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Saturday, May 17, 2008
Re: Next stop, Belmont
Posted by on 5.17.08 @ 8:43PM
Klein, you talk about the Preakness with the unmistakable zeal of a man familiar with parimutuel wagering. So ... how much did you win on Big Brown?
Bob Novak: Be like him!
Posted by on 5.17.08 @ 8:34PM
"It was the kind of fight for the Republican nomination I had awaited for more than sixteen years, not out of ideological fervor but from a reporter's lust for a bloody political battle."
-- Robert D. Novak, The Prince of Darkness, p. 278
I dropped by the Arlington office of The American Spectator on Thursday just to say hello, and Wlady Pleszczynski gave me a spare copy of the Novak book he happened to have lying around.
Novak's memoir is one man's political history of the past 40 years, but it's also an excellent primer on how journalism works in Washington. The label "investigative journalism" is sometimes applied to the kind of work Novak does, creating the notion of skullduggery, the secret back-alley rendevous and so forth. It's actually more a matter of cultivating acquaintances with sources, such as Novak's friendship with Richard Perle, which led to Novak obtaining the "Sonnenfeldt memo" in 1976, which in turn helped revive Ronald Reagan's primary challenge to President Gerald Ford.
Novak's confession of a reporter's natural appetite for political conflict is spot-on. Which is why it's so baffling that so many journalists are in such a hurry for Hillary Clinton to quit. One would expect most reporters to be rooting for her to take her fight all the way to the convention. Guess they're just not Old School.
Next Stop, Belmont
Posted by on 5.17.08 @ 8:15PM
Every few years it seems as though there is another horse with a chance to pull off the elusive triple crown, only to run out of gas on the long Belmont track. But after watching on TV as Big Brown put on a clinic at Preakness this afternoon, I really think this year could be different, and on June 7, we could be seeing the first triple crown winner in 30 years. In case you missed it, I've posted the video below. Even if you aren't into horses, it's worth watching just to see what a perfectly run race looks like. Early in the race, Big Brown is at the inside position, along the rail, but about midway through, the jockey pulled the horse back a bit so that he could safely move to the outside. He just sat there, biding his time, until just after the final turn, after which the jockey let Big Brown go, and the horse just burst to the front of the field with explosive speed, coasting to a five length victory as if it were a walk in the park. He should have plenty left over for Belmont in three weeks. This really seems like a horse that is in a league of its own relative to the rest of the field. Horseracing is even stranger than politics in terms of all sorts of freakish possibilities, but based on everything we know now, this horse seems poised to make it a triple.
Ted Kennedy Didn't Have Stroke
Posted by on 5.17.08 @ 5:45PM
That's what the latest reports say about his seizure from earlier today. Senator Kennedy is said to be conscious, talking, and resting comfortably.
Re: Gay Marriage, Cont'd
Posted by on 5.17.08 @ 5:25PM
John, you're right that what I'm proposing wouldn't resolve controversies over childrearing or whether same-sex couples should receive legal recognition identical to similarly situated heterosexual couples. If those questions could be resolved, there wouldn't even be a debate over same-sex marriage. But it would, I think, do a better job of arriving at the compromise that many civil union supporters mistakenly think their preferred policy reaches: Making tangible benefits available to gays (and others) without devaluing marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Pensions, hospital visitation, the ability to easily share property and pool economic resources, bereavement -- the desire for these and other benefits come up at least as often in these debates as issues involving children.
There are maybe 270,000 children in the United States who are being raised at least partly by same-sex couples, including some 65,000 who have been adopted and 14,000 in foster care. That sounds like a big number, but in the context of all Americans who are under 18 it is really not. So I'm not sure that gays are mainly, and certainly not exclusively, seeking the childrearing benefits of marriage. And I'm also not sure that this is a common enough practice that gay parenting studies, even when they are not biased or methodologically flawed (as Saletan concedes they often are), can predict confidently what the impact would be were it to become more widespread. Researchers didn't always think it was "incontrovertible" that two parents were better than one or that divorce would have lasting impact on children.
Consequently, I'm skeptical that rewriting the basic assumptions of marriage to include artificial insemination and the involvement of third parties in conceiving children will bolster the connection between marriage and parenthood even if most gay people who currently raise children do a perfectly fine job. Some of the benefits of having two parents come from having a mother and a father, not just by being raised by the right number of people. Deleting such concepts as "father," "mother," "husband," and "wife" from our legal vocabularies, as was attempted in Ontario and to a lesser extent Massachusetts, is likely to be harmful even if most of the objections to gay parenting turn out to be misguided. Because in the end, this is more a debate over the meaning of marriage than one over homosexuality.
Judges in California and Massachusetts may think all of these policy questions have been conclusively resolved, but I'm not sure the rest of the country feels the same way. In the meantime, we can try to offer more people benefits they need while we work out the marriage debate. For another conservative argument in favor of decoupling benefits from the definition of marriage, see this Ramesh Ponnuru article from a couple years ago.
Anarchy in the USA
Posted by on 5.17.08 @ 3:23PM
The folks at the Free Liberal are holding a debate tomorrow afternoon in a bar -- and a good bar at that. Starting at four at Galaxy Hut Jan "the Libertarian Borat" Helfeld will face off against Michael "stole Matt Welch's funktacular glasses" Owen. The question for debate is "Who cares about anarchy when you can have limited government?" More details here.
Missing the Point
Posted by on 5.17.08 @ 1:19PM
- FDR never talked to Hitler, except when he did.The link goes to one of Roosevelt's prewar communiques. As Tom Maguire pointed out last week, this is completely irrelevant to the debate at hand:
RETURN TO SENDER: No, letters don't count (and I already had pointed out the Roosevelt-Hitler letter) - letters do not provide the sort of propaganda photo-op being criticized. Besides, Bush has sent a letter to Kim Jong Il, but where is the photo of the two of them shaking hands?
Hillary slogs on in Oregon
Posted by on 5.17.08 @ 12:14AM
Friday, Hillary Clinton held a conference call with her blog supporters, and slammed Barack Obama for ducking a TV debate in Oregon:
"I'm calling you from Oregon … I'll end up tonight doing a broadcast town hall. Both Senator Obama and I were invited. He declined. He refuses to debate me anymore. He refuses to really stand side-by-side with me and have to talk about the issues, answer tough questions. I think that it's been a real disservice to the people here in Oregon and the other states where he has not been willing to debate. So when the TV station offered us both 30 minutes, I accepted, and when he refused, they offered me the whole hour. So I'll be doing a town hall with undecided voters and answering their questions, as I have throughout this campaign.
It has been a month since Obama and Hillary debated in Philadelphia, generally viewed as debacle for Obama. Since then, Hillary's won three states (Pennsylvania, Indiana and West Virginia) to Obama's one (North Carolina). Anyone familiar with campaign tactics knows that accusing one's opponent of being afraid to debate can be effective.
Polls show Obama leading by 15 points in Oregon, but to allow Hillary a full hour of free, uninterrupted and unanswered TV time -- thereby also giving her the chance to deploy the "ducking debate" accusation against him -- is still dangerous.
(Pro-Hillary blogger Taylor Marsh has full audio of the conference call.)
Friday, May 16, 2008
The 'Bush-McCain' meme
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 9:15PM
Ben Smith of the Politico quotes Obama spokesman Bill Burton, reacting to John McCain's NRA speech:
What's reckless is continuing the Bush-McCain foreign policy that has cost us thousands of lives and a trillion dollars in Iraq, strengthened Iran, enabled Hamas to take Gaza, took our eye off al Qaeda, failed to capture Osama bin Laden, failed to finish the job in Afghanistan, and left us less safe and less respected in the world.Even though President Bush won't be on the ballot, Democrats want to make November a plebiscite on the Bush administration. Not only will you hear Obama's campaign repeatedly use the phrase "Bush-McCain," but other Republican candidates can expect to find themselves portrayed as joined at the hip to a president whose popularity continues to sink ever lower.
Re: Gay Marriage, Cont'd
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 7:56PM
Jim: The trouble with "the decoupling of benefits associated with marriage from marriage itself except where those benefits are fundamental to the purpose of marriage (e.g., related to children and reproduction)" is that the child-rearing benefits of marriage are exactly what a lot of gay couples want -- that is, they want to be parents (via adoption, artificial insemination, etc.), and they want to be treated as such. The mothers of married homosexuals -- who are unlikely to be any less inclined than the mothers of married heterosexuals to ask "When am I going to be a grandmother?" -- are likely to be a rather powerful force in preserving the traditional link between marriage and child-rearing.
The evidence that gay parenthood is harmful to children is rather weak -- and it's incontrovertibly better for a child's well-being to have two parents than it is to have one. In the many jurisdictions where its legal for gays to adopt but not legal for them to marry, the link between marriage and child-rearing really is being stepped on. The social norm that makes marriage a prerequisite for parenthood urgently needs bolstering, and gay marriage may well be a boon on that front.
None of this should be taken as a defense of the California Supreme Court's ruling; I'm still wading through the decision and its precedents, but so far I'm rather unimpressed.
Huck Chucks Up
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 5:35PM
How, in the Lord's name, can ANYbody, much less an experienced
politician, say something as incredibly crass and stupid as
Mike Huckabee said today about Barack Obama?
I rest my case that Mike Huckabee is not a man Republicans or
conservatives should want to have ANYthing to do with.
If McCain picks him for Veep -- which is much less likely now -- I
repate that every good conservative ought to actively oppose the
ticket.
Meanwhile, and more important, our prayers go out to Sen. Obama,
because this is the sort of thing that gets haters riled up. Nobody
deserves to have "jokes" such as these told about him. This is
serious stuff, and Huck owes (and will probably give) a huge
apology to the senator from Illinois.
Graham Dog Don't Hunt
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 4:32PM
In light of my column yesterday on Lindsey Graham, a reader wrote in to tell me of a whole book he wrote on the same topic. It's called This Dog Don't Hunt. Wow. And I thought I was tough on the senator!
Bob Barr on California Gay Marriage Decision
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 2:50PM
Marc Ambinder says the Libertarian presidential candidate and former Republican congressman supports it. Here is the quote:
Regardless of whether one supports or opposes same sex marriage, the decision to recognize such unions or not ought to be a power each state exercises on its own, rather than imposition of a one-size-fits-all mandate by the federal government (as would be required by a Federal Marriage Amendment which has been previously proposed and considered by the Congress). The decision today by the Supreme Court of California properly reflects this fundamental principle of federalism on which our nation was founded.Indeed, the primary reason for which I authored the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 was to ensure that each state remained free to determine for its citizens the basis on which marriage would be recognized within its borders, and not be forced to adopt a definition of marriage contrary to its views by another state. The decision in California is an illustration of how this principle of states' powers should work.
It's true that the Defense of Marriage Act, even if constitutionalized or protected from judicial review by jurisdiction-stripping legislation, is compatible with same-sex marriage in California or Massachusetts. It's also true that it would prevent these two states from imposing their redefinition of marriage on other states. But the weakness of DOMA from a social conservative perspective, which I acknowledge even though I support this approach, is that it does nothing to prevent the judicial imposition of same-sex marriage by state courts.
The elected legislatures in California and Massachusetts did not create same-sex marriage. The voters in those states did not approve same-sex marriage. In fact, in California, they voted for the opposite. In Massachusetts, the voters have repeatedly been denied the opportunity to weigh in on this subject. In both states, the courts, by narrow 4 to 3 decisions, altered a fundamental social institution. Fred Thompson once suggested a constitutional amendment specifically preventing the judicial imposition of same-sex marriage at all levels of government, while leaving the door open to a legislature allowing it. I'm not sure that such a policy is workable or that an amendment like that could be passed, but I do understand the rationale behind it. Federalism is good, but judge-made law is not necessarily federalism.
McCain and Hamas
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 2:42PM
In today's Washington Post, James Rubin writes that Johm McCain is a hypoctite on Hamas, because he said after their election, "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another..." A video of the comments made the rounds on liberal blogs, but it struck me as odd, because everytime I have seen McCain quoted on the subject of Hamas, it has been to say that the U.S. shouldn't talk to them unless they changed their ways. Also, his statement would be inconsistent with his opposition to dealing with Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism. Soon enough, the McCain campaign fired back with a video taken the same day, with McCain in the same garb, only this time making it clear that dealing with Hamas would not be unconditional. He said, "hopefully, that Hamas now that they are going to govern, will be motivated to renounce this commitment to the extinction of the state of Israel. Then we can do business again, we can resume aid, we can resume the peace process. It's very, very important though that they renounce this commitment."
The two clips are below. You can decide for yourself.
The Trouble With Big Government Conservatism
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 12:27PM
Shortly before debating our publisher Al Regnery on Laura Ingraham's show yesterday, David Frum posted the following:
Here's the problem: All the data I've seen suggests that Republicans would be in even more trouble today if they had followed a more principled line. That's exactly why they strayed from principle in the first place! The bloated prescription drug benefit is popular! The expensive bits of No Child Left Behind? Popular! School choice and social security reform? Unpopular! Conservative social stances on Terri Schiavo, stem-cell research, etc.? Way unpopular!
Let's leave aside for a minute that he doesn't mention Iraq, which has done far more damage to Republicans than Social Security reform or even Terri Schiavo. Sometimes conservatives can afford to ignore the polls, I guess. Frum is right about what the polls show on the issues he does mention and why the Republicans have so frequently taken unprincipled positions, but I'm afraid that's not enough. What did the Medicare prescription drug benefit or No Child Left Behind really buy us? At most, arguably, Bush's second term. But the Democrats have already regained their traditional advantages on these issues. Republicans are already fumbling around looking for new issues with which to win elections. And the damage, both to the party and the country, of having enacted the prescription drug benefit while failing to reform Social Security has been done.
Big government conservatism has so far been like Rockefeller Republicanism: Helpful to individual politicians who espouse it in the right political conditions, unhelpful to the Republican Party as a whole. Whatever gains Bush made among seniors and parents worried about public schools in 2004, the GOP as a whole lost its brand as a fiscally responsible party while entering a bidding war with the Democrats that it cannot win. The Republicans end up getting blamed for the red ink without getting any credit for the programs they've built or expanded.
Frum is right about the need to identify conservative policies that will deal with the things the voters actually care about, like rising health care costs, middle-class income stagnation, and high energy prices. Those are different problems than the ones Ronald Reagan was elected to solve. But if conservatives do not find ways to deal with these issues on conservative terms rather than liberal terms, they will lose even if the occasional Bush or McCain wins.
Gay Marriage, Cont'd
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 12:06PM
Jim Manzi has a longish post up about the conservative reaction to gay marriage in which he makes some important points. When this issue was first being debated in the late 1970s, support for same-sex marriage was a fringe position. Before that, the concept of same-sex marriage was too absurd to contemplate. Even by the time the issue went national in 1996, polls showed more than two-thirds of the American were opposed. The Defense of Marriage Act sailed through both houses of Congress by something like 5-to-1 margins and was signed into law by Bill Clinton, the most pro-gay-rights president in history.
A majority of Americans still oppose same-sex marriage. Ballot initiatives opposing such a redefinition of marriage have passed almost everywhere they have been put on the ballot and probably would have passed in Arizona too if the language had been less broad. Even liberal states have passed such initiatives, usually by comfortable if not landslide margins. And yet support for same-sex marriage is not a fringe position anymore -- instead, it is a position held by upwards of 45 percent of the American people. This includes large majorities of young voters. In many polls, fewer people support the federal marriage amendment than support gay marriage, which may explain why it hasn't done as well in Congress as the Defense of Marriage Act. Within a minimum of three election cycles, the Democratic presidential nominee will support full gay marriage.
Many polls show a majority of Americans supporting civil unions, including a critical mass of people who oppose same-sex marriage. As I argue on the main site today, I don't think civil unions are a workable compromise. It's a middle ground that abandons the logic of traditional marriage while not satisfying supporters of same-sex marriage. Ultimately, as we've seen in California, it just leads inexorably to gay marriage. But the status quo of a decade ago doesn't seem sustainable anymore either.
In my view, conservatives ought to support the decoupling of benefits associated with marriage from marriage itself except where those benefits are fundamental to the purpose of marriage (e.g., related to children and reproduction). That will give people in untraditional couples most of the benefits they desire without extending official recognition to their relationships in a way that undermines traditional marriage. Second, we should seek remove the Defense of Marriage Act from federal judicial review while accepting that some states might begin to move toward same-sex marriage or something like it. This will allow true cultural federalism on the issue: Massachusetts and California won't be prevented from doing what they want to do but they won't be allowed to change marriage in Alabama or Ohio. All branches of the federal government will stay out of the issue beyond an official recognition of traditional marriage.
Is such a policy ideal? No. But it's probably the best we can hope for at this point. And even it isn't a slam dunk politically.
Obama Accepts Guilt, With Fellow Dems' Help
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 10:42AM
Upon a full night's reflection, I still can't shake the thought that the over-the-top reaction of Obama and his fellow Democratic officeholders to the president's speech yesterday was a perfect example of how age-old expressions become age-old: because they capture essential truths so well. In this case, the expressions I am thinking of are: Look, it is absolutely clear that President Bush never mentioned Obama's name. The fact that Obama and his "Praise be to Obama" chorus (Biden, Pelois, etc.) reacted so strongly shows that they KNOW that the description of "appeaser" applies to him anyway, and that he is quite vulnerable on this count. Without their heated response, the general public would not have directly associated Obama with Bush's remarks -- but now most voters paying attention will have an indelible impression in their minds that Obama = Appeaser. As well they should. Obama's calls for direct talks with Ahmadinejad are spectacularly irresponsible.
Methinks thou dost protest too much
and
If the shoe fits, wear it.
And, to John McCain's credit, McCain called him out on the subject yesterday. I listened to the bloggers' call, and McCain's tone and strength -- i.e. strong words, pointed words, but well modulated voice, serious and sober rather than nasty and cheap-shotty -- on the subject were both quite impressive. As quoted accuratedly by Phil, McCain said:
"My question ... to Senator Obama is, what do you want to talk about with him? President Ahmadinejad's statement that
And: "It's the highest degree of naivete and inexperience that would indicate that anyone would want to sit down in face to face talks with the Iranians, including their president, who just a few days ago pronounced Israel a 'stinking corpse'."
McCain also noted, quite accurately, that (and here my quotes are probably exact, but may have a word or two off because he was talking faster than I could type: "I feel in the strongest terms that if you sat down across the table from these state sponsors or terrorism, you would give them enhanced prestige." That's exactly the point: Giving them prestige they do not deserve only strengthens them in their murderous grip on power.
For a guy who really ticks me off, McCain can sure show some excellent leadership at times! As for Obama..... well, Joe Biden's expletive about Bush's remarks were aimed at the wrong man. it is Obama's position that is bull****.
Re: Questions For John McCain
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 10:01AM
Conor, rereading the post now, I think the problem is more with how I paraphrased McCain in haste to report on the conference call. McCain wasn't necessarily saying that Iran had to meet all of those conditions in advance in order to trigger talks, but at least show a willingness to do so. McCain noted that low level talks already take place, and Iranians "haven't shown the slightest inclination" to change their ways. So why should we escalate all the way to talks at the presidential level?
I do think there could be a lot of harm caused by negotiating with Iran, because talking to them gives them a certain legitimacy that they aren't worthy of. Diplomatic relations with the U.S., after 29 years in the wilderness, itself is a coveted reward. In Iran, you also have a restive young population that could potentially rise up against the ruling regime. But were the U.S. President to meet with the Iranian leadership, they could use images of the meeting to send the message that the regime is stronger than ever, and thus discourage such dissident movements. Especially in the age of terrorism, it's important to take a moral stand and send a signal to the world that any regime that behaves as Iran does will be ostracized. So, I think there clearly is harm to come from meeting with Iran. If there were the slightest reason to believe that such negotiations might be successful, than perhaps one could argue for conducting talks. But when you and I both know that there's no realistic reason to believe that anything positive will come from such discussions, I don't see why the U.S. should risk what I outlined above.
For a further discussion of why it's a bad idea to talk to such regimes, I refer you to an article I wrote in 2006, in which I used failed negotiations with North Korea in the 1990s as my case study. Yes, just because we talk to another nation, it doesn't mean we have to make concessions to it, but we often do.
But really, this is all backwards. Since the status quo for nearly 30 years has been not having diplomatic relations with Iran, those who want to open up talks at the presidential level need to make a strong, positive, case for doing so. Thus far, the case for meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come down to: 1) Why not? 2) It'll make us feel warm and fuzzy and 3) Bush isn't doing it, so it must be a good idea.
That isn't enough.
Questions for John McCain
Posted by on 5.16.08 @ 1:11AM
John McCain knows a lot more about diplomacy than I do, which isn't tough since I don't know anything. But ignorant voters like me must muddle through the issue as best we can. So I ask, earnestly, that someone explain to me why Senator McCain's criticism of Barack Obama makes sense.
He asked rhetorically, "My
question ... to Senator Obama is, what do you want to talk about with
him? President Ahmadinejad's statement that
Geez, isn't it obvious? Obama wants to talk about Iran's indefensible attitude toward Israel, its nuclear program and its meddling in Iraq! Am I missing something here?
McCain said he would only support talks with Iran if the Persian nation
retracted its rhetoric about wiping Israel off the map, abandoned its
nuclear weapons program, stopped exporting weapons, and stopped
sponsoring terrorism.
Again, maybe I'm missing something, but if all those things happened wouldn't any need to talk to Iran be obviated? It just seems so weird to say, "We're not going to negotiate unless you concede everything we'd hope to gain in negotiations."
I actually doubt that sitting down with the leader of Iran will improve our relationship, but I can't say that if John McCain or Barack Obama decided to give it a try I'd lose much sleep over it -- seems unlikely that it would make the Iranians hate Israel more, or seek a nuclear weapon more aggressively, or meddle in Iraq even more.
"I feel in the strongest terms that if you sat down across the table from these state sponsors of terrorist organizations, you would give them prestige enhancement and a bigger influence in the region, which I think would directly counter to America's national security interests," McCain said.
I wish Sen. McCain would articulate the process by which this would happen. I'm prepared to be convinced that "across the table" meetings are a bad idea. But I don't understand the cause and effect relationship he asserts. Are there Middle Eastern states that aren't allied with us who would look upon Iran more favorably were we to meet with them? Which states? In what ways would Iran's influence therefore be greater? How would this influence threaten our security.
If I don't understand these things I'm sure other voters don't either. Please, Senator McCain, help us better understand your position.Your arguments aren't nearly as obvious as you seem to think they are.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
McCain Says Obama Displays 'Naivete' On Iran
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 3:23PM
John McCain, in a just completed call with bloggers, blasted Barack Obama's commitment to meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, chalking it up to "inexperience."
Asked to weigh in on the debate ignited by President Bush's anti-appeasement remarks in Israel today, and to comment on Obama's views on talks with Iran, McCain first cautioned that, "President Bush said he wasn't talking about Senator Obama, and I certainly take the president at his word."
But then McCain proceeded to rip into Obama's proposed approach to Iran.
"It's the highest degree of naivete and inexperience that would indicate that anyone would want to sit down in face to face talks with the Iranians, including their president, who just a few days ago pronounced Israel a 'stinking corpse,'" McCain said.
He asked rhetorically, "My question ... to Senator Obama is, what do you want to talk about with him? President Ahmadinejad's statement that
McCain said he would only support talks with Iran if the Persian nation retracted its rhetoric about wiping Israel off the map, abandoned its nuclear weapons program, stopped exporting weapons, and stopped sponsoring terrorism.
It would be quite easy to signal to America that it intends to do these things. McCain noted that the U.S. ambasador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, has contact in Baghdad with the Iranian ambasador, and the Iranians, "haven't shown the slightest inclination" to change their ways.
"I feel in the strongest terms that if you sat down across the table from these state sponsors of terrorist organizations, you would give them prestige enhancement and a bigger influence in the region, which I think would directly counter to America's national security interests," McCain said.
In last year's CNN YouTube debate, Obama pledged to meet, without preconditions, within the first year of his administration, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. Video here.
Dems vs. Bush's Israel Speech
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 2:02PM
In his strong speech to Israel's Knesset, President Bush argued against appeasing terrorists. In what should be telling enough, Barack Obama automatically assumed the president was talking about him. Of course, given that he wants to meet with the leading terror sponsor Iran and his adviser until recently Robert Malley holds regular meetings with Hamas, perhaps Obama hath reason to protest so much.
But I thought the most ironic criticism of the speech came from Nancy Pelosi, who called it "beneath the dignity of the office" for President Bush to visit our staunch ally and make the case against appeasement. This is the same Pelosi, you may recall, who visited the terror state of Syria amid State Department protest and told President Bashar Assad that Israel was ready for peace talks with its longtime enemy, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied saying anything of the sort.
Dann Is Done
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 1:29PM
I meant to post this last night, but Marc Dann has resigned as Ohio attorney general. Long before the Sept. 24 deadline, that means whomever Gov. Ted Strickland picks as a temporary replacement will have to stand for election in November. The Democrats obviously decided getting rid of Dann's corruption as an issue was worth this political risk -- the attorney general doesn't have a seat on the apportionment board, so even if Republicans win the office back there is no risk there -- and may even get credit for their handling of the scandal. Now a Spitzer wannabe has fallen.
81-15
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 1:25PM
That's the veto proof margin in the U.S. Senate for the near $300 billion farm bill.
45 Years of Robert Novak
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 12:50PM
Novak celebrates having the longest-running syndicated column.
Re: McCain and 2013
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 12:12PM
I agree that the ad runs the risk of overpromising. Obama already likes to set lofty goals with little attention to how he plans accomplish them. I also remember President Bush's sweeping plans for his second term back in the heady days when he still had "political capital." These plans are now almost entirely on the cutting room floor.
Note, however, the slight change in emphasis on Iraq: McCain doesn't alter his policy goals in Iraq, he doesn't give us any strong reason to believe he will be able to deliver on what he is promising, and his past Iraq predictions haven't always panned out. But McCain is emphasizing the return home of most of our troops as an explicit near-term goal. The perception that McCain would stay in Iraq for 100 years is a losing message when pitted against a candidate who is even semi-credibly promising withdrawal. But a Nixonian peace-with-honor gradual drawdown without disavowing the war aims is a stronger position politically. The Democrats can promise to withdraw faster than McCain, but George McGovern can tell you that this approach does not always work. The American people want to get out of Iraq and win the war. Whether or not this is possible, they might prefer a candidate who promises both to a candidate who promises one or the other.
Come Get Ya Warm Toasty Organs!
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 10:41AM
Intelligence Squared U.S., the Oxford style, three-on-three debate series sponsored by The Rosenkranz Foundation, announced the results of the final debate of its Spring 2008 season on the motion, "We should legalize the market for human organs." A sold out audience at Asia Society and Museum, New York City voted 60% for the motion and 31% against at the conclusion of the debate. 9% were undecided.
Sweet… Sickly Sweet
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 10:35AM
The thing about cotton candy is that it looks nice and
fluffy – It's pink! It's poofy! – but
as soon as you actually take a bite, unless you're a four-year-old with a
serious sugar-tooth, you realize how awful it actually is.
That's kind of how the U.S. sugar program works, too, except instead of sugar-addled kids, the folks who like it are sugar-growing farmers who benefit from the program. The problems with federal sugar subsidies are well-documented, but year after year, the sugar lobby keeps the pressure on and taxpayer money flowing. And lo and behold, it appears that's exactly what's happened, once again, with the new farm bill. Seems the bill's authors weren't content merely to stuff it full of pork; they also decided they needed to add to the subsidies and favors our sugar program already gives to Big Sugar. Rep. Paul Ryan's got the gory details.
Who Are You Calling Sweetie?
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 10:30AM
This strikes me as as a pretty demeaning way for an enlightened liberal like Obama to address a female reporter. If I talked to any woman this way, I'd probably get hit over the head with a brick.
McCain and 2013
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 10:15AM
This morning, John McCain gives a speech and launches an ad touting what the world would look like after his first term in office. Some commentators have made the argument that given his age, McCain should pledge to only run for a single term, and set very specific goals for his time in office. To me, this seems like an effort to do so implicitly, while avoiding looking like a lame duck by doing so explicitly. I think what he runs the risk of, though, is making so many ambitious promises that he undercuts his image as a straight talker, and makes it harder to portray Barack Obama as a naive dreamer who resides in Fantasyland. I thought this was especially true in the ad, which you can view below. It comes across like he's running a chicken in every pot campaign.
Here is some of what he envisions:
--"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension."
--"The threat from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced but not eliminated."
--"The United States and its allies have made great progress in advancing nuclear security."
--"The size of the Army and Marine Corps has been significantly increased, and are now better equipped and trained to defend us."
--"After exercising my veto several times in my first year in office, Congress has not sent me an appropriations bill containing earmarks for the last three years. "
He also sees a League of Democracies to supplant the UN, which acts to end the genocide in Darfur, free mark health care reform, tax code simplification, and so on. You get the idea.
Here's the accompanying ad:
Re: Credit Where It's Due
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 9:40AM
This is the exact type of issue that John McCain needs to be pounding the table on. There is no greater example of the "old kind of politics" than this $300 billion dollar special interest boondoggle that distorts markets and amounts to welfare for the rich. Barack Obama is for it, and McCain is against it. He would be an agent of change on farm subsidies, and make conservatives swoon in the process. What better way to expose the Obama myth than to raise hell over this disgraceful bill that benefits a tiny fraction of voters?
Credit Where It's Due
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 8:32AM
Jacob Sullum notes John McCain's sensible opposition to the farm bill.
Football Victors Vs. Cyclone Victims
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 8:31AM
Radar gets in a pretty good dig at Dr. No, Ron Paul.
More Burma
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 8:30AM
Ross Douthat thinks the inability of entitites like the UN to deal effectively with humanitarian crisises like Burma will eventually make liberal internationalists abandon their insistence on multilateralism. That's probably true, at least in the next Democratic administration.
Re: Invade Burma?
Posted by on 5.15.08 @ 1:04AM
Is even the discussion of an expansion of the welfare state out of bounds for the Free to Choose or Road to Serfodom crowds? Yes, of course there are times when military action is necessary. And of course there are times when the use of government power is necessary domestically. But just as we should ask "To what end?" when liberals request big government at home, we should do so when humanitarian Gersonite conservatives do so abroad. Why should this project be undertaken above all others? What might the unintended consequences be? What does this have to do with the defense of the United States? And just as defenders of higher taxes ought to pay their own voluntary surtax, the simple moral decision-makers should sometimes make their own decisions instead of sending other people to shoot and be shot at for their humanitarian instincts. Americans are understandably tired of our current foreign policy adventures. At the very least, those who want to expand the scope of our gunboat generosity ought to be less tiresome.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Re: Invade Burma
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 10:57PM
Hey, wait a minute, John! Just because I reported on "Losers for Peace" doesn't automatically make me a peacenik. And merely quoting Bill Kauffman's arguments shouldn't be interpreted as my belated endorsement of the American First Committee.
But this "humanitarian" invasion idea is one of the looniest things I've ever heard of -- hostile humanitarianism? armed compassion? militant charity? This is the same "meals on wheels" approach to the military that conservatives mocked when the Clinton administration did it. A foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but Emerson's aphorism doesn't justify veering wildly all over the place.
"Humanitarian intervention" either is or is not liberal nonsense. If it is nonsense, then its opponents are not to be confused with pacifists.
Re: Invade Burma?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 9:00PM
You might want to read a bit more carefully, Stacy. Kaplan didn't call a Burma invasion a simple moral decision -- he wrote "It seems like a simple moral decision," and then explained why it shouldn't be taken lightly.
Really, is even discussing the possibility of a military action out of bounds to the Losers for Peace crowd? (By the way, the suggestion that there was nothing remotely pro-Nazi about the America First Committee is preposterous. It was a diverse group, but it absolutely did include some hardcore anti-Semites and Hitler apologists.)
Re: Invade Burma?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 8:06PM
Well, why the heck not? Lots of oil and natural gas in Burma -- 1.5 billion barrels of petroleum, they say. Forget about humanitarian compassion. Just invade the place and take that oil! I mean, this "war for oil" thing worked out so well in Iraq, right?
The Pentagon should deploy Robert D. Kaplan to Burma immediately. If necessary, we should send every think-tank wonk in Washington -- pack 'em into C-130s and airdrop them on Burma. We ought to be willing to fight to the last "senior analyst" over this Burma thing, and I look forward to watching the Beltway policy establishment flock to the Marine Corps recruiting stations to volunteer for this "simple moral decision," as Kaplan calls it.
UPDATE: National Review's Rich Lowry frames the question slightly differently: "A Humanitarian Invasion of Burma?" Yes, enthusiastically so. By all means, let the humanitarians invade Burma. The do-gooders, the 501(c) compassion crowd, the State Department bureaucrats and NGO types -- Sally Struthers! Bono! Bob Geldoff! -- we'll send them in as the second wave of the invasion, immediately after we airdrop all those policy wonks into Burma.
Ditto, Rush
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 7:23PM
Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday's Mississippi congressional defeat:
The whole thing is worth reading.Ladies and gentlemen, go ahead and attack me. Don't attack the moderates in the party; don't attack the Republican establishment; don't attack the country club types who are in the process of destroying the Republican Party. No, no, no, no, go right ahead and attack me. . . .
[T]he Republican Party . . . has sold out to the pseudoconservatives of the New York Times and the DC-New York media establishment who think that Rockefeller Republicanism and country club Republicanism is the future of the party. . . .
They see the loss of these three seats as evidence that their Big Government conservatism is the only way to win elections, that if the Republicans had run somebody like McCain, if the Republicans' candidate down there had been pro-global warming as the Democrats wanted, and for a compassionate, active government that grows larger, then they would have won. That is the way they're going to take this. That's the way they're going to spin it at the RNC on down. They see the destruction and the mayhem they've unleashed in the Republican Party as justification for more of the same. They blame conservatism where conservatism has been abandoned.
Pro-Lifers for NARAL
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 6:43PM
I eagerly await Doug Kmiec's no doubt forthcoming essay on why supporting the same candidate as NARAL Pro-Choice America is the best way for pro-lifers to reduce abortions.
Edwards to Endorse Obama?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 5:35PM
That's what the Washington Post is reporting. Despite West Virginia, Democrats still seem to be closing ranks behind the presumptive nominee.
Re: Invade Burma?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 5:33PM
That might be why I said "some" rather than "most" or "all," and referred to "these conservatives" rather than conservatives in general, John.
Re: Invade Burma?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 5:10PM
That was a bit of a non sequitur, Jim -- most conservative commentators seem to have responded to the idea of invading Burma with either ambivalence or opposition.
Herald of Decline
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 3:51PM
James, the Boston Herald used to be a nice, blue-collar conservative paper. The editorial page was more Republican in its politics than the typical Massachusetts resident, but the Herald gave you a much better sense of the city than the Boston Globe. Too bad.
Re: Invade Burma?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 3:25PM
For some conservatives, launching a new military invasion has become as predictable an answer to the world's problems as starting a new government program is for liberals. Of course, many of these conservatives cease to recognize something as a government program once there is a military component. When somebody hurts, the 101st Airborne has got to move.
Invade Burma?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 2:47PM
Robert D. Kaplan writes that a humanitarian intervention is "militarily doable" -- American forces are in the neighborhood. But there's a catch:
It seems like a simple moral decision: help the survivors of the cyclone. But liberating Iraq from an Arab Stalin also seemed simple and moral. (And it might have been, had we planned for the aftermath.) Sending in marines and sailors is the easy part; but make no mistake, the very act of our invasion could land us with the responsibility for fixing Burma afterward.See also Joseph Loconte on how the crisis in Burma is in many ways yet another UN failure.
Freaking Out Is the Worst
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 1:46PM
Kathryn Lopez interviews Skeptical Environmentalist Bjorn Lomberg on John McCain's doddering, pathetic--these are my words--attempt to co-opt global warming hysteria. Â
Going Dutch
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 1:13PM
My blogging about Bob Barr got linked by a Dutch site. My Dutch is a little rusty, and the Babelfish translation is gibberish, but I think they're saying:
Journalist Robert Stacy McCain, no kin of John McCain and certainly no supporter, has his own libertarian blog. McCain explains why (some) libertarians have had it with the Republican Party and why they welcome Barr's candidacy.
OK, they're Dutch, so I'll cut them some slack on the inaccuracies. I have libertarian tendencies on many issues -- I'm generally pro-market and anti-regulation -- but I'm conservative on cultural issues.
Also, contrary to the Dutch blog, I am a distant cousin of John McCain, a kinship that can be traced back to two brothers, Hugh and Alexander McCain, who migrated westward from South Carolina circa 1800. One branch of the family ended up as plantation owners in the Mississippi Delta, the other branch ended up as East Alabama dirt farmers. I'm a proud descendant of the Alabama dirt-farming McCains.
Re: McCain and Electability
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 1:03PM
I think that McCain's vulnerabilities on immigration in the general election are exaggerated, because we haven't seen much electoral evidence that Americans actually vote on the issue in large numbers, however fired up about it they may be. Even if this remains a big problem for him, however, I really don't see how one could argue that Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, or Mike Huckabee would have been stronger general election candidates for the GOP. Romney had the flip flop/plastic man problem, Thompson had the "fire in the belly" issue, and Huckabee didn't have much appeal beyond social conservatives. And as I noted, by the time voting started, Giuliani's post-9/11 star had faded. McCain is an imperfect candidate, for sure, but he was the most electable in a field of flawed candidates.
Re: Where Have You Gone, Evan Bayh?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 12:38PM
Philip, pardon me for registering a profoundly skeptical reaction to your assessment of John McCain as "the only electable candidate in [the GOP] once Rudy Giuliani's post-9/11 popularity vanished."
Both McCain and Giuliani are 180 degrees out of phase with conservatives on the issue of illegal immigration. The GOP elite loves open borders, but outside the NY/DC Republican Establishment, support for McCain's amnesty/"guest workers" policy is political poison. It's certainly a deal-breaker for blue-collar cultural conservatives in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky and West Virginia -- the very same swing voters in swing states who should otherwise be "in play" because of Obama's nomination.
McCain will speak to La Raza in July, indicating he still doesn't realize how vastly unpopular his immigration stance is in Middle America. And that's to say nothing of McCain's Green moves. By pushing pet policies of the elite, the Republican nominee is neutralizing whatever advantage he might have gained from Obama's own elitism.
Shove Your Sorries in a Sack
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 12:31PM
The Boston Herald has apologized to the New England Patriots for its false "report" that the 2001 Patriots taped the Rams' pre-Super Bowl walkthrough. Says the paper: "While the Boston Herald based its Feb. 2, 2008, report on sources that it believed to be credible, we now know that this report was false, and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed. Prior to the publication of its Feb. 2, 2008, article, the Boston Heraldneither possessed nor viewed a tape of the Rams' walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, nor did we speak to anyone who had. We should not have published the allegation in the absence of firmer verification."
Uh, yeah.
It's one thing to rush forward with a story before having the facts. It's another thing to do it to the home team. But it's Sports Treason to log a false report, about the home team, two days before a Super Bowl that could have capped a perfect season. Belichick and the players would never admit it, but the report had to have caused distractions at the worst possible time.
While it's nice that the Herald was at least contrite in its apologizes on the back end, it would've been preferable to show some of those fabled "journalistic ethics" on the front end. Maybe have some real information to base stories on. The New England Patriots are well within their rights to sue, but they and the NFL probably want this whole SpyGate controversy behind them already.
Whether the Boston Herald will recover in the court of public opinion in New England is another matter.
Where Have You Gone, Evan Bayh?
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 11:31AM
In late 2006, Mark Warner and Evan Bayh, two red state Democrats, suprised the political world by announcing they would not run for president. Warner was a popular governor from Virginia who had a successful business career before entering politics. Bayh, at a young age, had served two terms as governor of Indiana and was in his second term in the U.S. Senate. While both candidates would be quite electable in the general election, they were scared off because they were too centrist.
Ever since I've been covering the Democratic race, all the way back in Iowa, I would speak to Democratic voters who were convinced that any Democratic nominee would be a lock to win the White House. The problem was, with all their overconfidence, they decided to get greedy. Rather than settle for a moderate, boring white guy, they decided that they would pick the most liberal candidate possible, and they got caught up in the drama of choosing between the first viable woman candidate and the first viable black candidate.
Republicans, on the other hand, however begrudgingly, ended up holding their noses and going with John McCain, the only electable candidate in their party once Rudy Giuliani's post-9/11 popularity vanished.
Don't get me wrong, the fundamentals are so strong for Democrats this year that Obama still may pull it off in November, and still should even be considered the favorite. But Democrats will be sweating it all year. Does anybody doubt that if Democrats had acted like Republicans, that Bayh or Warner would be coasting to victory right now?
Ohio AG Announcement At Noon
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 10:57AM
Embattled Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann will be making an announcement to the press at noon. Democrats in the state legislature filed nine articles of impeachment against Dann yesterday. He is said to be looking for a face-saving way to step down and has been in talks with Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, himself a former attorney general. If Dann resigns, Gov. Ted Strickland will appoint a temporary successor and an election will be held in November. Fisher, Treasurer Richard Cordray, executive assistant attorney general Ben Espy, Strickland chief legal counsel Kent Markus, and Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck are all considered possible successors. Former auditor and attorney general Betty Montgomery would be a possible Republican candidate in a fall election. I wrote about Dann's sex scandal earlier this month on the main site.
UPDATE: The press conference was canceled, so Dann must have
decided to hang in their a while more.
Why West Virginia Doesn't Matter
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 10:53AM
Hillary Clinton deadenders still hold out hope that perhaps the superdelegates will give the nomination to her if she can make Barack Obama look unelectable, which West Virginia helped do last night.
But despite of his thumping in the state, Barack Obama has picked up two more superdelegates, and has won over 30 in the last week. Clinton started the year with a superdelegate lead of 106, and still had a lead of 87 in February. Now Obama leads among superdelates by 13, according to RealClearPolitics, and by 166 overall. If the trend all year among superdelegates has been a move toward Obama, why on earth would anybody think that the remaining 240 or so superdelegates would go for Clinton at the more than two-to-one ratio required for her to overtake him?
Obama may have been embarassed ast night, but he's still the presumptive nominee.
Columnists Care More Than Coburn
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 10:48AM
Tom Coburn smacks down a preening Michael Gerson on the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Good for him.
American Politics and American Idol
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 10:47AM
If you were watching Idol last night -- and the chances that you were are declining -- you might have noticed the increasingly bizarre disconnect between the judges' comments and the actual performances. David Archuleta butchered "And So It Goes" and still received praise. Randy, Paula, and Simon even blunted their criticism of Archuleta's absurd rendition of "With You." If it were anyone else, Simon would have called it the trainwreck that it was. Meanwhile, Syesha Mercado was told she was in danger of going home after a performance of "Fever" that was ten times better than anything Archuleta pulled out.
The parallel to Barack Obama is irresistible. Hillary Clinton blew Obama away by more than 40 points last night -- and still didn't put the brakes on reports of her political death. And just as we will most likely learn in tonight's result show that Archuleta's teenybopper fanbase has propelled him into the final two, the superdelegates are still trickling into Obama's column today, even after last night's embarrassing showing.
More Larison, Obama and Israel
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 10:27AM
Daniel Larison has another lengthy response to my long post , in response to his criticism of my article on Obama and Israel. I'll let my last post, and my article, speak for itself, and you can go ahead and read Larison. There will be more oppourtunities to revisit this over the course of the year, but I want to avoid turning this int an Obama, Israel and Larison blog since there are other issues to discuss. So I'll leave it at that for now.
Metaphor Overload
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 8:08AM
Since James Taranto is on vacation this week, I'll call one of his "metaphor alerts" on Camille Paglia's Salon column this week. Not only does she open with a sequence of three (or is is four?) straight movie references, she follows up with passages like this one, describing the Clintons:
Why wouldn't they play smiley-face rope-a-dope now and smash-mouth alley-and-ambush fisticuffs right to the bitter end -- meaning the convention in August? It's now or never for Ms. Hill. Even if Obama loses this fall, there's no guarantee whatever that she would win the Democratic nomination in 2012. That hoss will have been around the rodeo way too many times. The infusion of fresh new blood into the party -- especially women governors -- has already started. Who will want to resurrect all those 1990s mummies?
Republican operatives have been salivating for Hillary to be the nominee. Her vainglorious claim to have been fully "vetted" is ludicrous. She and her husband left a mountain of manure in Little Rock and Washington that hasn't even begun to be thrown.
I probably missed a few.
Fires Really Happen
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 3:07AM
When the fire alarm went off in my apartment building about an hour ago, I figured it was a prank. In all my years in this world, I've experienced plenty of fire alarms, but no actual fires. In fact, during the day on Tuesday, there was a fire drill at the office building. So it was only natural that when the alarm went off at two in the morning, as I was ready to go to bed, my immediate impulse was to think that it was the work of some drunk dude and ignore it.
But then, just to be safe, I threw on some clothes and popped my head in the hallway. Sure enough, I did smell something burning, and decided to make my way down the stairs. The putrid smell became more pungent as the floors got lower.
As I emerged to the street, I ran into a guy who told me that his kicthen was on fire. I looked up to the second floor. Smoldering black smoke blew through the window and amber flickered in the background. Apparently, the culprit was a tray of cinnamon buns that turned explosive in the oven.
The DCFD soon arrived in real fire engines, and did their thing
with ladders
and hoses and other stuff. We had to wait outside for roughly 40
minutes as they made sure the fire was out and investigated. Nobody
was hurt.
I'm back in my apartment, blogging while I wait for the last of the noisy fire trucks to drive away. So I guess the moral of the story is that if you hear a fire alarm go off in your building, it may actually be because there is a fire.
Another One Bites The Dust
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 1:36AM
Mississippi elects Travis Childers to Congress, making it the third special election of the year in a heavily GOP district to go Democrat. As vulnerable as Obama may look, it's important to keep in mind what a tremendous headwind McCain is running against this cycle as a Republican.
The West Virginia Massacre
Posted by on 5.14.08 @ 1:29AM
Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee, and his loss in West Virginia will not change that. But wow, what a loss it was.
A few quick points:
---Last week, I wondered why there was no bandwagon effect helping Obama, as normally is the case when a candidate becomes the likely nominee of a party. We even saw this with John McCain earlier this year. The fact that West Virginia Democrats would turn out in such large numbers, after a week of media coverage touting Obama as the presumptive nominee, and deliver Hillary Clinton a victory by a whopping 41 point, 140,000-plus vote margin, is absolutely astounding. It's almost as if there is an anti-bandwagon effect.
-- One of the things I've been debating in my head over the past few weeks is whether these working class voters who won't support Obama in the primary will actually defect to McCain in the fall, or whether they'll ultimately vote for any Democrat over McCain. The sheer magnitude of the Obama loss in West Virginia may be the strongest evidence yet that the working class resistence to Obama is real, and will in fact carry over to the general election.
A 10 point loss, a 15 point loss, even a 20 point loss, okay, maybe you can explain that away. But Democrats turning out to deliver a 41 point embarassment to the likely nominee of their own party? That's really hard to for the Obama camp to write off.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Not So Pure Barr
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 5:33PM
Ramesh Ponurru reminds us that Bob Barr voted in favor of a Medicare prescription drug bill, though he left Congress before the specific Bush plan passed.
Obama Advisor: Put Jerusalem On Negotiating Table
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 5:07PM
Responding to My Critics on Obama and Israel
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 4:56PM
Daniel Larison, a paleoconservative critic of Israel who is out to prove that, as a supporter of Israel, I have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency, offers this lengthy response to my article from yesterday in which I raised questions about the sincerity of Obama's pro-Israel statements during the campaign, particularly with regard to Hamas.
Larison says that it's unfair to read too much into the fact that Robert Malley, an informal adviser to Obama, has been meeting with Hamas. He compares this to the fact that two McCain aides had to resign from the campaign for working on a lobbying firm that did work for
Meanwhile, when campaigning in
The Arizona Republican blasted the "military thugs" in
Burma who are attempting to maintain their junta despite protests of Buddhist monks. He also said "we should make the Chinese pay a price" for supporting the regime.
I remember participating on a blogger call in September in which McCain opened up his remarks with a heated tirade on the Burmese regime, and said "it's time for strong action against these thugs."
I really don't see anything in Obama's past on
Larison goes on to make excuses for Obama in each of the litany of examples I cite in my long piece. You can read my article and his post and determine whether or not you think I am being fair. But here's the thing. If it just so happened that there was one adviser or one questionable statement by Obama it would be easier to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it seems that each day brings a revelation about another shady connection.
Larison also completely distorts my argument in order to make his point that I'm some sort of paranoid freak. He says I cite "reports of friendly relations with Khalidi," a leading anti-Israel intellectual, but he omits a key detail. In my article, I note that an LA Times story reported that he didn't just casually attend a party for Khalidi, but spoke at it:
His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world.":Khalidi is a man who has called
Larison paraphrases both me and Obama incorrectly when he sarcastically says I criticize Obama for, "his acknowledgement that Palestinians have suffered (quelle horreur!)." But what Obama actually said was, "nobody's suffering more than the Palestinian people," which suggests not merely that he wants to recognize that Palestinian people are suffering, but that he thinks that Palestinians are suffering more than Israelis. Israelis who have lost loved once to suicide bombings would disagree. I also wondered, given the lessons he's learned from Khalidi, whether Obama was suggesting that U.S. policy was too focused on Israeli suffering. I included in my article Obama's clarification that he meant that nobody has suffered more from the failures of Palestinian leadership.
For Larison, the gap between Obama's statements on the campaign trail and what his advisers are saying and doing on issues such as NAFTA and
Larison, who is a critic of Israel, thinks that Obama is sufficiently pro-Israel -- good for him. But I remain suspicious.
Re: Dialing for Obama in Gaza
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 3:10PM
I have a call into the Obama campaign, and have emailed the video clip to a press representative. I will report back if/when I hear anything.
Meanwhile, Amanda Carpenter and Jim Geraghty have posted reports.
The Battle For The Granite State
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 2:32PM
Democrats are eyeing an almost complete takeover of my beloved New Hampshire in 2008. I'm no fan of McCain-ism, but I hope it has long, long coattails in my home state at least.
Please Tell Me This Isn't True
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 1:58PM
Granted, the choice of running mate won't be made for quite a while, but if this Newsmax story is true, McCain is leaning toward Huckabee. If he actually picks Huckabee, I will actively oppose the ticket and urge all conservatives to do the same. Look, McCain's greatest strength among independents is his reputation for integrity and reform. As I have written before, Huckabee is seriously "ethically challenged." The media would have a field day highlighting those ethical shortcomings, and McCain's candidacy would sink like lead. And deservedly so, because it would show that McCain himself isn't serious about ethics after all. I DO beleive McCain is serious about ethics. I do not want to be proved wrong. But a choice of Huckabee would prove McCain's ethical compass to be seriously askew. Askew enough to merit opposition to the ticket.
Dialing for Obama in Gaza
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 1:45PM
It's been around, but I'm just now seeing this Al Jazeera report of Palestinians in Gaza phonebanking for Obama. I hear that Hamas, which has endorsed Obama, has a bit of influence in those parts.
Hagee to Apologize to Catholics
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 1:34PM
The Politico reports that megachurch pastor John Hagee is going to apologize to Catholics for his past anti-Catholic statements and William Donohue of the Catholic League accepted the apology in "a carefully-coordinated plan." It sounds like a bit of political theater -- as does McCain refusing to disavow the Hagee endorsement while saying it was a mistake to seek it -- but it is a very different reaction than Jeremiah Wright's. Whether it puts an end to Hagee-Wright comparisons remains to be seen.
On another note: Why is it that reporters so frequently misspell the name of a press release machine like Donohue? Many publications spell it "Donahue," as in Phil Donahue.
Barr Examination
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 1:23PM
Ramesh Ponnuru points out that Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr voted for the Medicare prescription drug entitlement, which John McCain voted against, and to authorize the use of force against Iraq despite running on an antiwar platform. He might as well have brought up Barr's vote for the Patriot Act and record on the drug war. When it comes to third-party candidates with little or no chance of actually being elected, I'm less concerned about their past records than I am with their current platforms: While you have to worry about how a major-party candidate might actually govern, a vote for a third-party is a vote to make a statement. As long as the electorate and the media generally associate the candidate with his platform, then a vote for that candidate strikes me as making a statement on behalf of that platform.
Many people are not likely to see things this way. Unfortunately for Barr, one such group of people might be the Libertarian Party, which frequently prefers philosophical consistency to electoral viability (a significant minority of Libertarians found Ron Paul too conventionally conservative in 1988). Given the party's ideological and educational mission, Libertarians do have a legitimate interest in ensuring that their nominee is small-l libertarian. As I've observed on the main site, Barr's shifting positions might make him the Mitt Romney of the LP.
The second group of people who might object to inconsistencies in Barr's record are the disaffected hardline conservatives he would need in the general election if he became the Libertarian nominee. Barr, like McCain and the Republicans, may feel that these people have nowhere else to go. But right-wingers who want a presidential candidate who opposed the Iraq war, the prescription drug benefit, and the Patriot Act at the time might prefer Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin.
UPDATE: As Phil, Ponnuru, and Clark Stooksbury point out, Barr voted for a prescription drug bill but the Bush plan actually passed after Barr left Congress. But Barr voted for an entitlement expansion nonetheless.
While Hillary Is Winning West Virginia
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 11:23AM
Pay close attention to the Mississippi congressional runoffer between Republican Greg Davis and Democrat Travis Childers for the seat vacated by Sen. Roger Wicker. It will be the latest indicator of how safe those safe Republican seats are going to be this fall.
Obama's Israel Interview
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 11:17AM
Jeffrey Goldberg's interview with Barack Obama on Israel has drawn a lot of attention, with Republicans making an issue out of his statement, "I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy." I actually wouldn't make too much of that, because it's clear from the context that he meant the Arab-Israeli conflict infects all our foreign policy, not the nation of Israel, but Michael Goldfarb is right that Obama's statement, even giving him the benefit of the doubt.
But what I found particularly troubling were that his answers were bizarrely abstract to the point of being evasive. When asked, "Do you think that justice is still on Israel's side?" It would have been easy for Obama to just say, "absolutely," but instead, he said, "I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea..." The question was whether it was still just, and Obama couldn't bring himself to say that justice is still on Israel's side, instead he had to talk about the nation conceptually. Lest he offend liberals by even acknowledging in an abstract sense that the "idea" of Israel was just, Obama is sure to follow up with, "That does not mean that I would agree with every action of the state of Israel..." This suggests that he likes Israel in theory, but not in practice.
Later in the interview, Obama offers another bouquet to liberals when he says, "some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I'm not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that's the safest ground politically."
The problem is that without explaining what actions of Israel he doesn't agree with, and what positions he considers too hawkish, his statements are pretty meaningless.
I also found the interview quite patronizing, when he starts mentioning the author Philip Roth, and utters the classic, "I've got all these Jewish friends." His reaction to the Hamas endorsement was also quite bizarre, he understood why the endorsed him, and doesn't seem particularly outraged by the idea that a terrorist group would get behind him. He also says, "I welcome the Muslim world's accurate perception that I am interested in opening up dialogue and interested in moving away from the unilateral policies of George Bush but nobody should mistake that for a softer stance when it comes to terrorism or when it comes to protecting Israel's security or making sure that the alliance is strong and firm." So why should there be any surprise that Hamas thinks he is willing to deal with them once the dust clears?
With all of that said, my sense is that Obama will continue to have problems with the pro-Israel community, but will still win Jewish voters in general. The truth is that the issue of Israel is pretty low on the list of priorities for most Jews, especially younger Jews. Unfortunately, Jews are still overwhelmingly ideologically liberal, so to the extent that they do care about Israel, they can be bought off pretty easily with vague statements such as,"You will not see, under my presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel's security." The only question for me is how much McCain can eat into the typical Democratic margin among Jews in Florida, who tend to be older, especially given his links to Jeremiah Wright, who is tight with Louis Farrakhan.
Don't Do It, Michelle, There's So Much To Live For
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 11:16AM
A concerned citizen observes the symptoms and sounds the alarm over the precarious state of Mrs. Obama's mental health. (Via Ace.)
Russ Verney
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 10:54AM
The name might not mean much to many people and the press is stressing his ties to Ross Perot, perhaps as a way of of stressing Bob Barr's seriousness as a third-party candidate. But I find Verney's involvement in Barr's campaign interesting. Conservatives of a certain bent may recall that Verney, who had been chairman of Perot's Reform Party until he was replaced by a chairman loyal to Jesse Ventura, led the Perotista dead-enders in trying to deny the party's nomination to Pat Buchanan in 2000. Barr's candidacy could mark the first time paleos and Verney have been on the same side in a political fight since Buchanan first joined the Reform Party in the fall of 1999.
Great Lowry Column
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 10:47AM
Rich Lowry hits on all cylinders with this column blasting the tacit arrangement between Obama and the establishment media to declare off-limits ANY subject that makes Obama look bad. As I have said all along, John McCain has a seriously uphill battle, because while he has achieved his current strength only with the support of a fawning media, he now will be Media Enemy Number One while Obama gets more help, by far, than Kerry did in 2004 or even than Clinton did in 1992. So McCain will be running without his TWO bases -- the GOP base, which is unenthusiastic, and his own personal base in the media, which will suddenly be hostile. It might really throw him off his stride.
Equal Time Or Monarchy?
Posted by on 5.13.08 @ 10:16AM
In a recent World magazine piece promising young journalist Jonathon Seidl asks whether "treating religion as a deposed king and advocating for its return to the throne within public schools might have far greater consequences than many realize."
Monday, May 12, 2008
Barr on illegals: We 'owe them nothing'
Posted by on 5.12.08 @ 11:39PM
Reporters at Bob Barr's press conference this morning seemed focused mainly on the possibility that Barr's Libertarian Party presidential candidacy might hurt Republican John McCain's chances in November. Almost completely overlooked were Barr's statements on illegal immigration.
"I've never been called a compassionate conservative," the ex-Republican told reporters at the National Press Club, responding to a question about immigration .
"If a person is illegally in this country, the taxpayers of this country and the government of this country owe them nothing," Barr said.
This notion that government owes something to people, simply because they're here, does not resonate with me as somebody who believes in responsible government. If one were running a charity called the United States of America, that would be one thing. This is not a charity, this is the people's business. . . . I disagree with the [1982 Plyer v. Doe] court decision . . . that decided that children of illegal aliens, people who are in this country unlawfully, have a right to a public education paid for by the taxpayers of this country. That is an improper, irresponsible decision."
The LP convention begins May 22 in Denver, and in April, I examined some of the difficulties facing Barr in his fight for the Libertarian nomination.
Barr today released an online video announcing his candidacy:
Newsweek Goes to Bat For Obama on Hamas
Posted by on 5.12.08 @ 5:59PM
In a Newsweek cover story evidently written to preempt any legitimate criticism of a presidential candidate with the thinest records of any presidential candidate in the modern era, Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas swallow whole the Obama campaign's contention that John McCain is unfaily smering Obama by correctly noting that a Hamas spokesman has endorsed the naive senator. The article never mentions the fact that a Hamas spokesman did actually endorse Obama, nor did it mention (perhaps becuase of the deadline) that an adviser to Obama actually was meeting with the terrorist group.
In my piece for today, I go much further than McCain ever would, sifting through Obama's past, his questionable associations, and his current double talk on Hamas and Israel.
Here was my conclusion:
Welcome to the new kind of politics.
Global Warming… On Ice!
Posted by on 5.12.08 @ 5:56PM
There's an old saying that everything becomes funnier if you add "on ice!" to the end of it. Walt Disney… on ice! Nuclear winter… on ice! John Kerry… on ice! Pauly Shore… on ice! Okay, the last one is never funny, but you get the idea.
Anyway, John McCain seems to be taking a similar approach to climate change legislation. Come up with whatever expensive regulatory scheme you want, and then just add the words "market-based." Suddenly, it's all good! So here he is telling the New York Times today that he'll "propose a domestic cap-and-trade system that will mobilize market forces to develop and commercialize alternatives to carbon-based fuels." It's as if he believes a massive regulatory intervention will somehow become more palatable if you repeat the word "market" as many times as possible.
From Sore Loserman to McLieberman
Posted by on 5.12.08 @ 5:51PM
A McCain-Lieberman ticket would certainly offer a sharp contrast with the hypothetical Obama-Webb ticket I explore on the main site today: All in on Iraq versus all out; a more or less former Democrat on the GOP ticket and a former Republican on the Democratic ticket; Al Gore's running mate versus Ronald Reagan's navy secretary but not on the the tickets you'd expect by those descriptions. But for most of the reasons spelled out here by Ross Douthat, I don't think it would actually be a very good idea.
The reality is suggestions like Stuart Rothenberg's come from that time period between 9/11 and, at the latest, 2004 when it looked like there was going to be a major migration of socially liberal hawks into the GOP. That seems farfetched today, though it probably wouldn't if the current Iraq war was as popular as the first Persian Gulf War. Even when it looked like all the stars were aligned for Rudy Giuliani, who had the best 2007 of any Republican presidential candidate, and the religious right had no coherent strategy for stopping him, the national security issue wasn't enough to cover his social-issues deficit.
One advantage Lieberman might have over Giuliani is that, through his work with Bill Bennett against sexually explicit music and his family values talk, he has a better reputation among social conservatives. In fact, unlike Giuliani (who was arguably better on free-market economics than any GOP candidate besides Ron Paul), Lieberman generally has a reputation for being much more conservative than he actually is. Conservatives might be slow to mobilize against him based on this reputation. But once they discovered his repeated votes for partial-birth abortion and against tax cuts, among many other offenses, mobilize they would.
McCain simply isn't sufficiently trusted by economic and social conservatives to pick a running mate who is neither in order to shore up the one part of the Republican/conservative coalition where he needs no additional reinforcement. Maybe the fact that Lieberman is almost perfectly aligned against my own policy views is blinding me to the strategic brilliance of a McCain-Lieberman ticket, but I don't think so.
Alan Keyes Is Still Running
Posted by on 5.12.08 @ 5:45PM
I've posted this twice, but the technical-difficulties gremlins ate it: Alan Keyes has done what he should have done in the first place if he wanted a presidential nomination -- he's started his own political party. America's Independent Party was launched via conference call and plans an electronic national convention.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
It's What You Leave Behind
Posted by on 5.11.08 @ 8:05AM
Those pushing for rapid removal of U.S. troops from Iraq need to read about the legacy we left behind in Laos, where Hmong were abandoned by the U.S. after years of fighting the North Vietnamese Communists. And now it looks like we're compounding the error with the prosecution (set up?) of General Vang Pao.
Lesson: Once you're in, the way out is always complex, and you can never account for (or recover from) all the collateral damage you will be responsible for.
