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Saturday, January 13, 2007
Healthcare Policy.
13 Jan 2007 08:57 pm
What Glenn says - I agree with every word of it.
The Conscience of Rod Dreher
13 Jan 2007 07:50 pm
I don't really know Rod Dreher very well. Our friendship has been entirely via email, and for a while back, it seemed he was none too fond of my work. But I always found in him, even when I disagreed with him, a passionate honesty, especially about the big things in life (faith, life, death, justice). So I'm not surprised that Rod has been driven to a moment of political catharsis by the last few years. He has already been condescended to by Jonah Goldberg, a man for whom the mention of "conscience' is greeted with a scoff. But Rod's honest words about what has been done by Bush ring true to me. They do not deserve to be dismissed as some kind of reversion to a cliche-ridden hippiedom. They deserve to be seen as the honest attempt of a conservative to ask himself: what were those people, for all their extremes and failures, actually trying to say? Is there any merit to it? Have we re-learned a lesson some of them artlessly may have tried to convey forty years ago?
Here's a section of Rod's NPR cri de coeur that Glenn Greenwald has also noticed:
As President Bush marched the country to war with Iraq, even some voices on the Right warned that this was a fool's errand. I dismissed them angrily. I thought them unpatriotic.
But almost four years later, I see that I was the fool. In Iraq, this Republican President for whom I voted twice has shamed our country with weakness and incompetence, and the consequences of his failure will be far, far worse than anything Carter did.
The fraud, the mendacity, the utter haplessness of our government's conduct of the Iraq war have been shattering to me. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. Not under a Republican President.
I turn 40 next month - middle aged at last - a time of discovering limits, finitude. I expected that. But what I did not expect was to see the limits of finitude of American power revealed so painfully. I did not expect Vietnam. As I sat in my office last night watching President Bush deliver his big speech, I seethed over the waste, the folly, the stupidity of this war.
I had a heretical thought for a conservative - that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word - that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot - that they have to question authority.
On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?
Will my children, too small now to understand Iraq, take me seriously when I tell them one day what powerful men, whom their father once believed in, did to this country? Heavy thoughts for someone who is still a conservative despite it all. It was a long drive home.
I had dinner recently with a former Bush official. I was taken aback by the horror now felt even by those who once worked for Bush at the consequence of his recklessness. For my part, this experience has shaken me too to my roots, which is why I felt the need just to clarify for myself why I was once so proud to be a conservative, and why I am now so deeply conflicted to be called one.
The View From Your Window
13 Jan 2007 05:33 pm
Fish Island, London, 4.08 pm.
Bush and the Rule of Law
13 Jan 2007 04:34 pm
They've never really gotten along, have they? But the more you think about it, the threats of a Pentagon official, Cully Stimson, against lawyers doing a constitutional duty defending terror suspects speaks volumes about the core malice of this administration. Sources among the heroic community of pro bono lawyers who are defending some of the innocent and some of the guilty at Gitmo tell me that Stimson's comments are not isolated, that there has been a full program dedicated to the harassment of Gitmo lawyers - surveillance, pettty harassment, pressure on their law firms. Now ask yourself: why would a government that has competently captured and detained dangerous terrorists not want good legal defenses for them to show beyond a doubt that they have been fairly detained? The Bush administration acts and sounds like a defensive police state when it comes to terrorism detainees. Maybe that's because, in many cases of competely unfair detention, they are.
Of course, there's one way to make amends: fire Stimson and end the campaign of harassment.
Debating The Surge
13 Jan 2007 03:19 pm
The National Interest has a constantly expanding symposium. Check it out.
Beginning With Doubts
13 Jan 2007 02:10 pm
A reader writes:
I'm behind on my reading and am just now getting through The Conservative Soul. I'm only about 60 pages into it now, in the midst of your dissection of fundamentalism, and
I have to say - as someone raised in a fundamentalist home, as someone who at one time was among the most fundamental of fundamentalists, believing the Bible to be inerrant, and so on - I don't think I've read a more clear, honest, understandable assessment of fundamentalism, its logic, its allure, and its dangers.
There's a semi-obscure quotation from Sir Francis Bacon that has become a motto of sorts for me, in my middle years:
"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."
The fundamentalist will never understand the beauty of that statement; conservatives must, if they wish to "get back" the "soul" they have "lost."
Thank you for capturing what so many conservatives are thinking but have not yet had the forum or talent to articulate.
The Quiet Anti-War Movement
13 Jan 2007 12:01 pm
A reader writes:
This discussion about "who is more condescending" is silly.
In the first place, there are many of us who opposed the war from the outset who didn't attend rallies b/c we, as you say, didn't hear our arguments being presented there. We met in churches, living rooms and coffee shops - writing letters to editors, to our elected representatives and our loved ones asking them to oppose the war. All I can do is speak for myself in knowing that I doubted the case made for the war, recognized the myopia that was Wolfowitz's description of how the war would be prosecuted and saw clearly that those who opposed the war were told they were anti-American, unpatriotic and otherwise assaulted by ad hominem's.
While I'm glad you have changed your mind about the war, I think you do many people a disservice by suggesting that those who were right initially were right for the wrong reasons.
My father served in the US Army for 22 years, I lived on and was eduated on army bases, I am a first-generation American on my mothers side (she is a WW2 refugee), I have owned several small business and I am active in my community and my kids schools. I am not a member of ANSWER nor are the people I worked with to oppose the war. We are Americans who love our country, the liberties it offers us and in turn the hope it offers others around the world.
I hold no position of moral superiority over you because I opposed this war before you. I hold no sanctimony that I was right before you were.
Gays Gone Mild
13 Jan 2007 08:36 am
A reader writes:
Your bear video has its daft charms - love the hefty dude lip-syncing to that girlish hip-hop number. As someone who used to be a "Chelsea Boy" type and is now a big old bear, I'm excited to see that the whole 90's clone movement is over - and you called it way ahead of time, Andrew.
As you've noted, one of the best things to happen to the "gay scene" lately is the emergence of the Scissor Sisters, who make it totally OK and, well, hot, to be a big bear (Babydaddy), skinny fag (Jake,) or freaky Creature of the Night (side-burn-heavy Del.) Don't even get me started on the gorgeousness of Ana who is so not a size 0 and so much sexier for it.
Anyway, are we seeing a shift in what "gay" can mean to the wider public? I gave up on all of the "queer" glossy magazines because they promote one type of guy - chiseled, hot, white, and massively buff. Don't get me twisted - such dudes are hot. But 90 percent of us are, ahem, bulky, or balding, or have bad skin, or imperfect teeth. Once upon a time, I probably could have posed for Advocate Men - and I was miserable. Now, I weigh thirty pounds "too much", have a beard, back hair - and love life. I've got my partner, my friends, my dogs, and a new kitten. I rarely go out at night and rarely miss it. Could I be part of this new army of "regular guy/girl" homos who don't give a blot for the "scene"? Yes I am! And I'm far from the only one - whether in their twenties or sixties. Let the radical leftist "queers" call you, Camille, Bruce, and Tammy all they like - fact is, you guys speak for, well, OK, most of us!
BabyDaddy is indeed a marvel to behold. My 2005 TNR essay on the end of gay culture can be read here. My 2003 Salon essay on bear culture can be read here.
Quote for the Day
13 Jan 2007 03:39 am
"I thought it was okay to be single. I thought it was okay to not have children, and I thought you could still make good decisions on behalf of the country if you were single and didn't have children," - secretary of state Condi Rice.
Good for Rice. She doesn't have to have kids or family members to understand the gravity of warfare or the arguments about policy in Iraq. No one does. Subjecting her to this kind of cheap shot is completely unnecessary - and counter-productive for Boxer's case. Her refusal to even contemplate that her statement was loaded with prejudice (even unconscious prejudice) only keeps the insult alive. Apologize, senator - to single women, and childless women - and move on.
(Photo: Ron Edmonds/AP.)
Friday, January 12, 2007
Changing The Narrative
12 Jan 2007 11:22 pm
A reader asks a good question:
I need an explanation. The common argument for why we "cannot lose" in Iraq, is that it will result in a breeding ground for terrorists (specifically Al-Qaeda) in Iraq - much like Afghanistan was (is?). But doesn't this assumption rely on the same misunderstanding that haunted Congressman Reyes, that there is a significant difference between Shiite and Sunni. If we leave Iraq, I suspect the civil war would escalate. Who would win? Almost certainly the Shiite majority. Why would the Shiites then allow Sunni terrorists such as Al-Qaeda to set up shop there? I don't see why they would. So the result would seem to be a Shiite state and no large-scale Sunni terrorist activity (certinaly none focussed on the US).
I recognize the problems of a possible genocide against the Sunnis and of an Iranian puppet state. But those problems are wholly different than the argument made by Bush and his supporters that leaving would result in an Al-Qaeda breeding ground.
Where am I wrong?
Romney vs A "Flip-Flopper"
12 Jan 2007 09:41 pm
Give him points for chutzpah.
Reductio ad Boxer
12 Jan 2007 08:34 pm
This reader has at it:
Reasonable counter argument? Man this is easy. OK, here we go, so all of you out there put down the bong and try to follow. Your reader wrote about the "human element" of watching your child go off to war and how that is relevant to governmental policy decisions. Fair enough. Then should any elected official have a say in public education if their children go to private school? How many of these phony Democrats who are "for the little guy" actually educate their children in the public schools they purport to believe in? Hello, Kerry, Edwards, Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, Clinton, et al?
Or should any of them have a say in welfare policy? How many actually are punitively subjected to the ravages of a bunch of lazy malcontents sitting around their neighborhoods while they go to work at low paying jobs that disqualify them from receiving public entitlements (but yet have to live with the crime and nonsense that goes with the neighborhoods where such conditions exist). This is fun!!! Want some more? OK. Why should any elected official get to have a say or vote on immigration and border enforcement issues if they don't reside in the border states where the destruction of open borders have made regions of the US almost unidentifiable as America anymore. This is the kind of logic I have to debate?
Be honest Andrew. Liberalism is all about feelings and intent, not actual facts and results.
Well, liberalism can be like that - at its worst. It can also be a lot better than that. Just not Boxer.
Viler
12 Jan 2007 08:05 pm
Boxer's comment was vile, but the brazen arguments of one Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, are far worse. A legal defense of terror suspects is somehow un-American? It tells you all you need to know about the depravity of the Bush administration's detainee policy that a McCarthyite like this should be in charge of it.
Heads Up
12 Jan 2007 07:56 pm
I'll be on the Chris Matthews Show this Sunday - with Dan Rather, Andrea Mitchell and Katy Kay.
Vile II
12 Jan 2007 07:29 pm
Well, I ticked a lot of people off with my post on Barbara Boxer, one of more egregiously sanctimonious Senators. Here's a reasonable counter-argument typical of many of your emails:
I think it is valid to say to someone that it is easy to sit somewhere and discuss war as some abstract political idea. It is another to watch your child get on a plane for a combat zone knowing they may not come back. I think that had Bush at some point since 2003 been able to convince one of his daughters to join even the Navy or Air Force we the people would be more likely to trust this man.
Asking if Dr. Rice can truly understand what the parents are preparing to do is not wrong in my book. It is bringing up a real issue. For many peole this is not an abstract discussion of geo political strategy it involves Death. That is real!
Sorry, but I'm not buying this for a second. Boxer's was the kind of cheap shot that makes substantive discourse impossible. Boxer was questioning Rice as a senator questioning a secretary of state. Their family relationships are utterly irrelevant to the point at hand, i.e. the current Iraq strategy. As readers know, I tend to agree with Boxer on this. But I'm not going to personalize it. What Boxer was clearly doing was insinuating that those without children or without children in combat somehow have less moral and political standing to debate this issue. If that's true, why allow any non-soldier to have a say on this? Why allow women an equal say, since men comprise an overwhelming majority of combat soldiers? Since openly gay people are barred from the military, are they also to be told they have less standing to debate? Once you go down this line of emotional and mroal blackmail, you end up with virtually no one being able to debate the central issue at hand without Sheehan-style idiocy. Boxer's remark was a piece of slime. And she should apologize.
Blog Power
12 Jan 2007 07:14 pm
National Journal's Top Ten Blog Stories of 2006 should prompt a wave of blogospheric annoyance. "Blogs officially recognized as media" is one such story. Er, some of us acknowledged that years ago.
Besieged
12 Jan 2007 06:51 pm
Michael Totten reports from a Christian Lebanese village that was attacked by both Hezbollah and the Israelis last summer.
On Father Mychal
12 Jan 2007 06:13 pm
An Australian reader writes:
Being a foreigner it may be presumptuous of me to suggest this, but having seen that photo of the late Father Mychal Judge several times over the past few years since 9/11, it strikes me odd that such a perfect embodiment of loss and sacrifice was never turned into the definitive memorial statue for that time and place. Especially as even after more than 5 years, 9/11 still seems conspicuously lacking in any meaningful memorial.
I don't understand how this picture didn't capture the same kind of sentiment as the Iwo Jima flag raising, and how it didn't result in the same kind of spontaneous popular response years ago. Perhaps bringing it to the attention of the WTC Memorial Foundation committee could be one of those rare unifying jobs for the blogosphere, which might even help justify its existence.
The answer, alas, is that Mychal Judge was a gay man and a priest. And no gay man, however heroic, would be given such an honor in today's America. Gay men - especially gay priests - are beneath inclusion in the official history of America. One day, maybe. But not yet. If you are interested in Father Mychal's astonishing life of service to God and his fellows, the documentary "Saint of 9/11" is eye-opening. His death was reflected in a lifetime of love and sacrifice.
Vile
12 Jan 2007 05:12 pm
That's the only word to describe Senator Boxer's ad feminam attack on Condi Rice yesterday. There was a trace of homophobia to the smear as well. This kind of attack is like the "chickenhawk" smear and worthy of low-life liars like Michael Moore. We really should be able to debate national security without the politics of personal destruction. The senator should apologize. Today.
Your Congress At Work
12 Jan 2007 04:37 pm
The Republicans still have a legislative agenda: naming courthouses after Rush Limbaugh's dad.
Bush's Fiscal Legacy
12 Jan 2007 04:17 pm
Worse, I'd argue, than even the damage he has done to the country's international standing and security. Bob Samuelson pulls no punches here.
The View From Your Window
12 Jan 2007 03:24 pm
Portland, Oregon, 8.30 am.
Condescension and Anger
12 Jan 2007 02:31 pm
Here's one enraged response to this post:
I just have to respond to the reader who basically put down most if not all but a handful of the opposition to the war. Sure there were a lots of people on the "left" who were screaming "no blood for oil" or who "associated themselves with vacuous slogans, wanker academics and unreconstructed anti-globalists who fear corporations and hate trade" but by no stretch of the imagination did that encompass all those on the left.
When will you and other conservatives get it though you thick heads, not to confuse the vocal, squeaky wheels with the quiter people like me and many, many others? At no point did I, and a good number of those I know who didn't support the war, ever talk in terms that your obtuse reader and even yourself sometimes think. I am sick and tired of this lazy shit. I opposed the war because it was patently obvious that that Bush wanted to go to Iraq for his own reasons and was using 9/11 and WMD as an excuse.
I am not one of those "flaming lefty," pacificifist, whining liberals that Republicans love to label those who don't reflexively agree with them. I am not against war per se, but war is serious business. There are consequences, unintended and intended. People die and they often come home in boxes. You don't undertake war by lying, you don't undertake it without an honest look at what you may be getting into, you don't undertake it without a look at all the possible outcomes, you don't go in undermanned and without all the best equipment you can offer to the people who are going to do the fighting and dying. I saw all of this and so did others.
And on another note, I have not had all that much problem with the lack of WMD intelligence as it is as much an art as it is a science - but I have had a problem with them deliberately cherry picking what they know to be bad intel from suspect sources, despite (or in spite of) warnings from those people whose job it is to make sure intel is as good as can be determined. I have a problem with this administration deliberately making a decision based on their own preconceived notions without an honest look at the facts, and this applies to a whole host of things and not just Iraq.
Point taken. And I agree with almost all of this. But it doesn't detract from my continued opposition to those Michael Moore elements that dominated the rhetoric of the anti-war forces before the war, many of whom opposed the war in Afghanistan as well. Another reader takes another view:
Your succinct observation of so many of the anti-warriors' "reflexive hostility to American power, partisan hatred of Bush, and blindness toward Saddam's atrocities" comforts me insofar as I've lately lost any sense of anchoring conviction on your part against the long-term threat of radical Islam.
I honestly believe that a main component of our response to that threat must be dogged, blunt perseverence despite the Bush Administration's many costly mistakes in conducting this war. That is the message I took from Bush's "surge" speech: dogged, blunt perseverence. More importantly, I believe it is the message taken by our adversaries both inside and outside Iraq.
It has been said that in all of history's great campaigns and great battles, there are moments when each side believes it is beaten--and that victory goes to the side that wills itself through these pivotal moments of doubt. Is it possible the current Iraq campaign is at just such a moment? One wonders what is the real state of confidence of Iraq's insurgents and their supporters? It can only have been diminished by the prospect of an American "surge."
I wish it were diminished. I fear this president has actually given them much of what they were hoping for. In fact, fear bin Laden might have drawn the most solace from the prospect of the U.S. military being poised to alienate both Sunnis and Shia in Iraq - and to inflame global Muslim sentiment even further. But, hey, we'll see. I should say this, though it goes without saying. I hope I'm wrong and the president is right. I really do. Nothing would give me more pleasure than the thought of our actually constructing a viable national government in Iraq and turning back the tide of Islamist terror. But I'm not clinically delusional.
Meanwhile, in Baghdad
12 Jan 2007 01:43 pm
John Burns provides, as usual, indispensable analysis. But this paragraph, buried by the NYT, leapt out at me this morning:
A Shiite political leader who has worked closely with the Americans in the past said the Bush benchmarks appeared to have been drawn up in the expectation that Mr. Maliki would not meet them. "He cannot deliver the disarming of the militias," the politician said, asking that he not be named because he did not want to be seen as publicly criticizing the prime minister. "He cannot deliver a good program for the economy and reconstruction. He cannot deliver on services. This is a matter of fact. There is a common understanding on the American side and the Iraqi side."
Views such as these — increasingly common among the political class in Baghdad — are often accompanied by predictions that Mr. Maliki will be forced out as the crisis over the militias builds. The Shiite politician who described him as incapable of disarming militias suggested he might resign; others have pointed to an American effort in recent weeks to line up a “moderate front” of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political leaders outside the government, and said that the front might be a vehicle for mounting a parliamentary coup against Mr. Maliki, with behind-the-scenes American support. [My italics.]
If this is the case, this president is lying to us once again. It's one lie too far. If all of this is a ruse to depose Maliki and attack Iran, the constitutional consequences of a runaway, duplicitous president are profound.
(Photo: John Moore/Getty.)
"A Hell of a Marine"
12 Jan 2007 01:04 pm
Yesterday, Corporal Jason Dunham was the second soldier in Iraq to win a Medal of Honor, the highest military honor. He did so posthumously, and died serving his country at the age of 22. Here's a YouTube tribute to him. It's heart-breaking and inspiring all at once.
A Hairy Truth?
12 Jan 2007 01:00 pm
Do men with back hair score higher on IQ tests? I have to say I'm dubious, but intrigued.
A "Disappeared" One
12 Jan 2007 12:16 pm
Adel Hamad has been detained at Gitmo for three years. Here is a Youtube by his publicly appointed lawyer who can find no evidence that Hamad has any relationship with terrorism at all. Here's the Wikipedia entry on him. Judge for yourself.
My Condescending Reader
12 Jan 2007 10:54 am
A less condescending reader responds:
Andrew, your reader writes that those who opposed the war from the outset
"understood that the premises of the war did not match the facts on the ground. In particular, they understood the culture, the people, the economics and the religion(s) of Iraq. They also understood the American people, who will not, perhaps sadly, ultimately support a war that does not end quickly unless national security is a genuine and clear issue."
How exactly is this deep and complex understanding expressed in "No Blood for Oil"?
The crux of the problem is that stalwart opponents of the war were, for the most part, nothing like the sophisticated visionaries your reader describes. The case for war barrelled along in large part precisely because opponents of the war were unable or unwilling to make a persuasive, coherent case for opposing it, and instead associated themselves with vacuous slogans, wanker academics and unreconstructed anti-globalists who fear corporations and hate trade. This is not a winning formula for shaping American policy.
I agree. A few people - James Fallows, Joe Klein, Brent Scowcroft, for example - opposed the war for sane reasons. They deserve kudos as much as I deserve criticism for not listening to them closely enough. But I went to the pre-war anti-war marches as an observer. I did not hear arguments about the difficulties of managing a sectarian society, nor questions about troop levels, nor worries about the impact of the war on Iran's status in the region. I heard and saw often reflexive hostility to American power, partisan hatred of Bush, and blindness toward Saddam's atrocities. I remember what I saw. And I feel as estranged from that reflexive position today as I did then.
Yglesias Award Nominee
12 Jan 2007 09:07 am
"Frankly, as he has over the past few weeks, Bush looked like a man who is in way over his head, which he is. The man who got the country into this hole, and whose neglect and incompetence dug us deeper into into it, looks like a man who would like nothing more than to get back to Crawford. We'd all be better off if he would," - George Conway, NRO.
Invading Iran
12 Jan 2007 12:35 am
Does a consulate count? Maybe it does.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
"Yes, It's Bad But Not Doomed"
11 Jan 2007 11:01 pm
A longtime reader looks on the bright side:
For all the problems, Iraq (and its neighbors) are still better off without Saddam. The danger of a Sunni Jihadi Talibanesqe stronghold are exaggerated, if only by the stark demographics. Sunni Arabs are only 15-20% of the country. If real civil war and ethnic cleansing breaks out, the Sunni Arabs are doomed. Saudis and other Arab countries getting involved in a regional war with Iran? Other than some financial support and a few thousand lunatic Jihadis, it is not very likely. They will sell out the Saddam loyalists even quicker than they did the Palestinians. Iran need not get overtly involved anyway - Shia forces in Iraq can force their will on the Sunnis without much help.
Pacification of Baghdad makes sense, but it may be too late. The only way it will work if we have the means to take on the Mahdi army and the Shia extremists with Maliki's backing and force the government to be more open to the Sunnis (something many of us doubt).
We should continue to support Kurdistan and Anbar. Many Sunnis realize that the Shias are a threat, but the Jihadis are no real protection. Interesting that anywhere the radical Muslims gain power they quickly alienate the locals. They are just religious versions of Saddam, holding power by use of terror. We can exploit that in Anbar (our presence keeps the Shias at bay and also gives us opportunity to kill foreign troublemakers). Kurdistan is mostly a success (thanks to them) - all we need to do is give them cover from the Turks.
Hey, here's hoping.
(Photo of Moqtada al-Sadr by Ali Jarekji/Reuters.)
The Skinny on Petraeus
11 Jan 2007 09:42 pm
The Daily Standard provides a helpful profile of an impressive soldier.
Polling the Surge Speech
11 Jan 2007 08:36 pm
Mark Blumenthal does the math. Bottom line:
Both polls show similarly strong polarization, with most Republicans favoring a troop surge, and most independents and Democrats in opposition.
More here.
Prayer of the Day
11 Jan 2007 08:31 pm
Beliefnet highlights the regular prayer of Father Mychal Judge, who died in the World Trade Center, ministering to his flock. Money quote:
Lord, take me where You want me to go;
Let me meet who You want me to meet;
Tell me what You want me to say, and
Keep me out of Your way.
But God wanted Mychal in His way, at the appointed hour.
Bush and "God"
11 Jan 2007 08:27 pm
A reader cites the correct reference:
The term "Author of Liberty" comes from the fourth stanza of Samuel Smith's hymn "America," which is sung to the tune of "Good Save the Queen."
Here's the verse:
Our fathers' God, to thee,
Author of liberty, to thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect us by thy might, great God, our King.
I like the indirectness of the invocation of the deity. Less is sometimes more.
Scrooge, Christianity, Christianism
11 Jan 2007 08:08 pm
A telling extract from Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," where Scrooge meets the angel who is the Spirit of Christmas Present. They argue over the morality and legality of closing stores and pubs on Sunday, a cause dear to Christianists in Victorian England:
"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment."
"I!" cried the Spirit.
"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"
"I!" cried the Spirit.
"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day," said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."
"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.
"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.
"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."
(Photo: a scene from the 1935 movie, Scrooge, featuring the Spirit of Christmas Present.)
The Polish Church
11 Jan 2007 07:03 pm
The last European country that retains a Catholic church with real life, Poland, now has to cope with its own priest abuse scandal. Except the abuse this time was the trust of ordinary Poles whom some priests spied and informed on for Communist authorities. Rocco has an update.
Bears Gone Wild
11 Jan 2007 06:38 pm
This site proves that bears know how not to take themselves seriously. This YouTube has its charms.
Arguing Over Iraq
11 Jan 2007 06:06 pm
Those who don't have an answer for Iraq aren't necessarily morally unserious, and those who do aren't necessarily dogmatic.
[Apologies for garbling this in the first posting.]
There Is No Alternative?
11 Jan 2007 05:17 pm
A key premise of the president's speech is that the alternative is so horrifying we have no choice but to press on. But this assumption, like the fixed WMD assumption before the war, risks freezing our thought and immobilizing strategy. The assumption deserves close examination. I've argued that withdrawal to Kurdistan, allowing the Sunni and Shia forces in Iraq to reach their own settlement through a real civil war with a real outcome, is something we need to think through. It may be less damaging to our interests than the surge. Its most important aspect is the way it changes the narrative of the war from Osama's "Islam vs the West" to "Islam vs itself". I think that's a strategic game-changer that may redound to our long-term advantage. It requires a United States prepared to let go of trying to control the region and stabilize it. I fear the president is unable to even think in such terms. But that doesn't mean we cannot. I air this scenario in this post over a month ago and this one yesterday. A reader throws in his two cents:
We are not going to be able to win the argument on the war until we enter into a real, cold-eyed discussion of what the alternative to direct military engagement would likely look like. Up to now our collective thinking has revolved around a choice between more of the same versus giving in to inevitable chaos. It's the "inevitable chaos" alternative that needs to be challenged and analyzed.
Would Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda in Mesopotamia based in Anbar hold a lovefeast to celebrate our departure, or would the Sunnis immediately commence a hunt-down of the alien, troublesome jihadis? (Maybe the Taliban can push around the disparate Afghans, but I don't think that the Iraqi Sunnis would put up with that shit.) Would Iraqi Shia, having finally gained control of their own destiny, be inclined to throw open the door to the Persians next door? Would the Shia majority be interested in occupying the oil-less sands of the Sunni Triangle and would the Sunni minority be interested in a never-ending war against the overwhelming Shia majority if a real deal on oil revenue could be put in place? Would the Kurds be paranoid about an Arab invasion, and would the Turks be paranoid about a Kurd invasion if there was an American rapid response force in place in Kurdistan?
I'm just an ignorant slob sitting way back in the bleachers, but I think I know enough to be aware that these and other topics that can define the probabilities of an alternative to Bush's war are not being rationally and thoughtful discussed. It's past due.
Agreed. Over to you, realist Republicans and sane Democrats.
A Cheney Speech?
11 Jan 2007 03:40 pm
Where's Rove? He's been awfully quiet lately, hasn't he? But one reader suspects his finger-marks are all over this speech. Here's an interesting take:
If one views the speech as a campaign speech, it becomes intelligible. The words are focus group tested and, and while it cannot contain lies readily detectable by the audience, the truth is viewed as irrelevant. Therefore there is the reference to 9/ll because it is still is a hot-button phrase, although by 43's own admission that has nothing to do with Iraq. He refers to another hot-button issue, controlling the threat of terror, even though his own National Intelligence Estimate concludes the Iraqi war is exacerbating that threat. He harps on Iran because memories linger of the kidnapping of the US employees at the American Embassy there.
He accepts responsibility for mistakes because they learned from a similar admission with Katrina that this plays well. Of course, as with Katrina, it means nothing because he is by definition responsible and because the acceptance of responsibility has no policy ramifications. Jordan has an attractive and westernized king and queen and therefore he avoids references to that country even though most aid to the Sunni insurgents flows across its borders.
One could go on and on. But, fundamentally, the speech can only comprehended if it's analyzed as a campaign tool intended to achieve an objective but with no intention of conveying concrete information.
But whose campaign? This president is outta here soon. I think the reader may be more accurate if he described this as a political speech designed to provide minimal cover until the president leaves office. But, still, I'm not convinced. I have a feeling that this is less a Rove speech than a Cheney speech. I don't believe Cheney thinks this anemic gesture is a game-changer. Even he hasn't become that unhinged. So what else can it mean? My gut tells me that this speech was, in fact, a serious military warning to Syria and Iran. This president may have in mind a future escalation far greater and more explosive than anything we're doing in Baghdad. The real reason we're not withdrawing is that we are keeping our options open for a wider war. And the president, as always, is not being honest about his real intentions.
(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP.)
"I Was Right"?
11 Jan 2007 03:03 pm
A reader writes of this post:
But for one line, your analysis of the speech was on the money. I especially enjoyed your first paragraph, which examines the premises of the speech compared to the reality on the ground. But alas, we know only one thing about Iraq. It has failed. But its failure does not mean that anyone who supported different tactics was right. We know only that the tactics used in this particular invasion did not work.
You still steadfastly refuse to examine the views of those who opposed the war from the outset. If you did, you would find that for the most part, they understood that the premises of the war did not match the facts on the ground. In particular, they understood the culture, the people, the economics and the religion(s) of Iraq. They also understood the American people, who will not, perhaps sadly, ultimately support a war that does not end quickly unless national security is a genuine and clear issue. The world today is not the world that Niall Ferguson understands. Until the day comes that you really analyze the views of Juan Cole and others like him, views that were expressed in real time, and respond to their content, your views about who was right and who was wrong are not credible.
I am glad you understand now the significance of the way forward expressed last night, but I hope in the future you will at least have the decency to characterize your views properly. Perhaps additional troops used at an earlier time could have worked, we will never know, but certainly now the escalation proposed by Mr. Bush and the premises underlying that escalation do not fit the facts on the ground. Anything more on your part, a supporter of the war, is overreaching.
I'll ignore the condescension, but the reader is right about one thing. We will never know for sure if a strategy with far more troops back in 2003 and 2004 would have worked. In retrospect, I think we had a window of six months after Saddam's fall to avoid the centrifugal disintegration of Iraq. But I remain unconvinced that this effort, while always extremely difficult, was doomed to fail as badly as it has. I'm sorry if it irritates some that my evolution is not a clean break. But history is rarely a clean break. It is a series of real human choices in real time - and our real time attempt, fallible attempt to understand them.
Dieu Cache
11 Jan 2007 02:30 pm
DId anyone notice a little wrinkle in Bush's speech at the very end? One reader did:
This is the final paragraph of the President's speech:
"We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours. Thank you and good night."
What's missing?
He left out the ubiquitous "May God continue to bless the United States of America." We only "trust" that the "Author of Liberty" will "guide us." Do we no longer need God's blessing, just a little guidance?
Interestingly, the absence of the word "God" is downright Jeffersonian. The founders often used euphemism's for "God." For example "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence.
Have the president's speech writers finally understood that the founders knew best? That the invocation of God should be sparing, austere and reflective of a distant deity - particularly in a president's utterances in a diverse religious society?
Derb on Hamlet
11 Jan 2007 01:54 pm
I missed this recent stream-of-consciousness by John Derbyshire. He sat down with a pot of coffee and a jar of cookies and watched Hamlet, empowered by the web's resources. After endless, amusing online digressions, Derb gets to the nub:
At last there is the play itself, ever fresh, ever fascinating, one of the greatest of all productions of the human imagination. It is of course about death—more exactly, about the soap-bubble-thin yet opaque membrane that separates this place from the other. And Hamlet is of course us, all of us, each of us—a mirror. Peter Saccio, in one of his Teaching Company lectures, pauses to remark that he, Saccio, a literary critic who spends his working days among students, has been describing Hamlet as a literary critic and a college student.
Caught up with Hamlet and his hesitations, I found myself thinking of the thing not done. Does everybody have a thing not done? Perhaps not. I have one, and think of it daily—hourly, at dark times. For most of us, the thing not done is far better left undone, carried in silence to the other place; but Hamlet’s is too imperative. After trying to keep his doubt alive by feeding it all the learning of the ages, and the new understandings of his own time, he goes and does the thing not done, taking us with him to the edge of the world.
(Painting of Hamlet and his father's ghost by Henry Fuseli).
The Logical Contradiction of the "Surge"
11 Jan 2007 01:20 pm
I said this last night on CNN, but there is an obvious glaring logical hole at the center of the president's strategy. John Derbsyhire sums it up brilliantly here:
The central and most glaring contradiction is the implied threat to walk away... Yoked to the ringing declaration that, of course, we can't walk away. We seem to be saying to the Maliki govt.: "Hey, you guys better step up to your responsibilites, or else we're outa here." This, a few sentences after saying that we can't leave the place without a victory. So-o-o-o:
—-We can't leave Iraq without a victory.
—-Unless Maliki & Co. get their act together, we can't achieve victory.
—-If Maliki & Co. don't get their act together, we'll leave.
It's been a while since I studied classical logic, but it seems to me that this syllogism leaks like a sieve.
I think the logical inference is that this is hooey. But Cheney, if not Bush, does not do hooey. What was the real message of this speech? I'm trying to figure that out. But I'm beginning to feel more dread in my stomach about what this president is prepared to do.
The View From Your Window
11 Jan 2007 11:31 am
Sedona, Arizona, 9 am.
Behind the Scenes
11 Jan 2007 04:59 am
The brightly-lit guy in the lower half of the window is Anderson Cooper, whose show I was on last night. They broadcast it from a balcony in the Cannon Building in the Congress. This is taken from the other side of the rotunda, with Anderson in mid-show. It's almost 2 am now. Blogging may be a little delayed in the morning, but my take on the speech can be read below.
The Speech
11 Jan 2007 12:56 am
The premise of the speech, and of the strategy, is that there is a national democratic government in Baghdad, defending itself against Jihadist attacks. The task, in the president's mind, is therefore to send more troops to defend such a government. But the reality facing us each day is a starkly different one from the scenario assumed by the president. The government of which Bush speaks, to put it bluntly, does not exist. The reality illumined by the lynching of Saddam is that the Maliki government is a front for Shiite factions and dependent for its future on Shiite death squads. U.S. support for the government is not, therefore, a defense of democracy in a unified country, whatever our intentions. It is putting the lives of American soldiers in defense of the Shiite side in an increasingly brutal civil war.
What we will discover in the next few months, therefore, is simply whether the entire premise of this strategy is actually true. The president is asking us to find this out one more time. He seems to disbelieve the overwhelming evidence on the ground - that the dynamic has changed beyond recognition. His intellectual rubric - democracy versus terror - has not changed to deal with fast-changing events, or to take account of the sectarian dynamic that his appallingly managed occupation has spawned. And so his strategy is no surprise. It would have made sense in 2004, when so many of us were begging for more troops, only to be dismissed as fair-weather warriors, terror-supporters, or lily-livered wimps. We were right. This president was disastrously wrong - and clung to his disproved strategy in the face of overwhelming evidence, supported by the Republican right regardless, until it simply became impossible to sustain the lie any longer.
If the president tonight had outlined a serious attempt to grapple with this new situation - a minimum of 50,000 new troops as a game-changer - then I'd eagerly be supporting him. But he hasn't. 21,500 U.S. troops is once again, I fear, just enough troops to lose. The only leverage this president really has left is the looming regional war that withdrawal would bring. Yes, if we leave, the civil war will take off. And if we stay, with this level of troops, the civil war will also take off. One way, we get enmeshed in the brutal civil war in the region. One way, we get to face them another day, and perhaps benefit by setting them against each other, and destabilizing Iran. That's the awful choice this president has brought us to. Under these circumstances, I favor withdrawal, while of course, hoping that a miracle could take place. But make no mistake: a miracle is what this president needs. And a miracle is what we will now have to pray for.
He will do what he wants, of course. Even if the bulk of his own party balks, along with the Democrats. Even if the casualties mount, and the civil war intensifies. Even if failure becomes more and more entrenched. The logic of his speech is that we can never let go of this disaster, that it is our fate for the rest of our lives, and that his job is merely to pass it on - deadlier than ever - to whichever unlucky sap gets to inherit his office.
To back this anemic reponse to the escalating civil war requires us to abandon our empirical sense and the lessons of the past four years. To back it requires us to trust this president as a competent, deft and determined leader. Do you? Can you? At this point? After all we have seen?
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Just One Reader
10 Jan 2007 10:50 pm
He writes:
I am one of the Americans most untouched by the war going on. I have no friends or family in the military, and to extend that even further, none of my friends have any friends or family in the military. I live in a nice secure bubble, where I get to enjoy a lifestyle amongst the highest in human history. I received a tax reduction so I get to enjoy the fruits of my labors more than I might have otherwise. The war affects me not at all. I recognize the mistakes made, and consider our entire exercise in the middle east to be futile at best, harmful to our country at worst.
Yet, I remain ambivalent. I decided, as long as nothing is asked of me, I will continue to turn my head from the events. The moment a sacrifice is asked of me, I will turn actively against it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I mean any sacrifice. A dime in taxes to pay for rebuilding an army Bush has misused would be too much.
Post-War Iraq and Japan
10 Jan 2007 09:46 pm
A reader contrasts and compares:
The population of Japan was about 72,000,000 in 1945. There were about 350,000 U.S. troops occupying the country in 1945 (plus another 40,000 allied troops. In terms of residents per soldier, the ratio is approximately 185 Japanese people per occupying soldier.
What about Iraq? The Iraqi population numbers about 26,000,000 people. If you consider only U.S. soldiers (160,000), and exclude the Iraqi Army and other coalition soliders, there are about 163 Iraqis per U.S. soldier. Now, if you add in the contracted private security personnel (many are former soldiers), who number about 100,000, the ratio of Iraqis to armed U.S. soldier or security officer drops from 163 to 100.
Either way, there were significantly fewer occupying soldiers per resident in post-war Japan compared to the present situation in Iraq.
How do we explain the difference between the cases of post-war Japan and Iraq? While not dismissing the extreme Shinto state-religion, militarism and aggression of the Japanese people during the WWII era, there are other cultural and religious factors that are important with respect to the present-day Iraqi situation. I would conjecture one of the most important of these is the issue of politicized Islam. But how to deal with assassins who kill in the name of Allah is a question that Muslims must face. President Bush's plan to send 20,000 more troops will likely obscure where the ultimate responsibility lays, and prevent the Arab and Muslim worlds, and ultimately Iraqis themselves, from recognizing and assuming the responsibility they face.
Surging the troops by 20,000, or even establishing a police state (Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of people to keep a lid on his kettle of simmering hatreds), will not be not sufficient to quell human beings who are intent on cutting their brothers' throats.
I agree. Withdrawing places the responsibility for the Islamist threat where it lies: on Muslims in the Middle East. Only they can solve their own pathologies. We have lost a chance to guide this process; so we may as well let it play out on its own. If it means $100 a barrel of oil, great.
Brownback Bolts
10 Jan 2007 08:58 pm
In a stunning sign of how the GOP might become a significant opponent of a surge in Iraq, hard-right theocon and presidential candidate, Senator Sam Brownback, opposes sending more troops to Iraq. Money quote:
I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution. In the last two days, I have met with Prime Minister Maliki, with two deputy presidents and the president of the Kurdish region. I came away from these meetings convinced that the United States should not increase its involvement until Sunnis and Shi'a are more willing to cooperate with each other instead of shooting at each other.
I see his point.
21,500
10 Jan 2007 08:38 pm
That's it, apparently. Phased in slowly, with a mere 10,000 or so Iraqi government soldiers. To retake Baghdad block by block. I'll be fascinated to know if even Fred Kagan thinks this is sufficient. But I'll wait for the details tonight. Here's the White House's broad rationale. I have to say I'm shocked by its naivete. Here's the regional strategy:
Iraqi:
* Vigorously engage Arab states.
* Take the lead in establishing a regional forum to give support and help from the neighborhood.
* Counter negative foreign activity in Iraq.
* Increase efforts to counter PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party).
Coalition:
* Intensify efforts to counter Iranian and Syrian influence inside Iraq.
* Increase military presence in the region.
* Strengthen defense ties with partner states in the region.
* Encourage Arab state support to Government of Iraq.
* Continue efforts to help manage relations between Iraq and Turkey.
* Continue to seek the region's full support in the War on Terror.
It makes Baker-Hamilton look realistic.
The Polls and the Surge
10 Jan 2007 08:11 pm
Mark Blumenthal notes a wide discrepancy in the polls about support for a surge - but all of them are anemic. Below is Charles Franklin's helpful graph on public attitudes to the war over the last four years. The last time more than 50 percent of the American public believed the Iraq war was "worth it" was in early 2004. Here's Franklin's analysis.
After The Thumping
10 Jan 2007 07:46 pm
A conservative wonders what the movement has become. Money quote:
Into this disorderly scene strode George W. Bush, touting a compassionate conservatism that accepted the present size of government (or at least resolved to stop arguing about it) and strove to build an enduring Republican majority by increments, appealing to soccer-cum-security moms, immigrants, and minorities. Though the strategy contributed to victory in several elections, it came with high costs. Literally: the new prescription drug entitlement will cost untold billions (though it will save some hospitalization costs, too). More important in the short term, compassionate conservatism eviscerated the GOP's reform ambitions. By abandoning the public case for limited government, Bush's spiritless conservatism left the administration, and especially Congress, adrift and spendthrift.
Well, I've put in my two cents.
Oscar Wilde and Catholicism
10 Jan 2007 07:17 pm
A fascinating analysis of a great gay, Catholic writer.
Socially Liberal Mitt
10 Jan 2007 06:48 pm
Here's a YouTube edited from Mitt Romney's 1994 debate with Ted Kennedy for the Senate. Listening to his convictions a decade ago, you can see just how massively his message has changed since then. That may be due to an intellectual and spiritual evolution; or it could be total political cynicism. Make your own mind up.
Heads Up
10 Jan 2007 06:30 pm
I'll be blogging from Capitol Hill tonight on the president's speech, and will be doing post-speech commentary on Anderson Cooper's show on CNN. Stay tuned tonight.
Torture in Egypt
10 Jan 2007 06:29 pm
A conservative cares!
Discussing Oakeshott
10 Jan 2007 06:08 pm
He's the main influence behind my new book, "The Conservative Soul," and I'm delighted that my 1989 doctoral dissertation on him, "Intimations Pursued," is going to be published later this year, as part of a series of books devoted to analyzing his thought. If Anglo-American conservatism is going to be revived in the twenty-first century, it will, I think, have to draw deeply on Oakeshott's reconciliation of conservatism with modernity. One of the sharper younger Oakeshott scholars is Ian Tregenza, whom I met at the Oakeshott Society conference earlier this year. If you're interested, here's a podcast from an Australian radio show called "The Philosopher's Zone," where Ian discusses Oakeshott with Peter Coleman. Here's how the podcast is introduced:
The British philosopher Michael Oakeshott, who was born in 1901 and died in 1990, is a difficult man to pin down. He's frequently described as a conservative, but there isn't much in his thought that would have been of help to a political party, and his work is often seen as poetic and evasive. This week, we look at the work of a great - and strange - philosopher.
Listen here.
The View From Your Window
10 Jan 2007 05:42 pm
Big Sur, California, 2 pm.
The Generals' Compromise
10 Jan 2007 05:05 pm