Iran's Threat to the Strait of Hormuz

Could Iran close international access to the Persian Gulf, in the event of American or Israeli strikes on Tehran's nuclear program, causing a potentially catastrophic decline in available world petroleum supplies?

The possibility of this conflict scenario is examined by Caitlin Talmadge, in "Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz."

The article's particularly timely.

Just last weekend OPEC oil ministers warned that global oil prices could skyrocket in the event of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran, and with the oil price-per-barrel currently at record highs, Western vulnerability to economic blowback is acute. Further, some commentators in the press have recently reported details of clandestine planning - at the highest levels of the U.S. government - for a preventive attack on Iran's nuclear program. Behind all of this, some allege, is the drumbeat for war among small but influential sections of the American foreign policy communtity.

Talmadge's piece is comprehensive yet balanced, and suggests that Iran - while rudimentary on many indices - possesses considerable military assets that make the potential for a 21-century Dardanelles crisis not unthinkable.

Here's the introduction:

Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz tops the list of global energy security nightmares. Roughly 90 percent of all Persian Gulf oil leaves the region on tankers that must pass through this narrow waterway opposite the Iranian coast, and land pipelines do not provide sufficient alternative export routes. Extended closure of the strait would remove roughly a quarter of the world’s oil from the market, causing a supply shock of the type not seen since the glory days of OPEC. Even if the strait were not closed in the sense of being physically barricaded, military conflict in the area could cause prices to skyrocket in anticipation of a supply disruption—and to remain high until markets could be assured that the flow of commerce had been restored. Consider that when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, temporarily halting the export of oil in both countries, the world price of oil more than doubled merely on the expectation of future shortages. Although excess global supply combined with increased Saudi production helped lower the price within a few months, it did not return to the preinvasion level for nearly a year. Blockage of the strait would pose a vastly greater threat to the flow of gulf oil, and at a time when excess global capacity is lower and the price of oil higher.

Yet could Iran close the Strait of Hormuz? What might provoke Iran to take an action so contrary to its own economic interests? Does Iran possess the military assets needed to engage in a campaign in the strait, and what might such a campaign look like? Perhaps more important, what would the U.S. military have to do to defend the strait in the event of Iranian interference there? What would be the likely cost, length, and outcome of such efforts?

Despite consensus on the importance of the strait, no open-source analysis has attempted to answer these questions systematically. Some analysts take the Iranian ability to block the strait as a given, whereas others are equally confident the United States’ military superiority would deter or quickly end any Iranian campaign. One observer argues that “countering any Iranian blockade might involve only a few days of fighting, with major disruption to shipping lasting only slightly longer.” Another warns that the United States might have to engage in weeks or months of military operations to open and defend the strait. Anthony Cordesman, a highly respected expert on the Persian Gulf, concludes that “Iran could not ‘close the Gulf’ for more than a few days to two weeks,” although what leads him to this conclusion is unclear. Meanwhile, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, testified in 2005 that Iran has some capability to “briefly close” the strait, without defining what “briefly” means. In short, analysts disagree about the potential likelihood, course, and outcome of U.S.-Iranian conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, but the nature of current debate on the subject makes it hard to ascertain the basis of differing assessments, much less determine which might be correct.

Talmadge follows this up with a detailed analysis of the U.S.-Iranian offense/defence balance in open-seas mine warfare, Iranian antiship cruise missile capability and U.S. counter-missile defenses (advanced warning and attack radar systems), and Iranian air- and land-based defenses against U.S. airspace superiority.

Talmadge concludes:

Iran’s limitations, such as the command and control and targeting challenges it would face in littoral warfare, are not often appreciated. But its strengths are often overlooked as well, such as the stocks of missiles and much more explosively powerful mines it has acquired since the tanker wars of the 1980s. Likewise, although the United States retains the world’s best conventional military, its past experiences hunting mobile targets from the air and conducting MCM operations in the littorals do not inspire confidence that confrontation in the strait would end quickly. The United States’ fleet defenses have never been tested in combat against an adversary with large numbers of cruise missiles, and the United States is in the midst of a major transition in its entire concept of MCM operations. Given these realities, sanguine assurances about the course and outcome of military conflict in the strait seem unjustified at best, and dangerous at worst.

A key theme of the research suggests there's little doubt surrounding America's technical and logistical dominance in the event of a U.S.-Iran conflict in the Strait. Yet it's clear, as well, if fighting erupts, should Iran deploy its assets with efficacy and stealth, particularly in mine warfare, the U.S. might be forced to fight a longer and wider campaign to degrage Iranian capabilies and willpower in areas peripheral to the immediate battles at the waterway.

The question for analysts and partisans of both sides (advocates for either sanctions or force) is what are the costs and benefits of existing approaches compared to a more forceful response in the absence of Iranian nuclear developmental restraint?

If there is no acceptable diplomatic endgame, according to this research, a sustained conflict is entirely likely, with implications for the international system that might be very costly indeed.

Section 8 Vouchers and Black Underclass Crime

I'm usually up on the black politics of crime and the underclass, so I'm intrigued with the Atlantic's new piece, "American Murder Mystery," on the relationship between anti-poverty policies - especially the Section 8 housing subsidy - and black inner-city crime.

I'm going to take a good look at the article now, which is written by Hanna Rosin. In the meanwhile, Rod Dreher has this:

From the Rosin story, it seems that the neighborhoods that really suffer are those in which working people (of whatever race) are struggling to keep things together, but get overwhelmed by the inner-city poverty culture that some of these Section 8 voucher folks bring with them.

Ouch!!

I don't think that's going to go over well with the Obamaniacs!

Here's Rosin's video:

Note: Memphis, the location for the story, is 61 percent black American.

Political Scientists May Boycott Over Gay Rights

I received the e-mail from the American Political Science Association on the decision of the leadership to reject calls to move the 2012 annual meeting from New Orleans, where a strict municipal ban on same-sex marriage is in place, but the story's been picked up by Inside Higher Ed:

The American Political Science Association moved its 2006 annual meeting from the original site of San Francisco, where hotels were then in the midst of protracted disagreements with unions, to Philadelphia.

On Friday, the association announced that it was rejecting calls to move its 2012 meeting from New Orleans. Many gay and lesbian political scientists had called for the convention to move because Louisiana has adopted one of the most stringent bans on gay marriage, applying the ban also to any proposed legal relationship such as civil unions that could be seen as resembling marriage. Supporters of moving the meeting said that it is not safe for gay academics or their partners to travel to cities where their relationships have no legal status. A boycott is now being organized of the 2012 meeting.

The association announced that, in a shift, it would in the future consider state-level actions when evaluating sites for meetings. Association policy has been to consider local conditions (such as the labor strife San Francisco had experienced), but not state policies. However, the association stopped short of saying it would stay away from states with anti-gay constitutional amendments.

A letter to political scientists from Dianne Pinderhughes, a professor at the University of Notre Dame who is president of the association, stressed that state policies need not eliminate a city from contention to host a meeting. “[C]onditions at the local level can mitigate these circumstances and ... communities hosting APSA meetings will be expected to assure the civil rights and safety of all APSA members,” she wrote.

In addition, she pledged that the 2012 meeting would feature “scholarship and intellectual engagement” on such issues as “same-sex unions” and “the economic development of meeting cities.” Some academics have been encouraging their associations to meet in New Orleans as a way of supporting the city’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

The statements about considering state policies and scholarship on the issues are nothing more than “a crumb thrown by the association,” said Daniel R. Pinello, a professor of government at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, of the City University of New York. Pinello, author of America’s Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage (Cambridge University Press), said he would view it as dangerous to attend a meeting in New Orleans with his partner since, if either were to be hospitalized, the other would have no rights at all.

The issue is not hypothetical, he stressed, but one that gay people and their partners face — sometimes with tragic results. He noted a lawsuit filed just last week, by a lesbian who was denied access to the hospital room of her dying partner in a Florida hospital where she’d been taken when she suffered a stroke while they were on vacation.

Pinello said that planning has started to organize a boycott of the 2012 meeting, and that at this year’s meeting — next month in Boston — political scientists who support gay rights would try to encourage a variety of steps to oppose the 2012 meeting. He acknowledged that any boycott would be difficult for groups such as graduate students, who are interviewed by hiring departments at the annual meeting. But Pinello said it was fundamentally unjust for the association to consider some issues (such as labor conditions) but ignore others (such as gay rights).

“Our national association will not protect our safety and security and rights,” he said. “If the Louisiana constitution had an amendment that said people of color may not marry, or Jews may not marry, or people with disabilities may not marry, I would guarantee that we would not be going to New Orleans in 2012.”

According to the APSA, 850 people sent letters offering views on what to do about the proposal to move the meeting. Pinderhughes said in an interview that the letters represented a wide range of views and that there was no clear majority for one side or the other. She added that while the letters informed the APSA board’s review, they were not treated as a referendum.

She acknowledged that the decision of the association’s governing board would upset some members, but rejected Pinello’s statement that it was a “crumb.” Pinderhughes said that for the association to actively engage with local officials about the issue, and to plan related programming, represented a significant shift for the political scientists, who normally don’t see their annual meetings as having any political goals. “We’re not anthropology and sociology, but we’re not economics either,” she said, citing disciplines that tend to be seen as more left-leaning, and less so, among the social sciences.

Pinderhughes also said that there were real questions about whether New Orleans deserved to be boycotted. She said that the association consulted with several experts who viewed the city as “gay friendly,” despite the state vote. In addition, she questioned whether a boycott strategy could be effective. Pinderhughes said that if only a few states held a particular position, it would be easier to oppose it with a boycott. “It’s harder to boycott when you don’t have a place to go,” she said. “If you don’t have a lot of allies, you have to engage.”

The political science association has only once apparently moved a meeting because of a state policy — when the membership (against the advice of the governing board) voted to move the meeting out of Chicago to protest the failure of Illinois to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Pinderhughes said that the association “paid a price” for that shift because it could not get out of a contract requiring large payments to the hotel scheduled for the meeting. Pinderhughes said that the association had to hold meetings for about 10 years in the same hotel chain as part of a deal to settle the claim.

Some political scientists have spoken out against moving the meeting. The blog Marquette Warrior noted that the association says it will not take positions that commit its members on issues of public policy. Gay marriage is such a policy, and so the APSA shouldn’t be taking a stand one way or another, the blog said, adding: “This, of course, will be a test case to see whether a bunch of liberal academics can act in even a minimally principled way.”

There's more at the link.

Two things caught my attention here: Pinderhughes' mention of anthropology and sociology as "more left-leaning," and the statement by the Marquette Warrior that the issue's a "test case" on the power of a "bunch of liberal academics."

I'm reminded of the recent New York Times article, "The ’60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire."

The threat of boycott sounds serious, and I'm wondering how many of the association's left-wing professors would show solidarity in staying away from the convention should the boycott take effect. This could be an interesting case study on whether the '60s generation's faded, as well as on the authenticity in praxis of the new post-Vietnam-era professoriate.

For more on this, see the Marquette Warrior's essay, "American Political Science Association: Fudging the Issue of a Pro-Gay Boycott":

It’s well known that college professors are not merely liberal or left, but that they are increasingly intolerant of views at odds with their own.

See also, Duck of Minerva, "Human Wrongs."

The Popularity of the N-Word

I just wrote this morning how freely lefties like to drop the "n-bomb," so the timing's pretty good for the reports suggesting Jesse Jackson used the epithet in his recent controversial "hot mic" attack on Barack Obama.

Allahpundit has the story:

Normally I’d wait for video proof but Inside Cable News claimed with unusual insistence last night that it’s true and now TV Newser is corroborating it, so obviously someone who’s in a position to know is leaking. The alleged offending quote:

Barack…he’s talking down to black people…telling n—s how to behave.

Eh. Yeah, as the boss notes, he’s a total hypocrite, but the left loves to punish conservatives for preaching virtue while occasionally failing to live up to their own standards and I’m reluctant to do the same to Jackson. He slipped, but his intent wasn’t bad — just as the New Yorker’s wasn’t, I hasten to add — and his attempt to get entertainers to rein in their N-bomb usage is salutary. Where he does go too far is in flirting with criminalizing the word. He told the Today Show two years ago that public utterances should qualify as hate speech and he’s asserted before, quite matter-of-factly, that the word is unprotected by the First Amendment, presumably per the “fighting words” exception. Somebody, quick — arrest that man.

O'Reilly's going to be all over this the rest of the night, although it remains to be seen how the civil rights mandarins spin this.

Related: Dan Collins' disclaimer on the n-word: "I don’t put quotation marks around it, and ... if you have a problem with this you might go get a look at this."

Hat Tip: Memeorandum

The Reality in Iraq

As I've noted a number of times now, the lefties continue to weave new tales of failure in Iraq almost daily.

One of these attacks is the "neo-imperial project" slur, which gets a new twist from Duncan Black:

...from the perspective of U.S. as imperial power the "'single-minded' focus on Iraq" has also been an utter disaster. For those who think that one way or another the US should be throwing its weight around everywhere (by invading random countries, by various forms of economic imperialism, or by controlling and using the power of international institutions), Bush has pretty much set that agenda back substantially. That these people have been and continue to be his biggest supporters is a testament to the fact that their egos are more important than their dreams. But that's no surprise either...

In other words, the administration's attacked not only for seeking "permanent bases," but the meme's taken futher in that Iraq has destroyed the alleged fantastical neocon designs for world imperial domination.

Few doubt the impact of Iraq as a constraint on the exercise of American military power. What is at issue is whether Iraq's a "disaster," not to mention whether the war's peripheral to the contempory national security challenge facing the country.

At today's Wall Street Journal, Frederick Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, and Jack Keane report on their recent visit to Iraq, laying out both the successes and continuing dangers of the deployment:

All of the most important objectives of the surge have been accomplished in Iraq. The sectarian civil war is ended; al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been dealt a devastating blow; and the Sadrist militia and other Iranian-backed militant groups have been disrupted.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has accomplished almost all of the legislative benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration. More important, it is gaining wider legitimacy among the population. The attention of Iraqis across the country is focused on the upcoming provincial elections, which will be a pivotal moment in Iraq's development.

The result is that we have an extraordinary – but fleeting – opportunity to advance America's security and the stability of a vital region of the world.

As far as the civil war is concerned, there have been virtually no sectarian killings recorded for the past 10 weeks. Violence is still perpetrated by organized groups, but AQI, the remnant Sunni insurgents and Shiite fighters are now focused on attacking their own members who have defected to our side. This is a measure of their weakness. The Iraqi population is increasingly mobilizing against the perpetrators of violence, flooding American and Iraqi forces with tips about the locations of weapons caches and key militant leaders – Sunnis turning in Sunnis and Shia turning in Shia.

The fighters have not simply hidden their weapons and gone to ground to await the next opportunity to kill each other. The Sunni insurgency, as well as AQI, has been severely disrupted. Coalition and Iraqi forces have killed or detained many key leaders, driven the militants out of every one of Iraq's major cities (including Mosul), and are pursuing the remnants vigorously in rural areas and the desert.

The Shiite militias have also been broken apart, sending thousands of their leaders scurrying for safety in Iran. Iraqi forces continue to hammer Iranian-backed Special Groups and elements of the Sadrist Jaysh al Mahdi that have been fighting with them in Sadr City, Maysan Province and elsewhere. At this time, none of these networks can conduct operations that could seriously destabilize the Iraqi government. But both al Qaeda and the Iranians are working hard to refit their networks.

The larger strategic meaning of these military and political advances must be kept clearly in mind. Iraq remains a critical front in al Qaeda's war against the U.S.

The authors continue by indicating that current suggestions for an early withdrawal of American troops are seriously misguided:

The blunt fact is this. In Iraq, al Qaeda is on the ropes, and the Shiite militias are badly off-balance. Now is exactly the time to continue the pressure to keep them from regaining their equilibrium. It need not, and probably will not, require large numbers of American casualties to keep this pressure on. But it will require a considerable number of American troops through 2009.

That's not an argument for a permanent presence in Mespotamia, but it is a reasonable assessment of the military/strategic efficacy of a continued large-scale deployment.

See also, Christopher Hitchens, "Who Says We Can Only Face Our Enemies in One Place at a Time?", and Betsy Newmark, "Obama's Weaknesses on Iraq and Afghanistan."

Photo Credit: "A boy enjoys a ride at a park in Baghdad, Wednesday, July 9," Wall Street Journal.

Why Blacks (and Leftists) Don’t Care About Civil Rights

I had an interesting exchange in the comments yesterday at Lawyers, Guns and Money.

Robert Farley, in response to Michael O'Hanlon's criticism of Barack Obama's continued calls for an Iraq timetable, says, "Mike, go f**k yourself..."

What's striking about this - really striking - is not so much the raunchy rebuke (which seems so common in our age of vulgarity), but the fact that Farley's an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky's Patterson School of Diplomacy. He's also a regular contributor to the American Prospect, a left-wing journal of opinion.

One might think that even when blogging a professor might display some standards of decorum toward those with whom they disagree. But not with LGM - these folks are mean and nasty.

And don't even get me going about the commenters!

I noted, at the post, in response to Farley:

Geez, the significance of this entire post is summed up by one dumb four-letter epithet.

The Dems have lost the Iraq cudgel, and all you folks can do is cuss about it.

Of course, that spurs a response from the LGM hordes, for example:

F**k you too.

I lovelovelovelove semi-conscious morons who've never met a nigger they weren't terrified of or the death of hundreds of thousands they couldn't feel aroused by -- but get oh so upset or concerned 'bout cussin'.

I generally take offense when people start using the n-word, and I said so at the entry:

Ah, I was raised by "niggers," if that's the terminology you want to use for blacks, like my dad.

So let me return the favor with the cuss words, okay. You folks are already opening the door to Satan with your attacks on folks like Tony Snow, so racist attacks like this just further confirm the complete absence of divine soul among lefties.

Just in case I've never mentioned it previously, my dad was born and raised in Missouri, and his grandparents had been slaves. I've recently added my picture to Gravatar, so each Haloscan comment includes an image of yours truly. But that didn't stop the commenters from attacking my authenticity:

So we believe that Americaneocon is black because he says so?

Then Matt Weiner responds further down:

He writes under his own name, which would make it really easy for someone to bust him if he were lying. And from the other picture I've seen of him, he certainly looks as if he could be black. (I dug up a picture once because he was saying some stuff that was extremely ill-advised if he wasn't black, and I was curious.) And I believe he hasn't said anything dishonest about his own personal life and situation -- most of it has tended to be unintentionally self-revealing instead.

The whole exchange is revealing, as it's a perfect example of attacking the "troll" who shows up to disrupt the choir, while defending the essential racism inherent at LGM (note that even Bill O'Reilly went after left-wing nihilist commenters this week, in response to the death of Tony Snow).

In any case, relating my forays into the leftosphere's subterranean world of hate is mostly a prelude to sharing La Shawn Barber's post, "Why Black People Don’t Care that GOP Is Civil Rights Party."

Barber's responding to Bruce Bartlett's essay at today's Wall Street Journal, "The GOP Is the Party of Civil Rights."

Bartlett makes a point that doesn't get stressed enough in current debates:

The Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln and was established in 1854 to block the expansion of slavery. The Democratic Party was the party of slavery: Its two founders, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, owned large numbers of slaves, and every party platform before the Civil War defended the institution unequivocally.

Barber agrees, but he doubts that rank-and-file Democrats are going to leave their party any time soon:

Bravo, Bruce. But if you or any other white Republican think all these facts will suddenly change black people’s minds, you’re destined to be disappointed. Democrats know they’ve got an eternal lock on 90 percent of the “black vote.” All they have to do is continue to promise black Americans bigger and better government programs and handouts (so-called affirmative action, set-aside contracts, and other entitlements qualify as handouts to me), and encourage them to blame third parties for their troubles. (And I’m talking about blacks as a group here.) No grand theories. Along with reasons I mentioned in that 2004 article (federal government as savior, for example), it is that simple.

I've made similar arguments many times (here and here, for example), and in response I've been labeled "racist."

But let me just expand on Barber's point: It's not just black Americans who are looking for "bigger and better government programs and handouts." Leftists in general attack anyone who talks about race critically as "racist," while many of these people are simultaneously the most vicious racists themselves.

Here's a good example: "Sharecrop Them Votes!"

This is all in a day's work, but that's blogging I guess.

Related: Captain Ed, "McCain to NAACP: Schools, Economics the Key."

Photo Credit: "Slavery’s Last Chapter"

Evaluating Student Evaluations

Right Wing Professor's got an interesting essay making the case for student evaluations of faculty in improving teacher performance, "Student Evaluations, Revisited."

It's a lengthy piece, but I like this passage:

The university differs in one crucial way from the elementary, middle, or high school: University students have the luxury of choice. The student can choose his major and degree program. The student can choose his courses based in part on which faculty members are teaching them. After all, if you have to take M125 and three faculty members are teaching it, why not take it with the best of the three, or at least not take it with the worst?

When I was an undergraduate, that choice was mitigated by a lack of technology, and we were limited to word of mouth. Now we have the web, and RateMyProfessors.com, and many universities have their own forums for rating faculty. Today’s university students is far more informed about faculty than we were, and can make better choices.

Of course, there is that silly objection to students as consumers, but face it, that’s exactly what they are. The course is for them, after all, not your ego. That alone makes them consumers, and you, the provider. If you’re a godawful teacher, but your colleague is a really good teacher, then students have every right to avoid you and take your colleague’s class instead, and you would do exactly the same.

I'm going to disagree a bit on the "students as consumers" line, although I think the market competition analogy is a good one.

One problem with RateMyProfessors is that the system's easily abused. For example, I've had folks who've disagreed with my blogging (at my previous blog) go over to RateMyProfessors to say "he's fascist and doesn't care about anyone's opinion but his own" (this was a guy who previously blogged at The Blue Voice). Also, often in my experience, students who have done poorly in class - usually for lack of basic skills or the maturity for college-level work - would use RateMyProfessors to retaliate for receiving a low grade.

Interestingly, my school's administration has been well-aware of the online evalution websites, so there's certainly an incentive for faculty to take these ratings into consideration for reputation purposes, if not retention decisions.

Actually, my evaluations have improved over the years, largely because I've become more comfortable in my teaching, more confident in my authority to manage the classroom, and more flexible in understanding students' life circumstances that hinder their successes.

I'm still tough, of course, but I've become friendlier as an instructor and more forgiving in my grading.

Here's a sample evaluation for me currently at RateMyProfessors:

...he's not an easy teacher, but he's still very helpful. he provides online practice tests, and office hours for all his students. he's a pretty cool guy, he can be funny at times...

This one's pretty much in line with a thesis of Right Wing Professor: Demanding teachers who excel at their craft will generate favorable yet critical assesments, and these are valuable for the improvement of instruction.

Indeed, although one of my student evaluators misunderstood my policy on absences and tardies, the basic criticism she offered is valid, and I'll be making some changes to my course syllabus for the fall semester. This student also was not out to "punish me" for a low grade:

To be fair, he is helpful, smart, and nice. Most of the exam questions are from the book and NOT from the powerpoint slides so read the book...

Having said that, as I've noted before, I'm generally skeptical of student evalutions of teachers, particularly as a deciding factor in promotion and tenure.

For my argument on this, see "Blaming Teachers? Educational Accountability and Student Performance."

Recall, though, as cited above, Right Wing Professor makes a distinction between college teaching and public education in weighing the usefulness of student evalutions.

See also, Paul Trout, "Flunking the Test: The Dismal Record of Student Evaluations."

A useful resource page is available from the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University, "Student Evaluations."

Hat Tip: Maggie's Farm

The Globalization of Beer

I was only half serious the other day when talking about the decline in Ireland of Guinness stout's brand, which suggests the "globalization of beverages."

Well, it turns this is no joke, in light of InBev's acquistion of Anheuser-Busch, as the Los Angeles Times reports:

Red, white and blue Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos. lost its battle for independence early Monday but it may be headed for barrels of new customers overseas.

The St. Louis-based beer maker agreed to be purchased by InBev of Belgium in a $52-billion merger that will create the world's largest brewer to be called Anheuser-Busch InBev.

The deal is the latest move in the ongoing globalization of beer and the end of a 150-year-old company as American as Chevrolet.

"The King of Beers will have to pledge allegiance to a new European-Latin American master," said British trade publication Just-Drinks.

And although its new owners will surely push Anheuser-Busch brands deeper into global markets, they also are likely to ride herd on expenses such as the famous Budweiser Clydesdales advertising campaign, according to industry observers. Anheuser spent an estimated $378 million on advertising in the U.S. last year.

"InBev is run by Brazilians who have been aggressive in cost cutting," said Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark, a consulting firm in Buellton, Calif. "They will install the kind of discipline that will change the profile" of Anheuser-Busch.

InBev President Carlos Brito, who is based in Brazil, is "a tough guy," Pirko said, and may cut back on Anheuser-Busch's historically prolific advertising, curb its generous sponsorships and put the squeeze on distributors to reduce their profits.

Brito, however, said Monday that InBev had no plans to trim advertising in the United States.

"What we see in Anheuser-Busch is its marketing expertise, and that's one of the pillars of why they built such great brands," Brito said.

InBev said Monday that all of Anheuser-Busch's U.S. breweries would remain open.

"We expect limited impact on the breweries as a result of the transaction," InBev spokeswoman Nina Devlin said.

But union officials are wary. "We know that Carlos Brito has a reputation as a cost slasher, and always at the expense of workers," said Jack Cipriani, a Teamsters official.

Pirko predicted that InBev would actually lower its beer prices in the United States for about the next year to try to build goodwill and reassure its longtime drinkers. Then, "as things begin to stabilize we will see prices go up and less selection of product."

The sale will probably have little effect in places where beer is served, said Kip Snider, corporate beverage director of Yard House, a restaurant chain based in Irvine that has poured 3.9 million pints of beer so far this year.

The average Yard House has 110 beer brands on tap and Bud Light is the No. 2 seller behind Blue Moon, a Belgian-style wheat ale.

Actually, Budweiser's hardly the first American brewer to be foreign-owned.

But hey, I'd miss those Clydesdales commercials!

Photo Credit: "Famous American Brands in Non-American Hands."

Ceteris Paribus*

Andrew Sullivan asks, in response to David Horsey's cartoon mimicry below, "How would the Republican base react to this":

Well, ceteris paribus ("all other things being equal"), this cartoon doesn't work anywhere as well as New Yorker's Barack Obama's dap, which has been described thus:

Michelle and Barack are in the Oval Office, doing a celebratory fist bump. There's an Osama Bin Laden portrait on the wall and a burning flag in the fireplace. He's a Muslim and she's a revolutionary. Of course, Obama has to push it aside and can scarcely laugh about it.

Well, all other things aren't equal, of course, but here goes:

The New Yorker is a literary magazine in its essence, whereas the National Review is the founding journal of opinion of American conservatism. The respective audiences, while overlapping on the liberal/conservative divide, are likely different in orientation toward activism and praxis. Had the Obama fist bump first appeared at the American Prospect or Harpers, then, well, perhaps ... (and I can't think of a conservative analogue to the New Yorker).

Further, take a look at what Horsey hopes to satirize: McCain in a wheelchair? I can't see how this is an effective lampoon. One of the most amazing elements of the GOP primaries this year was McCain's resurrection from near dead politically, and images of the Arizona Senator lugging his own bags while huffing to catch a plane at the airport powerfully showcased the man's vigorous drive to victory.

How about Cindy McCain's overflowing pharmaceuticals? Well, unlike Barack Obama's patriotism or his ties to ex-domestic terrorists, Mrs. McCain speaks openly about her past struggles with drug abuse and she's used her own imperfections as a model for personal and social improvement. Also, in contrast, Michelle Obama herself indeed epitomizes the angry black woman (black power!), and she spoke forcefully at Princeton about the primacy of an outsider's status amid America's structures of hierarchy and inequity - not unlike a Weatherman bomber might boast about rightfully "taking it to the man."

As for McCain's humorous repartee found in lines like "Bomb, Bomb, Iran," well, there's been a lot less analytical attention to McCain's off-colorness than that of Obama's elitist put-downs, like those of the bittergate controversy. Supply does not create its own demand.

And Dick Cheney's portrait on the wall, with a copy of the Constitution in the fire? Well, polls have shown the nation evenly divided on the balance between protecting the national security versus protection civil liberties; and for the most part, the "evil" Richard Cheney is a figment of the hard-left's imagination.

In contrast, large numbers of Americans believe Barack Obama to be Muslim:

Ludicrous as it might seem .... and obvious as it should be that the New Yorker would never do anything deliberately to hurt the Democratic nominee, it remains the case that a Newsweek poll has just found 12 per cent of voters believing that Obama is a practicing Muslim and another 12 per cent (possibly the same 12 per cent) convinced that he used a Koran for his swearing-in ceremony at the United States Senate. These are of course exactly the sort of people who do not read the New Yorker, or go in very much for the ironic and the satirical, so that as usual the aesthetic effort is somewhat lost on what ought to be its target audience.

In other words, the New Yorker cover was shocking precisely because it tapped into real fears residing close to home among millions of Americans who worry less about McCain's age than about Obama's infidelity to traditional American cultural and religious values.

In any case, it's a funny cartoon, but even with first-mover advantages it wouldn't have riled the conservative base the way the New Yorker cover hammered the left's solar plexus.

**********

* "Ceteris paribus" is the logical reverse of "mutatis mutandis," the title of Sullivan's post.

David Horsey's original cartoons are here.

Neoconservative Moral Nationalism in U.S. Foreign Policy

Political scientist Brian Rathbun offers one of the best recent discussions of neoconservatism in international relations theory.

His article, "Does One Right Make a Realist? Conservatism, Neoconservatism, and Isolationism in the Foreign Policy Ideology of American Elites," dissects the varied orientations in right-wing foreign policy, and argues that neoconservatives are essentially "nationalist surpremacists" in their ideological stress on both power and morals in global affairs.

Specifically, the significance of Rathbun's research is to differentiate the foreign policy persuasions of those on the right regarding the understanding and implications of "realism," which is the paradigm in international politics holding actor agency as egoistic self-interest defined as power (with little stress on humanitarianism as a goal of U.S. global purpose).

The argument is concise and refreshing in its review of theories of international power poltics. Especially good is the clarification of how neoconservatism stands apart from conservative realism or isolationism as a powerful paradigm of good and moral right for America in the world:

Conservatives are realist in the sense that they define the national interest narrowly and materially, treat international politics as amoral, consider force a necessary but not universally appropriate instrument, recognize that a preponderance of power creates as many problems as it solves, and guard sovereignty so as to facilitate rapid adjustment to international realities while recognizing the possible instrumental use of international organizations. Neoconservatives, in contrast, define more grandiose national interests, justified by a belief in American moral authority, often think of force as the primary instrument for realizing international outcomes, advocate the achievement and maintenance of American preponderance, and oppose the involvement of multilateral institutions on principled grounds as illegitimate bodies inherently threatening to American sovereignty. Nor are the neoconservatives idealistic. Their stress on American values emerges from a deep sense of national pride that in its more exuberant form translates into a feeling of moral superiority in international affairs. Neoconservatives refuse to separate the pursuit of American self-interest and those of the greater international good, arguing that serving America’s cause is the world’s cause. They are not idealists or realists, but nationalists. This conceptualization, while it distinguishes between the different rights, also offers an understanding of what unites them. Realism and nationalism both serve as poles on different identity dimensions that separate ‘‘us’’ from ‘‘them,’’ albeit in different ways. In all cases, the right is more egoistic. There are simply multiple ways of being so. The realist dimension concerns how narrowly foreign policy is defined. Realists are not humanitarians. They envision foreign policy as obliging no more than the pursuit of policies benefiting the self. Positions on this dimension capture the degree of distinction made between self and other. The second dimension also involves notions of self and other, but in terms of their rank, rather than their distinctiveness. The right in this dimension, the nationalist or neoconservative variety, pursues a preeminent position vis-a-vis the rest of the world. With this emphasis on position in an international hierarchy comes a tendency to define self-interest more expansively and ambitiously. And a feeling of being entitled to one’s rank serves as a moral justification for egoism. The final dimension concerns the separation of self from other, with the isolationist right seeking to detach itself from the rest of the world.

Here's the heart of Rathbun's argument of neoconservatism's vital ideational power, which he contrasts to the cold "instrumental empathy" of traditional realism:

Neoconservatives find their inspiration in a belief in the greatness of the American nation, which justifies its preeminent rank in the global hierarchy, defined in terms of both military and moral power. Neoconservatism is not a nostalgic patriotism. Irving Kristol, the intellectual father of modern neoconservatism, writes that ‘‘neoconservatism is not merely patriotic—that goes without saying—but also nationalist. Patriotism springs from a love of the nation’s past; nationalism arises out of hope for the nation’s future, distinctive greatness.’’ Nationalism provides the greater purpose needed to mobilize societal virtue and prevent the slide into decadence. Kristol and Kagan argue that such a sense of commitment is necessary even to preserve basic vital interests. This is why the movement so embraced Ronald Reagan. The President vanquished the Vietnam syndrome that had sapped America’s self-confidence and crippled the administration of Jimmy Carter in its dealings with Iran and the Soviet Union. In doing so, Reagan drew a strict moral line that neoconservatives respect between virtuous American democracy and an evil totalitarian empire....

Neoconservatism is not a nationalism of the soil as is the case with American isolationism or other nationalisms across the globe. Rather, it is based on the superiority of American ideals and values, a universal nationalism. As a result, even more than others, American nationalism has a strong moral component that distinguishes it sharply from the amorality of realism. Realism is simply pragmatic, while neoconservatism puts great stress on the importance of American ideas and the strength it derives from them. Neoconservatives take what might be considered a constructivist approach to world politics that is sharply distinguished from the realists’ austere materialism. Hence, they are highly engaged in the media battle over the course of American foreign policy.45 The belief in the superiority and universality of American national values leads them to a vigorous promotion, at least rhetorically, of American institutions and ideals, most notably democracy. However, they do so in a unilateral way, in keeping with their nationalism....

The consequence of this moral self-confidence is a tendency to perceive the world as a struggle for power between good and evil. This was the sustaining force of the neoconservative nationalists during the Cold War, who saw the ongoing competition with the Soviet Union as more than just a realist struggle for power or survival. It was a moral crusade as well The sense of moral superiority shared by neoconservatives is most clearly seen in their repeated insistence that there is no distinction between the national interest and that of the international community.

A key point for Rathbun is that neoconservative evangelical moral nationalism is not new. It can be traced back at least a hundred years, to the administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Rooseelt (for more on this, see, Robert Kagan, "Neocon Nation: Neoconservatism, c. 1776").

This is an important argument, as the purpose of Rathbun's piece is to sort out the forms of "egoism" in conservative foreign policy and offer a roadmap for electoral choice this November.

Crucially, neoconservative nationalism is not to be confused with "neoliberal internationalism," the popular outward-looking foreign policy persuasion of left-wing elites in the U.S. (a crude example is found in Matthew Yglesias', Heads in the Sand, but see also, Peter Beinart, "Balancing Act: The Other Wilsonianism").

In contrast to liberal internationalism, Rathbun announces, neoconservatism "always begins with the national interest."

That differentiation is key, not just for electoral decisionmaking across variations in conservatism, but for electoral choice between left and right as well.

Leftists, and neoliberal internationalist to a lesser degree, recoil at the deployment of force in the context of power and interest.

It's no surprise that in recent weeks leftists have been vehemently dismissive of the use of force in dealing with international crises in Myanmar and Zimbabwe. But as the Ingrid Betancourt rescue has shown, the deployment of force in the final anaysis represents the true victory of power and morality in world affairs (in other words, "The Bush Doctrine Is Relevant Again").

We can see, then, some of the theoretical bases for both leftist and libertarian isolationist opposition to John McCain presidential campaign.

Just this week the New York Times found Theodore Roosevelt to be John McCain's ideological predecessor, in "McCain’s Conservative Model? Roosevelt (Theodore, That Is)," especially with reference to Roosevelt's assertiveness in foreign policy.

Today's antiwar forces, however, would like less assertiveness and dramatically more humility and restraint. And as anyone familiar with today's trends in political polarization know, such desires generally erupt into the most vicious demonizing attacks against neoconservatives and the neoconservative basis for the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Obama Purges Iraq Criticism from Campaign Homepage

In a sign that Barack Obama is increasingly rattled by progress in Iraq, the campaign has removed its antiwar position paper - which attacked the Petraeus surge as a "failure" - from its homepage.

Here's a passage from an official campaign statement from December 2007:

“The stated purpose of the surge was to enable Iraq’s political leaders to reconcile. They have not done so. . . . Our troops fight and die in the 120 degree heat to give Iraq’s leaders space to agree, but they are not filling it. . . . The bar for success is so low that itis almost buried in the sand.” (source: Former Obama Supporters)

Here's more from the New York Daily News:

Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Plus, Captain Ed has this:

The campaign says they regularly update the site to “reflect changes in current events”. However, the Obama campaign has yet to acknowledge that the changes came from a strategy he opposed and that he predicted would fail. Even more remarkably, he hasn’t changed his policy to incorporate the “changes in current events”. Instead, he just retooled his demand for timetabled withdrawals with a sop to the troops.

So far this week we've had the New Yorker cover controversy, and now the campaign's Iraq surge scrub-job at the official homepage.

This is looking to be one of Obama's worst weeks ever.

Obama's Breathtaking Dishonesty on Iraq

Be sure to check out John Hinderaker's essay at Powerline, "Obama's Dishonest Op-Ed."

Here's a nugget:

Obama bet the farm on his prediction that General Petraeus and the American military would fail. He was as spectacularly wrong as John McCain was spectacularly right. But his op-ed somehow twists this history into vindication on the theory that Afghanistan has deteriorated, the Iraq war has been expensive, and Iraq's political leaders "have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge."

And from the conclusion:

It is possible that at some point in American history there may have been a major politician as dishonest as Barack Obama, but I can't offhand think of such a miscreant.

For reference, see Obama's "dishonest" essay, "My Plan for Iraq."

McCain Holding Strong on Iraq Support, Poll Finds

Public opinion on the Iraq war continues to improve, and overall trends appear to benefit John McCain, a new Washington Post poll finds:

Americans divide evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain’s approaches to the war in Iraq, and rate McCain much more highly on his abilities as commander-in-chief – key reasons the unpopular war isn’t working more to Obama’s advantage.

Despite broad, longstanding dissatisfaction with the war, just 50 percent of Americans prefer Obama’s plan to withdraw most U.S. forces within 16 months of taking office. Essentially as many, 49 percent, side with McCain’s position – setting no timetable and letting events dictate when troops are withdrawn.

That division is reflected in another result: While Obama’s steadily led on most domestic issues, he and McCain run about evenly in trust to handle Iraq, 45-47 percent in this new ABC News/Washington Post poll. The war’s been a top campaign issue, second only to the economy in public concern; Obama speaks on it tomorrow, after writing an op-ed on the subject in today’s New York Times.

This is key: While the survey continues to find a large majority agreeing the war was a mistake, the public is evenly divided on a timetable for withdrawal.

Allahpundit has more analysis, but these findings appear to vindicate one of the major claims of the Bush administration: That increasing success in Iraq would translate into improvements in public support for the deployment, an argument that was central the president's "Strategy for Victory in Iraq," from 2005.

At that time, amid high combat fatalities, the administration relied on findings in political science research in adjusting to trends in public opinion:

Since the Vietnam War, U.S. policymakers have worried that the American public will support military operations only if the human costs of the war, as measured in combat casualties, are minimal ... Ultimately, however, beliefs about the likelihood of success matter most in determining the public’s willingness to tolerate U.S. military deaths in combat.

See also, "Bush's Speech on Iraq War Echoes Voice of an Analyst."

The length and cost of an engagement also drive trends in support, although the level of casualites are hypothesized to be the major factor leading to the loss of public backing for the use of force.

Image Credit: Hot Air

**********

UPDATE: See also the feature stories on the poll at ABC News and the Washington Post, plus the blogosphere reaction here.

The response from the lefties seems to take out their frustrations on Michael O'Hanlon (who arguing that Obama should not offer a withdrawal timeline until he visited Iraq).

Taliban Murders Raise Questions of Associated Press Complicity

From the Jawa Report, Taliban militants on Saturday executed two women accused of prostitution, while a photographer from the Associated Press documented the killings:

Here's the text from Jawa Report, with updates at the link:

AP photographer Rahmatullah Naikzad was a witness to a Taliban murder. The two women were alleged to have been prostitutes who served Western clientèle.

The executions may have been videotaped as well.

Allahpundit adds this:

Judge for yourself from the photos whether they constitute PR work. Best case scenario: The AP’s stringer was taken hostage and forced to document the killings, which would explain why he didn’t interfere but wouldn’t explain why the AP chose to run photos shot under duress, i.e. not “uninfluenced.” Worst case scenario: He’s a Taliban sympathizer and went willingly to the scene with the AP’s blessing, a possibility that isn’t quite as far-fetched as it should be.

Here's a television news report as well:

See also, Atlas Shrugs, "Associated with Terrorists Press Aids Abets Islamic Killing."

Democratic House Candidates Running Away From Obama

The Wall Street Journal reports that a good number of Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives are distancing themselves from Barack Obama's presidential bid. Democrats in conservative districts fear "reverse coattails" in the event of tying their own electoral fortunes to the Democratic nominee's:

Barack Obama could have long coattails this fall. That doesn't mean that every Democrat is going to want to grab on to them.

The Illinois senator is likely to spur voter turnout among African-Americans and college students in some districts where Democrats hope to pick up House seats now held by Republicans or to fend off Republican challenges. But other Democrats facing tough re-election campaigns could see Sen. Obama's politics and his weakness among working-class whites as a liability.

"Some of these Democrats are trying to walk a fine line" between courting black voters and holding on to whites, said Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Report, a nonpartisan political handicapper. Democratic candidates may embrace, ignore or run away from Sen. Obama, or perhaps some of each, he added.

Meanwhile, vulnerable Republicans, many of whom are in closely divided or Democratic-leaning districts, could see John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, as an asset because of his appeal to independents. If the Arizona senator runs a competitive presidential race, he "could provide air cover for our candidates" in what could otherwise be a difficult year for Republicans, said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who heads the Republicans' House re-election campaign.

The article goes on to indicate that the Democrats have the best congressional electoral environment in years, but it sure is telling that quite a few Democratic office-seekers see Obama as radioactive.

For more information, see Congressional Quarterly's list of open seats this year.

Obama's Iraq Policy Overtaken by Events

I noted yesterday that the leftist hordes continue to invent novel ways of attacking the war in Iraq, going so far as to allege that the success of the surge is a manufactured "media narrative."

The facts, however, indicate that the left's antiwar meme of "failure in Iraq" has collapsed miserably, as Noemie Emery argues at the Weekly Standard:

Back in the heady days of late 2006--when Barack Obama decided on his run for president--Democrats had a foolproof plan to gain power: Use the "disastrous" war in Iraq to split the Republican base off from the center, force Republicans in Congress to desert the president, defund the war effort, and compel withdrawal. Declaring defeat in advance, and even embracing it, they tried to cripple the surge before it started. Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate led a chorus of Democrats who declared the war lost.

Even after the surge began, they hoped that pressure would cause mass defections among Republicans, and pressure was duly poured on. Reid is "lashing out at top commanders while putting the finishing touches on a plan to force a series of votes on Iraq designed exclusively to make Republicans up for reelection in 2008 go on record in favor of continuing an unpopular war," Politico reported on June 14, 2007. "By September," Reid hoped, "Republican senators will break with the president."

The left planned an "Iraq Summer," with antiwar groups spending millions on grassroots campaigns. In May 2007, the Washington Post reported on plans to spend up to $12 million on demonstrations, phone calls, and ad campaigns to pressure Republican lawmakers. Tom Matzzie, head of the activist pressure group Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, visited the offices of Politico to unveil his grandiose plans. "Democrats and the antiwar movement had the GOP 'by the balls,' Matzzie argued. .  .  . 'We're going to smash their heads against their base, and flush them down the toilet,' " he said. Late in July, Congress adjourned, with Democrats convinced that when they returned in September, Republican lines would be shattered. But the only sound one heard last fall was that of a toilet not flushing.

What happened to change things? The proverbial facts on the ground. At the end of July, longtime Bush critics Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon, Democrats allied with a center-left think tank, returned from Iraq having found not chaos but "a war we just might win," as the headline on their New York Times op-ed proclaimed. Within weeks, three Democrats who had been to Iraq over the recess also jumped off the antiwar caravan, citing progress sufficient to make them more "flexible" when it came to demands for rapid defunding. These were not the defections Harry Reid had planned on.

Though Democrats did their best in advance to discredit the testimony to Congress in early September of Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus (whom they had called to testify months earlier, when they were certain there would be nothing to report but more failure), their measured accounts of modest but marked improvements everywhere in the country checked the course of debate, and then started to change its direction. Public opinion, which had aligned with the Democrats' base at the height of the violence, began to drift back towards the center. A slight uptick in the polls stiffened the spines of beleagured Republicans. The lines held, the rebellion was stymied, and Bush got his way on his war funding measures. "Iraq Summer" turned into the summer that things began to turn around in Iraq.

And so it is that this summer the Democrats and their nominee find themselves caught between an undeniable change in conditions and a dogmatic, intransigent base--in other words, in the very same spot the antiwar left had hoped to put Republicans in. "The politics of Iraq are going to change dramatically in the general election, assuming Iraq continues to show some hopefulness," O'Hanlon told the New York Times last November. "If Iraq looks at least partly salvageable, it will be important to explain as a candidate how you would salvage it. .  .  . The Democrats need to be very careful with what they say, and not hem themselves in."

There's more at the link.

See also, Peter Wehner, "Obama on the War," where he argues that Obama, in his disastrous politics of antiwar, has essentially diqualified himself from "being America’s next commander-in-chief."

See also, Obama's op-ed piece at today's New York Times, "My Plan for Iraq," as well as the additional commentary and debate.

Who Listens to Political Blogs?

Why blog?

That's the first thing that came to mind yesterday upon reading John Sides and Eric Lawrence at the Los Angeles Times, "Who Listens to Blogging Heads?":

Daily Kos. Little Green Footballs. Talking Points Memo. Instapundit. Firedoglake. Captain's Quarters. These are among the thousands of political blogs that are increasingly a factor in U.S. politics. Bloggers and their readers are courted by politicians, as occurred when seven Democratic presidential candidates appeared at the August 2007 convention organized by the readers and posters at Daily Kos, a liberal political blog. Bloggers can also shape the news surrounding election campaigns. It was Huffington Post, a liberal political blog, that first reported Barack Obama's comment about small-town Americans clinging to "guns and religion"....

How might political blogs and their readers affect the presidential campaign?

They will not change many voters' minds because the vast majority of their readers are already members of the choir and hold strong opinions about politics. Sodon't expect political blogs to make Democrats vote for John McCain or Republicans embrace Barack Obama. If political blogs change opinions, they will more likely do so indirectly -- by uncovering new information that is then amplified and discussed in media that reach a broader, and less partisan, cross section of the public.

Read the whole thing, as well the additional discussion at The Monky Cage.

A good rebuttal to Sides and Lawrence is at Flopping Aces, "Political Blogs and Influence: Just How Important Are We?"

This tendency to see a minimal influence of blogs is not new.

Last weekend we saw a really interesting exchange of blog posts on the question of "Do Blogs Suck?" The catalyst for the debate was David Appell's total dismissal of political blogging, with special reference to Matthew Yglesias:

Over the last six months or so I have been getting very frustrated with the blogosphere, and I find myself reading less and less of it. There just isn't much meat out there. Amateur bloggers just seem to spread useless gossip. And what's especially bad, "professional bloggers" seem so intent on posting 20 times a day that all of their individual posts are basically useless, conveying nothing whatsoever...

Read the whole post for more, although I'd hazard that Appell's take is extremely narrow.

I'd argue there's more "meat out there" than ever, although one might differ on what kind of meat we're talking about. Blogs and blogging essays rarely rise to the level of hard political research. I see the blogosphere mostly as a world-wide op-ed page in which everyone can contribute.

And all of this is new and growing. Perhaps only a small number of blog posts have a great impact on political debate, but the fact that the political system is deeply sensitive to what's happening across the blogosphere is perhaps a more telling indicator than survey statistics on reader preferences.

As for myself, I'm just having fun, and if I find myself having an impact, then that adds to the thrill of it all. This morning my post on Barack Obama's New Yorker controversy got picked up at RealClearPolitics, which is probably the most important aggregator of political commentary on the web:

BEST OF THE BLOGS - MONDAY

The Truth About ACORN - Betsy Newmark, Cross Tabs
Schumer Owes the Public an Apology - Erick Erickson, Redstate
Are Political Blogs Important? - Mata Harley, Flopping Aces
Obama and 9/11 - Byron York, The Corner
Downplaying Their Differences - Steve Benen, Crooks and Liars
The Elite-Radical Fist Bump from Heaven - Donald Douglas, American Power
KS-Sen: Roberts Gets Worried - Jonathan Singer, MyDD
Jindal and Teaching Creationism in Public Schools - Ron Chusid, Liberal Values
When Memes Collide - Nate, FiveThirtyEight
Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan: A Friendly Critique - Juan Cole, Informed Comment

So, while individual bloggers might not have the same impact as book authors or scientists, blogging certainly invigorates the marketplace of ideas, and folks can have a lot of fun in the meantime!