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Saturday, August 4, 2007
Re: Privatizing the Roads [Eric]
04 Aug 2007 08:20 pm
I fail to really see the benefit of privatizing existing highways.
The problem is the question of a monopoly. A road gets put in a certain place for a reason, serving the people who need the road to get from point A to point B. Once a road is laid down, there's an inherent monopoly — only one road could be going through that particular spot, and nobody could ever truly compete with it by offering the same product. Someone else could put a road nearby, but not in that same exact location.
Privatization of highways doesn't really solve that; it just replaces a public monopoly with a private monopoly. And since the whole point of private ownership is that superior products will result through competition, how is any problem actually solved here?
And if competition is to be introduced, offering a similar road nearby, the barriers to entry are enormous. Competition would have to come through a rival company building a whole separate road nearby, first buying up and developing land that could have provided housing, businesses, green space, etc. It would take years to raise the business capital, then take care of all that overhead and construct the separate road, and finally open for business. That sort of situation would hardly put much competitive pressure on a current monopoly holder.
Continue reading "Re: Privatizing the Roads [Eric]" »
Privatizing the Roads [Stephen]
04 Aug 2007 07:19 pm
Larry Ribstein argues that "The Minnesota bridge collapse brought dramatically home what anybody who spends a significant amount of time driving already knew – our infrastructure in general, and roads in particular, are in awful shape."
His solution? Privatization, carefully done.
Theocons Sure Have High Standards [Eric]
04 Aug 2007 04:49 pm
Here's Romney coming face to face with the religious right on Iowa talk radio:
It's long, but definitely worth your time.
Update: I just e-mailed Romney's press secretary Kevin Madden, asking why the campaign decided to put this particular exchange up on YouTube. His reply:
Because it shows Governor Romney standing his ground and making his case to an interviewer that took him head-on over the issues. He is confident and engaging during a tough inquiry. Folks who have seen the video says it is Governor Romney at his best, so we felt others should have the chance to see it.
The Conservative Principles Poll [Stephen]
04 Aug 2007 03:21 pm
A lot of my friends in the center-right blogosphere think Andrew and his readers are a bunch of lefties. So let's take an unscientific poll. Russell Kirk famously laid out 10 conservative principles. To how many do you subscribe? (I've just excerpted the principles here, it's worth going over here to read Kirk's entire essay.)
- The conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent. ... A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be. ...
- The conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. ... Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. ...
- Conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. ... The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man’s petty private rationality.
- Conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. ... Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. ...
- The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.
- Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. ... All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. ... The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell.
- Conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all.
- Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. ... In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. ... If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction—why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity.
- The conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. ... It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of power as a force for good—so long as the power falls into his hands. ... A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
- Permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. ... He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise.
When Andrew gets back, maybe he'll do a post telling us which of the ten he holds these days. In the meanwhile, check as many of the principles you want. Or, if you're a real liberal, there's a none of the above option:
Ron Paul's Role [Bruce]
04 Aug 2007 02:29 pm
I've enjoyed reading Andrew's supportive comments about Ron Paul. Working on Ron's congressional staff was the first "real" job I had after giving up on an academic career and leaving graduate school in 1976. He had just been elected the first time in a special election in April of that year and I went to work for him a month later. I applied for a job with him after reading a story about him in the Washington Post in which his opponent accused Ron of being to the right of Barry Goldwater. That sounded good to me. I think I was hired because I had published a couple of articles in The Freeman, a little magazine published by the Foundation for Economic Education that Ron read religiously.
Ron and I haven't seen too much of each other over the years, but I did interview him earlier this year. I couldn't see any real difference between the Ron Paul of today and the one I worked for more than 30 years ago. He's a little grayer, of course, but he still comes across as a regular guy who just happens to be a congressman. I couldn't help thinking how similar he is to Jefferson Smith, the Jimmy Stewart character in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Like Smith, Ron views his position as an enormous priviledge and he gives thanks every day for the ability to say what he thinks, meet interesting people, and maybe have a little bit of impact on policy.
I think this attitude comes across to every person who sees him in person or hears Ron talk. His sincerity and earnestness are so heartfelt that it is impossible not to like and respect him even when he is talking about stuff like the evils of fiat money that make the eyes of all but a few true believers glaze over. But that is all part of his charm. It is proof positive that Ron is not giving a speech that has been polled, focus-tested and approved by a bunch of inside-the-beltway political consultants. And it's why we know that when Ron denounces the war in Iraq it is not because he is trying to curry favor with the antiwar crowd, but because it is part of a comprehensive philosophy that is logically consistent to a fault.
In spite of our history, however, I have had trouble getting behind Ron's campaign. Part of it is that I am deeply alienated from the Republican Party these days and don't really care who it nominates. But it's also because I have always seen Ron as a modern day Don Quixote--someone who would rather tilt at windmills like the Federal Reserve than try to really enact legislation that would actually change public policy. I have always felt that Ron would rather die for principle than win any day of the week. But, like I said, that's part of his charm and why those of an idealistic nature can't help but be drawn to him.
I am starting to change my mind a little bit, however. As it becomes more and more certain that the Republican candidate has just about zero chance of winning next year, there's at least a chance that some significant portion of the base may decide that if they are going to lose anyway, it might as well be with a candidate who they admire and respect. I think this a part of what powered Barry Goldwater to the Republican nomination in 1964. Everyone knew he was going to lose, including Goldwater, so it didn't really matter. Something like that might make Ron Paul semi-viable as well.
The odds of this scenario developing are pretty long, I admit. Republicans' capacity for self-delusion is strong and most of them probably won't allow themselves to consider the possibility of a Democratic victory no matter what the polls and experts say. They will delude themselves that they can pull off a Truman-like 1948 miracle right up until the last vote is counted. In my opinion, they would be better off writing off 2008 and thinking about how to make a comeback in the 2010 congressional elections and retake the White House in 2012. But that's just me.
Bush Promises Help For Minnesota [Eric]
04 Aug 2007 01:22 pm
Thanks to Andrew for letting me write here.
A cynic might argue that these promises from the Bush Administration will end up being just as empty as his performance after Katrina — that it's all about political appearances, and nothing will actually get done.
But in this case, political appearances would actually argue in favor of a positive and vigorous federal intervention: They need the place in good shape for the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
No reason to be cynical at all.
If you're a stickler for civil liberties, you won't like this... [Liz Mair]
04 Aug 2007 12:31 pm
The legislation, which is expected to go before the House today, would expand the government's authority to intercept without a court order the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States who are communicating with people overseas.
As currently written, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act already gives U.S. spies broad leeway to monitor the communications of foreign terrorism suspects, but the 30-year-old statute requires a warrant to monitor calls intercepted in the United States, regardless of where the calls begin or end.
Note that 16 Democrats and Joe Lieberman voted for this bill. Details will be forthcoming as to who the Democrats were.
It won't surprise many people to know that I am skeptical of what was passed. While I do feel that Congress needed to do something on the issue of surveillance before heading off on holiday, I had thought the proposal put forward by some Democrats last week sounded better in terms of protecting civil liberties, while still allowing the executive branch to collect valuable intelligence via surveillance. As I understand it, what was passed last night does depart from that proposal quite a bit. The good news? Apparently, a six month sunset provision was built into the bill passed last night. So, at least any trampling of civil liberties won't be going on for years and years-- unless Congress decides to approve legislation like this again in 2008, that is.
UPDATE: Painful though it is for me to cite Kos, here's the Dkos list of the Dems who voted for this:Evan Bayh (Indiana); Tom Carper (Delaware); Bob Casey (Pennsylvania); Kent Conrad (North Dakota); Dianne Feinstein (California); Daniel Inouye (Hawai‘i); Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); Mary Landrieu (Louisiana); Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas); Claire McCaskill (Missouri); Barbara Mikulski (Maryland); Bill Nelson (Florida); Ben Nelson (Nebraska); Mark Pryor (Arkansas); Ken Salazar (Colorado); Jim Webb (Virginia).
Wait for the Kossacks to start complaining about centrist Democrats, ad nauseum, again. Not that I'm sold on this legislation at all... www.lizmair.com
Best. Movie. Line. Ever.
04 Aug 2007 12:12 pm
"That is one nutty hospital." Tootsie.
Knocking back Bloomberg [Liz Mair]
04 Aug 2007 11:14 am
Last week, Andrew linked to some stories detailing the latest nanny state plans coming out of the office of the New York Mayor, and possible forthcoming presidential candidate, Mike Bloomberg. Well, yesterday, those opposing the ridiculous "permits to film or photograph" scheme concocted by the Mayor's Office had a little victory, if only a temporary one:
The consultation period ended yesterday, but activists at the New York Civil Liberties Union, which backed the protest have already claimed a victory.
The Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting has agreed to redraft the rules in light of their concerns – and the new proposals will be open to comments for another 30 days.
In a statement, the office said: ‘We have endeavoured to meet the challenge of identifying a threshold level of activity which necessitates a film permit. The goal is to maintain a safe environment for the public, while balancing the needs of filmmakers whose work may have a significant impact on pedestrian or vehicular use of public space.’
Don't worry, though, Bloomberg has been setting his sights on other matters of concern besides the intersection between photography and public safety on the New York streets-- yesterday he weighed into the debate over bottled versus tap water.
Bloomberg seems to be showing an increasing tendency to meddle in just about everything, on "common good" grounds, and it's something that I have to say seriously, seriously annoys me. Especially if we are headed towards a Bloomberg presidential candidacy (which, incidentally, Ed Koch thinks we are-- side note to Ed on the title of his piece in tomorrow's WaPo, though: you may like Mike, but I highly doubt I will, no matter what you say). Sam Nunn seems to be gunning for Bloomberg, or some independent in any event (maybe even himself) to run, too.
Still, my assessment of Bloomberg's prospects, whether he runs or not, is pretty well summed up by this image, which comes courtesy of LolPresidents:
The View From Your Window
04 Aug 2007 11:07 am
Sao Paolo, Brazil, 9 am.
For a newly updated, global gallery of Dish readers' window views, click here.
On Non-Interventionism [Stephen]
04 Aug 2007 01:59 am
Thanks to Andrew for inviting me to guest blog this week. Over at ProfessorBainbridge.com, I started out blogging about business law and economics (which is what I do for a living as a corporate law professor at UCLA), but eventually expanded into politics, religion, music, cars, cooking, and wine. I may leave a recipe or two behind before I leave, but for the moment let's start with a topic commonly discussed here; namely, foreign policy.
I was struck today by Gregory Scoblete's essay on Ron Paul's theory of non-intervention:
During the May 15 debate in South Carolina, Paul wondered how Republicans were able to capture the presidency in 2000. "We talked about a humble foreign policy," he said. "No nation-building; don't police the world." Paul, alone among GOP contenders, opposed the invasion of Iraq and has been a critic of the enterprise ever since.
Such restraint does not sit well with many conservatives intent on seizing what columnist Charles Krauthammer dubbed the "unipolar moment" of American ascendancy in a world without the Soviet Union. To them, only the maximalist goals espoused by President Bush in his second inaugural address are worthy of America. Neoconservative champions of an "American Empire" such as Council on Foreign Relations scholar Max Boot chafe at the notion that there are, or should be, limits to American power or that the American interest should be defined as anything less than a globe-spanning, benevolent imperium. Unfazed by our inability to pacify Iraq, neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz (recently named as an advisor to the Giuliani campaign) are now agitating to expand the war into Iran.
Nor does Paul's parsimony sit well with Democrats and liberals, whose predilection to use military force seems to increase as the relevancy of the mission to U.S. security decreases. Supposedly aghast by the civil war in Iraq, Democratic statesmen like Delaware Senator Joseph Biden want to insert the U.S. into Sudan. If you blanched at the President's Second Inaugural, which pledged to erase tyranny from the pages of human memory, you won't find much comfort in Barack Obama's barely-less expansive formulation of America's interests in Foreign Affairs.
A plague on both their houses. Russell Kirk wrote about Bush 41's war:
Are we to saturation-bomb most of Africa and Asia into righteousness, freedom, and democracy? And, having accomplished that, however would we ensure persons yet more unrighteous might not rise up instead of the ogres we had swept away?
It remains true today. But Kirk also knew something else, as I discussed in my post Prudence in Iraq: Then and Now:
A soundly conservative foreign policy, in the age which is dawning, should be neither 'interventionist' nor 'isolationist': it should be prudent. Its object should not be to secure the triumph everywhere of America's name and manners, under the slogan of 'democratic capitalism,' but instead the preservation of the true national interest, and acceptance of the diversity of economic and political institutions.
There have been times when intervention was more consistent with a prudential assessment of our national interest than would be a blanket policy of non-intervention. Afghanistan post-9/11 is a case in point; indeed, even Ron Paul voted to authorize the war in Afghanistan. For that matter, the prudent thing to do would have been an even more aggressive intervention that actually managed to catch and kill Osama bin Laden. And there have been times when non-intervention would have been the prudent choice. Looking ahead, Sudan looks like an extra-large version of Somalia. Intervention there would be imprudent even if the Iraq war hadn't stretched our military resources to the limit. We would be walking into another civil war.
We don't need a presumption against either interventionism or non-interventionism. We need a presumption in favor of prudence.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Chillin'
03 Aug 2007 06:36 pm
I'm taking the next week off for some wedding planning and a vacation (that's Aaron on the couch). I'm psyched to say that four of my favorite bloggers have agreed to guest-blog for me on the Dish until August 13, when I'll be back. They are Bruce Bartlett, author of "Impostor" and one of the bravest conservatives out there, a man who took on this administration for its betrayal of conservatism when most others wouldn't. He's joined by Stephen Bainbridge, another principled conservative whose blog has become a must-read for right-of-center blog-fans. Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo is also blogging. If you read TPM, you'll recognize him as one of the sharpest liberal posters on the web. Finally, Liz Mair, a libertarian-conservative blogger and campaign addict will round out the team. Check out their blogs and keep checking in next week. Window views and movie line contest entries will continue uninterrupted. Oh: and be nice. They're our guests.
A Poem For Friday
03 Aug 2007 05:00 pm
You think, living in this town, no one's at war
because of how we all respect savage flowerings
for instance, or the queer biker who walks a stranger
to the curb because the wind is lit up from some strange
cellar to make us late. We think we belong
where we are better known.
I ride my bike. I ride my bike through speeds
like flavors, unzip the mile-long zipper that cinches
the street and bay together.
Fletcher names it the Bay of Take What's Left.
But I have seen mornings when all the bay could do
was give nothing but proof of gold
unwaving. Gold, going on without us.
- Michael Klein, "Proof Of Gold."
The Poet Laureate
03 Aug 2007 04:47 pm
It's Charles Simic, which makes some of us very happy. Here's a 2005 interview with Simic from the Paris Review. Money quote:
INTERVIEWER: "All I have is a voice," Auden wrote in "September 1, 1939," "To undo the folded lie." Of course he then later disowned this poem . . . But it seems to me your poems are often motivated by the desire to "undo folded lies," or at least to expose the various complexities that politicians and pundits attempt to disguise from us.
SIMIC: Let's hope so. Poetry in my view is a defense of the individual against all the forces arrayed against him. Every religion, every ideology and orthodoxy of thought and manner wants to reeducate him and make him into something else. To sing from the same sheet is the ideal. A true patriot doesn’t think for himself, they’ll tell you. I realize that there’s a long tradition in poetry of not speaking truth to power and, in fact, of being its groveling apologist. I just don’t have it in me.
Inducing Racism
03 Aug 2007 04:03 pm
A new social science experiment:
Participants are brought in, have an EEG cap put on their head to measure electrical activity in the brain, and then they are told to watch a series of faces appearing on the screen.
Some of the faces are White, some Black and some Asian….
Afterwards the participants are shown bar graphs supposedly interpreting measurements of the electrical activity in their brains. These indicate that while the participants reacted positively and neutrally to White and Asian faces, they reacted negatively to Black faces. The 'results' seem to show that our liberal participants are somewhat racist - whether consciously or unconsciously.
These graphs are, of course, just made up.
Nanny State Watch II
03 Aug 2007 03:31 pm
Nanny-State Watch I
03 Aug 2007 02:59 pm
Pretty soon, breast-feeding will be compulsory. And don't miss the A-Train.
Britain As A Cloud
03 Aug 2007 02:28 pm
Appropriate, when you come to think about it. From the wonderful blog, "Strange Maps."
A Three-Way Tie In Iowa
03 Aug 2007 02:08 pm
Obama's getting good news lately from the early primary states.
Fisking Pollack/O'Hanlon
03 Aug 2007 01:26 pm
Greg Djerejian does the most thorough, persuasive and unsettling job yet.
In Case You Missed It
03 Aug 2007 01:07 pm
My take on the TNR Scott Beauchamp story is here.
Life In Baghdad
03 Aug 2007 12:52 pm
This, I guess, is what happens when your country falls apart:
Large areas in the western parts of Baghdad were without running water on Thursday, in 120-degree summer heat. Officials blamed their inability to keep the water-purification and pumping stations going for the electricity shortages.
Many Baghdad residents complain that they have water for only a few hours a day, and sometimes no electricity at all.
Bob Gates has some choice words in the same report:
"We probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation, which, let's face it, is not some kind of secondary issue."
Well, not all of us under-estimated it. And it surely seems a secondary issue as far as Bush is concerned. He keeps pitching Iraq as a military battle against al Qaeda, when it is obviously, primarily, a civil war we have no political solution to. More discouraging, it seems to me that even Gates - a sane and sensible man - is becoming resigned to an indefinite occupation of Iraq. Washington's caution about leaving a war zone is understandable, of course. But it does not make the decision to stay grinding through an irrecoverable civil conflict any less foolish.
Where the Bad Bridges Are
03 Aug 2007 12:42 pm
Decrepit bridges are not a new story. Here's an Atlantic archived piece from 1994 with the scary map above. The red and blue counties are the danger zones. The essay prophetically notes:
The percentage of structurally deficient bridges should increase in the next ten years, in large part because tens of thousands of bridges built on the interstate highways during the boom years following the Second World War will soon be in need of major repairs. The Secretary of Transportation estimates that federal, state, and local governments will need to increase their yearly funding by almost 40 percent to meet the surging need for bridge rehabilitation.
Justifying Intervention
03 Aug 2007 12:36 pm
Jamie Kirchick's latest - and final - word on the subject.
Quote for the Day
03 Aug 2007 12:21 pm
"At the moment the public is not fully sure what you stand for. In time this will change of its own accord but it should change radically. I am convinced that so much political failure reflects weak and erratic definition.
No one should have any doubt about what you stand for, what you want to achieve, what is your plan. You need absolute clarity in this," - from a secret memo to new prime minister Gordon Brown from Labour party guru, Philip Gould (an Oakeshott student).
People In Glass Houses
03 Aug 2007 11:51 am
A caveat for the Weekly Standard.
Ron Paul All Day All The Time
03 Aug 2007 11:51 am
He's the featured candidate on YouTube's YouChoose08 this week. Get your fix here. An amuse-bouche:
Best. Movie. Line. Ever.
03 Aug 2007 11:22 am
"Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads." "Back To The Future."
Death of an Ayatollah
03 Aug 2007 10:19 am
Kevin Sullivan ponders what the death of Ali Meshkini means for Iran:
The Iranian government serves as a collection of checks upon checks upon checks. ... Ahmadinejad is without question the most ambitious, and most autonomous post-revolution president Iran has seen so far. He has close allies in both the Assembly of Experts and the Guardian Council. He is tied in with all of the Principlist factions in Iran, and shares their vision for a return to Islamic government, as opposed to Islamic republicanism ...
The time for power grabs in Iran may be upon us, but it just might be the skilled politician who walks away from this on top. An economy in decline, and a factitious government in turmoil, may leave a vacuum for Ahmadinejad to fill. Whether he acts upon this for himself, or for his fundamentalist taskmasters, is irrelevant. The results would be the same, and none of it would be good for the people of Iran.
Obama = Bush?
03 Aug 2007 09:56 am
Larison is concerned:
I think Obama is pushing exactly the wrong line here, threatening to effectively destabilise the existing regime without having any idea of what would come next. This is a combination of soundbite foreign policy and a "pour oil on fire to see what happens" approach to international relations. Obama’s foreign policy position is beginning to give me an eerie feeling of deja vu. Who was the last presidential candidate with no real foreign policy experience who set his policies according to whatever was perceived to be the opposite of the sitting President? Who was it who framed his foreign policy pitch as that of someone who would provide leadership and measured action where his predecessor had dithered and wasted opportunities? Oh, yes, it was Mr. Bush. At the time, it sounded reasonably attractive to those of us fed up with Clintonian interventions. If Bush’s "humble" foreign policy yielded Iraq, just imagine the nightmare that might come from a candidacy founded on audacity!
RealClearPolitics On Ames, Iowa
03 Aug 2007 09:49 am
How can you write an entire piece on the Iowa straw poll and not mention Ron Paul once? Is the GOP establishment that rattled? I guess we'll find out.
A Test For Aspergers
03 Aug 2007 08:46 am
Do you know someone "really smart, arrogant beyond measure, [who] tends to be an asshole or otherwise impossible to converse with in a normal way"? Is it you? Are you a geek or do you have Asperger's Syndrome? Here's an online test designed to help you decide. One blogger is relieved by his results:
"So there. I don't have Asperger's, I'm just cruel and insensitive."
Will the Indies Save Publishing?
03 Aug 2007 08:23 am
A reader writes:
My first book was just published this summer, by an indie house called Sourcebooks. My experience seems drastically different from you and your readers' by comparison.
I had an editor who read through every page and had lovingly smart notes, a copyeditor, a proofreader, and in the end, the book wouldn't be released for production until I proofed the galleys. My book was sold to B&N and Borders before there was a cover, on the strength of two essays and a sales pitch.
It appears that selling to an independent is better for the writer, since the publisher has far more at stake in making sure the book is successful. The advances are smaller, definitely, but from what I've read and heard, there's more respect given to the author. I wasn't treated like a widget, I was treated like a partner.
I guess that's the free market of it. The Big Boys can pay, but you risk being treated like a mule and perhaps seeing your work mangled. The Little Guys can't quite pay the big bucks yet, but they treat authors like gold. Plus, they'll take on some of the "riskier" gems that the major publishers toss in the slush pile. The readers win by having these books available to purchase. This whole experience has been something I'll never forget, for all the right reasons.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Rebutting TNR
02 Aug 2007 11:05 pm
Here's Dean Barnett's attempt to respond to TNR's accounting of the Scott Thomas Beauchamp stories. Here's Malkin's round-up. Factually, the critics have the point that the incident of mocking an injured woman occurred in Kuwait, not Iraq. And, unless more facts emerge, that's it. For this, Beauchamp is described by Barnett as a "fabulist" and a "proven liar" and has even had his status as a soldier dismissed. The skull episode is borne out by other witnesses. The dog-baiting is completely credible. Here's a YouTube of some soldiers tormenting a wounded dog. Here's another of soldiers taunting thirsty Iraqi kids with water bottles. The incidents are gross, but in a war-zone, they're hardly something to be shocked, shocked at. Am I now slandering every soldier by linking to them? Of course not. Is TNR slandering every soldier because one soldier writes up some ugly episodes that are also self-criticism? Please. No one doubts that most of the troops are doing an amazing job in near-impossible conditions. Describing some bad apples and occasional crudeness - especially when you are criticizing yourself as well - is utterly banal.
Barnett calls the TNR statement "maddening". If you're wedded to the belief that the stories were fabricated, then it must be. It's no fun to have accused a writer and his editors of wilfull malfeasance only to discover you have no real basis for it, except your own insecurities and hatreds. If, on the other hand, you're concerned to find the full truth about Iraq - and TNR has published countless stories on every angle and supported the initial invasion - the stories are one trivial but worthwhile aspect of the complex reality of war. In the context of TNR's coverage of the entire conflict, they're completely legitimate.
I truly have no explanation why the rightwing blogosphere has managed to largely ignore and deny actual claims and cases of torture and abuse by US soldiers but have gone batshit over some trivial, unshocking, verified soldier stories by a man who, unlike Barnett and Malkin, is actually serving his country. But this is my best shot: Their president and their Congress and their movement have lost a war, wounded America's moral standing in the world and caused tens of thousands of deaths and a greater risk of terrorism across the globe.
After four and a half years of this nightmare, who are you going to blame but The New Republic?
Face of the Day
02 Aug 2007 08:15 pm
Russian paratroopers celebrate Paratroopers Day at Gorky Park in Moscow, 2 August 2007. By Maxim Marmur/AFP/Getty.
Yglesias, Kirchick, Intervention
02 Aug 2007 06:20 pm
It's a minor blog spat, but in some ways revealing about the deeper issues involved in deciding whether to intervene in foreign countries. The subject is Ethiopia and Somalia. Were we right to support a foreign government's attempt to thwart a Qaeda-backed regime in a neighboring state? Jamie Kirchick thinks so:
I think Ethiopia was entirely justified in ousting an Al-Qaeda affiliated, Islamofascist junta which had overthrown the legitimate government of a neighbor state and was using that state's territory to launch terrorist attacks against it. And I think the United States was justified in aiding attempts to hunt down and kill the men responsible for murdering 225 people, many of them American civil servants.
Put like that, who could disagree? Unless blowback is so endemic and dangerous that the results vitiate the good intentions. Chotiner:
I don't think it's okay for terrorist groups to depose internationally-recognized governments etc. and not expect any sort of armed reprisal. But this is leaps and bounds away from saying that armed reprisal is the right or proper course of action (from my minimal knowledge, I'd say that in all three cases I have cited, "armed reprisal" failed badly). This was always the bothersome aspect of various pro-war arguments in 2003. Yes, Saddam is bad. Yes, he should pay. Yes, international law should be upheld. Yes, yes, yes. But do we really want to invade and occupy a hostile Middle-Eastern country? Some things in life aren't easy, and have no good answers. And I worry sometimes that arguments like Jamie's spend all their energy focusing on "justifications" while losing sight of ends.
Yglesias agrees. I've slowly moved away from Jamie's position toward Matt's. The reason is simply the empirical evidence of the results of intervention, Iraq being obviously the prime example. What Americans want are the benefits of empire, without the work of empire. If you can't do the work, you shouldn't start. That's why I think non-interventionism will become a consensus in Washington in the not-to-distant future. Experience doth make cowards of us all.
McCain On Petraeus
02 Aug 2007 05:39 pm
A reader catches a Freudian slip from the McCain blogger conference call:
Is this correct?
UPDATE I (2:46 p.m.): The senator clarified his thoughts on Iraq a bit later in the call..."What Petraeus is going to say is not that we can start to withdraw," Mr. McCain said.
Its only August 2nd...how does McCain know what Petraeus is going to say come September? Has the Congressional testimony already been typed by Karl Rove's staff and delivered to McCain? Does Petraeus have his copy, yet? Will he be allowed to edit it?
I have no idea. But I suspect Petraeus has been told what to say. He takes orders. That's his job.
Weimar Watch
02 Aug 2007 05:02 pm
"Democrats are showing us with their every word and grimace that what is good news for our country, what is good news for the war against Islamic terror, what is god news for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what is good news for the cause of peace – real peace – and stability in the Middle East is bad news, really bad news, for Democrats. Many of these people with that "D" after their names would gladly sacrifice any semblance of victory in Iraq and against the scourge of Islamic fascism if it would mean maintaining and strengthening their hold on power in Washington.. and willing the presidency.
Has there ever before been a time in America where a major political party would virtually pray for our defeat in a war so that they could demonize the leader of the opposition and turn that defeat into victory for them at the polls? Well, you're seeing just that right now," - Neal Boortz, fresh from a meeting with the Decider.
Huckabee vs Brownback
02 Aug 2007 04:56 pm
Some Christianist mud-slinging.
Saving Private Beauchamp
02 Aug 2007 04:37 pm
Read TNR's accounting. It is as I predicted: honorable and, except for one small inaccuracy, it checks out. All the aspects aggressively challenged by the usual propaganda organs have been verified and corroborated. The military is now conducting its own investigation. Given the record of such formal investigations, I'm not as confident in the Pentagon as I am in TNR. Can we now expect apologies from the people who smeared and maligned the magazine and its soldier-reporter? I doubt it. The attackers are not the kind to acknowledge their own errors.
The View From Your Window
02 Aug 2007 04:32 pm
Vancouver, Canada, 7 pm.
Inside the Surge
02 Aug 2007 04:05 pm
The Guardian's Sean Smith brings you video and photography that you don't often see in the American mainstream media. What we are subjecting these soldiers to - the risk, the climate, and the inability to recuperate in any way - is beyond belief.
Always
02 Aug 2007 03:51 pm
Yesterday was almost the Platonic idea of a summer day. The heat had depth and the light had a white glow about it. There's no cold edge to the air any more, even out here in the often-chilly Cape. We spent the second afternoon in the tidal pools at the end of the peninsula. Dan Savage, his husband and son are staying for the week - alongside countless other gay families here for Family Week. So it was floatie time in the currents. No one in the Savage family has been here before so I had the privilege of introducing them. The nine-year-old's grin belied his occasional nine-year-old diffidence.
Some people ask me why I don't travel elsewhere for a summer break. I've been coming to the same place for almost two decades. For the past decade, I've come here in June and not left till September if I can possibly help it. It's by no means all vacation. The blog and the column don't write themselves. In some ways, I seem to work harder here. But it is a break, a change of pace and atmosphere from the Washington bubble. I spent my first full summer here just after I was diagnosed with HIV. It seemed a good place to learn how to die. But it helped teach me how to live, which, you eventually realize, amounts to the same thing.
It isn't just the gay subtext, although it's great to have vibrant little patches of counter-culture and post-gay culture vying with each other on a strip of sand. It isn't just that I lucked out in buying a little beach condo when I could afford one. It's the larger place itself, the mixture of elements that make up a minimalist, sublime, pure expression of nature and nature's God. There are really only three elements to the landscape out here: dune and water and air. When you get past the town into the pristine Province Lands National Seashore (thanks, JFK!), there are no dating landmarks, no cars to place you in any decade, no architecture to pinion you to any specific time. Yes, the landscape has changed drastically over the centuries. It isn't what the Pilgrims first saw. But it is largely as it was at the tip as when Thoreau rhapsodized about it. It is a place where you can leave all America behind.
But time in this timeless place is also acutely present. It's present because of the enormous, expansive, insistent tides. I live on water, which means the view changes all the time. Every day shifts with the lunar rhythms. My backyard is both an ocean and a desert, depending on the time of day. And it is almost any color you can imagine. That's what so much light and water will do. In the tidal pools, the timelessness of the scene is intersected with the always-shifting timeliness of the water coming in and out, traveling vast distances of very shallow coastal marshes and dunes, to transform a dusty beach into a blue and green watery expanse in mere hours. There is never any still, even when the air won't move. That's why it's where I've asked my ashes to go one day. I want them dispersed into the nothingness on the horizon, to become specks of matter that will experience a pure summer day eternally. They will be there in the rough winter storms; but they will wait for the perfect summer afternoon.
Until then, it is as close as I'll get to heaven on earth. And one of those places is enough for me.
The Surge As A Way Out?
02 Aug 2007 03:25 pm
First Romney, now McCain. Is there a pattern here? Money quote from McCain's just-completed blogger conference call:
Perhaps the most surprising statement in the call, on Iraq: "In upcoming months, you could see Americans withdrawing." That, he said, could happen as Americans hand over more authority to Iraqis. Of course, he noted, it would be a long, hard process.
UPDATE I (2:46 p.m.): The senator clarified his thoughts on Iraq a bit later in the call...
"What Petraeus is going to say is not that we can start to withdraw," Mr. McCain said. "We're seeing progress," he said, and the Iraqi army is getting better. That means: "We're going to be able, in months ahead, to move into bases." And then, "when the situation warrants it," we'll be able to take the next step of withdrawing.
Hmmm.
Dissents of the Day
02 Aug 2007 02:40 pm
A reader writes:
Let me dissent from the lamentations over the publishing industry and suggest there are multiple facets to the situation. There is the "industry" which commits all the sins you and your readers are enumerating. They publish things like The Secret or turn James Frey's novel into a "memoir of emotional truth."
Then there is publishing, which continues on displaying a love of the written word, something I believe to be exemplified by my own employer, McSweeney's, which published a seven volume treatise on violence by William Vollman (Rising Up and Rising Down) that would never have seen the light of day, as well as Lawrence Weschler's "Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences," which is both beautiful and edifying.
I'm getting into what I hope is a melding between publishing and industry myself this fall, with the launch of an imprint dedicated to humorous books, TOW Books. I can tell you that I and my corporate partners/overlords are taking tremendous care with the preparation of the books and I've not only read the manuscripts, but read them seven or eight times. The authors have collaborated on the design and illustration of the books through the whole process. Obviously a book is product, but it's a product that my authors will love. I'm behind this project enough that I've decided to publish my next book through the imprint, putting my own money where I hope my mouth is.
Anyway, there's those of us out there who love publishing and do still work in publishing. Next time you're looking to publish a book, go indie, you won't go back.
Another reader defends Big Publishing:
As your author/reader points out publishing sales reps, of which I’m one, don’t travel with the actual books, which aren’t ready when we sell in, but often with galleys (when they are ready), and catalogs with info about the book. Each season I have to sell several 100 adult and children’s books to mom-and-pop stores, if I were to carry in that many books it would require a couple of SUVs – not good for the environment – and the owners of the stores would look at me like I’m nuts.
Continue reading "Dissents of the Day " »
Romney On The Surge
02 Aug 2007 02:38 pm
If Petraeus reports that the surge is working in September, Romney says that's a reason to withdraw troops. Here's the audio. More here. It's a deft maneuver: pro-surge, pro-withdrawal. Maybe only Romney can be for both simultaneously. He aims to please.
Brownback's Campaign Emails
02 Aug 2007 02:33 pm
Here's the official statement from the Brownback for President campaign:
"Baptists for Brownback is clearly a parody. Frankly, our campaign is flattered that an individual would take hours out of their day and sit behind a computer anonymously to make a parody of Senator Brownback and his consistent, conservative positions on the issues. It certainly is one of the weirder hobbies out there."
Best. Movie. Line. Ever.
02 Aug 2007 02:10 pm
"I want you to hold it between your knees." "Five Easy Pieces". Nicholson.
Quote for the Day II
02 Aug 2007 01:43 pm
"Our generation is at risk of being lost forever. After years of scandalous behavior in our nation's capital and suffering under what the liberal media has termed an 'unwinnable' war led by Republicans, our generation has moved away from the center-right and towards the liberal-left," - Charlie Smith, chairman of the College Republican National Committee.
Obama's Pakistan Threat
02 Aug 2007 01:26 pm
The other Dems react.
Baptists For Brownback
02 Aug 2007 01:08 pm
A reader writes:
I think we can safely say it's a parody:
Ladies, we hear that Mr. Sullivan is single so for any of you gals who are available, this could be your golden opportunity to meet the right kind of man.
Ten Things I Hate About Commandments
02 Aug 2007 12:42 pm
My favorite movie-trailer mash-up yet:
President Paul and the Dollar
02 Aug 2007 12:20 pm
We can dream, can't we?
Today's Publishing Industry
02 Aug 2007 12:10 pm
Jane Austen would get a rejection slip. Where's the buzz? Another reader comments on my own nightmare experience:
I bought one of those first edition books with the pages out of order. Glad to hear you mention it, because it really perplexed me at the time. It's sort of shocking to find that reputable publishers are paying this little attention. Even if your publishers didn't notice, your readers did.
Yes, they couldn't even recall them all effectively. But, hey, they're just books. Why would a publisher care what's written in them? Another reader writes:
In 1996, I self-published a book. It quickly became a "best seller," selling 3,000 copies in about a month.
So I got a big-time agent and she licensed the publishing rights for my book to one of the biggest New York book publishing companies.
I later found out that they NEVER read my book. They told me that they based their decision to publish my book on the title and cover design. The reason? When book salesmen go to the various booksellers, they only show their prospective buyers the COVERS of the books! (The salesmen don't even carry the actual books with them, only the covers.)
If you're sub-literate and need a few bucks, you know which industry to work for.
Xtreme Mormons
02 Aug 2007 11:16 am
John Safran tries to pitch a movie about Mormon missionaries who do wheelies and take on Sin City. They're fast; they're furious ... and they're looking for souls. The trailer is Tagg-bait.
Planet Bush
02 Aug 2007 11:06 am
He spent an hour of his time yesterday in the Oval Office talking to the following:
Glenn Beck, Bill Bennett, Neal Boortz, Scott Hennon, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, Mark Levin, Michael Medved, Janet Parshall.
He needs to give these people a pep-talk? Or just the usual instructions?
Planet Hewitt
02 Aug 2007 11:03 am
A reader sent me the following two quotes from the Baghdad Bob of the Bush administration. Reading Hewitt or the adolescent gushing of Kathryn-Jean Lopez over Bill Bennett and Rush Limbaugh is a useful anthropological exercize. You see in both a form of tribalism that both mistake for analysis, of partisanship that both misplace for conservatism. And then there's the simple wonder of how a human being can have lived through the past seven years and still write this:
The next president has got to chose a vice president as skilled as Cheney and a team as experienced as that which was around President Bush after 9/11 if only because the scale of the responsibility is so great and the need for clear thinking so profound. The people diseased with BDS will never get this, but the country is extraordinarily blessed to have had President Bush and Vice President Cheney and their senior aides during these first few years of a very long war. Reading Hayes' book drives that point home again and again.
And this:
I will say on today's show that I am confident about the course of the war and about the momentum in Iraq, as well of the president's absolute commitment to doing right by the troops and his concern for every lost and wounded soldier and their families. President Bush's command of the details and his broad view of the conflict is reassuring, and among my comments to him was the wish that he found more opportunities to engage in long interviews that would allow the American public to see that grasp and that commitment.
I think that was an invite for his show. The man works it.
Quote for the Day
02 Aug 2007 10:57 am
"Ultimately, politics trumps all else. If the political stalemate goes on, even if the military progress continued, I don't see how I could write another Op-Ed saying the same thing," - Michael O'Hanlon, walking back his surge optimism a little. You can read how the political process in Iraq is actually degenerating from its recent murderous, bitter lows here.
Obama Channels Clinton
02 Aug 2007 10:45 am
Bill, that is. Tom Edsall sums up what a lot of us have been observing:
Although little noticed, Obama has been challenging influential Democratic primary constituencies at a rate of about once a month, building what now is a significant record of dissent from key party factions. He has taken on civil rights groups, the National Education Association, and the powerful lobby opposed to any changes in Social Security benefits.
Appearing May 13 on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Obama suggested that he is prepared to consider a major alteration of affirmative action policy to make it less racially based and more economically rooted:
"My daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged," he said. "I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed."
In the same May 13 interview, Obama said he would consider raising both the retirement age and payroll taxes as part of a package to put Social Security on a stable fiscal basis. "Everything should be on the table," Obama said, although he rules out privatization.
A month later, in a June 7 talk at a Spartanburg, South Carolina Baptist Church, Obama pointedly challenged black men who abandon their children:
"There are a lot of men out there who need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; you need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one,"
And in Philadelphia, at a July 5 National Education Association meeting, Obama endorsed merit pay -- anathema to teachers' unions. "If you excel at helping your students achieve success, your success will be valued and rewarded as well," Obama said, careful to add, "I want to work with teachers. I'm not going to do it to you, I'm going to do it with you."
Well, it's a change election, like 1992. And Obama represents change for Democrats as well as the country.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
The Plight of Arab Bloggers
01 Aug 2007 06:14 pm
Not an encouraging news round-up:
A Kurdish journalist, for example, was given 18 months in prison last year because his online writing criticized leaders of the Kurdish region in Iraq. A Saudi spent 13 days in jail for online writing that warned about the power of religious extremists in Saudi Arabia. And a Libyan journalist who wrote critical articles about Libyan officials for London-based Libyan opposition Web sites was mysteriously gunned down in 2005, activists said.
Face of the Day
01 Aug 2007 05:40 pm
