addition)
Have at it in the comments, folks.
I'm a bit of a grouch at work. Even though I work as a political risk analyst and have a keen interest in politics, I'm not all that interested in political debates around the coffee bar. Or co-workers trying to sell their kids' fundraising crap (put a sign on the bulletin board and go away already). Or various other activities that are ENTIRELY UNRELATED TO ONE'S JOB. And I sure don't want to see the place in my free time!
I suspect John Cole isn't as big a grouch as I am, but of course I agree with his reaction to a recent DoJ ban on using department premises/resources for a Gay-Pride Celebration:
Why the hell are government assets being used for ANY of these celebrations? And if they are going to let there be Asian-American Heritage month, I agree with DOJ Pride, let them have Gay Pride month. But here is a better suggestion- GET RID OF ALL OF THEM and get back to work.Exactly!
Not quite sure how I've missed his fine blog, Balloon Juice, but I'll be adding it to the blogroll momentarily.
Want to know who's reading what newspaper?
Jane Galt's got the details, and it's funny.
The mainstream media doesn't bother to report on these things (they're much too busy obsessing over the Peterson case, the NY Times implosion, and the Iraqi WMD), but Democrats have expanded their obstruction of Bush nominees beyond the judiciary:
Democrats in the Senate aren't just filibustering President Bush's judicial nominees. They're also blocking a number of his political nominations.The combination of national security ineptitude and Senate obstructionism worked SO WELL in the 2002 elections, I guess the Dems are already gearing up for 2004.Perhaps the biggest head-scratcher is the hold up on Office of Management and Budget deputy director-designate Clay Johnson.
Johnson, who has been friends with President Bush since college, was put up for nomination several months ago. At that time, Sen. Robert Byrd placed a hold on the nomination, citing Clay's allegedly testy relationship with organized labor.
"Byrd is a slave to the unions, and would do just about anything for them," says a Senate Republican leadership staffer.
Earlier this week Byrd surrendered his hold and for a few hours it appeared that Johnson might actually receive a fair hearing, perhaps even a vote in committee. But no sooner did Bobby Byrd relent than Sen. Patty Murray of Washington stepped in to place a hold on the nomination. The reason? Demands that the Department of Homeland Security pony up $58 million to help pay for port security in Murray's home state.
"It may be that Byrd had real issues with Johnson, because of the way he tried to outsource government work to private firms," says the Senate leadership staffer, referring to Johnson's previous job as White House presidential personnel director. But the Murray hold makes little sense beyond the notion, held by some White House staffers and Republicans on the Hill, that Murray is simply trying to hold a Bush associate for ransom.
"This appears to be a new Democrat approach to dealing with us," said a White House staffer who does some work on the Hill. "If they think they can hold every Bush nominee hostage and get what they want, then they're wrong about this president. It's been more than two years and they still don't know how this guy ticks."
Republicans in the Senate are still discussing ways to move the nominations that have lain fallow in committees, both judicial and political. In all, more than 70 nominations are being delayed by Democratic obstructionists.
They're just making it too easy.
Richard Bennett makes a smart point:
The world economy is heavily dependent on a few major oil producers; taking two or even one of them offline disrupts the whole system, leading to price increases and shortages in the poorer countries with limited hard currency. When India can't import oil because its current account is tapped out, electricity isn't generated in some areas and food and medicine aren't delivered to others. So people die.Remember that, kiddos, when someone mindlessly throws out the tired "no war for oil" slogan.That's a weapon of mass destruction, just as much as anthrax or mustard gas. So yes, we invaded Iraq at least in part to stabilize the oil supplies that undergird much of the world economy, and it's worth it.
The rest of Bennett's post is well worth reading.
We've been posting lots of articles on Iraq and WMD on the front page over the last few days, but relatively few comments here. There's no real need to, when folks like Dodd at Ipse Dixit are all over it.
Michael Young has an interesting column on Salam Pax, the Iraqi blogger whose identity spawned quite a bit of speculation during the Iraq war, some of it quite fantastic.
While some of the speculation about the blogger's identity now looks quite ridiculous, I would just note that there were legitimate reasons to be skeptical about his identity (without going all the way over to the X-Files-like theories that he was a U.S. plant, or worse).
Indeed, it wasn't so long ago that many bloggers and journallers (myself included) were taken in by the Kaycee Nicole hoax. That was well before most of the warblogger kiddos discovered web publishing, but it left many of us more skeptical and a lot less gullible. For better or worse.
We've debunked some of the silly notions that a secret cabal of (antidemocratic, East Coast) Straussians is running American foreign policy.
Steve Hayward, however, turns that around a bit, and offers a far more insightful observation: President Bush resembles a West Coast Straussian, not in training, but in the principles he seems to hold.
Hayward's post is here, and he probably ought to work it into an essay.
Except he surely doesn't have time, because we're anxiously awaiting the second volume of his Age Of Reagan.
Adam Clymer and the New York Times recently tried to rewrite history, contending that "most Democrats in Congress backed the war on Iraq...."
Fortunately, the invaluable Washington Times isn't letting Clymer get away with it:
The use-of-force resolution could not have been more explicit. "The president is authorized to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate," the resolution declared.The implosion of a once-great newspaper continues.The fact that Sens. Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, John Kerry — as well as another presidential aspirant, then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt — all supported the use-of-force resolution reinforced the misperception that "most Democrats" backed the war. And now the New York Times has endorsed that wrong view.
More than 60 percent of House Democrats opposed the use-of-force resolution (126-81). Altogether, 147 congressional Democrats opposed the resolution, and 110 supported it.
"Most Democrats in Congress" may well be extremely grateful to the New York Times for portraying them as supporters of the war. It's just too bad that the so-called paper of record could not have more accurately reported the position of "most Democrats in Congress" when it really mattered.
Hootinan has the lowdown on a new *ahem* music project from a couple of like-minded folks. Go check it out.
At some point, the Left may just have to acknowledge that President Bush isn't as dumb as they have portrayed him:
It was not surprising that President Bush would get tough with the Israelis and Palestinians and demand that both get their houses in order. What was surprising, because of an extraordinary mistake by Egyptian television, was that Mr. Bush would be caught unawares on camera today speaking about the Middle East with more bluntness, emotion and religious fervor than had been heard before.This President's personal skills in these sorts of settings have long been celebrated, so it's a little surprising that a reporter for the NYTimes is just catching on. This President's worst moments tend to be when you fire up the bright lights, stick him behind a desk, and ask him to read a speech (though he does so adequately). When he works a group -- especially when he is working on an agenda and off of conviction -- he is very effective.
Anyone who has regularly watched Mr. Bush in speeches and news conferences could tell in an instant that he had no idea that his remarks to five moderate Arab leaders were being broadcast for public consumption. He was colloquial, and referred to "Almighty God."
By late afternoon, Mr. Bush's aides acknowledged that the president had not known the cameras were rolling as he spoke. Subsequently, White House transcribers scrambled to record his comments from network tapes.
Speaking the direct language of a politician willing to take a dangerous gamble — as long as the others were, too — Mr. Bush made his comments just after he had spent 90 minutes in an unscheduled meeting with the five Arab leaders, with only interpreters present....
"By the time the lunch was over, they looked like they were old pals from a long time ago," said a high-ranking Saudi official. "The ability of the president to move from different personalities to different types of people — if it was never tested before, it was certainly tested today." The president, the Saudi official said, had shown his "seriousness" about the process.
So far, Mr. Bush has shown no signs of fatigue or impatience on this seven-day, six-nation journey, as he did on a trip to Europe a year ago. One difference is that this time Mr. Bush is the victor of the war in Iraq, more in control, with far more power to wield. He also appears to be having a good time: This afternoon he grinned as he drove Mr. Mubarak by golf cart from the Four Seasons Hotel to an outdoor news conference on a bluff overlooking the sea, where the president was then seen to kiss King Hamad on both cheeks.
Mr. Bush was also evidently comfortable enough to talk to the Arabs about his own religion. "I believe that, as I told the Crown Prince, the Almighty God has endowed each individual on the face of the earth with — that expects each person to be treated with dignity," Mr. Bush said in the remarks that he did not know were being broadcast. "This is a universal call. It's the call of all religions, that each person must be free and treated with respect."
Kudos to the Egyptian press for inadvertently capturing it in such a way that the Howell Raines newsroom had to report!
(Update) For a somewhat different take on the matter, check out the Zogby blog.
Daniel Goldberg elaborates on a study of medical malpractice and caps on torts (initially cited by Atrios):
Caps on damages are only needed if it is large jury verdicts which are responsible for the skyrocketing malpractice insurance rates. And as I've said before, the causality simply isn't there. As the causal relation is lacking, it's no surprise that, time and time again, study after study shows that putting caps on damages has only a marginal effect on malpractice insurance premiums, and has no effect whatsoever on controlling the trajectory of health care expenditures in general.
Kevin Drum, on the other hand, digs into the report a bit, and doesn't like what he finds:
On reading the report more carefully, I now note that all these figures are for median payouts, which wouldn't be affected at all by a few huge awards. I'm not sure what's going on, but this is so obviously the wrong statistic to use in this case that there must be some kind of axe to grind here. I'm now very skeptical that this report is, as it claims, "not driven by a political ideology or industry-driven self-interest."Go read all three posts and the report and decide for yourselves whether the report actually finds what it purports to find.
Although my goal is not to blog a dead horse (ha-ha), I've been troubled by something that Mr. Chris Hedges said at the Rockford College graduation a while ago. This is the now-infamous speech about how the United States is addicted to war and empire.
The full story is available here, and I'll just quote a little of it here:
Story published May 20, 2003
LOCAL NEWS: Rockford
Text of the Rockford College graduation speech by Chris Hedges
[snip]
We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them. For war in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics. Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides' history. Read how Athens' expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself.
[snip]
Now, plenty of people have quibbled with Mr. Hedges' views on the war in Iraq and how this ruined the graduation ceremony for the students and their parents. This is all well and good, Mr. Hedges' speech was probably not what they wanted to hear.
What I'd like to address is his characterization of the members of the US Armed Forces. You see, I had a unique opportunity for someone who wants to observe the character of those who enlist in the military during war time. I enlisted in the Navy and entered boot camp (Company 017, 3rd Division, Naval Recruit Training Center San Diego -- Company Commanders: Petty Officer 1st Class Joons and Chief Petty Officer Smith) on October 23, 1990, during the period leading up to the first Gulf War.
Straight off, Mr. Hedges, I entered the service with a college degree. I had a BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in May of 1990 (President Bush 41 spoke). Like most English majors, my job prospects weren't all peaches and cream, but I had a job and an open offer to go into restaurant management at a steakhouse in Austin. Instead, I had always wanted to serve our country and experience the Navy. I had other options to get health insurance (although neither I nor any other young person I've ever met has thought about that). Heck, I even turned down the GI bill. I'm an Ayn Rand devotee and didn't want someone else to support any future school I might attend.
Another fellow UT grad was there in my company. But he had just completed his masters in entemology and decided to put off his doctoral work. His stated reason was "I want to serve my country."
About a quarter or a fifth of my company was Filipino. At that time there was an agreement between the two countries that in exchange for our base at Subic Bay there was an allocation of enlistment spots available to citizens of the Philipines. Before anyone starts thinking about an imperialistic exploitation of Third World labor, you should know this: The program was so highly sought that they were more selective than US recruiters. At the time, every single Filipino recruit had to have a college degree. The guy in the rack above me, Sammy Bacsafra, had a degree in veterinary science. These guys all had other options but thought that the US was the land of opportunity.
The rest of the guys were a cross section of the South (mostly Texas). There were some guys for whom there was little else to do. But lots of the guys had some college, and mostly they partied a lot their freshman year and flunked out. I don't think there's a capitalist conspiracy that caused this, just a bunch of guys who made some bad choices and then tried to make up for it. (There but for the grace of God go I.)
I won't bore you with the details of the rest of my service, suffice it to say that I never met anyone who said they were in the Navy because they had "nowhere else to go."
So Mr. Hedges, you should know that your speech wasn't disagreeable to me because of its anti-war content. I'm anti-war, like everyone else I've ever met in my life. War, in my humble opinion, is a massive violation of the individual rights of an often huge number of people. What you don't seem to able to get your hands around is the fact that sometimes the option of peace is worse than the war option.
Also, much of your speech deals with criticizing mindless patriotism. That's a good point, and by making it you're agreeing with a great President who made that his farewell warning to the American people. You see, you and Ronald Reagan do agree on something.
http://www.presidentreagan.info/speeches/farewell.cfm
One last thought for you Mr. Hedges, those military folks whose motives for joining you denigrate, they're the ones who protect your right to free speech. What was your branch of service?
Recall a few days ago how the French were going to "embarrass" President Bush at the G8 summit, by surprising him with a typical Euroweenie agenda?
Instead, the President effectively controlled the agenda, focused the meetings on proliferation, posed for photos with an obviously disgruntled Jacques Chirac, and then took off early to work on his Middle East peace initiative.
Aren't the French always bragging about their sophisticated understanding of the world, and the need to educate the American cowboys on the same? So what explains what just happened? Surely an American cowboy didn't just show up the ever sophisticated Jacques Chirac while forcing him to smile while gritting his teeth?
Hmmm...
The Evil-Straussian-Conspiracy theorists might want to take a peek at Jonah Goldberg's post on NRO today, as he has been poking around in DoD transcripts and posted some relevant comments from Paul Wolfowitz on Strauss and Wohlstetter.
Maybe Shadia Drury will want to take a look as well. Since she's an "authority" on Straussian conspiracies, it couldn't hurt it she actually read some of the material, eh?
Here's a zinger from Nordlinger's column today:
Candidate Kerry also said, "When I am president [shudder], I am going to grow national service in America." Yes, you read that right. He ought to be disqualified on grounds of violence to the language alone.No doubt.
I cringed in 1992 when Bill Clinton spoke of "growing this economy" as one might grow a plant. The language has only gotten worse.
Sorry for the brief down time earlier. I upgraded the CMS that powers the site (Nucleus) to the latest version. Everything appears to be working properly at the moment, but now that I've actually put those words in print, everything will probably collapse in a heap. :) I have a few other goodies in the works, but I'll wait a while to make sure things are stable first.
Let me know if you experience any problems or funky behavior (aside from that of, say, me).
(06-03-03 Update) I've just implemented MT's trackback feature as a Nucleus plugin. If anyone uses a trackback-enabled blog, I would very much appreciate if you could send a ping to this entry using the trackback url below (sorry, for those of you who use bookmarklet tools and autodiscovery, I haven't enabled that in order to cut down on overhead).
One of the lingering "to-do" items from the last redesign was to add a blogroll to the weblog portion of this site. Now it's added. If you'll look to the bottom right, you'll see a list of political blogs that are recommended.
Some link to this site (thanks!), some do not. But they're all worth a visit.
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
