Obama: "Diplomacy With Iran Without Preconditions"

James Joyner, in his post, "No Preconditions," hammers Andrew Sullivan and his post, "No Recognition of Ahmadinejad."

James provides this video from campaign '07, where candidate Obama was asked if he'd "be willing to meet separately, without preconditions, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries":

I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them– which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration– is ridiculous.

Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.

James links to his essay at the New Atlanticist, "Negotiating with Iran Without Preconditions." And he notes:

Atlantic senior editor Andrew Sullivan has a short post up titled "No Recognition of Ahmadinejad" in which he asserts, "This is the first and absolute requirement of all Western governments. The disgusting visuals of Medvedev and Ahmadinejad yesterday must not be repeated."

But Sullivan was one of the most prominent Obamacons, conservatives who nonetheless supported Barack Obama in last year's election for a variety of reasons, articulated superbly on his blog and in a December 2007 cover story in his magazine called "Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters." Obama could not have been more clear on this issue. Who can forget this moment from the July 24, 2007 Democratic debate?

I'd note first that while perhaps Sullivan might have been an "Obamacon" last year, he's now a well-established spokesman for the gay-radical nihilist base of the Democratic Party.

In any case, it's clear, as James notes, that President Obama's assertion that he "will pursue tough, direct diplomacy without preconditions to end the threat from Iran" remains the position of the administration.

Here's this morning's statement from the administration, from Jake Tapper:

President Obama argued yesterday that there is little different between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi on policies critical to the U.S.

“It's important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised,” the president told CNBC. “Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons. And so we've got long-term interests in having them not weaponize nuclear power and stop funding organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And that would be true whoever came out on top in this election.”

Read the whole thing. Actually, according to Tapper:

... there do seem some key differences on other issues. For one, Mousavi seems far more willing to engage with the West.

Mousavi has expressed a desire for more openness. "An approach that runs on the basis of 'keeping the influx of changes at bay' will irrefutably bring about the closure of newspapers, limitations on freedom in society and public detachment from national-religious leadership," he has said. "On the contrary, an approach that moves toward the recognition of changes, upholds values like sovereignty, liberty as well as peace. Such an approach would produce the right conditions for changes in the society and enable us to make the most of our opportunities.”

Bottom line?

Well, Sullivan's all messed up! Who knows what position he's advocating from moment to moment? But more importantly, is Barack Obama for real? As his homepage indicates:

Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama and Biden would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.

As James notes at his essay:

Should Obama now be willing to sit down with Iran's leadership to discuss interests vital to us both only on the rather stringent precondition that the mullah's oust Ahmadinejad? That would fly in the fact of his entire foreign policy platform.

See all the debate at Memeorandum.

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds.

Obama Disses the Opposition in Iran

From Robert Kagan, "Obama, Siding With the Regime":

One of the great innovations in the Obama administration's approach to Iran, after all, was supposed to be its deliberate embrace of the Tehran rulers' legitimacy. In his opening diplomatic gambit, his statement to Iran on the Persian new year in March, Obama went out of his way to speak directly to Iran's rulers, a notable departure from George W. Bush's habit of speaking to the Iranian people over their leaders' heads. As former Clinton official Martin Indyk put it at the time, the wording was carefully designed "to demonstrate acceptance of the government of Iran."

This approach had always been a key element of a "grand bargain" with Iran. The United States had to provide some guarantee to the regime that it would no longer support opposition forces or in any way seek its removal. The idea was that the United States could hardly expect the Iranian regime to negotiate on core issues of national security, such as its nuclear program, so long as Washington gave any encouragement to the government's opponents. Obama had to make a choice, and he made it. This was widely applauded as a "realist" departure from the Bush administration's quixotic and counterproductive idealism.

It would be surprising if Obama departed from this realist strategy now, and he hasn't. His extremely guarded response to the outburst of popular anger at the regime has been widely misinterpreted as reflecting concern that too overt an American embrace of the opposition will hurt it, or that he wants to avoid American "moralizing." (Obama himself claimed yesterday that he didn't want the United States to appear to be "meddling.")

But Obama's calculations are quite different. Whatever his personal sympathies may be, if he is intent on sticking to his original strategy, then he can have no interest in helping the opposition. His strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government's efforts to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition's efforts to prolong the crisis.

More at the link, and Memeorandum.

See also, "Neocons, House GOPers Demand Obama Take Moussavi’s Side."

Photo Credit: Boston Globe, "Iran's Continued Election Turmoil."

Iran Reveals Extent of BDS

From the unlikeliest of places - liberal foreign policy analyst George Packer - we have the bullet-quote of the day.

Packer notes that it's remarkable how difficult it's been for writers of various persuasions to call Iran's reprehensible police-state brutality "shameful":

The reason, of course, has everything to do with the wars of the Bush years, at home and abroad, which have left so many thoughtful people incapable of holding onto the most basic thought. But it’s a mistake to let your attitude toward historic events be shaped and deformed by the desire not to sound like a neo-con, or to sound like a neo-con reborn. Trust the evidence of your eyes.

Note the tricky nuance here: Packer comes very close to blaming President Bush for the inability of radical leftists to denounce the horrors of the Iranian regime. No wait, Packer WANTS to blame Bush for the left's derangement over Iran. But he pulls up short of that total condemnation. He has to pull up short! He ends up putting responsibility for the sickness squarely on the observer, because there's nowhere else it can go! And yes, sure, President Bush was a catalyst, but the utter demonic rage against the foreign policy of the Bush years had been simmering since the Vietnam era of the 1960s. A quick skim over Fred Baumann's "Our Fractious Foreign Policy Debate" demonstrates unimpeachably the building hate-based postmodernism that was unleashed by the unbinding of American foreign policy during the Bush years.

Packer, naturally, waxes on President Obama's "calm eloquence," which indicates that he remains enthralled by the Obameister's wicked spell of hope-and-change appeasement. And that makes the fact that he's been attacked by the likes of Spencer Ackerman even more spectacular. There are few as unhinged by BDS than is Spencer Ackerman. The guy's up there with Andrew Sullivan, and of course his flop-house buddy, Matthew Yglesias.

These folks are as bad as they come, and I should note with special reference to Sullivan, no amount of hyper-voluminous Iran-blogging can rescue these folks from the darkest depths of scurrility. We have seen the enemy at home. It's an menacing, ugly sight, but witnessing leftist Geoge Packer point it out is a rare but valuable thing to behold.

Neocons Unhinged?

Joe Klein attacks Senator John McCain, and the neoconservatives along with him:

For two years now, John McCain has been entirely consistent on Iran: every last statement he's made - at least, those that I've seen - has been (a) fabulously uninformed and (b) dangerously bellicose. He's still at it, apparently. There is no question that President Obama's more prudent path is the correct one right now. There is also no question that the neoconservatives are trying to gin up this situation into an excuse for not engaging with the Iranian government in the near future--and also as a rationale for their dearest, looniest dream, war with Iran.

Read the rest, here.

It's more of the same peacenik rambling from Joe Klein.

But seriously, why is President Obama's path the "more prudent"? We're only emboldening the Iranian regime, and we'll put the region into even greater peril - from Tehran to Tel Aviv - with the deadening moral silence of this administration vis-à-vis the heroic men and women in the streets of Iran.

As always, I'm struck by how intense have been our domestic partisan divisions over the mullah's shamocratic election and the brutal crackdown against the Iranian democrats in the street. (The left blames Iran's troubles on the U.S., and discounts any comparison between the bankrupt Democratic Party leadership of today to the vigorous Cold War leadership of the Reagan administration during the 1980s. The analogy holds, folks, because tyranny holds today in Iran as it did across the East Bloc under the Kremlin.)

Where is American leadership?

We don't have to use apocalyptic rhetoric to denounce the administration's abject moral cowardice. A perfectly measured tone will do: "What Obama needs to say and do about Iran," and "More things Obama should be saying and doing about Iran."

As for Joe Klein, he's simply attempting to settle scores for getting his butt kicked by neoconseratives so many times its ridiculous. Previously, Peter Wehner has repeatedly mopped up with Klein, and I eviscerated Klein at this post.

See also Peter Wehner's essay tonight, "Let Us Not Comfort Cruel Men."

Photo Credit: Boston Globe, "Iran's Continued Election Turmoil."

Instapundit Goes Green!

Solidarity!

Via Tigerhawk, Instapundit goes green!

Check Glenn's page for plenty of updates on Iran's election. For example, "THEY’RE rallying for Iranian democracy in San Francisco tonight."

Hmm, maybe I should try out some green on header background above?

What'd ya think? I mean, hey, Glenn Reynolds is the coolest. But if it's good enough for the Ordinary Gentlemen and Andrew Sullivan, it's good enough for me!

Senator John Ensign Admits Extramarital Affair

Via the New York Times, "Senator Ensign Admits Extramarital Affair":

Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, on Tuesday admitted that he had an extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff.

Mr. Ensign led the Republicans’ campaign efforts in 2008 and had been contemplating a run for president in 2012.

An aide said the consensual affair took place between December 2007 and August 2008, and that the woman worked for both Mr. Ensign’s campaign operation, Ensign for Senate, as well as a conservative political action committee, Battleborn PAC, from December 2006 to May 2008. Mr. Ensign is honorary chairman of the PAC. The woman’s husband was a member of Mr. Ensign’s official Senate staff. Neither has worked for the senator since May 2008, the aide said.

Mr. Ensign, 51, is married and has three children. During college at Colorado State University, he became a born-again Christian and he and his wife, Darlene, were active in the Promise Seekers, an evangelical group.

In a statement released by his office in Washington, Mr. Ensign said: “I take full responsibility for my actions. I know that I have deeply hurt and disappointed my wife, my children, my family, my friends, my staff and the people of Nevada who believed in me not just as a legislator but as a person. I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions.”

Mr. Ensign’s wife also issued a statement, reaffirming her commitment to her husband: “Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation and we have come to a reconciliation. This has been difficult on both families. With the help of our family and close friends our marriage has become stronger. I love my husband.”

More at the link.

See also, Chris Cillizza and Paul Kane, "Ensign to Acknowledge Extramarital Affair."

The Washington Independent is already twirling mustaches, "Cross John Ensign Off of the 2012 Hopeful List."

Personally, my sense is that if guys like this can't keep it holstered, then they deserve a primary challenge.

Added: The Politico reports that blackmail was involved, "Nevada Sen. John Ensign admits affair; sources say blackmail involved," via Memeorandum.

**********

UPDATE: Instalanche!

Food Nazis

From The Guardian, "Food is the new fur for the celebrity with a conscience":

Actors, designers, pop stars have all got behind the hot new ethical campaign: food. From saving species to investigating conditions for pigs, star quality is pushing it to the foreground ...

Also, check out the "Food Nazi Mom," MeMe Roth , "Anti-Obesity Activist MeMe Roth Compares Eating To Rape":

The defence has been made in the case of sex criminals that there is pleasure on the part of the victim. The same is true with what we're doing with food. We may abuse our bodies with food, but it's incredibly pleasurable. From a food marketer's point of view, when your quote unquote victim is so willing and enjoying of the process, who's fighting back?

Ms. Roth runs the National Action Against Obesity.

I wonder what Robert Stacy McCain could do with this story?

Hat Tip: Gawker.

Amir Taheri: Excerpt, The Persian Night

Here's an excerpt from Amir Tahiri, The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution.

"Repression and Resistance: Urban workers, women, students, teachers, and ethnic minorities against the regime":

In 2007, several women’s organizations launched a campaign to collect one million signatures for a petition calling for an end to inequality. In a statement on March 7, 2006, the Organization for Women’s Liberation, one of the many groups fighting Khomeinism, had made it clear that Iranian women would not be satisfied with cosmetic changes. They were demanding major reforms that, if implemented, could undermine the ideological foundations of the Khomeinist system.

The statement reads in part:

The movement for women’s liberation is, at the present time, the flagship of No to Inequality, to Discrimination, to Sexual Apartheid, to the Veil, and is the flagship of defense of Women’s Rights against Cultural Relativism, defense of Secularism and struggle against Political Islam. With its clear platform of action this movement is being organized and led. The progressive movement for women’s liberation has, through its activities and influence in many protests, succeeded in pushing back and defeating the Islamic regime’s attacks against women. The presence of a radical women’s movement is an undeniable reality in Iran.

The statement adds:

The measure of society’s freedom is the freedom of women. To achieve freedom we must overthrow the medieval Islamic rule. So long as this regime is ruling, women and society will not be free. The struggle for women’s freedom is part of the general struggle for freedom, equality, and welfare.

That the regime is incapable of delivering even on its promises of limited reform is illustrated by the case of the Lapidation Act, concerning stoning to death. In 2002, President Khatami, bowing to pressure from women’s organizations, declared a moratorium on this barbarous practice. The more radical Khomeinist mullahs, however, reacted by issuing even more fatwas sentencing women accused of sexual intercourse outside marriage to death by stoning in public. Between 2003 and 2005, the number of such cases more than doubled as thirty-two women were stoned to death. The self-styled reformist president rubbed his hands together in mock despair. He could do nothing against fatwas that overruled the authority even of a self-styled Islamic state. The precedent was Khomeini’s fatwa for the murder of Salman Rushdie. If that fatwa could not be revoked, no fatwa could. This situation could lead to total lawlessness in which any mullah could decide to sentence anyone to death on any charge.

While workers and women are engaged in a deep and long struggle against the fascist regime, the most visible opposition to Khomeinism has come from university students. In July 1999, thousands of Tehran University students revolted against the regime with cries of “Down with the Dictator” and “Freedom of Thought, always, always!” The movement quickly spread to the provinces and within a week had mobilized more than a million students. A photo of Ahmad Batebi, one of the leaders of the movement in Tehran, wearing a bloodstained T‑shirt and holding a poster calling for freedom, made the rounds all over the world, prompting comments that Iran was on the verge of a “second revolution.” As the movement gathered momentum, other opposition groups watched and waited for the right moment to join.

They waited too long. The regime, badly shaken at first and divided between those who urged immediate repression and those who counseled accommodation, pulled itself together and reacted with terror and bloody repression. Thousands of hired thugs from Hezballah were brought in to occupy the Tehran University campus, while special units of the Baseej, led by General Qalibaf, beat and arrested the protestors. Four students died and hundreds more were injured. Over three thousand others were arrested. In September, an Islamic kangaroo court sentenced six student leaders to death, among them Batebi and Manuchehr Mohammadi. The crackdown came after Khatami, who had initially hesitated, realized that the movement was targeting the very heart of the regime. The students were openly calling for a secular system based on a separation of mosque and state. They were calling on the mullahs to return to their mosques and seminaries, allowing the people to form a democratic government representing the nation’s rich diversity. Khatami joined the crackdown after he was told that further hesitation could lead to direct intervention by the IRGC and possibly his own arrest. The uprising and the repression that followed killed all hopes of “change from within,” known as estehaleh in Persian, and thus effectively ended Khatami’s presidency. As one student leader, Akbar Mohammadi, was to observe a few months later, the regime had shown that it was incapable of reform. “We started the movement with the conviction that we were supporting efforts for reforming the system without changing it,” he said. “When the movement was crushed and we were in prison, we realized that the only way that Iran could see real change was overthrowing the regime.”

More at the link.

Buy the book, here.

That's Not My Name...

Let's lighten things up a bit with some hotness from The Ting Tings, "That's Not My Name." Enjoy (video starts shortly):

Lyrics are here.

Miss California Carrie Prejean’s Odyssey: Not Very Pretty

Here's my latest at Pajamas Media, "Miss California Carrie Prejean’s Odyssey: Not Very Pretty."

Below is the video of Prejean's interview with Sean Hannity:

The latest news is dueling lawsuits: "Carrie Prejean, Miss California Pageant Headed to Court?" and "Beauty Pageant to Sue Carrie Prejean for Talking Smack to the Media."

Also, see TMZ, "Pageant to Carrie: Your Court Is Ready!"

Leftists Hit Bottom?

Cold Fury, in Palin is the New Bush, sums up how I feel about legitmating extreme left-wing discourse:

For a good long while there, some of the more genial and polite souls in the right blogosphere seemed all too eager to give people like Yglesias and Oliver Willis the benefit of the doubt as perfectly reasonable and worthy opponents in a polite, genteel debate that never really existed; it seemed plain enough to me all along what they were really all about. But sooner or later, even the most unreasonably optimistic among us realizes that the toad isn’t going to turn into a prince, no matter how arduously they keep kissing it.

This comes after a discussion of Andrew Sullivan and Matthew Yglesias. As I note here on Sullivan (and those "Rovian Islamists"), the left's comparisons between American conservatives and the hardliner in Iran is simply breathtaking. But see also, "Yglesias Hits Bottom."

Glenn Reynolds has in interesting post on his battles with these idiots going back 5 years. It turns out Yglesias went so far to say, "Fuck you," Glenn, during a debate over President Bush and Iraq.

Maybe even Ann Althouse is finally coming around - the end of Althouse/Yglesias bloggingheads?

Obama Weakens America's Global Standing

From Nile Gardiner, "The Iranian Election: Barack Obama’s Cowardly Silence":

The Obama administration's response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fraudulent election victory is cowardly, lily-livered and wrong. The White House's refusal to officially question the result or even condemn the brutal suppression of opposition protestors, is undermining America's standing as a global power, and is little more than a face-saving, cynical exercise in appeasement that will all end in tears.

Read the whole thing, here.

See also, "FOX News Poll: Americans Say Obama Not Tough Enough on North Korea, Iran."

More at Memeorandum.

Photo Credits: Boston Globe, "Iran's Disputed Election."

Obama Faces Islamofascist Reality

The alternative information stream from Iran is truly mind-boggling. The Boston Globe is trying to catch up to the bloggers and twitterers with its photo roundup, "Iran's Disputed Election", via Memeorandum:

But Twitter is just amazing, for example, "IranRiggedElect."

But events have moved past the media's epic fail the President Obama's.

Ben Smith's got a piece up at The Politico, "Unrest in Iran Forces President Obama's Hand" (also at Memeorandum).

But International Business Daily nails it, "Helping Mahmoud":

In his inaugural address, President Obama had a message for the oppressed and oppressor alike. He said, "To all other peoples and governments who are watching today . . . know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more."

He added: "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

The clenched fist of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his suspect return to power, has not only delivered a blow to freedom-seeking Iranians; it is also knocking the Obama administration for a loop — primarily because the president has chosen not to stand with Iranians who seek "a future of peace and dignity."

The administration was obviously rooting for Ahmadinejad to be beaten by his chief rival, former Iranian prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi. The president on Friday, the day of the election, spoke of "a robust debate taking place in Iran" bringing with it "new possibilities" and "the possibility of change."

How naive those words sound in retrospect. Presidential wishful thinking has crashed head-on into Islamofascist reality.

There's more at the link. And check Memorandum for more analysis.

The Future of Social Security: Not Good

From Kimberly Palmer at U.S. News, "The Future of Social Security: Not Good":

I spent the morning at the Youth Entitlements Summit on Capitol Hill, where 20-somethings quizzed economists about the future of Social Security, Medicare, and the financial security of our country. I left feeling like young people have a lot to worry about.

Not only are they facing one of the worst job markets right now, which means they're having trouble getting the early experience they need to build future careers, but they also seem likely to pay higher taxes and perhaps receive lower benefits from these entitlement programs. The Social Security trust fund, for example, is scheduled to run out in 2037. After that point, if no changes are made, there will only be enough money from tax revenue to pay about 75 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits.

Some on the radical left, of course, insist that the "sky is not falling on Social Security." And these guys get really mad if you don't toe the line on their unhinged big-government pie-in-the-sky analyses!

Rule 5 Rescue: Sandra Bullock

For one reason or another, I missed my weekend Full Metal Roundup. Actually, I'm wondering if the genre's run its course. Smitty does a fabulous job with the linkages, but perhaps some of the reach-around efforts among other bloggers haven't been reaching all the way around? In any case, readers can share their thoughts on continued babe blogging at American Power in the comments.

I thought I'd post Sandra Bullock's cover shot from the new Harper's Bazaar. The inspiration comes from The Rhetorican, who's posted the "Trailer for “The Proposal”." The previews look good, and my wife and I haven't been to the movies together for some time. Maybe this weekend if we can find a babysitter:

Recognition for continued "Rule 5" diligence goes out to The Classical Liberal, and his post, "Gabrielle Anwar presents Rule 5 Sunday!"

See also, No Sheeples Here!, "Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around For Saturday, June 13, 2009," and Duece at The Skepticrats, "Rule 5 Friday: Gee, this post smells terrific!"

And for sure, some of the best recent "Rule 5" blogging is over at The Daley Gator, for example, "The Incredibly Sexy Angela Basset!"

Thanks also to Dan Collins and Dan Riehl for the linkage!

As always, please visit some of my other blogging friends and allies:

The Western Experience, The Snooper Report, The Oklahoma Patriot, Right Wing Sparkle, Conservatism With Heart, Duck of Minerva, Wolf Howling, Right Wing Nation, Stephen Green, The Tygrrrr Express, The News Factor, Gayle's Place, Israel Matsav, The BoBo Files, Grant Jones, Tapline, New Testament News, Wizbang, William Jacobson, Steven Givler, The Astute Blogger, Chris Wysocki, Moonbattery, Sweating Through the Fog, Three Beers Later, PA Pundits, Paco Enterprises, Ken Davenport, Sister Toldjah, Blazing Cat Fur, The Daley Gator, Just One Minute, Dave's World, Sparks From the Anvil, Right Truth, Dave's Notepad, Pat's Daily Rants, Bob's Bar & Grill, Power Line, Melanie Morgan, Dave in Boca, Neo-Neocon, Right in a Left World, Flag Gazer, Politics and Critical Thinking, Riehl World View, Midnight Blue, Caroline Glick, The Average American, The Griper, FouseSquawk, The Other McCain, Cheat Seeking Missiles, Roger Simon, Classical Values, Samantha Speaks, Grizzly Mama, The Capitol Tribune, The Patriot Room, The Real World, RADARSITE, Serr8d's Cutting Edge, Bloviating Zeppelin, Born Again Redneck The Educated Shoprat, Gateway Pundit, Political Pistachio, Liberty Pundit, Not One Red Cent, Phyllis Chesler, Right View from the Left Coast, Generation Patriot, Macsmind, Flopping Aces, Edge's Conservative Movies, Stop the ACLU, The Conservative Manifesto, Gates of Vienna, Joust The Facts, Panhandle Poet, The Red Hunter, Maggie's Farm, The Next Right, This Ain't Hell, Stop the ACLU, Right Wing Nuthouse, Melissa Clouthier, Paula in Israel, Pamela Geller, Vanessa's Blog, St. Blogustine, Yid With Lid, Pondering Penguin, Betsy's Page, The Anchoress, Ace of Spades HQ, Right Wing Sparkle, Thunder Run, The Classic Liberal, Conservative Grapevine, Cassy Fiano, Jim Treacher, NetRightNation, Q and O, Urban Grounds, Ed Driscoll, Cold Fury, Michelle Malkin, Neptunus Lex, Neo-Neocon, The Astute Bloggers, The Liberty Papers, The Monkey Cage, Law and Order Teacher, Mike's America, AubreyJ, Dan Collins, The Jungle Hut, Wake Up America, Dan Riehl, Nikki's Blog, Big Girl Pants, Maggie's Notebook, Hummers & Cigarettes, Mark Goluskin, Jawa Report, Darleen Click, The Skepticrats, Fausta's Blog, Clueless Emma, Obob's World, Seymour Nuts, Red State, Dr. Sanity, The Desert Glows Green, Not One Red Cent, Vinegar and Honey, Sarge Charlie, Thoughts With Attitude, Kim Priestap, Swedish Meatballs Confidential, Five Feet of Fury, Amy Proctor, Blonde Sagacity, Liberty Papers, TigerHawk, Point of a Gun, Right Wing News, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Nice Deb, Becky Brindle, GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD, Fishersville Mike, Ann Althouse, The Blog Prof, Monique Stuart, No Sheeples Here!, Dana at CSPT, Glenn Reynolds, Obi’s Sister, Right Truth, Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels, Chicago Ray, Ace of Spades HQ, Natalie's Blog, Jimmie Bise, Little Miss Attila, Moe Lane, Private Pigg, Pundit & Pundette, The Rhetorican, R.S. McCain, Saber Point, Stephen Kruiser, and Suzanna Logan.

Chris Wysocki Gets Results!

My friend Chris Wysocki, who runs the conservative WyBlog, is getting results for his Letterman-boycott blogging:

The response I received from Embassy Suites regarding the Letterman Sponsor boycott has been noticed by the media. TVweek.com says "Conservatives Call For Boycott of Letterman Advertisers-Embassy Suites Says It Has Pulled its Ads from CBS.com." They mention me by name!

Click through to read the whole thing.

The Baltimore Sun also cites Chris. That's major recognition. Congratulations Chris!

Rupert Murdoch to Sell Weekly Standard

Via Jacob Heilbrunn:

The Weekly Standard has been the flagship publication of the neoconservative movement since it first appeared in 1995. William Kristol and Fred Barnes have been at the heart of the magazine, whose influence soared during the Bush administration, when it championed invading Iraq. The news that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., is selling the magazine to the billionaire Philip Anschutz, who also owns the Washington Examiner, raises some questions about the magazine’s future direction.

Will Kristol and Barnes remain at the helm? Or will the magazine turn toward a more traditional conservatism?

The neoconservative movement has recently suffered several blows. The sun has set on the pugnacious New York Sun, which served as a valuable outlet for neoconservative journalists and authors. The American Enterprise Institute has ousted several neoconservatives, including Joshua Muravchik, from its roster of fellows. But no magazine, it can be safely said, has become more important to the fate of the movement than the Weekly Standard.

The Standard’s contribution has been to inject a dose of youth into the movement, a kind of Viagra. It didn’t specialize in long, academic treatises of the kind that Commentary published, with their mandarin language. (Only now is Commentary being overhauled by its new editor John Podhoretz, who has brought on a number of new writers, such as the always stimulating Max Boot, to enliven it.) Instead, the Standard aggressively tried to steer the political conversation in Washington in the direction of neocon doctrine, and, to a surprising degree, succeeded. Some of that success can be ascribed to Barnes, who is a seasoned and savvy journalist with a keen ability to pucture the pretensions of the liberal elite. But the Standard’s greatest feat was to play a decisive role in shaping the debate during the run-up to the Iraq War, when magazines such as the New Republic followed its lead in promoting the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

To a "surprising degree," succeeded?

Strange, that ... maybe we should be "surprised" at how unhinged is the demonization of the neocons?

More at the link.

Twitter and Change

It was one of those times when the stars aligned around a particular phenomenon.

Getting away from blogging for a while, I went out last night to the Barnes and Noble at Irvine's Spectrum Center. While there, I read Time's recent cover story, "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live."

The technology's impressive, and I've been meaning to get all signed up for some time; but I was impressed with the discussion that placed Twitter in the context of American entrepreneurial dynamism - and especially in the context of economic innovation and first-mover advantages in international political economy:

The speed with which users have extended Twitter's platform points to a larger truth about modern innovation. When we talk about innovation and global competitiveness, we tend to fall back on the easy metric of patents and Ph.D.s. It turns out the U.S. share of both has been in steady decline since peaking in the early '70s. (In 1970, more than 50% of the world's graduate degrees in science and engineering were issued by U.S. universities.) Since the mid-'80s, a long progression of doomsayers have warned that our declining market share in the patents-and-Ph.D.s business augurs dark times for American innovation. The specific threats have changed. It was the Japanese who would destroy us in the '80s; now it's China and India.

But what actually happened to American innovation during that period? We came up with America Online, Netscape, Amazon, Google, Blogger, Wikipedia, Craigslist, TiVo, Netflix, eBay, the iPod and iPhone, Xbox, Facebook and Twitter itself. Sure, we didn't build the Prius or the Wii, but if you measure global innovation in terms of actual lifestyle-changing hit products and not just grad students, the U.S. has been lapping the field for the past 20 years.

I just thought this passage was so cool from the perspective of political science.

So coming home last night, I did a little blogging and then signed up. My Twitter username is "AmPowerBlog." I couldn't have joined at a more interesting time. As I was playing around with it, all the big news was coming in from Iran, and the best stuff was on Twitter. I mean really, as I noted today, the biggest names in journalism - especially CNN - went basically AWOL.

Kathleen at RightWingSparkle summed up what it was like last night:

I stayed up until 3am last night reading the tweets on twitter from Iran. It was just fascinating to me that while the Iranian government was trying to block the people from Iran from letting the world know what was happening by trying to shut down all social networking, the people were still managing to tweet and post video on Youtube.

Then, this afternoon, Serr8d linked to an awesome comment at Protein Wisdom regarding the dymamism and creative destruction at the frontiers of social networking:

Here’s my social media exegesis: Mass communications tools, since Gutenberg, have shared a fundamental and foundational commonality; they’re all top-down hierarchies that necessarily result in a unidirectional, linear, deterministic flow of information. The information promulgated through those tools is just that: promulgated. There can be no realistic expectation that the audience can participate. Letters to the editor, for example, are strictly moderated and therefore inauthentic replacements for the kind of communication that typifies natural human interactions.

And these tools have long since jumped the shark. Ask any advertiser and they’ll tell you about the waning effectiveness of TV. @themediaisdying is a twitter user documenting the death of traditional media organizations. Witness the RIAA and MPAA thrashing about in a futile effort to maintain the apparatus of their top-down, breadth-first information promulgating structures ....

In very short order, Twitter will, in my estimation, eclipse Google. Let me offer an example. I arrive in Los Angeles and find myself with time to explore. I consult Google, which tells me about restaurants, museums, and so forth, replete with descriptions, ratings, photos and other static media. It’s the algorithm that makes it possible. Technology delivers this information. It is arms-length information. I don’t know who created this information and I have little in the way of intimacy with those content creators to aid determining their intentions. The information has very possibly been spun by media professionals: publicists, crisis management professionals, marketing copywriters and strategists.

Right now there are around 30 million twitter users. Twitter adoption is growing logarithmically. Just six months ago, there were 6 million twitter users. In six months there could be over 200 million (like facebook, which could qualify it among the top six largest industrial countries in the world). Revisiting my hypothetical, I arrive in Los Angeles and I go to twitter search and now I get suggestions about where to dine and what to see from actual people. I could even tweet a request for suggestions and get an avalanche of answers. I can evaluate those responses the way I would evaluate suggestions from any actual person. I can read their tweets. I can get a sense, quickly, for the their authenticity. Happyfeet could warn me about what joints have the highest prevalence of dirty socialists.

That’s just the most facile and yet useful example. Twitter has directed me to untold number of exceptionally interesting articles, blog posts and people. I’ve met profoundly interesting people like Todd Gailun and I’ve had the chance to talk back to Karl Rove (who authors his own tweets). I’ve been afforded this access by merit of my participation and the knowledge granted has an immediacy that is breathtaking. The plane crash in Denver last December was tweeted by someone on the plane from their phone as it happened. Find someone closer to the story than that! Find a way to obtain such knowledge more quickly!

But back to the paradigm shift and why classical liberals and libertarians must embrace it in my view. We are, I contend, seeing a near perfect recapitulation of the events that transpired in the middle of the 18th century in America and France. Rigid hierarchies are once again being rejected in favor of something more liberal. The backlash represented by everything from post-modernism to adbusters and Naomi Klein to anti-corporatism to just anyone whose worked for a corporation and recognized how soul-crushingly shitty it is to do so, is the same esprit that fueled the American and French revolutions. It is merely playing out in a different venue. To borrow from Jeff, this backlash doesn’t represent a legitimate prescriptive; it is merely a backlash. The solutions offered up by those who have most readily embraced these new social media tools amount to, as Wired puts it, The New Socialism, which is to say, the same old shit. As I mentioned above, socialism is just the other side of the Enlightenment paradigm coin from capitalism.

As these new social tools infiltrate the enterprise, they will subvert the hierarchies that have characterized the management of an enterprise since Adam Smith. I can explain exactly how it will happen because I’ve seen it. I sell enterprise 2.0 / innovation tools and to large organizations. What will rise in replacement of these hierarchies is what remains to be seen. To those socialist economists who say that the market should be managed just like the inside of the enterprise, I say, you have it precisely backward. The market should not be made to look more like the enterprise, the enterprise should be made to look more like the market.

There's more at the link.

By the way, I'm kind of stoked that Allahpundit just now tweeted one of my posts, and it's only my second day on Twitter!