The Psychology of Redistribution

I'm glad I'm not the only one who notices this stuff.

Julian Sanchez points us to an interesting piece example of the left's psychology of redistribution, perfectly displayed at Firedoglake, "Republicans: “Take Away the Car Keys”":

Conservative ideologues looking to punish workers and the American middle class for auto industry failures are driven by an authoritarian worldview George Lakoff calls the strict parent model.

Senate Republicans see their opposition to the rescue of Detroit as whipping the children. They are not that different from the failed father who thinks his follies can be overcome by beating the wife and kids. Politically, they seek to avoid responsibility for the nation's economic woes. It's not the strict authority who's at fault. It's the misbehaving children. Conservatives think they must take away the keys to the car.

The strict parent worldview is not now and never has been compatible with democracy or economic egalitarianism. But it's always been part of American culture, and most of us carry at least some residual consequence of its cognitive gene. We may be committed democrats, but we laugh along when a boss at work quips, "This is not a democracy." Or we raise our children in a traditional strict model fashion. Lakoff calls this "biconceptualism." We use the strict model in some parts of our lives, and it's opposite, the nurturant or shared responsibility model, in others.

The authoritarian model has been culturally conserved by shrewd neo-Calvinist religious manipulators and free market extremists who recognize that wealth and power trickle up. Both models go way back. According to Hannah Arendt, Jan Patocka and other philosopher/historians, it was with the emergence of the polis from the household and the birth of Greek democracy that family organizational models were metaphorically mapped onto larger social and political groupings. (It's also true that the influence is reciprocal, as feminist theorists correctly point out. Patriarchal social organization leads to patriarchal families, and vise versa.) ....

The automobile industry is a shared, collective endeavor. What do we, the American family, want to make of it? We want affordable, safe, fuel-efficient, environmentally sound cars built by committed workers who are rewarded for undertaking this task on our behalf.

Framed this way, the financial rescue of Detroit can be seen as the moral endeavor of citizens taking responsibility for ourselves. Blame and punishment become less relevant. Current auto industry leadership might or might not need replacing. Certainly, punishing workers is insane. If we must lend our tax dollars to the effort, so be it. In return, the industry must agree to morally sound practices.

Read Sanchez's response here, although I really like this from the comments:

Leftists always try to psychoanalyze their opponents when they can’t answer their argument. It goes all the way back to Marx. Its easier to try to cast the argument against unions in terms of irrational emotion than it is to refute the actual points under debate.

Enough said ...

The Quarterback Problem and Great Teachers

Malcolm Gladwell begins his story on teacher accredition and classroom performance with the football quarterback analogy.

Remember Ryan Leaf? Bombed out of the NFL in abject disgrace? Who would have predicted it? That's the quaterback problem, according to Gladwell, and he suggests that schools and unions - if they want great teachers - should want less teacher credentialing and more in-class opportunity. That is, the current gatekeeping system - backed by unions to maintain "quality control" - likely results in lousier teachers:

This is the quarterback problem. There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they’ll do once they’re hired. So how do we know whom to choose in cases like that? In recent years, a number of fields have begun to wrestle with this problem, but none with such profound social consequences as the profession of teaching.

Folks who are big labor types can't stand a powerful argument like this if it means weakening the dead grip of union mediocrity on teaching (or in this case, these types just don't know when a powerful arugment hits them upside the head anyway).

A note that Gladwell overlooks, however: The academic skills level is so low in some cases - especially among black and Hispanic students, unfortunately - that lowering certification requirements might actually grant apprenticeships to young people who literally can't read.

Other than that, I love the idea of finding the stars. Teaching is extremely personality driven. All the training and credentials in the world sometimes don't mean squat when the instructor can't reach through and pull a teachable moment from hat when necessary.

See Joanne Jacobs for an intelligent discussion of Gladwell's article, "Finding the Best Teachers."

Shoe Thrown at President Bush

The New York Times has a roundup of Iraqi opinion on the shoe thrown at President Bush yesterday by an Iraqi journalist. Opinion is running about 9-to-1 in favor of Muntader al-Zaidi, who tried to bean the president with a "size 10", although I'm sure a great many Iraqis can identify with this:

"I spent five years in Saddam’s jails," said Saman Qadir, a 51-year-old mechanic. "This journalist has to throw flowers on Bush, not a shoe, because Bush saved the Iraqi people from a bloody regime. Malaki has to raise a case against this journalist."

Here's how Dave Dilegge at Small Wars Journal sees things:

Ain't this just dandy and a pisser to boot - those who have strived - and died - to ensure Iraq's freedom and future place as a responsible partner on the world scene are brushed aside for the latest bash Bush melodrama and a 'real hero' is on the scene - Iraqi who threw shoes at George Bush hailed as hero via The Times. Plenty on this elsewhere, on the dailies and wires - most likely more tomorrow - meanwhile back in the real word ... People care, they die or suffer serious wounds, and their contributions are tossed aside for this. A damn shame it is, indeed.

Nothing follows.

President Bush was reelected in 2004, and is the representative of the American people; and while no one, really, should have a shoe thrown at them in disagreement, it's particularly disrespectful when directed at a sitting head of state who is the guest of the Iraqi government and people.

As always, the American left has erupted in righteous vindication. Take a look around at some of the radical blogs at Memeorandum. It's kind of sickening, really.

See also, "Leftwing Blogosphere Cheers Iraqi Shoe Thrower."

**********

UPDATE: I published too soon! I should've checked over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, where the brainless ones have not one but two posts up (here and here), plus this from one of their more typically cultured regulars:

You know what? I approve of throwing shoes at (some) people. I think this was the bees knees in political commentary. And I'm really not ashamed to say it ... Throwing a shoe at the tyrant who is singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of your country, the slaughter of a helpless civilian population, the razing of an entire city, the flight of a million or so men, women, and children into refugee status, penury, and prostitution?, its *literally the least protest you could make.* It is not to be deplored, it is to be applauded. I'm ashamed of my countrymen and our representative journalists that none of them has had the courage to at least turn their backs and fart on Bush. Let alone throw some footwear.

Yep, that's the kind of incisive analysis we'd expect from a couple of wanking professors who take $1000 to write book reviews while simultaneously twiddling their Johnson and sipping a few whiskey sours, and from those who really do need to work on their historical methods!

Democratic-Left Prepares to Abandon Afghanistan

Michael Yon, in his update from Afghanistan, says that when journalists covering the war there see signs translated into English directing villagers to humanitarian clinics they often "wax cynical" that it's all "propaganda" to hide the brutality of the "occupation." Then Yon continues:

Not that it matters what language signs are printed in Afghanistan: most people in Zabul Province cannot read any language. The government estimates that the literacy rate is, more or less, 15%. Not that they have any real way of measuring. It could be lower. And that is why the schools that are being built by foreigners are the most important thing happening in the country. For Afghanistan to have any hope of basic material progress in coming decades, it’s important to make sure that girls can attend those schools without fear of having acid thrown on their faces by Taliban members. Boys, for that matter, need access to education unlike the fundamentalist brainwashing provided by the Taliban-run madrassas.

As for the clinics, they are just a small start to meeting the nation’s vast health care needs. The sad truth is that for the majority of Afghan peasants, the pathetically small amount of medical care that they received over the war years when they languished in the refugee camps of Pakistan — occasional inoculations, rehydration salts to prevent deaths to children and infants from diarrhea, antibiotics that we Westerners take for granted, a modicum of hygienic assistance with childbirth — were the first instances of modern medicine available to them. These clinics, which are pretty basic by our standards, represent a huge leap forward across most of this poor, war-torn nation.

Read the whole thing, here. Yon continues by noting that war and poverty are all the Afghans have known for decades. Americans are in Afghanistan to continue the work begun in 2001-2002, after the Taliban regime was toppled.

I've noted previously (see, "Cut and Run in Afghanistan?") that the war in Afghanistan will be the central front in the wider war on global terror that the Barack Obama administration will inherit on January 20th. The next administration still has over a month to go before taking office, yet the Democratic-left is already preparing a lobbying push to abandon the Afghans to their fate.

As I wrote a week or so back:

Cernig, writing at the terrorist-enabling left-wing blog, Newshoggers, seeks to deligitimize the continuing U.S. and multinational presence in Afghanistan ...

Well, Cernig's got a new post asking, "Will Afghanistan Be Obama's Downfall?":

The truth ... is that Afghanistan is wondering where it's going and why it is in a handbasket. Bush had to fly from Bagram airbase to Kabul - the military couldn't have guaranteed his safety by road. Rampant corruption among the Afghan government and police force, along with heavy-handed aggressiveness from allied troops, have largely made the cities and military bases islands in a Taliban sea. "The Americans and the Afghan army control the highway, and five meters on each side. The rest is our territory," one Taliban commander told the Guardian's Ghaith Abdul Ahad. The Taliban are the only form of order in many rural areas ....

Counter-insurgency doctrine says that no amount of military force or even bribery can remove an insurgency from an area where it is supported by the general populace. But it would also pave the way for a negotiated settlement with Taliban who were willing to stop fighting, instead becoming a relatively non-oppressive local government. The UK and other allies have become convinced that this is the only path to "success" and eventual withdrawal left open and have already had some successes in that regard.

However, the Taliban are even more widely supported in Pakistan's border areas - and have the support/direction of at least large chunks of the military and ISI intelligence agency to boot. They've already proven they can hit Western supply lines with impunity, at a cost of millions of dollars, and can strangle the Western military presence in Afghanistan should they wish to.

We're back to the thorny problem of nuke-armed Pakistan, from which 75% of the world's terror plots emanate. A general invasion is not an option and it's highly unlikely that anything less than an invasion will have an appreciable effect. Thus it seems that all Pakistan and the Taliban have to do is out-wait the inevitable Western collapse as the occupation loses support and authority. Canada has said it doesn't wish to still be involved after 2011, the mainland Europeans are clearly reluctant to get sucked in to a treasure and blood draining quagmire, and even British politicians are saying staying in the hope of half-assed 'success" isn't worth it.

If you go back and check Cernig's archives, you'll find nearly the exact same Cassandra warnings about an inevitable failure in Iraq, about how sectarian tribes would strangle the American presence in a bloodbath of primordial violence.

Now, though, the Bush administration's preparing to leave office with a sucessful Iraqi military that's confident it will keep the peace and secure the new democracy, especially since full sovereignty after 2011 means indigenious forces can battle terrorist dead-enders without concern for Western human rights groups tying the hands of American and Iraqi fighters.

The truth is that the Demcratic-left wants an American pullout from Afghanistan. These folks despise the forward projection of American power, and the prospect of a long deployment in South Asia is raising very uncomfortable questions now that an ostensibly antiwar Democrat prepares to come to power in Washington. In response, Steve Clemons has come out to repudiate the notion that Aghanistan is the only "legitimate" American deployment in post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy:

I am increasingly worried about the framing that America's next President and his team are applying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

To be blunt, they have been arguing that "Iraq was the bad war and Afghanistan is the good war," not in those precise words -- but close enough.

A mutual friend of Katrina vanden Heuvel and mine wrote this to her (and then me) in an email:

"Afghanistan. The place where the dreams and hopes of the Obama Presidency are buried."

We have to be careful of who we think we are fighting in Afghanistan. What army exactly is America trying to squelch? If we are now in a full on war with the Taliban, then this country will see its global leverage deteriorate to even lower levels than what is the case today.

More later - but we shouldn't allow corruption scandals and other silly posturing on Sunday morning shows to distract us from the reality that we are on a quite negative trajectory in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) right now - and we need whopping game-changing moves there that are as significant, if not more, than challenges about America's auto sector.

Don't miss the title of Clemons' post, "Afghanistan is NOT the Good War."

No war is a good war, of course, and even Studs Terkel would remind us that any war requires domestic support if we are to be successful.

Barack Obama, with the weight of reality bearing down on him, has chosen a foreign policy team that knows what to do. The U.S. will build up our forces and fight along the mountain redoubts more vigorously than before. In diplomacy, the U.S. will push Pakistan to clean it up - and sweep out terror sanctuaries - or risk the loss of U.S. military and economic support. Americans, most of all, will continue to support countries like India who bear the brunt of terrorist barbarism.

This might not be a "good war," but it's one that is just and one the West will win. From the beaches to the landing grounds, we will never surrender.

Barack Obama Will Save the World!

One of the ideas currently floating around is the notion that current international problems necessitate institutions of global scope to solve them, that is, we need world government to fix the world's problems.

Gideon Rachman, for example, makes the case for supranational governance in his piece, "And Now For a World Government."

Arguments for world government are almost always based in utopianism: If there were a single human purpose with a single center of power, the multitudes of the planet might unite as one to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and end warfare. At various times in international relations global reformers have been motivated by the need to transcend narrow national interests for the good of humankind. Perhaps most recently, the establishment of the United Nations reenergized idealists that the aftermath of the world's most devastating conflict would create the consensus among world leaders to unite in a single body of international scope with enough power and resources to govern the globe (the Wikipedia entry on this notes that current enthusiasm for the International Criminal Court and similar supranational authorities is based in the ideology of world governmental power over nation-states).

In his piece, Rachman waxes longingly for a world body and makes reference to Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope, where the President-Elect has written, "When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following."

But check out Harold Meyerson, at the American Prospect, who places all of his hopes of world socialist utopianism in the hands of "The One":

At the end of the Civil War, Americans lived within local economies. Then railroads, steel and oil companies, meatpackers, and eventually automakers, with the considerable assistance of the nation's largest banks, began functioning on a national level, bending state and local governments to their will. Largely unregulated and in the absence of national countervailing powers, these institutions were unassailable until the crash of 1929 and the ensuing depression stripped them of much of their clout. Only then did Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal create national regulations on their conduct, and the agencies to enforce them. Only then did genuinely national unions arise that won national contracts from employers.

Taking government from the state to the national level was necessary to save the economy and build American prosperity. During the waning days of the Hoover administration, for instance, the governors of a number of states ordered bank closings to forestall depositors' runs on the banks. What the governors could not do, however, was restore depositor confidence. That is precisely what Roosevelt did, by coupling an order to close all banks so their books could be checked with the establishment of a federal deposit insurance agency -- a solution beyond capabilities and resources of the nation's insolvent state houses. Similarly, though individual states had enacted wage and hour laws before the Depression, creating the prosperity and stability of the post?World War II economy required the New Deal federal standards.

Today, Obama faces a similar challenge to Roosevelt's - and has a similar opportunity. Over the past several decades, the same asymmetry of power that characterized America between 1865 and 1932 reappeared - but on a larger scale. Finance and corporations have become global, outstripping the regulatory and bargaining powers of merely national governments and unions. Now, as in 1933, it is suddenly possible to globalize at least some standards and regulations, just as Roosevelt once nationalized them. The changes will come more haltingly and piecemeal than they did in Roosevelt's New Deal, because the leap from nation-state to global order is far greater than that from state capitols to Pennsylvania Avenue. But as in Roosevelt's time, the changes will come because the asymmetry of power led to an unregulated economy that collapsed of its own weight and folly - and because the only way out of the collapse may be to regulate that power on the global scale where, until recently, it was unchallenged.

How broad the changes are, how sturdy or rickety the new global architecture that emerges is, depends on a multitude of variables. Financial institutions may well oppose the formation of transnational agencies that, say, restrict the amount of leverage they're allowed to carry; multinational corporations will surely resist anything resembling global labor laws. Nations that disproportionately rely on the financial sector will oppose financial restrictions; nations at different stages of economic development will take different positions on wage and environmental standards. The very idea of a global New Deal would be altogether preposterous but for the fact that the return of prosperity may depend upon it. But then, the same once could have been said of a national New Deal, too. Finally, just as the creation of the national New Deal depended upon Roosevelt, the creation of a global one will depend upon Obama -- a figure who seems uniquely suited to voice not just the nation's but the planet's aspirations. The world - its citizens and its economy - awaits him.

Note the assumption here that many, if not most, of the "financial institutions" and "multinational corporations" will be American. And that's what talk of world government is all about: the establishment of a world regime to regulate American power and the agents of American influence, in this case U.S. transnational enterprises that are, for all intents and purposes, in the left's paradigm, the masters of the universe.

Nevermind that, in fact, some for largest corporations in the world are headquartered in places like Tokyo or Stuttgart. America remains the world's hegemon, and if U.S. and global activists have their way, they'll tie down U.S. global supremacy like a modern-day Gulliver.

What Happened to Buy American?

I leased a new Honda Civic last weekend. That's the model in the photo below:

It's a 2009 sedan, black, with a GPS navigation system. This is the fourth Honda my wife and I've either bought or leased. We also drive a Honda family van, which at the time of purchase was one of the first vehicles available with a DVD movie entertainment system, the perfect accessory for our boys when we take long family trips.

One of the things I always used to hear was "buy American." This, of course, was back in the 1980s and early-1990s, when U.S. automobile manufacturers were facing super-stiff competition from Japan. There were all kind of protectionist demands from Detroit, and Washington placed all kinds of tariffs and import quotas on Japanese vehicles to protect the American market. Japanese manufacturers imposed "voluntary export resraints" as well, which were tacit agreements not to export additional cars (and thus forestall more formal U.S. import barriers). When Washington placed limits on imports of smaller passenger cars, Japan built Lexuses and other luxury vehicles, and the Japanese eventually took over those sectors in quality and customer satisfaction. More recently, Toyota has been sellling full-size pickup trucks (after a long period of formal exclusion from the big truck sales here), which have cut into the market share of one of the last profititable product lines of American manufacturers. If I was in the market for a new truck, I'd probably get a Tundra.

It's not that I don't like American cars. If I had the money, or the leisure time, I'd get a Corvette. Some of the U.S.-built trucks are absolutely fabulous, and I'd feel even more all-American than I already do driving one. The question for me has always been quality. In 1980, friends drove American cars - I remember Camaros, especially - and they were always breaking down or being recalled for manufacturing defects. When dealing with the distributors, customer satisfaction took a back seat. A buddy's car was in the shop a number of times on warranty, and he had to practically bleed Chevy to pay for the repairs.

This is all off of memory, but I think those early experiences shaped my car-buying habits. I want a dependable vehicle that's not going to break down; a vehicle that gets good mielage, and a car that's hip, frankly. Hondas are cool. Lots of people drive them, and along with the Scion brand, the import sports-market and Friday-night cruising scene is dominated by them.

Perhaps this is why I haven't blogged too much about the Detroit bailout. Actually, I'm tired of bailout politics. I supported the administration's first $700 billion Wall Street bailout in September, and what did it do? Markets kept dropping and more firms and industries stuck out their hands for help from government. Unlike free-market purists, I see a real public interest in preventing a full-blown market crash. It's unknown what might have happened to the economy in the absence of government support, but the corruption we're seeing from top bailout executives, in slush funds, golden parachutes, travel expenses, etc., doesn't engender a lot of confidence that taxpayer money is being well invested. Maybe we need some genuine creative destruction in housing, finance, insurance, and other sectors of the economy before we really know what's to become of American capitalism (if we can really call it that anymore).

In any case, that brings me back to cars. The GM bailout last week collapsed over union issues, for the most part. What's fascinating is how the debate over GM has generated the classic partisan debate between Democrats and Republicans over support for the middle- and working-classes, as well as the question of whether the auto sector is as deserving of a bailout as Wall Street.

The Wall Street Journal, in fact, puts its finger on this moment in the "Crash of '08" as a chance for the GOP to stand up for its values:

Thursday's showdown marked an important political moment for the Republican Party. By refusing to write a blank check to Detroit, Senate Republicans have started to reclaim some credibility on fiscal policy and the role of government in the economy. They did so standing up to a Republican President who doesn't want any more bad headlines, as well as to Democrats who will blame the GOP if the auto makers collapse.

They also stood up for the right reasons. No bailout will ever restore the car companies to profitability without a restructuring. Yet an explicit UAW goal is to use the bailout to avoid any such thing. The union and their Democratic protectors want to avoid the discipline that a bankruptcy could impose under Chapter 11. A government-directed salvation would also give environmentalists huge leverage over the cars Detroit builds, a power they and Democrats have wanted for decades.

That does really get to the political nub of it. But if you look around the leftosphere, conservatives and the GOP are being tarred as the new "Hooverites." Chris Bowers attacks conservative ideology directly, arguing that conservatives don't care about "workplace democracy" and the concerns of "the middle-class":

The Senate Republicans who voted against the bridge loan are not acting as ideologues. Instead, they are acting rationally according to the dictates of their values system, aka ideology. They want to destroy the Great Lakes. They want to destroy the UAW. They don't care how many people get hurt or lose their jobs in bringing about those goals. They do not view these outcomes as catastrophic, and they know this will happen if the bridge loan fails. They are aware of these outcomes, and view them as desirable.

Read the whole thing to get the context (basically, leftist ideology is benevolent and conservative ideology is evil, blah, blah...).

I'm not an expert on the whole union-management debate. The big auto companies, in my opinion, have failed for a long time to offer a product that people woudn't hesitate to buy. Big labor, on the other hand, has been like a cancer on the car companies.

A couple of years back I was shaking my head when I read a story in the Wall Street Journal, "Idle Hands: Detroit's Symbol of Dysfunction: Paying Employees Not to Work." At the time, the big auto companies were paying about $2 billion a year for laid off workers to sit around all day - that is, the car companies, at union demand, paid people not to work. The piece demonstrates how UAW was essentially helped to kill its own companies.

So for me, it's both sides: The corporate bosses have failed to adapt to a changing American car culture and business environment (see, for example, "GM: Death of An American Dream"), and the unions have failed to develop a spirit of cooperation that puts company viability ahead of worker entitlement.

Meanwhile, across the American south, foreign automobile manufacturers are thriving, with higher productivity, lower costs, and greater consumer satisfaction. Look to Dixie for the future of the car business in the United States.

Knee-Jerk Reactions to Terror?

With reference to December 7th, 1941, and September 11, 2001, here's a boggling blame-America-first post on how the U.S. should surrender to clear and present dangers to our national security:

Our country cannot afford to go around responding to perceived threats with knee jerk reactions based in hatred and ignorance. In the end, we will do more harm than good and we will be no safer than we are now ....

And I want to remind my fellow Americans that what we do and what we say still counts in the world. Many look to us as a beacon of light and so we have a great responsibility to the world to light the way. I don't want to leave my grandchildren a legacy of hate and war. I want them to know we lived, we learned and we changed...

Yes, of course, September 11 was a "perceived" threat.

But I like the "my fellow Americans" part ... that's almost, well, presidential.

If that were a speech from a president taking this position (a Democrat, of course), it might say, "My fellow Americans, prepare your final effects, we are about to die. Our government shall remain paralyzed as the blackness descends on our nation and we submit to the ultimate, existential evil. Good night, and God Bless America, for the last time."

Somewhere, Deepak Chopra is nodding approvingly.

Faith is Road Back for GOP

Five weeks after the election and we're still seeing essays like this one warning the Repubican Party against embracing social conservatism at the risk eternal banishment from political power:

I’ve noted several times how the religious right has become an anchor which is making it hard for the Republican Party to move on from their recent defeats and revise their positions to ones which voters outside of the deep south might accept. In the past when political parties have suffered defeats they have recovered as new ideas took hold. I’m not sure if this is possible for the Republicans. At present they have lost too many voters to win without the religious right and the religious right appears unwilling to moderate their views ....

Maybe over time enough people in the religious right will moderate their views to the point where people like [James] Dobson lose their influence. Otherwise I see no choice for the GOP other than to bite the bullet and separate itself from the religious right and be willing to endure a period as a minority party while they attempt to rebuild. s long as they are tied to the current views of the religious right the Republican Party will have a tough time surviving as a meaningful party of the 21st century.

I've been thinking about the GOP's road back all month, and since reading folks like Ross Douthat (God bless him) will drive you crazy with mind-numbing policy-wonkishness, I'm more prone to map out a comeback in terms of basic ideology and values. Besides, beyond tax policy, deregulation, and peace through strength, what do Republicans really have that's all their own? Why, social conservatism, of course, and they'd be entirely brainless - not to mention morally bankrupt - to let it go.

Not only that, there's a culture war going on, and the left's agenda to drive religion and decency from the public sphere is much worse than reading conservative policy papers. Take Michelle Goldberg, for example, and her smear of Newt Gingrich:

I've been reporting for a long time on the central role of the religious fundamentalism and sacralized nationalism in the Republican Party--that's how I've ended up on the kind of calling lists used by groups like the National Committee for Faith and Family. Still, I'd have expected some attempt to modulate the message of perpetual kulturkampf in the wake of the election results, the public disaffection of so many prominent conservative intellectuals, and the cascading economic disasters threatening millions of Americans. Perhaps, though, people like Gingrich can't imagine any other way. And so, with the defeat of Republican moderates rendering the rump GOP more right-wing than ever, he apparently sees a path to power in challenging Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee for leadership of the Elmer Gantry wing of his beaten party. Maybe he's clueless about the future of Republicanism, but if he's right about it, it's hard to see what kind of future Republicanism has.

I mean really, first of all, does anyone outside of the nihilist left use meaningless jumbo phrases like "sacralized nationalism"? What's up with that?

Maybe that's just more inside lefty-lingo to delegitimize people who think human life is more important than "convenience" and that sometimes making decisions requires not only agreeing that something is wrong, but in fact embracing the opposite, that which is morally right and eternally just.

Yep, that's what this is all about. I just can't get it out of my head that if the GOP does what all the secular ayatollahs want, well, we'd be handing them the greatest inauguration present since Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in on a New Deal platform. I mean, let's just give away the store, you know, the game's just not it worth anymore. Those few traditionalists still left after The Lightworker takes office can move up to a cabin in Colorado or some other former red state and just wait it out until the collectivist state withers away.

Seriously, of all the proposals for the GOP comeback, Richard Land's was best: "Stay Faithful to Core Values." The number one plank on the agenda is to promote life, that is, conservatives must stay true to the preservation and promotion of life, from birth to natural death; and that requires refusing to cut corners with moral equivalence and acceptable talk of abortion, gay marriage and the capitulation to Islamist evil whose terror rose once again in Mumbai, and whose plague of violence we'll see in the months and years ahead unless America stands tall in our heritage of exceptionalism and greatness of right.

There are no shortcuts, and all this talk of "sacralized nationalism" and the need for Republican "moderation" is, frankly, insulting it its combination of electoral hubris and sheer stupidity. Of course, the Democrats haven't even taken power in D.C. yet, and Obama's Chicago model of machine corruption is already promising to make traditional moral values the hottest game in town.

Rationalizing Abortion: Paper, Plastic, or Death?

We've come to the point in society where, for some, there is no right and wrong. Or, perhaps we've come to the point in postmodern society where the moral power of universal reason has become so diminished that objective standards of how to live a life of divine goodness have absolutely no implications for personal ethics.

Think about what is really good in the world - or should be good - as you read this account of the throwaway choice for an abortion, which doesn't sound any more ethically-challenging than deciding whether you want cream with your coffee at the drive-through at McDonald's:

I had a long conversation today with my best college friend's younger sister, who has just found herself unexpectedly pregnant at 21. She wanted to talk to me about making a decision about keeping it, but by the time I finally got her on the phone she was pretty much settled on an abortion. So we talked through logistics, when she could get an appointment, whom she had to go with her. We talked about how it feels to confront and unplanned pregnancy, particularly when you were raised, as she and I both were, with a very black and white view on abortion; that view being, It Is Wrong. She was at the point, which I remember very well from both of my unplanned pregnancies, of just barely believing this had happened to her and dealing with the strangeness she felt at recognizing herself as someone who could chose to end a pregnancy. It just was not a choice she ever imagined she would make, not a situation she ever imagined herself in. She was realizing that she was totally wrong in her sense of who she was; or who she was the last time she actively checked in on it, at any rate.

This should be shocking to read but it's not, sadly - the idea that moral choices have consequences is totally alien to a culture that's abandoned any inkling of a life of universal good. Folks like this probably put more effort in deciding "paper or plastic" at the supermarket checkout line: "Um, let's see, should I save some trees or reduce carbon emissions?"

Both of these characters agreed that "abortion is wrong." For me, though, when something's wrong, one should look to do what's right. You don't cave to the path of least resistance, which in this case is to murder the unborn by excercising "freedom of choice."

Can it ever be denied - when such callousness is before our eyes - that contemporary liberalism is in essence a culture of death?

Look at this rationalizing: She "was realizing that she was totally wrong in the sense of who she was ..." Well, you think?

Where in this discussion is the normal human response of ... "Wow! awesome! You're having a baby! I can't believe it! I'm thrilled! This is the most important thing you will ever do with your life! This is the most important responsiblity you will ever have in your life! This is why we are alive, to fulfill God's plan to be fertile and multiply and do good for others, that is to live life! How can I help you bring this miracle into the world?

Nope, none of that. Instead we see the 21 year-old's story bringing forth memories of previous abortions (or so it seems). How utterly bankrupt. God, that is depressing (and objectively offensive)

The title of the post is "Doing As One Likes." It should have been titled "Doing What is Right," and that would have been to refuse to toss around meaningless words about "abortion is wrong," and to instead just suck oneself up to the mountain of ethical reason and choose life.

No Surprises: Obama Lied to the American People

Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's selection as White House chief of staff, was in contact with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich regarding the appointment of Obama's replacement to the Senate.

The Swamp has the details:

Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be White House chief of staff, had conversations with Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration about who would replace Obama in the U.S. Senate, the Chicago Tribune has learned.

The revelation does not suggest Obama's new gatekeeper was involved in any talk of dealmaking involving the seat. But it does help fill in the gaps surrounding a question that Obama was unable or unwilling to answer this week: Did anyone on his staff have contact with Blagojevich about his choice for the Senate seat?

Blagojevich and John Harris, his former chief of staff, face federal charges in an alleged shakedown involving the vacant Senate seat, which Illinois law grants the governor sole authority to fill.

Obama said Thursday he had never spoken to Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy and was "confident that no representatives" of his had engaged in any dealmaking over the seat with the governor or his team. He also pledged Thursday that in the "next few days" he would explain what contacts his staff may have had with the governor's office about the Senate vacancy.
Emanuel, who has long been close to both Blagojevich and Obama, has refused to respond to questions about any involvement he may have had with the Blagojevich camp over the Senate pick. A spokeswoman for Emanuel also declined to comment Friday.

A.J. Strata puts the incoming administration's deceit in context:

The big dominos seem to be falling already, less than a week from the news breaking. I simply cannot fathom the damage Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel have done to their incoming administration, a month before it takes office. But I do know they dealt hit a critical blow this week. Barack Obama has just been exposed as a liar to the American people. He lied to us in a manner that puts him in the same league as Bill Clinton, Senator Ted Stevens, Senator Robert Torricelli, Rep Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Rep William Jefferson. We have yet to know what, if any, crimes Obama has committed. But the fact is this week he went out and lied straight to the American people. He tried to cover his tracks ....

Obama won the election by gaining the trust of the majority of the voters. He was preparing to take office with the added trust of many like me who were willing to give him a chance to prove us wrong. There are no perfect politicians. I was more than willing to give Obama a shot. But his followers were living a dream come true - or so they thought.

I will not be lied to and right now my view of Obama is totally shattered. But my blowback on Obama is going to be mild compared to all those true believers who voted for ‘change we can believe in’. The entire Obama administration is now in a shambles because it’s load bearing characteristic has failed in a devastating manner. Obama is not only just like all other pols, he is inexperienced klutz as well.

Obama could not trust the American people to simply tell them he exchanged information with Blagojevich on the matter of the vacant senate seat. All of us would have been shocked at his ineptitude if he hadn’t been pre-planning his transition. But Obama failed America by failing to trust us with obvious details. So he lied and tried sell the idea his ‘office’ had nothing to do with ‘the issue’ (his office of course being his senate office, not his transition team).

Actually, I'm not surprised at all.

Throughout the campaign, a few writers, especially Stanley Kurtz, examined in detail Barack Obama's long acculturation and political grooming in Chicago's corrupt Democratic Party machine. Further, in response to Ryan Lizza's New Yorker essay, with the famous cover cartoon of the radical Islamist fist-bump from heaven, I wrote this:

If Barack Obama's elected in November, we'll see the accession of a machine-style party boss to the Oval Office ...

Well, we're seeing it now, the dark side of Obama's machine-style politics, and his administration's not even taken office yet. Obama's scale of corruption's going to put Richard Nixon and Watergate in the shade.

David Hoogland Noon, Abominable Academic Wretch

UPDATE: Some in the comments are taking exception to my reference to "Lesbian, Gays and Marriage." My bad. The blog is Lawyers, Guns and Money, and the homosexual reference to "LGM" is an inside joke in the context of a comment at this post. At issue here is David Noon's historical imcompetence. I have no clue as to his sexual orientation, and that's his business if he's some postmodern bum jockey.

**********

One of the more amazing things about blogging is that hopelessly obtuse left-wing buffoons can be found in both the depths of the online fever swamps and in what we'd presume to be the refined halls of academe.

It turns out that Dave Noon, of Lesbians, Gays and Marriage (aka LGM) and the University of Alaska Southeast, resides in both places, moving back and forth between each in a manner not unlike a three-toed sloth.

Both Dave Noon and Robert Farley, his similarly dull blogging cohort at LGM, have written poorly-formed essays attacking David Horowitz and Ben Johnson's Party of Defeat. As I've shown in a series of posts at this blog, these two struck out wildly in their attempts to take down Horowitz and Johnson, and in fact their efforts were so bad as to raise serious - even disqualifying - questions of academic competence (and of moral grace as well, for example here).

Noon in particular has had a weird obssession with American Power, and he's gotten to calling me unflattering names like "AmericaneoClown," a perverted version of my online handle. Yet, his tune's changing a bit, in that he's now feigning a faux-elitist detachment in his more recent attempts to smear my reputation. This turn is evident in Noon's latest response to one my recent essays, "Continuing Partisan Debate on Iraq." In that entry I noted Noon's scandalous dishonesty in making historical assertions completely divorced from reality - I mean really, I was literally was shaking my head in a kind of abject disbelief that this man would make such hare-brained claims.

Well, he's done it again. And, frankly, after a while it seems Noon's cluelessness just kind of blurs together into a supreme concerto of imbecilic accomplishment.

In the comments to the post above, Noon writes, "Weber's book, for example, makes nothing close to the argument you claim it does ..."

The reference is to Eugen Weber's, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s, and my description suggesting that it ...

... examines the collapse of national morale in interwar France that contributed to the country's utter collapse in the face of German power in 1940 (not unlike the evaporation of outrage and resolve among the American left since 9/11).

While Noon asserts the book "makes nothing close to the argument you claim it does," he also alleges that I'm "dishonest" (clearly a tit-for-tat play, since I've proved how well the adjective describes his own pseudo-historical project), and then asks with indignation, "Have you even read these book [sic]?", while admitting he has not!

Okay, let's think about this for a minute: I suggested that Weber's book on interwar France "examines the collapse of national morale" that contributed to the "country's utter collapse" in the face of Nazi expansionism in 1940.

Now, looking at my personal copy (which I did not have in front of me when I wrote the original post), the book jacket describes interwar French culture as follows:

Caught between the memory of a brutal war won at frightful cost and fear of another cataclysm, France in the 1930s suffered a failure of nerve...

Turning to page 6 in the introduction, we have this passage:

In rueful retrospect, the 1920s were l'après-guerre, lively and optimistic. The 1930s are distinctly l'avant-guerre: increasingly morose and ill at ease. Contemporaries varied in their perceptions. A few clear-sighted ones seem to have seen war coming since the negotiations at Versailles. More sensed it in the middle thirties, when German rearmament kicked off in deadly earnest and Hitler began to break with treaties that his country had freely signed. By 1936, when the French stood by while German troops reoccupied the Rhineland, France, in some French eyes, began to lose the next war. Internal peace was also badly troubled when the exaltations and anxieties of the Popular Front spurred talk of civil war that might outmatch the bloody war in Spain.

So, we can see, now that I've gone to the source to support my previous comments on the book in a blog post, Dave Noon doesn't know WTF he's talking about. Not only that, the passage above explicitly rebuts Noon's unhinged claim - in the narrow sense, at least - that there's never been a book based on the thesis that a minority party (or coalition of minor parties, as in the French case) that "bears responsibility for taking the country to the brink of ruin" (again, I stress the narrow sense, as to give Noon room to breathe).

But that's not all. Looking further at Weber's book, we see the following passage on page 244, from chapter 9, "The Nightmare of Fear":

Through most of the 1920s the French talked softly and carried a small stick. Their army was understaffed, undermanned, underpaid, and overrated. Their foreign policy pretended first that Germany could be forced to execute the provisions of Versailles, then that it didn't matter if they didn't. One thing no one bothered to pretend was that force existed to be used. As a Communist deputy eager to cut military expenditure asserted, "You don't want any more victgories. It follows that you're building an army to prevent defeat." Renaud Jean was right: The conquering, offensive doctrines that caused so many deaths between 1914 and 1918 had been discarded. Soldiers had learned that enemy fire kills. They distrusted the offensive doctrines of the prewar Staff College, the emphasis on vitalism and will, the prediliction for charges with the bayonet. The dominant doctrine was now that "the power of the defensive constitutes the most important and least questionable lesson of the war." Prudence, protection, avoidance of risk: The army would be ready, but to do nothing much. Was that why, in February 1932, the former Ministry of War became the Ministry of Defense?

Anyone with the slightest inkling of 20th century French history knows that the fall of France to Hitler's armies, in less than three weeks from the start of the German invasion on May 10, 1940, is one of the most ignominious military defeats in modern history.

Unfortunately, Dave Noon, an historian by formal training, does not know this history, and he's admitted to not even reading Weber's research.

If the fall of France, and the comprehensive social decay that led to it, is not a "moral collapse," I don't know what is. Recall too, that the comparison to the American left following the September 11 attacks is completely appropriate. The political and ideological base of today's Democratic Party can only be described as rooting for America's enemies over these last few years. Blinded by an insane hatred for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the entire administrative apparatus - from the Defense Department, to State, Justice, and beyond, the left's done everything that a political opposition possibly could do - short of blowing up Capitol Hill (knock on wood, Bill Ayers, yo!) - to stab American foreign and defense policy in the back. In the case of top Democratic Party officials, the partisan war on American foreign policy began within months after Congress approved a resolution authorizing the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime. For the antiwar hordes in the streets and online, opposition to a forward response to aggression against the U.S. began almost as soon as bodies were being recovered at Ground Zero. " MoveOn.org opposed Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the campaign to rout the Taliban from power. And in 2003, Columbia University professor Nicholas De Genova, before a crowd of 3,000 students and faculty, called for "a million Mogadishus" when announcing his opposition to the Bush administration's build-up to Iraq. The examples go on and on, ad infinitum.

Dave Noon, and not to mention Robert Farley and the rest of the whacked nihilist crew at LGM, cheers such ignorant anti-Americanism as some cool postmodernist philosophy of righteous repudiation of this country's culture, tradition, and strength.

Noon, ostensibly a professional academic historian, gives his field of training a bad name; and the rest of his allied dunderheaded intellectual poseurs should refrain from commenting on the scholarly issues of the day, as those with genuine professional acumen haven't the time to sweep up after their all too frequent unhinged (and not unembarrassing) pseudo-academic implosions.

For President Bush, No Regrets on Iraq

Butan Amedi, writing at World Meets America, argues that President Bush should have no regrets on his decision in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein's regime:

Perhaps one of the Bush Administration's most courageous decisions was the removal of Saddam Hussein. Despite opposition from the United Nations, the U.S. freed a terrorized country from the grips of one of the most dangerous men in the world. In a matter of weeks, the U.S. Army was able to remove Saddam from power, an operation that sent a clear signal to other dictators in the region that they, too, could face a similar fate. The intelligence was wrong, and Saddam didn't have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But nevertheless, Saddam's regime needed to be removed. He was an oppressive and brutal dictator, unwilling to cooperate with the international community and a threat to the free world.

While for President Bush, the failure of the war on Iraq seems hinged to the intelligence on WMDs, the real setback was post-war management, not a lack of WMDs. When U.S.-led forces entered Baghdad, the Iraqi government collapsed without anything to be put in its place. The lack of a proper authority created anarchy and internal disorder. Unsealed borders with Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia invited the infiltration of a huge influx of al-Qaeda-minded terrorists who carried out attacks on Coalition Forces and Iraqi citizens to further destabilize the country. The United States established the Coalition Provisional Authority led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, which not only proved incapable of leading Iraq, but it stamped the word “invader” on Washington, despite the fact that the CPA delivered to its promise to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis in June 2004. The CPA established a Governing Council which proved ineffective and involved a number of undemocratic opposition parties from the past to participate on the process of rebuilding the state. In 2005, the people of Iraq were provided an opportunity to elect a national government, and the majority of Iraqis voted for an Islamist, pro-Iran government to take power in Baghdad.

Those mistakes were costly, weakened America's image around the world and comforted regional dictators. While Saddam's regime was successfully removed, the Bush Administration's failed post-war management handed power to theocratic, tribal, and dictatorial parties that sponsor militia armies - some which are ideologically unfriendly to the West.

Prior to the American intervention, we continuously heard speeches about efforts to transform Iraq into a model democracy at the heart of the Middle East. Without doubt, the Bush Administration worked sincerely to democratize Iraq and its efforts cost U.S. tax-payers trillions of dollars. But the Bush government's methods of state-building were unsuitable for this region. Five years have elapsed since the end of major combat operations, and yet there is precious little stability and democracy in the country.

America's post-war management could have been more effective and cost much less. The United States should have trained and immediately brought in a team of independent technocrats to fill the gap created after the collapse of Saddam's regime. A cabinet, representative in its make-up, could have led the country far more effectively than Ambassador Bremer - and even the undemocratic parties currently in power. They would undoubtedly have prioritized building state institutions before holding elections and would have paved the way for a democratic, civil and secular government. Unfortunately, the decisions made after the war are irreversible and can't be done over - even by President-elect Obama. Meanwhile, contrary to pre-war speeches by Bush Administration officials, Iraq is shifting closer toward theocracy every day.

According to the SOFA agreement, the United States must leave Iraq in 2011. The world is doubtlessly safer without Saddam Hussein, but Iraq has no effective government. President-elect Obama must ensure that Iraq's parties tackle the real challenges confronting the country, like corruption, militia armies, a new oil law, disputed Arabized areas [parts of Kurdistan populated by Arabs under Saddam] and regional interference. Before the United States completely leaves, Iraq must have an effective government.

The Real Foreign Policy Debate

Here's a reader's letter to Ross Douthat:

I think you're creating all sorts of divisions where none really exist. There is NO substantive division between Democratic realists and Democratic internationalists and not much between them and their likeminded Republican brethren. The predominant strain of thought in American foreign policy since WW 2 has been liberal/internationalist/realist. It was conceived by Acheson/Marshall/Kennan/Harriman et al. and pursued by every administration, Republican or Democrat, from then until 2000. Separate this from domestic political posturing, and apart from minor shading the policy differences of Acheson, Dulles, Rusk, Kissinger, Shultz and Albright are indiscernible. Essentially, it consisted of enlightened self interest pursued through containment of adversaries; operating through international institutions wherever possible; and the fostering of alliance systems. On the whole it was a fairly respectable endeavor although there was dirty dealing from time to time. Occasionally, the bus would come off the road of course, notably over Vietnam, and Jingoism or the military lobby would get the upper hand, but it seldom lasted long.

In 2001 there really was a quantum shift in policy to one of overt interventionism; rejection of traditional international institutions as a problem solving mechanism; disinterest in the views of major allies; open support of the most extreme Israeli positions in the middle east; and the embrace of attempts to export democracy, even if in a somewhat ham handed way. This whole approach was increasingly dominated by domestic political considerations, perhaps that was its original genesis, and it has proved fairly disastrous in almost every respect ...

Now with the election of Democratic administration the inevitable reaction has set in and the Republican internationalist/realists are anxious to get back in their traditional groove alongside the folks who think the same way in the Democratic party ... you and Yglesias are quite wrong, this state of affairs is sustainable for a very long time. Any fault lines that appear are far more likely to be between a Lugar and a Cheney than between a Lugar and a Clinton. There are no fault lines between a Daschle and a Clinton. I use these names, but this is not really a matter of personalities despite the media's obsession with people rather than substance.

Here's Douthat's first paragraph in response:

I think [this] is rather like Robert Kagan's suggestion last year that we are all neocons of some sort or another: It emphasizes important commonalities - in this case, among post-WWII internationalists of various sorts, especially during the Cold War - but elides extremely important differences in order to make its case. Saying "the predominant strain of thought in American foreign policy since WW 2 has been liberal/internationalist/realist" is like saying that "the predominant strain of thought in American domestic policy since WW 2 has been liberal/neoliberal/neoconservative." It gets at the important point that policymaking has operated within a more constrained range than many people think, but it obscures the fact that there are very important differences between domestic-policy neoconservatism and domestic-policy liberalism - or between, say, the realist internationalism of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the liberal hawkery of John F. Kennedy. (Just compare this speech to this speech ...) The latter set of differences manifested themselves most notably in our policy toward Indochina - and if your case that the Iraq War represents a unique break with five decades of unbroken foreign-policy consensus requires dismissing the years America spent embroiled in Vietnam as a case where the bus went "off the road" modestly but not for long, you're probably overselling your argument a bit.

Actually, it's not just overselling your argument. It's getting it all wrong. Douthat's right that the left/right consensus has long driven American foreign policy, but he needs to indicate that it's the Democratic Party's radical left base that has made an epochal departure from America's traditional internationalism, not the Bush administration.

Fred Baumann, writing in the Public Interest in 2004, pegged the real issues facing American foreign policy since Vietnam:

THREE decades after the Vietnam War, American politicians are still making foreign policy decisions in its shadow. In fact, on one level, debates such as those over the recent war in Iraq can be viewed as hinging on how one interprets the American experience in Vietnam ....

This particular strand in our politics is directly attributable to what, for lack of a better label, I will call the "Vietnam paradigm." It describes not simply a constellation of isolationist policy directives but, more importantly, a general attitude of political suspicion and moral condemnation of nearly any use of American military might. Such post- Vietnam skittishness has affected America's domestic politics in enormous and largely pernicious ways. Most significantly, it has made popular consent for any large-scale foreign intervention--and thus the credibility of any such threat--perennially fragile. This has led conservatives when in power to fight wars on tiptoe ....

If the Vietnam mentality poses both direct and indirect dangers in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, it poses an even more troubling domestic danger in its tendency toward ever greater rhetorical excess and emotional rancor ....

To be sure, there is a strand of rational criticism of the administration's conduct of the war on terror. It can be found in the serious policy journals and with columnists like Anne Applebaum in the mainstream media. But it does not much characterize the antiwar movement's overall tone and style. That movement encompasses a large range, from distinguished intellectuals like Susan Sontag and veteran foreign policy experts writing popular books, like Chalmers Johnson, down through the mainstream of the New York Times and the Washington Post and respectable Internet "bloggers" like Josh Marshall, descending to popular entertainers like Tim Robbins and Michael Moore, and to ever more abusive fringe journals and blogs, all the way down to LaRouche websites. Still, from high to low, there are some strikingly common themes.

Conspiracy theory, in particular, has found its way into the mainstream. The missing weapons of mass destruction are a case in point. Practically everyone, including President Clinton, Senator Ted Kennedy, and the French and German intelligence services, was convinced that Iraq had them. Yet "Bush lied; people died" (now available on bumper stickers and T-shirts) immediately became the slogan of the antiwar movement. Similarly, the case that this was an "illegal war" because a second resolution had not been forthcoming from the United Nations is a staple of antiwar argument ... Then there is the much-touted discovery of a group of Zionist "neoconservative" foreign policy advisers of the second and third rank who have allegedly hijacked U.S. foreign policy for sinister reasons. A long-time commonplace for the LaRouche set, this too is now a part of the mainstream political discourse. Finally, there is the vitriolic personal assault on the leaders of the administration, culminating most recently in Whoopi Goldberg's obscene punning on President Bush's surname in front of Senator John Kerry himself. Perhaps the historians who say it was this bad in Jefferson's day are correct, but that doesn't make the current incivility any less remarkable ....

This dynamic became all too obvious in the case of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In view of the indefensible character of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from the point of view of "progressive" sentiment, it became crucial to keep the focus on American overreaching and on "anti-imperialism" as an abstraction. That way, the antiwar side did not quite have to say that it would rather Hussein had stayed around to murder people and the Taliban to keep women from medical care than to have had the United States kick them out.

Thus much of the simplicity and heat of the antiwar position has its root in the difficulties of its own situation. But those difficulties do not lead it to moderation. On the contrary, they encourage psychological projection, demonization, and a constant stoking of righteous indignation. This in turn explains why the liberal mainstream has opened itself up to what had previously been judged the paranoid conspiracy theories of the political fringe. Vulgar polemicists like Michael Moore, or the old University of Chicago types who hated Leo Strauss, are always with us. But U.S. senators don't usually lionize the former or Harper's give space to the fantasies of the latter. When that begins to happen, we come to that mysterious point where quantitative change begins to become qualitative. What drives the change, above all, is the need for self-justification. And here the Bush administration has been a stick in the liberal eye.

Realist conservatives with their tough-minded rhetoric are easy for liberal idealists to live with. Tough-mindedness is openly selfish and can be deplored without posing much of a moral challenge. But a frankly idealistic conservatism that doesn't just speak democratization but actually tries to undertake it has to be unmasked, since it poses a moral threat to the good conscience of its opponents. Unmasking measures--that is, vilification and attack on motives--have a double function. They discredit the other side publicly; more importantly they reassure the idealists about their own goodness.

It isn't that the antiwar side would hate to see a democratic Middle East any more than it hated to see the gulag abolished. Rather, the success of the war on terror would mean the triumph of an unreflective, brassy, self-justifying, and morally repulsive patriotism, which could, horribly, sit in judgment of its betters. Of course, Katha Pollitt understood why her daughter wanted, with all of New York, to fly that flag after September 11. But she also thought she understood what her daughter was too naive to grasp, namely that flying that flag would inevitably lead to horrors like Abu Ghraib. Again, for Susan Sontag, it was the most natural thing to conclude in the New York Times Magazine that Abu Ghraib really did represent what the United States has become. For if that were not the case, the utopian idealism of those like Sontag would have to confront the fact that it had defended much that was worse.

Read Baumann's entire piece at the link (it's the best explanation of antiwar sentiment and BushCo demonization you'll find).

Douthat's reader buys into the post-Vietnam mindset by declaring that the traditional liberal internationalist consensus was destroyed in 2001 (recall, apparently, U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam just went "off the road" temporarily). It wasn't. What we saw in the Bush administration was a willingness to put power to prinicples, the same moral principles that drove the liberal utopianism of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt's foreign policies.

The issue for the country now - our real foreign policy debate - is to resist the abandonment of America's renewed paradigm of power and purpose in international affairs. To that effect, the coming Barack Obama administration is making attempts at international reassurance (the nuclear guarantee to Israel, for example). Desite all of our current economic problems, the U.S. will remain primus inter pares in world politics. American leadership in the Middle East, and increasingly South Asia, will remain central to the agenda of global peace and prosperity for decades to come.

Jesse Jackson Jr. for Senate, Blagojevich Style

Jesse Jackson, Jr., is "Senate candidate number 5," from the federal government's investigation into the Rod Blagojevich pay-for-play scandal (the "Jackson 5").

Well it turns out that a number of Illinois money men talked of a Jackson-backed fundraiser for Blagojevich's (gubernatorial?) campaign. Reading this, things don't sound so good for Representative Jackson:

As Gov. Rod Blagojevich was trying to pick Illinois' next U.S. senator, businessmen with ties to both the governor and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. discussed raising at least $1 million for Blagojevich's campaign as a way to encourage him to pick Jackson for the job, the Tribune has learned.

Blagojevich made an appearance at an Oct. 31 luncheon meeting at the India House restaurant in Schaumburg sponsored by Oak Brook businessman Raghuveer Nayak, a major Blagojevich supporter who also has fundraising and business ties to the Jackson family, according to several attendees and public records.

Two businessmen who attended the meeting and spoke to the Tribune on the condition of anonymity said that Nayak and Blagojevich aide Rajinder Bedi privately told many of the more than two dozen attendees the fundraising effort was aimed at supporting Jackson's bid for the Senate.

Among the attendees was a Blagojevich fundraiser already under scrutiny by federal investigators, Joliet pharmacist Harish Bhatt.

That meeting led to a Blagojevich fundraiser Saturday in Elmhurst, co-sponsored by Nayak and attended by Jesse Jackson Jr.'s brother, Jonathan, as well as Blagojevich, according to several people who were there. Nayak and Jonathan Jackson go back years and the two even went into business together years ago as part of a land purchase on the South Side.

Blagojevich and the congressman met to discuss the Senate seat on Monday, one day before federal prosecutors arrested Blagojevich and charged him with trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. As part of the charges, prosecutors alleged that Blagojevich was considering awarding the seat to a politician identified as "Senate Candidate 5" because emissaries for that candidate were promising to raise as much as $1.5 million for Blagojevich's campaign fund.

U.S. Extended Deterrence to Israel

According to Fox News and Haaretz, the coming Barack Obama administration may offer Israel a nuclear guarantee vis-à-vis Iran. The proposal amounts to the offer of "extended deterrence" to Tel Aviv, and a key problem with such guarantees is the credibility of commitment: Would the U.S. go to war over an Iranian first-strike nuclear attack on Israel? If so, the outbreak of hostilities in a localized Middle East conflict would turn into a global one. Other nuclear powers, such as Russia and China, would move to full battle readiness, particularly Moscow which may see its vital national interests threatened by the real-time extension of U.S. strategic power in his geopolitical backyard.

Richard Fernandez offers an interesting analysis as to rational motivations behind a potential U.S.-Israel nuclear allliance:

From a certain point of view the only thing worse than an Iran with nuclear weapons is the prospect of an Israeli retaliation to an attack, which however justified, could only create eternal enmity with its neighbors. But if the retaliation could be left to America, that might have the virtue of preventing Israel from retaliating, thereby preventing other regional nuclear powers (who presumably emerge in response to a nuclear Iran) from explaining to their outraged populations why they ought not punish the Jews for using atomic bombs. Maybe there is the belief that an American retaliation to an Iranian strike would be more politically acceptable than an Israeli one. With an American deterrent in play Israel could be cut out of the deterrent process — and this would be desirable from a political point of view.

But does it make strategic sense? The downside to this reported proposal is that America undertakes to automatically involve itself in a regional nuclear exchange between atomic powers; thereby creating the risk of going straight from a regional nuclear war to a global one. If an attack on Israel is automatically followed by retaliation from America, what role do Israeli nukes play? From a certain point of view the proposal may actually increase the risk of nuclear war in the Middle East. A combination of tacitly accepting an nuclear-armed Iran and reposing deterrence in Washington could make the Ayatollahs more willing to run the risk. What are the odds that the West can bring itself to enter into a nuclear exchange with Iran if it could not muster the will to prevent Teheran’s acquisition of those weapons in the first place? The Ayatollahs may interpret this proposal as meaning that the West will be a party to any Israeli decision to retaliate for an nuclear attack on its soil, undertaking to attack in lieu or veto the retaliation. It adds one more step in the process of pulling the retaliatory trigger. That can only reduce the certainty of retribution in Teheran’s eyes.

It is far from clear that this proposed policy — acquiescing to a nuclear Iran while reducing the certainty of retaliation — helps anybody. It may hurt everybody.

That's a fascinating discussion.

To some extent, the issue seems kind of moot. At the height of the Yom Kippur war in 1973, the U.S. moved to DEFCON 3 (near-crisis stage of military-strategic readiness) in anticipation of a possible Soviet deployment of troops to Egypt to assist Cairo. I doubt the U.S. government, with a presidential administration of either party, would refuse to come to Israel's assistance in the event of an impending or actual nuclear exchange. For the Obama administration, perhaps this all about clarifying the new administration's credibility of commitment, as well as establishing a reputation for firmness in the face of Tehran's international revisionism.

In any case, while we're on the topic, the Wikipedia page for ICBM's has some interesting related information, for example:

To comply with the START II most U.S. multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, have been eliminated and replaced with single warhead missiles. However, since the abandonment of the START II treaty, the U.S. is said to be considering retaining 800 warheads on 450 missiles.

MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. If we assume that each side has 100 missiles, with 5 warheads each, and further that each side has a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing 2 warheads at each silo, then the side that strikes first can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about 5 by firing 40 missiles at the enemy silos and using the remaining 60 for other targets. This first-strike strategy increases the chance of a nuclear war, so the MIRV weapon system was banned under the START II agreement.

See also, Abe Greenwald's discussion, "Obama’s Nuclear Pledge to Israel."