The Obama Doctrine of Extremist Diplomacy

I've recently discussed the dangers of a Barack Obama presidency for the direction of American foreign policy (see here and here).

Not only is Obama inexperienced, but, as I've noted, his call for greater engagement with extremist regimes would "open uncritical diplomatic arms to our enemies, placing America's hard-fought gains against the world's nihilist henchmen at risk."

Apparently Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution agrees in an article at today's Wall Street Journal, "Obama as Diplomat in Chief":

Applied categorically, this would be a bad idea. Meeting with enemy heads of state is neither as original as Mr. Obama implies, nor as promising as he claims. As a specific option for dealing with difficult regimes, it has potential merit on a case-by-case basis, and should always be considered -- but only after a careful assessment of what the United States believes it can get out of such meetings and dialogues.

The would-be Obama doctrine has understandable roots. Upon becoming president, George W. Bush ended American efforts to promote a peace process in the Middle East, and Israeli-Palestinian violence worsened. He turned a cold shoulder to Kim Jong Il and North Korea wound up with perhaps eight more nuclear bombs. His administration successfully worked out a modus vivendi with Iran at the Bonn conference on Afghanistan in 2001, but Mr. Bush's subsequent "Axis of Evil" speech, pre-emption doctrine, and termination of contact with leadership in Tehran led to a deterioration in relations that has haunted us in Iraq and that worsened when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.

However, just because Mr. Bush went too far in one direction does not mean these situations would be rectified by going to the other extreme. U.S. negotiations with difficult regimes may sometimes be catalyzed by presidential engagement, but they only tend to work when we are in a commanding negotiating position or when we are prepared to make trades with foreign leaders that serve their interests as well as ours. Implying otherwise risks being labeled as naïve in the fall elections, with Democrats sounding like they believe ruthless dictators would behave better if only we took the time to try to understand them.

In fact, the U.S. has a long history of talking to unsavory extremist leaders. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't....

Mr. Obama is not wrong about the utility of negotiations with unsavory regimes. They are often useful, and they need not amount to appeasement or even a false raising of hopes. If handled carefully, they can be done in a manner that minimizes the prestige accorded a foreign leader we do not wish to risk strengthening. But such high-level contact is not a new tool of American foreign policy, nor does it guarantee success.

If elevated to a doctrine, reliance on presidential-level diplomacy is a mistake. It risks rewarding foreign leaders who cause the most trouble, creating perverse incentives for those desiring the attention of the U.S. It also can confuse us about the nature of diplomacy. Foreign leaders, nice or not, make deals based on assessments of their interests, and any new diplomatic doctrine that fails to recognize as much would ignore centuries of history and potentially damage American security.

I've omitted O'Hanlon's case-study analysis at the core of the article.

I don't have any big disagreements, however. I'd only add that Obama's also speaking more and more to the language of retreat in Iraq, and by implication the larger war on terror. It's not just his apparent bear-hug approach to our most implacable enemies (a highly ill-considered gambit), but that he's also been one of the Democratic congressional majority's biggest boosters of U.S. failure in Iraq.

The Illinois Senator's badly out of sync with our tough progress on the war. His pronouncements that Iraq's been a complete failure discredit the mission and our service personnel in the theater.

On diplomacy and war, Obama's shown he's unfit for command.

See more at Memeorandum.

McCain and the Conservatives: A Look at the Numbers

Gallup's Frank Newport examines the polling data surrounding John McCain's conflict with the conservative base, over at USA Today.

McCain's got some problems, to be sure, although one can quibble with Newport's analysis:

McCain's percent of support among national Republicans has been going down over the last several days rather than up (in our Gallup Poll Daily Tracking). This suggests that he has yet to "close the sale" and move to the point where the vast majority of Republicans say they support him as their party's nominee. Right now that number is just about the 50% mark -- and, as noted, going down, not up.

Second, just 51% of Republicans in the weekend USA Today/Gallup poll say they would be satisfied if John McCain ended up the winner in the Republican race. Almost as many say they would have preferred to see one of the ohter Republican candidates win.

Third, a tepid 34% of Republicans say that McCain is the best presidential candidate in 'your lifetime" or better than most candidates in your lifetime. I say that's tepid because the comparable number among Democrats about Barack Obama is 60% and among Democrats about Hillary Clinton is 62%. The Dems are in love with their candidates; the Repubs appear to be "in like" with theirs.

This all suggests that the problem for McCain may not just be that he displeases high profile conservatives. It may be that he displeases too many Republicans period.

Still, to some degree conservative Republicans are the Republican Party. Sixty-one percent of Republicans in the USA Today/Gallup poll call themselves conservative (the rest all almost all moderates; there are very few liberal Republicans). So it would be very difficult for McCain to be enjoying the relatively large lead that he has – 26 points over Mike Huckabee in the weekend Poll – if he didn’t have the support of a good number of conservatives.

Indeed, the facts of the matter are that McCain gets 53% of the support of all Republicans and 50% of conservative Republicans. Not a big difference. Among that smaller percent of Republicans who are moderate (and the few that are liberal), McCain’s support jumps to about 60% support.

So there is a slight tendency for conservative Republicans to be somewhat less likely than moderate Republicans to support McCain, as expected. Conservative Republicans haven’t abandoned McCain by any means. But their support is not overwhelming, and is below the level of moderate Republicans.

So McCain's standing obviously would go up if he made conservative Republicans happier. It would also go up if he made moderate Republicans happier. In general, it seems that McCain at the moment has the challenge of convincing any and all members of his party that he's an exciting candidate they should rally behind. Whether frantically focusing on attempts to burnish his bona fides as a conservative is the right (or only) way to do it is unclear.

Now, for the quibbles:

For one thing, it's an exaggeration to say that "conservative Republicans are the Republican Party." Hell, if that's the case, why do we call party fundamentalists the "conservative base."

Besides, if the conservative cohort is truly "the party," they've been taking an extended vacation this primary season! Somehow a RINO's stormed the gates of "the establishement" to snag the mantle of "presumptive nominee."

(And don't forget Nicholas Confessore's analysis last weekend, "The Vanishing Establishment," where he notes that the hardline conservative movement's overestimated its own importance.)

Not only that, Newport's sticking with his own Gallup data, which offer a limited view of the total opinion environment. Recall that Pew's new survey shows a plurality of respondents seeing McCain as a genuine conservative.

Further, exit polling from the Maryland and Virginia primaries last night found just one-third of voters identifying as "very conservative," and the Arizona Senator's decisive victories yesterday cast further doubt on the claims that McCain's not conservative enough for the Republican electorate.

Base conservatives will come around to McCain's ascendency in the party.

Rush Limbaugh's already backing off his McCain attacks, amid growing evidence that far-right talk radio's got little power after all.

In the Eye of Conservatives

Wordsmith, a bloggin' buddy o' mine whose homestead's over at "Sparks on the Anvil," 's been doing some of the best analysis available on the far-right's McCain controversy.

Here's a bit from his post up today, "Poking My Thumb in the Eye of Conservatives for Their Own Good":

The commonly held belief amongst self-described Reagan footsoldiers, is that John McCain is a conservative apostate, who enjoys sticking his thumb in the eye of conservatives. Maybe he does enjoy his "maverick" reputation a little too much; maybe his 5 1/2 years as a POW knocked a few screws loose and instilled a certain "mean-spiritedness" in him. Maybe he was born this way.

But a conservative apostate?!

He may not be the conservative we like; nor the kind of conservative we can all trust, on all issues; yet, conservative he is, and the conservative we are all stuck with.

I do not get this need for conservatives to "disown" each other. Who is to say who a true conservative is? According to the Ron Paul Reverists, we are all conservative apostates and betrayers of the original intent of our Founding Fathers if we don't heed the whinings of their Constitutional Pied Piper. Then there are the self-proclaimed Reagan conservatives, who romanticize this notion that they are the caretakers of "true conservatism" and "Reaganism". Today, they criticize those conservatives who aren't sufficiently pure, be it Huckabee, Giuliani, McCain, and even Romney. By their impossible standards, Ronald Reagan would not be Reagan enough. Some of the bandwagon jumpers are the same conservatives who criticized Reagan before America's 40th president was deified. I'm also finding that rather than merely disagreeing with fellow conservatives that were rather well-respected prior to expressing support (Michael Medved) or sympathy (Victor Davis Hanson) for McCain, a lot of emotional, angry conservatives have renounced those conservatives as well.

One has to wonder-before Romney suspended his campaign and before McCain appears to have all but wrapped up the GOP nomination: How is it that at least 17 prominent, staunch conservative Senators have thrown their support to John McCain? How is it, that over 100 Admirals and generals along with Norman Schwarzkopf have endorsed the Senator from the great state of Arizona? They couldn't all be RINOs, could they? How is it that 100 individuals who served in the Reagan Administration have endorsed John McCain?

Many leaders of the Reagan Revolution – Jack Kemp, Senator Phil Gramm, Senator Dan Coats, General Alexander Haig, George Shultz and many more – proudly back Senator McCain. The conservative Senators who know McCain best – John Kyl, Tom Coburn, Sam Brownback, Lindsey Graham, Trent Lott – support his presidential campaign after working with him in the Senate for years and seeing his commitment to Reaganism. During the six years he served in Congress under President Reagan, McCain supported the administration as one of its most effective “foot soldiers.” Unlike many of his critics, McCain echoes the Reagan approach – not the Buchanan approach – to free trade and immigration reform.

How does one reconcile with the fact that Nancy Reagan privately endorsed McCain, as well? One begins to ask oneself, "Who would Reagan endorse?" And the reality of the response should be, "No one knows." And it's dishonest for anyone to presume to speak for Reagan, and channel his vibes to validate their own personal political views.
If John McCain is not a "true" conservative then how does one explain the fact that his ACU lifetime ranking is 82.3% (for you Fredheads, Fred Thompson's lifetime average is 86%- with his support of campaign finance reform apparently knocking off anywhere from 4%-12% from his rating)? In 2006, yes it was 65%. Putting him in 47th place among Senators, for that year. But for his quarter century service in the Senate, how can people claim he has not been conservative? Maybe not the kind of conservative we wish him to be, but a conservative, nonetheless.

Wordsmith's also a "deputized blogger" at "Flopping Aces." He's got a dandy post up over there on McCain's alleged heresies, "John McCain: Republican Apostate?"

Well now, saddle on up and head over t' them thar' parts. I'm sure a friendly word or two'd be mighty welcomed!

Holding Fire! Limbaugh Softens on McCain Attacks

Rush Limbaugh, in an interview with Jay Carney at Time, practically sounds like a mild-mannered, senior-citizen impartial observer when talking about his role in the far-right's McCain conservative constroversy:

Jay Carney:

Is there anything John McCain can do to persuade you he's acceptable?

Rush Limbaugh:

I don't think he should even try. He's got to be who he is. I don't think he needs to reach out. His job is not to be acceptable to a single person. I'm not sitting here demanding that. I don't have that kind of sense of power or existence. That's one of the things that sort of amuse me about all this. You know, he had Bob Dole send that letter. And Phil Gramm has called. Phil Gramm was in Davos. But Phil just [said], "Let me tell you why I'm for McCain." Pure and simple. He didn't persuade or arm twist. I don't think Senator McCain ought to do anything but be who he is and let the chips fall. Because that's his strength. And if he starts doing anything that appears to be pandering to people, then he's going to lose, I think some — I don't know, respect — but some people are going to question it. Because he's never pandered. At least his image is that he's never pandered. He's a maverick. He's out there on his own and he's going to ride the trail wherever it takes him, in the direction he wants to go. I wouldn't expect it.

You know, when it comes down to a general election — looks like it's going to be Obama versus McCain — any number of ways of playing this, and one of them, I don't necessarily have to tout McCain, but I certainly will be critical of Obama. Once we get down to the general, you start examining what this guy's policies are. Right now [Obama is] saying nothing better than anybody has ever said it. At least in my lifetime. It's going have to get specific at some point.

I said this on the radio yesterday. I really do take all this seriously in terms of the future of the country and where we're headed. And liberalism to me, based on its history, portends disastrous things for the future of the country. I think liberals in a political sense need to be defeated, not accommodated, not reached across the aisle and hugged, not walked across the aisle and accommodate them and bring them in. And I certainly don't want the Republican Party to be redefined by becoming victorious on the basis of a bunch of liberal Democrats being attracted to the party as liberal Democrats. I'd love to have them if they are converted to our side. But we're missing genuine conservative leadership, so that's not going to happen.

I'll have plenty to talk about. When Bush 41 was elected in '88, people said, 'Well, that's it for Limbaugh; he's going to have nothing to say.' Well, Wrong! The liberals were out there starting with global warming. The spotted owl was going nuts back then. There are always going to be liberals to rail against no matter who's in the White House.

"I don't necessarily have to tout McCain..."

Well, that sounds firm and decivise... Go Rush!! You're really firing up the base!!

In any case, read the whole thing.

Rush's got his finger on the pulse of the far-right talk radio bureaucracy, and it's barely beating. My guess is he's paving the way for an inevitable reconciliation with the maverick "RINO" from Arizona.

See also my previous entry, "Talk Radio's Limited Impact"

Talk Radio's Limited Impact

A new Pew Research survey shows that conservative talk radio's reach is not as substantial as many might think. The findings provide statistical correlation to arguments I've made on the growing irrelevance of the Malkin-tents and Rush-bots on Republican Party dynamics this year:

Barely a quarter of Americans (27%) are aware that many conservative talk radio hosts are opposing John McCain's campaign for president. Another 7% mistakenly believe hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity support McCain's candidacy.

Even among Republicans, awareness of the arguments against McCain is limited. Only 31% know about the opposition to McCain on talk radio. Even among Republicans who are following the campaign "very closely" only 42% know that these hosts disapprove of McCain.

The survey also found a 46% plurality of Republican-identified respondents rejecting the notion "that McCain is not a strong conservative."

As I've said before, for all their sound and fury, the talk radio mandarins are having less impact on things than their self-importance would suggest.

Assessing Republican General Election Chances

I noted in a couple of recent entries (here and here) that GOP general election chances are good this year.

Now Fred Barnes, over at the Wall Street Journal, makes the case for the GOP in November. He suggests Republicans have no need for despair:

True, the outcome isn't entirely in their hands. But Republicans can significantly improve their chances of winning by making smart campaign decisions. And events must also go their way, just as they did for John McCain, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Let's start with what Republicans need to retain the presidency. Mr. McCain has the biggest role, but other Republicans must help, including President Bush.

- Independent voters. Conservatives unhappy over Mr. McCain's emergence as the Republican nominee have gotten lavish media coverage. But while they love to grumble and grouse, conservatives tend to be loyal Republicans who wind up voting for their party's candidates.

It was the defection of independents, not conservatives, that caused the Democratic landslide in the congressional elections in 2006. Their preference for Democrats jumped to 57% in 2006 from 49% in 2004. Mr. McCain must win many of them back, since independents constitute roughly one-third of the overall electorate.

Mr. McCain is well-positioned to do this, but it won't be easy. What independents like about Mr. McCain -- his maverick style and willingness to deal with Democrats -- is exactly what infuriates conservatives. He must walk a fine line, emphasizing issues like spending cuts and entitlement reform that appeal to both independents and conservatives.

- A volunteer army. Mr. McCain needs one at least as large and powerful as President Bush's was in 2004. Against all odds, Mr. Bush's army of over more than two million volunteers overwhelmed the aggressive, well-financed Democratic effort to drive up voter turnout.

But 2008 is different story. Democrats relied on paid workers in 2004 and can do the same this year so long as rich liberals like George Soros are willing to foot the bill again. The Bush volunteers were motivated by a strong commitment to the president -- a commitment that doesn't extend to Mr. McCain. He'll have to recruit his own army, perhaps by enlisting veterans.

- The right vice president. If elected, John McCain will be 72 when he takes office. (Ronald Reagan was a mere 69 on his first inauguration.) For obvious reasons, this makes Mr. McCain's choice of a vice presidential running mate all the more important.

His pick must not only be credible as a possible president, but also someone viewed by Republicans as a successor should Mr. McCain decide to serve only one term. And that's not all. His running mate must connect with economic and foreign policy conservatives -- and especially with social conservatives. In all likelihood, Mr. McCain will concentrate on attracting independents and downplay issues such as abortion and gay rights. Social conservatives, for whom these issues are crucial, will need a champion.

- President Bush. Given his unpopularity, Republicans don't want the election to be a referendum on the Bush administration. In fact, one of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's reasons for staying out of the 2008 race is to prevent Democrats, just because a Bush is on the ticket, from doing exactly that.

But the president does have an important campaign role. On national security issues, he speaks with considerable authority and with a big megaphone. And there are bound to be opportunities for him to criticize or correct the Democratic nominee on the war on terrorism, terrorist surveillance, Iran, Iraq and the surge, Russia, and much else. The trick will be for Mr. Bush to pick his spots wisely (and infrequently) and not overplay his hand.

So far so good. Next, though, Barnes discusses factors neither McCain nor the GOP can control. One of the most important? Iraq:

Iraq won't be a good Republican issue in 2008.

Why?

Continued security gains are not guaranteed, says Barnes, and political progress is slow, giving the Democrats a wedge issue.

I'm going to disagree here.

John Podhoretz made an interesting argument at Commentary on the GOP and Iraq in '08. The Iraq issue looks good for the Republicans:

It is a great irony that the best political news for Republicans in a notably unfavorable election year—with the public telling pollsters that it is desirous of change and prefers Democratic stands on most issues by margins ranging from ten to twenty points—may come out of Iraq. Should the surge’s progress continue and deepen, the Democratic nominee may find himself or herself in a very uncomfortable position come autumn. The Democratic base will not have changed its mind about the war’s evil, and it will not be happy with a leader who does. So the nominee will find it almost impossible to embrace the surge, and certainly not after having disparaged it caustically in the past. But if the nominee does not embrace the real possibility of victory in Iraq, he or she will run the risk of appearing defeatist, or worse, in the eyes of the same independent voters who fled the GOP in droves in 2006.

Meanwhile, the candidate most associated with the surge, John McCain, will (assuming he becomes the nominee of the Republican party) be uniquely well situated to deploy an accusation he has been leveling at the Democratic frontrunners for nearly a year. “I was very disappointed to see Senator Obama and Senator Clinton embrace the policy of surrender by voting against funds to support our brave men and women fighting in Iraq,” McCain said about a vote the two Democrats cast in May 2007. He called this “the equivalent of waving a white flag of surrender to al Qaeda.”

As his campaign took off in January 2008, McCain sharpened the dagger:

Candidate Clinton has called for surrender and waving the white flag. I think it’s terrible. I think it’s terrible. . . . For us to do what Senator Clinton wants us to do—that is to wave the white flag—I cannot guarantee United States security in the region or in the United States.

This is the ground—as tribunes of an American victory in Iraq—on which Republicans will have no choice but to stand in November 2008. They may not be able to prevail with it, but they have no hope of prevailing without it.

If McCain's defeated in November, it won't be on national security.

Jesse Helms, the Far-Right, and the GOP

The GOP's right wing debate on John McCain's impending nomination provides a needed round of partisan introspection on the future direction of the conservative movement.

I've discussed the McCain controversy forward and backward, although in more recent posts I've looked beyond talk radio puritanism to examine conservative doctrinal foundations (see "After Optimism? Redefining Conservatism in the Post-Reagan Age").

With growing evidence that McCain's candidacy is forging a new GOP coalition, what historical or ideological lessons might we draw from the far-right's successes in Republican Party politics in the last few decades?

David Greenberg 's new review of Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism, establishes some important points to consider:

Appearing on “Larry King Live” in 1995, Jesse Helms, then the senior senator from North Carolina, fielded a call from an unusual admirer. Helms deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, the caller gushed, “for everything you’ve done to help keep down the niggers.” Given the rank ugliness of the sentiment — the guest host, Robert Novak, called it, with considerable understatement, “politically incorrect” — Helms could only pause before responding. But the hesitation couldn’t suppress his gut instincts. “Whoops, well, thank you, I think,” he said. With prodding from Novak, he added that he’d been spanked as a child for using the N-word and noted (with a delicious hint of uncertainty), “I don’t think I’ve used it since.” As for the caller’s main point — the virtue of keeping down blacks — it passed without comment.

William A. Link, a historian at the University of Florida, recounts this incident in “Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism,” his hefty life of the blunt, bullheaded, hard-right leader who — more than anyone besides Ronald Reagan — embodied conservatism in the 1980s and beyond. Summoning a measure of sympathy for his rather unsympathetic subject, Link can be overly diplomatic in discussing, as he calls it, Helms’s “racial insensitivity.” But it’s to his credit that even when engaging Helms’s more odious views, he shuns stridency while still managing to demonstrate the centrality of Dixie-bred racism to Helms’s career — and to the book’s larger tale of Southern-style conservatism’s ascent since the 1960s.

By the 1990s, to be sure, this racism was rarely articulated so starkly, or even manifested so consciously, as it was by the talk-show caller. But for more than four decades in public life — first as an influential journalist defending Jim Crow in the 1960s in North Carolina, then as “the most important conservative spokesman in the Senate” — Helms was obsessed with race; it was his political weapon of choice. In 1972, as a recent convert to the Republican Party, he won election to the Senate on school busing and kindred issues. In 1990, he aggressively played the race card — broadcasting a TV ad that showed white hands crumpling a job rejection letter — to repulse a challenge from Harvey Gantt, an African-American. And in his five Senate terms Helms led most of the major fights against racial change, opposing the creation of a Martin Luther King holiday in 1983 and the civil rights bill of 1991.

This disposition, of course, was hardly peculiar to Helms. On the contrary, he succeeded because he tapped into grievances — felt by the unbigoted as well as the nakedly prejudiced — that liberals were promoting black progress at the expense of struggling whites. He may have struck Northern liberals as a backwater buffoon, but his skill in framing racially charged issues, like busing and affirmative action, was instrumental in building today’s conservative movement.

By the end of his career, it is true, Helms’s malign wizardry with racial issues failed him. In 1993 his Senate colleague Carol Moseley Braun, an African-American, bested him in a floor fight over granting an extension of a patent to the United Daughters of the Confederacy for a design that featured the original Confederate flag. So stirring was her appeal that even Howell Heflin of Alabama, himself a Helmsian creature of the Old South, decided to oppose the extension, declaring, “We live today in a different world.” Hence the irony of backlash politics: even as Southern conservatives like Helms soared to power because of an antagonism to rights-based liberalism, they did so amid a national culture that was steadily growing more tolerant, more liberal.

Is the Helmsian model of Republican politics an anachronism?

Greenberg suggests it is. Yet, Harold Ford, who in his 2006 Senate bid was the target of Republican-financed, racially-charged attack advertising, might argue to the contrary.

To be clear: While it's obvious that today's GOP is not rife with Jesse Helms wannabes, the party's far-right faction nevertheless continues to stir allegations of intolerance on issues such as gay rights, immigration, and racial politics (I've been the subject of some myself).

The criticism's usually a caricatured version of principled political positions.

Still, it's hard to miss, for example, some apparent and highly-charged non-white animus in recent controversies over immigration reform in 2006 (and frankly during current debate over McCain's earned legalization for illegals as well). Indeed, some of the current outrage on the far-right over immigration reform would make Jesse Helms downright proud.

Having said that, it remains the case that this year's Republican race has demonstrated the marginalization of conservative talk radio mandarins (many of whose listeners formed the core of conservative partisans Helms brought into the GOP in earlier years).

As it looks now, the McCain campaign's been backed increasingly by moderate Republicans and independents, voters who'll likely form a potential winning Republican coalition in the fall.

Note, also, that while deep conservatives in last night's Potomac primaries backed Mike Huckabee over McCain roughly 2-to-1, exit polling found that three-quarters said they'd be satisfied with him as the GOP standard-bearer in November.

Considering McCain's alleged apostasies among the irrational right, yesterday's election data suggest that conservatives may indeed be different than those in the time of Helms' grip on the movement.

Peace and Struggle in the Classroom: The New Intellectual Foundation?

Your kids are getting the straight dope at school right?

Good teachers laying it out, right down the middle, eh? Passionate, rigorous training, professionally delivered?

Maybe not.

The Nation's got a new piece discussing an old problem: left-wing multcultural indoctrination (via Maggie's Farm):

Positioned among smoky factories and aging row houses on Chicago's West Side, the immaculate Little Village Lawndale High School (LVLHS) serves as a constant reminder to community residents of what collective action can produce. Concerned that 70 percent of neighborhood students traveled to different parts of the city for high school, parents organized vigorously for the construction of a new facility in their backyard. After initially approving the plans, city officials stalled construction, claiming that funds had to be diverted to other projects. In response, the community redoubled its efforts, culminating in a nineteen-day hunger strike at the site of the proposed building, referred to by supporters as Camp Cesar Chavez. "Construyan la escuela ahora!" was the protesters' battle cry, and after six long years, the school was opened as promised in 2005.

Aside from the beautiful building, the struggle birthed a new educational environment for Little Village's youth. "The parents kept saying they really wanted our school to teach the values of peace and struggle," says Rito Martinez, the principal of Social Justice High School at LVLHS, "and what the community had to do to fight for the school." One of four small schools housed on the campus, Martinez's social justice school was specifically created to foster basic skills and literacy--as well as critical inquiry--through projects and problems centered on race, gender and economic equity. "There's a combination of self-awareness and the opportunity to become socially conscious," he says. "We're not dogmatic about it...but we give them the opportunity for self-discovery."

On a fall morning a week into the school year, it's clear that the school's methodology excites the students of LVLHS, 98 percent of whom qualify as low-income. It's Wednesday, which means the kids participate in extended teacher-generated colloquiums focusing on topics that allow students to explore their identity in an academic setting. In a section on student organizing, thirteen high schoolers attempt to define the word "community," brainstorming about their city's assets and problems and how the students can tackle an issue of importance to them. Down the hall, an enthusiastic teacher focusing on ethnography leads a lively discussion about racial stereotypes in the media as an entree into the idea of hegemony. Hands pop up across the packed classroom as students argue about how advertisements influence the way society views larger populations. As Martinez notes, providing students the flexibility to "explore learning" is something that's generally offered only to kids in affluent districts, yet the practice can be transformational.

While the history of LVLHS's genesis is unique, its approach is not; the movement to link education, social justice and activism is appealing to a growing number of educators and community organizations around the country. Updating successful principles from liberatory education programs of the past, teachers and community members are finding exciting ways to engage a new generation of urban students alienated by mainstream methodologies, something countless reform efforts have thus far failed to accomplish. And as Congress moves to reform or scrap the No Child Left Behind Act, legislators could benefit from studying these new techniques, which have been largely ignored on a national scale.

Hmm...

Students can explore identity? I wonder what that might be?

Indigenous education? Hueheutlamachilistle — "the way of our ancestors"? Learning communities on "the Europeans' slaughter of this continent's original inhabitants"? How about high school lectures on "the anthropology of race, gender, and power"?

I'm sure there are many more possibilities when teaching social justice eduction.

Here's more from the article:

Conservatives, with the New York Sun and City Journal leading the charge, have denounced the movement for indoctrinating public school students with leftist politics at the expense of general education. But successful social justice education ensures that teachers strike a balance between debating sociopolitical problems that affect children's lives and teaching them academic basics on which they will be tested. A science teacher can plant an urban garden, allowing students to learn about plant biology, the imbalance in how fresh produce is distributed and how that affects the health of community residents. An English teacher can explore misogyny or materialism in American culture through the lens of hip-hop lyrics. Or as Rico Gutstein, a professor of mathematics education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, suggests, a math teacher can run probability simulations using real data to understand the dynamics behind income inequality or racial profiling. These are "examples of lessons where you can really learn the math basics," he says, "but the purpose of learning the math actually becomes an entree into, and a deeper understanding of, the political ramifications of the issue."

Such practical exercises, advocates argue, improve upon the standard approach to youth development, which aims to promote individual success but fails to examine the inequities that inhibit it. "At least to expose people to a structural analysis of inequality and the distribution of goodies in society," says Charles Payne, the Frank P. Hixon Professor at the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration, "seems to be one of the more obvious ways that we can do better than we have done." If executed properly, social justice education also lays the intellectual foundation so essential for independent analytical thought while providing students the opportunity to realize their own human agency. In this way, urban students are treated not as burdens to their community but as partners in solving the complex problems that plague their neighborhoods.

I'm a bit skeptical that this pedagogy's really "the intellectual foundation so essential for independent analytical thought."

A couple of semesters of Western political philosophy would be my recommendation for some intellectual foundations. You know, those dead white males...

Senate Votes on Surveillance Security, Democrats in Disarray

The New York Times has the story on yesterday's Senate wiretap defeat for Democratic surrender advocates:

After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants.

One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the Senate’s lead.

The outcome in the Senate amounted, in effect, to a broader proxy vote in support of Mr. Bush’s wiretapping program. The wide-ranging debate before the final vote presaged discussion that will play out this year in the presidential and Congressional elections on other issues testing the president’s wartime authority, including secret detentions, torture and Iraq war financing.

Republicans hailed the reworking of the surveillance law as essential to protecting national security, but some Democrats and many liberal advocacy groups saw the outcome as another example of the Democrats’ fears of being branded weak on terrorism.

“Some people around here get cold feet when threatened by the administration,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee and who had unsuccessfully pushed a much more restrictive set of surveillance measures.

Among the presidential contenders, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, voted in favor of the final measure, while the two Democrats, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, did not vote. Mr. Obama did oppose immunity on a key earlier motion to end debate. Mrs. Clinton, campaigning in Texas, issued a statement saying she would have voted to oppose the final measure.

The measure extends, for at least six years, many of the broad new surveillance powers that Congress hastily approved last August just before its summer recess. Intelligence officials said court rulings had left dangerous gaps in their ability to intercept terrorist communications.

The bill, which had the strong backing of the White House, allows the government to eavesdrop on large bundles of foreign-based communications on its own authority so long as Americans are not the targets. A secret intelligence court, which traditionally has issued individual warrants before wiretapping began, would review the procedures set up by the executive branch only after the fact to determine whether there were abuses involving Americans.

“This is a dramatic restructuring” of surveillance law, said Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department intelligence lawyer who represents several telecommunication companies. “And the thing that’s so dramatic about this is that you’ve removed the court review. There may be some checks after the fact, but the administration is picking the targets.”

The Senate plan also adds one provision considered critical by the White House: shielding phone companies from any legal liability for their roles in the eavesdropping program approved by Mr. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks. The program allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without warrants on the international communications of Americans suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda.

This is commonsense legislation, frankly. To most folks who would make a rational trade-off in a little less liberty for a greater promise of security, the surveillance bill is a no brainer.

Importantly, the vote was a dramatic repudiation of the antiwar, terrorist-enabling retreatists of the hard-left Democratic Party coalition.

Take a look around at the online handwringing among radical surrender mavens (here and here). While the Senate vote is a realistic response to the new security of international interdependence (as technology increasingly links our enemies to the U.S. market), American antiwar nihilists continue to beat the drum - louder and louder - for the radicalization of Democratic Party foreign policy.

For now, the wiretap vote illustrates the impotence of much antiwar interest group mobilization on the issue. The balance of power could change, of course, if the unleavened masses elect more appeasement-minded Democrats to Congress in the fall.

We're beginning to see the formation of the real constellation of electoral choices for the year ahead.

President Bush and moderate Democrats and Republicans won this round. A Republican presidential victory in November would work to keep this anti-terror legislative momentum rolling.

Obama Wiretap Vote Would Punish Private Companies, Weaken Security

In recent posts (here and here), I've made the case that a Democratic victory in November would send American foreign policy into a disastrous surrender to the world correlation of forces now arrayed against the United States and its allies.

There's more news to that effect this morning with reports on the Senate's vote yesterday on the administration's surveillance bill, which would grant telecom immunity for companies assisting government intelligence-gathering efforts.

For example, this morning's Wall Street Journal discusses Barack Obama's vote against the wiretap legislation:

Now and then sanity prevails, even in Washington. So it did yesterday as the Senate passed a warrantless wiretap bill for overseas terrorists while killing most of the Lilliputian attempts to tie down our war fighters.

"We lost every single battle we had on this bill," conceded Chris Dodd, which ought to tell the Connecticut Senator something about the logic of what he was proposing. His own amendment -- to deny immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies that cooperated with the government after 9/11 -- didn't even get a third of the Senate. It lost 67-31, though notably among the 31 was possible Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. (Hillary Clinton was absent, while John McCain voted in favor.)

It says something about his national security world view, or his callowness, that Mr. Obama would vote to punish private companies that even the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee said had "acted in good faith." Had Senator Obama prevailed, a President Obama might well have been told "no way" when he asked private Americans to help his Administration fight terrorists. Mr. Obama also voted against the overall bill, putting him in MoveOn.org territory.

The defeat of these antiwar amendments means the legislation now moves to the House in a strong position. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in the Dodd-Obama camp, but 21 Blue Dog Democrats have sent her a letter saying they are happy with the Senate bill. She may try to pass the restrictions that failed in the Senate, and Republicans should tell her to make their day. This is a fight Senator McCain should want to have right up through Election Day, with Democrats having to explain why they want to hamstring the best weapon -- real-time surveillance -- we have against al Qaeda.

An Obama presidency, it can be said, would be even more dangerous to American national security than a Hillary Clinton administration. While both senators are hopelessy tied to the antiwar, retreatist base of their party, Hillary's shameless pandering leaves some room that the austerity of the Oval Office could snap her back into the reality of realpolitik in international affairs.

With Obama - already untested as a novice, unheralded freshman senator - we see a genuine desire to open uncritical diplomatic arms to our enemies, placing America's hard-fought gains against the world's nihilist henchmen at risk.

The Journal editors are right: This is a fight McCain wants up through November. He'll floor his opponent on the issue - especially Obama, should he be the Democratic nominee.

McCain Strikes Fear into New "Axis of Evil"

Max Boot makes the case for John McCain in today's Los Angeles Times, and in so doing places the Arizona Senator's commanding national security strengths in stark relief.

Boot suggests that the conservative crackup over McCain's right-wing credentials misses a fundamental issue of campaign '08: how best to combat the forces of world evil arrayed against the United States and our allies.

Of particular concern is the "the new "axis of evil" - an updated three-part spector of terrorism in the likes of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syria's Bashar Assad, and North Korea's Kim Jong Il, a dark trio currently threatening America's interests with "impunity."

Boot argues that the Bush administration has dropped the ball in confronting the group. McCain, on the other hand - in a presidency not bound by political baggage or lame-duck status - would truly strike fear into the heart of this anti-American alliance:

While visiting Iraq recently, I was told by U.S. military sources that an estimated 50 to 80 foreign jihadists a month are still infiltrating Iraq from Syria. They have simply changed their route from Anbar province, which has turned decisively against Al Qaeda, to further north in Salahaddin and Nineveh provinces. Moreover, Syria has become the headquarters of a new Iraqi Baathist party that is working with Al Qaeda to facilitate and finance attacks in Iraq. There is even evidence to indicate that Abu Ayyub Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, is hiding in Syria. For its part, Iran continues to train and support the Shiite "Special Groups" that are among the most vicious sectarian terrorists in the entire country, and to smuggle dangerous munitions for use against coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both Iran and Syria are perfectly aware that the United States knows what they're up to. Administration officials, from the president on down, have warned them numerous times that their actions are unacceptable and must be stopped. Yet their subversion continues.

Clearly, these rogue regimes do not fear the consequences of waging a proxy war on America and our allies. They think they can get away with killing and maiming American soldiers -- and so far they have been right.

President Bush has not done enough to back up his threats against Iran and Syria, beyond pushing for economic sanctions of limited value at a time when oil is hitting $100 a barrel. The president has refused to authorize even limited special operations strikes on jihadist networks inside Syria or Iran.

This is part of a larger trend of Bush combining strong words with weak actions. The president talks of promoting democracy and supporting dissidents, but when he visited Egypt last month, he failed to publicly chide his host, Hosni Mubarak, for jailing the chief liberal opposition leader. This disconnect has done serious damage to American standing and credibility.

It is hard to see how Bush could reverse this decline in America's "fear factor" during the remaining year of his presidency. That will be the job of the next president. And who would be the most up to the task?

To answer that question, ask yourself which presidential candidate an Ahmadinejad, Assad or Kim would fear the most. I submit it is not Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee. In my (admittedly biased) opinion, the leading candidate to scare the snot out of our enemies is a certain former aviator who has been noted for his pugnacity and his unwavering support of the American war effort in Iraq. Ironically, John McCain's bellicose aura could allow us to achieve more of our objectives peacefully because other countries would be more afraid to mess with him than with most other potential occupants of the Oval Office -- or the current one.

Boot makes a compelling case for a vigorous foreign policy under a McCain administration. He establishes a sharp contrast between McCain and the two current Democratic frontrunners.

Both Clinton and Obama epitomize the pliable surrender platform of the Democratic Party's antiwar plank.

Clinton was for the war before she was against it, and still can't decide what she'd do to protect American interests in Iraq and the world beyond. Obama claims not only to have opposed the war from the start, but is one of the Democratic Party's biggest cheerleaders for failure in Iraq, right next to Harry Reid.

Last night I indicated how the Democratic Party's antiwar base has become increasingly unhinged over the congressional majority's failure to secure an immediate withdrawal on the war.

The MoveOn hordes and the unkempt Kos crowd will simply step-up their drumbeat of surrender as the general election campaign reaches full steam.

The Democratic nominee, if elected, will abandon whatever current, pre-election facade of internationalism and anti-terror firmness, ultimately opening arms to our rogue-regime enemies, placing the current gains in Iraq and against al Qaeda at risk.

Max Boot puts it well: McCain will be the go-to guy on securing peace through strength, a point conservatives may want to think about more clearly.

See more analysis at Memeorandum.

After Optimism? Redefining Conservatism in the Post-Reagan Age

Cal Thomas offers a provocative argument on the direction of conservativism in the post-Reagan era, at Townhall:

This just in: Ronald Reagan is dead and he's not coming back. Now, can conservatives please move on?

Reagan always spoke about the future and its possibilities. Today's conservatives, however, can't seem to break with the past and the nostalgia for the Reagan years. Even in his letter to the American people in 1994 in which he revealed he suffered from Alzheimer's disease, Reagan wrote of his "eternal optimism" for the country's future. Too many modern conservatives seem embedded in a concrete slab of pessimism, preferring to go over a bridge and drown rather than "compromise" their "principles." If you can't get elected, your principles can be talked about on the lecture circuit, but are unlikely to be adopted in Washington.

John McCain, some say, is not a true conservative. Was Reagan? Reagan campaigned as a tax cutter. He cut taxes, but he also raised them. He promised conservative judges and spoke of his opposition to abortion, yet named two justices to the Supreme Court (Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy) who voted to uphold Roe v. Wade. Against the advice of some, Reagan deployed Marines to Lebanon and saw them murdered by a homicide bomber. Reagan engaged in an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. As president, Reagan seldom went to church, unlike his evangelical base. If conservatives knew in advance these things about Reagan, would they have voted for him in such numbers?

Contemporary conservatism has mostly been about saying "no" to the liberal agenda. Suppose conservatives instead begin to circumvent liberals by applying better ideas to achieve ends liberals and conservatives claim to seek?

This is the point of David Frum's new book, "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again." Frum, a former speechwriter in this Bush administration, believes the issues that brought Republicans to power in the 1980s and '90s are different from the concerns of most Americans today....

Frum proposes an agenda that uses conservative principles to actually solve, rather than just talk about, serious problems. He wants universally available health insurance, but offered through the private sector; lower taxes to encourage savings and investment, but higher taxes on energy and pollution to promote conservation; a conservative environmentalism that promotes nuclear power to reduce our need for oil and coal (this would satisfy the Left's misguided belief in "global warming," while simultaneously pleasing the Right by freeing us from dependence on foreign oil); federal policies to encourage larger families; major reductions in unskilled immigration; a campaign for prison reform and a campaign against obesity; higher ethical standards inside the conservative movement and Republican Party; and a renewed commitment to expand and rebuild the armed forces in order to crush terrorism and prepare for the coming challenge from China.

I would add a micro-loan program to help the poor out of poverty, rather than more government programs that subsidize the poor in their poverty and offer no hope for the future.

Conservatives also need to do a better job of storytelling. They should celebrate people who have overcome poverty and hopelessness as examples to others. It is not enough for conservatives to advocate for lower taxes and smaller government if the purpose is for Americans to acquire more money and material goods Americans already have so much they are renting storage units in which to place the overflow. Imagine the economic - even spiritual - revival that might occur if conservatives "adopted" one person or family and made it their goal to help them improve their lives. There are few thrills greater than seeing a life transformed in which you have played a part.

There are number of new books in print on conservatism, in addition to Frum's, making the case for a more active right-wing governmental agenda for the 21st century (for example, Michael Gerson's, Heroic Conservatism, and John Bolton's, Surrender is Not An Option).

I think the problem - which is pretty much evident from reading Thomas' essay - is that this new version of "conservativism" pushed by Frum (and especially Gerson) is not all that conservative.

It's another vision, a movement away from Goldwater/Reagan conservatism to a newer "neonconservatism" without the Wilsonianism in foreign policy. This vision, in short, is conflicted (internally incoherent) and not compelling as ideology (for a review of Frum along these line, click here).

In any case, back to present essay: Thomas places this debate over a post-Reagan conservatism in the context of the McCain ascendancy, and suggests it may be possible to forge a new conservative identity that combines traditional principles with pragmatic flexibility.

The task of hammering out this vision is going to be extremely chaotic and wrenching, if it needs to be done at all. While some evidence is in place that current events now demonstrate the need, indications are also clear on the likely trauma resulting from such an ideological transformation.

It's important project, although in the end honesty may require those on the right to not just redefine, but reimagine what conservatism truly represents.

McCain Remains Strong Against Obama, Clinton

John McCain remains competitive in head-to-head matchups against Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to the latest news from Gallup:

John McCain essentially holds his own when pitted against either of the two leading Democratic candidates for president in hypothetical general-election trial heats. This is despite the fact that Democrats have a decided advantage on several non-election measures of party strength and positioning.

The new USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Feb. 8-10, shows that McCain leads Hillary Clinton by one point, 49% to 48%, in a hypothetical general-election matchup among likely voters. He trails Barack Obama by four points, 46% to 50%. Both of these differences are within the poll's margin of error, and suggest that if the election were held today, it would be a close race if McCain were the Republican nominee and either Obama or Clinton were the Democratic nominee. The results also suggest that despite vigorous discussions of whether Clinton or Obama would be most electable in November, Obama has at best a slight advantage over Clinton on that dimension.

At the same time, a number of recent measures included in the Gallup Poll and other polls show that the Democrats in theory have some strong structural political advantages at this point. In terms of the parties' favorable images, Democrats have double-digit leads over Republicans in recent Gallup Polls. Within the current sample, 54% of those interviewed either identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared to just 39% who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. And on generic presidential election questions, in which respondents are asked which party's candidate they would like to win the presidency next fall (without naming names), the Democrats have typically been winning by double-digit margins.

In short, there appears to be a significant advantage for the Democrats over the Republicans on several general measures of party image and strength. McCain thus outperforms what would be predicted in the general-election trial heats, everything else being equal.

Many things can and will change between now and Election Day next Nov. 4. For the moment, several indicators in recent polls point to a propitious political environment for the Democrats. Despite that, the front-running GOP nominee, McCain, tests quite well against the two leading Democratic candidates -- beating Clinton by one point and losing to Obama by four points, both of which are gaps within the margin of error. If these types of numbers were to hold through the fall, the coming election could be a close one, regardless of voters' apparently negative attitudes toward the Republican Party.

See also my entry on "McCain's Electoral College Advantage."

Should Conservatives Back McCain?

Should conservatives back John McCain to lead the Republican Party against the Democrats in November.

Hello?

Let's see how Jonah Goldberg tackles the query, from USA Today:

There's a fascinating irony to John McCain's de facto victory in the race for the Republican nomination. While the self-styled independent maverick is arguably the best "change" candidate the Republicans could offer in the general election (itself ironic given that he has been in Washington longer than any other GOP contender), McCain wasn't the change candidate in the primaries. And GOP voters wanted change, too.

There are lots of reasons, some good, some bad, for conservatives' angry dyspepsia toward McCain. I have bouts of it myself. From campaign-finance reform, to his proposed amnesty for illegal immigrants to his general tendency to burnish his own maverick street rep by triangulating off conservatives, McCain just seems to relish breaking ranks too much.

But that raises an interesting and remarkably undiscussed question for McCain's detractors: Who are you really mad at?

Most of the criticisms aimed at McCain can be directed at President Bush himself. Campaign-finance reform is a great example. Most conservatives think McCain's effort to regulate political speech is an unconstitutional abomination. But in fairness to McCain, he doesn't think that. You know who does? George W. Bush. The president signed the McCain-Feingold bill though he admitted that he thought it was unconstitutional. But as a "uniter not a divider," Bush felt it wasn't his place to veto an unconstitutional law — his oath of office notwithstanding — that was very popular, particularly with independents, centrist Democrats and the New York Times crowd.

Amnesty for illegal immigrants? To be sure, McCain was a big player last year in pushing legislation many on the right detest. But the biggest player of all was, again, Bush. Whatever your disagreements with McCain on immigration might be, it's pretty much impossible not to have the same disagreements with the president who campaigned in 2000 insisting that "family values don't end at the Rio Grande." Indeed, before the 9/11 attacks, Bush wanted to make Mexico, not Great Britain, our No. 1. ally.

You can go on like this for quite a while. If you point to McCain's very conservative record on judges, his detractors will dismiss it, saying they don't trust his instincts. Didn't McCain say something about Justice Samuel Alito being too conservative? they ask. Well, didn't Bush's instincts guide him to naming White House insider Harriet Miers before conservatives revolted and forced him to choose again? McCain opponents note that while the senator talks a big game about cutting pork from the budget, he's still a big regulator and friend of activist government. This is fair, to some extent, but they forget that it was President Bush who pushed through the biggest expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society with his prescription drug benefit — a plan McCain opposed and promises to scale back.

According to many pundits, McCain won the Republican Party's "anti-Bush" wing, made up of moderates and independents. But this is largely a media-driven narrative imposed on a somewhat different reality. There is, in fact, a much broader anti-Bush sentiment in the party. The "right wing" of the GOP is suffering from a deep buyer's remorse of its own.

In 2000, conservatives supported Bush despite his insistence that he was a "different kind of Republican" and his insistence that he was a bipartisan bridge builder. He wasn't like those mean conservatives of the Reagan-Gingrich period; he was a "compassionate conservative." Many on the right overlooked this stuff, believing it was unfortunate but necessary marketing for Republicans at the end of the Clinton years. After 9/11, disagreements with Bush were displaced by the need to support the commander in chief in the war on terror. Even now, conservative frustration with the pre-surge fumbles in Iraq remains very high, but muted. Indeed, many on the right who do support McCain do so precisely because he would have "surged" from Day One of the Iraq invasion.

Conservatives supported Bush in 2000 for numerous reasons, including the fact that he seemed the best candidate to win back the White House. But one reason for his success in winning conservative support was that he just seemed like "one of us." He carried himself like a conservative. He spoke like a conservative. He was an evangelical Christian and pro-life Texan, who reassured much of the base by telegraphing that he was on the right side of the culture wars. As political positioning, this was brilliant stuff. Aesthetically, he played to the hearts of the right while politically he promised to be something of a centrist, almost Clintonian, president without the seedy soft-core porn baggage.

In terms of body language, the contrast with McCain couldn't be more stark. Bush has always been the sort of politician who relishes being loathed by The New York Times. McCain simply loves being loved by the Times and the national media generally. It's his base.

But substantively, the differences between McCainism and Bushism are very narrow, and the question of who is more conservative is more open than many on the right are comfortable asking. Hence, projection and guilt might explain at least some of the venom toward McCain. A lot of powerful emotions can be conjured by the sentiment: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Everyone wants a change candidate this year. As the out-of-power party, Democrats have it much easier marketing themselves that way. But conservatives want change, too. And for many of them, McCain doesn't represent change but continuity. They just can't say so.

McCain is presented with a dilemma. How can he rally the conservatives to his flag without alienating the moderates and independents the GOP needs to win in November? As nothing in politics needs to be clear-cut, he will probably try to do both as best he can, much as he did in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week. At CPAC and elsewhere, McCain insists he's an unchanging conservative. But he might do better with his right flank if he can make the case that with him, we might get a conservative in the White House, for a change.

Now that's an interesting argument, considering how Bush, McCain, and Edward Kennedy are often lumped together in comment threads attacking "shamnesty."

Still, Goldberg's argument seems a little abstract.

I would simply remind folks that McCain's conservative on the issue that's often most important for voters: keeping us safe. His apostasies shouldn't be taken lightly, but considering the alternatives, conservatives might lighten up when considering them (or wise up altogether) and hop on board the Straight Talk Express.

Antiwar Betrayal: The Democrats Screwed the Movement?

Did the Democratic congressional majority deliberately undermine the antiwar movement's drive to sabotage the Iraq war in 2007?

That's the thesis of a new article at Rolling Stone, "The Chicken Doves." Here's the introduction:

Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."

There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again. "We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it."

Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal. "We just didn't have any plays we liked down there," said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game...."

In reality, though, Pelosi and the Democrats were actually engaged in some serious point-shaving. Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war. "Our focus is on the Republicans," one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "How can we juice up attacks on them?"

The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House. And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame.

It's an interesting thesis...if you like hare-brained theories.

The main argument here: The Democratic congressional majority's political agenda after their midterm victory was to APPEAR antiwar, so as to increase the party's electoral prospects for 2008.

The problem with the argument?

Well, even a cursory glance at Iraq war polling data in 2006 fails to demonstrate unequivocal public demands for a complete and immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Claims to that effect are more than left-wing myth-making, however: This is the antiwar movement's big lie of 2007.

It's a strangely malevolent thesis, in any case, and it forms the basis for radical claims of a Democratic mandate to bring the troops home. Pure bunk, though, if one really knows what's happening.

But here's more from Rolling Stone:

Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that "anti-war activism" became synonymous with "electing Democrats." Capitalizing on America's desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.

This supposedly grass-roots "anti-war coalition" met regularly on K Street, the very capital of top-down Beltway politics. At the forefront of the groups are Thomas Matzzie and Brad Woodhouse of Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq, the leader of the anti-war lobby. Along with other K Street crusaders, the two have received iconic treatment from The Washington Post and The New York Times, both of which depicted the anti-war warriors as young idealist-progressives in shirtsleeves, riding a mirthful spirit into political combat — changing the world is fun!

But what exactly are these young idealists campaigning for? At its most recent meeting, the group eerily echoed the Reid-Pelosi "squeezed for time" mantra: Retreat from any attempt to end the war and focus on electing Democrats. "There was a lot of agreement that we can draw distinctions between anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans," a spokeswoman for Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq announced.

What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group's leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In addition, these anti-war leaders continue to consult for many of the same U.S. senators whom they need to pressure in order to end the war. This is the kind of conflict of interest that would normally be an embarrassment in the activist community.

Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. Anyone bothering to look — and clearly the Post and the Times did not before penning their ardent bios of Woodhouse — would have found the youthful idealist bragging to newspapers before the Iraq invasion about the pro-war credentials of North Carolina candidate Erskine Bowles. "No one has been stronger in this race in supporting President Bush in the War on Terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq," boasted the future "anti-war" activist Woodhouse.

With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008. David Sirota, a former congressional staffer whose new book, The Uprising, excoriates the Democrats for their failure to end the war, expresses disgust at the strategy of targeting only Republicans. "The whole idea is based on this insane fiction that there is no such thing as a pro-war Democrat," he says. "Their strategy allows Democrats to take credit for being against the war without doing anything to stop it. It's crazy."

Justin Raimondo, the uncompromising editorial director of Antiwar.com, regrets contributing twenty dollars to Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq. "Not only did they use it to target Republicans," he says, "they went after the ones who were on the fence about Iraq." The most notorious case involved Lincoln Chafee, a moderate from Rhode Island who lost his Senate seat in 2006. Since then, Chafee has taken shots at Democrats like Reid, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, all of whom campaigned against him despite having voted for the war themselves.

Read the whole thing.

I've noted previously the megalomania and political hatred of those on the antiwar left. But what's incredibly amazing is how little these folks understand the true nature of political power!

If anyone wanted to bring about an immediate surrender of America's project in Iraq it's Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. These two congressional leaders have made their purpose in power to demonize the administration, the military, and the war itself. It's all been an unmitigated disaster, to hear congressional pronouncements for the past 14 months.

Indeed, twice this weekend Pelosi declared the war "a failure" and how President Bush's troop build-up had failed to produce "the desired effect." (The new strategy, by the way, is discussed as the "surge" in the Rollling Stone piece, with the emphasis on the scare quotes as a delegitimization technique).

I offered an in-depth analysis of the Democratic Party's failed war strategy in a previous post: "Democrats Squandered Opportunities on Iraq."

I'd just like to suggest here that Rolling Stone's essay is nothing more than a nihilist screed. The author makes threats but offers no substantive direction for change. What will the antiwar folks do if they don't get their way on an Iraq withdrawal next year? Stomp and cuss their heads off, if this article's any indication:

How much of this bullshit are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting, deep down in their moldy hearts, to do the right thing?

Look, fuck your hearts, OK? Just get it done. Because if you don't, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in '08, but it'll be soon. Even Americans can't be fooled forever.

Truth be told, Pelosi and her radical Democratic hordes were stymied by incompetence and institutional vetoes. They were simply clueless on what to do with the reins of power.

Had they enjoyed a veto-proof majority coming out of 2006, however, U.S. infantry divisions would have been decamping stateside over the last year, the surge would have been strangled before getting on its feet, and ethnic violence would have reached proportions of unimaginably horrific violence.

This is what the antiwar base wants, and this is exactly what Democratic leaders hope to achieve. A brute numerical majority emerging out of this year's legislative races would certainly compensate for the party's governing incompetence.

I'd hate to be proven correct by the unfolding of events this fall.

Thus, the sooner the Republicans wrap-up their nomination fight and begin rallying the faithful in fundraising, voter mobilization, and rapid reaction strategies, the better off Americans and their foreign affairs will be.